The lisbean army awaited for Julius' order to begin the assault, the fear and nerves amongst the people was crystal clear, but so was the bravery, most of the presents were ready to fight with all they had against the demons. Many of them were doing their prayers to multiple gods.
Lyle stood close to his companions, they were at the back of the army just like all the other mercenaries. He looked at his teammates, Ascalon seemed excited for the action to begin, Stella was praying, she was whispering like many others so he could not tell what she was saying. When Lyle took a glance at Mistia he could not tell what was going on her head, she was staring at the ground and from his perspective her hair covered her face completely.
The thoughts of the blonde got interrupted by the sound of the heavy steps of the soldiers walking up the hill. A bunch of robust warriors holding shields in position with Julius standing in the middle. The prince stared down at the demons with a cold killer gaze.
At the other side of the hill, the demons had noticed the presence of the lisbean warriors, they gathered around and looked at them with confusion, they could not believe that someone was fool enough to dare to challenge them. Many of them did not take long to get into their battle stances, they looked savage and bloodthirsty.
Meanwhile, several archers of the lisbean army positioned themselves behind the line of robust warriors as they charged their bows and aimed towards the sky. Erbow stood in front, right next to Julius, he made a sign with his hand for the archers to wait. No one made a move for what seemed eternity, an eternity that would be broken when one of the demons roared with impatience as he began charging towards the lisbean army, which triggered other demons to follow.
It was at that moment that Erbow screamed "NOW!" with all the strength his vocal chords could allow him, resulting in all of the arrows being thrown practically at the same time. A rain of arrows fell over the demons, some of them managed to land on the demons charging at the army but the rest of the arrows were quickly countered by a bunch of demons who knew how to use wind magic and stopped the arrows mid air.
"Mages, now!" Julius screamed as he saw the demons getting closer.
A group of mages casted a spell upon the robust soldiers who lunged at the demons as soon as they felt the spell making effect, they moved with great speed towards them, in barely more than the blink of an eye, they had managed to take down several demons and continued moving forward until they got stopped by several demons who held them in place.
Before any more orders were given, Sylvana summoned a pair of magic blades and quickly rushed in to murder the demons that had been taken down and stomped by the robust line of warriors. She managed to kill many before Julius gave an order to the entire lisbean army to attack.
The lisbean army rushed in as the demons slowly pushed the line of robusts warriors. The demons that had been taken down weren't able to react against the lisbeans, resulting in them getting massacred with ease.
The line of robust soldiers maintained their position, blocking off a lot of demons who tried to take them down, some of them tried jumping over but were quickly taken down by archers before they could do anything. However, a sudden demonic war cry dragged everyone's attention as a big and muscular demon with dark grey skin and yellow enraged eyes easily broke the formation, crushing both the shields and the soldiers in the process, the demon was extremely strong, being able to crush the head of robust warriors with helmets without breaking a sweat.
After crushing several lisbean soldiers and destroying the formation of robust soldiers, the gigantic demon concentrated magic on his right arm, making it shine with an intense almost red orange and releasing it as a gash of magic that killed several lisbean soldiers in one go.
"That demon seems really tough, what are we gonna do?" Drake questioned himself as he looked at the demon opening someone's head like a walnut.
Moments after, Drake felt a cold, almost freezing breeze right next to him, he turned to see Julius surrounded by an icy aura as the grass under him slowly crystallized, he had an enraged gaze that Drake had never seen before.
"This one is mine!" The prince exclaimed before lunging towards the demon, landing a blow on his face, making him bleed.
The demon stared at Julius, who looked at him with anger and determination. In just a few seconds Julius once again lunged towards the demon and used all he had to take him away from the battlefield so no one would interrupt them. The demon noticed but didn't care.
Chaos broke out in the battlefield, demons and lisbeans left and right killing each other in a bloody dance of iron, flesh and magic. Bursts of fire, water, wind, rocks, light, darkness and electricity all over the battlefield. Bones crushing, limbs flying or getting disintegrated from both sides. Despite the numerical superiority from the demon side, the lisbean army was able to keep up with them.
Somewhere in the battlefield, Ascalon and Stella found themselves facing off against the enemy, the sheer chaos of the battle had split the group apart. Ascalon stood in front, standing still and using his axe to kill any demon who tried to attack them. Behind, Stella had summoned a shield that would prevent them from getting backstabbed.
