The dark silent sky is soon filled with the unusual flapping of wings. Low to loud sound then it go quiet. Its so unusual and weird to hear. People who listens to this sound are so curious that they even go outside and look towards the sky. All they can see is the dark sky and no flying creatures can be found. But when they never hear the flapping sounds, they will now know the true meaning of proverb; curiosity killed the cat.

Many of the refugees who gives up in passing the gates of hell, the gates of Mulier are finding shelter in this huge forest. The other refugees who successfully pass the hell gate are confuse as to why there’s a fort here. Why is that Mulier fort is so close to forest as if they don’t touch the surrounding area and just build a fort there. They think that kind of place is hard to defend as fort needs supply, communication, wide and flat roads and many more necessities. They understand that a fort near the gate is necessary for defense purposes but they don’t understand why build it inside the forest. Most of the castles or forts are placed in plains and away from forest or any obstacles so that watchmen can see incoming enemies and supplies have an easy entry. So why this fort placed in the forest ?

They don’t know that the reason behind it is to make any approaching enemies have a hard time in reaching the fort. Siege warfare is hard when the fort is surrounded by huge trees or rocky land. Almost all medieval forts are placed in easy to access roads because they are also built for commerce. If the invaders came, the fort wont last long as invaders have an easy time to get there and prepare siege weapons depending on the capability of invaders and defenders.

But Mulier already developed high technology for transport, reconnaissance and intelligence so terrain and surrounding obstacles is not a problem anymore. Trucks can travel any road terrain except for cliff climbing. Radio, computers and other invented communication devices makes all forts and headquarters keep in touch and updated. And defending that place is easy as Mulier soldiers just shoot and kill with their guns while Medieval people are busy lining up battle formations making them an easy target. But since these medieval people don’t know, they give up on thinking the reason behind it. They know that those people are not normal or weird in their point of view.

When two groups with muscle brains starts to cross path, unavoidable fight ignites. People from Batia consist mostly of elves and humans versus the Mataliit beastmen thugs. Their little war attracts attention and it become a betting game of them. The crowds are cheering and gambling their little money. Other smart fools looks for comfortable place to sleep.

“Kill…killl.kill"

“wohoooo..that elf is still standing..unbelievable"

“Oh..a human is dead on their side"

“Come on get up…for my sake of my money"

When the fight ends, only the elf and rhino beastman remains. The crowd is cheering and go intense to the point that they start their own battle and fight each other. The single battle before turns into a chaos. Swords, shields melee weapons and magic are use to kill anyone who sees them as their enemy. The situation is in chaos. They are like children bullying each other.

“Surround them..lets see who is stronger"

“Battle formations..lets see who can survive"

“yahhhh”

Sounds of swords clashing, burning bodies, limbs flying and scatter around, screams and shouts echoed that night. Blood is raining on that silent night until 'they' join the fun. They hear some unusual sounds but ignores it as they are busy killing each other.

“Wahhhhh help…ahhhh"

The giant Rhino falls to the ground with huge bat wing creature digging in his stomach. The victim screams and shouts in pain. His scream terrifies the nearby fighters. Whoever hear his scream will surely feel a sudden cold in the air, their bodies unconsciously stops moving and their brains will also stop working. As if a super stun spell hit them.

The creature happily eat its meal and ignores the crowd who becomes stupefied.

What is this? Is this part of our chaos? Why is there a monster here? Why it is eating its prey without killing it? Why its face is enjoying this scene. The scene is like in a horror opera where the song is the suffering scream of the victim that fills the silent chaos night. This is the stage where all of them acts. The actors are all of them. The main dish is all of them. Before they realize, they are surrounded by these creatures without any warning.

“ahhhhh…..ahhhhhh…ah'……….”

“Fresh meat"

The night festival officially starts now.

Unusual wing sounds can be heard outside the fort. Even the refugees in the nano-space can hear it. Its because the space is connected to outside world. The sound like always comes in different volumes from high, then low afterwards it became quiet. The refugees just like the victims before looks up in the sky but they never saw anything or anyone flying. But then something hits on the top of the nano-space.

“Whaaa……head!!!!”

“Kyaaaaah!!”

Women and children screaming while the men also screams louder than them. Really, are they calling themselves men? Anyway, the object hits the top of the nano-space is the head of Mr. Primonido. His face shows anguish, pain and fear expressions. The refugees just close their eyes and trembles it is like they feel what Mr. Primonido feels while he is still alive and suffer. Although some felt happiness of this deranged man's fate, they can't hide their sadness and cold sweats running down from their backs whenever they saw that man's helpless face .

