Demon-Beasts Assault the City!

Alert levels are divided into several tiers, beginning with Orange.

Two years ago, Bo City triggered an Orange Alert when a single Light Radiance flared up behind the mountain range — at the time, no fewer than three hundred Demon-Beasts had been prowling near the Safe Zone.

Today, two Light Radiance signals blazed into the sky. That was a Blue Alert.

Once an alert sounds, it means the city faces hidden danger and imminent crisis.

The Orange Alert back then had been swiftly resolved by Commander Zhankong. But today, with a Scarlet Alert upon them, it signaled that at least a thousand Demon-Beasts were circling near the Safe Zone.

Good God — Bo City hadn't seen a Blue Alert in nearly a decade.

*Ding ding ding~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ding ding ding~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~*

Just when everyone was still wondering if this was some kind of grim joke, Wan Duanfeng's phone rang in his pocket.

Rain hammered down, drenching the hundreds of stunned Military Mages at the Waystation. The only sounds in the sudden hush were the rain and the ringtone blaring from Commander Wan Duanfeng's phone.

"Hello." Wan Duanfeng pulled out his phone in the driving rain and raised it to his ear.

"Commander Wan… we've been overrun by the pack. The Light Mage… the Light Mage is dead. There's no one left to Release the next Light Radiance." The voice on the other end belonged to patrol squad captain Zhou Jin.

A chill swept through Wan Duanfeng from head to toe. The hand gripping his phone began to shake.

"I hope Bo City can weather this. Please give Commander Zhankong my apologies — and tell Pan Lijun I'm sorry too." On the other end, Zhou Jin's voice was low and ragged, weighted with a reluctance to let go.

Wan Duanfeng's face twisted violently. His eyes filled with a grief so deep it turned to rage.

**Beep — beep beep beep — — — — — —**

And then the line went dead. Throughout the entire call, Wan Duanfeng had been able to hear the roaring chaos in the background — roars that seemed to tear loose right beside his ear, enough to make his heart lurch.

He lowered the phone in a daze and squeezed his eyes shut. The rain pouring down on him felt laced with acid, as though a dozen blades were driving into his chest at once.

The call was over. But Wan Duanfeng could picture it perfectly — what would have come through that line in the very next second, if it could still carry sound, would be Zhou Jin's agonized, soul-rending screams.

He was dead. Dead for certain. No one understood that more clearly than Wan Duanfeng — any man who picked up a phone in those circumstances had already accepted there was no coming back.

"Sound the Scarlet Alert!" Wan Duanfeng drew a long, measured breath. Not a trace of sorrow remained in his eyes. What filled them now was the unyielding resolve beaten into every soldier through years of grueling service.

"The Sca— Scarlet Alert?? Commander Wan, you can't be serious!" a Military Mage on the watchtower cried, his voice shaking with disbelief.

Through the curtain of rain, the guards stationed at the checkpoint stood rooted to the spot. To them, even the second-tier Blue Alert had been a tremendous upheaval. But the Scarlet Alert…

That was a catastrophe.

The Scarlet Alert was the most terrifying calamity known to their world. Some people went their entire lives without ever witnessing one, and anyone who lived through a Scarlet Alert carried that shadow with them forever — unable to ever truly step free of it.

"What are you all standing there gaping at?! Do it — *now*!" Wan Duanfeng's voice broke into a roar.

*Fools. Complete fools.* Every minute the Scarlet Alert was delayed could cost hundreds of lives.

**Awooooo~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~!!!!**

**Awoo awoo awoo!!!!!!!!!!!!**

**GRWOOAARR~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~**

Without warning, wave after wave of bone-chilling howls erupted from behind the mountain range, each one like a thunderclap detonating just beyond the ridge, shaking the entire mountainside.

The tremors rolled outward to the Waystation. Even the massive stone gateway quivered.

**AWOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!**

Through the grey curtain of rain, a blurred shape launched skyward and came to rest at the very crown of a towering pine in the distance.

Even in the downpour, the creature exuded sovereign authority — a wolf's body, standing half-upright in a commanding posture, its three eyes burning with savage crimson light.

It gazed down at the checkpoint Waystation from afar. Gazed the way one might look at a pen of helpless sheep.

"Th— three eyes… a Three-Eyed Demon Wolf!!!" a young Military Mage stammered nearby.

The words were barely out of his mouth before shadow after shadow began pouring from behind the Three-Eyed Demon Wolf — some claiming the high boughs of towering trees, others clustering around their general.

More shadows. Then more still. Their countless blood-red eyes studded the haze of rain like a vast, malevolent canopy of stars. One glance was enough to drain the warmth from a person's body and send ice crawling up the back of their neck.

"This… there are so many… so *many* of them!!!"

One-Eyed Demon Wolves swarmed over the mountains in wave upon wave, every one of them throwing its head back to howl into the pouring sky, until their combined cries had swallowed the entire mountain range whole.

"They're calling — they're still calling for more of their kind!" said a Summoning Element Military Mage who had studied demonic speech, his face blank with horror.

God above. There were already three or four hundred One-Eyed Demon Wolves out there. Three or four hundred of them howling for reinforcements at once — how many Demon-Beasts were going to answer that call?

In that moment, every soldier guarding the Waystation finally understood why the Scarlet Alert had to be sounded.

Demon-Beasts were assaulting the city.

Swarms upon swarms of Demon-Beasts, assaulting the city.

This was a disaster — a disaster that had arrived without a single warning.

A rainstorm, and in its wake, hundreds upon hundreds of Demon-Beasts, with still more flooding in by the second.

Bo City had waged war against the demon-wolf clans since ancient times. Now, at last, it seemed the wolves could no longer contain the hunger coiled within them. Under the command of a higher-ranked demon wolf, they had massed in a frenzy and were hurling themselves against Bo City's last defensive line in wave after relentless wave.

A dark, churning tide engulfed the mountainside — a tide made entirely of One-Eyed Demon Wolves.

They surged. They screamed. They set the tiny Xuefeng Mountain Waystation shuddering.

In the driving rain, countless pairs of eyes blazed with a hatred toward humanity so bottomless it defied description — a savagery so complete it left no room for mercy. They wanted to consume every living soul in sight.

Before that earth-shaking, blood-chilling sight, even the Mages looked impossibly small. The tide of Demon-Beasts was about to crash over them all.

For every Military Mage present, the image of those swarms of One-Eyed Demon Wolves bearing down on them was something they would carry for the rest of their lives.

Then again — *the rest of their lives* might be setting the bar too high. A great many of them might not survive the day.