After the Necrofear Beleth was annihilated by the demigod's power, Alfie, without a moment's hesitation, moved towards General Zalogr's desperate engagement with the Frenzied Bastard. With overwhelming might, Alfie required only two deceptively simple yet incomparably powerful strikes to easily subdue the grotesque, horror-spreading creature.

As Alfie prepared to deliver the final, purifying blow and erase the abomination from existence, two familiar figures scrambled forward from below, their voices tight with urgent pleas.

"Lord Alfie, please, stay your hand for but a moment!" Henry sank to one knee, head bowed low. His voice was a desperate plea that trembled slightly despite his control. Sophia swiftly followed, kneeling beside him, her tear-filled eyes, wide with a mixture of awe and entreaty, fixed upon the Demigod.

Alfie's brow furrowed slightly, his majestic, cool gaze descending upon them. "You wish me to spare its life? A monster born of such concentrated evil, an entity that has gleefully slaughtered countless innocents? By what right do you, mere soldiers, presume to make such a request?" The Demigod's voice, though devoid of anger, carried an ethereal pressure that seemed to steal the air from Henry and Sophia's lungs.

"No, my lord!" Henry managed, the words catching in his throat. "We dare not ask you to spare such a creature. We have only one humble, desperate wish… When you destroy this monster, could you please preserve its eyes and bones? We wish to give our comrade, our captain, the dignity of a proper cremation"

Their voices interwoven with sorrow, Henry and Sophia recounted the tragic, horrifying tale of Captain Jacobs: how the malevolent Beleth had twisted him into a monstrous shell, his consciousness a prisoner, forced to endure an unimaginable, waking nightmare.

Alfie listened in profound silence, the icy remoteness in his gaze softening as he took in the raw, unshielded pain on the faces of the two young soldiers kneeling before him.

His attention shifted to the Frenzied Bastard's right eye. It was undeniably human, with hot, silent tears streaming unceasingly down its lifeless, distorted visage. This was a final, heartbreaking testament to the man trapped within, the only rebellion Captain Jacobs could still wage from his tormented prison.

"Very well," Alfie finally conceded, his voice now imbued with a surprising gentleness, the earlier chill significantly diminished. "I promise you. What remains of this brave warrior, his eyes and bones, shall be preserved. However, Central Aerion's regulations dictate they will handle the purification and cremation. You will receive his ashes when it is done."

"We… we are eternally grateful, Your Highness, for your profound magnanimity and benevolence!" Henry and Sophia bowed their heads deeply, their voices choked with a wave of overwhelming, bittersweet relief. This small mercy felt like a sunbeam piercing through the darkest storm.

Less than five minutes had elapsed from the horrifying battle's end at Estath Cathedral until the last of the terrorists had been vanquished or had fled East Aerion. Yet, the events of that fleeting span would be forever seared into the souls of the survivors, an indelible nightmare from which they might never truly awaken.

Desolation, ruin, stark tragedy - these words, pale and insufficient, could not fully encapsulate the harrowing tableau of East Aerion. The monstrous roars, the piercing screams of terror-stricken civilians, the brutal clang of steel, the deafening collapse of homes… all the cacophonous sounds of battle had finally faded. Now, only a heavy, suffocating silence blanketed the ruins, only sounds were the soft sobs of the living and the stunned silence of soldiers, their eyes fixed and empty.

Then, like a dam finally breaking, mournful cries began to rise from every shadowed alcove and from beneath the twisted skeletons of buildings. The heart-wrenching, soul-tearing sobs of wives clutching phantoms of lost husbands, of children whimpering for fathers who would never return, of mothers whose beloved offspring had been ripped from their arms.

The agonizing screams of the wounded, their pain a raw, physical presence in the air. Weak, desperate pleas for help, muffled and faint, from those still trapped somewhere amidst shattered stone and splintered wood.

The urgent, hoarse shouts of soldiers, their voices strained, calling to each other, attempting to regroup their decimated forces, to carry the maimed and broken to makeshift field hospitals in cathedrals now serving as sanctuaries of a different, grimmer kind.

