Chapter 133: 133
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“Is that it?” she asked herself, falling back into the habit of talking to herself as soon as she wasn’t around people anymore.
“Should be it.” Aki answered, the first words out of the dagger in more than a day, startling her a little but not as much as before.
“Ah, I live for this…,” the dagger said, pure joy radiating from the metal.
“You’re not technically alive you shit. Well you don’t shit but that’s the point.” Ilea said, flying higher to see the extent of the city.
Contrary to the way most cities worked on Earth, there was very little housing outside of the high walls, monster attacks likely too dangerous for anybody to even consider it. Some still did of course and there were even smaller walled off settlements a little outside of the city. A big forest spread to the west, somewhat uncommon for the plains, at least what Ilea had seen of them so far. A lake opened up into the forest as well, some ships stationed near the city.
East and northward, the city spread. Quite far, even with Ilea’s high aerial view. Flying further down and a little closer, Ilea marveled at the Gothic walls that were ridiculously high and delicately decorated. Must’ve cost them a literal fortune to build that. Her thoughts were interrupted by her seeing a couple figures approach from the walls at a high speed.
Five people, two of them winged and the rest simply floating came closer towards her, soon identified by their matching armor as a cosplaying group of some kind.
“State your… name and business in Virilya!” the man in the middle shouted, a little stressed out at her high level. Ilea wasn’t sure if he could identify it or not. The people were of varying levels, the highest being a mage at one ninety. Still, the highest city guards she had ever encountered. A given, the city in question being the capital of an empire and her approach being the flying one probably not being covered by most other guards on duty at the time.
“Lilith is the name. I’m here to look for the remainders of the Shadow’s Hand. I’m one of them myself.” she stated, most of it the truth. The silly fake name didn’t seem so silly to her anymore considering what the mind weaver had told them about names. A lot of people already knew her name but at least sometimes she wouldn’t shout it out for everyone to hear. Especially in new cities.
The man looked over to his colleagues but seemed much more relaxed after the mention of the Hand. “Yea, many have arrived in the past month. You’re pretty late. Come, we’ll check the formalities.” the man said and flew downwards, the other four spreading around Ilea as she followed him, not fully trusting of the stranger yet.
Ilea thought of what to spend her 45 remaining stat points on as they approached the beautiful walls. “These are honestly the nicest walls I’ve ever seen...” she said to nobody in particular.
One of the men chuckled. “First time in Virilya?”
“Yes actually, you’re for hire as a guide?” she asked in a joking manner. The man opened his mouth to respond but was swiftly shut up by a gesture of the man next to him. Professionalism seemed to be higher rated than comedy, a shame Ilea thought.
“We have a wave of demons approaching to the west captain.” a mage flying to the left of Ilea said. “Should we go for support, the west wing has had a rough time the past two weeks.” the man said.
“They’ll send out a signal if they need anyone.” the warrior to the right of Ilea retorted.
“I’ll go, where can I find you afterwards?” Ilea said, stopping in the air, her wings moving steadily as she watched the demons’ movements in the distance. The walls were much too high for them to climb or break through but what the beasts lacked in intelligence or planning, at least without mind weavers to control them, they made up with sheer ferocity and numbers.
And numbers they had. There were at least a couple hundred of the monsters moving in, the light of magical spells forming on the top of the wall as the sunlight reflected from the lake to the west. It looked beautiful, idyllic even. Ilea smiled at the view, even the noise of the demon horde below couldn’t reach them at their altitude.
“No, you’re coming to fill out the required forms. Afterwards we’ll see if we can get you a spot in the civilian support corps.” the captain explained, only looking back at her while shaking his head, apparently thinking it to be a silly notion.
Ilea’s smile turned into an outright laugh as the people around her stopped to look at her, confused at the sudden outburst. “Yea I don’t think so. The other guy here mentioned the western side of the wall to be understaffed and I’m a perfectly fine killing machine.” Ilea said, waving towards the man who had talked about the military resource situation.
“I don’t expect to be paid either, so don’t worry about your gold.” she said offhandedly before she dove downwards. Shouts could be heard behind her, quite efficiently ignored before some of the people followed, quickly left behind as her buffs came to life, the speed of the armored warrior-healer reaching her maximum capacity in mere moments.
“Civilian fighting corpse? What the hell is this bullshit.” Ilea murmured to herself, admiring the somewhat circular wall around the city, the closer she came the more impressive the sheer size of it was. Moving onwards she started concentrating on the upcoming fight, her muscles itching to move freely and at full power after the rather inhibiting escort duty she had to follow.
Sulivhaan would have to wait a little longer, she thought as the first long ranged fire, ice and lightning spells were launched from the top of the wall and into the horde below. Impressive but nothing compared to any long ranged artillery one Earth. Ilea thought of the possibilities of launching big chunks of rocks with explosion enchantments over long distances and laughed at the idea of climbing one to become additional payload.
