I glance at the tower's door but the two harvesters who survived the first construct never make it to the exit, they likely didn't survive the follow-up. I grit my teeth and focus on my goals.

Duke Meria is standing on a small flow platform floating in mid-air, he is looking down at the defenders and sending golden clouds at different locations on the wall. I grab a Lord by the collar and pull him down to force him to look me in the eye through my helmet's visor.

“Where is the command post?” I ask.

“N, next, to the construction site.” He mutters.

I let go and signal the Rykz to follow me. I make my way through the streets to head north under cover of wooden houses. I check on the Duke every time I pass a street that gives me a line of sight, he doesn't move from his platform.

There is a building with stone walls standing at the last crossing before I reach my destination. I stop and force the door, rushing in to find a dozen scared people wearing good quality clothes, merchants and employees.

“Go hide in another room and don't threaten the Rykz or you'll die.” I tell them.

They run before I even finish. I turn my back on them and slam my hammer against every shutter, shattering the wooden planks. I then tap a dozen warriors and scouts on the shoulder, signaling them to stand on either side of the windows, hidden.

I walk out and make my way to the end of the street, there are a couple unfinished catapults abandoned in the middle of the field and on the other side is a bulky stone structure ornamented with dozens of banners representing various Noble houses.

The headquarters are guarded by two hundred men and women at arms. Fuck, that's too much to quickly get past. I stop and use a building as cover. I keep my eye on the Duke as I try to think of a plan. I need to get him down here, within reach of my hammer.

Unfortunately, Meria is focused on the rampart and I can't assault the headquarters to force him down here... wait. Of those two catapults, one seems able to fire.

“You!” I flip around and glare at the prisoners. “Do you know how to operate catapults?”

They return blank stares. I wave my hammer, threatening them. Two of them raise their hands. I pull them and six scouts away from the rest, taking the bag of heads from a warrior's claws to hand it over to the two Nobles.

“You're going to use one of the catapults to launch these heads at the Duke.” I tell them. “If you refuse, you die. If you run, you die. If you fail, you die. These Rykz will end you.”

“You'll let us go after that?” They ask fearfully.

“Sure.” I reply. If Meria doesn't kill you. “Better make it quick.” I add, noticing that the Duke is creating golden platforms to climb up in altitude.

He is now standing above the wall's defense towers and no longer sending portions of the huge golden cloud floating around him down at the rampart. I can't see what's happening on the walk but I would guess that Celyz held back the attack to deal with the threat.

I point at the catapults in the middle of the construction site and glare at the two Nobles who hurriedly depart. The scouts seem to take my order as theirs too and accompany them.

“Citizens!” Duke Meria suddenly exclaims, his voice is loud but not nearly enough that it should have reached me. “Peasants! See how I have halted the assault on my City despite your disloyalty.”

Angry shouts respond to the affirmation, originating from multiple points on the wall. The Duke raises both hands and lowers them by a fraction. The huge cloud of energy loses a little altitude and suddenly silence takes over.

“I will not tolerate rebellion.” He declares coldly. “I am Duke of Izla Meria, your liege. I claim your flow as mine, it is my right by title and birth. Obey or face the consequence.”

“Screw you!” Someone yells so loudly that it carries over to me.

The Duke makes some gestures with his right hand and a long needle construct descends to float above his shoulder. It turns to aim and launches, homing in on someone on the wall walk. I don't see what happens from down here but the needle returns, bloodied, soon after.

Panicked screams arise from that section of the rampart, people running. But Meria detaches two clouds and sends them to block both of their escape routes, the staircases in the defense towers.

I throw a worried glance at the two Nobles I sent. They're cranking a pulley to pull the catapult's arm into firing position. Already, two dozen men at arms are headed towards them from the headquarters.

The Duke is waving his hands again, forming more needles. I walk completely out of cover and stand in plain sight, my escort around me. I assemble a lightning construct with the minimal amount of energy and charge the air above me as high as I can.

“Meria!” I yell, activating the construct.

