The Chicago skyline had been laid bare. Jada watched as one of the last three skyscrapers in the city collapsed. The monuments of steel and glass had fallen one after the other over the past few weeks, gradually increasing in frequency, despite surviving for 500 days of the assimilation. The loss of another iconic building barely generated a change of expression, so much had already happened before they reached the end.

The atmosphere was full of debris, making the details of each building impossible to perceive, but the silhouette of an eleven hundred foot tall structure practically disintegrating was difficult to ignore. It wasn’t so long ago that other survivors had been using the various buildings as their headquarters, housing people while they fought in the streets and hid from larger threats.

Jada was one of the last who hadn’t either left ahead of time, joining the ranks of the Lighthouse, or simply been killed by the Eradication Protocol. She had listened to the complaints of the others that had made the same choices, lamenting the fact that they hadn’t simply abandoned the city in favor of joining Ghost Reef. They never could have imagined that it would get this bad, but many of the more insistent warnings had been dismissed as fear mongering. When the monsters ramped up the pressure, there was a lot less time to complain.

Jada hadn’t really considered leaving the only place she had ever known either. She wasn’t strong enough to be particularly valuable, and if the situation really was as dire as the outsiders claimed, it seemed like they would be in danger no matter where they ended up. She had sided with familiarity instead of taking the leap of faith, knowing she would probably just be a burden no matter where she ended up. She wasn’t sure if it had been the best choice, or if there had actually been an option that could be considered best, but it wouldn’t do her any good to agonize over decisions that couldn’t be unmade.

The fallen building sent a wave of motion through the golden sands that had swallowed the city, rolling across the rubble of previous collapses. Sheets of dust rushed toward their holdout on the Navy Pier Marina, but the additional debris was ignored as it fell. Heavy blades slashed and long pikes were jabbed forward as reinforced shields diverted fatal claws and gaping jaws, representing more pressing actions that occupied their full attention.

The air was scattered with shining bits, reflecting the red haze still present in the atmosphere, forming the uniform sandstorm. Floating grains shifted above the failing lines of defense, where warriors shouted commands and warnings as they bled and killed.

Beyond the battlefield, the surface of the water was already coated so that it almost looked like shifting quicksand rather than part of a larger body of water. The extra dust just piled on top so that anyone unfamiliar might have believed that Chicago was established at the border of a cold desert.

There was a strange depth to the actual sandstorm, not exactly blinding as it was voluminous. Jada kept her eyes up, incapable of much more than shouting more warnings when she spotted something dangerous approaching.

The fighting continued as the atmosphere changed and grew more claustrophobic. People shouted into the faces of roaring beasts, covered in dust and sweat. The rumble of the demolition only briefly drowned them out.

Jada cast the only spell she could reliably summon, spraying a cloud of healing mists toward the backs of the nearest few fighters. It might help them in the next few contests, but with millions of the lizard-like creatures bounding down the fractured and unlevel surface of East Grand Avenue, there wasn’t much hope left.

As she finished her spell, a distant roar stifled all the rest, echoing across the city and further onto the lake as if it would keep going forever. It was so enormous, it actually caused the fighting on both sides to temporarily stall. Thankfully, it originated from incredibly far away. Whatever monster had emitted such a sound was not something Jada, or anyone else with even an inkling of sanity would be eager to meet.

The call for another retreat was made, and the people in direct combat with the monsters did their best to disengage in the surprise pause. They fell back to the next set of obstacles, leaving the collapsed Centennial Wheel behind. The piled rubble from a parking garage gave them a small amount of high ground, but it also made it clear that the people fighting on the opposite side of the pier were long gone.

The dragons moved like a pack of wolves seizing an opportunity, pouncing at their flank as they crossed the rubble. The group shrank as people fell, sometimes being snatched off their feet and dragged into the mass of enemies, still shouting in fear or anger. They couldn’t immediately reform the battle line, causing the remnants to retreat even further, until their backs were facing the water as the pier narrowed.

Only one man from the original rescue party survived, and though he fought valiantly, his efforts weren’t enough without the rest of his party. The locals did their best to fill the gaps, but there was an obvious difference in preparedness.

Their position finally stabilized, having already retreated a dozen previous times as the scaled dragons pushed them back from their long held outpost in Jane Addams Park. They had been split into four different masses when their perimeter was first broken, but it had been too long since there were any flashes of battle coming from the partially submerged peninsula to their north. If Jada squinted, she could barely make out the outline of the neighboring sea walls poking above the flooded interior. Based on the mana in the air, it was clear that the pylon had already been destroyed and the others had fallen.

A subtle tremor ran through the ground shortly after the fighting stabilized, causing the quicksand lake to stir, but the defenders had no time to contemplate what it meant. If anything, it was more of the same. A monster bringing death.

There weren’t many people left. Jada thought it was almost a joke that she was one of them. As she cast her spell for the thousandth time, she started to wonder why they didn’t just give up. Even she, as weak as she was, hadn’t considered the obvious option of laying down and letting the inevitable happen. As far as she had seen, no one had abandoned their positions. Why? Weren’t they only making their last weeks harder than they needed to be? It was almost out of spite that they killed the monsters. They all knew more would come.

