Fafnir's pov
"That is the fortress city I was talking about", said Jay calmly while pointing at a giant gray wall. It seems like this city was not your ordinary fortress. I mean what fortress has a watchtower every twenty meters, at least five meters thick walls, a shitload of what looks to be ballistae and a gate that looks like it was made to stop an artillery barrage from my old world.
"So what are you going to do now?", asked Lisabeth with a pang of worry in her voice.
I sigh, "I don't really have an option. Due to circumstances, I will need to try the head on approach."
I looked at Lisabeth who obviously had a moral problem with this plan and calmly said, "Lisabeth I will be blunt, I don't really care if you try to run away when I attack the city. You don't know anything super important so I won't hunt you down, but if you decide to stay on my side then you need to know that this won't be the last time that a lot of innocents will die by my hand. Oh and no worries I'm not planning to kill everyone but to destroy the city. The more survivors to tell the tale the better. I estimate that about half will survive the destruction and maybe half of those survivors will survive the trip through the mountains.
Lisabeth cast her gaze downwards and said, "Why are you attacking this city, these people never did anything wrong to you."
I let out a small sigh and replied, "To make a statement to all the bandits in the area. The smart leaders will try to talk to the one that destroyed this heavily defended city and that is when I will force them to serve me or die."
Jay glanced at the city one more time and then said, "Fafnir I also have a few problems with this plan."
"Oh, I replied with surprise in my voice, "Never expected you to be the moral type."
Jay shook his head and said, "No that is not my problem, I mean I did some pretty fucked up shit for money before but are you sure that you can take on the whole city on your own. I mean there will probably be a few real strong adventures in there and if you include the defense measurements of the fortress then you will most likely be in for a difficult fight."
I replied with a big cheery grin, "That just makes it more fun and who knows I might find a new playmate in the city. Also, did you not tell me that they reduced their defenses by almost half after defeating the nightmares in the mountains?
Jay nodded and said, "But half of a shitton of is still a fuckload of defenses. Can't you take a slower but safer approach?
I shook my head sadly and said"I don't really have a lot of time before I die and that the only way to lengthen my time is by causing wanton destruction and chaos. So while I would love to take a slow and calculated approach where I play the inhabitants of the city against themselves out, weaken their defenses and then swoop in for the kill, I just don't have the time. Also, the slow and careful approach won't have the same fear inspiring effect on the bandits."
I start walking towards the city and said in a more serious tone, "Jay can you stay with Lisabeth and comfort her a bit. Also, try to explain that sacrifice is necessary if you want to accomplish something and that she will never be able to return to a normal life without sacrifice, not as long as her cousin is still hunting her."
Jay let out a sigh before demanding, "Fine but if you come out of this fight alive then you are going to tell us your plans and explain why you do all of this."
I nodded and said, "If that keeps you two on my side then I will explain it with pleasure because to be totally honest I have grown quite fond of you two in the last two months. You know, I really should not make promises like that, in fiction character who do things like that always die right before they can fulfill promises like that."
He shook his head and answered, "No idea what you mean with that. But what I wanted to say was that I also see you as a friend."
I grinned and shouted, "You really have a poor taste in friends."
He shouted back, "Well you don't really have a lot of people to pick as your friend when you are in the middle of nowhere surrounded by criminals and monsters and if you are going to make friends with one of them, why not with the biggest and meanest of them all."
I waved Jay goodbye and walked towards the city. I thought sadly to myself, "I really hope Lis decides to stay, they are the first people that I befriended ever since Jen died."
I slapped myself lightly on my cheek in order to stop thinking about Jen since thinking about her for too long always leaves me feeling like shit.
When I arrive at the gate I notice a massive amount of people who were lining up in order to enter the city. I grinned and thought, "Luckily for me, I won't need to queue up to enter the city."
I skip the line shoving anyone who tries to stop me aside. I might be a lot weaker in human form but my raw strength is still several times greater than your normal adventure or soldier.
One of the guards sees me skipping the line and shouts,"You there, get back to the end of the line before I force you to."
I taunted, "Force me?"
The guard let out an angry growl and shouted, "Now you are asking for it." Before walking towards me, sword in one hand shield in the other.
When the guard was in front of me I turned into my combat form, making the people around me run away from fear. The stunned guard does not have the time to react as I quickly used my inhuman strength to literally disarmed the poor bastard. I then grabbed him by the throat with my right hand and lifted his now armless body in the air. I glanced around and saw a group of three guards running towards me, weapons drawn and shock on their faces, from the guard station and then throw the guard as hard as I can into the approaching group. The force behind the throw pushed the three guards and the 'ball' into the station. The impact blew up the guard station and a good chunk of the wall. Oh did I forget to mention that I put some destruction magic into that throw?
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I looked at the destruction and laughed, "Strike."
A few of the more brave visitors run towards me in order to strike me down. I snap my finger and a ring of fire start expanding with my in the center, turning all of them but one, who blocked my flames with a shield of light, into ashes.
The survivor a man with two big white wings on his back looks at me and snarls, "Fire magic. Since you don't look like a human or a demon then I assume that you are a nightmare who somehow got their hands on that cursed magic. Just my luck why did I have to meet a humanoid nightmare while on vacation."
I look at the man in front of me and chuckle, " Am I correct to assume that you are an angel?"
