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In the early morning hours, before dawn lit the sky, after a short night and a field ration breakfast, while our soldiers were forming up, preparing for an assault at first light, I and Aenëe again hovered high in the air above.
Captain Macias and the Cavalry would kick things off with a demonstration pass in front of the main gates, the only role they were likely to have in today’s battle. They would deliver a barrage of smoke bombs and draw fire, then depart to patrol the outer perimeter for demons while the infantry and combat mages advanced for the main attack.
But all of this textbook action was actually a diversionary tactic, meant to draw the enemy eyes away from the real threat.
The real battle was already underway. While the enemy sentries were still trying to peer into the darkness, lacking even the dim moonlight of earlier thanks to the moons having long since set, the real vanguard were working their way through the outer defenses. Adventurers, generally scouts, rangers and mages, were sneaking between the barely-defended bastions to the main curtain wall, to scale ramparts which lacked patrols.
They wouldn’t be attacking just yet, just getting into position near the main gate that I once entered this town through, as well as the sally ports and postern gates in other locations around the city. Their top priority job was to secure the gatehouse and other access points, and all the defenses around them. Doing so from within would be a hundred times easier than from the outside.
The main entrance was wide enough to let wagons through, and allow troops to advance in rows rather than single file, so it was the premium target, but we would be sending troops in through every entrance we could secure. The faster we moved an overwhelming force into the town, the faster we would conquer it.
Finally, the cavalry bugle sang out as light began spreading across the land. The cavalry rode forth and the Battle of Cara Ita began.
Our work began with the same bugle call. Aenëe and I used our stealth to fly unseen over the walls into the city.
Sneaking in would be a very un-fairy-knight-like tactic if our targets were mortals or fairies, but we were there after a different foe. This city was almost certainly still crawling with demons. Our goal was to remove as many of them as we could.
Once inside, we split up. Aenëe was unable to see through my vampire cloak and thus couldn’t work together with me, so we operated independently from there.
Aenëe had her fairy treasures to sniff out demons and deal with them. My method to deal with them would be [Purification], and I had both my fairy sense and [Blood Mist] to rely upon. After my fight with Trisiagga, my trove of blood had inflated to a significantly higher volume, so I decided to rely on [Blood Mist] first.
I flew to a part of town I had visited before, pausing in the air above the warren of twisted passages and confusing architecture where Arken and Melione had fled after escaping the mines. I thought it might be a great place for demons to hide. There, I sent out the mist and began my reconnaissance.
Far more information than the usual me can process immediately flooded into my head, leaving me dizzy and shocked. Once I recovered, I realized that I had neglected to consider that the strength of my blood magic had significantly upgraded as well. I retracted the mist and went into my meditative state in order to wake Fan Li to help me.
To my surprise, she immediately turned me down.
– Your Highness is far better suited to use these vampire techniques than this small one, and Your Highness has expanded your essence far beyond yesterday’s levels. It is time to rely upon yourself more. Allow your own awareness to fully expand.
There is no such thing as essence, aura or qi in this universe, I thought back at her, firmly.
– A regrettable error. The correct term is pneuma. It has many parallels to essence. Your pneuma has greatly expanded, due to the great increase of it in your core. Your Highness has enough pneuma now to begin using a portion of your spiritual vessel full-time. Your Highness should handle this job by yourself, in order to begin accepting your growth.
I had the distinct impression she had decided to mentor me rather than assist me. She agreed as soon as that thought occurred to me.
– Indeed. Your Highness appears to hesitate becoming something like ‘Little Sen’ on a more full-time basis. Does Your Highness fear losing your identity in the process?
A frown crossed my face. Her suggestion was a perfect bullseye.
– The so-called ‘Little Sen’ is nothing more than your current incarnation in expanded form, Your Highness. It is not a different awareness at all.
With my lips pursed, I considered her claim. In the end, this “me” was the personality that resulted after Robert absorbed the memories of the original Tiana to become the incarnation with the identity I called ‘the current Tiana’. When I expanded my mind without calling in the other incarnations, I directly accessed more and more of the memories and knowledge of Senhion, Fan Li and all the others, and inevitably those things influenced my mind. I changed, but she had a point. It was only a continuation of the process through which this personality came to exist in the first place. It was completely different from when I awoke my other incarnations. I was still me.
I frowned, then nodded my acknowledgement. Letting Fan Li go back to sleep and make room for me, I expanded my own mind. As the state of ‘Little Sen’ took over, I once again sent out my [Blood Mist]. This time, I was able to grasp all the information and understand it in detail.
Immediately, I became appalled.
News stories and documentaries on Earth show scenes like what I was seeing now. The mostly empty warrens of this ruin within the city were now crammed full of… Refugees? Prisoners? Who were these people stuffed into this place? Had they fled here from the surrounding countryside?
Possibly, but I recognized two of them, and knew that at least some of these people came from elsewhere within this city. Ana the waitress lay sleeping on the bare floor with her little preschool-age catgirl daughter Aurie, in a room crowded with other cat kindred. All of them looked malnourished and wore bedraggled clothing, but I was especially worried at how Ana looked. She was terribly skinny, enough so that I guessed she had been starving herself to keep her daughter fed.
