We arrived at Twinmounds fort three days ago, In the end, the commander choose to send the earth mages ahead so we already had a fair bit of fortifications of our own.

We had walls protecting us and the earth mages were now building siege weapons.

The elite team that departed a few days ago also returned two days ago with a good amount of prisoners, and this afternoon we put up our show in front of the fortress, showing them everything thanks to illusion magic. The commander decided to listen to my advice, he spared some, made them have a speech, and promised the enemies we would spare those who surrendered. We had no intention to spare anyone though, Hoss had enough refugees already. I was very proud of my contribution.

It was night now, but we heroes were all armed and ready to fight. We wouldn't go to the battlefield, but we expected a raid tonight so we were grouped and ready to defend ourselves.

The elite group reported a number of 2500 enemies, definitely too many to fit in a fortress, they probably planned to use the surplus units to raid us and try to destroy our siege weapons.

We were building siege towers at the front, right where the enemies could best see them, or at least they could see their top since we were building them inside the walls.

This afternoon the mages almost finished imbuing the runes on the siege towers and they would end them tomorrow, so, tonight, we expected the surplus to try going for a raid instead of having to destroy them on the battlefield where we would be ready to take them on.

Like this, if it went well they would slow us down with minimum losses, and if it didn't they wouldn't have spent too much anyway.

By the way, the towers were fake, they had runes only on the top, the only visible part, the real siege weapon was another one, one they didn't know about. We also had another ace in the sleeve they were unaware of, sent to us directly from Hoss.

We wanted to bait their raid, and if everything went well, we would try to end things tonight.

Suddenly we started hearing noises from the towers, they took the bait.

We were in a zone far away from them, on the north-west edge of the camp, far from the part in front of the fortress, so we most likely wouldn't fight, but we still all rose on our feet in case it was necessary. Lae and Roxanne were also with us, it was probably the most secure place for them, Alua was also with us after all.

I looked at the towers, some time passed, and then, the towers all crumbled, I didn't know if the enemy or we did it, but anyway everything was proceeding as planned.

I lost myself in thoughts, anticipating the surprises we still had to use.

Alua then spoke.

“Enemies on the edge of the camp, everyone on the ready!”

I focused on the wall and noticed a group of five middle-aged men and women near the wall, all using stealth.

What were they doing here though?

They didn't seem too strong, they probably were meat shields that deserted and were trying to get away by climbing the wall again. They choose a dangerous way to desert though, couldn't they do it earlier?

One of them then shouted:

“We surrender!”

As a reply, Alua pierced his throat with an arrow.

She then said:

“They're yours.”

I didn't wait and threw a Fireball at them, Mark and Oliver also attacked. We wounded them but no one of them died. I saw the soldiers near us run towards them, so I used Shadow Leap to arrive instantly towards them and not let the soldier steal my game.

A middle-aged woman was now in front of me, she rose her shield, and I then leaped to her side with fire ki and hit her thigh with my sabre. She fell to her knees, I then hesitated a little, but then focused my mind on what I needed to do and decapitated her.

In the meanwhile, Oliver also killed another one.

I looked at the other two, choosing which one to face. One of them then took a magical tool, it was an anti-earth bomb, a magical tool that devoured a huge amount of mana in an instant, it could be programmed to devour more of a certain attribute and this one was probably made for absorbing mostly earth mana. It was great at dealing with things made of earth mana like our siege towers, but it was awful against people, only people with no strength at all would die with something like that.

The other man was probably an earth magician and was trying desperately to make a hole in the wall, he almost did it, I didn't want any exp to get away so went for him. I decapitated him from behind after using Shadow Leap, and in the meanwhile, the other guy threw the magical tool.

The bomb flew towards our party, but then I remembered something. Lae was with us, and she had no power or training at all.

I watched the bomb traveling towards her and my heart sunk, my breath stopped in the middle of my throat and I felt my blood become icy.

I just did another error, and another person was about to die, this time a person I cherished much more than Jane. I screamed in terror.

“Laeeeeeeeee!”

As I screamed the bomb exploded, hitting everyone. But as the colours made by the mana all been absorbed by the tool and I saw the party Lae was still alive, Mark was in front of him shielding her by infusing the anti-magic runes on his shield.

I remembered his blessing of seeing the death of people five seconds earlier and breathed in relief.

I then looked at the man and rage rose inside me.

I went in front of me, he had an expression that seemed mad with fear, he was trembling. He took out his sword and swung it, I hit his hand with my sabre and he let go of it.

I was considering using the hellflame attribute to punish him, but then sighed and let go of the idea, I just cut his head.

I then looked around, and after confirming every enemy was dead, I sat down and tried to calm down.

Mark walked in front of me and said:

“Are you fine?”