Her landing was not quite the impact of a launched piece of rock the size of a house but certainly close enough. Obsidian gauntlets upfront, she dived straight into the ground, the impact completely flattening an unfortunate demon before she hit the ground, her body compressing as the ground gave in below, dirt and rock surrendering against her assault and flying outwards to blind or strike her enemies.
Demons hissed around her as a black mist appeared in the vicinity. Ash, the densely packed clusters of the element spreading out to encompass a rather large area. The first demons to approach the small crater left by the ballistic human missile found it rather empty, a moment later the first of them fell. A woman clad in black armor spun through their midst, shrouded by ash and hidden to their eyes she moved efficiently and deadly, the low leveled monsters showing little resistance to the blue steel blades weaved into her gauntlets, covered by the red of their blood.
“Yea I’m not going in there.” one of the aerial guards following behind Ilea said, after stopping in the air. The mage next to him deflected a bone spear shot from a rather large demonic monster below.
“Neither will I but we’ll have to keep an eye on her. We don’t want anymore unregistered refugees in the town...” the mage said, floating back upwards to the rest of their team coming closer in the distance, the two of them the fastest fliers in the group.
“Are you kidding me,” the first guard said, his sword deflecting a ranged attack before he started moving upwards again too. “Refugees don’t jump into demon hordes. Did you see that impact?” he asked, soon outside of the enemy’s range.
“Yea, for all we know she misjudged the height and is now paste on the ground.” the mage commented, getting a chuckle out of the other man.
“I mean she’s with the Hand so fair enough. Crazy fuckers.” he said right before the captain and the other two members of their squad reached them.
“Where is the woman, I saw her flying into that group. Why didn’t you stop her?” the man asked, quite stupidly in the other’s opinion. He was a capable fighter but sometimes his reasoning left a little to be desired.
“She’s faster than any of us captain. And as nice as those eyes looked I really don’t wanna try and touch her.” the first guard said.
“Where is she now?” the captain asked as they all tried to make sense of the battlefield below. By now parts of the forest were in flames, fireballs and ice lances racing down into the demons, destroying them as if they were mere toys. Some special ops squads jumped down the walls or were already waiting before the massive closed gate to the city to reduce the damage the demons could deal on the infrastructure.
Rock and ice walls formed near the wall, joined by several barriers in front and behind to form a front perimeter. A couple crazy ones jumped over the barricades or flew down into the masses from above, joining the new member of the Hand the team had encountered. Just a few, each one taking an unnecessary risk in most of the onlooker’s minds. The horde wasn’t controlled, a simple matter of time to be dealt with. Something as trivial as this might’ve scared a guard recruit in the first week of the demon attacks but by now it was a common sight. Terrifying still, but common.
Ilea weaved through the masses, avoiding exploding projectiles falling from the sky around her, both her Blink and Sphere abilities a massive boon to her maneuverability and continued survival. She reaped the lives of demons running right outside of a fireball’s blast radius, finishing off the monsters injured by arrows and ice spikes.
The sheer number of projectiles was impressive but considering the likely population of the city and its resources it was expected. Could’ve used that in Ravenhall, Ilea thought but then again the enemy had come from the inside. Ravenhall wasn’t that much of a pushover, the circumstances simply led to disaster. Three more blinks and seven enemy casualties later, a flash of light blasted through the three demons before her, the angle of the spell indicating a much closer combatant having dealt the blows.
She turned to the right as she continued running and saw a mage in black robes and mask channeling what she could only compare to the power of the sun. “Cool!” she exclaimed, jumping over an exploding crystal, some of the shards glancing off her Veil of Ash before she spun in the air, impacting a demon with her blades extended before she disappeared in the direction of the mage.
The light mage was slowly pushed back and upwards as he continued to send beams of light inside and through the monsters’ skulls. Four of them closed in and forced him to teleport away when Ilea appeared above them, taking two of them down with bladed arms and the other two with kicks enhanced with Destruction and Wave of Ember. All four of them were dead when she landed on their bodies, sliding for two meters before she jumped off, blinking towards the next set of enemies.
The mage descended behind her and channeled a longer spell before a beam four times the size of his previous attacks burned through the approaching beasts, vaporizing the body parts it came in contact with while Ilea cut through the demons behind him.
“With the Hand?” she asked as she ran past him.
“Yes, group them up for me and teleport out when the spell hits!” he shouted towards the fast moving woman, her heavy steps digging deep into the dirt below, her velocity and weight creating a deadly combination of force as she impacted the enemy line. Having heard the man, she shouted as loud as she could, not moving too far from her position as more and more demons piled on her. Seeing the slowly approaching spherical object behind her, she waited for the last second as the first claws finally punched through her veil before she pushed herself off, blinking backwards and behind the object.
Appearing, she saw a small globe of light floating into the mass of demons, her hands instinctively moving upwards right before an explosion of fire and light turned the grass and dirt below into ash. Her Veil took the hit in stride as she turned and nodded towards the mage, moving parallel to the wall, followed by her new ranged friend.
