The morning of their departure was unlike the last two.
Gone were the endless lines of soldiers stretching from wall to horizon. Instead, only a fraction of the host assembled in the courtyard of the arena: SS-ranked veterans whose names carried weight like storms, handpicked S-ranked squads whose confidence was written in the steadiness of their steps, and a handful of volunteers who had stood forward even as others lowered their heads.
No horns blared, no fanfare accompanied their march. This was not a spectacle for morale. It was a blade unsheathed in silence.
Mia Frostine walked at the head of the column, frost mist clinging to her cloak despite the morning heat. To her left strode Seraphine, spear gleaming like a shard of lightning, while Nock moved quietly on her right, his staff heavy with sanctified radiance. Behind them fell the chosen S-rankers—Hiro and his friends among them.
The smaller size made every detail sharper. The cadence of boots was no longer thunder—it was the measured drumbeat of hunters. The faces around Hiro were harder, more disciplined. Men and women who knew they would not be shielded by the masses this time. Every step forward was a step where there would be no fallback save death. Follow current novels on novel~fire~net
Yet strangely, the mood was steadier. Where the great army had been a sea of wavering morale, this vanguard was iron. There was no room for hesitation here.
Hiro felt it in his own chest. The exhaustion of two wasted marches still weighed on him, but with Misha striding confidently beside him, Zion muttering spells under his breath, and the veterans ahead like an unbreakable wall, his resolve felt sharper.
"Strange, isn't it?" Misha broke the silence, her smirk faint but genuine. "Feels less like we're marching into hell and more like we're about to kick its front door down."
Zion snorted, eyes flicking to the horizon. "Don't tempt fate. It's listening."
Hiro said nothing, only adjusted his grip on his blade.
From within the ranks, a few of the volunteer squads whispered to each other, but the quiet was nothing like the restless chatter of the larger army. It was focused, subdued, as though everyone knew they were a knife poised for the heart of the devil domain.
Far to the rear of the column, unnoticed in the disciplined press of S-ranked formations, two figures kept their hoods drawn low. One walked with the faint sway of nobility unused to the march, though her steps did not falter. Beside her, a woman with sharper eyes and the fluid stance of a fighter carried herself with purpose, her hand never straying far from her master. Amelia, the Pope and the church's only advantage over the authority, had slipped into the vanguard with her guard Adeline. No one seemed to have noticed their presence among the chosen—but Amelia's heart beat with both guilt and unshakable determination.
The devils noticed the change in force before the humans even cleared the arena's shadow.
When the vanguard reached the plain where they had fought for two days prior, the enemy was already waiting. Black banners rose like teeth against the sky, and the devils came forward in greater numbers than before, as though daring this smaller host to advance. Their commanders must have believed the humans had weakened, that their diminished ranks were proof of despair.
Laughter rolled across the plain, guttural and mocking.
"Fewer this time!" one devil bellowed. His voice carried unnaturally, magnified by infernal magic. "Did you grow tired of dying by the hundreds?"
Mia did not slow, did not even spare him a glance. She raised her hand. Ice crawled outward, the earth beneath their boots freezing in an expanding wave.
The signal was clear.
The vanguard surged forward.
Unlike the clumsy advance of thousands, this strike was precise. Spells arced cleanly over their formation, landing with devastating accuracy in the enemy lines. Warriors darted between devils with deadly efficiency, blades biting deep. The SS-ranked led from the front, their overwhelming auras carving swathes through the defenders.
Hiro found himself fighting not in the suffocating press of soldiers but with room to move, his blade flashing as he cut down a devil that lunged too close. Misha was a whirlwind at his side, her strikes sharp and merciless. Zion's magic lit the field in brilliant bursts, while other S-ranked squads struck with equal ferocity.
The devils had expected a lumbering mass. What they faced instead was a spearpoint of elites, sharper and deadlier than anything the humans had yet unleashed.
And for the first time, Hiro saw uncertainty ripple through the enemy ranks.
Still, their numbers did not falter. From the horizon came more, their reinforcements pouring in endless waves. Every step the humans advanced, the devils pushed back with twice their number.
By noon, the field was a bloodbath. And yet, unlike before, the vanguard had not been driven back. Their losses were fewer, their line unbroken.
Mia stood at the forefront, frost steaming from her blade, her expression like carved ice. "They finally understand," she murmured, more to herself than to anyone else. "We are not a tide to be turned. We are a storm." The ice enchantress lived up to her name.
Hiro, catching her words, felt a shiver—not of fear, but of awe.
And behind them, Amelia's heart raced. Hidden within the vanguard, her eyes shone with both dread and determination as she clutched her staff beneath her cloak. She was not supposed to be here. Her presence was a betrayal of the Pope's orders. But as she watched Mia lead, as she saw Hiro carve forward with his friends, she knew she could not have stayed behind.
Amelia had been sent to the Delta Post earlier, but the portal was an unguarded door where humans passed through it like it was just any other door, moving to and fro to exchange information and make any necessary preparations.
So Amelia and her guard, Adeline, had informed the delta outpost in charge that they were feeling tired from the earlier days and not to disturb them in their room for a few days, and secretly sneaked into the arena through the portal just in time to volunteer and join the Elites.
The devils had not yet realized there was more than one secret among the humans.