The collision between the two forces is loud and chaotic. Roskal's armored elites angle their shields and use them to slam the first row of halberds up in the air only to find the Hospitaliers cooperating with them.

This surprise causes them to hesitate as they realize their enemies are evidently planning to bring their odd weapons down on their heads in a short moment when they encounter the second row.

The slight delay causes the soldiers to be unable to react to the threat but they were already lowering their shields so, when the next line of Hospitaliers thrusts with the points of their weapons, they manage to block the attack.

Yet, they can do naught else but receive the sharp axe-like blades of the first row on their pauldrons and helmets. Their steel armors and defensive constructs hold against this attack but it costs them much more flow than the Hospitaliers spent.

This tactic used by Roskal's soldiers would have worked against a Phalanx or mere spear users since that weapon isn't dangerous once you've moved past the point, it wouldn't even have been attempted against the imperial guard's bardiches, but it is harmful when dealing with halberds.

They are outmatched in weapons and lack knowledge on how to deal with them but have superior reserves of energy as well as armors. I watch with interest as the armored soldiers push forth against the halberds using their swords to try to cut the heads off only to fail because of the elongated steel sleeve covering the top of the handles.

Leomi had a stroke of genius when inventing these weapons, I wouldn't be surprised if her insights came from how Lisilese have countered Phalanxes. It isn't a coincidence either that halberds are so well suited to counter the swords so often used to slaughter peasantry.

Yet, the soldiers are gaining ground despite their disadvantage in reach thanks to their armors. They might not be able to cut the halberds' heads off but their blows are still slamming them aside.

The battle swiftly turns into a melee as the soldiers force their way forward under a shower of hacking and thrusting blows to arrive at the shield-wall held by the kneeling one-armed Hospitaliers.

Their plate armors suffer but their swords soon come into action as they make use of their superior flow reserve, which is even more concentrated because of their small numbers. Roskal's soldiers withstand bashes, hacks, and downward thrusts while tearing into the shields.

Several Hospitaliers fall down screaming from injuries yet, regardless of the progress these soldiers make, they remain outnumbered three to one and that quickly takes its toll.

Their arrogant leader raises her chin to throw a glimpse over Leomi's shoulder and then to the gallery of Nobles before focusing back on the battle. It was so quick I doubt anyone other than me caught it.

I now know why it is that she decided to fight here, she is waiting for help to arrive and thus is counting on this assembly of Nobles to buy time for her. I smirk, aware I can crush her spirit when the right opportunity presents itself.

The first to die is a Hospitalier who takes a sword in the chest after deflecting a blow that came from his left with his shield, thus leaving an opening. As the weapons clash, a sword severs two halberds which opens a hole in the Hospitalier defense.

Those who lose their weapons don't give in to despair and use the poles to push back the attacker, leaving the soldier open to a strike that cleaves through the chain-mail protecting his neck.

The soldier falls with his throat split open, gargling loudly as his literal lifeblood pours out of him. The gallery of Nobles flinches as they witness the death of one of Roskal's elites to mere low born cripples.

Leomi raises her left palm up and begins shaping a lance construct, forcing the officer to act and clash swords with her but it fails to disrupt my fiancee's concentration.

The woman tries to bash Leomi with her shield but my fiancee slams it away with her pommel and flicks her wrist to deflect the blade trying to take advantage of that opening.

The better swordswoman here is visibly Lance who easily parries any blow the woman throws. To be fair, the Lady chose the correct course of action in attempting to disrupt Leomi's focus before she finished her construct instead of trying to match her.

Unfortunately, sometimes there are no solutions and my fiancee finally assembles her lance which she immediately launches at the enemy ranks. The Lady uses a lion's leap to interpose her shield and armored body.

Her defensive construct glows intensely as she focuses her energy but it still shatters, allowing the projectile to break through the reinforced wood. The golden lance breaks her breastplate's defensive runes as well but fails to pierce the steel.

Krclink. Leomi snaps her fingers with a gauntlet on, causing her construct to burst into dozens of shards. Most of these tiny projectiles pepper the Noble's armor and tears it into shreds one small explosion at a time.

“Arrh!” The Lady screams.

She falls to the ground with bleeding wounds across her entire body and several golden fragments embedded in her flesh, having even failed to block all of the needles that made up Leomi's lance construct.

These remnants shower the armored soldiers and further weaken their armors by exploding on their surfaces. One of these elites even falls dead as a sharp piece of this deadly shrapnel makes it past his visor, pierces his eyes, and skewers straight into his brain which is obliterated as it finally detonates.

Roskal's armored soldiers lose coordination and their formation falls apart. I let out a soft whistle of admiration to my fiancee who found the perfect timing to attack.

“Now! Now! Now!” The officer yells from the ground.

Ten more armored elites burst into the hall from the eastern side and charge the Hospitaliers' right flank as a column. Mary reacts instantly and directs the back row of halberdiers to intercept.

