Unannounced

Elinous’s body radiated a faint cyan hue, and a moment later, the same radiance began to shine from Lree and Drizzle.

Lree created another set of ice crystals, which he quickly launched at the demons around them. The ice expanded before reaching its target and broke apart, multiplying into more jagged crystals that relentlessly pierced the demons' tough hides one after another.

Drizzle unleashed two arrows which burned with the flames covering them, letting them fly after uttering the word “Bleed” in a calm voice. While in the sky, the arrows exploded and multiplied into even more flaming arrows that rained down from above and hit everything in their paths, setting it to flames. Though the arrows that missed their targets landed on the ground, the wood melted like lava, covering a portion of their radius before pillars of flames erupted from the earth, swallowing everything whole.

Some of the demons, which were too afraid, began to retreat from the fire; yet, most of them were still caught in the flames before burning to ash.

The fire pillars twisted, moving towards where there were more demons. Every demon’s attention had shifted to the pillars; they began to run, but the pillars didn’t stop.

Drizzle looked paler than a moment ago, before unleashing the flames. He could barely keep himself up in the sky, so he had to slowly steady himself just to land.

He was breathing heavily and unsteadily; he could hear his heart trying to beat out of his chest. But this wasn’t the time nor place to stay down when the enemy was still around.

Lree couldn’t help but shake—not out of fear, but out of exhaustion. The same applied to Elinous as she tried to steady herself to look calm and collected. She had been using magic since the battle had started, and she was about to run out of mana. She could no longer provide support magic to the others in her condition, yet she just hoped that Drizzle’s attack had managed to wipe out most of the rot.

If they were going to die here, at least the holy knights could do them a favor by wiping out the remaining rot and protecting the citizens of the capital.

Yet, just when all hope was lost, at the peak of one of the mountains to the east, a loud horn echoed in all directions as the shadow figure blew it under the crimson moon.

For a moment, everything went silent.

All the demons remaining on the field suddenly swiveled, heading back where they had come from—which were the dark mountains sitting a long distance from the capital’s face.

***

Before long, all the demons still mobile were gone, leaving behind their fallen kin, buried in dirt, completely burned, crushed, and headless.

***

Sterix let himself collapse on the dirt. Though the earth wasn’t pleasant, filled with corpses and stained with blood, Sterix didn’t care; at the moment, he wanted to rest and recover most of his energy, even fall asleep if he could.

His knuckles were in pain, though he didn’t care because something else hurt him more than his knuckles. He didn’t know exactly what, but he could feel it throughout his body.

He took in a deep breath, chest rising, and let it go, chest falling. He repeated this a couple of times, thinking that it would help him calm down, but it didn’t seem to be working.

His knight armor had been completely destroyed, and he looked like he had come to war without any. The only uniform he was left with was the training uniform, which was the one most knights wore underneath their armor.

…

Flora had regained some strength and dragged himself to where Sterix was. His armor wasn’t in the best of conditions, but at least he still had armor.

“Everything okay down there?” he said, closing the final distance between them.

“I’m good.”

Flora smiled as he finally came to a stop.

“Well, I’m beat, so I guess we’re in different boats then,” Flora let out a laugh, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Then he added, “By the way, where’s your armor? Did you take it off during the battle?”

Sterix raised his head and glanced at his chest, remembering that after he had taken a few major blows from the rot, it left his armor so damaged that he had to take it off mid-battle. But it didn’t bother him that much.

“I think so.” He sounded unsure for someone who had just remembered what had happened, but sounding unsure might have been the safest approach. Saying I removed it during battle was a violation of the knights’ dress code; once a person was found out, they couldn’t participate in certain noble events which required knights to represent their units and stand as the representation of peace and glory.

Flora didn’t seem to be convinced by Sterix’s answer. He might have believed Sterix knew what he was talking about, but this was no time for suspecting each other over small details.

“Come on.” He then offered a hand to him. “I’ll help you up.”

“Sorry, but I think I’ll stay here for a moment to recuperate. You go on ahead to the others; I’ll find you once I rest up for a bit.”

“Are you sure?”

“More or less.”

It meant Sterix was sure about his decision to stay there, and Flora took the hint because this wasn’t the first time something like this had happened.

…

Shortly after, Flora went back the way he had come, picking up his sword and dragging it as he approached the others. They were moving through the corpses, searching for something. Or rather, searching for the fallen knights who had accompanied them in this battle but, sadly, didn’t make it.

Originally, the war was supposed to be simple because the numbers the intelligence collected stated that there were five thousand demons approaching the capital. In response, they sent three thousand capital knights, one hundred holy knights, and five heroes. But once the battle began, the demons weren’t at their estimated number but far more, and that number kept increasing until everything got out of hand.

“Don't you guys ever get tired?” Flora said as he reached the others.

Elinous glanced at him. Seeing that Sterix wasn't with him, her expression shifted slightly to a somewhat solemn one.

“Did Sterix not make it?”

“He did; he's just resting like usual. I'm pretty surprised you aren't tired after all that we've just been through.”

“Hehe, if you only knew how tired I currently am, you wouldn't be saying that.” Elinous paused, raising her hand and clenching it into a fist. “I'm almost out of mana because I used the last of it on Drizzle's 'Pillar of Heavens' attack. I'm afraid if I keep pushing myself, I'll indeed collapse. Though my priorities at the moment are finding all our defeated fellow warriors—then I'll be at ease.”

Flora let out a sharp, amused breath. Seeing Elinous think about others made him realize why she was chosen to be the leader.

“Well, I'm with you there, but you need to rest first. That way, after you're all recovered, you'll be able to do the work twice as fast. All you need to do at the moment to help the fallen is pray that their souls shall not perish or fall into the wrong hands.”

Elinous was a bit dazed for a moment, seeing the way Flora was talking. Flora wasn't the type of person to just say what was on his mind, but at the moment, he sounded like a completely different person. He was usually the same as Sterix, letting time pass while lazing around like it was nobody's business.

“You're right,” Elinous finally said. “Though I find it strange that the demons decided to retreat when they had the upper hand. I can't help but feel like this was a setup, but—”

She suddenly went silent, pausing before she could continue or say something that might just confuse her more than she already was.

“What?”

“Never mind, it's nothing.”

Lree and Drizzle just watched them with expressionless, pale faces.

They didn't have anything to add. Or rather, they were so exhausted that nothing came to mind.