The quick-strike actions were a benefit to King Yung and his army as they managed to capture many straggling groups of demigods that had not gotten the message of the raids.
It was a little too successful as they started to gather more and more demigods in one place King Yung started to worry that they would revolt and try to kill him and the rest of his gathered army.
“We have to halt our progress for a few days to escort these captured to a local underground prison. If we continue to drag them around with us, they are going to cause issues sooner or later,” said Oscar, the top general that was in charge of the clean up mission.
“That is fine. It will give our allies more time to arrive and we can pick up more conscripts to fully replenish those lost in the fight to cleanse my kingdom of these pests. How bad have our losses been?” asked King Yung as he rode his warhorse at the center of the moving army alongside General Oscar.
“With how strong these demigods are, there is no way to have zero casualties. So far, for each captured demigod, we have averaged five wounded and one or more killed…”
King Yung grimaced at the number, “They will bleed us dry before we can completely capture or kill them all…”
“Worry not! Our nearest allies will be here in a few days. With their numbers added to ours, we will be able to force the demigods out, and then we can wait for the rest of our allies. We will have enough military force to decide what should be done with the demigods in every country.”
“I just don’t like giving the enemy more time to prepare… from the reports we have received, they have started to gather and fortify an old abandoned Monastery.”
“We have no other choice. If we were to escort over a hundred captured demigods with us to the battlefield, only misfortune would befall us as they would try to escape or attack us at an important stage of the battle. We must nullify such vulnerability.”
With thousands of such thoughts raging in his mind, General Oscar ordered the army to the nearest town under their control.
A few days of travel ended uneventfully as they transferred the captive demigods and saw that they were locked up in underground prison cells, which would be hard for even them to escape.
The army rested for half a day camping outside the town as they waited for an allied army that had sent ahead a fast riding messenger earlier the other day letting them know of their imminent arrival.
With the Arrival of the allied army the number of soldiers ready to fight the demigods had more than doubled.
King Yung and General Oscar briefly met with King Yoo, the leader of the city-state next to them. There was not much to discuss as they were already up-to-date on what was going on and what their objective was.
“Let us not tarry any longer. We must complete our mission before they manage to gain a strong foothold in any of our kingdoms!” said King Yung as he hopped onto the back of his warhorse.
As each day passed, the allied human army grew larger and was able to swat down any small demigod group they encountered.
At the same time more and more demigods who were not part of any of the larger guilds were learning of the growing threat and were all traveling south to the rumored fortified monastery held by the surviving guilds.
With such events happening, the demigods’ monastery fortification became even stronger with every fleeing demigod that joined them.
The retreating demigods razed the remaining farm crops on their way to the monastery, where they offered up their skills to help further fortify it.
They also made sure to capture and bring along the villagers of the farms that they ruined. Any of the villagers that resisted were cut down without remorse, leading to whole villages being massacred in large numbers as they tried to escape capture.
Those that survived the culling were brought to the monastery as hostages to be used as a workforce to further enhance the defenses, create more armor, weapons, and to man the outer defense trenches.
***
Inside a barren stone office stood two men. They were staring at an old painting that had been created by the previous occupants of the office. There was only silence for several minutes before one of them spoke.
“What’s the count today?” asked Oru, the guild leader of the Oru Ogres guild.
With his guild being the largest of the guilds holed up in the monastery, he had not hesitated to take command of the fortified Monastery.
“Ten more loners have arrived. They did not see anyone else while they were traveling, but that is not saying much as they were hiding most of their way here. From what they heard before reaching us, the human armies have all started to gather together and are marching here,” said the guilds secretary.
“Damn it, what are the larger guilds doing?”
“They could care less about the small guilds in the far south boondocks. I heard from a friend that the large guild he is part of is preparing for something big. Either they are going to swallow up one of the other large guilds, or they will be throwing their hat in the ring to take control of territory in one of the major countries, but there are too many large guilds that seem to have the same idea as them. They have no time to pay attention to us small fry who are about to be wiped out permanently.”
“Bring the new stranglers in so I can talk to them. We do not have the strength to swallow the other guilds holed up here. The only way for us to grow now is to invite the stragglers before the others try to.”
A few minutes passed before the secretary returned with the ten new demigods.
“I will get straight to the point. I want you to join my guild,” said Oru.
“Why should we? If we want, we can just leave and go…”
“Now is not the time to hesitate and complain about restrictions that being in a guild puts on you. We are all ‘Demigods’, and you do not want to be wiped out from this world any more than we do. The only way to survive now is to combine our power. My guild is the strongest of those that remain in this area, which means we are your best chance to survive.”
