Chapter 12: Leon the Slayer | 5

"Go! Now!" The daemon general signaled the scouts to advance and report back to the rest of their company about enemy formation.

"Have you ever been in a warzone before?" Mikhael asked Leon while they were making their way to the strategic point.
"Kind of..."
"Haha, I feel you. Same for me."
Leon could see friendly soldiers below him, on the ground, being massacred by enemy artillery. The scene was truly horrible. He felt a sense of duty and so he sped up.
He wanted to help his nation in this war, but most of all, he wanted revenge.

When Leon and the rest of the scouts made their way to somewhere high in the sky where they could see their enemies, Leon was enlightened by an idea. He had seen something similar once before.
"Hey, Mikhael."
"Sup?"
"We just need to go in and kill them all."
"What..?"
Leon signaled the rest of the daemon scouts that were close to them, to attack the enemy head on.
"Hey! Hold on! We're just the scout team, shouldn't we go back and report first? So the rest can come as well?" Mikhael raised a logical argument, but he wasn't seeing eye to eye with Leon right now.
"The more we wait, the more of our soldiers will be killed, and more kids will lose their fathers."
Right now, Leon was seeing red. His mind was functioning on pure emotion and instinct. There is no room for logic in one's mind when they are raging.
"I've done this before and it worked, just come with me and kill any mage you see!" He was thinking of what had happened back in Barvada. Leon flew straight to the enemy lines and went on a rampage. That was a great distraction that allowed the soldiers behind him to be able to fire without being fired at, and ultimately win the encounter.
And so Leon flew down and into the Warmage battalion, with greatsword in hand and bloodlust on his mind. Suddenly, he could use his transformed body to its limits again.
The rest of his squad was conflicted at first, but eventually they all followed.

The Warmage battalion was essentially protecting the artillery mages who were a couple of kilometers behind them. They had created a great barrier that blocked most arms fire from the Empire and were casting fire magic spells in return.
They repeated this strategy until a daemon abruptly crashed down and swang his greatsword, beheading 4 Warmages in the process. More of them came. And as they kept on slaughtering more Warmages, eventually most eyes were on them. Maintaining the great barrier spell required attention. And that attention was being pulled away by a group of murderous fiends who had managed to infiltrate their backlines.
The barrier went down. Thus allowing bullets, missiles, and mortar shells from empire soldiers to strike the Warmages. In this moment, they had lost the battle.
Larkan Warmages were capable, but the daemons absolutely could not be felled, especially when they were under the influence of a raging mind.
Their skin was as tough as steel. Simple, quick casting, fire spells were no match for them.
Their sharp greatswords combined with their fiendish strength cut through mage armor like it was nothing.
For a mage to take down a daemon, a concentrated spell that took a lot of time to cast was required. After that, the mage would have to actually hit the fast moving target.

The artillery casters were notified of the situation in the frontlines, and thus they started retreating. It was too late to run so their chief decided that it would be a better idea if they all focused of casting a mass teleportation spell, and so they started doing.
A massive purple ring appeared on the ground beneath them. And as they were chanting the spell it glowed more and more brightly.
The spell was about to be cast, but an artillery mage spotted a flying figure. It was black, and it had the shape of a gargoyle. He couldn't tell from so far away, but then he realized.
"Daemon above us! Abandon the spell!"
"We are close to casting it! Continue chanting!"
There was divide among the artillery battalion.

You monsters... I'll show you how it feels...
Leon opened his mouth, and incinerated a field's worth of land beneath him with his fire breath. This deadly spectacle looked like a pillar of flame that emerged from the heavens.
Hundreds of mages were set ablaze, screaming in agony.
The rest will tell the tale...
The devil in the sky left. He wanted some mages to survive so they could warn their allies about the daemon's strength. He thought this was enough to stop their war efforts.

***

"What's the situation?" The general asked the returning scouts impatiently.
"We won." Leon replied with an empty voice.
"What... do you mean?" His face was full of disbelief.
"I.. I k-killed them a-"
Leon fainted. He had pushed his body to its limits once again. People usually learn from their mistakes. Not this one.

***

Back in Khulast military facility.

"Do you have any idea what you've done?" Leon was sitting on a polished wooden chair, inside a heavily decorated room. In front stood a well built middle aged man with multiple medallions on his chest, who wore a grey military uniform. He was in the general's office.
"Yes sir. I'm extremely sorry for winning us the battle."
"Don't mock me!" The general shouted as he slammed his desk.
"..." Leon looked at him with a blank facial expression.
"Your job was to scout the enemies! And then report to the rest of the company! We lost two young men because of you."
Back when Leon signaled the rest of the scouts to go in, he thought they were all as capable as him in terms of fighting. They were not. The Warmages managed to kill 2 daemons.
"..." He didn't know what to say. He was conflicted. On one hand he managed to save a good amount of ground soldiers who would have lost their lives if they hadn't been so quick about eliminating the mages, but on the other, this little maneuver had costed the lives of 2 daemons. Both outcomes were bad, but he still felt guilty for being the reason 2 young men like him died.
"You are fired. I gave you a chance back in the hospital, and you threw it all away. Killing two of my soldiers in the process. Get out!"