They guided the shell-shocked civilians toward fragile pockets of safety, their hands bleeding as they clawed through debris, a desperate hope flickering in their eyes as they searched for any sign of life.

Perhaps true tragedy is not in the explosive heat of violence, but in the cold, desolate stillness that follows. This is the bitter, poignant reality that those who remain, those cursed with survival, must endure.

They must face the gaping void of losses that can never be recompensed, a pain that settles deep within the spirit. Physical wounds might eventually mend, but the scars on the soul… who could say if they would ever truly fade.

Medical forces and Rankers skilled in healing arts were swiftly killed from Central Aerion and neighboring cities. Reinforcements and healers poured in, a much-needed aid for the ravaged eastern quarter.

Though many arrived, their aid, against the colossal tide of victims and casualties strewn across the city's districts, felt like a mere whisper in a hurricane, a desperate, valiant effort against an overwhelming sea of suffering.

Yet, a chilling anomaly pricked at Henry's heightened senses. The number of reinforcements from Central Aerion, from the supposed sanctuary of Silver Wing Castle - the heart of Zephyros's elite military might - seemed disturbingly, almost unnervingly modest. It was a response wholly disproportionate to the cataclysmic scale of a terrorist attack on the capital, and starkly at odds with the formidable military resources Zephyros had always prided itself upon.

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With the razor-sharp keenness of an investigator and the intuitive reach of his Mystic Sense, Henry's mind raced, piecing together fragments of an even more terrifying possibility. A scenario far more dreadful than the localized devastation in East Aerion began to crystallize, sending a fresh wave of chilling dread through Henry.

"Could it be…" he breathed, the thought a shard of ice in his mind, "not just East Aerion is under attack?" The shock was a physical blow. What organization, what unholy power, could possess such sweeping strength as to simultaneously assault the capital, Aerion, the heart of Zephyros? And not just its eastern quarter, but perhaps two, three, or even all four crucial satellite cities that formed Central Aerion's protective shield, were at this moment suffering similar, brutal onslaughts?

No, surely not. If Central Aerion was already killing aid, it implied the central city itself was secure, or any immediate threat had been swiftly neutralized. The terrifying question solidified into a cold, hard certainty: other satellite cities were under siege. If all four shields protecting Central Aerion faced assaults of this magnitude, then Zephyros was not merely in crisis; it was teetering on the brink of an abyss unlike any in its long, storied history.

In a secret cavern, swallowed by the dense forest more than twenty kilometers west of Aerion, a mystical purple light flared violently and then abruptly winked out. Within the dark, damp confines, five shadowy figures in black and a strange, grey mist-wreathed casket shimmered into existence.

The Phantom Assassin, his escape from Estath Cathedral a recent, chilling memory, quickly wove a thin, deceptive veil of illusory mist around each member of his group. Their potent, malevolent auras vanished instantly, completely concealed. He issued a curt, clipped order, his voice as cold and devoid of emotion as polished obsidian: "To the rendezvous. No delays!"

Five grey phantoms shot off at a supernatural speed, gliding through the forest.

This was no mere feat of endurance; they were clearly drawing upon high-level magic to augment their movement, dissolving into the dense treeline in the blink of an eye.

Such expenditure of aether was a costly gamble, reserved only for the most critical of situations, a clear sign of their extreme urgency - they were not just retreating; they were fleeing, perhaps from a reckoning even they, in their terrible power, feared.

Rewinding time to precisely 9 AM in Aerion, that fateful hour when the desperate battle within Estath Cathedral had just ignited, when Archbishop Ralph and the Rank 6 Bloodluster first locked in their deadly embrace…

Simultaneously, the other three vital satellite cities of Aerion - West City, South City, and North City - were ambushed, besieged by enemies of unimaginable power and unrelenting ruthlessness.

In West Aerion,

The great stone roof of the city hall, a steadfast symbol of civic authority, was violently ripped apart by an unseen force. It showered the plaza below with a deadly rain of bricks and debris.

