by John Nest
The two of them tumbled on the ground. Before Macher could recover from being stunned, Sierra used her Energy Mace on him. She bludgeoned Macher's metal helmet and made small dent on it.
However, Sierra flew backwards as she was attacked by afterimages of Macher's glaive.
Then, more Cavalry Knights behind Macher charged in after him. Yet, they were hurriedly met by Guro and her troops of Ranseurs and Iron Knights. They were also aided by the Arcus' arrows as the Vigilantez ranged corps attacked them from behind the safety of their melee forces.
Despite the sudden emergence of the Vigilantez, they were still losing. The levels of the Cavalry Knights were well beyond that of an ordinary bandit or even that of a Brandal Captain.
Fortunately, several white casting circles appeared where the Vigilantez stood. Incitant and other Priests variations of their Sonstwelter Alliance supported them from behind, while their low level mages fired out airballs, fireballs and waterballs at the Cavalry Knights.
Then, a silver puppet and a golden puppet appeared from the side. Prosjak arrived, and his two human-sized puppets wiped the floor against four Cavalry Knights at the same time.
Steadily, Prosjak fought his way towards Macher.
"Your army in the southern gate is lost!" said the middle-aged adviser. "Surrender, and maybe Duke Jeune will show you mercy."
"Are you insane?" replied Macher. "I still have you outnumbered and outclassed!"
"Raaaaah!" came shouts from behind Macher's forces. He turned around and was surprised to see more Vigilantez appear.
Adder, Thyrsus, Vijaya, Sharanga, Ichaival, Jeter and the rest of the Avendre Mercenaries from Smoke's army finally arrived, blocking the entrance of the broken down wall. They had circled around the destroyed city block in order to lock Macher and his men in.
Smoke hurriedly walk over to Sierra and helped her up. "Are you alright?" he asked worriedly.
"Yeah, I'm fine. I was barely scratched. Go finish Macher," she replied with a grin. However, her life bar still displayed 75% despite her tremendous defense.
He squeezed her shoulders and carried her to one of the white casting circles made by Incitant's forces. There, she left her to recover.
More Cavalry Knights charged at Smoke, but they were all met with Ranseurs led by his four Maneators.
Macher easily handled Prosjak's silver jack-o-lantern puppet. The afterimages of his glaive broke through the puppet's two zweihänders. Fortunately, the silver puppet did not have a life bar. Otherwise, it would have been killed.
Prosjak had to use both his puppets, Dosadno and Neizvestan, against Macher in order for them to fight evenly.
However, after a few more exchanges, Neizvestan's twin swords damaged Macher while Dosadno's defense left Prosjak's life bar untarnished.
Smoke faced two Sonstwelter Cavalry Knights from the side of their battle, and waited for the perfect opportunity to join in.
Since the Sonstwelters he was facing were much slower when compared to Macher, he was able to dance around them. He could even ride on the back of their dirus wolf and hit them from behind before they could attack him with their long-spears.
Slowly, the Cavalry Knights began to die out as Smoke's, Incitant's and Prosjak's forces gathered around them.
Macher's concentration was disturbed as he heard the screams of his personally trained Knights being killed off by the Vigilantez and the Avendre Mercenaries. His life bar was reduced to 65%.
He watched the well-known core members and observed whether he could attack them, but saw that they were well protected by Iron Knights, Ranseurs, Arcus, Shamans and Acolytes. He also noticed that most of their Priests had died out, which led to more of their Knights dying as no one was there to heal them.
"Garcon, ride on my back, I'll make sure you stay alive," said Macher to one of their surviving Zectian Priests near him.
The Zectian gratefully accepted the offer. "Thank you so much, Sir Macher. I'll be sure to heal you until my dying breath."
"Just make sure to stay with me," replied Macher, and enjoyed the warm feeling of white lights entering his body as he was being healed.
Macher looked around and knew it was a hopeless situation. He needed to get out of there with what was left of his private army. He couldn't allow them to die here, not without him conquering a city.
TOOT TOTOTOOT TOOT TOOT TOOOOT TOTOTOOT
Sounds of Cavalry Trumpets rang from outside the walls.
'He still had more men?' wondered Smoke in disbelief.
"Old man, you defended your city well, but I found the pattern to your golden puppet's defense," Macher said to Prosjak, and used his ability called True Strike.
Macher threw his glaive and eighteen afterimages of his weapon appeared. Dosadno tried to block most of them, but he couldn't stop them all. The golden puppet defended the ones that could target the vital portions of Prosjak and neglected the ones farther out of its reach.
However, the ones that got past the golden puppet disappeared and instantly reappeared in front of Prosjak and stabbed him through his stomach.
Prosjak fell down and displayed a life bar of 25%. Apparently, the middle-aged man had a low HP and an even more lower defense. His life bar displayed (52,500/210,000 HP).
Smoke quickly rushed to Prosjak and took out Macher's glaive. The middle-aged adviser was inflicted with the Bleeding status. Due to the large wound the glaive left, 1% of his life bar was being drained per second.