The refugees can see and sense the outside world like they are part of it. The nano space is a transparent space. The only difference here is that anyone or anything inside will shrink to atomic size but remains connected to outside world. The refugees thought that the head will fall towards them or hit the ground but the head just stop in the middle of the air. It is like something like glass or transparent object blocks it. The head hits the top of the nano-space because it is an object to outside world. The outside world treated it as another object while the space is connected to it. The head cannot enter inside because one must enter an entrance or portal to enter this nano space. So the head just lie there suspended in the air but in outside world, it just land on the top of an object.

The refugees are bewildered and curious. They rack their brains what just happen. How is this possible. How can that head is still there? There are too many questions in their minds but interrupted by fire. They see small fire after fire then big fire, after that continuous deafening sounds that makes all beastmen refugees gone into panic. Some closes their ears but it only reduces small amount of loudness because the have sensitive ears. Others run wildly around in panic and children just cry and scream embracing their parents. Other race with less sensitive ears just looking to the unbelievable scene in front of them with mouth wide open.

Bang bang bang bang (rifles and other semi-automatic pistols and weapons)

Shooooo….booom….boooom( missile sound and explosion)

Ratatatatatattatatatatatat (machine gun sound)

The Mulier soldiers who are stationed in their own area or task are showing what their weapons able to do against the horde of flying-upper-torso-bat-winged-man-eater creature, the manananggals.

“Firing salt missile"

Missile operators are also busy targeting faraway groups. When that missile hit a group of manananggals, they produce eerie scream that make you piss yourself. Their skins are starting to produce smoke and their body is started to become small, or in appropriate words, they are shrinking. They scream and scream while their body produces smoke which is the water escaping. The water vapor is from their body. Sooner or later, these creatures will die in dehydration.

Machine gunners efficiently taking down the manananggals flying in groups in the sky.

“Take this…eat this….hahaha..at last I can test the might of machine gun..ratattatat"

Riflemen take down any stranglers or individual threats within their own range.

“one bullet is not enough,huh. Then take 30.”

Here in Mulier, one bullet is enough for a kill in the head but this type of enemy is different, a lower demon. Hitting the head is not enough. You must annihilate the whole body to properly dispose of it. All the gunners and soldiers in this fort is equipped with UV bullets and salt bombs.

Snipers taking down long distance targets calmly.

“tango down"

Anti-air guns are also busy firing their respective targets. Anti-air guns are dual barrel big guns found in modern Earth where it can fire hundreds to thousands of big bullets that can take down an aircraft.

“Target is cooked…locked on another"

There are also automated turrets with lesser range are gunning down nearby targets. These turrets are place in each corner of the fort. This is an automatic defense, no need for manual intervention. You just need to sit and watch and let the automatic defense do the work. But since they are facing thousands of enemies, it needs soldiers to defend this fort properly.

Some lucky mananaggals, manage to get inside the fort and start attacking the defenders.

The targeted soldier evades its razor sharp claws easily by side rolling and gunning down the creature into ashes by using his pistol and emptied all the bullets from its magazine.

Other soldier who is unlucky receive the razor sharp claws aiming at his abdomen but the silk armor protects him making that sharp attack hindered its path of killing. He uses his refined iron sword hanging from his waist to successfully cut off the arms of the creature. The ugly creature screams making the man take a distance. The creature opens its mouth to attack again but an arrow pierced through its neck stopping its movement. The creature wiggles wildly and the man finally recovers, uses the salt bomb towards the creature making it wriggling wildly and started to shrink. The creature just let out a dying scream because of dehydration.

“You owe me this one"

“One beer only. Don’t steal my prey again"

“Whoa… I save your ant's ass from then"

“Hahahahha..forget it. Lets defend this place.”

The two antmen just laugh along the way and continue their fort defense task.

This just shows that UV rays and salt are really effective against them. Thanks to missiles with salt on board, it ease the pressure of Mulier soldiers. A missile can eliminate hundreds of these creatures with pain before death. Each soldier put a show in their respective weapons like guns, bows, swords and many more. Unfortunately, magicians cannot exhibit their prowess yet.

The command center is busy receiving and giving orders and reports to different squads and soldiers. The general have a pain expression surfacing in her face. The staff are somewhat confuse why their general is not please in the current situation.

According to the radar and their reports, the defenders are able to repel the threats effectively. They recorded the kill rate of their men and happy that a soldier have an average of 2 kills in 10 seconds even their enemy is a dreaded lower demon which can easily annihilate an army. Seeing also the enemy numbers are fast decreasing adds their joy in their hearts and a pressure relief also. Then the general, an antwoman, carries her modern crossbow and go towards the exit.

“Maam where are you going?”

“Target practice”

“..ah…now I know.”

It looks like one of the subordinate knows why their general have a troubled face before.

The refugees on the other hand are just staring to the amazing and unimaginable scenes in front of their own very eyes. Fear and hopelessness spread on their side. They know the tales and legends of lower demons. They are far dangerous than any beasts around. In the legends, these demons originate way back from the famous country of Tahas. It is said that they are the one who make that once prosperous country fell and vanished.