The two of them repeated the same tactic for another two chunks of demons, Ilea playing the target to pile the enraged creatures up and the mage to detonate a deadly payload in the midst of them, the combination more effective against the large numbers than the two of them fighting independently.
“May I join in?” a female voice sounded out behind them just after the latest blast took out at least thirty demons. It was of course a rhetorical question as a wave of lava seethed out of the woman’s hands and impacted the ground to the left of Ilea, forming a line forwards and to the left. Demons hissed as their way towards the wall was cut off, too far to jump or too much of a pain was the lava for them to simply cross it.
Ilea understood and so did the sunlight mage, moving behind her as she stepped a couple meters to the right before another wave of lava shot out, this time to the right.
Ilea grunted as she held out her arms, her Veil working overtime as a continued stream of ash blinded the creatures she tried to block in front of her, the beasts falling into and over each other in the confusion while they were being funneled into the death zone the three mages had created.
This time the explosion caused by the light mage was a little stronger, singeing a part of her Veil before it was reformed. The demons weren’t quite as lucky, only ash remaining of their corpses.
“Wanna move further, they can’t see us here.” the woman said but Ilea just moved her arms, the ash parting and flowing into the streams of lava, the demons beyond screaming towards the enemy they once again saw before them.
“That works as well I guess.” the woman said. “Charles, how many charges left?” she asked, speaking to the light mage floating behind Ilea.
“Six of the big ones, better make them count. Regroup at the wall after.” the man said as they continued their tactic. Ilea had noticed that no ranged attacks impacted their vicinity from the wall above, the defenders at least gracious enough to let them do their work.
The bloodied and burned mud was squashed by metal boots as Ilea made her way over to the two talking members of the Hand. Many of the soldiers, guards and adventurers by the looks of them had joined to clean up the battlefield, of the somewhat rare drops of items and of course fires and other elements. Ilea brushed at her helmet, her gauntlet coming away with a layer of mud, blood and ash mixture.
“There she is, not bad. You’re one of the new ones right? Full member already?” the man, Charles, asked her as he looked her way with his masked face. Ilea was intrigued at the making of his helmet, a mixture of metal and cloth that looked to her liking. She did like her horned helmet still, but one day she might find something better than even her Juggernaut armor. As long as it didn’t burn to ash after every fight she’d be fine with it.
“Yea, been for a month or so.” she answered before stopping in front of them.
“Right in the thick of it then. Well good thing there’s new people to fill in the sad sods that died in the last month. Don’t remember a hit to our numbers that bad.” the man said and shook his head lightly.
“How many are left actually? I come from near Ravenhall, looking to retake the city.” she said, putting together her fists.
“Yeahh!” the woman with lava magic exclaimed in a high pitched sound, some heads around them turning towards the group, most quickly looking away again upon seeing the dark armor and high levels.
“Told you we’d go back.” she said to the man next to her who kept looking towards Ilea.
“The mountains are overrun. Are you sure a small group could take care of it? The initial demons summoned were as high as two forty, at least what I’ve seen.” the man said, certainly seeming intrigued.
“We cleared Morhill out two days ago. Couple thousand and we’re seven people. The demons are uncoordinated and easy to handle if you take out the ranged ones first and have flying abilities. Ravenhall will be different, some Mind Weavers there for sure, the smart ones coordinating the other demons. I think we can take it though, just here to get interested people, otherwise we’ll do it ourselves.” she explained, looking towards the wall, the gate alone was around twenty meters high and around seven thick, Ilea feeling truly caught in a fantasy world in that moment. This wasn’t something that humans on Earth could reproduce, at least not without a shit ton of money and time.
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“Is that it?” she asked herself, falling back into the habit of talking to herself as soon as she wasn’t around people anymore.
“Should be it.” Aki answered, the first words out of the dagger in more than a day, startling her a little but not as much as before.
“Ah, I live for this…,” the dagger said, pure joy radiating from the metal.
“You’re not technically alive you shit. Well you don’t shit but that’s the point.” Ilea said, flying higher to see the extent of the city.
Contrary to the way most cities worked on Earth, there was very little housing outside of the high walls, monster attacks likely too dangerous for anybody to even consider it. Some still did of course and there were even smaller walled off settlements a little outside of the city. A big forest spread to the west, somewhat uncommon for the plains, at least what Ilea had seen of them so far. A lake opened up into the forest as well, some ships stationed near the city.
East and northward, the city spread. Quite far, even with Ilea’s high aerial view. Flying further down and a little closer, Ilea marveled at the Gothic walls that were ridiculously high and delicately decorated. Must’ve cost them a literal fortune to build that. Her thoughts were interrupted by her seeing a couple figures approach from the walls at a high speed.
Five people, two of them winged and the rest simply floating came closer towards her, soon identified by their matching armor as a cosplaying group of some kind.
“State your… name and business in Virilya!” the man in the middle shouted, a little stressed out at her high level. Ilea wasn’t sure if he could identify it or not. The people were of varying levels, the highest being a mage at one ninety. Still, the highest city guards she had ever encountered. A given, the city in question being the capital of an empire and her approach being the flying one probably not being covered by most other guards on duty at the time.
