Los Valaris, once called Santiago City, Chile, South America.
Beneath the wide blue heavens, an autumn wind blew gently across the battlefield.
Its scent spoke of endings. Of leaves, of seasons… perhaps of something far greater.
And in the distance, the howl of a lonely wolf echoed.
"Fire King Kaero. The Great Demon General Valar has decreed that you shall not continue your attack. Surrender at once and prepare to be punished!"
"Fire King Kaero, know your place! You are no match for the ultra powerful Demon General Valar. Get your whole army to surrender now, and we will grant you mercy by killing you all quickly!"
"Fire King Kaero you dumb brute. Surrender now or die along with your pride! The more trouble you create, the more we will suffer when you eventually die later!"
Shouts of angry men echoed from atop the parapets of Los Valaris.
Artillery Battalion Commander Kaero Ren stood on a massive rock a few hundred meters from the city's high walls, flanked by six fellow awakened.
Blood ran in dark streams down their limbs. Some of it was theirs, but most of it belonged to demons. Their hair clung in matted ropes to their heads; still, their spines remained straight and their gazes steady, like conquerors looking down at cowed vassals.
A suffocating killing intent rolled off them in waves, as relentless and cold as a thunderous sea.
All around them lay the mangled remains of demons. They had to carve a bloody path through an entire demon host just to reach shouting distance of Los Valaris.
The ramparts weren't manned by demons at all. Hundreds of figures in the purple and black of the Demon Army lined the battlements, jeering and spitting curses down at them.
And then Kaero saw more.
Among the surrounding demon ranks, figures marked in tribal paints and bone charms moved with authority. They were demon shamans, commander of the demon packs.
Only they weren't demons.
They were men.
Human beings.
The sight hit like a gut punch. Those bastards hadn't just surrendered.
They had joined the enemy!
Kaero's mouth curled into a sneer.
His blue eyes flashed like tempered steel beneath his dark blue hair streaked with blood; his handsome features were set in an expression of icy contempt.
An aura of disdain seemed to radiate from him.
"You traitors." He said in a cold voice that dripped with pure venom. "You think you've survived? You think you've done well? Fools.
You are nothing but living fresh meat for demons who have no idea how to build a civilization. What do you think they will eat when wild animals run out? You!
Billions have died. We mourn them, and we pray they find mercy. But you… you will live out the rest of your miserable lives as demon slaves, and you will die screaming when the demons eat you and you will continue screaming when you burn in hell.
You pathetic lumps of rot, you have nothing to look forward to in life, and nothing in the afterlife. You will die as you lived. Miserably!"
He spat. The dark globule struck the cracked earth and hissed as it hit.
His men standing behind him gave cold chuckles of approval at his words.
"You never change, Commander. Always got to make a speech butchering swine." Jared chuckled softly.
"Then enjoy it well, Jared. It might be my last one."
"Aye aye, Sir!" Jared said with a hearty laugh.
Kaero's gaze swept over them. His six brothers in the hastily formed Fire Element Squad.
"You six. We probably won't…"
"Don't worry commander. In life, we are your men. In death, we will be your ghosts. We will fight with you to the very end!" Declared Zhang Fei.
"To the death, Commander!"
"To the death!" His six brothers roared enthusiastically. They were not afraid to die.
They were true men!
"Good!" Kaero said, his chest tightening with pride. "We will show those cowards what it means to live and die as real men!"
His voice carried like thunder. For a heartbeat, they all stood taller.
Dying for the future of humanity was every true warrior's dream.
And they would soon have the honor of fulfilling it.
Then Kaero turned back toward the traitors. Their twisted faces were almost amusing to look at, though deep inside, his fury still simmered.
Not because those men had betrayed humanity, it was inevitable that there would be a bunch of bad eggs in humanity.
No, he was pissed off that he would have to deal with his own kind in his last fight.
He wanted a clean, all out battle with the damn demons. One where he could spill rivers of demon blood as his final act of defiance against them.
A send-off, if you will, with the blood of his true enemies.
Beneath the superficial anger, however, a deeper weariness gnawed at him. Every word he spoke to the traitors was a pointless expression of anger at how the entire human endeavor to win back the world had been sabotaged.
Sabotaged, delayed… betrayed.
By traitors of their own kind.
One particular question needed to be asked.
How did the demons know that they were attacking that day?
The human army had pounded the demon forces that were too slow to retreat behind the cursed elemental shield of Great General Valar, and had reduced them to smoldering ruin with their new Heaven's Edge Longrange Launcher (HELL).
The ground had trembled for hours and the air was thick with the stench of scorched flesh. Even now, the acrid smoke still stung his nostrils and coated his tongue with a bitter taste.
Afterward, he had ordered the HELL Battalion to continue their useless shelling against the unbreakable shield for days before feigning withdrawal, just to sell the image of a frustrated army beaten into retreat.
All of it had been for this moment: to return unseen and launch a full powered attack on the elemental shield using the only method which had proven to be mildly effective in the hope of destroying the shield in one fell swoop.
Fire Magic.
Kaero and the six men with him were the only Fire Mages in the entire Demon Slaying Expeditionary Army.
Even though the number of awakened capable of wielding elemental magic had been on the rise in recent years, there were only a small number who had managed to upgrade their strength into fighting level.
And there were even less of them who wielded the Fire Element.
Kaero was far and away the strongest fire mage among them at Peak B Rank. The rest were Mid to High B Rank at most. With their combined strength, Kaero had estimated that they would be able to destroy the demon shield if they gave everything they had in one, decisive blow.
Alas, they had encountered an ambush as they sneaked towards Los Valaris, and had to spend the majority of their mana just to clear out a small portion of the demon army ambushing them.
Their sneak attack had nearly failed, and they were surrounded.
There were no more doubts about it.
They would die that day!
As much as Kaero tried to psyche himself into thinking that they would survive, even to the point of humming the song "I will survive" to himself, deep within him, he knew that they were doomed.
And with their deaths, will go the final hope of humanity wiping out the Demon Horde.
At least in the next few decades until the next batch of fire mages manage to increase their strength.
Pure fire energy gathered on his palms and slowly thickened into a compressed ball of flames. A deep heat spread out from him as Kaero prepared the most powerful twin fireballs he had ever made.
Sparks danced up his arms like living embers as the orb slowly expanded in size, a swirling core of molten flame pulsing like a living heart.
Behind him, Kaero could sense the other six fire mages doing the same thing.
They were in range.
They could try to destroy the shield in one, all out attack which would leave them drained and vulnerable.
If they succeeded, the human army would surge forward and level the city with their advanced weaponry.
If not… then may God bless the next generation with stronger fire magic.
Kaero knew their remaining strength was likely not enough to break the shield. But so what? They had to try. Even if there was only a 0.1 percent chance of success, they had to take it.
Humanity had sacrificed too much for them to gain the power they now wielded.
How many had died to gather the resources needed for their training? How many had starved so they could eat their fill and grow stronger? How many mothers and fathers had watched their children die chasing new ways to evolve their power… all so that Kaero and the others could progress smoothly?
After accepting so much sacrifice, how could Kaero do anything but give everything he had for even the faintest sliver of hope?
Looking up at the jeering traitors on the walls of Los Valaris and the demons inching back in fear of the fire gathering in his hands, Kaero could only laugh bitterly in his heart.
They thought he would try to kill the demons and flee. Cowards. Their minds could not even begin to understand the concept of self-sacrifice for the sake of humanity's future.
Those kinds of people, even if they were ten times stronger, Kaero disdained to have them as his comrades! They were not even worthy to become his enemies!
"This is my final moment." Kaero realized.