I looked him in the eyes and said:

“Mark, thank you wholeheartedly.”

He remained still for a few instants, then said:

“Hahaha, wholeheartedly? Man, I never heard you thank someone this much before, I'm flattered, you know.”

“Yes, but don't get too used to it, I'm not gonna let it happen again.”

I then looked at Lae.

“Lae, I'm sorry, you almost died because of my mistake.”

“N-no, master, you didn't do anything, I-I'm just too weak to resist even something like that, I'm sorry for making you this worry, I'm sorry.”

She seemed very shaken, she seemed about to cry.

I got up and went near her, then put a hand o her head.

“I'm never gonna let something like that happen again, so calm down I'll make sure you'll always be safe from now on.”

She shook her head.

“No, it's not that, I don't want to make you worry. I-I'm so useless.”

“You're not useless, you saved me, both physically and mentally, I want you by my side so don't worry.”

She then clung to me and hug me, then started crying, I hugged her back, trying to calm down, in the meanwhile Mark watched me with an approving gaze and gave me a thumbs up. I appreciated it, but he then got carried away and started mimicking a kiss.

'Do you want to make me get caught by the FBI, you idiot, don't try to drag me down with you.'

I also looked at Alua, she didn't do anything to protect Lae, she probably wanted her to die if possible, this only made me even more hostile to Hoss.

After a bit, Lae calmed down and we then sat down to rest, after all, it would pass a while before phase two began.

We waited patiently for about three hours, and then a messenger came to us and told us to prepare ourselves. Every soldier right now was being woken up and told to get ready by their cleric. It would still be a bit until phase three, when we would move out, but it was good to prepare early.

We went near the front part of the wall, where most soldiers were gathering, and something appeared in the sky and started throwing spells and projectiles at the fortress, it was one of Hoss's flying battleships.

Hoss's army wasn't close to any fight yet, so they didn't mind lending us one, the empire's battleships were all quite big, slow, and required a lot of energy, so it would have been too much to bring one of them until here.

The ship stayed in stealth mode until now, going undetected thanks to the night and the fact that they were on the other side of the fortress and all attention was focused on our side. The ship was using magical tools to focus magic from many magicians or mana stones into single spells while enhancing the aim and reducing the dispersion of mana of the spell, they could by all right be called mana cannons. Those cannons were used at their best against people, hitting huge areas, so right now they were used sparingly to hit the people on the walls.

There were also ballistas, which used projectiles imbued with runes to hit with more precision and power, and right now they were firing them continuously, aiming mainly for the enemy anti-air defences.

The enemies took a bit of time to reorganize and concentrate the defences on the other side of the fortress, but soon they started firing with ballistas of their own. It was difficult to hit a moving target though, and while the ship's mages were trained to do it, the fortress's soldiers weren't all trained but partly conscripted adventurers or ex-adventurers trying to slow us down.

The ship's bombing continued for a while, lighting the sky in the magic's colours, mostly red, brown, and light green as the fire, earth, and wind magic.

But soon the battleship had to give in to the superior numbers of the fortress's artillery and retreated. After all, warships were meant to support an army, not do its work, but that was enough for us.

A little bit of time passed and then I heard screams coming from ahead, our second ace in the sleeve was found out. While the ship took their attention away, a team formed by warriors and martyrs of the Purification Brigade sneaked towards the fortress while covered in stealth spells with a huge anti-magic ram.

I then heard the nearest priest shouting:

“All soldiers, get in formation outside the camp, everyone be ready to fight!”

Everyone was already grouped in their centuriam and we rapidly prepared the formation. We heroes were in the middle, as protected as we could be, we would have our moment later on though.

The fortress was slightly uphill so I could see what was happening in the front, a small group of purificators holding the ram and a bigger group of martyrs protecting them from the shots, they were very close and it only took ten seconds of desperate running to reach the gate.

The purificators started ramming the gate, eliminating the runes fortifying it while the martyrs protected them from the objects thrown from above.

'I wonder how much they offered them for this job.'

The gate started giving in and the commander ordered us to start advancing, and the army started marching with their shield raised towards the fortress. The rest of the brigade also advanced, but they instead broke up running towards the fortress, they couldn't use leaps because of specific runes on the ground, but they instead used their superhuman strength to close the distance in less than a minute.

The gate then broke up and the purificators faced the unprepared enemies in front of them, taking the courtyard and establishing their position there without advancing, now they just had to resist until the rest of the army arrived.

The only thing they did was take the front walls and destroy the artillery and then return to the courtyard to not disperse their forces.

They probably could have taken the whole fortress if they wanted, but there was no need to use such a strong group for that, in such closed spaces there was always the risk to fall into a trap and the experience they would get wouldn't be much for them, contrary to the other soldiers.