“Lilith is the name. I’m here to look for the remainders of the Shadow’s Hand. I’m one of them myself.” she stated, most of it the truth. The silly fake name didn’t seem so silly to her anymore considering what the mind weaver had told them about names. A lot of people already knew her name but at least sometimes she wouldn’t shout it out for everyone to hear. Especially in new cities.
The man looked over to his colleagues but seemed much more relaxed after the mention of the Hand. “Yea, many have arrived in the past month. You’re pretty late. Come, we’ll check the formalities.” the man said and flew downwards, the other four spreading around Ilea as she followed him, not fully trusting of the stranger yet.
Ilea thought of what to spend her 45 remaining stat points on as they approached the beautiful walls. “These are honestly the nicest walls I’ve ever seen...” she said to nobody in particular.
One of the men chuckled. “First time in Virilya?”
“Yes actually, you’re for hire as a guide?” she asked in a joking manner. The man opened his mouth to respond but was swiftly shut up by a gesture of the man next to him. Professionalism seemed to be higher rated than comedy, a shame Ilea thought.
“We have a wave of demons approaching to the west captain.” a mage flying to the left of Ilea said. “Should we go for support, the west wing has had a rough time the past two weeks.” the man said.
“They’ll send out a signal if they need anyone.” the warrior to the right of Ilea retorted.
“I’ll go, where can I find you afterwards?” Ilea said, stopping in the air, her wings moving steadily as she watched the demons’ movements in the distance. The walls were much too high for them to climb or break through but what the beasts lacked in intelligence or planning, at least without mind weavers to control them, they made up with sheer ferocity and numbers.
And numbers they had. There were at least a couple hundred of the monsters moving in, the light of magical spells forming on the top of the wall as the sunlight reflected from the lake to the west. It looked beautiful, idyllic even. Ilea smiled at the view, even the noise of the demon horde below couldn’t reach them at their altitude.
“No, you’re coming to fill out the required forms. Afterwards we’ll see if we can get you a spot in the civilian support corps.” the captain explained, only looking back at her while shaking his head, apparently thinking it to be a silly notion.
Ilea’s smile turned into an outright laugh as the people around her stopped to look at her, confused at the sudden outburst. “Yea I don’t think so. The other guy here mentioned the western side of the wall to be understaffed and I’m a perfectly fine killing machine.” Ilea said, waving towards the man who had talked about the military resource situation.
“I don’t expect to be paid either, so don’t worry about your gold.” she said offhandedly before she dove downwards. Shouts could be heard behind her, quite efficiently ignored before some of the people followed, quickly left behind as her buffs came to life, the speed of the armored warrior-healer reaching her maximum capacity in mere moments.
“Civilian fighting corpse? What the hell is this bullshit.” Ilea murmured to herself, admiring the somewhat circular wall around the city, the closer she came the more impressive the sheer size of it was. Moving onwards she started concentrating on the upcoming fight, her muscles itching to move freely and at full power after the rather inhibiting escort duty she had to follow.
Sulivhaan would have to wait a little longer, she thought as the first long ranged fire, ice and lightning spells were launched from the top of the wall and into the horde below. Impressive but nothing compared to any long ranged artillery one Earth. Ilea thought of the possibilities of launching big chunks of rocks with explosion enchantments over long distances and laughed at the idea of climbing one to become additional payload.
Her landing was not quite the impact of a launched piece of rock the size of a house but certainly close enough. Obsidian gauntlets upfront, she dived straight into the ground, the impact completely flattening an unfortunate demon before she hit the ground, her body compressing as the ground gave in below, dirt and rock surrendering against her assault and flying outwards to blind or strike her enemies.
Demons hissed around her as a black mist appeared in the vicinity. Ash, the densely packed clusters of the element spreading out to encompass a rather large area. The first demons to approach the small crater left by the ballistic human missile found it rather empty, a moment later the first of them fell. A woman clad in black armor spun through their midst, shrouded by ash and hidden to their eyes she moved efficiently and deadly, the low leveled monsters showing little resistance to the blue steel blades weaved into her gauntlets, covered by the red of their blood.
“Yea I’m not going in there.” one of the aerial guards following behind Ilea said, after stopping in the air. The mage next to him deflected a bone spear shot from a rather large demonic monster below.
“Neither will I but we’ll have to keep an eye on her. We don’t want anymore unregistered refugees in the town...” the mage said, floating back upwards to the rest of their team coming closer in the distance, the two of them the fastest fliers in the group.
“Are you kidding me,” the first guard said, his sword deflecting a ranged attack before he started moving upwards again too. “Refugees don’t jump into demon hordes. Did you see that impact?” he asked, soon outside of the enemy’s range.
“Yea, for all we know she misjudged the height and is now paste on the ground.” the mage commented, getting a chuckle out of the other man.
“I mean she’s with the Hand so fair enough. Crazy fuckers.” he said right before the captain and the other two members of their squad reached them.
