Lena knows she should be intimidated by the sheer size of this demon mutant spider, but its movements are sloppy at best. It wasn't like that one humanoid creature she'd faced that moved too much like a human.

Now that she's sliced one of its legs and taken out one eye, it is stumbling against one of the destroyed buildings, creating more damage in the area.

When they've successfully dragged the soldier who'd fallen earlier out from under the demon's clutches, Lena asks for the men to move out and clear the space.

Even with one large eye gone, the demon's multiple eyes still allow for vision, glowing red with anger. It lets out a shrill sound and clack its front teeth in retaliation, slamming one of its limbs into the buildings and causing it to collapse. The soldiers scatter, losing formation.

"Do something!" one of them shouts to Lena, as if she is any better than them all.

With a demon of this size, there is no way Lena will be able to take it down with only her ability and her daggers; she'll need something more powerful.

She looks to the retreating figures. Caelus had been right to drop her off here, since they are obviously struggling without a Catalyst or at the very least an immature ability user in sight. These regular patrol guards are only here to help out as best they can after the evacuation of the civilians because the situation in Delphinus obviously requires any help they can possibly get. It just happens that this giant demon is yet to be dealt with by any other strong ability users in the area, and this group is trying their best to make sure it doesn't run rampant by rounding it up in a corner.

These guards may not be ability users—or perhaps only possessing certain latent type and not offensive abilities—but they have the authorities' full support, and judging by their gear, they have the best weapons in this city.

Lena points to a heavy two handed canon barrel slung over one of their shoulders. "Are you any good with that?"

"Y-Yes," the young guard says at full attention, standing tall as Lena turns to him. She's taken aback by how awfully young he is beneath the white patrol mask. "But we haven't been able to get a clear shot—"

"Done," Lena says, flexing her knives.

"What?"

"You need a shot, right? I'll get you one."

He's sputtering a reply, but she's already moving. Lena isn't too cocky to think that she can somehow take this demon alone with her arsenal; she might be able to stall and injure it at best, but she'll never be able to completely disintegrate it into ashes.

If anything, they've successfully enraged the demon further. Its constant thrashing is resulting in further damage in their surroundings, and it's no longer safe for them to stand within a few feet of the demon's movements. Buildings are collapsing due to the demon's size and strength.

The only benefit out of this is the scattered shards of broken glass littered around them. Lena doesn't even need to pull out her own.

At least with the civilians out of the way, the only thing the guards are waiting for is an open shot through this demon. Considering the mess they are dealing with, they can barely keep their feet on the ground to fire up the gun. Ironically, the demon isn't doing this on purpose. It's just large enough to withstand certain regular attacks, and its weight is rather fearsome so the guards are busy keeping themselves away from being crushed.

Regular weapons don't work on its tough skin, so Lena has to trust the person she'd just spoken to with the two handed canon blaster to be able to take the shot when she clears an opening.

Lena runs off, heading for the other side. It stands tall on eight bending legs—if they could even be called legs—and the one she had inflicted damage to earlier is still oozing dark blood. Good, this means that it cannot regenerate. As she passes the left side of its four limbs, she stabs the injured one once more for good measure, making sure it no longer has the balance to thrash around.

The result is instantaneous. Apart from the spray of black liquid over Lena's face and hands, the crumble of one of its limbs acting as a pillar holding its much too heavy body upright now tilts the demon's centre of gravity. It slips even further to one side, limiting its movement. She slices another one, this time harder and with one of her longer and sharper blades, rendering another limb useless for the demon's support. With two oozing blood on one side, the demon loses balance entirely. The side of its two part body careens into the building beside them, and Lena takes the opportunity to run into it, where all the glass shards are there as an open invitation.

She steels her nerve before she can regret it, and plunges into the glass in the lower floor, mind set on reappearing on the other end.

Never has Lena willingly want to be on a higher floor before, especially not to fall from it. Then again, she has never jumped from a hoverboard before either.

When she emerges from the highest floor of the shortest and nearest building, she makes herself focus on the demon rather than the pavement below as she kicks the side to launch herself forward. The distance is much shorter than her earlier jump from the air. Once again, she rolls onto the demon's back, this time to stab two daggers along its back. She uses them as purchase even as the demon stumbles, climbing further upward toward its head that connects to the large body.

Its pincers are snapping the moment it notices Lena's approach. She digs a blade further in its tough skin to make sure she doesn't fall off, and yanks as hard as she can to the side she knows that it is unsteady.