Ascalon swung his axe, cutting a demon in half like butter, despite the situation he was on, he seemed oddly calm. The same could not be said about Stella, who held Ascalon's back tightly while shivering in fear, barely being able to maintain her focus and the shield.
"You need to calm down" Ascalon said, his gaze fixed in the battle up front.
Stella mumbled something. "This was a bad idea… I should've not come…"
The grip of the healer on Ascalon was starting to bother him, he thought of leaving her behind, but if he did that Lyle would surely scold him, and he didn't want to go through that.
"D-Don't worry, I'll… protect you" He managed to say.
However, his words didn't seem to comfort Stella in the slightest, she was too terrified to hear him. Out of patience, Ascalon stood back and slapped Stella in the face, making the shield disappear instantly. It was a very strong slap that made her fall to her knees and made her bleed. The healer had to rearrange her jaw while she looked up at Ascalon, he looked imposing, terrifying, the expression on his face wasn't very clear, he seemed angry but not really.
Ascalon kneeled before her, he didn't say anything for a few seconds as Stella just looked at him with her eyes open wide. He tried to come up with some supporting words, he thought of them as fast as he could allow himself in this situation. The axeman fixed his gaze on hers and spoke up messy words, taking long pauses within some phrases and sometimes getting stuck
"Look, I-I-I-I know that it has to be… terrifying… to-to be for the first time in a situation like this… but right now, like, you know, right now, you can't allow yourself to be a coward, not because you… you… because you are gonna die, because someone else will. Because someone will die. You care, right? About others, their well being and that shit… And mostly you care about your friends, don't you? So… make an effort to be brave, think of… whoever you care about"
His speech was insecure and worded very badly, but despite that, the message got to Stella. Still shaking, she stood up, she still seemed terrified, her breath was faltering and sweat dropped from her like a waterfall, but her gaze had shifted and her fists closed with determination.
Ascalon stood up and looked at Stella in the eyes once again, she nodded as she created another shield.
"Alright, let's go find our team" Ascalon said as he turned back to the chaos occurring around them.
In another part of the battlefield, the corpse of an unfortunate lisbean soldier was being stabbed by two particularly mad looking demons. Their fixation on the corpse of the soldier however prevented them from noticing a fast lighting slash approaching them.
Raphael beheaded both demons with a single slash of his sword, powered up by his lighting magic. However, as soon as this happened he felt a shock on his hands that made him drop his sword, a nearby demon saw him and threw a spear, aiming to his face, fortunately for him a wall of rock would appear before him, blocking the spear.
The wall disappeared as Terrac stood in front of his friend in order to protect him. The demon that had thrown the spear had all the intentions to go all out against them but a single arrow that hit through his neck from behind ended his life on the spot.
With no immediate danger on sight, Terrac attended to his friend.
"Are you alright?" Terrac asked.
"Yes, just got a bit carried away with my magic, that's all" Raphael responded, attempting to sound tough, but he was barely containing the pain in his words.
Terrac grabbed his friend from the wrists and lifted them to have a better look at his hands, his twitching fingers, the electrical burns that extended under his sleeves.
"A bit carried away my ass, you know it's dangerous for you to overuse your magic" Terrac said with worry in his tone.
"This is not the time nor the moment to hold back" Raphael said firmly.
"I don't fucking care, retreat, you've done enough" Terrac replied with a scolding tone.
The conversation between the friends would be abruptly interrupted by a demon jumping Terrac from behind, she looked injured and possessed no weapons. She had jumped on Terrac's shoulders and began scratching his face, making him lose balance and not be able to take her off him, not before a blast of water took her down into the floor, followed up by Dante jumping over Terrac and landing a finishing blow that made the demon's head explode.
"You two ok?" He asked his group.
Terrac put a hand on his face but quickly put it away because of the pain the contact with the scratches caused him. "I'll be fine, she didn't cut deep, but Raphael can't continue"
"I can!" The mentioned exclaimed with anger.
"Oh really?" Dante said as he approached Raphael and lifted one of his burnt hands in the air. "Because I don't think so"
Raphael grunted as he freed his hand from Dante's grip. At that moment Elene made it into the scene, she looked a bit messy.
