by SlyOkami
Thea herself was having issues with the winged pests, as they clawed at her helmet and shoulders, pushing her here and there while she wildly swung only to hit nothing. She managed a glance off the wall, the Daemons were getting dangerously close while they were far from done with the fiends and hellhounds.
Then suddenly a wild zap of silver electricity surged above their heads, dispersing the flock of looming furies while killing hundreds at once. Electrocuting their fragile bodies straight to ash.
Relieved of the flying pests, Thea glanced back to see that groups of mages had climbed up from the lower battlements, flinging spells not only at the furies but rampant hellhounds and fiends too.
“Let the mages deal with the flyers! Focus on the front!” Her platoon captain shouted, the crimson guard quickly regaining formation. While everybody else nearby also sorted themselves.
Thea turned to take aim on the nearest fiend, hope filling her once more as they held tight. (“We can do this!”) She told herself, “Don’t let up! Because they definitely will not! They came from hell? Then let’s send them right back!” Thea shouted with determination.
“Flame burt-”
When suddenly everything to her left exploded, a deafening boom as crimson winds blasted everything apart, being soldier, siege weaponry or stone. Thea and everyone else were knocked aside and down before the powerful explosion of wind.
She groaned while forcing herself to rise, finding a red mist permeating the air where the explosion had occurred. The mist began to dissipate, revealing the bloody carnage within. Bodies ripped to shreds, their armour completely ignored before whatever claws sliced through. Limbs and gore splattered the ground yet the blood that once joined them was receding backing into the mist.
Within the very centre of the blast zone Thea saw the source, the pool of blood draining up into the creature.
Standing on four feet but tailless was a large and lanky canine beast, its body made of a blood-red carapace while pitch-black flames covered it like thin strands of fur. Its eyes were a dark crimson, an empty void of red while its all too long fangs took the colour of dark grey. A wicked contrast with its three heads, the middle snout ablaze.
“Send us back? Oh pitiful hue-manz! I’ve only just arrived!” The Demon Lord’s three heads exclaimed with a wicked triple cackle that would’ve made the bravest of men shit themselves. Opening its middle maw wide, the monster suddenly let out a breath of black flames down her direction.
“Guardian barrier!” Several crimson guard shieldsmen chanted at once, forming a wide barrier of mana in its path. The magic collided, causing sparks of blue and black to surge throughout the barriers before they all shattered.
The black flames engulfed the shieldsmen, Thea pulling Kayle down to the ground as they just barely evaded the breath attack.
The Demon Lord chuckled, “Oh yes, defend against me! No, don’t run! FIGHT ME!” the beast snarled as it saw several adventurers abandon their post and make a run for it. It leapt at them, soaring through the air as if there was none blocking its pounce, leaping at incredible speed.
It landed upon two unlucky adventurers, its front claws shredding the first while its left maw closed around the second, biting her apart. “You cannot run! You cannot hide! YOU CAN ONLY SCREAM!~” the Demon Lord bellowed with a ravenous tone.
Thea glanced about as she rose back up alongside Kayle,. She saw Demon Lords smashing into the battlements one by one across the wall. They laid waste to even their own kin as they crashed down with powerful magic, sending ear piercing booms of sound followed by quakes throughout the sturdy wall.
Their defences were failing, the monstrous demonic elites too much for them to handle while backed with so many other demons.
Thea dreaded the thought but she thought it nonetheless, (“Erik was right…”) any bit of hope she might have had vanishing with those three words.
(“But of course, I was right, am I ever wrong?”) Responded the deep, snarky voice in her head, as a sense of warmth suddenly filled her heart. She turned towards it, the warmth calling to her.
Thea gazed off the wall, over the army of demons before it and around the Daemon goliaths. She gazed off at the trampled fields beyond them, at the still dissipating smoke and ash that lay where the forest once did.
There, among the smoke and miasma they stood. There, is where her heart was pulling towards.