“Where is the woman, I saw her flying into that group. Why didn’t you stop her?” the man asked, quite stupidly in the other’s opinion. He was a capable fighter but sometimes his reasoning left a little to be desired.
“She’s faster than any of us captain. And as nice as those eyes looked I really don’t wanna try and touch her.” the first guard said.
“Where is she now?” the captain asked as they all tried to make sense of the battlefield below. By now parts of the forest were in flames, fireballs and ice lances racing down into the demons, destroying them as if they were mere toys. Some special ops squads jumped down the walls or were already waiting before the massive closed gate to the city to reduce the damage the demons could deal on the infrastructure.
Rock and ice walls formed near the wall, joined by several barriers in front and behind to form a front perimeter. A couple crazy ones jumped over the barricades or flew down into the masses from above, joining the new member of the Hand the team had encountered. Just a few, each one taking an unnecessary risk in most of the onlooker’s minds. The horde wasn’t controlled, a simple matter of time to be dealt with. Something as trivial as this might’ve scared a guard recruit in the first week of the demon attacks but by now it was a common sight. Terrifying still, but common.
Ilea weaved through the masses, avoiding exploding projectiles falling from the sky around her, both her Blink and Sphere abilities a massive boon to her maneuverability and continued survival. She reaped the lives of demons running right outside of a fireball’s blast radius, finishing off the monsters injured by arrows and ice spikes.
The sheer number of projectiles was impressive but considering the likely population of the city and its resources it was expected. Could’ve used that in Ravenhall, Ilea thought but then again the enemy had come from the inside. Ravenhall wasn’t that much of a pushover, the circumstances simply led to disaster. Three more blinks and seven enemy casualties later, a flash of light blasted through the three demons before her, the angle of the spell indicating a much closer combatant having dealt the blows.
She turned to the right as she continued running and saw a mage in black robes and mask channeling what she could only compare to the power of the sun. “Cool!” she exclaimed, jumping over an exploding crystal, some of the shards glancing off her Veil of Ash before she spun in the air, impacting a demon with her blades extended before she disappeared in the direction of the mage.
The light mage was slowly pushed back and upwards as he continued to send beams of light inside and through the monsters’ skulls. Four of them closed in and forced him to teleport away when Ilea appeared above them, taking two of them down with bladed arms and the other two with kicks enhanced with Destruction and Wave of Ember. All four of them were dead when she landed on their bodies, sliding for two meters before she jumped off, blinking towards the next set of enemies.
The mage descended behind her and channeled a longer spell before a beam four times the size of his previous attacks burned through the approaching beasts, vaporizing the body parts it came in contact with while Ilea cut through the demons behind him.
“With the Hand?” she asked as she ran past him.
“Yes, group them up for me and teleport out when the spell hits!” he shouted towards the fast moving woman, her heavy steps digging deep into the dirt below, her velocity and weight creating a deadly combination of force as she impacted the enemy line. Having heard the man, she shouted as loud as she could, not moving too far from her position as more and more demons piled on her. Seeing the slowly approaching spherical object behind her, she waited for the last second as the first claws finally punched through her veil before she pushed herself off, blinking backwards and behind the object.
Appearing, she saw a small globe of light floating into the mass of demons, her hands instinctively moving upwards right before an explosion of fire and light turned the grass and dirt below into ash. Her Veil took the hit in stride as she turned and nodded towards the mage, moving parallel to the wall, followed by her new ranged friend.
The two of them repeated the same tactic for another two chunks of demons, Ilea playing the target to pile the enraged creatures up and the mage to detonate a deadly payload in the midst of them, the combination more effective against the large numbers than the two of them fighting independently.
“May I join in?” a female voice sounded out behind them just after the latest blast took out at least thirty demons. It was of course a rhetorical question as a wave of lava seethed out of the woman’s hands and impacted the ground to the left of Ilea, forming a line forwards and to the left. Demons hissed as their way towards the wall was cut off, too far to jump or too much of a pain was the lava for them to simply cross it.
Ilea understood and so did the sunlight mage, moving behind her as she stepped a couple meters to the right before another wave of lava shot out, this time to the right.
Ilea grunted as she held out her arms, her Veil working overtime as a continued stream of ash blinded the creatures she tried to block in front of her, the beasts falling into and over each other in the confusion while they were being funneled into the death zone the three mages had created.
This time the explosion caused by the light mage was a little stronger, singeing a part of her Veil before it was reformed. The demons weren’t quite as lucky, only ash remaining of their corpses.
“Wanna move further, they can’t see us here.” the woman said but Ilea just moved her arms, the ash parting and flowing into the streams of lava, the demons beyond screaming towards the enemy they once again saw before them.
“That works as well I guess.” the woman said. “Charles, how many charges left?” she asked, speaking to the light mage floating behind Ilea.
“Six of the big ones, better make them count. Regroup at the wall after.” the man said as they continued their tactic. Ilea had noticed that no ranged attacks impacted their vicinity from the wall above, the defenders at least gracious enough to let them do their work.
