VIII. The survivors trudged through hell, back through the lands they'd ravaged, creeping among the ruins as they tried to escape the gaze of vengeful eyes. They sought the portal which had brought them to their destruction, and was now their one chance to return to West Kruna. Demons harried them. Fiends rose from the places they'd brought low, ragged bands that threw themselves at the orphans of the despised crusade. Men and women perished with each mile marched and fought. Armored bodies lay strewn across the infernal landscape, telling a tale of anguish and abomination. In the end only Isabelle herself remained. She alone stood at the place they'd entered, and felt her soul shatter. For the portal was gone.
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