Bam!

A heavy blow from a one-handed war hammer slammed into the chest of a Skinny Grunner.

Crack!

The blow to the chest hit the core gem causing it to crack wide open.

Akira did not spend another second to look at the Grunner as he continued to charge forward with Grarr as they cleared out the gathered mob of infected that had shown up.

CRACK!

The last of the infected attackers near Akira were finally disabled.

“Is that all of them?” growled Klyn.

“For now,” said Akira.

As they had made their way to each of the outer Ramia nomadic villages the attacks grew more frequent.

They were now on the last stretch heading to the Madu Stronghold. This trip, although slightly dangerous, was also a way for Akira to know exactly where the Ramia's main Stronghold was as well as how strong its defenses were.

“I don't know how much longer I can keep doing this. I need to get some real rest, something longer than the short 1 hour naps we have been taking,” said Klyn.

The white holy light disappeared from Klyn's body and revealed a haggard face.

He reached into a leather pouch and ate one of the rock-hard blue candies to try and gain some energy back. Even though Klyn's tired muscles and body were soothed, his mind was still groggy from lack of sleep.

“We should be there before the moon rises,” said Akira.

He looked over the large caravan of over a thousand sleds carrying the several thousands of Ramia Nomads and all their belongings.

The very young and old sat in the front of the sleds bundled up in thick fur coats and blankets that were made from local monsters.

Akira was no expert on Ramia facial expressions but he could see every one of them was worn out from the stress of the constant danger that everyone faced while traveling. They were only allowed an hour or so of sleep every day.

The only reason they stopped for an hour was to feed and water the Snoizrds and let them rest. The Gargs also took this chance to rest and eat something. Of course, it was a big risk stopping due to the many infected wanting to take a bite out of them.

As the sun was descending they indeed saw the Ramia's Madu stone and ice stronghold in the distance.

But to their horror, they saw there was already a large mob of Infected outside the outer winter ice walls of the city. They were in a fierce battle with the Rami warriors.

At the head of the sled caravan, Akira stood up in the stirrups and swung his warhammer in a circle silently issuing an order to the caravan.

Instead of continuing forward the sleds curved out and created a several layered defensive circle.

Both Reakrak and Rookrek hurried over to Akira to see what he wanted to do.

“You and the guards from each village are to protect the civilians here. We will go and break the siege around the city.”

The two Ramia representatives did not say anything and just tiredly nodded their scaly heads.

Awoooo!

With a short howl, Akira gathered the rest of the cavalry. Klyn and the other exhausted holy shaman put a rock-hard blue candy in their mouth and immediately started reciting their holy chants creating a white glowing screen in front of the group.

As one, the werewolves and the Gargs let out loud spine-tingling howls as they charged forward in order to alert the struggling Ramia fighting outside the outer Ice wall.

Unexpectedly when the thousands of Molten Onyx Infected noticed Akira and the thousands of other civilian Rami... they turned around and quickly retreated towards a dark smoky cloud that had formed far to the north of the city.

Akira was only able to reach the slow stragglers at the rear before the group of infected had fully escaped into a dark cloud.

“Awoooo!” Akira let out a howl commanding the others to halt their chase.

“Somethings not right,” said Akira.

He looked at the large dark smokey cloud. It was similar to the dark cloud far to the north, but it was not all-encompassing and only covered a large portion of the snowy plains. No matter how long he inspected it nothing changed, it did now grow and only stayed in place.

“This is my first time seeing them retreat,” said Zundar. “You think it's a trap?”

“Whatever it is, someone or something is definitely controlling them,” said Akira.

When Akira turned around, what he saw made him sigh...

The Ramia sleds from the caravan were already arriving at the gates of the city. Their stress and anxiety had gotten to them. So they had started moving as soon as the infected had begun to retreat.

Without Akira and the cavalry to escort them, it could have been a catastrophe if the infected had turned around and attacked again, but luckily nothing happened to them.

Akira and the rest of the cavalry headed back to the outer city gates where Reakrak was standing with Chief Raibread who wore a red feather headdress made from some monster.

This was Akira's first 'Official' meeting of the Ramia chief if you discounted the time he had seen him scheming with the demigods.

“Why are you guys so late? If you didn't take so long to get here we wouldn't have lost our outer greenhouses and extra food storage,” said Raibread, pointing to destroyed buildings around the outer ice wall.

Several Ramia warriors were salvaging what they could from the rubble.

“Wait... are you picking a fight with us?” asked Zundar. His blood started to boil, washing away his tiredness as he glared at Raibread. He stood tall towering over everyone with his arms crossed over his chest. His two horns were sharp, shining from the daily oiling.

“How uncivilized. You might want to get a leash on your cow,” said Raibread.

Akira held back a growling Fluffball with one hand and with the other, motioned for Zundar to be quiet.

“It is late and I doubt your ordeal with the infected that escaped is over. May we enter the city and get some rest? We'll help defend the city if something happens tonight and will be out of your hair tomorrow,” said Akira.

Raibread looked to the thousands of civilians that were entering the city.

“We have no rooms for you to stay in. We are already going to be at max capacity, but you can camp out on the training grounds inside,” said Raibread, turning around and leaving Akira and the others behind.

After the thousands of sleds passed through the gates Akira and the rest of the cavalry made their way through the slushy snow that was quickly freezing once again and passed through the outer ice walls as well as the main stone city gates.

The tall stone wall looked rather new and was made out of gray and black rough-cut blocks of stone. It was amazing that they managed to get a wall built with such shoddy material. But what it lacked in quality it made up for in thickness.

As they exited the small gatehouse tunnel they were directed to the right of the gates where a large open ground that was normally used for training was, but right now it was full of sleds.

Akira led everyone to an open spot and started to set up camp and take care of other tasks such as feeding and watering the Gargs.

***

The moon was high up in the cloudless night sky.

Boom! Da da! Boom! Da da!

The booming sound of the stronghold's alarm drums echoed throughout the city waking both warriors and civilians alike.

It was as Akira expected, something was going to happen tonight.

“Form up!” ordered Akira as he exited his tent and hopped onto Grarr's back. A sleepy Fluffball let out a huge yawn as he trotted over to Akira.

Klyn took his position next to Akira and was now looking less of a wreck after getting several hours of uninterrupted sleep.

“To the gates!” ordered Akira when the cavalry had all gotten into formation.

The gates were already blocked by several thousand loitering Ramia warriors gathering to head out and face the Molten onyx infected.

The majority of the Ramia warriors were all poorly armed and armored. Them lacking armor wasn't that big of an issue since they had thick scales that helped protect them, but their weapons made Akira doubt if they would even be of any help.

When the mass of unorganized Ramia saw Akira and the cavalry heading towards them they parted and opened a path to the gates.

Without a word, Akira and the cavalry stormed out both of the gates and stopped a short distance outside the outer ice wall while they waited for the Ramia infantry to organize themselves as they spilled out onto the battlefield.

Akira looked to the distant black cloud that blocked the bright moonlight from penetrating and revealing what was inside.

That moonlight had no trouble lighting up the rest of the snowy plains revealing a large force of infected marching out of the dark clouds. The gathering infected force was far larger than the one that had retreated earlier. Akira watched as the large force started to head towards the Stronghold.

At the rear of the infected group was one large giant infected [GaiAnt Lvl 130].

Akira could see that there was someone in a thick black robe standing on its shoulder who was pointing to several different points around the city [??? Lvl ???].

Seconds later, the infected stopped and moved into a different formation. When they were finished they then started moving towards the city at a faster speed.