"Is everyone alright?" She asked.
"Fine enough, but you and Ralph are retreating now" Dante ordered.
"What?" The both of them asked in unison.
"You both can't continue on this, Ralph, you've damaged yourself more than the demons have. And Elene, your fire magic is not effective against these pieces of shit, I think the best thing you both can and will do is to retreat" Dante's voice was firm, not a trace of doubt in his words.
Elene grunted in resignation "I hate it when you're right"
But Raphael wouldn't give up so easily. "No way man! I'm not done yet, I can still fight!"
Dante ripped off a part of his shirt beneath his coat, revealing even more bruises and burns caused by electricity. "Raphael Shandian, I'm not asking you. I'm your leader, and I'm giving you an order, and you'll follow it" The tone on his voice was intimidating, authoritarian.
Raphael clenched his teeth in frustration before beginning to walk away from the battlefield, followed close by Elene. Dante stared at them for a moment before turning back to Terrac.
"Let's go, there is no time to waste"
In another part of the battlefield, somewhere in the middle, Lyle struggled as his sword clashed with a demon's. She looked at him with a cocky grin, even though they seemed to be equal in strength, the demon was more cunning and with a low kick she managed to take down Lyle, leaving him defenseless against her next attack, but as she prepared to swing her sword towards him, her head and upper torso would get obliterated by a big magic mace.
The demon's blood and some flesh spilled over Lyle, a little piece of her entered his mouth. Grossed out, he spat it as he looked up to see who had been his savior. There he saw Sylvana standing, her hair was messy, her body covered in dirt and blood with some small pieces of flesh of her victims still over her body.
The elf offered a helping hand to Lyle, who accepted without doubt.
Once standing, Lyle thanked her for saving him.
"Save your words for later, there's a mission to accomplish" She said as she summoned an axe made of magic. "Help me reach the top of the tower"
"W-What? Why me?!" Lyle asked in disbelief.
"There are four people aside from you that I trust and you're the one I came across with" She stated with coldness.
"That's… fair enough"
"Come on, let's get going"
While Sylvana and Lyle made their way to the tower, in another place of the battlefield, a group of demons just got sliced into pieces with a scythe by a short blonde man whose armor possessed many pink girly details. In his face could be seen a vivid rage, with blood staining his armor and part of his face.
"WHERE ARE YOU?" Elias screamed in fury, foam almost seemed to come out of his mouth.
"Elias, calm down!" A deep male voice said behind him. Elias turned to look at him, annoyed.
The voice came from Gork, who ran into Elias alongside Tak-al. The leader of the Prime Squad had a worried look on his face.
"CALM DOWN? CALM DOWN? CALM DOWN?!" Elias yelled, his voice progressively angrier. "WE HAVE NO FUCKING IDEA WHERE IS KLARA! DON'T TELL ME TO CALM THE FUCK DOWN!!"
"We know you worry about her, but she can take care of herself" Tak-al tried to reason with his companion.
"TAKE CARE OF HERSELF?! THIS AIN'T A GOD DAMN STREET, IT'S A FUCKING BATTLEFIELD, YOU STUPID MORON! BEING ALONE IS SEVERLY IDIOTIC!" Elias's face reddened as his anger grew even more.
Gork and Tak-al continued to try and make Elias chill down a bit, their words didn't seem to even enter through his ears. Words would soon be cut short, a weak breeze was the only warning they got and that only Gork was able to react to, using his mace to hit the arm of a demon who attempted to attack Elias by surprise, just barely managing to ward off the attack, causing the demon to jump back to take distance.
"You bitch!" Elias said as he and his companions got into a battle stance.
The demon standing before them was tall, about 1.9 meters tall, his skin was blue, his long hair a gray color, almost white, his muscles weren't big but they were very defined. His eyes possessed a piercing white color combined with a black sclera. He possessed one singular small horn on top of his head. A wide smile of sharp teeth decorated his face as he looked at the Prime Squad. He wore nothing but a pair of black pants with a loincloth reaching down to the knees with edges of a white and gray fur.
"Impressive, not only did you see my attack, but you also responded to it. Most people can't even get the first" The demon said as he lifted his hands in front of him, letting the men see the blood drenching them. "Torbagh. When you're asked in the afterlife how you died, my name shall be your answer"
"Pretty name, did you mommy give it to you?" Gork said with sarcasm.
