Not only did the footsteps of destruction sound continuously, but also the activation of the magic traps that still acted as a barrier between them and the Azure Empire's army. It could be felt in the same way as the tremors caused by the monster's footsteps.

And it could be seen through the windows as they passed by. Bursts of fire, clusters of ice.

All out of nowhere. All unavoidable attacks of great power. But the spider moved forward against this storm of attacks as if it were nothing. They slowed it down, yes, or even pushed it back, but if they had caused any damage, it was not visible.

Those mechanical spiders were city destroyers. In other words, to deal with just one of them required the efforts of many more people than he had here.

And sometimes, even that wasn't enough.

That was why seeing it had filled him with fear, when everything that had happened in the forest had only made his heart beat a little faster.

It was the spider that had made his legs tremble. Not the army gathered behind it.

To have even the slightest chance of victory against the remaining soldiers, they had to take care of that spider first. Running away was not an option. The headmaster was right about that. But, now that he knew that reinforcements wouldn't be coming anyhow, as they had cut off communications, he couldn't see a future in which they would be victorious either.

Killing enough soldiers to be able to flee, if things got ugly....

He supposed that was also an option.

In any case, he had to fight.

They all had to fight. Now thinking was futile.

They reached the end of the road. In front of the main gate. For some the end had been a different one. The headmaster had positioned them, depending on certain factors, just in front, down the stairs and on the second floor.

Perhaps because he had seen that they had survived together and that no doubt their abilities were off the charts, Christina and he had ended up together. They would fight side by side, again. Amy wasn't far behind, either.

In the middle of the stairs, slumped over the railing, one hand on her stomach.

She could barely stand, but she hadn't been put all the way back, where she would be as safe as possible in a situation like this and still be able to contribute to the battle, because using magic would demand nothing from her body on the verge of collapse.

And why? Well, Jacob had divided them in a general way, because there was no time to waste in giving them individual instructions.

She had chosen the right place for herself and apparently no one saw any reason to question it. Despite the fact that she wasn't on her feet, that she looked as if she would lose consciousness at any moment.

More importantly than the teachers not caring, it was that Amy herself didn't care. In that condition, she could have stayed in the infirmary. No one would have blamed her.

But this at least he did understand, and he supposed it had nothing to do with his warped nature.

That everyone felt that way at some point or another.

Amy could have stayed in a safe place, but that would have meant putting her fate in the hands of everyone else. On her side were some of the most capable people in the realm, plus other mages more or less capable than her, many bodies that could act as meat shields.

But no matter how capable they were or how many there were, that a single person couldn't decide the outcome of a battle between armies, she wouldn't feel at ease unless she was taking part.

If he had gotten wounded like that, he would have done the same.

Even though, unlike her, he wouldn't be much help, as he needed to get close to the enemy to make the most of his magic.

Except when he fired the gun, but the number of people he could kill that way was limited. Sooner or later he would have run out of bullets and left basically defenseless.

But he would have died on his feet.

Thinking that way didn't make him feel the usual pride. It made him feel cold, uncomfortable, as if he were a stranger in his own body.

Desmond understood that about Amy. It didn't mean he knew her.

He took a deep breath.

But he wanted to. He wanted to fix his mistakes and get to know her better. Don't die. Survive. We all have to survive.

There was a great roar.

The glass around the entrance exploded, scattered everywhere. The cloud of dust blew in through the windows that were now nothing but holes, without even a piece of glass stuck to the frame, hiding whatever had just happened.

Desmond tensed, raised his sword and pistol. What was this? What had his enemies been trying to do?

But, as the cloud cleared, he saw that that wasn't what it was.

The personification of death, of the power of the Empire, was lying on the ground. It was smoking. But the blue flames of his heart were writhing with the same intensity as before. It was on the ground, but not out of action.

"This makes things easier for us," came the voice of a woman whose name he didn't know.

Desmond only knew it was one of the teachers. Another one, not the one who had been waiting for them at the entrance to the forest to tell them about the test and apply the spell, whose name he had forgotten as easily as he had learned it.

Most of the teaching staff, he had observed, were women.

"The same plan still stands, we'll just skip a phase. We have to finish them off before the spider pulls itself together and goes back on the attack. Make sure that doesn't happen, in the best case scenario. Are you ready?"

The teachers were at the front. All of them, without exception. The infirmary staff was, of course, positioned in the safest place.

Behind them all, the safest place in the formation. They couldn't do much in the middle of the battle.

Still, everything counted, no matter how little.

"Good," she said simply, but it sounded like an important statement. It sounded like a eulogy by a clergyman at a funeral.