The bolt rises up to a dozen meters, producing a bright flash of light that is very easily distinguishable from torchlight in the gray night. The Duke flips around and finds me within seconds, bringing his hands down. Three needles are launched towards me from above.

I take my hammer in my right hand to assemble a lion strike, grabbing a random Noble with my left and activating my construct to throw her towards one of the projectiles while two warriors move to block the other two. I then jump backward.

Two of the needles impact the Vuskyt shields and blows up when they fail to pierce them, the explosion breaks the warrior's anterior legs. The third goes through the Lady's torso but it does go off target and hits the pavement a few meters away from me, going off.

The shockwave of compressed air being suddenly released impacts me heavily, blasting me aside. A warrior catches me before I hit a wall and holds his shield out to help me stabilize.

“Fuck!” I cry out, my broken rib and stab wound shaken.

I hurriedly run back to cover, glancing over my shoulder. The Duke isn't taking my bait, he is half-turned towards me but observing something beyond the wall.

“Last warning!” Meria shouts at the defenders.

Twang. Clack. The catapult fires and heads fly towards him. He hears the sound and lowers his hands by reflex. A flow whirlwind flies down and intercepts the projectiles, shredding the heads to pieces.

The bits of flesh, bone, and brain matter are caught in the deadly swirling tornado. Yet it isn't perfect and pieces escape to splash the Duke who immediately deactivates the construct, startled.

A mistake as the sudden interruption frees the entirety of the gore caught inside. Meria ends up covered in it, visibly shaking in disgust as ribbons of flesh stick to him. He seems lost, without words to express his fury.

“Those were Nobles, an advance taste of what I'll do to you.” I exclaim, laughing and caring little about whether or not he hears me.

“Elizabeth Vil!” He roars. “I will skin you alive and hang your hide on my walls!”

Before I turn and run, I notice my scouts impaling the two Nobles that fired the catapult. Just before the men at arms reach them. No doubt obeying their orders to execute the prisoners if faced with overwhelming resistance.

I assemble lion's step constructs and head south, towards the currently uninhabited portion of Meria. A path that passes by the stone building where I set an ambush. I keep an eye on the sky, a good indication of where the Duke is as the golden cloud follows him. It is lowering and moving slowly towards me but accelerating.

The prisoners suddenly try to escape, making it past a few Rykz in the confusion but abruptly stopped when scouts raise their spikes to threaten them. They don't even get close to break through the almost two hundred Rykz escorting us.

“Shut up and follow.” I utter sharply.

A wooden building to my left suddenly shudders and groans. Its walls shatter soon after and the structure collapses soon after, revealing the remnants of a shredding wind construct that expended all its energy.

I start wondering why he isn't sending more than this, but recall how long it took for Celyz to assemble the lightning construct she used against the Templars during the battle on the plains. He likely lacks the skill to use that much flow.

As I pass a crossing and try to catch sight of the Duke, I spot two banners being raised high above a defense tower. The first is a white flag while the other holds my Lady's crest. I need to keep Meria's attention on me, she's making use of his distraction. I assemble another lightning construct and aim at the sky, activating it.

I reach the stone structure first with my warriors, just as my rear-guard, composed of the slower harvesters, is engulfed by flow. They aren't given the opportunity to roll up inside their carapaces to protect their joints which gives the shredding construct a way inside their bodies through those weak points, they are torn apart from the inside out within a few terrible moments.

I keep going past but don't go inside the building. I make a turn to take the street that goes behind it instead, hiding and waiting for Meria to catch up. He doesn't have a line of sight yet, he'll need to either lose or gain altitude to find us.

The rest of my escort is pushing the prisoners, forcing them to keep up. Sadly, not for the Nobles but for the Rykz, a wooden shop crumbles on top of them, burying them all in debris. It doesn't kill them but slows them down enough that the next golden cloud catches them, ending their lives and that of three dozen scouts.

“Stop cowering and I'll show you true power!” Meria shouts from close-by.

I assemble a third lightning construct, using a third of my recovered reserves this time. I charge the air behind, above, and to my left, ensuring that whatever path he takes, I'll be ready to strike him down.

