Heart of Blood: Heroes of the Demonic War

The tomorrow right after, it was snowing, the cold yet elegant snow reminded him of Fanrar, where he might not talk much and crude when he did. But for Nosra, he was the best friend he could ever meet.

Other than that, Nosra felt weirdly optimistic about this northern expedition, maybe it was because of his obsession with odds or the overwhelming confidence he had on himself.

And so begun the 43rd northern expedition. This time, the largest one yet, including 52 unit ready and decked out with the highest grade of vanquisher gear made of the finest of materials.

They soon exited the northern gate, where people watched with hope and pride. They pass the gigantic wall that protected Daenlora from all kind of demon for almost two hundreds years.

To the northern plains they go, towards their impending doom.

They rode on horse back, phasing through the plains and stopped at the forest. They let the horses go, as they are trained to go back to the city on their own.

On foot, they march on to the forest, demons lurks on every corner, but nothing out of ordinary, as they vanquished them one by one.

The snowstorm hindered them quite a bit. But they march on.

Until they stumbled upon a body, buried in the snow, isolated as yet to be scattered. The heart is missing, as fresh wound kept flowing blood. The clothes were the same as they wore. This was what happened to they who fell on snowstorm, trapped in the stark environment, could not reach the Emperor's Kingdom.

Nosra placed his hand on that body, and like ashes and dusts, it faded away, scattered in the growing blizzard.

They searched for other bodies nearby, but to no avail, there was nothing to be found, only snow and more snow.

And so, they march on.

Not long after, sensing the energy of his fallen comrade nearby, Nosra ordered his devures to go and search the snow, where they found multiple body, laying dead in the snow with their hearts damaged.

Where Nosra immediately return them to the vicious wind.

As they were stood silent in grief, a lurking, vile energy can be sensed to the north. Everyone immediately became alert as the presence getting closer and closer. Before long, Nosra has seen the bearing.

"Run!!"

Not thinking twice, most of the member of the expedition flee to the south, fearing for their life. But Nosra and a few other experienced vanquisher stand guarded.

It was a vernasta they are going against, an abomination trying to replicate the wonders of the dragons. They are demon with scales on their skin which also stand with 4 legs, have round but sharp eyes and a pair of wings as their fifth and sixth limbs.

This one is quite small as Nosra had fought a bigger vernasta in the western frontier, but nonetheless it was formidable as they possess high level of energy control.

Then, when everyone can see it clearly, it launched an attack, a simple claw attack, sharpened by a layer of energy. Before Nosra slashed its head cleaned off with his blade made of blood.

It fell to the ground, as Nosra dealt the finishing blow by piercing its heart, making sure it was gone and not be able to regenerate.

Before they can rest, they could sense similar vile presences around them. And there they revealed themselves, a pack of vernastas.

Nosra was bewildered, because vernasta usually don't come in a pack. Immediately, a large shadow has covered Nosra and his crew, along with vernastas. And that's when he realized what it all meant.

He ran toward the south as soon as he could, following the shadow while abandoning his expedition team behind. He ran faster and faster, but the shadow was accelerating through the forest faster than he can keep up with, before he lost the shadow completely and looked up. There he saw a great vernasta flying between the clouds.

In the growing blizzard, he ran and ran, faster than he had run before. And that's when the city wall can be seen in the horizon, battered and ravaged.

He saw the city blooming with energy, a dark purple energy fuming from the entire city.

That was when he fell down to his knees, in disbelief of what he had seen.

But not for long, as he dragged his feet to walked again, each step is slower than the last.

It felt like an eternity when he had finally arrived outside of the city. Where he was stopped by the city gate, completely intact.

As he put his hand to the gate and slowly pushed it to open, what he saw was the city in ruin.

From what he remembered was just a normal town in the periphery of the princedom, until its heyday as a frontier city.

Now it is nothing but ruin. No building stands tall, as everything reduced to rubble, no voices could be heard as everything fell into deadly silent, and no crowd in the street, only corpses slowly dissolving into demonic energy.

He walked and he walked. Disintegrating every single corpse while he could. Every step is a bitter reminder of the life he had in the city, from the boiling hot sauna, the store he gets his clothes at, the Old Guard's house, and lastly, his second home, the Vanquisher Headquarter in the middle of the city.

What used to be the tallest building in the city, now reduce to ruble as the bodies of the heroes trying to protect it now scattered nearby.

That's when the sudden roar could be heard from Southside, instilling fear for the few that still remained.

Nosra continued walking, not caring how much life he could save if he ran, because all to him, he could no longer save himself.

"This is the day that I die"

And there he saw the great vernasta, roaring for the second times.

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"I don't… remember this…"