The ten stranglers silently looked at each other as if they were silently communicating without speaking, which Oru knew was most likely exactly what was going on.
Oru’s head jerked as he looked to the right and began reading something invisible to everyone else in the room. His face soured as he finished reading and swiped his hand through the air.
Everyone in the room noticed this and stopped their silent chatter as they looked towards Oru to see if he would explain what it was about.
“There are no other options for you. The human army will be here in a short while. Either you join us or leave now and risk being captured by their approaching army. I have no more time to chat with you as we must finalize our defenses.”
“We… accept your offer.”
“Good. Secs, see to it that they are properly inducted into the guild and get them equipped with a new set of armor and weapons that our hostages have been working on.”
Oru walked out of the old stone office building and walked to the only place that worried him.
The front gates.
As he arrived, he saw a group of over 50 demigods pulling on ropes to hoist a set of freshly hammered metal gate doors into place. They were replacing the wooden gates that had been cracked open by some unknown force that had cleaned out the monastery long before they had arrived.
With the hostages working on the armor and weapons day and night they had little time to work on the metal gates and had only just finished them.
“With this new gate put in place, our only glaring weakness has been taken care of.”
***
“Damn those demigods and their mysterious powers. They were able to fortify that monastery in only a few weeks. This sort of progress would have taken us months…” said King Yung as he looked at the fortified monastery, which had a secondary outer layer of walls and traps to stop a massed cavalry charge at the main stone walls.
“The best thing we can do is lay siege to the monastery and wait for the other allied forces to arrive. We can either starve the enemy out, or when we have the numbers, we can force them out,” said General Oscar.
King Yung rubbed his temples as his worries continued to grow. He did not want to have to assault such a heavily fortified enemy stronghold but it had to be done sooner or later.
“We will decide what to do after we settle in and build up our fortified camp around the monastery. With the fortified encampment we can stop anyone from giving supplies to them and halt any other demigods from joining them inside.”
***
Both sides were at a stalemate with the demigods not leaving their defenses as they continued to build upon their already impressive fortifications for the short amount of time they had.
While the human army settled in and had finished fortifying their camp.
The few demigod groups unaware of the current situation were captured or killed when they strayed too close to their defense line. Those that were captured were sent back to the nearest prison camp.
During this uneasy time several more of the closest allies to King Yung arrived to join the siege around the Fortified monastery. A few even brought siege equipment that was added to the defensive fortifications of the siege lines.
During this lull in action the leaders were all discussing how to move forward with the siege to break the enemies defenses.
“Now is the time to attack!”
“We will lose to many men attacking them. They are also using my civilians as a shield in the outer fortified trenches. If we attack, we will have to kill them to get to the enemy behind them!” yelled King Yung.
“We must do this, or we will never get anywhere!”
This back and forth had gone on for nearly an hour.
Baruuuuu!
Warhorns warning of an enemy force sighted behind their siege lines ended the long-winded argument.
A message runner entered the command tent and saluted the officers.
“A force of white armored demigods has arrived! They wish to help us mediate peace for the land!” said the nervous young messenger.
“White armor? Which demigod guild are they from?” asked Oscar.
“They did not say nor did they carry any flags to announce who they are. Only that they have worked with your father in the past and wish to broker peace by joining you in taking care of demigods that have gotten out of control. He said the land and its people have already suffered enough violence.”
“If they plan to help us, we should accept their offer!” said an officer of the allied forces.
Several others agreed with him but were quieted when Oscar looked at them with a stern gaze.
“Why should we accept their help? Are we not trying to rid ourselves of the demigods’ influence? If we do this, we are just tying ourselves to another faction to get rid of a different one. It defeats the whole purpose of this military campaign of ours!” said General Oscar.
“I agree with you Oscar… but mother has always said that it is best to listen to the other side’s demands before making a decision. If they can help us break the stalemate we are in then we must think on the option seriously,” said king Yung.
“Let only their leader and two of his bodyguards in. We need to double the guards!” ordered Oscar.
Without any fanfare, the leader of the white armored demigods entered the tent and ignored the large force of guards at the edge of the cloth walls, all staring daggers at him and his underlings that had walked to the center of the encampment all alone.
“I am Known as Scar,” said the leader of white armored delegation. His face was hidden by a white half mask that only showed his mouth.
“You say you want to help bring peace to the land, but how can you do such a thing when you have groups like those that are holed up in the monastery?” asked King Yung.
“By killing one faction!” said Scar, swiftly unsheathing his weapon and sending a red light shooting for King Yung, cutting through the guard in front of him and severing the young king’s head from his shoulders!