A flow whirlwind flies over my head and falls down on the area a few tens of meters further, where I would have been if I had not stopped. It eats through the front of the two houses on either side of the street and they crumble within a few tens of seconds.

Fuck, there goes my escape route. I grip my hammer and wait nervously. The Duke's reserves floating above are noticeably smaller than they were before, though. Yet, I don't even know any constructs to defend against this, let alone the energy to assemble something comparable.

The runes on my sleeve glove might save me if he targets me with one, but it didn't activate when I was on the wall so I shouldn't count on it. The moment I estimated the Duke would arrive goes by, flow immobile in the sky... No, it's retreating. Shit, what is that leech doing?

I need to show myself before he notices what Lance is doing. I hop inside the building through a window, having broken its shutters earlier, and rush upstairs. My warriors do their best to stay close behind.

Arriving on the last floor, I find Meria standing a dozen meters away above the building's roof, he is watching the west. His expression is fearful and his hands are moving, manipulating his flow to make some kind of curved barrier in front of himself.

I follow his gaze. There is a huge black sphere advancing towards him, it is still beyond the wall but it's accelerating and will soon get past it. It looks like a lightning construct to me but at this distance, it's difficult to tell. The Duke pulls half the energy he has in the sky and spreads it out like a fog.

“Duke Meria, have you lost your mind?” Amand shouts from the headquarters, voice amplified. “Unstructured flow is too unstable to defend with!”

There is no time for the Duke to answer as the black sphere reaches the golden blanket and... not a thing happens. The construct continues on and Meria's face loses all color. This isn't the result he expected.

The Rykz construct hits his barrier and suddenly stops to expand to several times its size before bursting like a bubble. The unstructured flow he spread simply fades away and the Duke's shield flickers several times while he tries to stabilize it in a frenzy, it doesn't seem to do much and his defensive construct scatters.

I pull more on my reserves to charge a pathway of air between me and the platform he's standing on to guide the bolt. I activate it as soon as it's done, the lightning flashes and hits. The construct that allows him to stand in mid-air dissipates.

Meria falls to the ground with a surprised scream but a burst of wind breaks his fall and he lands heavily but uninjured. I climb on the window's edge and jump off, assembling lion's step constructs to land safely.

I hit the pavement and roll to smoothen the landing. By the time I get to my feet, the Duke is too while the Rykz on the ground floor, in a failed attempt to ambush him, rush out and charge. I use a few more lion's steps to close the distance before he can get his bearings.

Unfortunately, the entire attack is just too sloppy and he finds enough space to not only regain his composure but also assemble a fire construct, creating a circle of blazing flames around himself.

“You don't have the power to challenge me!” He proclaims.

I stop short of it because my limb communicates a primal fear that takes me by surprise and resonates with my own experience with fire, its sense detecting it like an impenetrable blur.

Still, the dozen scouts push through, yet most of their attacks miss because he leaps backward and they don't correct their aim in time. They trot after him but most don't get to attack a second time as a small cloud falls on top of them.

It tears them to pieces but soon dissipates along with the flames, no doubt lacking energy because he was in a rush. Their interlocked carapace unable to defend them as well as the harvester's thicker shell does.

However two scouts survive, if barely, and they launch a coordinated stabbing attack with their spikes. They graze the Duke, leaving him with bloody gashes on his left flank and thigh, before the Rykz fall dead.

I rush in, wildly swinging my hammer at him. Hoping to disrupt his concentration more than trying to actually harm him. It works as a few golden segments appear and disappear immediately after because he ducks to avoid my strike.

I detect my warriors running as quickly as they can to rejoin with me. More than a few of them have fractured legs that weren't before. I keep the pressure on, using a lion strike to take a swipe at his feet yet I interrupt it myself, jumping aside when I sense a construct forming out of my field of vision.

Meria raises his palm and aims at my helmet, a needle is forming in front of it and there are golden runes glowing on his sleeve. The projectile misses me by a wide margin but it gives the Duke enough time to assemble a construct.

He creates a burst of wind that not only blows me away but also stops my warrior's advance which gives him even more space to focus on the cloud of flow hovering above our heads.