They spent another half day in that formation, barely holding on as more and more of them succumbed to the effects of the poisonous mana, the building weakness enabling the monsters to land savage blows. The one member of the Lighthouse continued to hold on for all their sakes. She thought he should have been the first one to escape.

The lizards had been smaller on average when the fighting began, but after a few weeks, the majority of their enemies were the size of mustangs, charging with lethal ferocity. He was the only individual that could fully counter everything the monsters threw at them, though at the start they had all contributed equally.

That they weren’t completely overrun earlier was a testament to the power the defenders had accumulated. The assimilation hadn’t been easy on them, and those who overcame its struggle entered the Eradication Protocol with more combat experience than any of them could have imagined accumulating. They may have been nameless as far as the leaderboards were concerned, but that didn’t preclude them from developing incredible skills. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough. Even with help, it wasn’t enough.

The ground continued to shake on occasion, vibrating with more and more intensity each time. The next roar was much closer. They could just make out a looming shadow in the sands on the other side of the city. The outline of enormous wings expanding such that they reached from horizon to horizon spelled absolute doom for them all. This time, they all knew it.

The last of the buildings collapsed, practically exploding into dust with the roar, and even the pier itself seemed to momentarily liquify, the concrete buckling and giant slabs of pavement cracking and forming miniature mountains like a scale model of shifting tectonic plates. The hovering sands shook, mirroring the surface of the lake as it formed bizarre square waves that made no progress in any direction. Instead they rose and fell before ultimately disappearing into the coating of sand.

It was amazing that they held on at all. They had to give full credit to the man and his lost companions, who had laid it all on the line to save anyone at all, but as they retreated for the final time, moving beyond the ruined foundations of the Navy Pier Auditorium, they seemed to be approaching their limit. Their numbers had been cut down by thousands of reptilian monsters so that only a dozen people remained. Jada’s healing spray reached all of them, but of the members of the backline, she was the last. None of the casters or ranged attackers had been able to avoid flanking attacks and brief breaches of the frontline besides her. Dumb luck was her only excuse.

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When the outsider who had become their primary tank suddenly lurched with a devastating wound, losing his footing in the deteriorated concrete, he adjusted and tackled his attacker, dragging them both over the side and into the water. Hundreds of the lizards dove after them, transforming the caked layers that had collected on the surface into whitewater froth. While he didn't resurface, neither did any of the enemies.

With his death, their last speck of hope was lost. The rest of the fighters collapsed, running all the way to the end of the pier where they silently accepted that they would die fighting. Giving the opportunity for the monsters to engage them in the water was an even worse proposition than standing on their two feet and facing death with their heads held high.

The shadow of the world-ending dragon loomed midway through the city, its brilliant golden scaled snout already above the start of the pier, nostrils flaring as if it was specifically seeking them out. In between, millions of still unreasonably sized lizards pushed forward, like a wave being generated by the much larger beast’s unhurried movements.

Jada was enraptured, eyes locked on the golden pupils of the colossal reptilian monster that drove them to the brink. The rest of its body was still shrouded by floating sands and red haze, but its eyes pierced through. It took a rough shake for Sam, one of the others, to get her attention, despite yelling in her face.

“Jada!” He was shouting. “You gotta make a swim for it!” He twisted her around, so that she was staring into the layered floating sands above the mana-expanded lake. It was so unrecognizable, it felt like she was staring into another world.

“You remember the breakwater? At least get to that!” He demanded, though it was distant enough to be shrouded in the frozen sandstorm. “We’ll hold off the smaller ones so they don’t chase you! Hurry!” He continued, shoving her toward the broken edge of the pier.

There was no point in even acknowledging the monstrous individual that drove the rest forward. Any resistance directed toward the catastrophic monster was so clearly pointless it was better left unsaid. The mere presence of the dragon seemed to cause mana itself to intensify, as if it magnified the corrosive aura that had already been felt planet-wide. Just being within miles of the creature made their skin burn.

Jada looked back at the others as Sam rejoined the shieldwall and realized she had to do what he said. It was the last request of those who were prepared to die. For the sake of the ones who were already dead, and the ones who faced the end with weapons still in their hands, she would try. She allowed one last glance at the Golden Wyrm God before she took a deep breath and jumped off the edge.

The layer of floating sand did nothing to slow her momentum before she hit the lake, practically liquid itself. The water was too cold for a casual swim, and as she sank, the shock of the brisk temperature had her opening her eyes wide, terrified of finding more monsters waiting for her in the frigid depths. She was already helpless against them, but while in the water she had even less ability to resist any attacks.

Visibility was even worse while submerged, barely any light breaking through the surface, but she swam forward, doing her best to go in a straight line. When her head emerged she was only half a pool length away from the pier and she could still hear her companions fighting. She wasn’t the strongest swimmer, but she obediently kicked her legs and paddled with her arms until she was completely alone, with nothing but sand and silence in every direction, the water sufficiently hiding any tears that escaped as she was forced to abandon her companions.