What I didn’t find were demons. I didn’t know the story that led to these people being crammed in like this, but the sound of battle reaching my ears reminded me that rescue was on its way for these people, no matter why they were here. I could mark this place off the list. I moved to the neighborhood adjacent to continue my search.
As I combed the city, I located several proofs of demonic presence. Demonic mana lingered in many locations, and I began disposing of one magic formation after another of clear demonic origin. But it was as only the traces of their occupation, after the living demons had already departed.
Had they left the city to join the attack on Ged’s army yesterday? Or had they moved to secure locations elsewhere in town? They would have been in disguise, so I couldn’t land and ask one of the mortals, “Did you see which way the demons went?”
Not that there were any mortals on the street to ask. Perhaps the news that an army had arrived was already spread through the town? Since it was so early, how could that have happened long enough ago that I no longer saw people rushing to safety.
With early daylight now illuminating everything, a mortal city should have already been bustling with the activities at the beginning of the day. It was only Fifthday. Grocers and butchers and fuel-sellers should be preparing their shops. Porters should be carrying in fresh merchandise and bakers should be firing their ovens. The streets shouldn’t be so deserted at that time of day unless it were Restday.
I paid closer attention to what I was not seeing, and realized that the residences also held far too few people. I thought of all the people crammed into the ruins, and for a moment decided that authorities really had evacuated the residents already, until I remembered the starving appearance of those refugees. They hadn’t only evacuated overnight. They had been there for weeks, at least.
I sped up my search, combing the neighborhoods one after another and continuing to only find traces of recent demonic presence, but no demons.
And I was fast becoming anxious over how few residents I was finding, despite all the refugees I had seen. They weren’t enough to account for the missing population. Nor did I think the rest had fled east. If this many were gone from one town, then the numbers across eastern Hamagaar would be in the hundreds of thousands. It was only the relatively well-off who could afford to flee into Orestania like the prostitute I met in Thuriben, a fallen noblewoman. Average residents like Ana, an indentured servant, didn’t have the means.
And demons treat those who can’t escape them as livestock.
I reached a city wall facing the hills to the south, where no roads led and where we had sent no assault troops. There, I found a postern gate in a recess between a bastion and the main curtain wall. A group of disguised mid-ranked demons crowded around it, hurriedly exiting.
Perhaps the demons had begun fleeing as early as the devastating landslide unleashed by the Mountain King’s forces the previous day, but these were clearly the last of it. I had seen no more of them on my way here.
I wasted no time. I began circulating Holy mana, ramping it up as rapidly as I could. The incandescent shine of my wings and body blew away my vampire cloak and drew the attention of my targets.
[Purification], I silently commanded as I drew my fan to focus my attack.
It was mostly drudes, the evolved form of hags and wraiths, and larvae, evolved skeletal demons, but there was one imp in the crowd as well. He let out a loud hissing noise with his mouth open and his fangs bared as he stared at me with widened eyes.
Durandal didn’t recognize it as an attack until a demonic-mana-laden wave of energy struck my body. But, with the levels of [Purification] now circulating inside me, the breath weapon shattered uselessly against my skin and wings. The two spears of demonic mana he sent behind the initial attack struck the [Fortress of Gaia].
I cast [Purification] with a sweep of my fan, sending it surging in a broad stroke across the group of demons.
The effect was devastating. Even though I had spread it across many targets, they all took damage, and six fell dead on the spot. I drew Durandal and charged into the survivors. The imp managed to parry my first blow with his spear, but the [Purification] had crippled him and he couldn’t prevent me from taking his neck with my next attack. I then mowed my way through the rest.
Once finished with the demons inside, I dropped my wings and charged into the long exit tunnel of the postern gate, that passed through a wall two paces thick. A well-trained rearguard would have faced me inside, but these demons were focused only on fleeing. I ran through unhindered and onto the open ground beyond. I grew my wings again and chased down two dozen more who had already made it through.
It was my only action that day. I saw no more enemies and rejoined Ged where he was holding conference with his officers on the main avenue leading from the main gate. I learned that his troops had already taken the battlements and were now focused on securing the town within.
“I killed about four dozen demons,” I reported. “They were all in the process of fleeing.”
Ged nodded his acknowledgement, straightened his glasses, and noted, “We barely fought any defenders at all. They really did strip the town bare before yesterday’s battle.”
Just as I was about to say that I would go help the soldiers search the town, an army runner came rushing through the entrance tunnel toward us, yelling “Reporting, Your Highness!”
It was obviously something big, so I stayed for the moment.
The young soldier stopped flat-footed upon arriving and bent over, propping himself up with his hands on his knees as he caught his breath. Well, he had been running flat-out, all the way in from outside the wall, so it was understandable.
“Speak,” Ged ordered, frowning at the kid. Having to catch his breath was wasting the time he had gained by overdoing the run, so I understood Ged’s annoyance.
The kid straightened up and saluted, reporting, “Your Highness! An aircraft is landing outside!”