Major General Grant, a renowned Rank 6 Warlord, the grizzled commander of West Aerion's military forces, snapped his gaze skyward. His sharp, eagle-like eyes, honed by countless battles, locked onto a deformed, unnervingly bizarre creature that had heralded this bloody symphony.

It was a gaunt, impossibly lanky figure, towering over three meters, yet possessing a deceptive physical strength. In its grasp, it wielded a slender, dark metal staff, easily exceeding four meters in length, its tip pulsating with a cold, ominous energy. In the microsecond the two Rank 6 combatants registered each other, a deafening explosion had already torn the air.

Major General Grant, his colossal war hammer a blur of motion, had unhesitatingly unleashed a full-power, crushing blow. Yet, to his grim surprise, the creature parried the thunderous attack with a casual flick of its staff, its reaction speed preternaturally swift, a horrifying mismatch to its huge, seemingly ungainly frame. The Warlord's eyes narrowed; this would be no easy fight.

In South Aerion,

A chorus of ear-splitting shrieks, imbued with a palpable demonic power, ripped through the morning air, sowing instant terror and disarray. A bizarre chimera, half-man, half-bat, wheeled and dove through the sky.

It possessed giant, jet-black leathery wings that beat with a sickening thud, and a vulture's cruel head with a long, razor-sharp beak. Its torso and limbs were those of a gaunt, skeletal human.. Its screams were not mere sound; they were weapons, laced with a dark magic that savaged the mind and shattered the senses. Many ordinary civilians in the furthest districts, though spared the sight of the monster, felt an excruciating, sharp pain lance through their skulls, the world reeling before they crumpled, unconscious.

Lower-ranking soldiers, those with some innate resilience, clamped their hands over their ears, their faces contorted in agony as they struggled against the relentless psychic assault, their fighting spirit utterly broken.

The fate of those closer to the epicenter of its cries was far more gruesome: civilians vomited blood, their lives extinguished in an instant, while less-hardened Rankers bled from every orifice before collapsing, their internal organs rupturing under the unholy pressure.

Major General Walter, an experienced Rank 6 Commander, his face a mask of cold fury, roared his defiance as he launched himself skyward, a streak of righteous anger aimed at the vulture-fiend, a desperate bid to silence its deathly song and protect the innocents below. But the creature only cackled, its eyes glinting with malevolent glee as it anticipated the new sport.

In North Aerion.A dense, unnatural cloud, black as pitch and crackling with the breath of an unholy storm, suddenly swarmed across the sky, completely eclipsing the sun. Torrential rain, thick and oily, began to fall like a deluge from a burst dam, and colossal, jagged lightning bolts, charged with nature's most destructive fury, continuously hammered the city's structures, igniting explosions and widespread, ravenous fires.

Atop an ancient, crumbling bell tower, silhouetted against the raging tempest, observers could vaguely discern another nightmarish figure. Its skin was a dark, bruised purple. Its head and two powerful legs resembled those of some demonic stag, complete with long, wickedly sharp horns that seemed to tear at the storm clouds, but its torso and arms were disturbingly human-like - albeit emaciated and scrawny, its arms unnaturally elongated, dangling almost to its clawed feet.

That monster stood erect, a defiant silhouette amidst the elemental fury of heaven and earth, casually, almost languidly, observing the chaotic, tragic human drama unfolding far below. It watched the panicked, screaming civilians scurrying like insects, the city's defenders struggling valiantly but futilely, the desperate prayers swallowed by the storm's roar. And on its grotesque, deer-like face, a deeply satisfied, utterly evil smile seemed to stretch its lips.

" Blazing Strike!" A colossal fireball, incandescent as a miniature sun, roared skyward from the city streets. It was a desperate gambit aimed directly at the bell tower. It struck true, a cataclysmic explosion that vaporized a significant portion of the ancient stone structure.

The attacker was Sage Sean, a respected Rank 6 Sage, North Aerion's quiet, steadfast guardian, his face grim with the knowledge of the terrible battle that had just begun. From the settling smoke and debris atop the ruined tower, however, two malevolent crimson eyes blinked open, entirely unharmed, and a low, guttural chuckle echoed, promising a swift and brutal retaliation.

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