Tobargh stood in confusion for a few seconds, not sure if he was being insulted or not.
"That was fucking lame" Elias whispered.
"I know, shut up" Gork whispered back.
Torbagh shaked his head, regaining his focus. "Anyways, let's end this quickly. Don't be afraid to attack all at the same time, or else you'll have no chance"
"Shut your bitch ass mouth!" Elias screamed while impulsively swinging his scythe as he lunged towards Torbagh.
The demon jumped over the angry man, dropping a side kick on his face as he landed. Gork tried attacking him while he was distracted but his attack got dodged and responded with a hard punch to his chest. Tak-al attempted to shoot some beams of rock from his staff at Torbagh but he swiftly dodged each beam.
As Torbagh evaded the last beam, Elias and Gork had taken advantage to attack him, the former aiming at the torso and the latter to the head. Tobargh grabbed the scythe handle before it hit him and tanked the hit with the mace on the side of his head. Causing his right eye to red slightly.
"Is that everything you have?" The demon asked mockingly.
"If you can bleed, you can die!" Gork yelled as he prepared to attack again, but Torbagh lifted both the scythe and Elias on the air and threw them towards Gork, taking him down.
Tak-al continued shooting his beams of rock at the demon, who dodged as he approached him.
"Goddamiit, I can't use my magic properly without disserving our allies" Tak-al thought.
Torbagh threw a punch at his foe but it would get stopped by a wall of stone the mage summoned. The demon's fist got stuck on the wall, the stone moved to completely surround his hand, immobilizing him in place. Gork, already recovered, attempted to use this opportunity to attack from behind but with his free hand Torbagh would grab his mace midair, stealing it from Gork's hand and using it to hit the stone, freeing himself and proceeding to repeatedly attack Gork with his own weapon who would lift his arms to block his attacks, nevertheless, each hit deformed his armor and it quickly began to shatter.
Tak-al would attempt to concentrate magic on his staff for heavy damage, though as soon as Torbagh noticed he threw the mace at him. The weapon traveled at high speed towards the mage, who because of his focus could do nothing to not get hit in the face by the mace, knocking him out.
Without further options, Gork went all out on a hand on hand fight against Torbagh.Things weren't going well for the leader of the Prime Squad, Torbagh surpassed him in every aspect, he was stronger, more durable and faster. Gork's armor managed to reduce most of the damage, he prioritized protecting his face due to it being unprotected, something that Torbagh noticed as well. Gork used his arms to protect his face, the armor of his forearms didn't last long against the demon's relentless attacks.
With his forearm armor broken, the next punch made significantly more damage, causing Gork to flinch. Torbagh intended to finish off with a powerful punch into Gork's face, nonetheless the demon had his focus interrupted by a stray blast of magic hitting him on the back, leaving an opening for Gork to connect a few powerful punches on the demon's face.
Torbagh jumped to take some distance from Gork while regaining his composure. They stared at each other, Gork's forearms twitched. Blood dripped from the demon's nose and lips, he didn't bother cleaning the blood before lunging towards Gork once again. The leader of Prime Squad got in a battle stance despite his hopes of winning this fight lowering. Before Torbagh could land a hit on Gork, he stopped himself in place and moved aside in a reflex act to dodge a magical slice moving towards him.
A recovered Elias stood next to his leader, visibly furious as he held his scythe with strength. Both members of the Prime Squad prepared for Torbagh's next movement while the demon flashed a malicious smile.
At the same time as the fight between Prime Squad and Torbagh took place, across the battlefield, Lyle and Sylvana ran in direction to the tower, dodging any stray magic attacks that they came across. Sylvana, still holding a magical axe, led the way with Lyle following close behind, he was having trouble properly mobilizing amongst all the chaos because of the brightness that some magic attacks caused as well as clouds of dust rose, result of all the action occurring around them.
Before them appeared a pair of demons that noticed them and prepared to attack, however, Sylvana was quicker. She slid between the demons, using her magical axe to cut the leg of one of them, she quickly recovered and stood up before the other demon could react and hit him right in the middle of his head with the ax, and as the demon fell dead to the ground, Sylvana finished off the other one by turning her axe into a spear and piercing her neck with it.
