Chapter 223 - An Unrelenting Assault

The monster tide continued, after Lucia had left behind Cecil in the Darkfang family's care. She quickly used her Misty Gate and teleported to the walls.

Yuna didn't go with her. She instead made her way back to the Misty Barrier surrounding the Darkfang estate and monitored the situation.

She needed to make sure that Silver had indeed calmed down and his transformation was reverting. If not, then the Darkfang family estate may turn uninhabitable as of today.

If the miasma permeated into the earth, then it'll turn the land into a dead zone. The barren land would begin to fester and exude poisonous miasma and anything within the land would wither and eventually die.

"He's calmed down alright...and the miasma's beginning to grow thin. Good job brat...you can rest well now knowing that you've successfully protected your master."

Yuna continued observing Silver through the barrier. She couldn't help but chuckle at the fact that Silver had gone through such lengths just to keep his master, who hadn't even formed a pact with him yet, safe.

"Those two should really form a pact soon..."

*****

At the city's ramparts, Lucia had finally arrived at the battle front. She could see the numerous monsters in the distance, but there were already some monsters that had made their way up to the ramparts and had begun engaging in a melee with the city's guards.

She saw Velicia constantly flickering from place to place kicking down monsters or crushing their heads in. Ainz was also doing his part keeping the soldiers safe from unexpected monster attacks.

Lucius was directing the guards with the commander. Lucia could see Eli and Fina dealing with all the flying monsters so she quickly flashed over to their sides.

"Eli! Fina!"

"Lucia, you're here! Is Cecil alright?!"

"Yeah, he's just fainted."

"Okay, can you help us out here? We'll deal with the airborne monsters. You help Velicia and the rest deal with the monsters on the ramparts!"

"Alright."

"By the way, where's Yuna?"

"She's monitoring Silver; we don't want him to go on a rampage again..."

"Okay, but what happened to the beastmen? Did they all escape?"

Lucia remembered the numerous bodies surrounding Silver and the thick poisonous miasma that could melt away the flesh and bones of the living.

"...they're dead...all of them."

"..."

Seeing the two lull in response, Elizabeth immediately quipped up.

"We'll continue this later! We have to quickly put an end to the monster tide! I'm nearly running out of mana now..."

"What? Eli you take a break then! Lulu, forget the earlier arrangement. Help me out with the flying monsters until Eli's recovered!"

"Alright!"

Lucia conjured numerous lava bolts in the air and began aiming them all at the aerial monsters.

She rained a frightening storm of lava on the monsters. For a time, the aerial monsters were pushed back until not one of them could get past the city's walls.

Now that Lucia looked at it, the flying monsters that were able to bypass the city walls have already caused some chaos and destruction inside of the city. Numerous outer district buildings were wrecked and collapsed in a heap of rubble.

She also saw the bodies of some citizens, soldiers, and monsters in the outer district areas near the ramparts.

Lucia continued firing her lava storm at the airborne monsters. It didn't take long before Fina exhausted her mana as well and she had to take break. Ainz stepped up to replace her and despite not having fully recovered, Eli took over Ainz's duty to back up the guards.

She mostly used her sword intent and fought with her rapier against the monsters on the city ramparts while at the same time pushing her mana recovery to its limits.

The party continued to rotate their battles just like this and soon the sun set and they sky became dark. Even after Silver's maddening aura had long since dispersed, the monsters in the tide had not retreated.

They instead kept on assaulting the city in wild abandon. The Little Kings could only take turns sleeping and fighting. It was a good thing that by the end of the day, the Darkfang family had already quelled the chaos within the city and had come to reinforce the city's defenses.

The adventurers and mercenaries of the city were also given an emergency quest and many more people were now defending the walls against the monster tide. The guild master of the city and the mercenary guild leader had also stepped forward to take command of the adventurers and mercenaries.

This gave Lucia and the rest the much needed breathing space to actually have a proper rest.

The monster tide continued for another two days. It was hard to believe, but it wasn't only the monsters from the surrounding forests that had come. Even the monsters far off in the mountains and the other territories had rushed over to assault the Darkfang territory.

This caused the many villages and towns that were in the way of the monsters path to suffer major damages and the countless numbers of beastkin that fell or went missing were in the tens of thousands.

Lucia paled when she heard the news come from Lucius. Silver's aura had spread throughout the kingdom's borders and had affected all the other territories as well. The other territories' armies couldn't respond to their support request because of this, but the kingdom's army would arrive approximately tomorrow in the morning.

