Several days march north of Trine [Formerly known as Begus Dekus].
“Stop them!”
Fwoosh!
A colorful light flashed as a skill was shot out from the demigod who was shouting. He was on top of a small wooden wall that encircled the small village that their guild had captured some time ago.
A handful of other demigods stood atop the village walls while the villagers hid in their makeshift root cellars underneath their shoddy houses that had only recently been built during the warm months.
“We’re trying but there are too many of them!” shouted a female demigod with a bow.
“Who are these people? Isn’t the BenDover guild supposed to be in control of the local area? Did they betray us and scrap the agreement they had with us?” asked a skinny man with a wooden wand that was shooting out fireballs every few seconds.
In front of the village, a wave of shoddily armored human infantry was rushing forward under the hail of deadly skill attacks launched by the demigods. The majority of these attacks were intercepted by heavily armored infantry officers who were howling out orders to those around them.
Even with the officer’s help, several of the human infantry were wounded in the charge.
Those who could still move limped or crawled their way back to the rear of the battlefield to get treatment while those who were too heavily wounded lay on the ground hoping that a passing field medic would reach them in time before they bled out.
“Awooooo!” a loud howl came from the rear of the village as a swarm of werewolves appeared out of the woods behind the village.
“CRAP! These crafty humans are in league with the demon races! A few of you go and protect the rear wall!”
“ROAR!” a loud guttural battle cry coming from deep in the chest, sounded out from inside the forest right before the ground began to vibrate from the large bodies of the charging ogres.
“What the hell is going on?” cried a distressed demigod as he struggled to keep firing fireballs at the swarming human infantry that had reached the wooden village walls.
His attempts at trying to clear the humans away from the wall were useless as the flimsy walls were breached easily by both the humans in the front and the ogres in the rear who lowered their shoulders and rammed through the wooden walls sending wooden splinters everywhere and demigods tumbling to the ground. The werewolves just climbed or jumped up onto the walls engaging the defenders.
“Kill them all so that we can capture the village and deny them a place to reappear!” shouted Akira as he exchanged blows with a heavily armored knight demigod that was using a long two-handed sword.
In just a few minutes after the allied forces entered the village the last of the demigods was found and cut down. They did all this while trying to make sure not to damage the houses of the villagers.
Akira hurried over to the officers who were commanding the human infantry and asked, “How are they?”
“It’s bad but not great, there were many casualties this time as well. However, on the plus side, no one died this time. They were far better than when I led them into battle the first time,” said a heavily armored werewolf officer.
“With each battle, I can feel that they are growing far stronger than they were before as well as more confident in their fighting abilities,” said another officer.
“It’s good that they are growing stronger. The problem is that nearly 1/4th of the infantry has already been sent back to the city to recuperate from their serious wounds and are now acting as reserve guards for the Trine city. We can not slow down our attacks. We need to clear out as many villages, towns, and wandering demigod groups before they start talking with each other or the larger guilds take notice,” said Akira.
“At least the wounded can tell those back in the city that they have done their duty to help clear out the plague of demigods. Do you want us to talk to these villagers here or have the human representatives do the talking this time?” asked an officer.
“Judging from the results last time, it will be quicker to just let the humans convince them,” said Akira.
The new Tri-pact army had joined up with Kodria to clear out the demigod-occupied villages and towns near their new dukedom.
The army had been split in two so that they could complete this task faster. Akira, the ogres, and the humans from Trine made up the Western army. While Jerora’s army teamed up with the [Full Moon] guild to make up the east army. Both the west and east armies were constantly getting new recruits to replace the wounded as they freed villages and towns.
With each victory they achieved their forces grew while also pushing the demigod’s front lines farther north. Each town or village they captured blocked off a place for the demigods to reappear.
Although their blitz attacks were having high success right now, it was only against low-level groups of demigods who had only recently captured the towns after fighting with other demigods.
With each victory, the armies had to march farther away from the main cities of the Tri-pact to reach the next target. The tri-pact dukedom was quickly growing into the third largest dukedom only behind Kodria and the Demon Hunters Guild who were currently the number one guild in the northern conflict at the moment.
