The knights arrived and, without waiting for any kind of notification of the state of the battle, immediately threw themselves into it, helping the inhabitants of Stravagon who, although extremely motivated to save their city, were still just that...
...Civilians.
There were already many casualties among the Stravagon fighters, and their morale was beginning to dwindle.
So, the arrival of the knights' garrison proved to be a great blessing, and a message of hope. Rekindling the flame of their will, they went back on the attack — the Negacion being the one to pay the ultimate price, on the receiving end.
As for the beast, although it was badly battered and weakened, it did not show any sign of giving up the slightest centimetre of ground, and its attacks were as devastating as ever. Like a cornered beast, it unleashed all its strength in this fateful battle.
Of course, its existence was threatened, but for a Basura, the awareness of being in danger was primarily inconceivable, simply because they didn't really do any thinking.
Yet this was the first time, since it was hatched that it had felt menaced — or rather the second if you count the first attack. But no one knew whether a 'resurrected' Negacion could have memories, as there had never been such a precedent.
Among the few knights who had remained a little behind, one was casting lightning spells and ordering other men what kind of formations to adopt.
Lunging at the beast, he raised his sword, which immediately released small electrical impulses.
He struck the Negacion's flank and his blade hit the mark, pouring electricity into the monster's black flesh. He then dodged a jet of rubble, pulverised another with a lightning strike of his sword, and struck the creature again.
Under his command, the knights launched a series of attacks that affected the monster, increasingly enraged by these new pests.
When the opportunity arose, the knight, who appeared to be a captain, or something of the sort, withdrew from the front and joined the mayor and Yugo.
The man, whose build was already imposing regardless of his armour, advanced proudly and calmly, demonstrating the serenity that characterised him. His chestnut-coloured hair fluttering in the night wind accompanied a pale green cloak.
He stopped at the level of the mayor and greeted him.
"Good evening, Mr Mayor. I am the knight-banneret Willfors, commander of the second garrison of the knights of the county of Merina... I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for our tardiness!"
Karlen looked at the man and sighed.
Straightening his glasses, which were cracked on the right side, over his hooked nose, he turned his face towards the battle taking place on the esplanade.
"It's not me you owe an apology to... but all those people out there, the ones your men are fighting alongside." He replied, pointing to the bodies of the citizens who were being removed from the esplanade by other people, and the rest of the inhabitants who continued to fight alongside the knights.
The garrison leader observed the scene and bowed his head respectfully.
At the same moment, Yugo rose to his feet and went to stand in front of the man in armour, visible rage dancing inside his scarlet pupils.
"Can you please explain yourself, sir knight?... What is the reason for your long—"
"Who is this young, impertinent, vagabond?" interrupted the knight, with a disdainful glance at Yugo.
"Wha..."
"If I were you, I'd shut up immediately, Knight Willfors..." Interjected Aleone, displaying one of her many hypocritical smiles.
"...This vagabond, as you call him, is the reaper who sacrificed himself all this time while you were happily twiddling your thumbs at your base." She said, closing her eyes and placing her now black left index finger on her cheek — supporting her chin with her middle finger and thumb.
The man in armour froze.
"Besides, he's an emissary of the shadows, so a noble. So if I were in your place, I'd reconsider my attitude towards him!" Karlen added.
"I-I'm sorry, young master. I didn't know!" replied the knight, in a panic.
Yugo looked at him, and discretely sneered.
"And above all, without him we'd be in real trouble! His age clearly has no influence on his bravery!" emphasised Rickard, who was following the scene from the rear.
He smiled and winked at Yugo, who returned the gesture.
The young boy felt pride and gratitude, not only because his actions had proved his philosophy of competence in spite of age, but also and above all because these people, whom he had only known for a single day, had become true allies on whom he could count.
"Anyway, what's the reason for your tardiness? A misunderstanding of the mayor's request? Some hesitation? Or an interference from a higher authority?" asked Yugo sharply.
He got straight to the point, wanting to make sure he wasn't dealing with another religious lunatic, or at least one of their allies.
"Um... In truth, young master, we did receive a request from the mayor about three days ago. But when we sent the request to the headquarters of the regional chivalric order, in order to set out and dispatch our troops, near and inside the city, a note of refusal to intervene was sent back to us." replied the knight.
''So a blocking by superior order!" muttered Yugo, holding his chin with his thumb and forefinger.
He thought for a few seconds, then exhaled.