Throwing her weight against the demon's falling movements, she successfully manages to distract it enough as it stops thrashing to try and snip at her with its vicious pincers, throwing its head back constantly in an attempt to throw the sting in its head off.

Lena looks to where she'd left the young man with the cannon, relieved to find him still there, heaving it up and aiming.

"Fire now!" she screams, hoping he wouldn't hesitate.

The moment she hears the whirring power up of the gun is the moment she leaps once again, this time to safety. The timing is impeccable; she's barely able to avoid the blast as she resurfaces near the soldier who'd fired the shot. He startles to see her, but the cannon manages to fire right through the demon's head and pierces into its body entirely, even puncturing two buildings behind it.

Lena holds up the man who stumbles from the recoil, and once the light disintegrates along with the demon in flaking ashes, there is a pause before the people around her cheer in a blurred, delayed victory.

The young protocol guard who'd been the one who dealt the finishing blow turn to her with an extended hand. Despite the mess Lena is in, he seems eager to shake on it, so she does him the honor.

"This perimeter was considered cleared, until earlier, when one of the demons slipped past the first line of defense," he is explaining, shaking her hand much too enthusiastically. He eventually lets go to point to the sky where the rift is active not too far away, its edges glowing red. The spots of black indicate the demons flocking the perimeter, and the blasts of color every now and then are the ability users in action. "Even with the strongest up there, they are swamped with the sheet amount of entering demons—we've never seen an attack in such hordes. And because of the abnormally high amount of ability output in this battle, the demons in the area are getting out of control. We are the ones who are on clean up duty," he says sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head, "you know, to get rid of the lesser demons. But at this rate, we're being overwhelmed."

Lena barely hears the rest of it, distractedly looking up at the rift a few blocks away. Never have the City of Leatia faced a rift that they couldn't conquer within a few hours; this one seems to be bursting with energy, swelling in size as the army of demons continue to pour out from its dimensional gate.

Only when the current attacking swarm of demons are dealt with, the wave cleared, do rifts close on its own accord, probably like a surrender from the other side. The humans never have any control in the opening of these gates—that is, until the Shadow Syndicate first showed up during the Arcane Academy Annual Games with a rift they seem to manipulate. Lena wonders if this rift is different because of that.

"Miss?"

Lena brings her gaze back down to ground level, but it isn't because of the soldier's gushing statements. She begins to feel uneasy, and even if she has zero experience on the field, what she feels right now is exactly what she will later note as a sort of keen instinct. Her eyes are focused as she looks around, a few of her throwing knives palmed and ready.

"There are more," she says in passing to the guard, hoping that this will make the others in the vicinity be on alert.

The first black blur of mass pounces before she can react, and it tears into the body of one of the guards a few feet away.

Lena doesn't waste time on shock or reaction; her throwing knives are flying in the next direction she spies where the fast demons are coming from. It only manages to stop one of the blurred figures before another is on her, and she draws a longer blade to defend herself.

It's a demonic wolf, very much like the ones she now recalls being in the academy illegally on her first day. Except now, the demons look much stronger close up. Beside her, the soldiers start firing at random with their laser guns, frantically backing up until they are cluttered together. She looks on in alarm, trying to warn them that it's a mistake to crowd in together because that will mean letting the demons surround them. Unfortunately, she's fighting off a few as they keep coming, moving in a pack, and is barely registering where she moves until she bumps into one of the guards, who isn't moving at all as he quakes in fear.

These demons are fast, but weak in general. Still, they are winning in numbers and speed, surrounding them extremely quickly. Since they don't have a high ground to avoid this pack, the guards are flailing as they are soon swarmed with the demons' impressive speed.

As Lena fights off the one that is pressing in on her with a long dagger against its open mouth, she's distracted by the people around her. She can easily use her abilities and be as nimble to avoid and then counter attack these wolves, but the soldiers will be done for, considering their positions and their reaction time against these faster demons. Already, two have fallen.

The few Lena has taken down easily with some of her first throwing knives are already regaining their stride. She can only kill them if she stabs hard enough and at a nearer distance; aiming and throwing will only wound them unless it's straight to their fatal points.

She eventually overpowers the demon with its fangs braced on her, slashing the dagger hard and deep against it and kicking it forcefully off.

The only benefit out of all of them backing in a circle is that Lena can easily ward off the demons one by one as they close in and protect the guards who are finally beginning to fire back with their regular guns, but soon they will be surrounded for real.