The bloodied and burned mud was squashed by metal boots as Ilea made her way over to the two talking members of the Hand. Many of the soldiers, guards and adventurers by the looks of them had joined to clean up the battlefield, of the somewhat rare drops of items and of course fires and other elements. Ilea brushed at her helmet, her gauntlet coming away with a layer of mud, blood and ash mixture.
“There she is, not bad. You’re one of the new ones right? Full member already?” the man, Charles, asked her as he looked her way with his masked face. Ilea was intrigued at the making of his helmet, a mixture of metal and cloth that looked to her liking. She did like her horned helmet still, but one day she might find something better than even her Juggernaut armor. As long as it didn’t burn to ash after every fight she’d be fine with it.
“Yea, been for a month or so.” she answered before stopping in front of them.
“Right in the thick of it then. Well good thing there’s new people to fill in the sad sods that died in the last month. Don’t remember a hit to our numbers that bad.” the man said and shook his head lightly.
“How many are left actually? I come from near Ravenhall, looking to retake the city.” she said, putting together her fists.
“Yeahh!” the woman with lava magic exclaimed in a high pitched sound, some heads around them turning towards the group, most quickly looking away again upon seeing the dark armor and high levels.
“Told you we’d go back.” she said to the man next to her who kept looking towards Ilea.
“The mountains are overrun. Are you sure a small group could take care of it? The initial demons summoned were as high as two forty, at least what I’ve seen.” the man said, certainly seeming intrigued.
“We cleared Morhill out two days ago. Couple thousand and we’re seven people. The demons are uncoordinated and easy to handle if you take out the ranged ones first and have flying abilities. Ravenhall will be different, some Mind Weavers there for sure, the smart ones coordinating the other demons. I think we can take it though, just here to get interested people, otherwise we’ll do it ourselves.” she explained, looking towards the wall, the gate alone was around twenty meters high and around seven thick, Ilea feeling truly caught in a fantasy world in that moment. This wasn’t something that humans on Earth could reproduce, at least not without a shit ton of money and time.
Is that it? she asked herself, falling back into the habit of talking to herself as soon as she wasn't around people anymore.Should be it. Aki answered, the first words out of the dagger in more than a day, startling her a little but not as much as before.Ah, I live for this, the dagger said, pure joy radiating from the metal.You're not technically alive you shit. Well you don't shit but that's the point. Ilea said, flying higher to see the extent of the city.Contrary to the way most cities worked on Earth, there was very little housing outside of the high walls, monster attacks likely too dangerous for anybody to even consider it. Some still did of course and there were even smaller walled off settlements a little outside of the city. A big forest spread to the west, somewhat uncommon for the plains, at least what Ilea had seen of them so far. A lake opened up into the forest as well, some ships stationed near the city.East and northward, the city spread. Quite far, even with Ilea's high aerial view. Flying further down and a little closer, Ilea marveled at the Gothic walls that were ridiculously high and delicately decorated. Must've cost them a literal fortune to build that. Her thoughts were interrupted by her seeing a couple figures approach from the walls at a high speed.Five people, two of them winged and the rest simply floating came closer towards her, soon identified by their matching armor as a cosplaying group of some kind.State your name and business in Virilya! the man in the middle shouted, a little stressed out at her high level. Ilea wasn't sure if he could identify it or not. The people were of varying levels, the highest being a mage at one ninety. Still, the highest city guards she had ever encountered. A given, the city in question being the capital of an empire and her approach being the flying one probably not being covered by most other guards on duty at the time.Lilith is the name. I'm here to look for the remainders of the Shadow's Hand. I'm one of them myself. she stated, most of it the truth. The silly fake name didn't seem so silly to her anymore considering what the mind weaver had told them about names. A lot of people already knew her name but at least sometimes she wouldn't shout it out for everyone to hear. Especially in new cities.The man looked over to his colleagues but seemed much more relaxed after the mention of the Hand. Yea, many have arrived in the past month. You're pretty late. Come, we'll check the formalities. the man said and flew downwards, the other four spreading around Ilea as she followed him, not fully trusting of the stranger yet.Ilea thought of what to spend her 45 remaining stat points on as they approached the beautiful walls. These are honestly the nicest walls I've ever seen... she said to nobody in particular.One of the men chuckled. First time in Virilya?Yes actually, you're for hire as a guide? she asked in a joking manner. The man opened his mouth to respond but was swiftly shut up by a gesture of the man next to him. Professionalism seemed to be higher rated than comedy, a shame Ilea thought.We have a wave of demons approaching to the west captain. a mage flying to the left of Ilea said. Should we go for support, the west wing has had a rough time the past two weeks. the man said.They'll send out a signal if they need anyone. the warrior to the right of Ilea retorted.I'll go, where can I find you afterwards? Ilea said, stopping in the air, her wings moving steadily as she watched the demons' movements in the distance. The walls were much too high for them to climb or break through but what the beasts lacked in intelligence or planning, at least without mind weavers to control them, they made up with sheer ferocity and numbers.And numbers they had. There were at least a couple hundred of the monsters moving in, the light of magical spells