"Whew!" Douglas breathed a sigh of relief. That had been terrifying; he'd almost thought his rear end was about to be violated.
Feidric, however, was shocked. "Now?!"
Nathaniel replied matter-of-factly, "Of course now! When else would we go?"
Feidric protested, "No, no, no! What about preparations? What about the plan?"
Nathaniel raised an eyebrow. "What's all that nonsense? Isn't it just a matter of storming the Blazing Fire Gang's headquarters and taking out their boss? Why complicate things with all that fancy stuff?"
"Or, though Lady Castorice instructed me to assist you, if you'd rather stay here and rest, that's fine too. I'll just lead the charge myself, and you can wait here for good news!"
Hearing this, Aria immediately stood up. "Absolutely not! We move out now! Let's go!"
Feidric stammered in disbelief, "Ah... ah???"
And just like that, an operation that was supposed to begin after a period of rest and careful planning was hastily launched.
Feidric's head was still buzzing as they left the Death Priest's stronghold. Cipher gently patted his shoulder. "It's alright. In a way, those barbarians have a point, don't they? Even we didn't expect to launch a direct assault, so how could the enemy possibly react in time?"
Feidric remained silent for a moment, seemingly agreeing with Cipher's words, or perhaps just trying to convince himself. "Y-yeah... you're right..."
With that, Nathaniel, Aria, and the other barbarians marched in the first rank, eagerly heading toward the Blazing Fire Gang's camp. Feidric and Cipher followed in the second rank, Feidric looking worried while Cipher appeared relaxed, her hands clasped behind her back and her tail swaying gently.
Douglas brought up the rear. As a War Priest, it was deeply humiliating to lag behind on the way to battle. But thinking of Nathaniel's impulsive nature, Douglas silently prayed, "I'm sure the God of War will understand."
Douglas's gaze was drawn to Cipher's constantly swaying tail ahead. It wasn't for any particular reason; the rhythmic motion was simply too captivating to ignore.
Since the Death Priests and the Blazing Fire Gang had no connection, the path between them was long buried under thick snow. When Cipher and the others had previously crossed from the Blazing Fire Gang's territory, Feidric had used the Water Walk spell.
However, seeing the large group before him, Feidric quickly abandoned the idea of buffing everyone. If he actually used Water Walk for the entire group, he feared his magic power would be nearly exhausted by the time they reached the battlefield. A wizard without magic power was no different from an ordinary person.
To save time and effort, the barbarians at the front began hacking away at the snow with energetic grunts. As they shoveled, Aria, standing in the front row, could clearly see the exuberant smiles on each barbarian's face.
Suddenly, Aria felt deeply moved. "So... so you truly hate demons this much? The moment you heard they might cause trouble, you rushed out without hesitation and are working so tirelessly!"
Nathaniel simply scratched his head and said calmly, "What's a demon?"
Aria froze, a question mark slowly forming above her head. "?"
Nathaniel continued, "I don't know either! We've been working for Boss Castorice for ages without doing anything. I felt terrible about it. Now that she finally has an order, we've gotta work hard!"
"Hey, who cares about demons or devils? I don't understand any of this stuff anyway. All we need to do is kill the boss of the Blazing Fire Gang, right?"
Cipher, her cat ears twitching as she listened to the conversation ahead, couldn't suppress a burst of laughter. Aria had finally met someone even dumber than herself, leaving her utterly bewildered.
Demonic activity wasn't unusual in most places. After all, demons were masters at exploiting humanity's deepest greed and desires. But the Northern Territory, a land populated entirely by barbarians, was an exception. Demons rarely appeared here.
Because... there was simply nothing to tempt them with!
Demons were like con artists, dangling small rewards to hook those eager for easy gains. It was common for people to lose thousands of dollars over a few hundred dollars' worth of "benefits."