Then how these Mulier soldiers fare against this lower demons? Even High humans who are known to their high physical and magical ability failed and died miserably on the weredemons' invasion 3000 years ago.

Other tale state that these weredemons seize destroying countries after countries as they realize that their food population declines if they continue their onslaught. So they stop attacking countries, let the population grow and harvest them. It is like they make other countries as their feeding ground. A poultry. A farm. From then on, lower demons attack a certain country without realizing that some citizens went missing. The refugees feels horror as this tale is a fact to all countries. People circulate rumors about lower demon attacks but the government cannot find any “demon" around and conclude that it is a work of a criminal. But people in this era, believes more in tales and superstitious than any science fact. Painfully, lower demons are part of it while others are criminal related.

They start to feel depressed from those tales and some starts to rampage inside the nano-space. But the nano-space didn’t even budge from the attacks both inside and out. Lower demons bodies starts to fall on the top of the space wriggling wildly around. One, two, three..and ten and more demons falling. They cannot believe that a single soldier can kill ten or more of this lower demons in seconds. They know that the defenders are greatly outnumbered but successfully repel those nasty creatures is unheard of. They are like hunting migratory birds.

“ Seriously? Is this for real?”

“They killed it within seconds!!”

“Terrifying! I don't know which one to fear from now on.”

“You should fear these soldiers!! Not those demons.”

The refugees are talking or chatting like they are watching a war horror movie giving some comments. It can't be helped since this is their first time to watch modern weapons vs. lower demons.

“Mama…im scared"

“Don’t be scared honey, the soldiers are protecting us from those monsters. See…ugly monster die"

The mother who comforts her scared child points towards the wriggling lower demon until it turns to ashes. The mother and child are both leopard beastmen. Seriously? Don’t let your kid watch brutal and horrifying scenes. That is bad you know. But since the kid is somewhat brave. All is well.

“ohhhh…I want to be a soldier mother"

“But you say soldiers are just meat shields before.”

“That was father said to me before but I want to be a soldier someday protecting mama in the future"

“But you are a pretty cute girl. You are not good to become a soldier"

“Mama..don’t be like that. See that big sis over there. She beat three demons by just pointing that weapon"

The cute little daughter points towards the antwoman who holds a crossbow. The crossbow is different from any crossbow they know of. The antwoman who has no helmet, meaning a high rank officer, points the crossbow in front of three deadly lower demons bringing them down in one push of the trigger and the enemies cries in pain before they die.

Three more demons attacking her in different directions. The family is thrilled seeing that the antwoman just bend her body to attack the nearest demon in her back. Then she rolls to attack the enemy in her right then left. Her roll is accurate and precise as she hits the target in the heads while rolling. So awesome is what they thought. How is that possible? Is the question pops in their minds.

The family soon realize that she holds a powerful crossbow that shoots three arrows in high speed while the antwoman shows a creepy joyous expression. They don’t see the woman reloads the crossbow. She just continually bending and rolling around as she was dancing in the battlefield. They just amaze in her performance and the crossbow in the corner.

“Hmmm. I might apply for that job. “

“Mama..dont..in 5 years. I will be adult"

“As for that five years. Let mama protect you.”

“Hello dears. I am here. Don’t be scared anymore. Papa will protect you….kyaaaahhhhh!”

“Papa is useless!”

The man who screams louder than any woman around gets a painful attack from his cute daughter. Anyway, the mother and daughter is planning to apply to become a Mulier soldier.

The crossbow is the favorite weapon of the general. It has auto-reload function and able to fire three arrows consecutively or individually. Since this is one of the modern weapons so expect high penetration, high projectile speed , auto-reload function and lightweight. The crossbow has a big magazine for auto-reload function. The magazine holds 12 arrows. 12 arrows is enough and deadly for a crossbow and to this era. The power and penetration of this weapon is tested many times and it’s proven effective and efficient depending on the user. Medieval crossbow is greatly outmatch by this.

On the other hand, two tanks positioned on both flanks of the fort are also participating the defense. They are positioned 500 meters away from fort. Their role is to repel any hostiles that luckily bypasses the forts defense. These tanks are not your normal tanks. The tanks are slightly bigger than Abraham tanks in Earth. It has dual cannons for continuous firing. It has three types of cannon shells: magic based rounds, highly explosive rounds and armor piercing explosive rounds. The shells are smaller, lighter and more deadly than Earth's explosive shells which is far heavier and way more larger. These cannons are really intended for destroying or total annihilation of targets.

It has four heavy modified computer controlled machine gun weapons, two in front and two at the back. It is use for anti personnel targets or for supportive fire or for suppression fire. The bullets of this weapon can easily pierce a hole or holes in human body either they are wearing metal armor or not.