Akira knew that in the long run, they could not hold all the land or the nomadic towns and villages that they were freeing each day. This was why the human representatives were asked to talk to the human village and townspeople while the ogres and werewolves talked to the demon race tribes urging them to migrate to either of the major cities or the new and more permanent towns being built near them.
It was a hard sell to try and have the semi-nomadic villagers and townspeople migrate once again after just settling the land once more after the Molten-onyx plague. Many of them wanted to stay put, but after hearing about the troubling news and their brief experiences with the demigods taking control of the villages and towns, most if not all, decided to migrate once again in hopes that they would be safer.
Akira passed a few orders off to the officers and then walked to the rear of the army where the shamen were gathered busy working on the wounded. Among them were several who were in charge of staying in contact with Kodria.
“How is the transporting of the goods going? Any snags?” asked Akira.
“Everything is on track to reach their destination on time. The armor and weapons will be reaching both of the main tri-pact cities soon enough,” answered a demigod who was sweating even in the cold winter weather as helped cure the wounded.
“I feel like it is not really that great of an idea. We are just sending them our old used armor and weapons that have been lying around in the warehouses,” said Akira.
“You shouldn’t feel like that. From what I have heard in the last report, even though they are second-hand, they were created and repaired by skilled dwarven smiths. That makes them better than almost all the armor and weapons in each of the cities.”
Akira slowly nodded his head upon hearing this. Even though it was not the best, he hoped it was enough to help the city’s main forces be better equipped for the coming fight. Both Trine and Jerora were now able to give the new recruits the old armor and weapons their main army and guards had been using. Before this, they had no decent armor or weapons for the recruits.
Akira sighed in his heart as he thought about the ragtag army that they had combined. Although most of the new recruits that joined them were from the town and village guards, they had little experience in actual battles and their strength was far from ideal.
This led to the large number of casualties they were seeing with each battle. Even so, the humans had surprised many of those in the demon race with their willingness to fight even after seeing so many of their friends being wounded in battle.
They had had enough of being ruled over by the demigods and wanted to push them back as far as they could. With such determination, they were learning quickly with each battle. But it would still be a long time before they could match the strength and well-practiced movements of the professional soldiers.
Time was something they were short on right now. It was only a matter of time before they would hit a roadblock.
“… and what about the food and supplies that are being transported to the new towns near the two main cities?” asked Akira.
“Several deliveries have already reached them. With the several nomadic villages and towns dismantling their homes and transporting all their belongings and foodstuff along with them, we have not run into any snags yet as they had already been prepared for the winter months.”
“With the dwarven helpers and the raw materials being transported from the villages and towns there should not be too much trouble rebuilding the homes and a proper wall around them,” said the shaman as he finished tying a bandage and then washed his bloody hands in a cold bucket of ice cold water.
Akira nodded to this and brought up the dukedom map that showed the current territory owned by each faction. There were still several red marks covering the map. They all represented the demigod’s territories that they had control of. Day by day the number of red marks near the Tri-pact was disappearing at a decent rate.
They had to clear as many as they could in this short time to set up a buffer to allow them time to set up their defenses before the angered demigods and their allies retaliated.
***
As time passed many changes happened and although the dukedom map showed the tri-pact dukedom as a vast entity, it was only so on paper primarily from capturing all the widespread villages and towns that had been controlled by demigods.
With these nomadic villages and towns migrating to the two major cities or the new towns being set up near them, they were able to consolidate their forces. Now, the Tri-pact’s large size was mostly for show as they were no longer spread out all over the place.
The consolidation of these villages strengthened the Tri-pact dukedom allowing them to more easily react to any situation that arose as well as quickly gather resources or men for battle.
But this also freed up large swaths of land which the small Demigod guilds and allied groups all pounced and fought each other over slowly trying to eat away at the tri-pacts large empty land to the north.
All of this caused more conflict with demigods and the Tri-pact dukedom who were trying to protect their new dukedom and the buffer they had fought for to protect their main cities.
A few weeks passed before the demigods in the North began to hear more and more news about what was happening in the South.
In the beginning, the large guilds brushed it off as rumors by the smaller guilds, but when the news of the low-level demigods and their guilds being killed over and over.
They could not ignore the rumors and began to have meetings on what to do with these rebellious humans and demon races in the South.
“We crush them! What else is there to do?”
“I agree!”
“Then everyone should prepare for the push south!”
