It’d been two weeks since Kiefer and Isana’s little endeavour out into the demonic jungles that surrounded Mayheir City. Strangely enough, they had not left the city since they had returned. The atmosphere within the city had rapidly turned heavy and dreary over the past fortnight as adventurers and merchants alike hustled around the city without ever looking up, speaking in hushed tones as if afraid they would be silenced for their opinions.

Despite all this, there were really only 3 people within the city that knew the cause of this drastic change in atmosphere. Not surprisingly, those three were the titan family in hiding. People and important characters within the city had gone missing one after another without any obvious pattern. While all of the missing persons so far had no family to speak of, they have all been influential people who held a certain degree of power.

This has led to fears within the rest of the populace, especially those that occupied the higher hierarchy of the society that they might be next. To make matters worse, there had been no progress as to the cause of these mysterious disappearances. Bosses and employers began to lose trust in their subordinates and even their ‘friends’ who shared the same line of business. Relationships were tethering on the cliff edge, threatening to break down at any moment.

Kiefer and Isana returned back into their inn that evening, observing the moody air that permeated not only the tavern but also the streets. They were the root of this situation, and yet they had no other choice. What was happening now was but a side effect of their actions of ridding the city of demon spies. Even Kina was affected by it after she discovered that she had been under the observation of the spies within her own home.

Locking the wooden door to their room behind them, the couple sat down facing each other, Isana on the bed and Kiefer on a simple wooden chair. Kiefer let out a long audible sigh, before stretching his arms up to relief some of the stress in his shoulders.

“So? How do you suppose we solve this whole ‘mysterious serial murderer’ thing we got going on here?” Kiefer asked.

“To be honest, I have no idea. I didn’t think there would be that many spies scattered throughout the city. If it had been just 5 or 6 spies, it would not have escalated to this degree. I guess wiping out twenty over influential figures in 2 weeks was a bad decision on our part. The city is starting to fall apart and soon, we won’t need the demons to destroy this city,” Isana lamented.

“Well, now that it’s come to this, hindsight isn’t very helpful. We still have a few more morphlings to handle and then this city will be wiped clean of demons. I think what this city needs right now is a leader to direct them,” Kiefer replied, deep in thought.

“Yes, that might work, but then the issue is who? The two of us are not well recognised within the city so I doubt people will be willing to follow our directions. Even if we do show them our might, they would suspect that we are demons in disguise. We need someone they are already familiar with and one that has proven leadership skills,” Isana commented, wracking her brain for a solution.

“You know what? I might have an idea that’s worth trying out. Worse comes to worst, we can just change our battle plans to not include the citizens,” Kiefer smiled as a thought bloomed in his head. Leaning closer to Isana, he began explaining his plan.

[[Three days later]]

The sun had just risen and people were beginning their day’s work in the city. The mood was gloomy as ever. However, there was one thing different about the day. Palm-sized flyers made out of parchment were being passed around by employees of the Alchemists association as well as the adventurer’s guild. With the 2 big organisations cooperating together, almost everyone within the city had been made aware of the details on the parchment by high noon.

The message on the flyers was short but succinct. “To all citizens, travellers, adventurers and merchants of Mayheir City, please be gathered at Gate 23 of the Eastern Wall by Sun down tomorrow evening. There are major issues regarding the city that we need to resolve as a whole and I wish to address them as soon as possible. Regards, Mempheus, President of Alchemy Association.”

What sparked the most commotion amongst all this was the fact that it had been well known that Mempheus was one of the first few people to go missing. And yet now here he was, back in the city alive and apparently well enough to hold a grand gathering that involved the entire city. This led many to believe that the main topic of this gathering would be about the series of missing people. Naturally, they were not wrong as the first words out of his mouth on the night of the gathering was as such.

“ Now I know most of you have been worried about the random disappearances that have plagued our city the past 2 weeks. Naturally, I am here to address this issue in front of everyone,” Mempheus started, his face bathed in an orange glow from the large bonfires lit atop the wall as he looked down on the crowd. A soft but excited mummer began to spread throughout the crowd as everyone began postulating the possible reasons that Mempheus might give.

“I do not wish to alarm all of you, but as you all know, our city has been at war with the demons outside our walls since before we can remember. We have held off waves of demon successfully and I have no doubt that with our brave warriors, skilled crafters and hardworking miners, we will have no troubles holding off waves in the future,” Mempheus continued, his voice loud and crisp, projecting from the top of the wall down to the masses below. The majority of the citizens nodded their head in agreement, a firm look shining in their eyes.

“However,” he paused, waiting for the crowd to quiet down. “What I have discovered thus far in my little personal investigation, is that I have been misled into a false sense of security. In fact, all of us have. And we have been led by our noses in a seemingly right path, but one with a horrendous future. Many of our key high ranking characters were in fact, spies for the demon army!”