And the last weapon of this tank that makes this baby special are the presence of guided missiles. The reason why this tank is slightly big is because it carries big amount of missiles. Yes, this baby is boarded by deadly missiles.

The missiles in this tank are not your typical huge arrowhead shape missiles. The missiles are compacted and compressed until its size is the same with 1 liter cola bottle. The missiles can travel and destroy targets 5, 000 kilometers away with a speed of 2 km/second. So you better pray for your life rather than running away from it. The missiles are magic based rounds aside from the explosive rounds. Magic-based means that you can select or change what kind of magic attack it will deploy after a mage cast it. You can add acid, flame, freeze, or any type of magic either unique or the common ones. This is possible since magic is present on this world and the inventor is Joe. And we know his skills and capability right? The missiles are guided by the on boarded computer.

Speaking of computer, these tanks have Air sense radar system or ASRaS that acts as radar to detect and locate enemy or any hostile within 8,000 km radius. The forts have also this system and thrice the range, 24,000 km that covers almost the entire western side of the continent. This system uses the concept of Joe's [Air Sense] that uses air molecules to detect and identify things in the surroundings either alive, dead, currently hiding or any objects or things as long as it is within range and has air. This is possible because of magic and yours truly, Joel. This makes the tank equivalent to Earth's destroyer warships. Can attack and detect enemies in air or in surface either close or far away.

The tanks are busy firing missiles and cannon shells to the incoming enemies, mananaggals. The missiles are salt missiles similar to the missiles currently use in the fort while the cannon shells are UV rounds. The enemies like before are shouting and screaming of the pain. Those who got closer are pinned down by the UV bullets of machine guns. The unlucky ones receive countless holes in their torso before they turn into ashes. The enemies cannot believe that after escaping from the hell in the fort where many of their comrades turn into ashes and soon to become fertilizers. They will meet another and hellish tragedy here. Another apocalypse.

These lower demons are savage but they also use their brain after they witness the death of thousands of their comrades. They start to avoid the fort and go even deeper hoping to find a village or town to raze. But it seems lady bad luck is at their side. After changing course, they also meet another tragedy. The soon to be fertilizers didn’t see any fort but only saw a single big box with two long tubes and its back is burning and smoking. Later they realize that the burning and smoking back is the sign of their deaths. The launching of deadly coca cola size missiles. And their screams of pain reverberate the silent night together with the flaming and deafening explosion sounds.

Swooosh

Swooosh

Booom

Boom

[“Arrrghhhhh!”]

The fort defense of the Mulier soldiers continues for almost 30 minutes against the horde of manananggals. They already know that they will be facing thousands of them and knows that this is an exhausting task and some might be killed or all of them will be killed until the revival system which is unique in Mulier, revives them. According to the intel report, they will be facing 12 987 of these creatures. This creature is far superior than any normal beasts or people around as this is a lower demon.

Lower demons are known to kill armies of people and their high vitality and high kill rate. Many legends describing lower demons, we know that they are just legends but there is one thing that is true and fact about them. That is they are extremely dangerous.

The current defenders of this fort is only 2200 people including the non-military personnel plus 3000 more or less refugees that needs to be protected. They are really at disadvantage here in terms of numbers. They need to protect the refugees and they are greatly outnumbered. They are prepared for one-sided massacre. Their minds are prepared for the worst case scenarios.

But using modern technology and proper knowledge they able to successfully repel the terrifying hordes of manananggal, a lower demon. They cannot believe for themselves that they successfully repel an attack that can bring down an entire country in one night. They know about guns and modern weapons invented and introduced by their king. They know the potential and capabilities of modern technology and methods but only in theory only. They know it using skill books but they have no real experience in using these weapons in this large and deadly scale operation. They never believe what they see in front of them and the feelings surging inside their hearts.

After this incident, they now feel and taste the real potential and capabilities of this modern weapons plus their own methods. They have mix feelings while holding their own weapon. Some are terrified. If these weapons are use effectively against other countries, they can easily make any country submit and kneel before them. Just imagining those scenes makes them shiver but when they remember the king and Queen they somehow feel at ease.

Those two didn’t rule or lead them in a tyrant or unjustifiable way, those two just casually and care freely lead and manage this country where everyone can benefit and smile everyday. The soldiers erase the possibility of abusing these weapons and instead vowing to protect this country for good only.

Speaking of good, they remember that they take the citizen and military oaths that has the same or similar content. To sum it up, the oaths/contracts states that anyone are free to do whatever they like as long as it doesn’t bring trouble to other people and only bring good things to this country. They realize that those oaths are made to protect and preserve the good laws of this country and to its people. The doubts in their hearts washes away after remembering the casual attitude of their rulers. Some secretly admire them. They know now that they can protect this country from any threats. They shout and cheers of joy spreading out. People are jumping, laughing and feel relief.

The long hardships of author is done. I mean the long and exhausting battle against the lower demons is finally done.