The Author's POV

[Earth]

The blue sky above seemed to shimmer and vibrate. The clouds parted, and then suddenly the sky began to crack, like a fragile pane of glass that was subjected to too much stress.

C... crack―!

The first fracture appeared, jagged and rough-edged, and then another, and another, until the sky was a spiderweb of broken blue glass.

From within the cracks, shapes began to emerge, strange and distorted, like figures from another dimension breaking through into this one.

Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!

Figures materialized into the sky, one after another. Their faces were pallid and drawn, their eyes sunken and haunted. They stumbled out of the cracks, their bodies haggard and trembling.

"We're here!"

One of them cried out, a note of relief in his voice.

"We've made it."

Another echoed, sounding more exhausted than triumphant.

After their emergence, more and more figures began to materialize from the fissure in the sky, eventually filling the entirety of the sky with their respective numbers.

The sky above them had stopped cracking, but it remained a deep, unsettling shade of blue, like a bruise on the face of the world.

Swoosh!

As the last of the survivors emerged from the portal, they took stock of their surroundings.

They were standing on top of what appeared to be a city, albeit one with peculiar building styles. The buildings were long and rectangular in shape, and the majority of their surfaces were covered in glass.

Other than that, it was eerily silent.

There were no sounds of life or movement, no signs of civilization or activity.

"Are we in the right place?"

"This is Earth?"

The survivors gathered together, their faces etched with fatigue and anxiety.

They were well aware that they had cheated death by a razor's edge and that it was only a matter of time before it caught up with them; at the moment, they were merely attempting to cling onto their last hope with the remaining forces on earth.

Soon...

Soon, the demons were going to come, and only one ending crossed their minds.

The survivors could feel it in their bones—a deep, primal fear that made their hearts race and their palms sweat.

"What's going on here? Where are all the humans?"

elven figures said. Their eyes swept the area around them, and as they extended their mana in an effort to detect the presence of any form of life,

one of the elven elders voiced out

it like

because I've made

and everyone turned their heads to see

he appeared not far

"Who are you?"

asked, her voice filled with caution. She was a short dwarven elder

a question I'm

replied, his voice neither humble nor overbearing, but with a certain authority that made it

elder

He seemed rather amicable.

humans have signed an alliance with our races, and

seem as though he was seeing right through them. He didn't say anything after that and

so

said with no sincerity in

was, but his expression and voice were rather monotone. It was hard to get a

The demons are coming. Where

mouth and glared at the human who

found out that there was no one and that they were being looked down upon

pride couldn't

up, human. You either tell us where the other humans and members

"Or what?"

his head, and his heart dropped at the sight of

"How?"

He stammered.

were also in disbelief. No one

cold gaze fell on him, and for a short moment, he didn't say anything. Even so, for the orc, that one short moment felt like an eternity,

for a

the air tense as everyone

know you're not reinforcements? Look at yourselves. Do you

change, but each one of his words struck the hearts of

"Know your place."

words powerfully rang in

paid them any attention and turned his head away from them

seriously think you managed to escape

gathering the attention toward him

"What do you mean?"

of the dwarven delegates

to escape from the demons. In fact, a lot of our forces fell in order to let us escape. If

"Heh."

could only be described as pity.

went for

could utter a sound, the human

wrong on every

cutting through the tense silence. The human shook his

didn't escape because of your own