"Incitant! We need your help!" cried out Smoke but none of the Priests could hear him as they were still busy healing everyone else.
Then, he heard Macher's voice. "Farewell, Smoke. We shall meet again!" he said threateningly and rode off towards the Vigilantez blocking his escape.
Smoke couldn't understand how Macher could have hid more of his Knights from outside the city. "Igniz, fly up. I need to see this," he ordered his symbiote, while still holding on to the injured Prosjak.
At once, Igniz blitzed upward.
Smoke used his Symbiote Vision and saw four-thousand Cavalry Knights riding on muscular acinonyx cheetahs. From one look at those Cavalry Knights and mounts, he could tell that they were of a special breed.
"Everyone, retreat! Follow my lead!" shouted Macher and went straight towards Adder's formation.
'Oh no! He's going after my core members,' thought a worried Smoke. He stood up, but Prosjak grabbed on to his arm.
"Where are you going? Please help me," begged Prosjak. The royal adviser's skin was becoming paler by the second.
Thankfully, Sierra arrived and began healing the middle-aged man. "Go Smoke, I got this," said a fully recovered Sierra.
Smoke took to the skies and readied to crash down on Macher. "Igniz, to me!" he yelled out and his symbiote flew towards him.
As soon as Igniz started covering him in flames, several long-spears went straight for him. Smoke fell down to the ground, impaled with three spears. Coupled with the damage from the fall, he had less than 25% of his life bar. He took out the spears, but Horrabelle's curse, Decay Aura, activated and his life bar was steadily being depleted together with the draining damage from the Bleeding Status.
Incitant rushed over to him and yelled. "Sortis Revoco!"
His Bleeding Status was removed, but his Decay Aura was still active and began reducing Incitant's life bar by 100 HP per second.
"Whoa! What is that?" asked an alarmed Incitant as he was being attacked by the curse.
"Just heal me and we'll be fine," ordered Smoke impatiently.
A white casting circle immediately appeared below them, and both of them were healed by small balls of white light.
Despite being healed, Smoke worried about the imminent danger, as he could see the onslaught of the specially trained Cavalry Knights. Dozens of Avendre Mercenaries were thrown up in the air as they forcibly made their way towards Macher.
Smoke got out of the casting circle as soon as his life bar reached 50%. "Everyone, just get out of their way!" he yelled as he
desperately started running out to help his army, who were blocking Macher's path.
'Killing Macher isn't worth the lives of all those Zectians,' Smoke thought to himself.
Fortunately, Adder heard his voice and began ordering everyone to step away from the Cavalry Knights' path. The Condortlian Warrior expected a similar scenario when they defeated the northern Brandal army.
As Adder disseminated Smoke's orders, the rest of his core members complied without question.
However, a group of Avendre Mercenaries, led by Jeter, did not receive this important information. They remained where they stood, and fought off against a few surviving bandits and numerous Cavalry Knights.
Although outnumbered, the Mercenaries were inspired to fight by the Vigilantez. Also, their increase in several levels from the previous battle made them stronger and allowed them to hold their own against the well trained Cavalry Knights.
Macher, who was looking to inflict a heavy blow on Smoke's army, pointed towards Jeter's group of Avendre Mercenaries. He signaled the Commander of the Silny Division to crush them from both sides.
The Cavalry Knights on acinonyx cheetahs and Macher's surviving army clashed against Jeter's legion of Mercenaries.
Yet, even with ten more levels, the Avendre Mercenaries could still have not survive such a gruesome encounter. Attacked from both directions, Jeter ordered his men to retreat.
They were already having a hard time against one force of Cavalry Knights. Yet, before Jeter's troops could pull out, most of them were already impaled on glaives and long-spears.
Macher, recognizing the uniform of an Avendre Commander, personally went after Jeter. He took one of the long-spears sticking out of a dead Mercenary and used his Illusionary Strike on Jeter.
The Avendre Commander was pierced in eight critical locations, and Macher's final attack sent him flying to the destroyed wall. He was cruelly impaled against it, his feet departed from the ground, as he remained suspended in the air by the spear.
Macher then led all the Cavalry Knights out of Centzo. Jinggu and Sharur's boulders came hurtling down on them, but most of them easily destroyed the fiery rocks with their glaives and long-spears.
The Vigilantez's Therianthropes and Tikbalangs made sure to hold onto at least one of the Knights, but they only numbered less than three-hundred.
Stuck behind the Cavalry Knights stragglers Macher left behind, Smoke furiously watched him escape. He saw that his core members were still struggling against them, and couldn't risk any one of them dying here.
Macher escaped with more than eleven-thousand men, while Smoke, Incitant and Prosjak only looked on from inside the broken walls of Centzo. All of their factions remained to finish off the last members of the invading forces.
* * * * * *
An hour passed since Macher's escape. The remaining Brandals and Cavalry Knights had all been wiped out. Smoke sat down on the rubble of the city's broken wall, and stared blankly at Jeter's kite shield and saber.
