Year 2: The Battle of Rhodes - Chapter 13

Talon had been in fights before.

She had seen real warfare first hand and killed many in pursuit of becoming strong enough to kill the Demon Emperor.

Mania was one of the more well-known generals of the Demon Empire.

One of the emperor’s mistresses, a powerful succubus who was often the face of the empire and its policies, and someone who took great delight in cruelty and the abuse of people, especially women.

There are only three people in this world who I have truly hated from the bottom of my heart and wanted to kill.

The man who bought me.

The Demon Emperor.

And you!

Unfiltered, pure rage drove Talon’s swings of Carnwennan at Mania.

Mania, for her part, answered in kind, though Talon could tell she was holding back.

Each dagger clashed and locked against one another again and again, with only Mania being able to cut and slash at her opponent.

Minutes ago, Mania had granted Talon a healing potion to undo the wounds Charybdis had done.

Now, she had finished reapplying them to the hero.

“‘Try me’, was it?” Mania drove her dagger into Talon’s upper arm, then ripped it forcefully out, kicking the French woman in the stomach, digging her heal in painfully into the woman’s abdomen. “The phrase ‘a bigger bark than bite’ springs to mind.”

Talon dropped to her knees and doubled over.

“If you don’t start improving, I’ll be taking you home with me before the days’ done.”

***

Dorothy and Akechi stood between Princess Hiiragi and Xi Shi.

The demon general seemed quite amused by their actions. “Elf queen.” Dorothy shuddered under the woman’s sweet voice. “I don’t have orders to kill you. That honour belonged to others and they have clearly failed. My quarries are the rulers of the Shogunate. Stand aside and I shan’t harm you.”

Dorothy sharpened her gaze and stance, ready to begin her blade dance.

Akechi, wounded and barely able to function, was still standing, his blades held by flimsy hands.

Hiiragi was worse off; she had used her remaining magic to heal Akechi and couldn’t move. Exhausted and slumped over against a wall, she was powerless to stand against one of the Demon Emperor’s strongest generals.

“Is that your answer?”

“…Would you really have expected anything different?” Dorothy asked.

“No.” Xi Shi seemingly teleported between them. “I would not.”

Dorothy tried to block the halberd but it blasted her side, tearing it open and sending her flying through the nearby wall and outside into the gardens below. Akechi moved one sword to guard himself and thrust the other at Xi Shi’s throat, but her halberd pierced his chest, then she drove it upwards into his heart, bursting it into two.

“Takahiro!”

Takahiro Akechi couldn’t move.

Blood spurted from his mouth as his famed blades slipped through his weakened fingers.

Xi Shi tore the halberd from his flesh, then, with her free hand, she wrapped her fingers around his neck and crushed his throat.

“Weak.”

“Taka…hiro…”

Akechi looked to the woman he loved and tried to smile, but Xi Shi would not allow him a tender last moment with his wife.

She drove the halberd through his face and out the back of his head.

Xi Shi shook Akechi’s corpse off her weapon and turned to face Hiiragi again. “A pretty widow…Master’s type perhaps? Well.” Xi Shi smiled and slowly walked towards Hiiragi. “If you aren’t, I’ll make your end a quick one.”

The elf queen, roaring with fire, charged to the princess’s side, still maintaining her focus in her blade dance and clashed with Xi Shi’s halberd.

“…A waste of my mercy.”

“I do not want your mercy, demon!” Dorothy spat with watery eyes. “You will not harm her any more than you already have!”

***

Hilda’s spear was forced away from Dante’s head by King Alexander’s blade.

“I’ve heard of close calls before, but this is ridiculous!” The king joked, kicking at the Satyr Knight’s chest.

Hilda jumped back away from the king and his follow-up flurry of attacks, keeping herself at a safe distance, and easily matching Alexander blow for blow.

Then, she hit the butt of her spear on the ground and sped up again.

King Alexander was taken aback, but he shifted to focusing on defense and managed to hold on.

He wasn’t fighting her to win - he was fighting her to buy time for his mages and medics to heal Dante, a detail that hadn’t gone unnoticed.

Hilda swiped wide then aimed her spear at Dante.

Her fingers went to brush along the spear’s pole again, but King Alexander, sensing that something had changed, drove forward, stabbing his sword at her chest. Hilda had no choice but to parry it, pushing the king and his sword to the side, then took aim again.

“Not…this time!”

Dante thrust what was left of his metal arm out, launching the remaining few fragments of steel from his flesh at her.

The attack startled Hilda, just enough to let King Alexander get back between them.

Hilda looked to rejoin combat, until she saw more knights and soldiers come to the king’s aid.

The Satyr Knight stood alone in a room of thirty enemies.

They were numbers Hilda had bested before, but King Alexander’s ability made it difficult for her to see an easy victory.

She had her orders, she had nearly succeeded, and time was running out.

Hilda lowered her spear, then leapt up through the ceiling and vanished.

Dante felt her presence fade and chuckled bitterly as darkness took him.

Two draws and a loss…bit more acceptable.

***

“Dawn is coming.” The empress Lilith turned back to her desk and sighed, looking over the map of the King’s Palace, littered with markers, red crosses, black lines and wooden figures. “Spider.”

A small pale blue spider crawled towards her away from its white-skinned brethren that were updating the map in real time.

It bowed a little to her. This one is ready to transmit the Empress’s message.

“Good.” Lilith cleared her throat, and took a sharp breath. “This is the Empress Lilith to all members of the Assault Force - the Dawn Deadline is approaching. You have five minutes to finish up your assignments and withdraw. Anyone who has not returned to a rally point by the end of the next ten minutes shall be forsaken and left behind. The Demon Emperor’s orders are absolute.”

Once the message had been sent and communications closed, she turned her back on the spider and asked, “Has Allaric withdrawn yet?”

This one can confirm he still fights.

There’s only one thing that would keep him there this long, she thought.

“…Hailey.”