“What are we to do with the ones that fled?” asked Qort, the commander of the central shoreline fort.
“Ignore them for now. We must first deal with the wounded and secure the town and our surroundings in case the Oni has any other hiding forces waiting for us to chase those fleeing,” said Akira.
“There is no need for you to stay here. I can take care of this mop-up mission. Still, I have a feeling that with all the ambushes we endured and with such a large attack here… the thief city was most likely attacked as well…” said Zundar as he looked over the burning and smoldering piles of rubble that had once been part of the new sea town set up around the forts.
Right now there were still several dozen fire teams passing buckets of water forward to put out the fires that still burned and passing back the empty buckets to be refilled once again.
“If you think you can handle everything here. Then I will take the rest of the people back to check up on the [Full Moon] guild members. Once we make sure that everything is alright there, then we can focus on the remaining Oni still on this Island,” said Akira.
“Don’t worry it’s the least I can do since we arrived too late to be of any help with your battle,” said Zundar.
“If you still need our help we are fit enough to continue fighting on,” said Berdmun whose feathers were covered in blood from both his enemies and his wounds that had been recently bandaged by the Werewolf shamen.
“Is that all right? You lost several warriors and many are still wounded. You have proven your friendship with your help in winning this battle. If it were not for your help, our main force would have been too late to save everyone here…” said Akira as he looked at the many wounded werewolves and the floating warships that were anchored off the shore.
“Those who died, did so with honor, fighting for those who saved and freed our entire Aeviun race. If it’s okay with you I would like those that are unable to fly to stay here to recover. I hear your people are skilled in the ways of healing. Although I believe we must catch the fish while they are panicking, I do not mind helping you fly back to your city before helping you take out the fleeing fish,” said Berdmun.
“Alright, if that’s how you feel. We will head out as soon as you are ready, but please hand out these to your men,” said Akira tossing a small pouch of red candies to Berdmun.
“And these are?”
“They will help you and those with light wounds to recover faster,” said Akira.
“Then we will not waste such treasures by hiding them away. We will use them right away so that we may fulfill our duty as your allies!”
***
As the Thief city came into view Akira was able to see everything from his position on the back of the flying Griffon.
The city looked to be in poor shape. The entire outer defenses that had been prepared to deal with the sudden appearance of the Aeviuns were completely destroyed while the main city walls had several large cracks, many black burn marks, and even more pockmarks. The land all around the city was gouged and torn up revealing where several hard-fought battles must have taken place.
“Are they alive or did the enemy take over the city?” asked Berdmun as the Allied warriors and their beast companions continued to fly circles above the city scanning the city for life. They had taken the precaution to stay high in the sky where it was bone-chilling cold to stay out of the range of anyone on the ground. To someone on the ground, they would only look like a flock of small birds.
“There is only one way to check without getting ourselves killed in a surprise ambush attack…” said Akira as he leaned over the side of the flying griffon and took in a deep breath.
“Awooooo!”
He waited for nearly half a minute and hearing no response his heart sank… only for him to let out a sigh as he heard the late but expected response coming from the city.
“Awoooo!”
“They are still alive and in control of the city,” said Akira. “I think we should land and pick up a few of them to help us with our mop-up of the Oni faction.”
“If you think it will help make things easier then I nor my people will not say no.”
The Aeviuns swooped down allowing Akira to quickly communicate with the surviving Full Moon guild members and come up with a new plan on what to do in less than ten minutes.
With everything decided Akira took several of the [Full Moon] Guild members leaving only a few behind to hold down the fort until Zundar was finished cleaning up the routed Oni and was able to arrive back with the main force of the allied army.
Even if the Oni seemed to be retreating everywhere there was still a small chance that they would be able to reform and counterattack the city while they were weakened and lacking defenders.
“Hurry up and get on to the backs of one of the large flying companions!” shouted Akira. “We have several stops to make in order to clean up this mess once and for all.”
A few minutes passed as the [Full Moon] Guild members fumbled and repeatedly fell off the backs of the flying beasts that had no saddle or other things to hold on to. They were forced to hold by pressing their knees into the sides of the flying mount while hugging their necks. The flying mounts in question were not all too happy with the knees poking them in the side or the arms ringed around their necks as they flapped their wings in protest, nearly knocking them off again.
Several minutes passed as the Aeviuns calmed down the large birds and repositioned the [Full moon] guild members allowing both to be more comfortable and secure for the coming ride.
“Let’s fly!” shouted Berdmun who followed his words with a bird-like screeching warcry as he shot up into the air along with the rest of the Aeviuns and the flying companions.