It would be too easy to get lost, but there was no point in overthinking things. She kept moving, obeying the others until a huge shadow appeared in her path. She stopped to tread water, eyes widening as she panicked, believing she had been turned around and inadvertently swam back toward the dragon boss, as if she couldn’t do anything right.

It was practically skimming across the surface, flying so low that its belly was cutting the top of the water. Before she could make out the pointed snout or the flared shadow of a wing that cast darkness across its flanks, she dove back underwater, believing it was her only chance. She flailed all of her limbs doing everything in her power to force herself deeper and deeper into the darkness of the cold water, praying that the trail of bubbles wouldn’t give her away.

Barely a second after she dove back down a tendril wrapped around her waist and dragged her right out of the water and high into the air, refusing to let her escape. She squealed, thrashing her body in resistance, thinking a forked tongue had found her and she was about to be dropped into the monster’s gullet.

Before she fully understood what was going on, the ropes that had snagged her from the water released and she rolled onto the wooden deck of a massive ship, instead of down the dragon’s throat, dripping wet and in shock. She coughed, opening her eyes after she had squeezed them shut in fear and found herself staring at tall leather boots. She followed the legs up until she regarded a pirate captain with a cutlass held in one hand looking down on her.

“Oy! What happened?” The captain demanded an answer.

“My friends…” Jada coughed. “There’s a dragon!” She sputtered, looking around, feeling discombobulated, like she had been dragged onto a movie set.

“You hear that Sharkbait!” The captain shouted. “It’s here!”

A moment after the pirate’s declaration bells were ringing not just on the ship, but also in the shrouded distance, as if hundreds of others were hidden in the haze, their responses muffled by the sands. Jada was struggling to catch her breath from the terror she had felt as she sat up and leaned against a wooden pillar, eyes pinned on the horizon as the ship returned the way she had come. As much as she wanted to go back for her companions, she was terrified of encountering the dragon.

The ship itself was a mess, with half the crew occupied with making emergency repairs to broken sections of the deck, holding together a gap in the side of the ship where something at least as large as the Golden Wyrm God seemed to have taken an enormous bite through the railing all the way to the waterline, or tending to dozens of wounded people that had the same shocked expression as she did.

The sail that she had mistaken for a wing was torn across the center, leaving it dragging in the wind while others took on the burden of gathering wind. There wasn’t an inch of surface on the deck that wasn’t marked with either claws or scorched by flames, but they seemed to be picking up all the survivors they encountered, all while on the hunt for worthy prey.

An explosive roar echoed across the lake, greeting the ship as the pier barely came back into view through the haze. The sound was so loud, Jada’s hearing gave out, and she was left with a simple ringing as the ship banked hard, rocking itself firmly enough that she worried they might flip and she would be sent swimming once again.

The dragon jerked its head back just as it came into view, snapping its jaw shut so that a plume of sand and smoke was sent from both sides as a barrage of cannons caught it on the nose and face. The pirate captain was standing on the marred railing, holding a single rope, the same one that had dragged Jada from the water, pointing with her sword and shouting.

Another set of cannons fired and smoke emerged from the side of the ship. The bombardment was so ferocious, sections where the deck had been weakened buckled and snapped, sending bits of wood into the air as crew members rushed to keep everything together. Jada had the impression that this was not their first time in a battle like this one.

Jada glanced up as bright light tore her attention from the captain and she witnessed a dozen flaming meteors shooting across the sky from somewhere far beyond the ship. The projectiles were tearing through the stationary sands before they ultimately smashed into the dragon.

When they collided with the monster they exploded into splashes of flame that refused to go out. The light reflected off the golden scales, revealing that a hundred grand ballistas had also been fired, piercing the flesh of the monstrous enemy and embedding themselves between scales. Golden blood dribbled from where spikes of metal and wood had been driven into the monster’s flesh, down its neck and beneath its wings. The firepower was incredible, but there was no way it would be enough to kill the enormous dragon.

She couldn’t imagine how many other ships were hidden in the sands over the rest of the lake, launching such a bombardment, knowing what they were up against. They had enough power to turn the dragon that had seemed completely unstoppable, delaying its progress to the end of the pier while the ship drew close enough to attack the smaller lizards with their siege weapons.

Before she knew it Sam and the others were onboard, all sitting together, looking as shocked as she had, receiving treatment from a peg-legged pirate while the ship banked away. The cannons kept firing as her hearing returned, tracking the monster even as they moved multiple miles back offshore. They were the picture of exhaustion as they huddled next to what seemed like a mobile mana pylon on the main ship, too confused to ask any questions.

The dragon roared as they escaped, sending a wave of sand that moved like a tidal wave across the lake, rocking the ships like bath toys before it completely disappeared into the haze. The captain shouted threats back, having to be held back by several of her crew.

She was furious that her fleet couldn’t finish the job. She demanded its scales for the sides of her ships and claimed she would hang its head from the canal bridge while another member of the crew used the mana crystal to report the positive identification of an Icon of Mana to their headquarters.

Jada, Sam, and the other survivors were asked to explain everything that had happened and they shared the story of a single rescue party from the Lighthouse holding out against the Golden Wyrm God and all of its minions. They had fought to the end so that even a handful of them would have a chance to live, and somehow they had succeeded.