The sound of hoofs stomping onto the ground beneath them sounded like a heavenly proclaimed judgement, as if the angelic trumps sounded off to declare the impending and imminent harvest of the righteous and the conflagration of the sinner. The black sheet of night hovered over the heads of the riders with their steeds somberly. The pallid light of the moon in tandem with the brightness of scattered stars, however, made their appearance seem like mystical beacons of hope as it reflected off their burnished metal skin. 

Both wore the regal accoutrements of war at Sujeong's behest. Their sets of armor were plated gold and were identical in nature. They were once worn by a pair of siblings, the former king and his brother, but after they died, they were regarded as historical relics. All 100,000 men who went off to war against the Bugmen had refused the armor for a sense of self-deficiency, but not Myungsoo and Dongwoo. Armor was not the only thing they had been offered. Sujeong had also laden them with choice steeds, white war-horses of royal pedigree in addition to exceptionally crafted broadswords. 

 The riders and their stallions traveled like a swift nimbus, galloping past vast roaring plains, following a lone trail of slime. Disgusting in nature, this repulsive ooze was the only connection the duo were granted between them, the 100,000 fighting men and the diabolical insectoids. It was a thick, viscous liquid that ran through a path that led out from the back of the royal castle and into an idyllic scape.

Little time had passed since Myungsoo and Dongwoo exited the grand kingdom of Diciar. While Sujeong esteemed them as her ultimate hope, they left with zero fanfare- no elaborate procession to celebrate their heroic departure or even a good banquet. Scarcely had they quelled their voracious stomachs with loaves of raisin-cake and a flask of milk. Time was a cutthroat adversary and with every passing minute the chances of Queen Kei being alive decreased. 

The pair had raced through the forest that adjoined Diciar and navigated beyond a river by means of the stone bridge that repaired the breach. Miles upon miles of jade hued veldt followed short, small wooden cabins recurring sparsely in the plain until they abruptly stopped. Behind his slitted visor Myungsoo scowled and groaned with the impatient yearning to complete their quest. The way he rode the galloping horse boasted the many years of experience underneath his belt, of the countless campaigns Oscuridaon had forced him to lead, and of the wars he had lived through. Dongwoo, however, was not too dissimilar, having mounted equine-like beasts many a time in Laroo. Their stallions ran alongside each other, Myungsoo having only the slightest of a lead. His ardor to "get this over with," charged him to harry the horse with orders of "Faster! Faster!"

With the passing of minutes, the pair slowed their pace to absorb the egregious change of their surroundings. The green meadows that once flanked their sides appeared to be a fleeting memory as a scarlet hue became a predominant recurrence. Dashes of crimson splattered across the emerald canvas. In pools of blood rested the bodies of dead men, their eyes piercing through the cosmos in search of the unattainable second chance at life. Yet, their mien bespoke of the long-forgotten traits of timeless heroes and they were not ashamed to have died a worthy death. They wanted to live to save their queen and to then return to the embraces of their wives, children and friends, but the reaper had denounced their request.

Moved by compassion, Dongwoo slowly dismounted his horse and with uncertain steps approached the corpse of a young man, a pitchfork gripped in his hand and with his entrails peeking out. Of the 100,000 men that braved to wage war with the Bugmen, 90,000 were simple farmers and laymen that had never donned a sword. This was one of those farmers, a young villager in the budding of life.

 A succinct twitch of horror and rage tugged at him as he noted the vacant, glassy eyes of the youth. Clear, vivid memories of his mother surfaced. But this was not the same. She had died of natural causes, this youth had not. He whimpered as he knelt to close the eyes of the departed. He prayed a short prayer and stood looming over the body of the dead warrior. 

There brewed a sense of deep, passionate rage stemming from a helplessness in his inner-man. Where once the elemental, base impulses of irrational man remain pinioned to the superb moral aesthetic of a divine philosophy, Nesher's Oracles, there now burst the links which tethered these ignoble values. Melancholy and fury were resonant frequencies in his head, stirring up an unholy storm. Alas, this storm was momentarily stayed by the wise counsel of his companion.

 "There will be many more to mourn over if you don't hasten!" Myungsoo voiced with a severe tone. Besides his own rush to go to Laroo, he suspected a sort of despondency emanating from the air about Dongwoo. He quickly realized his unfamiliarity with the gory nuances of battle. He couldn't lose him now, before the battle even started. If he gave Dongwoo over to swim in the pool of despair, even his mighty hand would fail to save him from drowning. 

As they reigned their horses to restart their trail, the din of battle, marked by the fervent cries of the dying, the brave and the unceasing shrieks of evil manifest, sounded more and more closer.

A cold wind passed over the plains, its blowing swayed the knee-high grass and its heralded the beginning of an apocalyptic vision as the pair crested over a red hill. They stopped again and witnessed the phantasmagoria of war between man and monster. As far as the eyes could see, a crimson ocean and metal shining underneath starlights. Those armored figures were overwhelmed in number by their compatriots, the average man that fought with all the vigor and courage of seasoned soldiers. Between these men and the speckles of metallic luminaries were the obscene figures of ill-dreamt nightmares, the phobia of the living and the realization of devils- the Bugmen.