forming on the top of the wall as the sunlight reflected from the lake to the west. It looked beautiful, idyllic even. Ilea smiled at the view, even the noise of the demon horde below couldn't reach them at their altitude.No, you're coming to fill out the required forms. Afterwards we'll see if we can get you a spot in the civilian support corps. the captain explained, only looking back at her while shaking his head, apparently thinking it to be a silly notion.Ilea's smile turned into an outright laugh as the people around her stopped to look at her, confused at the sudden outburst. Yea I don't think so. The other guy here mentioned the western side of the wall to be understaffed and I'm a perfectly fine killing machine. Ilea said, waving towards the man who had talked about the military resource situation.I don't expect to be paid either, so don't worry about your gold. she said offhandedly before she dove downwards. Shouts could be heard behind her, quite efficiently ignored before some of the people followed, quickly left behind as her buffs came to life, the speed of the armored warrior-healer reaching her maximum capacity in mere moments.Civilian fighting corpse? What the hell is this bullshit. Ilea murmured to herself, admiring the somewhat circular wall around the city, the closer she came the more impressive the sheer size of it was. Moving onwards she started concentrating on the upcoming fight, her muscles itching to move freely and at full power after the rather inhibiting escort duty she had to follow.Sulivhaan would have to wait a little longer, she thought as the first long ranged fire, ice and lightning spells were launched from the top of the wall and into the horde below. Impressive but nothing compared to any long ranged artillery one Earth. Ilea thought of the possibilities of launching big chunks of rocks with explosion enchantments over long distances and laughed at the idea of climbing one to become additional payload.Her landing was not quite the impact of a launched piece of rock the size of a house but certainly close enough. Obsidian gauntlets upfront, she dived straight into the ground, the impact completely flattening an unfortunate demon before she hit the ground, her body compressing as the ground gave in below, dirt and rock surrendering against her assault and flying outwards to blind or strike her enemies.Demons hissed around her as a black mist appeared in the vicinity. Ash, the densely packed clusters of the element spreading out to encompass a rather large area. The first demons to approach the small crater left by the ballistic human missile found it rather empty, a moment later the first of them fell. A woman clad in black armor spun through their midst, shrouded by ash and hidden to their eyes she moved efficiently and deadly, the low leveled monsters showing little resistance to the blue steel blades weaved into her gauntlets, covered by the red of their blood.Yea I'm not going in there. one of the aerial guards following behind Ilea said, after stopping in the air. The mage next to him deflected a bone spear shot from a rather large demonic monster below.Neither will I but we'll have to keep an eye on her. We don't want anymore unregistered refugees in the town... the mage said, floating back upwards to the rest of their team coming closer in the distance, the two of them the fastest fliers in the group.Are you kidding me, the first guard said, his sword deflecting a ranged attack before he started moving upwards again too. Refugees don't jump into demon hordes. Did you see that impact? he asked, soon outside of the enemy's range.Yea, for all we know she misjudged the height and is now paste on the ground. the mage commented, getting a chuckle out of the other man.I mean she's with the Hand so fair enough. Crazy fuckers. he said right before the captain and the other two members of their squad reached them.Where is the woman, I saw her flying into that group. Why didn't you stop her? the man asked, quite stupidly in the other's opinion. He was a capable fighter but sometimes his reasoning left a little to be desired.She's faster than any of us captain. And as nice as those eyes looked I really don't wanna try and touch her. the first guard said.Where is she now? the captain asked as they all tried to make sense of the battlefield below. By now parts of the forest were in flames, fireballs and ice lances racing down into the demons, destroying them as if they were mere toys. Some special ops squads jumped down the walls or were already waiting before the massive closed gate to the city to reduce the damage the demons could deal on the infrastructure.Rock and ice walls formed near the wall, joined by several barriers in front and behind to form a front perimeter. A couple crazy ones jumped over the barricades or flew down into the masses from above, joining the new member of the Hand the team had encountered. Just a few, each one taking an unnecessary risk in most of the onlooker's minds. The horde wasn't controlled, a simple matter of time to be dealt with. Something as trivial as this might've scared a guard recruit in the first week of the demon attacks but by now it was a common sight. Terrifying still, but common.Ilea weaved through the masses, avoiding exploding projectiles falling from the sky around her, both her Blink and Sphere abilities a massive boon to her maneuverability and continued survival. She reaped the lives of demons running right outside of a fireball's blast radius, finishing off the monsters injured by arrows and ice spikes.The sheer number of projectiles was impressive but considering the likely population of the city and its resources it was expected. Could've used that in Ravenhall, Ilea thought but then again the enemy had come from the inside. Ravenhall wasn't that much of a pushover, the circumstances simply led to disaster. Three more blinks and seven enemy casualties later, a flash of light blasted through the three demons before her, the angle of the spell indicating a much closer combatant having dealt the blows.She turned to the right as she continued running and saw a mage in black robes and mask channeling what she could only compare to the power of the sun. Cool! she exclaimed, jumping over an exploding