The enemies on the other walls could shoot magic at them, but they couldn't aim magic cannons and other artillery at them, they could just exchange spells with people stronger than them, not the best situation.

Our army continued to advance pretty much undisturbed on the field, there were still a few towers that could aim magic cannons at us, but with only that much the shield-bearers and the clerics managed to contain the damage by blocking the spells when possible.

Scrambled on the field there were also magical mines, but there were scouts on the front lines just for that, but some still went off. Some powerful mines used mana crystals, but most mines had to be recharged regularly to maintain the mana inside them, so there couldn't be too many of them.

The most exposed units to the enemy fire were the archers, they had a good number of shield-bearers with them but some still died.

When we arrived at the middle of the battlefield though, a change occurred.

From the two hills at our flanks two groups of enemies appeared, charging towards us.

I liked my lips, I was still angry about Lae's near-death experience and I was eager to fight.

The enemies clashed with our flanks, but we were ready to fight them, we expected exactly that in fact, this was their last chance to protect Twinmounds Fort and if they didn't they wouldn't have enough a supply line to feed those people, they had to use them like this.

Those people were probably expendable people forcefully conscripted whose utility just expired, how unlucky.

The enemies clashed against our formation in a chaotic matter, hardly doing any damage, the only ones that managed to do something were the archers and magicians riding Saurrunners, rideable giant lizards often used by adventurers to move inside wild lands.

They were difficult to hit but to hit something they just had to throw something to our formation without aiming too much.

Only them weren't enough to turn the tide of the battle though, after a few minutes the first deserters started appearing in the back, running away from the battle, soon the people in the middle started following them.

When even the riding shooter turned their back to the battle and started fleeing, even the people in the front started running away or throwing their weapons on the ground, surrendering, and getting killed. Then our commander's voice resounded through the battlefield.

“Chase them until the start of the woods, take those souls' fragments away from those unbelievers!”

I looked at Alua, and she looked at the others and said:

“Someone else wants to come?”

No one said anything.

“Well, then let's go, David. Remember that if you others change your mind you can ask any officials, if you want you can also participate in searching for survivors afterwards. ”

She said in a monotone voice.

We then jumped through the teams arriving at the front.

There was a small group of enemies fighting the soldiers in front of me, I jumped behind them and started slashing at them from behind, I had space of manoeuvre so I jumped in and of the fight, and soon they fell under the double attacks from the front and the back.

One of them was an old man, he watched me with terrorized eyes as I cut his throat, I didn't look at the others.

There weren't too many enemies remaining, but there were still some I could take for myself.

I then used my Shadow Leap towards the fleeing enemies, I focused on nothing else but the fleeing prey, they were two enemies.

I hit a leg of the first with a Dark Bullet, he fell to the ground with a scream.

His helmet fell and I saw a young boy, he was probably younger than me, probably sixteen or seventeen. Some strong people showed a young appearance because they became strong at a young age or because they were rich enough to pay someone to use flesh magic to modify their appearance, but this boy didn't seem strong or rich.

The other enemy turned himself and ran towards me with a shout.

“Uooooooooo.”

I threw a Fireball at him and caught fire among screams of agony, I heard the other enemy scream.

“Dad noooooo!!!”

I looked at the kid and he looked at me with the eyes of a dying puppy, I could see despair, rage, hate, hopelessness, and an infinite amount of questions unsolved and unsolvable. I realized I just planted the seeds of true madness inside him.

I continued to look at him and he stared at me screaming.

“Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.”

He now seemed a demonic beast rather than a human.

I looked around me.

A hellscape entered my mind, people were dying all around, the imperials chased the Zavenians and killed them, then moved on to the next prey. Some were even taking their time and doing whatever they wanted with the Zavenians. Some others were already looting the corpses.

The Zavenians were all young boys and girls, middle-aged people, or even old people, they were still probably beginner or retired adventurers, but adventurers alone struggled a lot against an army since they only learned how to hunt monsters in small groups.

The sound of screams and pleas filled my ears and the smells of blood and internal organs filled my nose.

It was madness.

“No prisoners, you know the orders, mister David.”

I looked to my side and Alua was looking at me with a stern gaze.

I looked at the pitiful kid at my feet and his agonizing father, I slowly raised my wand.

I planted a bullet in both their heads.

“Well done, there aren't many enemies remaining so I think you can proceed with looking for survivors, there are surely people hiding under the corpses. Remember that we aren't taking any prisoners. For the time being, I'll leave you alone, there shouldn't be any more danger, but be careful.”

Now the survivors were mine to take, but I didn't make a single step, there was only one thought that occupied my mind.

“What the fuck am I doing?”