''But then, if you've been given such an order, why are you here?" he finally asked, his eyes staring into those of the man in armour.
The knight lingered for a moment and, shifting his gaze towards the battlefield,answered in a somewhat shameful tone:
"Well, I found the refusal suspicious, so I tried to override the regional decision by contacting the national order directly this morning. And that's when I learned that apparently the SCYTHE agency suspected the knightly order of having been infiltrated by a group calling itself the 'Inner Circle...' or something."
Hearing this news shocked them all.
" Crap! So they'd managed to get that far." Aleone muttered
"Hmm... So it was true that Stravagon was one of their targets, then." Said Karlen.
"Well, everything seems to suggest so, Mr Mayor. It was unbearable not to be able to act more quickly, but we had to find out how far their influence within the knighthood extended..."
He paused for a moment to catch his breath.
"And in the middle of the present evening, I received a message from the Knight-Commander himself, who immediately had the notice from regional HQ cancelled, insisting on bringing the help needed to subjugate the Negacion to the reapers on site, and so we were able to come!"
Yugo smiled as he heard the last part of this tale.
'So she really did it!' exclaimed Yugo inwardly, with a smile.
As he said this, Rickard shouted for them all to take cover:
"GET DOWN!"
Without a second thought, Yugo conjured up a new barrier, which immediately received a shock.
An explosion swept across the scene, and the blast raised a cumulus nimbus of dust that blinded the people inside the barrier, which didn't last very long.
Some were thrown backwards, instinctively clutching at columns, grass, someone else, or anything else that could hold them back, so as not to be swept away.
Once they had all recovered from the shock, and the cloud of dust had begun to descend, they checked on everyone. Relieved to see that there had been more fear than harm on their part — well, according to the miserably low standard of safety in this situation — they turned their heads in the direction of the esplanade to find out what had happened, as the cloud of dust had completely subsided.
A range of expressions similar to those of prisoners condemned to death row immediately engraved themselves on their faces...
...That is to say: incomprehension, despair and terror in the face of a death that seemed to be gaining ground.
"Hey... what's that?!" Rickard said, pointing towards the ruined cathedral's esplanade, with an expression of sheer terror distorting his usual resilient, if not cheerful, face.
On the esplanade, which had become a veritable maze of rubbles, the Negacion looked as if it had almost entirely regenerated. An unimpaired pair of eyes was now scanning the place at full speed, meticulously observing the ants that were swarming everywhere underneath.
Its tail had regained a little more length, not as long as it was at the start, but at least long and thick enough to shatter the stone garden floor every time it whipped around.
The guts of the creature were no longer fully visible from its belly, and the clawed seal specific to the creature's race shone with its pale orange glow — which at that moment was more a sign of ill omen than anything else — while still dripping a little of the black blood. The gas and blackish slimy mucus coming out of its skin was once again abundant, and on its mandibles were the shredded flesh and viscera of some poor citizen.
However, his paws were in the same condition as before the knights' intervention, and the perforation marks were not closing up, leaving little cascades of black blood flowing here and there.
The esplanade itself was covered in rubble and dust cloud, with the shredded and scattered bodies of numerous citizen-combatants as well as those of the knights littering the ground.
...A scene of nameless horror.
Some people tried to get up, only to fall back down again, exhausted. Others were amputated as brutally and horribly as Rickard had been.
Some others had been decapitated or impaled by shards of metal from the cars, that were now barely recognisable carcasses of metal forging.
Cries of pain, agony and pleading for death could be heard everywhere.
"You've got to be kidding me! It has regenerated?" Yugo growled desperately.
Yet, despite the looming desperation, some still tried to organise a semblance of order. The survivors split into two groups on the tarmac.
On one side, there were those who were safe and sound, not too injured or still able-bodied, and who were trying to get together and group themselves to continue the fight.
On the other were those who were mourning their comrades who had died in the explosion, trying desperately to escape the hell that had decided to visit the cathedral; or those who had lost their heads in the face of this horror.
Some of them, for that matter, were committing suicide while laughing, carried away by the madness that had taken root in their brains, now tired of thinking and seeing the cruel reality before them.
Yugo ran to the esplanade and did a quick check of the situation.
'We can't give him a moment's peace or we'll all be in deep trouble!'
He did a visual scan of the square, and sighed a little.