To the defenders watching from the city wall, the sight of the fast-flying Aeviuns bursting into the air and speeding away was quite a morale boost seeing such fierce allies were on their side.
On their way to the first Oni stronghold, several groups of Aeviuns and their companions met up with their group and joined the flight ready to face the Oni in the first battle for many of them in centuries.
“OVER THERE!” shouted Akira pointing to a group of 50 or more Oni warriors who were fleeing far below them unaware of the large force above them.
Berdmun did not say any words, he only nodded and let out a birdlike warcry and the entire force swooped down and surrounded the fleeing oni stopping the startled warriors in their tracks.
“Lay down your weapons!” growled Akira.
The scared Oni warriors were mute and unmoving for a long time as they were unable to process what was going on.
“Surrender or die!” shouted Akira.
The Oni warriors were rather ragged from fleeing for several hours each day and were not in any shape to fight as their minds started to work again they all looked at each other before throwing down their weapons.
“Gather them and hand them to me,” said Akira.
When Akira received the various weapons from the Aeviun warriors he placed all of them into his bag and then looked back to the Oni and said.
“Do not cause any trouble or we will come back to wipe you out.”
With that, the Aeviuns flew back into the air disappearing as fast as they had arrived. They were unable to do much other than disarm the Oni as they did not want to wipe them all out as that would only cause further conflict with the Oni most likely wanting to get revenge.
This happened several dozen times as they flew to their destination they were able to disarm several hundreds of Oni warriors.
All was not so simple for a few of the stops as a few of them small clusters of Oni did not listen to the commands and instead fought to the death. Overall it was rather simple and quick cleanup each time and they soon reached the first border city of the Oni which was smaller than the Thief city.
The Aeviuns surrounded the city on the ground while Akira, Berdmun, and their guards continued hovering over the city just out of attack range but well within eye view of the defenders.
“Your armies have been defeated! If you do not want to suffer any further then surrender!” shouted Akira.
Over ten minutes passed with no answer coming from inside the city as the panicked Oni fretted about what to do. Most of their fighting forces had all gone off with one of the main fighting forces that had left several weeks ago leaving their city with a pitiful few city guards and warriors to defend the city.
“If you do not surrender we will go into the city and rip your city leaders out of their hiding holes so that we may have a nice chat,” roared Akira.
Even with this threat the Oni leaders of the city still took their time before slowly making their way out of their secure buildings with a few dozen guards and walking to the city wall where they would be able to converse with the large force of enemy warriors surrounding their city.
“We… WILL NOT SURRENDER! Kill them!” shouted one of the Oni leaders.
The paltry number of city guards and warriors that were defending the walls looked at their leaders with baffled shock and did not act on the commands. The only ones that did were the dozen guards that had walked out of the buildings with the leaders… They were demigods!
The surprise attacks launched by the demigods grazed Akira’s body as the flying mount he was on nimbly dived down to dodge the attacks.
Berdmun was also swiftly dodging the attacks by a hair as he dived down with Akira.
They were not just going to be target practice for the demigods they were going on the offense as they dived down and grabbed a few of the demigods before flying into the air and lifting their catch back up into the sky!
A fierce struggle ensued with several Aeviuns falling out of the sky as they were struck with several attacks shot by the demigods.
Those who managed to weave through the attacks and tame their catch flew to an extreme height before releasing their catch allowing them to fall to their death.
The Aeviuns were well aware of the demigod’s special skills so they did not allow the falling demigods to use any skills to save their lives, instead, they became targets for the rest of the Aeviuns who had bows!
“What are you louts doing? Attack those birds!” shouted the leaders at the city guards who had ducked down trying to hide from the swooping Aeviuns.
The defending warriors and guards looked at each other before nodding with grim faces as they stood up…. and attacked the leaders and demigods!
The leaders were slaughtered too quickly for the demigods to do anything about it. They were instead forced to fight on two fronts. Although the oni were no match for them they still outnumbered the demigods.
Each of the demigods was able to kill on average around 5 or more of the defenders before turning into light particles from all the damage they had received.
With the help of the Aeviuns, the demigods were wiped out.
With the death of the old leaders of the city it took some time to figure out who was now in charge but after one of the older guards was nominated Akira and the Aeviuns were able to hash out a quick surrender from the city.
With the city’s surrender, the Demigods had one less return point to cause mayhem.
“You are coming with us to help convince the other cities that there is no use fighting us. The best course is to end the generations of conflict and agree to peace,” said Akira pointing to the new leader of the city.
The new leader was distressed at being taken as hostage and mouthpiece of Akira and the Aeviuns but he was unable to refuse the demand.
There was still a lot of bad blood between the Oni and ancient allied forces but they would have to make it work in order for peace to ensue.