They weren’t many, maybe a thousand strong but there they were. A small army of white armoured elves, their hair just as white while their skin was grey dark. The gold in their eyes visibly aflame even at this distance.
At their lead was a smaller group, maybe a hundred but she really couldn’t tell from this far. All she could see was the different sets of armour and weaponry they wore and wielded, colouring going from black, blue and red to even gold, white and green.
Her memory told her that they looked like Slayers, but she knew the order was decimated. “Then…He did not.” Thea whispered to herself, realising what she was looking at.
(“Oh, I did.”) Erik spoke into her mind as he stepped to the front of his Xilfir. “Demons, one and all.” He spoke, his draconic voice resonating throughout the entire field and even further over the walls. “Filthy Demon Lords, you sate for a challenge?” He said, gaining the attention of each Demon Lord and more.
“Then come face me if you’re brave enough.” He challenged them, gaining more than a few snarls and hisses. The Demon Lords, attracted by his draconic voice, maddened by his very presence. They leapt off the wall, charging through their thralls with abandon.
Erik smiled coldly as the greater demons charged towards him and his Xilfir, “You who would fall to Slayers, I shall introduce you to true power! Go my Xilfir, teach those Druvians how to truly wield a blade!” opening his arms wide as he spoke.
Speaking the next few words in an excited bellow, “Go my Dragon Knights, remove these hell-shat excrements from my sight!”
Ch 13 / Part 2 - Hell’s Storm
Erik chuckled as he watched the hundreds of greater demons charge through their own army, maddened by his draconic voice. “Power doesn’t matter when you’ve lost your bloody minds.” He said, watching his outnumbered Slayer equipped Xilfir charge out to meet the Demon Lords.
They were barely half the greater demons’ numbers but they held their own, even Erik was surprised at the affinity for the draconic shown, by these dark elves. Noting to himself to mess around with draconic infusion more later, “Start assembling the magic circles, just as I’ve instructed!” He ordered at the nearby Xilfir, who rushed around with blood-red crystals, sacks of magically preserved organs and other things.
Drawing the circle around him as blood poured out of their glowing magic crystals, these were storage crystals filled to the brim with blood absorbed from several corpses and animals. Out of the sacks the dark elves took out different things, from livers, hearts, brains, full limbs and even some pottery, monster cores, bones and herbs.
“The rest of you, assist those fools up on their wall.” Erik told the several hundred other Xilfir that stood around at attention, watching the dozen tasked with constructing the magic circles.
The legion unsheathed their weapons and broke off into two groups, losing form and turning into waves of shadows before zooming away and around the fight that broke out between the Demon Lords and Dragon Knights.
Erik calmly watched, observing the battlefield while correcting any mistakes on his magic circle. “This is an extremely complex cast, make no mistakes!” he would shout at them. “These vermin of chaos and spreaders of miasma shall not be tolerated upon this world…” He hissed in annoyance, glancing around at the sheer destruction and death the demons had brought to the terrain.
“These filth…They are everything I stand against!”
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* * *
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“Go my Dragon Knights, remove these hell-shat excrements from my sight!” Erik exclaimed and Makaela did as told.
&nbs
p; Pouring mana into her emerald armour and long jade whip, she felt a response within. The equipment felt alive within her grasp, mana flowing out of her and into it, before a different energy flowed back into her body.
Makaela never felt more alive, the sheer strength that filled her body sending her senses way past exhilaration. “Drakon Xilfir, charge!” She ordered her fellow Dragon Knights in elven, and alongside them she burst forwards in an explosion of movement.
The wind struggled to part out of her way as she almost flew forwards with each step, the ground quaking and the air rebounding with every time she leapt.
Makaela laughed out in excitement as she spun mid-leap, dragging her elongating whip behind her, as fiery emerald flames blazed alive across its length. She struck out at the nearest Demon Lord, a quick serpentine creature with black and gold scales.
