In the streets of Havel a dark haired man was leading a group of 10 people. It seemed like they were sneaking towards something and after a couple of minutes they saw it. A dozen Tainted were eating a large corpse of some other monster.
The man in the lead made a couple of hand movements, giving the others orders silently. Half the group went to the left and half to the right, encircling the beasts.
They weren't too strong just Tier 2s, but they were perfect for increasing Essence.
The Evolved went to their places, everyone of them knew what to do. They have done this a lot of times.
The ranged began to open fire, while the melee users defended them and delivered deadly blows of their own. It took less than a minute to kill all of them, when they were done their leader spoke. He didn't move from his position since the beginning. He needed no more Essence since his core was already saturated.
"Good, bring the meat and lets go back." Said Will and began looking around the place, making sure nothing ambushed them.
'Its been a week since Lucy and Faith let. In that time they should've already found the entrance or at least know where it should be. Which means the attack is soon to come.'
Suddenly he heard a noise and a beast jumped at him, he summoned his spear impaling it.
"You have killed a Corpse Eater, a Tainted of the 3rd Tier! Your Soul Is Fully Nourished! Try ranking up to further nourish it!"
Will dismissed his spear and continued looking around.
'Based on our past information, The Hold has about three times our number in regular soldiers. Probably even more now, because a lot of us are Evolved.'
He stopped again, when he saw the others finishing up.
"Move out!" He said and began walking. The others already gotten used to the way he speaks so they just followed him in silence.
'We have by our last count 1543 personal. From that 1471 can fight. And also 496 of them are Evolved. A lot more than we initially thought, also with our constant training and hunting, all of them are elite millitary personal. Their cores on average is at 600/1000 Essence.'
"We will kill him of course!" Answered Hellfire, than looked at Bea. "Won't we?"
"No! What... what if he can be saved! We can't just abandon him!" Lucy sounded very anxious.
Hellfire just shook his head. "Does he even deserve to be saved? After everything he has done?"
"He... he is under some spell... maybe it can be broken... he is your best friend, you can't just give up on him!" Her voice changed to anger.
"He was my best friend, until he threw me into a cell and began torturing people for fun!" Hellfire's mood was very similar to Lucy's, but also different.
'It's like he's constantly fighting with his anger, interesting.'
"That... that wasn't him!" Lucy shouted.
Hellfire was about to retort, when Will had enough. 'Lets bring this conversation back on track.'
"Bea, what do you think?" Will's voice was emotionless and firm. Because he spoke little, people listened to him whenever he opened his mouth.
Everyone turned towards Bea, who had a thoughtful expression on her face. Eventually she made a compromise.
"If we find a way to save him, we do. But our main priority will still be killing him. He is too dangerous to be left alive."
Lucy nodded and stayed silent. She knew that it's the best Bea could do, and understood the danger of confronting Nightmare. Capture was not an option.
"Okay, now lets begin the planning. How do we turn a 3 to 1 siege into an overwhelming victory? Any ideas?" Said Bea and they began finding a way that could win.
It took them a lot of hours, but they came up with a way. It will have a lot of casualities, but if there is a chance at victory they will take it.
Will followed the others out of the room. Tomorrow the Siege of The Hold begins!