This was thanks to Headmaster Elufied and Lucia's mother, Anna, who helped set up a massive single-use one-way teleportation formation within the capital to teleport the Kingdom's Army oveer to the Darkfang Territory. The preparations would only finish today and the activation would be held tomorrow in the morning.

Right now, Headmaster Elufied was currently making haste towards the Darkfang territory to set up the transmit point of the formation. He already asked for the Little Kings' help with this.

Despite the crisis that the Kingdom was experiencing, the Orca Empire's lands were all safe however. Only the Kingdom was facing this monster tide problem as more and more monsters made their way from their habitats over to the Darkfang Territory.

If the people were to take a look at the situation from an outsider's perspective, it was as if the monsters were all going on a rampaging pilgrimage to the Darkfang Territory. The villages and towns the monsters passed by were all devastated, but that was only because it was in their way.

However, as the days passed and the monsters continued causing havoc all throughout the border territories, the beastkin grew more and more furious at the situation. Based on the info from the 2nd Princess' report, the beastmen were the cause of the monster tide.

At first it was limited to only the Darkfang Territory, but when they got the news of the monster activities in their regions, the beastkin took this as the Empire's scheme to weaken the defenses of the Kingdom's borders in order to launch an attack.

This was also the reason why the Kingdom's army was being sent over to the Empire-Kingdom border in full force. The King took his daughter's words at face value and the reports of the Empire's Nocturne Lions First Fang assaulting the Darkfang Estate and was aiming to kidnap or kill Cecil, confirmed of this even more.

Since the Empire was playing their hand, then the Kingdom wouldn't just sit back and let them smack them across the face. They had put up with the Empire's constant pressuring until today and they had even agreed to open trade relations with them to circulate the new magi-tech the Kingdom had created over to the Empire.

The Kingdom did this out of the goodness of their hearts and this is what the Empire repaid them with, a monster tide spanning the whole border territories. Well, this was literally the last straw. If they had to, the Kingdom was willing to even go to war with the Empire.

When the Emperor heard of the news, he had nearly thrown a fit. He called back Ankhs from the border and demanded an explanation.

******

Inside the Imperial Castle of the Orca Empire, inside the Emperor's Grand Hall, a dragonewt currently bound in cuffs was being forced to kneel in front of the Emperor.

"Didn't We say to leave it to the First Fang?!"

"Y-your Majesty! I, I had nothing to do with this!"

"BULLSHIT! You had everything to do with this!"

"My Emperor! Please don't listen to those nasty, lying beastkin! They're...they're just trying to frame me! They brought this onto themselves!"

"Hah! Do you think We will believe you?! Fool! Was it a mere coincidence that a monster tide just so happened to attack the city right when the First Fang were clearly about to complete their mission?!"

"E-Emperor—"

"Shut your mouth! We have not finished speaking!"

"..."

"It matters not if this was caused by you. The fact is that the Anglaria Kingdom have already pinned the blame on Us! The Empire! Even if this was just a coincidental natural disaster, the blame has already been pushed onto the Empire!"

"..."

Ankhs could say nothing. He did not think that his actions had caused this. He had only hired some mercenaries and bandits to create chaos on the borders! Could it really be possible that one of those groups had stirred up something to cause this monster tide?!

Even if they did, then how come all the monsters were only on the move to attack the Anglaria Kingdom?! It wasn't logical, but then again, the First Fangs might have done something to cause this.

They couldn't ask them now since from the reports, the entire squadron was wiped out during the mission and not a single one was able to escape alive.

It was somewhat ironic that the Empire's choice to try and open friendly relations with the Empire had instead backfired on them. Their decision to kidnap Cecil had caused all their plans to go awry.

Now they couldn't get their hands on the magi-tech at all, whether it was from kidnapping Cecil, or trying to reopen trade relations with the Kingdom. Even now, the Kingdom was already sending their army over to the border to quell the monster tide.

The Emperor had a headache thinking of this. Once the army was there...it was highly unlikely that they would soon depart. With the humans attacking their front yards and the beastkin now threatening their backyards...the Emperor couldn't see any sort of good ending if he only half-assed his way out of this.

"Take him to the dungeons..." He waved off the guards and they roughly held up Ankhs. The guards then brought the unfortunate dragonewt into the dungeons.

"Hmm...We have no choice..."

Nearby, Leonidas looked on at his Emperor. No one could tell what he was thinking.