Her whip, as if having a will of its own, lashed out at the creature several times. Slashing scales off and splashing out violet blood with each strike before suddenly entangling itself around the demon’s neck.
Makaela pulled back while the demon screeched in agony once the flames reached it, sending its entire body ablaze while being pulled off the ground. She whipped it about before crashing it into another, lighting that one aflame too.
Sensing danger off her left, she turned and lashed out with her whip. “Emerald Buckler!” Makaela quickly chanted, the words seemingly appearing in her mind as the flames blasted out from her whip and formed a small barrier of emerald before her.
Just then, a breath of pitch black flames collided with her green ablaze wall. The black fire flowed aside and around her barrier, missing her completely.
Makaela retrieved her whip as the two flames dissipated, revealing a Demon Lord pouncing towards her. “Surge Step” She quickly chanted, her body seemingly teleporting out of the way as the three-headed canine slashed its claws where she once stood.
The demon growled hungrily, turning towards her, opening its middle maw wide.
Makaela didn’t defend, instead she surged forwards. Leaning back while flying low, she passed right under the demon as it breathed out a ray of black flames. Tumbling over she turned around, Makaela landed into a kneel behind the creature, her whip elongated ahead of her. Having entangled itself around the demon’s middle neck after being dragged with her charge.
“Emerald Burst.” She chanted, grasping the whip’s handle with both hands as the emerald flames blazed alive once more. Quickly flowing down the whip’s length as the demon struggled and spun about to face her, its crimson eyes widening as the flames reached its body.
The emerald flames made a complete circle around its neck, before suddenly the demon exploded upwards in a pillar of bright green, spiralling fire.
Makaela retrieved her whip, the weapon shortening to its original two-meter length. She glanced about herself, the two demons she burned earlier plus another standing to surround her.
“You’re in our way, corrupted Alf. Our master wishes these lands burned! Die you measly being!” One demon lord exclaimed, a floating black torso with dozens of long tentacles for arms.
“Who cares about your master?” Makaela responded with a cold snort, “Before my master, for my master! I shall eradicate your very existence~” she giggled in excitement, lashing out her whip at the speaker.
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* * *
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Thea gazed off in amazement at the clash of monsters behind the demonic army, as did many others. Watching, baffled by the powers being shown. Raw strength and speed that compared to the greater demon’s bodies, something even the Slayers couldn’t produce out of their Draconic equipment.
The Dragon Knights were outnumbered far more than two to one, yet they did more than just hold their own. They slew Demon Lords left and right, monsters that alone would decimate hundreds of common soldiers. Greater demons that took several Slayers to slay a single one, with causalities to boot.
But their amazement was cut short, as more fiends and hellhounds reached the battlements, furies swooping back into the fight with a frenzy.
“Reform!” Thea shouted, “It’s far from over! Retake your formations! Stop gawking and pick up your weapons!” she ordered everyone nearby, mercenary or otherwise they listened. Her voice imbued with power, reaching further than before and seemingly empowering all those that heard it.
She herself felt stronger, the rush of energy that she felt during her fight with Jekozom had returned. A flame burning within her, its heat rushing through her veins like surging lightning. She felt changed, Thea felt reborn as she turned to face a loose fiend.
Taking aim with her gunblade she chanted, “Draconic Burst!” the words appearing in her mind as blue electricity converged at the tip of her cannon. The blue energy quickly formed into a ball, as the fiend sensing the powerful magic turned to face its adversary.
Only to be engulfed in a sudden blaze of white hot flames, it got instantly incinerated along with dozens of furies that flew about it. The very battlements before her flames burning away into ash, her own weapon trembling under the power flowing through it.
The weapon’s core couldn’t take it, shattering midway through the spell, its pieces falling off the weapon and to the floor.
“Damn,” Thea cursed, throwing the now useless weapon aside. “What you all staring at!?” She shouted at the mages behind her, giving them a gaze fearsome enough to snap them out of their dazes. “Get back to work! Deal with the damn winged pests!” She told them before turning to the forming shields and gunlances ahead of her, “Shields hold those fiends off! Spears turn back and deal with the hellhounds up here!” she continued shouting orders.