The problem was that the barbarians of the Northern Territory were too primitive. They probably didn't even have cell phones. Con artists could babble on endlessly about computers, data plans, and special offers, but the barbarians wouldn't understand a word.
"What the hell are you yammering about, you ugly bastard? You look like a damn swindler! Eat my axe!"
That was the typical barbarian response to a demon. Clearly, even the most seasoned con artist couldn't fool a "gorilla." Gradually, the demons stopped bothering with them, which explained why Nathaniel had never even heard of demons.
The group continued digging until they soon reached the vicinity of the Blazing Fire Gang's headquarters. Before they could even approach, a guard at the gang's entrance—the same one Cipher had previously bamboozled—pointed at the distant barbarians and chuckled to his companion, "Look at those dumbass barbarians digging again. They can clear the place as much as they want, but the snow will just cover it all up again tonight!"
Before the guard could finish speaking, the barbarian closest to him raised his axe, took aim, and began to wind up. Visible veins bulged on his arm as he gathered momentum. With a whistling whoosh, the hand axe sliced through the air and struck the guard squarely in the forehead.
As if splitting firewood, the axe cleaved the guard's skull nearly in half!
Barbarians might not be skilled with ranged weapons like bows, but they were deadly accurate with thrown spears and axes.
"Holy shit!!!" The guard's companion instantly wet himself in terror. He scrambled into the Blazing Fire Gang's stronghold, shouting, "Enemies! We're under attack!"
"Enemies? What enemies?" Most people immediately assumed it was the Ice Puppets hidden in the snow. After all, there were no other monsters left in Chaos City.
Just as the barbarians had discovered that striking the Ice Puppets in their eye sockets could kill them, the Blazing Fire Gang had learned that the puppets instinctively avoided flames. They should have been completely safe behind the Fire Wall.
"Are you kidding me? With Brother Hawen's Fire Wall in place, how could those Ice Puppets possibly... Holy shit!!!" The bystander's sentence was cut short as several red-eyed Barbarians burst through a gap in the Fire Wall.
The speaker himself was instantly knocked unconscious by a single punch to the temple from the lead Barbarian, collapsing peacefully into slumber.
"Kill... Who were we supposed to kill again? Doesn't matter, kill them all!!!"
"Charge!!! Aaaaaah!!!"
"Wryyyyyy!!!"
Unsurprisingly, the Barbarians had all consumed White Petals the moment they charged in, entering a Berserk State. Their eyes glowed crimson, foam flecked their lips, and they emitted primal, unintelligible roars. Any sane person would instinctively recoil at the sight of such a frenzied mob charging toward them.
The Blazing Fire Gang members were no exception. Their first reaction was to scatter, desperately wishing they had extra legs to flee faster. Those in the front ranks were the slowest to react.
Once the Barbarians entered their Berserk State, their intelligence plummeted. They no longer cared who the Blazing Fire Gang's boss was, attacking anyone they could get their hands on.
Aria, who had initially been in the front row, was quickly left behind by the Barbarians' ferocious charge. She clearly saw one Barbarian tilting his head, tongue lolling out, drool streaming down his chin as he charged forward.
When a Blazing Fire Gang member caught up to a Barbarian, he seemed to snap. He pulled out a dagger and stabbed the Barbarian in the shoulder. But the Barbarian showed no sign of pain, calmly turning to face his attacker.
Then, the Barbarian extended his right hand. With a look of terror on the man's face, the Barbarian's massive hand slammed onto his face, pinching his cheeks with brutal force. He lifted the man into the air, then slammed his head against the ground.
Crack!
A sickeningly crisp sound echoed as the unlucky man's skull shattered like a watermelon.
The scene was so primal, bloody, and violent that even Aria felt a flicker of discomfort. Witnessing the carnage, the members of the Blazing Fire Gang couldn't help but quicken their pace.
Douglas, bringing up the rear, couldn't help but marvel, "Typical Barbarians. Absolutely insane..."
