Black clouds crowded the sky, releasing a torrential downpour so thick it was impossible for even the keen eyes of the few Elves in the city to see more than ten feet.

The rain fell fast and heavy, such that many felt as if they were being pelted with pebbles. Harsh winds screamed past, making it impossible to stay dry even under shelter.

It was a storm that none would be foolish enough to brave. Limited sight, cold rain, strong winds, and deep mud made it dangerous to travel. Merely standing in the storm was dangerous as the winds caught many leaves, branches, and even small rubble.

Yet even if one did not get hit with debris, they would still have to be careful they did not catch ill. Even a simple cold, could prove lethal if one did not have access to a Healer, even if they were being kept dry, warm, hydrated, and fed.

No one had access to such amenities anymore. At least not here. And Healers were too few and too precious to risk their lives on common soldiers. The Demons had made sure of that. Anyone they saw that was capable of Healing Magic, in any regard, was immediately targeted.

Meaning, that illness was killing more than the Demons were.

Too little food, pushed too hard, with little rest and little shelter.

If the Demons simply decided to sit back and watch, the Humans were bound to die off on their own, at least to such an extent it would be impossible to fight back.

Luke was sure of it.

It had been a few months since the Invasion began, and the Demons had taken great swaths of land, slaughtering any Human they came across, whether they were soldier or citizen, young or old, man or woman.

The great Kingdom of Lissura, a powerful nation that had survived for countless centuries surrounded by potential enemies both within and without, had fallen in just a few days.

The majority of survivors had fled to Taria, where they expected aid and a chance of safety. They had found neither. The Tarian People were anything but hospitable. It was only due to strict orders from their King, enforced viciously by the Officers, that the Tarian People only spat at the refugees.

Not that anyone could really focus on the matter. It was only a few days after the majority of refugees reached Tarian Lands that the Demons did as well.

Given warning, the Tarians managed to fight well, despite the lack of a System aiding them. It was still a massacre as the vast majority did not know what to do without the System, but through body mass and a carefully executed cavalry flanking maneuver across open fields, the Tarians managed to push the first wave of Demons back.

But not even the lowliest of Tarian thought this would be the end.

As such, practically all Lissurian Refugees were drafted into the Tarian Military.

Luke had been exempt from this draft due to his father's position, but Luke enlisted anyway, using his father's title to full effect in order to gain command of a Company of Lissurian Refugees.

Not one of which was a trained soldier, but that had not been surprising. Many soldiers and guards had not made it out of the various cities, and even fewer and survived the march to Taria. The Demons had harassed them constantly.

However, there were also very few people who did not have at least some combat experience. Such was the way of the System. It was widely considered impossible to be an Adult unless one was an Adept, and it was extremely slow and difficult to reach the Twentieth Level without Hunting.

That did not mean they were skilled, just that they had seen combat.

Luke, despite his young age, had taken to fighting very well, and even better to management. Both of which had been allowed to him in great number by Hunting with Evelyn. Her Seeded needed to be managed and kept track of. Something Luke took upon himself.

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Not that she couldn't do it, just that Luke had been trained to do just that sort of thing all his life and he didn't mind it.

In the few days between gaining command of the Company and the second attack from the Demons, Luke had spent every possible moment drilling the men and women, and even a handful of children. Even when the sun set, and he was forced to allow them to retire for the night, he stayed up, evaluating each one and trying to figure out how to best make use of them.

A thousand little details, each one needing to be carefully managed, least it runs wild and disrupt the entire Company.

Regardless, it had yet to come up. There was little time to do much but survive.

In that first battle, Luke lost three fifths of his Company. He blamed himself for his inexperience, but he was practical enough to know that it was a miracle any of them had survived.

Against the Demons, they were out of their league. Even professional soldiers were struggling against the Demons without their Systems.

And to the surprise of very few, the Tarians used the Lissurian Refugee Companies as fodder. Merely meant to slow down the Demons or keep them in one place long enough for the Tarian Soldiers to dispatch them.

The Company had experienced several more battles after that. And now, just a few months later, there were only eight of the original one hundred and fifty. Each one still clumsy and struggling, but at least now capable enough that Luke did not have to watch their every move.

One of the originals, Odav, a retired cobbler, had lost his left hand in his second battle. Such an injury would have ordinarily sent him back home to his family, or at least to some desk job in the military, with a comfortable retirement sum of coins.

But the Tarians did not care. Nor did the few remaining Lissurian Command. This was not a war for territory or riches, as the Humans were used to. This was a war for survival. Anyone that could hold a weapon was expected to, no matter how fruitless such an endeavor was.

Luke had stopped trying to remember their names and faces. They haunted his dreams whether he made the effort or not.

Unfortunately, despite the best efforts of Taria, even with the help of the Lissurian Refugees, the Demons took Tarian City after Tarian City. Not even Ceross, the Tarian Capital had survived. The Tarian Royal Line, a family tree that had survived centuries, was extinguished to the last child.

Now only two Tarian Cities remained. Sicon and the Fortress city of Noln. Two cities that lay less than a day's march away from each other and right on the border to the Independent Lands.

Luke's Company, accompanied by six other Lissurian Companies, were assigned as skirmishers and scouts. Stationed outside the relative safety of the city walls. Luke's Company specifically was camped out ten miles from Sicon.

The other Companies were spaced three miles apart from each other. Or at least, they should be. In the storm, and due to inexperience, Luke did not even bother to try to calculate where they could be. Not that he had the time or energy to care.

The storm had arrived so violently and so suddenly, that his Company had did not have the time to prepare themselves for it. He did not know where everyone in his Company was, let alone the other Companies.

Luke found himself huddling inside a tightly grouped thicket of trees and bushes. It did little against the rain, but it kept most of the wind off his body. The young man had wrapped himself in his woolen cloak and lifted the hood, but he was still soaked to the bone, too tired to shiver.

As he lay there, exhausted, cold, and hungry, Luke's thoughts traced back to Evelyn, and the last time he had seen her. Was she doing well? Was she safe? Was she even alive? He did not know, but he hoped.

Lord Ashborn, a man he had never liked, but respected, turned out to be her older brother. Not only was he seeking her, but he was also seeking their parent's murderer. A man that turned out to be his own father.

Luke would have refused to believe it, had he not seen his father's face when Lord Ashborn had accused him of it. Not confusion or concern, but of anger and righteousness.

After that, things had happened so quickly that it wasn't till several hours later, as they fled from the burning Capital City of Lissura that he managed to ask about it.

When he did, his father had not shown remorse, but instead he justified it. As if murdering two innocent people and kidnapping their young daughter was ok. As if raising her as his own and training her to become some sort of protecter was right. As if anything was ok so long as it benefited the Kingdom.

That is a large reason Luke volunteered for the Refugee Companies instead of joining his father and Uncle with the Golden Thousand. He wanted nothing to do with his father at the moment.

Last he heard, the King of Lissura, accompanied by Duke Redmond and the Golden Thousand, were hold up in Noln, recovering from their injuries after routing a force of twenty thousand Demons.

At least that is what the reports said, but after seeing the might of the Golden and the might of the Demons, both first hand, Luke struggled to believe it was a force larger than seven thousand. At least if it was just the Golden Thousand fighting them.

His father had tried to make him stay, which led to many arguments, eventually requiring the King to step in and allow Luke to leave. For that, Luke thanked the King, but he could not help but also blame the King as well as his Father.

He is the King after all, Luke refused to believe that he did not know what his father was doing. And if he knew, and did nothing, then he was just as much to blame.

Luke tightened his cloak around himself, "Evelyn, please be safe, and forgive me."

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