At each city the same thing was repeated and with the help of the hostage leaders they were able to convince all but one city to surrender and join the peace treaty.
The defiant leader of that city was killed by his own guards who had heard all about the overwhelming strengths that the Aeviuns and allied forces would be facing if they did not take matters into their own hands.
It was a dishonorable thing to kill the man you were supposed to protect but they had no other choice so that they could save thousands of lives in the city.
With the fall of each of the cities, there was one less place for the demigods to reappear with most of them being killed by the Oni as soon as they did causing even more mayhem until there was no place for them to return to on the island!
Ding!
-
You have achieved a major success for the Ancient Alliance! Peace has been won at the tip of the sword.
Honor +30!
Level up!
Level…
…
You are now level 250!
-
Son of the Night has reached a new stage!
New stats!You have received a new skill!
[Ancient Wolf Transformation: Able to transform into a massive quadruped Werewolf. Larger than a war horse. Uses double the stamina to stay transformed.]
-
New title received! Birb Luver: you love hugging and riding large birds!
***
Several days earlier during the time Akira and the rest were fighting the fierce battle at the shoreline forts.
A portal appeared outside the abandoned temple in the middle of the stone forest.
Sukor stumbled out of the portal nearly half dead. He had wasted all his potions and spare armor just to stay alive throughout the whole trial.
“I never want to go back to that place…” muttered Sukor as he shivered thinking of all the torture he went through just to get the item that was encased in a small black wooden box.
When he thought of the near-impossible task he had just completed he started cackling like a crazed maniac.
“There is no doubt that I will be rewarded handsomely for this! Only I survived so all the rewards will be all mine! But… I have to make it back without being caught by the enemy… Damn! I’m in bad shape right now… if I wait here to recover those damn demons or monsters might come to investigate the area… I better just go now. If I need to I can find hiding spots while I make my way back to the city.”
He continued to travel as stealthily as he could for over a day until he ran into the first sign of trouble…
“Tch… come out! I know you are hiding behind that tree!” said Sukor who was on edge.
“Oh your eyesight is quite good if you were able to find me,” said a dark-robed figure as they stepped out from behind the tree.
“What are you talking about? I didn’t use my eyes you were… wait you are…!” said a shocked Sukor as he recognized the dark-robed man standing in front of him.
“That’s right, it is me… we could not wait any longer so we decided to come and see how you were progressing with your task…” said the dark-robbed man slowly.
“We?” asked Sukor as he looked around and was horrified to see that several other black-robed figures appeared out of the shadows that surrounded this small opening in the stone tree forest.
The number of black-robed figures was far more than they had ever revealed when they talked with each of the guild officers.
“He has the item. I can feel its ancient energy…” said one of the dark-robed figures in a sweet and young girly voice.
“I… I did find something. I was just making my way to find you all to hand it over,” said Sukor stuttering over his words.
“Then hand it over already! We don’t have all day to stand here and chat!” said an elderly man’s voice coming from behind Sukor.
“That… that can be done… but I also want the reward you promised!”
“Fine by me,” said the first dark-robed man. With a wave of his hand, he motioned for another to hand over the promised rewards.
An ancient sword, helmet, and a large sack of gold were thrown onto the ground in front of Sukor who quickly scooped them up and started to drool over his new armor pieces.
“Now the item. If you would be so kind as to hand it over,” demanded the Dark-robed man in front of Sukor.
“Yeah, yeah,” said Sukor dismissively as he pulled the black wooden box out of thin air and handed it over to the impatient Dark-robed man.
Sukor ignored the people around him as he continued to count the gold in the sack…
Shunk!
…only to be interrupted by a sword sticking out through his chest.
“As for the promise to help your ‘Guilds’ with your plans for this island… we are unable to do that since the tides have already shifted out of our control,” said the elderly dark-robed figure who held the sword.
SLICE!
A second later Sukor’s head fell to the ground along with the now bloodied ancient sword, helmet, and sack of gold. His body disappeared into thousands of light fragments unable to cry out in sadness as he dropped the rewards he worked so hard for!
“Damn! He got blood all over them!” grumbled the young girly voice as she picked up the dropped items.
“HEHEHE! With this in our possession we have the final rare item!” cackled the dark-robed figure as he looked inside the black wooden box.
“Those foolish demon races think they have won a great victory. But they will soon find out they have only won the battle, not the war!”
“There is no point wasting time here anymore. Let’s go. The sooner we leave the faster the ritual can start!”
“Don’t count our eggs before they hatch. We still need a vessel to start the ritual… to do that, we need to get back to the others in one piece first! The sea is not easy to travel right now.”