They raise their pole-arms and turn to make a file so as to get into position while two of the shield-bearers shift to block the charge, costing one of them her life because it left her completely open and the other his last arm as his shield is split by three consecutive lion strikes with the last severing his wrist.

Lance launches at the elites to buy time for her troops but the Lady reaches out with a trembling hand from the ground and launches a powerful air-blade at her back.

I prepare flow to shatter this projectile with one of my own but pause as a golden jay suddenly appears right above her left shoulder where it lazily lands. I'm quite certain it flew in from the entrance but was so fast I missed it.

The jay doesn't even glance to the air-blade threatening Lance, it merely swipes its wing towards it and the construct shatters when it comes into contact with the feathers.

A gust of harsh wind blows into Leomi's back but it does not affect her armor or charge. She lands in the middle of the ten new elites and slashes out with her sword only to have it intercepted by two linked blades with a third thrusting at her chest.

Leomi backhands the weapon threatening her, snapping it in half on impact, and then palm-strikes her own sword which allows it to push down the two blocking it, allowing her to activate an armor-piercing construct on the tip that she uses to slice through a soldier's helmet.

With the time she bought, and elite she killed, Roskal's troops lose the advantage of surprise to be immediately faced with twenty halberdiers and seven shield-bearers battering them down.

The disadvantage the Hospitaliers held in terms of energy disappears as Roskal's elites burn more and more flow to resist the onslaught. Their individual skill in using the sword and shield is evidently higher but their teamwork is lacking.

The Hospitaliers also hold the edge in terms of discipline as they've held to their ranks while the elites broke ranks so that they would gain an individual upper-hand, resulting in their formation breaking up as they lose fighters.

“Just a bit longer!” The officer encourages her troops as they fall apart.

I notice two things, one is that a few Nobles are getting ready to intervene but most seem utterly unwilling to risk their resources and thus themselves. Why would they when Roskal brought this on herself by courting the Emperor's displeasure?

They would no doubt rejoice if Lance fell but don't see her as threatening enough to them to take action. The other element of note is that this Lady is desperately glimpsing at the Midnight Palace's lobby.

There was likely some truth to Olhiar's words, squads are definitely being sent to assassinate Lance's supporters but some of the soldiers in the companies you attacked were clearly meant to come here and relieve Roskal's bodyguards.

Explain. They waited for Lance to depart her headquarters with her troops to mobilize so she wouldn't hear about this in time to react but they didn't account for Elizabeth Vil to act before nightfall or to even learn of their operation and thus cripple their troops before they left their barracks.

“Hold!” The Lady screams as three of her elites drop dead after halberds skewered through their helmets and Leomi severs a pair of heads with a magnificently precise slash that came from a seemingly desperate block.

“The best laid plans fall apart at the first clash of arms.” I mockingly bellow. “If you're waiting for your reinforcements, they ain't comin' here. They must be halfway back to Caeviel by now.”

My words have the funny effect of sending the gallery of spectators into a panicked retreat, which startles me. I instinctively raise my left arm to reflexively send thirty-six constructs of three different types.

Blades, needles, and javelins made of solidified air rain down on the high born to be joined by fireballs as well as invisible bursts of destructive kinetic force.

A good half are blocked by defenses but none so completely that these hurriedly raised defenses stand as the rest of my constructs slip through to turn the hall into even more of a bloodbath.

Limbs are torn to fly out, some bodies catch fire while others are severed in half. Liz! What, I'm already being hunted so what's the worst that'll happen? Most didn't pose a threat. So what, they're Nobles.

A twist of a thought blocks my sister's qualms from affecting me emotionally as I leap down into the hall with my liangi ready to swing. Yet, I find no interesting target to fight as all present begin fleeing the premises before I even land.

“Take me away! Take me away!” The Lady screams in terror.

Two of Roskal's elites grab their officer to drag her out of the hall while a few remain behind and sacrifice their lives blocking the Hospitaliers and Leomi. I disdain finishing the woman off and merely scrutinize the area, expecting an ambush.

I'm thoroughly disappointed as naught comes out, not Wraith, not Roskal, not even a construct. Leomi glances to me through her visor with displeasure in her silvery eyes while the jay directly glares.

“Half of you are to remain to take care of the injured!” Leomi barks the order out and heads over to the left staircase.

The way she ignores me grates on my nerves but her command offends me because these Nobles are enemies yet she is going to heal them. I consider ending them but decide not to because a good third of the Hospitaliers are throwing dark glares at me and would intervene, forcing me to kill them.

Only ten of Leomi's people end up following as only twenty were still fit for battle, leaving her with seven halberdiers and three shield-bearers. Lance sends out flow to all her troops as they climb to the second floor, replenishing their reserves for the next skirmish.

