Chapter 24: The second wave

The bells rang, alerting everyone from their slumber before the break of dawn.

The soldiers that were in the watch yelled, "The demons!!! The demons have gathered on the hills!!!"

In a short time after the bells rang, the soldiers, mages, and priests gathered at the front gates. Kyrie and the leaders stood in front of the army, and the gates slowly opened.

Collectively, they decided that Kyrie would lead the army against the horde of demons while Imogen with Ian would go deep into the forest to steal the relic. Kyrie looks at the backs of Imogen and Ian going another way.

[I hope the spells are enough if they meet danger.]

*bam*

The gate lowers to the ground, and Kyrie walks out to see an enormous stretch of grassland between the forest and the fort.

The pasture extended into the hill up to the woods. The demons stood on edge from the top of the hill.

Since the sun was rising behind them, only an army of black inhuman figures appeared on the horizon. There is one demon in particular that had an enormous built, and he seems to be the leader of the horde of demons.

Kyrie summons his sword and takes it out of his palm and looks satisfied that this time, Vita gave her a better sword. He raises his sword towards the sky. When he lowers down his sword pointing at the demons, the soldiers together shouted and raced into the battlefield. The demons did the same thing went their leader roared with a booming voice, "KILL!"

The magicians, clustered together of three in each group, enchant fireballs to crush their opponents. The fireballs crash mercilessly into the horde of demons and send gushes of wind towards anyone nearby.

When the fireballs hit, they would sound like detonated bombs like those that you see in the movies. The battlefield soon was muddled with all kinds of sound: metal clashing together, screams, footsteps, and fire.

[One]

[Two]

...

[Seventy-nine]

Kyrie slew one demon after another. Being his first experience killing other living beings, he did not expect to feel so nauseous.

The sound of flesh ripping feels exceptionally sharp in his ears. Then, a giant axe swings on his way. Kyrie evades the axe, and the axe cut through the ground, leaving an enormous slash on the ground. Kyrie uses his mana, and his surrounding's temperature started to drop rapidly.

The field began to freeze. The air around him began to freeze, and a mist wrapped him and the demon leader.

The surroundings get covered in white, hiding the bloody battlefield from sight. Kyrie stepped back and disappeared in the fog. The demon leader started to panic and swung his axe around but caught nobody with it.

*slash*

A sword slashed across his back. The demon leader swings towards the place where the attack should have come from. Nothing.

*slash*

Another sword wound appeared on his left arm. He swung his axe towards that direction of the attack, but again, nothing.

---

Imogen and Ian cautiously entered the forest of Labam. Besides the sound of the battle behind them, there was the rustling of leaves and occasional animal sound, but there were no demons in sight.

"Is it overconfidence or foolishness?" thought Imogen.

"The relic is in a couple of meters," Imogen informs Ian. Ian nodded and followed Imogen obediently because she can feel the essence within the relic. When they were close, they hid and looked around. They found a staff on the center of a magic circle floating and upright. The staff had a gold crystal wrapped in the staff. The gold crystal sends off an aura filled with essence. She looked around again, but there was no one.

Puzzled at that such ideal circumstance appeared before them, Imogen decided just to go out.

After all, an unknown enemy is more frightening than a known one.

She walks towards the staff, and within meters of touching it, a metal spear shots her way. She steps back and avoids the spear in which stabbed deeply into the ground. She stars at the hole on the ground and could not see the metal spear.

Such strength was not common even among the demons. She looks at the direction that the spear was shot from, and she gets surprised at what she saw. In front of her, someone who looked like Vita was floating in the air.

If they did not mind the minor details like hair and eye color, then they are basically twins. Vita has wavy golden hair with light green eyes while this woman in front of her has black hair and eyes.

The woman lifted her hand, and numerous metal spears formed around her. Then she aimed them at Imogen and shot a couple of times at her.

Ian, taking the opportunity that the enemy is distracted with Imogen, goes to retrieve the staff. However, in a blink of an eye, a man with a mask appears in front of him. A barrier suddenly wrapped around Ian and broken when the man with a mask stroke Ian with his dagger. He stared at Ian with malicious eyes that caused Ian to feel goosebumps.

"Raven hair with deep blue eyes... You must be Ian, am I right?" says the man.

"How do you know?" Ian asks, sensing his stomach turn.

---

*thud*

The large body of the demon leader finally falls and crashes into pieces. His body got frozen solid through the numerous spells that Kyrie threw at him.

The intense and prolonged battle that Kyrie just fought gave him an idea of where his power is at. He is becoming awfully aware of Imogen's words that he is still too weak. Kyrie puts a hand on his knees and locks his elbow to hold his weight.

Then, he uses his sleeve to wipe his sweat that is flowing down his neck. The fight has taken most of his energy away. A priest rushed to his side and started to cast healing magic on numerous wounds that he sustained in the battle.

In the beginning, Kyrie thought that the dense fog would help him finish the demon leader through sneak attacks. Who knew that the demon leader eventually was able to pinpoint him by learning his fighting patterns after observing and letting attacks to his own body.

[Well... He is not a leader for nothing.]

He looks around at the situation, and the scene was hard to look at. The battleground pilled up with corpses from both sides. However, more slain demon corpses than humans'. Seeing that the demon leader is down, the rest of the demons fleed into the forest of Labam.

Worrying about how much time Imogen and Ian are taking, Kyrie decides to run after the fleeing demons.

[It has been for hours that they went into the forest of Labam. Imogen should have been able to take the relic without any problems. Could it be that they have encountered...]

Kyrie quickened his pace with a knot in his heart.

[Please be safe. Please]