At his revelation of the fact of spies, soft gasps could be heard amongst the crowd while many brows turned into frowns.

“These demons,” Mempheus yelled out to capture the attention once more. “They look like us, act like us and may have been amongst us since the very beginning. And so, I took it upon myself to rid these spies from the city. Our mayor Mirillia, the famous jeweller Mason, and several captains of famous adventurer teams are all spies. How do I know this? Watch.”

With that, a familiar famous person came up beside Mempheus. She held in her hands a dishevelled looking man, shoving him up to the edge of the wall, putting him up for display. Then, with the giant blood red sword in her right hand, she extended it to his neck in a threatening manner. The man himself seemed out of it, a look of fear in his eyes while mumbling something under his breath like an insane person.

“Transform!” the blood maiden ordered fiercely. Seeing the man hesitate, her eyes gleamed as she smiled. “Do it now or I will send you back inside until you lose your mind,” she threatened once more. Upon hearing that, the man let out a tiny shriek before nodding his head desperately. Then, right before everyone’s eyes the man’s facial features seemed to melt into his face, his clothes drooping and warping out of shape. In a matter of seconds, he turned into a dark muddy purple humanoid slime creature, before once more morphing in shape. This time, he morphed into a charming woman in a seductive dress. However, the eyes maintained the blank, albeit fearful expression. She turned her head meekly to look at the blood maiden, whose sword was still held effortlessly at the throat.

“Good job,” Kina sneered, clearly satisfied with the reaction of the audience as she scanned the crowd. Her voice loud as ever, she continued, “now, what do you want me to do?” unseen by everyone else, a young elf took a step forward from the darkness, revealing himself only to the morphling.

“Hiiiiiieee!!!” the morphling shrieked upon seeing the devil. Immediately she knelt down on the floor, crawling up to Kina’s feet and begging. “Please… no more… just kill me! Kill me please!!” it begged in front of the masses.

“Fine then,” Kina muttered, taking several steps back and pointing the tip of her blade at the kneeling morphing. “”, she cast as mana channelled through the sword. Immediately, a bright blue fireball grew where the morphling was kneeling engulfing her completely. The fireball was so bright it bathed the entire crowd in its scorching blue light, making the 2 crackling bonfires nearby seem like fireflies. After it dissipated, nothing was left where the morphling had been at, only charred scorch marks left on the stone wall.

“And that, my dear citizens of Mayheir City is the last of the spies that I’ve found. I can’t guarantee that more wouldn’t infiltrate us, but I can assure you that we will find every single one that sets foot past these walls,” Mempheus announced audibly.

The crowd was now in an uproar after witnessing what had just happened. Demonic spies that can change shape into anybody? This was the first time they had known about such a demon species, and yet even before they could do anything, the threat had been erased by the president of the Alchemists Association. Seeing as he was the president of the Alchemists Association, it wouldn’t be surprising if he had a special potion that could expose these demons, so the crowd were thankful to him for the most part.

“And so!” Mempheus yelled out once more, silencing the crowd. “Seeing as how underhanded these demons can be, I propose that we, as the ones on the righteous path, no longer remain turtled up behind our walls. It is time to show these demons that we are not mere insects for them to play around as they wish, stuck to defending our city from them wave after wave. I do not know why they chose to infiltrate us, or to attack us in small waves, but I do know that we will no longer play into their hands. It is time for us to expand our territory and firmly grasp our lives in our own hands. We will eradicate this problem from its roots. We have all seen the courage, the valor and the sheer dominating power of our very own blood maiden. What say you, the proud citizens of Mayheir city, that we follow her into combat? With a few years of training and preparations for war and with the blood maiden leading the way, I say we stand a decent chance of success.” Mempheus announced.

The crowd was silence at first, stunned by this sudden turn of events. They had never thought about attacking the demons. But this was not because they chose not to, but because they were unable to. In every wave thus far, the city has managed to barely scrape by. But with the blood maiden around, it was indeed true that they have now a powerful chess piece to play on the board, and a game-changing piece at that. Then, one person out of the crowd of thousands raised his claymore into the air silently, before yelling out courageously.

“FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT!”

Soon, more joined in, raising their maces and axes as well, everyone chanting together with the first man. Within a minute, the entire crowd was chanting in unison. Blacksmiths raised their hammers; mages raised their staves, even civilians raising their fists. The chant was loud and domineering. It echoes so loud that even the few who chose not to attend this gathering could hear it from their homes across the city.

“GOOD!” Mempheus exclaimed, raising both arms to signal for the crowd to give him a chance to speak. “Drink up and sleep well tonight! Tomorrow! We are at WAR!”