“Die!” He exclaims gleefully.

I watch in horror, staring death in the eye, as the center starts spinning. Segments glowing in its midst as they shape it into a gigantic whirlwind. Despite how much energy he burned so far, it remains so large that it will raze the entire block if it lands, he might even kill himself with it.

A second black sphere splits the air as it flies towards it and activates, expanding and dissipating the golden energy it reaches, but with the downward trajectory of the cloud, a good third of it isn't affected.

The Duke's face distorts in furious indignation, yet he doesn't do a thing. He stands there, hands raised. He can't lose focus or he'll lose control! I burn my flow without reservation to charge him with lion's steps, going as far as to throw my hammer at him as a distraction.

He avoids it, but the whirlwind's formation is noticeably disrupted and he immediately gives up on it, turning around to run away. His construct above dismantles and the energy is absorbed into his body.

“Fuck.” I swear and pick up my hammer in mid-run to try to keep up.

He turns a corner and I lose sight. That's fine, he isn't far enough to have time to... my thought is cut short as I find that the two hundred men at arms, who were guarding the headquarters, are already past the construction site and headed our way at a jogging pace.

Not far behind is Master Amand and a squad of his Templars, all in plate armor but thankfully on foot. I hesitate, slowing down to let my warriors catch up, only fifty of them left. I can't defeat these numbers, I have to gather more Rykz.

“Fuck.” I repeat myself. “It's just a matter of time, Meria!” I shout at his back, gritting my teeth and changing course to run towards the wall.

I'm out of flow but that's not too much of an issue right now. I guide my escort towards a defense tower that leads up to a section of the rampart under assault by the Rykz' siege engines. Meria attempts to kill me from a distance with needle constructs but my warriors block them, a half-dozen falling to the projectiles.

We reach the base of the wall and I smash the door in, sending my remaining Rykz inside. There are lightly injured soldiers and peasants on the floor, tired kids are sloppily applying bandages to their wounds.

They don't do anything to attract my escort's attention. They were startled and are already surrounded by their enemy so it is too late. I lead my warriors upstairs, up to the wall walk's level.

I find a similar spectacle but the people here have much worse wounds. Some have guts spilling out of their bellies and are panicking, harassing those treating them as they fear for their lives. Others are... so many are... Mutilated. Arms, legs, fingers, ears, noses, just... missing, cut or reduced to an unrecognizable mess of flesh that will never heal correctly.

They turn silent as soon as they notice us, all those who can grab their weapons. I try to walk past them and get to the battle still underway but the warriors get agitated because of the bare blades. I stop and slam my hammer on the ground to keep them under control.

“Drop your weapons and you will come to no harm.” I tell them.

“I won't lie down to let you and your creatures slaughter me!” A kid replies.

He seems twenty years old, has short black hair and one green iris. He has a mean gash running from the left side of his forehead to his chin, the blade cut through his left eye and his lips. It is still fresh, bloody.

Yet, the kid takes a step forward to challenge the Rykz. Three of my warriors raise their sabers and shields in reaction, interposing themselves between me and him.

It doesn't deter the kid who keeps advancing fearlessly. That's impressive. It is costing time, lives. Still, courageous, if foolish. I could be outside ending the battle.

“Right now, you're killing those still waging battle outside by preventing me from ending it. I'll give you one warning, and then I'm taking you down.” I tell him, pushing my warriors aside to face him.

“I don't trust you.” He replies, taking a stance. “You're working for them.”

“Yet I could have already ended you all if I wished to do so.” I note, observing him.

His sword is unstable in front of him, those who can stand are grouping up behind him. I need to end this quickly. I make use of the kid's blind spot and smash my hammer on his blade, disarming him.

He stumbles and I make use of that opening by laying my weapon's bladed portion on his neck. Those behind him freeze, rightly worried for their comrade's life.

“You can barely see.” I comment. “What's your name?”

“Rowland.” He replies, still defying me with his stare.

“Well then, lead the way, Rowland.” I tell him, using my hammer to force him to move towards the door.