As desperate as the situation seemed, he realised that the citizens and knights who were still fighting were managing to inflict some damage, albeit minor, on the Negacion, which was content to keep flicking its tail here and there.
But the most intriguing thing was that this was all the monster was capable of doing: It was only wagging its tail.
"What's going on?"
Aleone came and stood next to him, beckoning him to look in the direction of the creature's seal.
He turned his gaze towards the beast's abdomen and pulled a face that oscillated between astonishment and relief.
'The glow has faded again!' he exclaimed, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
In fact, the orange glow, which had originally been pale, had now been tinted more yellow than orange, and its intensity was similar to that of a candle at the last glow of its wax.
In short, the glow was faint.
On further observation, he also noticed that the monster's tail swings were slower and weaker, to the point where the fighters were able to avoid them.
And as if all that wasn't already good news — despite the permanent desolation that reigned on this battlefield — the creature seemed unable, or at least unwilling, to use its remaining paws, merely standing still and wagging its tail.
Even the human remains on the mandibles eventually fell off, having stopped moving and chewing the carcass.
'He's weakening!'
Not even thinking twice about it, Yugo charged towards the battle, which was still raging to some extent, the defenders not letting up on the Negacion, who didn't have a single second's respite, overwhelmed by the repeated assaults of the defenders.
On his way, he picked up a sword that was lying around and continued on his path, towards the troop of fighters who had just retreated because of an imminent blow from the tail.
He incanted his barrier. As the tail bounced off the energy defence, he struck with the same momentum, thrusting the sword into the beast's tail with all his might. The blade snapped in two, part of it stuck in the monster's appendage because it wasn't as strong as Yugo's black, palatinite sword.
He smiled, pleased with his action, and urged the fighters to continue their assaults, insisting that the creature was growing weaker and weaker under their blows.
Actually, that wasn't really the case.
The blows were certainly a fairly important factor in why the Negacion was losing strength and stamina, but the main reason lay elsewhere: willpower.
Indeed, the will to continue fighting and the flame of hope emanating from both the citizens — who wanted more than ever to protect their city — and the knights proved to be a poison against this creature made up mainly of negative emotions and energy.
Of course, Yugo was careful not to say this, opting instead for a lie of omission to maximise the invigorating effect on the troops' minds.
He threw himself further into the battle and summoned a barrier just after jumping, which he used as a platform to reach a greater height.
Once in the air, he cast his transposition spell and found himself in the place of the blade tip.
Planting his edge of the sword — the guard of which cracked — in the monster's tail, Yugo began to push and run all the way to the base of the creature's back, releasing a messy stream of blackish blood, gas and slimy mucus as he went.
The creature screamed in agony and wanted to move, but Yugo, who had already reached the beast's back, grabbed on with all his strength, now renewed thanks to Doctor Tory's intervention.
Even his broken arm and cracked ribs were in a somewhat good condition. By what kind of miracle? He couldn't say, having been unconscious for quite a while and already healed by the time he had woken up.
In any case, and what mattered in the present situation, was that his improved condition meant he could fight again and possibly stop the monster that was rampaging about.
The Negacion forced itself to move its legs, probably wanting to knock the impertinent man off its back and, at the same time, crush the troublemakers below, but instead it waddled like a baby fawn that didn't know how to walk yet, and collapsed on its side — leaving its abdomen exposed.
Yugo, who had anticipated the fall, threw a pebble from the monster's back and transferred himself to it as soon as it hit the ground.
''HIT IT IN THE BELLY!" shouted Yugo to the brave resistance troops who were beginning to get used to the rhythm of the battle again.
They charged in at once, clubbing, shredding and even piercing the belly of the beast, which was screaming like an animal being skinned alive.
Black blood spurted out, splattering over a small group, and then viscera, already in bad shape, spurted out, accompanied by the putrid smell of the beast's insides.
The glow grew paler and paler, almost turning grey this time.
Still, the monster managed to get to its feet, and with what little strength it had left, jumped up and collapsed inside what was, until an hour ago, St. Meroa's Cathedral.
It raised its head and opened its mouth, letting out a wolf-like cry in contrast to its lizard-like form.
Immediately afterwards, a cloudy mass of black dust - similar to that which had caused the monster's rebirth - rose up, originating from the bodies of the dead citizens and knights, and whirled like a storm.
The mass of black particles moved towards the open maw of the giant lizard, and infiltrated it.
Immediately, a pounding sound was heard, so powerful that it shook the ground.