Meanwhile, Sierra had the Shamans and Acolytes prepare the meal for the residents of Centzo. They used the food brought by the Avendre Mercenaries and the food supplies they looted from the Brandals.
Sierra had the food imbued with healing properties to further enhance the effect of their meal. She then had her Therianthrope forces, in their human form, serve the residents.
Adder and Ledur joined their empathetic leader.
"Jeter fought bravely. He died an honorable death," said Adder and patted Smoke's shoulder.
"Did you know that I was planning on recruiting him to our private army," said Smoke with a heavy heart. "I was going to payoff his debts with the Avendre after this battle was over."
"Well, I heard from Jeter's men that it was his dream to fight alongside us, and especially under your leadership," added Adder. "So, I think he went to Mictlan without any regrets."
Ledur remained quiet, as he struggled to keep his vow of silence. As his sign of encouragement, the winged Tikbalang simply ruffled Smoke's long white hair with his hooves. He then proceeded to fix the destroyed portion of the western wall with his Earth Manipulation.
"Thank you. I think I get what you're saying," said Smoke somberly. "We better start securing the city. We don't know if Macher and his forces might come back."
Smoke joined Ledur in fixing the torn-down western wall. Whereas, Adder went out to find Espion. The two of them were assigned to be liaison officers for the Vigilantez and Centzo factions.
Apparently, Espion had long started to coordinate with Prosjak and Duke Jeune about future relations with Verbrannt and Centzo.
While fixing the wall, Smoke saw the twin OrkElves work on the catapults left in front of the western side. The OrkElves' forces began gathering the siege weapons left behind by Macher and his invading army.
Still suffering from the loss of Jeter, Smoke then realized that he had not thanked his core members properly.
"I'll be right back, Ledur," he said to the winged Tikbalang and flew off.
He glided down swiftly to them. Sharur and Jinggu immediately stopped tinkering with the siege weapons when they saw him.
"Listen, I know that I haven't worked closely together with the two of you lately, and I'm sorry for that. But I want you to know that the two of you played an important role in this victory," explained Smoke earnestly.
He wanted to thank them properly in case he would miss the chance like he did with Jeter.
"Don't worry about it," said Sharur. "Sierra's been covering your absence, and we know that whatever it is you're doing, it will always be for the good of someone else."
"I feel exactly the same way," said Jinggu and grinned. "Besides, you haven't really been neglecting us. You still talk to us once in awhile."
"Still, we should remedy that soon," said Smoke and lightly punched Jinggu's shoulder. "Hopefully, Sierra can work her magic with the food, and feed everyone in the city for a proper victory celebration."
"Knowing Sierra, I'm sure she'll be able to do it," replied Sharur.
After Smoke left, the twin OrkElves gathered two trebuchets and seventy catapults together. Smoke told them to improve their mobility as he planned to take them back with them to Verbrannt.
Smoke then spotted Thyrsus, Vijaya, Ichaival and Sharanga waiting on top of the southern wall. Apparently, they organized sentry groups to survey the entire capital. Their falcons flew on intervals and all reported to Vijaya.
All of the Hunters were still waiting for their falcons' return. Smoke saw Ichaival retelling one of their fights, while Thyrsus and Vijaya were laughing. Only Sharanga remained unfazed and kept a stern expression.
When he got closer, Smoke realized that the story Ichaival was saying was about Sharanga's traps accidentally capturing one of the Avendre Mercenaries.
Smoke called out to them. "Hey, Guys, I wanted to thank you for your nice work out there."
"We could have done better, but at least all of us made out okay," bluntly stated Vijaya.
"I couldn't agree more," said Sharanga.
"Overall, I think we did more than okay," interjected Ichaival. "Don't get me wrong. I know that there's still plenty of room for improvement, but we survived and got stronger."
"Speaking about improvement," interjected Sharanga. "I came up with some idea for my traps after I saw that Elementalist summoning the water elemental."
"That's great, Sharanga!" exclaimed Ichaival and fervently praised her. "Only you, would find inspiration from the enemy."
"Not now, Ichaival!" said an irritated Sharanga, and turned to Smoke. "I was hoping I can ask for some of your elemental stones."
"Sure, alright. Which elemental stone?" asked Smoke curiously.
"Maybe a stone from each of the elements you have on you," said Sharanga.
Without delay, he reached into his backpack and gave her a clay, ember, electro and a dew stone. "Here, I hope they'll be very useful to you."
After giving Sharanga the elemental stones, Smoke noticed Vij
aya staring at the battle-filled clearing surrounding the capital.
Vijaya stared at the barren land. "How long do you think it will take this place to recover?"
"As long as the people of Centzo are alive, I'm sure this region will be back on its feet in no time," answered Thyrsus out of the blue.
"Alright, I'll let all of you get back to it, I'm going to go see what everyone else is doing," said Smoke and bade farewell to the Hunters.
Next, Smoke searched for the three Lioumereans. He heard from Espion that they volunteered to help find lost family members.