We arrived at the city hall just as the bees went past the city's walls, all of us raced to the roof. The city hall was a large square shaped building with a dome roof, Cynthia stayed in the center while Guardian Five, Brunhilde, and I formed a triangular formation. Cynthia is responsible for healing and magical attack.

'Lilith, how many attackers do we have?' I asked

'We have at least 86 Bees here, the other fourteen went to different locations in the city' Lilith notified me

'The soldiers can take care of the other fourteen'

A large stinger protruded from the bees' mouth, they're prepared for battle. The fighting style of the blood bees is pretty simple, they will charge and try to impale you with the stinger that came out of their mouth, after doing so, they'll pull you out and will hook you to the other stinger which is located around their arse.

"They won't go all at once, they will try to attack one by one as to not cause friendly fire amongst themselves because once they've charged, it's hard for them to steer left and right" I notified Cynthia and Brunhilde

They both nodded and kept the info in their minds

Three Bees lowered their altitude and charged towards us, I killed the attacking bee by shooting off its head, it didn't even reach me. Brunhilde jumped to the side and impaled the bee's head with her rapier the moment the bee passed her. Guardian Five didn't even bother to evade it sliced the bee in half, Cynthia was attacking the other bees with her [Lightning]. Wave after wave of bees attacked, we've already killed half of them when the bee's started to eerily buzz around

'They're being called back by their queen!' Lilith informed me

'I hope those guys are ready!'

"Do it!" I gave Brunhilde the signal

Brunhilde took out a horn from her waist and used it, the horn was loud, very loud. Soon black smoke erupted from the city's walls, the bees tried to escape but black smoke hindered them, they tried to fly a little lower but they soon hit the city wall. Some tried to fly through the smoke but they all fell after suffering harsh effects from the smoke. They were basically sitting ducks waiting to be killed

Some of the bees already realized the situation and decided to just kill everyone, a cornered mouse will bite as they say. We took care of the bees that tried to attack the city hall, we were victorious but as for the other soldiers, I can't say the same. Some got impaled in the head while others were hanging from some dead bees' arse.

After the battle, the fire was extinguished and the surviving soldiers celebrated, Gram wrote a letter to the King, according to him, this is their first-ever victory against the invaders in the northern region.

The survivors in the city hall's basement came out and were evacuated, each of them was struck with fear, the children closed their eyes whenever they passed by a mangled corpse, be that of a person's an animal's or one of their attackers.

I sighed at this sight, I walked away and went to a tent where a meeting will be held between me, General Gram, and this city's Lord or chief

I was earlier than the rest so I sat down and organized all of my thoughts and ideas, minutes later, Gram came along with the city lord.

"Hello, I am Julius Grant, I am the Lord of this City" Julius introduced himself

Julius' age is around 25-27, he has short blonde hair. He's atleast 6 foot tall and has a good body build

"Zeno" I did the same only in a less noble fashion

"Let's take a seat and get this meeting underway" Grant took a seat

"You can see our situation is pretty dire, I would've welcomed you with a feast but as you can see... it might've been us on the menu" Julius apologized

"Come on, who has time for feasts when we're at war" Gram patted his back

"These invaders... I've never seen them before, they appeared out of nowhere and started attacking us, the city put up a good fight. We can't damage them with your regular arrows but the ballistas managed to take down hundreds of them but alas, the ballistas broke one night and from then, we were unable to push them back" Julius still has a look of anger on his face

"Broke?" Gram asked

"Yes, we suspected that someone sabotaged the ballistas, we've already asked the guards who were on duty that night but all they say is that they remember nothing" Julius rubbed his forehead

"What do you think Zeno?" Gram asked me

Gram started calling me by my name after I told them to stop calling me blade knight... it's really weird

I don't think this is the work of a bug, I've already asked Lilith and her database shows no result but who knows

"I'm not sure but we can't rule out the possibility of this being the work of a bug. I'll have to investigate first before I can come to a conclusion" I replied

"Then let me take you to the ballistas, I didn't let anyone go near it other than our investigators" Julius stood up

We left the tent and headed for the city walls, each of the city walls has three rooms that contain a ballista that shoots large arrows. Each ballista was thoroughly destroyed, it wasn't slashed in any way so this isn't the work of a Formar. It was demolished by a blunt weapon

'Lilith, scan'

'Scanning...'

I walked around while waiting for Lilith to finish scanning

'Done, 0 traces of this being the work of a bug. I've found an outline of what seems to be a circular hammer underneath the wreckage'

'Thanks!'

I started to remove the broken pieces of the ballista until I found a slight outline of a hammer on the ground, the use must've used too much force and caused the hammer to hit the ground

"What do you think?" I asked as I pointed at the still faint markings on the ground

"This shape... only the church's paladins use this kind of hammer" Gram spoke out as his he traced the marking on the ground with his finger

"The church? why would they do this?" Julius asked, he was angry but he was trying to calm himself down to stop himself from making any unnecessary acyions

"I don't know, but I'll have to take a look at the paladin's weapon in order to make sure" I said

"Let's go to the church then, they've already evacuated but let's hope that they left something behind" Julius walked away

I noticed that Gram was thinking of something, I pat his back and asked

"Discovered anything?" I asked

"N-Nothing, let's get going" He stood up and left

'Lilith?'

'Yes, his heart rate increased when he heard the word 'Discovered' Subject: Gram seems to be hiding something, please proceed with caution' Lilith warned me

Gram is righteous guy, why would he try to hide something when he knows that this might cause more innocent lives to be lost

We all walked towards the church, the Church was large, the walls were pure white. Julius broke the chains that shut the two doors before pushing it open. The insides of the church was dyed in different colors due to the multiple stained glass around the ceiling and walls, the stained glass all had different designs but one thing was certain, they are all depictions of their "God"

We walked inside and went past the podium, Julius pulled a lever hidden behind a vase of flowers. A trap door opened near the podium, it showed a set of stairs leading down.

We walked downstairs and found a training ground, thankfully there were still some weapons that was left behind. Most of the weapons were double-edged swords

"Over here" Julius beckoned us as he pointed at a hammer with a long handle

'Match found, this is the weapon used' Lilith alerted me, so it was the church after all but why?

"Those follish bastards!" Julius snapped

"*Sigh* I didn't think this would happen" Gram shook his head