With both demons killed, Sylvana wasted no time on beginning to run towards the tower again. Lyle continued to follow, impressed on how quick Sylvana had dealt with those demons, he didn't even get to them before Sylvana had already ended with them. On their way towards the tower, Sylvana made quick work of each demon that dared to come across their path, shaping her magic into different weapons to give them fast yet brutal deaths.
Close to the entrance of the tower, Sylvana faced off a demon far more powerful than those she had easily dealt with before. The demon held a big sword that Sylvana fought by shaping her magic into a double sword. Both weapons clashed, each of them making strength to overpower the other while Lyle stared at them, unsure of what to do. Nonetheless his thoughts would be interrupted by almost getting backstabbed by another demon.
Lyle barely dodged the incoming attack. The demon who tried attacking him from behind wasted no time on trying to use her sword to kill Lyle again, this time, however, Lyle responded by using his sword to fend off. Their swords clashed over and over. Lyle felt his hands sweating, he could see through her attacks, he had many openings to attack her but he did not, he just couldn't.
As their swords clashed once more, Lyle stared at the demon before him. In her eyes he could only see her burning desire to kill him. He noticed that he could easily overpower her, but instead of acting he just shaked in place, allowing the demon to destabilize him and make a cut in his face from the top right of his forehead to his left cheek. At that moment, something within Lyle woke up, an instinct, the instinct to survive.
He held his sword with a firm grip and with a scream he stabbed the demon right through the chest. Lyle stood there, watching the picture before him, a demon dead by his very own hands. He felt weird, this was the first time he took a life and it was a very weird feeling, he didn't enjoy it at all but neither did he feel bad for what he just did.
Lyle pulled off his sword, letting the demon's corpse to fall into the ground, he was agitated, the blood from the cut on his face slowly dripped through his face but he didn't care at the moment, instead he turned to look at Sylvana, who was having issues with the demon she was facing.
Although Lyle was prepared to aid her, it wasn't necessary. Two arrows landed on the demon's side as a man with a sword swiftly beheaded him. Said man was no one other than General Drake, followed by General Erbow who had been the one who shot the arrows.
"Sylvana, get to the top of that tower, we'll make sure that no one enters!" Drake stated.
"Alright!" Sylvana responded as she made her way into the tower.
Drake and Elbow got into a battle stance in front of the entrance while Lyle stared, looking past them at the entrance of the tower. Driven by a strange feeling, Lyle made his way into the entrance of the tower.
"Hey kid, where do you think you are going?" Erbow questioned.
"I'm going to help Sylvana" Lyle answered without a hint of doubt in his voice.
Both generals just smiled and allowed him to get inside the tower as they kept guarding the entrance.
And back with the Prime Squad, the situation against Torbagh was not going well. Both Elias and Gork were exhausted and injured whereas the demon, although with some scratches, seemed to still be able to go for a good while.
"This is bullshit. We can't die like this" Elias said, hyperventilated. Next to him Gork stood, most of his armor shattered and cracked, he had been receiving most of the hits and was in worse conditions than Elias.
Gork wanted to say some inspirationals words to his companion but even if he could come up with something to say, in his current state he could not bring himself to articulate any words. Elias was quick to notice the despair of his leader, it seemed like their chances of making it out alive were little, but if they were gonna die, it wouldn't be giving up.
Elias held his scythe as tight as he began running towards Torbagh, who prepared a punch with all the intention of killing, but out of nowhere, Klara appeared, taking Torbagh by surprise and landing a powerful kick with the power of a horse in his face that sent him flying away.
The demon flew over hundreds of humans and demons, his mind was blurred because of the strength of the kick. He ended up falling away from most of the chaos, in between a bunch of tents of his people, buried in the ground. It took him a bit to get himself out of the ground but he did. He stood up looking at the battlefield as he caressed the place where Klara had kicked him.
"What in the name of Eternal just happened" He whispered to himself.
Torbagh stared at the battleground before his thoughts got interrupted by a small whimpering sound. He turned to look at his right from where the sound had come from, there he spotted someone, a human.
"Well, well, what do we have here?" He said as his smile widened.
Mistia trembled with fear as Torbagh slowly walked towards her.