Unable to bring myself to follow along like a good girl, I use a few lion's leaps to go straight up to the second floor and rush across the hall to the staircases leading to the third floor.

As I rush, I detect silver runes activate one by one within the walls and pause as a localized disruption construct also takes effect around me. I scowl in disdain as all I have to do is get out of the range.

I prepare to leap to the sides of the hall where the disruption isn't taking effect and rebuild the framework of air in my left arm so I don't have to focus as much to maintain it but I suddenly hear a metallic noise and notice four javelins flying at my flanks.

The projectiles pierced through the canvases of two large paintings which were put there to conceal openings where they installed siege weapons considering the speed of these bolts.

I clench my jaw and tighten my muscles. I activate my perception construct to accelerate my senses as much as possible while swinging my liangi to deflect the javelins with the flat of my blades at the last moment.

Cliclclinclink. I survive the first volley only to have a second one arrive without giving me any time to breathe. The lack of delay means that some runes are controlling these weapons and reloading them.

The usual dull pain in my chest increases and peaks as the third volley flashes at me. A javelin's point catches on my back and flings off without piercing but it's enough to shatter my focus and prevent me from using my left arm which falls by my side.

I barely manage to handle the other three projectiles when I hear four more being fired. I raise my already cramping right arm but experience utter agony as my heart's muscles suddenly tighten as they stretch.

I gasp from the pain and freeze, knowing our body won't be able to continue so I gamble on our ability to use flow inside our body to minimize the damage of being skewered by fucking bolts.

As I try to manage the incredibly acute panging pain in my chest, I feel a hand grab my collar and jerk me back. Two javelins collide almost before my eyes while another two pass by each other at breast-level.

Sixteen more of these bolts are fired within moments of me being pulled to safety by Leomi but I am more preoccupied by the fact the hurt isn't accompanied by a beating pulse.

Our heart stopped. Solutions. Fuckall. Jess! I don't fucking know! My sister snaps at me as she works on a jury-rigged kinetic construct that's meant to restart our heart.

“Frightening, how casually she intercepted this rapid-fire.”

“Didn't even need both arms at the end.”

I hear but ignore the whispers as I force myself to take a breath only for it not to help in any way against the suffocation creeping up on me. I wouldn't even be standing if not for Leomi holding onto me with her gauntlets.

I focus on the flow making up my left arm. I push past the pain and slam it into my rib-cage just as my sister activates her makeshift kinetic construct. I feel a pulse travel up my jugular, which is a strange sensation but helps chase away the dark haze I hadn't noticed invading my thoughts.

“Liz? Liz!” Leomi urgently calls out to me.

“I'm fine, just a bit shaken.” I groan.

Great, I have to keep the damn thing running now. My sister complains. I don't see why that's an issue. I rise up straight as I finally have some space to handle myself and suppress the pulses of pain shearing through my body.

“That was unexpected to be sure.” Lance mumbles nervously.

She lets go of me and extends both hands out towards the paintings. I only notice that the disruption construct was neutralized when she sends out two spherical constructs through the shredded canvas that blow two complicated ballistas into wooden chips.

Brkrfrsh. Flickers of flames arise but vanish almost immediately. I take a step to head off only to witness Leomi rushing ahead of me as she swipes her blade towards the walls, sending air-blade after air-blade to destroy any runes prepared by Roskal's people.

I scowl but slowly stomp along, persuaded not to recklessly charge by my sister's silent nagging. I'm not nagging, I'm annoyed you broke our heart. It's not broken, you just haven't fixed it yet.

I swear, I took so much care of it and you just wreck it all in one go as soon as you wake up. That's unfair, I didn't wreck it all, just that one thing which is honestly too fragile for proper use anyway.

Grraaah! Her frustrated scream makes me flinch so I quiet my thoughts and rebuild the framework of air in my left arm. We cross the hall without further issue, unsurprisingly considering the destruction Leomi wrought on the walls.

Lance calms down as we climb up the staircase to the third floor where we find a hall filled with marble statues and rows of soldiers waiting for us. I count up to a hundred and sigh at the fact Roskal will definitely get away with it because we went on the attack.

Not that she'll live through the night. I step to Leomi's side and she turns to me with a aggressive sideways smirk that tells me everything I need to know about how we are to proceed against these hastily gathered soldiers.

“First to the other side?” I ask.

“Wouldn't want you to exert yourself too much, old woman, let's make it first to take twenty out.” Lance responds provocatively.

“Says the elderly Lady with pure white hair.” I snap back.

“Why thank you, Elizabeth.” Leomi sweetly replies as if I was complimenting her.

I bend my knees and lean forward while gritting my teeth to withstand the harsh agony still tormenting my nerve endings. Lance takes her sword in both hands and raises it overhead.

I lower my liangi to have the aft-blade rest against my back, preparing for the bloodiest feast I've had in what feels like ages because I restrained myself for fear of harming my heart.