crystal, some of the shards glancing off her Veil of Ash before she spun in the air, impacting a demon with her blades extended before she disappeared in the direction of the mage.The light mage was slowly pushed back and upwards as he continued to send beams of light inside and through the monsters' skulls. Four of them closed in and forced him to teleport away when Ilea appeared above them, taking two of them down with bladed arms and the other two with kicks enhanced with Destruction and Wave of Ember. All four of them were dead when she landed on their bodies, sliding for two meters before she jumped off, blinking towards the next set of enemies.The mage descended behind her and channeled a longer spell before a beam four times the size of his previous attacks burned through the approaching beasts, vaporizing the body parts it came in contact with while Ilea cut through the demons behind him.With the Hand? she asked as she ran past him.Yes, group them up for me and teleport out when the spell hits! he shouted towards the fast moving woman, her heavy steps digging deep into the dirt below, her velocity and weight creating a deadly combination of force as she impacted the enemy line. Having heard the man, she shouted as loud as she could, not moving too far from her position as more and more demons piled on her. Seeing the slowly approaching spherical object behind her, she waited for the last second as the first claws finally punched through her veil before she pushed herself off, blinking backwards and behind the object.Appearing, she saw a small globe of light floating into the mass of demons, her hands instinctively moving upwards right before an explosion of fire and light turned the grass and dirt below into ash. Her Veil took the hit in stride as she turned and nodded towards the mage, moving parallel to the wall, followed by her new ranged friend.The two of them repeated the same tactic for another two chunks of demons, Ilea playing the target to pile the enraged creatures up and the mage to detonate a deadly payload in the midst of them, the combination more effective against the large numbers than the two of them fighting independently.May I join in? a female voice sounded out behind them just after the latest blast took out at least thirty demons. It was of course a rhetorical question as a wave of lava seethed out of the woman's hands and impacted the ground to the left of Ilea, forming a line forwards and to the left. Demons hissed as their way towards the wall was cut off, too far to jump or too much of a pain was the lava for them to simply cross it.Ilea understood and so did the sunlight mage, moving behind her as she stepped a couple meters to the right before another wave of lava shot out, this time to the right.Ilea grunted as she held out her arms, her Veil working overtime as a continued stream of ash blinded the creatures she tried to block in front of her, the beasts falling into and over each other in the confusion while they were being funneled into the death zone the three mages had created.This time the explosion caused by the light mage was a little stronger, singeing a part of her Veil before it was reformed. The demons weren't quite as lucky, only ash remaining of their corpses.Wanna move further, they can't see us here. the woman said but Ilea just moved her arms, the ash parting and flowing into the streams of lava, the demons beyond screaming towards the enemy they once again saw before them.That works as well I guess. the woman said. Charles, how many charges left? she asked, speaking to the light mage floating behind Ilea.Six of the big ones, better make them count. Regroup at the wall after. the man said as they continued their tactic. Ilea had noticed that no ranged attacks impacted their vicinity from the wall above, the defenders at least gracious enough to let them do their work.The bloodied and burned mud was squashed by metal boots as Ilea made her way over to the two talking members of the Hand. Many of the soldiers, guards and adventurers by the looks of them had joined to clean up the battlefield, of the somewhat rare drops of items and of course fires and other elements. Ilea brushed at her helmet, her gauntlet coming away with a layer of mud, blood and ash mixture.There she is, not bad. You're one of the new ones right? Full member already? the man, Charles, asked her as he looked her way with his masked face. Ilea was intrigued at the making of his helmet, a mixture of metal and cloth that looked to her liking. She did like her horned helmet still, but one day she might find something better than even her Juggernaut armor. As long as it didn't burn to ash after every fight she'd be fine with it.Yea, been for a month or so. she answered before stopping in front of them.Right in the thick of it then. Well good thing there's new people to fill in the sad sods that died in the last month. Don't remember a hit to our numbers that bad. the man said and shook his head lightly.How many are left actually? I come from near Ravenhall, looking to retake the city. she said, putting together her fists.Yeahh! the woman with lava magic exclaimed in a high pitched sound, some heads around them turning towards the group, most quickly looking away again upon seeing the dark armor and high levels.Told you we'd go back. she said to the man next to her who kept looking towards Ilea.The mountains are overrun. Are you sure a small group could take care of it? The initial demons summoned were as high as two forty, at least what I've seen. the man said, certainly seeming intrigued.We cleared Morhill out two days ago. Couple thousand and we're seven people. The demons are uncoordinated and easy to handle if you take out the ranged ones first and have flying abilities. Ravenhall will be different, some Mind Weavers there for sure, the smart ones coordinating the other demons. I think we can take it though, just here to get interested people, otherwise we'll do it ourselves. she explained, looking towards the wall, the gate alone was around twenty meters high and around seven thick, Ilea feeling truly caught in a fantasy world in that moment. This wasn't something that humans on Earth could reproduce, at least not without a shit ton of money and time.