Unless they get through the entire pack, but there is no telling how many of them are left. From the looks of it, they are still gathering their numbers, slowly prancing out from the buildings around them. They must have been attracted to that strong blast of power; the weapons the City of Leatia developed are also based on ability essence, after all. And demons? They're all but attracted to high ability power and output.

Lena's initial growing fear about how she is going to take these demons alone while protecting the regular patrol guards soon diminish to nothing but a rhythm of war. The soldiers who were initially in shock at the ambush and loss of comrades have now picked up their weapons, their own defense line forming as they fire back with their arsenal. Even when the demons reorganize their pack and come at them suddenly in waves, they manage to hold their ground, Lena only having to throw an occasional stray dagger here and there to stall for them to get back at it. Only another man has fallen thus far since the first unpredicted attack.

She supposes she shouldn't be surprised, ashamed for a moment to think them dead weight. They may not be as strong as the professional Catalysts, but they have certainly seen their fill of battles; what they lack in talent is made up with their field experience, which is the exact opposite for the students of Arcane Academy.

As the demons begin to slow in their approach as their pack thins out, Lena has a renewed worry: this much concentration of energy output in a short amount of time is going to attract other demons, just like how the demonic wolves found them in the first place when they have defeated the giant spider.

She contemplates them for a moment, looking toward where the rift is, and briefly recalls the direction she'd came from.

"Try to be on the move," she says to the recovering group. They seem alert albeit worn out from the last encounter without a break, and they immediately fan themselves out, knowing what Lena is going to say next. "Our earlier encounter has definitely drawn certain attention, and will continue to attract these monsters. Stick together, though, and stay in the outer perimeter."

The guards don't need to be told twice as they disperse, quickly moving out and talking among themselves about securing the next intersection; and this is just in time, too, because a sudden quake rumbles beneath her feet. Lena stumbles and trips over her boots as she avoids the cracks, deciding that it's about time to use her abilities wisely since the demons are already seeking them out anyhow. If anything, it might serve as a distraction until the soldiers get to the next block and regain their momentum clearing the regular wave of demons that are already lurking around.

For them to have been involved with the higher leveled demon that Lena had helped with earlier, though... Lena contemplates about this as she looks up once more to the rift, hoping Caelus' arrival might ease the situation slightly at their supposed first line of defense.

Another crack in the pavement forces her attention back, and she has to jump to avoid the spreading crevice. She braces for a demon, and since the fissure in the ground is spreading wide open, she makes sure to stay a length away as she wonders what she will be facing next.

She's almost much too tense, her grip hard on both a jagged glass shard and a dagger in her other hand. After the quaking has stopped, she realizes that she's been waiting on nothing at all.

Even stranger, the area seems to have quieted down. Shifting her choice of weapons to only one hand, Lena bends down to press a palm against the splintered pavement. Something about this entire scene appears awfully familiar; exactly where has she seen this before? The return of her memories is making it harder to pinpoint the exact thing she's looking for.

Because of how distracted she is, she doesn't realize that something has already snuck up on her until it's too late. She's let her guard down because it had seemed rather peaceful after the strange quake has settled down without the appearance of any other demon, but that was clearly a mistake.

A chill runs down her spine as she turns, just in time to meet the attack of something staggering toward her over the edge of her short blade.

Lena is already near the ground, so she tries not to be oppressed entirely, because that will mean instant defeat. But with her heart racing from the sudden scare and her knees bent at an awfully odd angle in the time it took for her instincts to save her life, she's losing balance.

With one last push she forces the blade down in an angle near the ground so she can see through the darkness that had lashed out at her—and the thing that had creeped up on her.

The moment the force upon her blade lightens, she immediately scrambles backwards, putting distance between them. She's back on her feet now, and only then she takes in what is before her slowly and unbelievingly, for it is not a demon she is facing, nor a man.

Her blood chills. It's something in between.

Lena realizes with horror that beneath the dark aura swirling around the morphing form that now represents neither demon or man is the corpse of one of the soldiers that had fallen earlier.

This new sight nearly costs her a few precious seconds she cannot afford, because while she is trying to comprehend what exactly her eyes are taking in, the thing makes its advance on her.

She fumbles in shock, and the grip on her weapon loosens—

Before her, a flash of steel clashes with a blur of shadow. Interrupted by a sudden force, both sides are struck back. This allows Lena to immediately pull herself back together from the initial fright, and she's all but ready to withdraw from this scene through the safety of her glass dimensions, before registering rather belatedly an ally's arrival.

"Honeybee," Azalea drawls, though she only spares Lena a brief glance before warning, "That's no longer a human."