In small skirmishes like this, the Barbarians' combat prowess shone brightest. Douglas reluctantly admitted that in a one-on-one fight against an equally skilled Barbarian, he would likely lose.
However, in large-scale battles—massive warzones with tens of thousands of soldiers on each side—regular armies could utterly crush the Barbarians.
Barbarians lacked discipline, charging headlong into battle without formation. The Empire's regular army, by contrast, boasted heavily armored infantry, archers, cavalry, War Priest regiments to buff their troops, and Wizard units capable of handling nearly any situation.
Against such a formidable force, the Barbarians' courage and fearlessness would be futile. Their reckless charges would only lead to certain death.
Soon, news of the commotion reached Brother Hawen. Staring in disbelief at his exhausted subordinate, he exclaimed, "You're telling me those Barbarians have started attacking us?! Why?!"
The young thug before him was the same one who had wet his pants in terror at the gate earlier. He paused, stammering, "It seems... a guard insulted a passing Barbarian."
Brother Hawen's first reaction was disbelief. "You're telling me they stormed in to slaughter us all because of a single insult?!"
Then, he reconsidered. If they're Barbarians... it actually seemed plausible. After all, two Barbarians might start fighting simply because one glanced at the other the wrong way. In that light, this situation didn't seem so absurd.
Though speechless, Brother Hawen couldn't remain passive with enemies at the gate. As the current boss of the Blazing Fire Gang, he strode toward the battlefield, not to tear open a scroll, but to casually point his finger and cast a spell.
Second-level Enchantment School: Human Immobilization Spell!
As mentioned earlier, Barbarians were particularly vulnerable to control magic. When Berserk, their reason and willpower crumbled, leaving them utterly defenseless. It was no exaggeration to say that as long as the caster maintained concentration, they could control a Barbarian indefinitely.
However, after Brother Hawen cast his spell, the barbarian he had targeted continued his rampage as if nothing had happened. Right before his eyes, the barbarian cleaved another Blazing Fire Gang member in half with a single axe swing!
Brother Hawen froze, muttering to himself, "Huh? What's going on? Did the spell fail?"
Then, a voice only he could hear whispered in his mind: "Impossible. The spell worked... but it was resisted! He nullified my Human Immobilization Spell with sheer willpower?!"
There was no doubt—the voice belonged to a demon. Brother Hawen had miraculously survived the battle between Castorice and Black Hand. Though the aftershocks of that conflict had left him looking like a hard-boiled egg, at least he was alive.
Consumed by bitter resentment, he had been approached by a demon.
This was partly due to Castorice. Her actions in the cellar—tearing open the Demiplane (where the corpses of the Summoner Wizard Heroe were summoned) and summoning the Death Dragon—had weakened the stability of the surrounding space. Combined with Chaos City's inherent instability as a battlefield between Demon Lords and Heroes, where the fabric of reality was already thin, this had allowed the demon to influence the area with surprising ease.
Naturally, Brother Hawen signed a Contract with the demon, becoming a Warlock. The true caster behind the Blazing Fire Gang's eternally burning Fire Wall was a demon from the Nine Hells.
Listening to his Patron's words, Brother Hawen glared at the barbarian who had just shaken off the Human Immobilization Spell. The man stood gaping, his tongue lolling out as he howled mindlessly at the sky: "Wryyyyyy!!!"
He looked like a mentally challenged idiot. And you're telling me this guy resisted mind control magic with his indomitable will?
Are you fucking kidding me?
The truth was, Aria, the Paladin, possessed the ability to transfer Control Skills affecting her teammates onto herself. But she was too small to be seen, obscured by the charging barbarians, and Brother Hawen hadn't even noticed her.
Aria herself had no idea what had just happened. She was sprinting to catch up with her barbarian teammates who were charging ahead when she suddenly felt something trip her. She stumbled, nearly falling.
Puzzled, she glanced around. "Huh? There's nothing here?"