The grille hid the wide grin of a demented soul, Myungsoo's grin. He smiled to welcome the enemy he thought he had long since forced into extinction decades ago. Dongwoo tensed the reins of his equine partner and hissed in a breath of air. The unholy storm had stirred again.

A persisting rage filled his veins and would not abandon him. His eyes were bulging out and in his soul, the evil vile known as hatred bubbled upwards. He spurred his steed and dashed like a crazed, hungry dog into the sea of war. Myungsoo chased after Dongwoo and in the span of brief seconds, the two were in the fray of heated battle.

The Bugmen, votaries of murder, screeched and roared. The cacophony that proceeded out of their deformed mandibles would have been enough to crush any hope of survival but the valiant men that fought refused to capitulate. And when the golden luster of Myungsoo's and Dongwoo's armor penetrated the eyes of the fighting soldiers, lurid images of their king and his brother winning wars in times past made victory seem like it was dangling before their eyes. As the pair hewed and lopped off limbs of Bugmen with their swords, shouts of triumph made the plain tremble. Perhaps it was a mass hysteria brought about by the carnage, but the pair were actually perceived as the heroic king and his brother.

 "Ho!" Myungsoo exclaimed, "Us two who don the golden skin have come to save the queen! Fight on men!"

 While all fought hard with the vitality and savagery of caged lions, Myungsoo continued to shout his command, pressing the soldiers to destroy the enemy. He knew it was an impossible thing he demanded of them, but he and Dongwoo were not charged with the obliteration of the Bugmen. Meanwhile, Dongwoo, possessed by the venom of wrath, killed over a dozen of the insectoids with a relative ease. His heart pulsed incessantly in his head as his hot breath filled his helm. Beads of sweat gathered over his brow, but he moved on from one monster to the next without stop.

As he leapt and cut away at the persisting demons, a whimpering voice, one at the verge of death, called to him. He swung his body around and looked for the crying man. At his feet an arm d at the air. Dongwoo quickly knelt and held the dying villager in his plated arms.

 "My king!" the bearded man cried out with a labored breath. "I have made it to paradise?" He coughed up the grizzly admixture of dark red blood and phlegm, "Soon I will see my wife again. I trust you will oversee my-" and before he could finish his request, he gave up the ghost.

Dongwoo grimaced and gently laid the deceased on the soft loam, swallowing a ball of bitter gall. He felt his heart in his throat as he fought to restrain his tears. Closing the eyes of the villager, he stood erect and gazed about the field of nightmares, painted with purple colors of night and the red of blood. To his right, at a distance of some several feet, laid a dead Bugman. He approached it with a furious pace and observed the wretched beast. It was the first time he had gotten a good look of them.

His body spasmed with disgust as he saw the malformed ovate head of horror. The compound eyes of iridescent colors covered most of their oblong faces, with a prominent horn piercing out from between the harrowing orbs. The mandibles were sharper than even the keenest edge of a steel sword, and were the length of half a foot, curved like a crooked saber. It was a gaunt creature with spindly members that stood over six feet in height and its exoskeleton was an opaque milky-white through which some of its innards would show as pulsing abominations while it was alive. On its left arm was a long, bone-like spike that jutted out of its elbow and both of its hands possessed talons that made short work of most armor. The whole of its body glistened like polished quartz because of a moist and sticky dew-like substance that covered it. Lastly and most curiously, a galvanized ring of iron was fastened on its neck.

Not sparing another second, Dongwoo lifted the broadsword that Sujeong had entrusted him with and smashed the blade down on the creature's neck, decapitating it. Behind his visor his face was contorted into the likeness of a howling dog, mad with a white froth in his mouth. He was livid and gave himself over to the primal, base emotion of unhindered wrath. He whirled at the clacking sound of mandibles closing shut and ran to the Bugman that dared to challenge him. 

He ducked the fierce swipe of claws and heaved upwards with his heavy blade, separating arm from shoulder. His enemy staggered back and convulsed with throes of death erupting in its deformed body. Before it had a chance to regroup, Dongwoo charged forward with his blade gripped tightly in his hands and pierced the belly of the beast. The crunchy sound of its exoskeleton breaking was the echo of lurid nightmares. Dongwoo stood, shook off the guts from his sword and continued his massacre.

Myungsoo, still on horseback, searched for the entry that led to the Bugmen's warren while simultaneously lopping off the head of any wicked insectoid that obstructed his path. Then a man of heroic proportions and clad in dazzling silver armor stopped him with his brandished arms.

 "I heard when you proclaimed your ability to save the queen! You and your twin's mighty heroics prove you are-"

 "On with it, knave! Hasten and tell me where the entry to that dreaded underground maze is!" Myungsoo cut in, his head twisting in all directions as he searched for the burrow.

The amored man grunted and bowed his head, "This way! But enough men, thousands by now surely, have filed in and have failed to return! I am afraid!"

 "Ho! No time to listen to your qualms, you brute! Lead me now before the queen dies unless she is dead already! That is my task, to save her!"