"Shit", cursed the angel in front of me, "You can talk? What are the chances of running into an ancient nightmare when I'm not even working."
I circle around him and laughed, "Are angels even allowed to curse?"
The man reached behind his back and pulled out a massive greatsword before he snarled, "Cut the crap you filthy beast."
Before charging right at me with ridiculous speed.
His speed is seriously impressive but it is too bad for him that I'm even faster. I jumped backward dodging his swing before taunting, "You know that it is not really nice to call someone a filthy beast, I mean you also would not like it if I called you something like a bird brain right?"
The now visibly irritated angel formed a spear of light in one hand and throws it at me. I shoot a blast of fire at it in order to intercept it. The two different types of magic hit each other and create a blinding light, forcing me to cover my eyes. When the light fades away I can see the angels charging at me. I try to jump back but since my eyes are still affected by the blast, I wrongly calculate the distance and end up overshooting tens of feet, bumping into someone else. The man who I bumped in to quickly unsheaths a short sword and stabs me in my back.
I silently curse from the pain before turning around and use my claws to rip out the man's throat while my wound quickly closes itself.
Making use the distraction caused by the other man, the angel starts to gather energy in his hands to create a ball of light and shouts, "It's over the nightmare. "Retribution."
The ball of light turns into a blinding beam of energy. I got a feeling that if that attack hits me that even I will take quite a bit of damage, lucky that I already dodged it", I thought happily as I felt my hand, adorned with claws pierce through his back armor into his chest. After searching for a few moments I finally find his still beating heart in his chest and pulverize it, stopping his effortless struggling.
I walk towards the city gate, where gunners are now firing the ballistae at me while muttering, "Brute forcing things is clearly a lot less fun than to play mind games with them. Damn you Chaos for waiting so long to revive me. If you had allowed me to be reincarnated sooner or if you had told me how much time I had left instead of saying that if I don't cause destruction quickly than the chaos energy that keeps my body functioning will dry out than I would not have been forced to do things so sloppily.
I walk towards the gate, ignoring the ballista shots and arrows that are landing next to me and take a deep breath before I punch the door. The door makes a metallic noise but still seems to be closed firmly. I raised my fist again and punch the gate once more. Seeing that my normal punches would not be able to break the gate. I decided to gather a bit of destruction magic and to then punch the gate one last time. A part of the gate gets blown away, killing a few more guards before colliding with a wall behind it.
I slowly enter the fortress, eliminating all those who block my path by casually throwing a bit of fire around. After walking aimlessly for a few minutes, while setting a good part of the city ablaze a group of armed men and woman walk towards me.
The leader grabs a wand from behind his back and shouts, "Beast you will find your end at the hands of the A- ranked adventure group 'Red Sun'.
A small smile decorates my face and I declare while playing the part of the stereotypical villain, "Ha kill me? You and what army?"
The man waved his wand and a swarm of blue a arrows appeared behind him before he shouted, "Soul magic, Arrow swarm, FLY."
Seems like the man is one of those soul or arcane mages Lis told be about, the ones that use mana. The blue arrows swiftly flew towards me. I dodged most of them but a few hit me nonetheless. Immediately after the arrow rain stopped a woman with a spear dashed in and send a few swift stabs towards me, forcing me to jump backward. While I was still in my jumping motion another man wielding two small daggers appears next to me and slashed two times at my neck. I dodged one dagger and let one impale my hand. The man tries to release the dagger that is now stuck inside of my hand but I quickly grab his arm and then pull him towards me.
I channel a bit of destruction magic into the man, who on a closer inspection looked a bit like an elf, making his entire body go boom and staining myself and his spear wielding friend with his blood and flesh.
The members of the party of adventurers shouted some standard things like 'How could you, you monster' and 'I will avenge him'.
I pulled out the dagger and threw it towards the mage that shot the arrows at me, only for it to get intercepted by the shield of one his allies. The shield bearer lets out a painful cry and grabbed his now bleeding arm. It seems like he did not expect there to be so much force behind the throw.
The mage and the last member of their group, a woman clad in white robes, looked at the wounded man. Making use of the distraction I send a blast of fire towards the spear wielder who swiftly jumped backward. Abusing my superior speed I jumped towards the woman and quickly appeared behind her. A quick stab with the other dagger of the elf that I picked up when I was dashing towards her ends her life.
The three remaining members look at me in horror and let out some more mournful cries. The woman, clad in white, touched the arm of the shield bearer, healing it. I made a side note to ask Lis for a bit more information about healing magic after I kill these guys.
The mage started to gather a stupidly large amount of mana and created a giant blue ball in the air. I slowly looked around and am surprised to notice that no one is trying to attack me. Is this guy retarded? Is he really planning on using a spell with such a long casting time at this range without having someone to distract me?
I picked up the spear of the woman I just killed and tossed it towards the shield bearer who once again tried to block it in order to protect his friends behind him. Utter foolishness if you asked me. The impact once again broke one of his arms and I immediately jumped towards the mage. When I arrived in front of him he suddenly stopped his spell and jumped backward. I look around confused until I see the woman clad in white firing a massive beam of light towards me.
Looking at the beam that is about to hit me I brought up my wings in front of me like an impromptu shield and mumbled, "Shit, seems like I was the retard here".