From Themselves

"And that Kaleido cat," the Guard said, turning to Cate. "She should serve as a good distraction to swoop in for the kill. Have her do what she did here, but ask her to switch it up sometimes.

"I noticed the aesh had started attacking where she had been near the end of the battle, giving away an attack before it could land.

"If she mixes it up, covering an attack sometimes and other times placing her light behind someone who isn't about to attack, the aesh should be more likely to ignore the light as a sign of what's coming, and the light will better cloak our attacks," he concluded.

Cait and Fate nodded sharply.

They wouldn't disobey; not only was this man a Master, but he was also a Guard. He had more combat experience than maybe anyone else here other than the Arch-Mage, so they would be stupid to ignore his advice.

Cait and Pospo especially made sure to internalize what the Guard had said, eagerly sponging up the advice of this combat senior.

The Guard took another few minutes extracting the Skills and Facets of everyone else, making a game plan for each team.

He was a shining example of humanity's ingenuity, effortlessly devising a plan for each group that would hopefully lead the humans to victory.

Everyone, including the civilian Master, listened closely. Arrogance had no place on the battlefield, especially when up against a superior foe that could squash the weaker Mages like bugs.

The only way they would succeed was if they worked together, and did so proficiently. It didn't have to be flawless, but it had to be as close to perfect as possible to maximize their chances.

The Guard cut his verbal planning short as a Mage was sent flying away from the aesh with the axe.

The poor man's neck broke as he smacked into a building, falling to the floor, dead.

"Let's finish this already so I can go have dinner, yeah?" the Guard said jokingly, with a smile that didn't reach his eyes. "Go."

The two teams broke off and dashed toward their respective aesh, grim determination in their eyes.

Fate breathed deeply, Cait running beside him as they closed the distance between themselves and the aesh who was in the middle of pulling his executioner's axe out of a Mage's torso.

Every step he took was another his heart thrummed, the group having slid into the rhythm of the war drums for their steps shortly after they started walking.

Fate raised his sword, ready to join the fray…

Only for the battle he saw to become a cloud of gore.

A strong wind rushed past his face before a fresh coating of blood splashed onto it. Blood and chunks of viscera fell from the sky, the executioner's axe clattering to the ground as the remains of the aesh and his human opponents fell to the ground.

The aesh woman appeared in a newly-created hole in the wall, her hand outstretched.

Fate's instincts screamed at him, and he dove out of the way as the woman's log weapon flew past him with the strength of a wrecking ball.

It snapped into her hands, the light brown wood darkened to almost black as blood-red Imprints glowed on the surface of the weapon.

Red fog wafted from the weapon, joining the scarlet haze around its owner and outlining the woman's muscly silhouette menacingly.

Fate rose to his feet, catching a glimpse of the aesh woman as he did so.

His heart skipped a beat.

The woman was utterly monstrous; it was the only word that could describe her.

The hands in the sky suddenly seemed like a distant nightmare when Fate's eyes laid on this woman. The hands that were battling the Empress were strong, yes, but ultimately they were just that: hands.

But this aesh woman resembled a nightmare made manifest, a very real threat compared to the far-off danger of the giant hands that parted the skies.

She embodied the concept of "demon" so accurately that it made calling the demon races "demonic" laughable. Even her fellow aesh failed to personify the name as well as she did.

She seemed to have grown three sizes, her eyes just barely low enough to look through the ten-foot-tall hole without stooping.

Her arms and legs were so thick with muscles that it should've been impossible for her to keep her full range of movement, yet she spun her log in her hand with a practiced ease that displayed the agility she still very much possessed.

Her loincloth had survived the expansion, but her chest band had snapped from its already taut state, revealing two scarlet breasts with crimson buds that heaved with every heavy breath she took.

But one would be hard-pressed to appreciate or even look at the admittedly shapely bust, as her eyes were what drew everyone's attention and held it captive.

An aesh's eyes were yellow ringed by with white sclera, but hers were now a pure scarlet ocean, glowing with the same light as the clouds above.

Looking into them made one feel like a demon had latched ahold of their soul, tugging violently at it in an attempt to wrench it out and drag it to a fiery hell.

No matter how hard one tried or how much one wanted to, one couldn't look away, which only gave the viewer more time to sink further into the abyss that awaited within those orbs of red.

In every sense of the word, she was a true "demon."

Fate and his companions released an explosive breath as the aesh looked away. The eye contact had lasted for but an instant, but it felt like an eternity.

With a roar that shook the hearts of everyone around, she disappeared, a loud boom followed shortly after by a second, louder BOOM dislodging whatever glass had managed to hold onto the buildings after the hands' appearance.

For the first time after the battle started, the war drums silenced.

But the fear lodged within the minds of the humans set their hearts to pounding, replacing the manic tempo with an organic one stemming from none other than themselves.