 Myungsoo was navigated by the giant through white storms of feral Bugmen, the two killing without end, until they reached the bottom of a great hill. At the base of that mound laid the mouth of the devil, open wide to swallow all who dared to enter. The soldier quivered with fear as he stared into that grim aperture, another step more and he would be absorbed by a tangible darkness. The sides of the hole seemed to melt and glow with a lambent yellow color that pulsated. The entirety of the hill seemed animated, heaving in and out as the chest of a winded person might do.

 "Go fetch-" just as Myungsoo was going to continue his command, a Bugman shot out of that dire orifice like a spear and impaled the armored giant. He grunted and crashed his sword into the skull of the demon. At the passing of an instant, a second beast that lurked in the hole jumped out and cut away the legs of Myungsoo's horse. He cursed and spasmed from the impact of landing on his head. While he gathered recognition of his surroundings, the Bugman assumed a menacing stance and prepared to kill him.

His sword, clenched in his hands, instinctively stabbed up with a swift motion and soon the monster shrieked like a haunting Banshee and died. Myungsoo had survived. He still needed to find Dongwoo, however, so he climbed up that sickening hill and searched for the one dressed like him. It took no longer than five minutes and he spotted him slaying the beasts some distance to the north. His wild motions prompted Myungsoo to worry. He had a nagging feeling that Dongwoo had lost control over his faculties and had become like a beast of primeval dawn.

 "He's going to kill himself," he said with an air of anxiousness. He groaned and observed for a bit the carnage that Dongwoo issued. "I can't let him die!" He needed Dongwoo alive for without him, all his plans would go awry. If Dongwoo died, who would guide him to Laroo? Moreover, he was here for his sake too. Dongwoo was the one who wanted to save the queen, not him- so if he died, what was the point of all this? To allay a guilty conscious by saving the brother of a random girl who so happened to spark some nostalgia? Or to put his dead sister's ghost to rest? That former was mere whim and the latter, vague speculation.

Myungsoo leapt from the top of the hill, thundering down on a small gathering of Bugmen with swift and precise strikes. He ran like a bull which only saw red and reached Dongwoo just as he was about to be attacked by a furtive Bugman. Tossing the body aside, he called to the wild jungle boy but he wouldn't respond. Dongwoo was possessed by the spirit of wrath and was blind with madness. The only things he saw were more and more of those ghastly beings that needed to die.

Fed up, Myungsoo snuck behind him and clouted him on his helm. Dongwoo buckled but wheeled to meet his assailant. As a crimson stream ran down his eyes, he gasped and shoved his attacker with a brutish force. "Why did you hit me?!"

 Myungsoo scowled with such intensity that Dongwoo sensed it even behind the grille. "You will die like this! I know, trust me! Now lets hurry and rescue that wench if she hasn't died already!"

 "We have to kill all these first!" Dongwoo cried out as he motioned his hand with a savageness.

Myungsoo grasped both of Dongwoo's shoulder pauldrons and shook him back and forth, making it seem as though he were a helpless child in need of a rude awakening. 

"These things are endless- its their numbers that did in all those soldiers I once led against them. By my sister's life- I nearly died myself from that unceasing wave of demons- but I survived and cannot die now!" He fumed with anger and frustration yet again, knowing Dongwoo failed to comprehend the immense threat of the Bugmen. You could kill them by the hundreds and their rapid and disgusting manner of self-reproduction would replace those dead in a snap. 

Dongwoo brusquely swayed his head. "But these men!" he grunted. The grisly sight of bodies strewn across this broad and gory field caused his blood to boil. The sight of those two dead soldiers would not abandon him. The dead villager's voice resounded clearly in his head and with every word that was echoed, Dongwoo felt a panic to kill all the Bugmen. He did not want to see anymore people die. 

 "I told you already! Stop being such a fool, and let's save the one they're dying for," he said, hoping to appeal to even the smallest grain of logic that might exist in Dongwoo's mind.

Dongwoo tightly clenched his fists and grinded his teeth, uncertain of the path he should take. His breathing was as though labored and the sweat in which he was soaked was colder than any winter night. "But we will save them afterwards, right?!"

 Myungsoo groaned but placated his worries with an obvious lie, "Sure! Fine! But let's stop wasting time!" 

Dongwoo fell for the lie hook, line, and sinker. His naivete made him like a young sibling looking up to his older brother, thinking the world of him. His doubts regarding Myungsoo's character were allayed after he carried him and Sungyeol to Diciar, and more so when he "rescued" him after having his head bopped by Sujeong. 

......

The gaping hellhole that was the Bugmen's home glowed with the eerie color of haunted moons. Men and monster were dying on each and every side of it. The pair stood directly in front, and for the first time in a while, Myungsoo hesitated. The tiny hairs on his nape and arms bristled as he remembered that ugly pit that led into an insane riddle of a maze. It was a bleak and forbidding cavity that was eerily similar with the one he and his Sanritem host had filed into decades ago. Thousands went in, only a handful came out.

He grunted and braced himself to charge sword-first into that blasphemous mouth. With a yell of encouragement he ran and stabbed through at least four Bugmen that were creeping their way out. Dongwoo followed that self-proclaimed devil into hell, trusting his god to bring the two along with the queen back out.