More than half of them had died before they got here.

How many would be alive by the time this was over?

The soldiers were a tide. They looked twice as many as he had seen standing under the shadow of the spider.

And the battle resumed.

Things were a little easier for them, now. The spider had fallen, though only a few steps away from crushing him, if it had taken just one more before it fell, it would, in fact, have fallen on them and they would now be dead.

Or wishing they were, crushed under the rubble.

But even disregarding the spider, they were still at a disadvantage. The Empire soldiers still outnumbered them, but that was the least of it.

The real problem was the nature of the war between the two kingdoms.

The Empire made use of firearms, long-range weapons and great power. A bullet in the right place could kill a mage, or at least take them out of a fight for long enough. He was an exception in that regard, just today he had taken about a dozen shots and was still standing, still ready to fight.

On top of that, there was the speed.

Not every spell could be compared to the speed of a bullet shooting out of the chamber.

In fact, as a rule, bullets were faster.

Whichever way you looked at it, they suffered from every possible disadvantage.

But at least if one of the Empire's soldiers went down, he could be presumed dead. Whereas the same didn't apply to them. That was something.

A poor, cold comfort. But something.

After all, the spider had nearly managed to crush them, albeit by accident, and had endured so much damage.... How long would it take before it was ready for battle again? And what could they do then, if crossing a field of over a hundred meters, easily, full of traps hadn't been enough?

Concentrate on the horde, he told himself. We can win this.

He didn't know how. He didn't even think it was possible. But, as long as they were alive, there was a way.

As they fought, they were giving ground to the tide of soldiers. Because by staying in one place, holding out at the entrance, they would only succeed in being filled with lead without being able to respond properly.

They had to use their other advantage, the most important one, because the director's plan revolved around it.

That this was their territory.

They would make them realize that they had gone into the lion's den, taking full advantage of their knowledge of their surroundings. That was the path to victory. If there was one.

Frankly, watching the teachers fight in front of them, how unstoppable they looked, the display they made of their skills, of the difference between them and students who weren't even officially students yet....

One could get carried away, and think that there was no need for such a thing. That they had the upper hand.

When seconds divided life and death, every second was an eternity. It had been a while since the doors had opened and still not a single one of them had fallen, who were in the most dangerous position possible. They weren't even wounded.

Yes, it was very easy to get carried away, to jump to conclusions.

For example, because of the large amount of water that one of the teachers quickly created, making the stairs slippery and dangerous. Down, not up. And by how one teacher shot electricity into the water, disabling or killing several soldiers in one hit.

But, still, he didn't get carried away. Neither he nor anyone else, especially not, of course, the teachers.

They kept moving backward.

Attacking as they could, when they could. He was a mage who relied on physical attacks, but he wasn't being completely useless. That was what he carried a pistol for, despite the judging stares, the comments and taunts. For situations like this.

Where he put his eye he put a bullet, despite how chaotic the fight was.

With every one of his bullets, a soldier died. Or at least staggered or fell, at least he could count those instances as having helped others kill them. The others, especially the teachers, were also demonstrating what they were made of to great effect.

But the soldiers of the Azure Empire seemed like an endless horde that would eventually engulf them all.

The sound of the spider's heartbeat drowned out the sound of the soldiers' footsteps, drowned out their breathing, even their own heartbeat.

And it was horrible. It threatened to drive him mad. If the spider was the personification of death, the sounds emitted by that flaming heart were the sounds of destruction.

I can do this. We can do this.

With trembling hands, he reloaded the gun. More shots. Part of him wanted to look at the fallen spider, to see how far it had progressed in pulling itself together. The other part of him, the sensible part, refused with all his might.

Knowing that, if he did, and that if he didn't like what he saw, he would lose the fighting spirit he needed to get out of this alive.

He would lose all hope that this could turn into a victory.

Even a pyrrhic victory with a handful of survivors or, even more bloody and meaningless, a mutual defeat. A total massacre.

Desmond had to concentrate on what he could do. Thinking about unnecessary things would only break his concentration at a critical moment.

Everything was going better than it should, considering the circumstances.

But, when they reached the second floor, things quickly got out of control. They had nowhere to hide and were on equal ground. They knew things would get complicated after that point. He had accepted that.

But he never suspected the extent to which they would get complicated. For him. Without quite knowing how it had come to this, he found himself pushing the weakened Amy out of the way of a bullet.

He realized he wouldn't be able to dodge it.

There was a sharp impact, a burst of pain....

And then just darkness, as the bullet pierced his heart.