An aura of sizzling blue electricity was forming around her body as she ushered warriors about, her every word imbued with that same power, connecting her aura with each mercenary, soldier, mage and adventurer within earshot. Auras formed around their own bodies too, suddenly flowing a strange warmth within them, not as empowering as Thea felt it but enough to exhilarate any fighter back into action.
Thea narrowed her eyes briefly at the auras, chalking it up to another question to add to her very long list, she really needed to ask Erik. Then hearing an ear-piercing bellow, her face paled as she turn to look off the wall.
The Daemons had reached them.
Massive goliaths of molten earth, tall enough to look over the wall. There were dozens of them, carelessly stepping over any thrall that hadn’t moved out of their way. The thralls just now forming at the wall’s edge, the pit fiends whipping hellhounds and fiends from continuing to climb the walls.
Each Daemon planted their feet steadily into the ground, and arching back while clenching both fists over their heads. Their raised arms lit ablaze, violet flames shining brightly with demonic energy as it travelled up to their fists where it converged into a miniature violet sun.
Many above the wall who stood before the towering Daemons, Nerick included, rushed to the wall’s edge and jumped off. While many others lost all will, falling to their knees as they abandoned themselves to this cruel fate.
Each Deamon roared out in anger, ballistae, cannons and catapults assaulting them, mages and archers focusing entirely on them. Some mad adventurers even started to climb their molten bodies, their own imbued with a magical aura to resist the heat as they stabbed and hacked away at the molten rock-like make of these demons.
But none of that stopped the goliaths of flame, roaring out once more before starting crash their imbued fists down upon the wall.
Each miniature star of condensed demonic energy, barely stopped from landing.
Long chains of blue lightning suddenly entangled themselves around the Daemon’s necks and shoulders, pulling them back and away from the wall. Some even pulled with so much force that they were dropped upon the army of thralls behind them, their glowing fists exploding in a torrent of violet flames and miasma upon contact with any surface.
Thea finally took a long breath in, her heart almost having stopped a
fter seeing the massive goliath standing before her with arms raised above her head. She glanced to either side of herself, rushing to her left before pushing through the formations of army men.
Thea looked off the wall’s edge and down at the hordes of thralls below, there she saw them.
Some massacring thralls, hellhounds and pit-fiends while others held the chains of lighting. They were Dark Elves wearing their signature snow white armour, several hundreds of them per Deamon. Outnumbered, surrounded and having to defend their comrades. The Dark Elves still showed more resolve than even her, smiling in maddened abandon as they bathed themselves in demon blood and entrails.
But they couldn’t last, the entire army of demons now turning on them.
Thea immediately took action, “The Dark Elves fight for our city! Are we just going to stand here and watch them die in vain!?” She shouted at all that would hear, her voice resounding throughout the wall. “Do you call yourselves Druvians!?” She asked, gaining herself an echoing roar in response. “Then follow me to the pits of hell!”
Thea leaped off the wall, her aura suddenly surging with sparking energy, travelling back and imbuing all that heard her bellow.
“Draconic Quake!” Thea chanted, putting her two hands together over her head as she descended the surely deadly fall. Yet instead she touched ground without any sort of damage to her legs or otherwise, kneeling lower before slamming her fists down into the ground while she lay surrounded by demons.
The ground quaked beneath her, as white molten energy shattered through it and spread across the wall’s border. A looming calm followed, as she rose to her feet and stepped back. The ground that lay rumbling before her and across the entire wall, suddenly rose then exploded upwards, turning into white pillars of flame that incinerated all in their path.
She watched, caring not for how or where this power came from, too exhilarated by the energy flowing within her to question it. Too excited by the gazes of fear the demons sent her way after the pillars of flame dissipated, several rows of charred demonic bodies lying between her and them.