- Kaz Helms, Company Commander of Hellish Raiders -
‘It’s morning, meaning that Captain Venalles should be back by now. Maybe I should have given that deadbeat more than a Platoon of Raiders… Bah, they’re all well trained, both the Knights and their Men-At-Arms. The unit at his disposal should have been capable of dealing with a few clergymen and children.’ Commander Helms thought to himself.
Commander Helms, while he had no real “love” for Venalles, understood the loyalty Vellales shared for their country, and was more than well aware of the brain he had tucked in his skull. Usually, a Captain would be commanding the Company that Commander Helms was controlling, but due to recent events, Venalles was stripped of his duty and put into the command of a Platoon rather than the entire Company. ‘Serves you right; messing with the Colonel’s daughter? For shame. You’re lucky you didn’t lose rank, or better yet, your head,’ Helms chuckled at his private thoughts.
Commander Helms looked at his gauntleted hands. He wore a set of medium chainmail and steel armor, nothing like the premium ebony the men of the Gambit Platoon wore, but it did the job extremely well. The armor acted as his business, pleasure, and casual outfit. Sure, he was more of a “lead from the back” than a frontline fighter, but his paranoia has paid off more than once, managing to protect himself from an assassin's blade on more than one occasion. His Bastard Sword was strapped to his side, hanging near the legs of the chair he was sitting in while looking at command documents from the Battalion Commander, Colonel Webster. Looking in the mirror, he noticed that he gained another gray hair on his stubbled face, though luckily, his full head of hair was still its pristine, black self.
Noticing a commotion outside of his tent, Helms got up from his modest wooden table and chair and walked out of his cloth-walled castle and into the flurry that was his War Camp. Less than two hundred men found themselves residing here, preparing for the next move onto the front with the Empire.
Pulling aside a rushing, ill-equipped young soldier, struggling to fasten his leather helmet, he tried to pry information out of the man.
“Boy! What is going on? Why are all of you running around like headless chickens?” The Commander inquired with more than a tinge of anger in his voice.
“Commander! The scouts just came back from the raiding location. One of the scouts just told me that Capt. Venalles’ unit was wiped out!” The soldier said, finally fastening the strap to the other side of his helmet. With a quick salute, he scurried off to wherever he was setting off originally.
‘Wiped out? How? The Empire would never set foot on Church Grounds, so it’s doubtful that they would even be close enough to defend them. It’s a frontier temple, so it would be unlikely to have a cleric capable of any real defense capability, especially against three dozen soldiers. I don’t like this,’ The Commander thought as he ran with the flood of his troops through the rows of tents sprawled out before him. Finally, he approached the “courtyard” of their tent formation and found his Sergeant of the Scouting Squad, and a Lieutenant next to him.
Making his way through his men, he came face-to-face with the Sergeant and Lieutenant, both traditionally clear-headed men conflicted with whatever information they had to share with the entire Company. His sergeant wore a light leather tunic, perfect for reconnaissance and agility, that paired well with his brown, untrimmed face, while his lieutenant was dressed more comfortably; what one would expect from an officer that spent his entire day inside the enclosure of a staff tent, filing paperwork and looking at a map. He had long shed his Officer’s black jacket in the warm morning, only having a tan undershirt, paired with pants that had a strip down the sides that signified that they belonged to an officer. His black hair was slicked back with sweat, his face was clean-shaven, and he had a rapier on his waist as his only means of personal defense. Despite his unprofessional look, he was a stickler for the rules, and it was obvious by the expression that he wore that the young Lieutenant was in complete opposition to making this a public announcement.
“Well? What is it, Sergeant? Why wasn’t I even informed of this gathering? Better yet, shouldn’t you have come to me with this report?” Asked Helms, though the question was more rhetorical, as he could already imagine the rebuttal his sergeant was about to make.
“I’m sorry sir, but I believe it was best for everyone to hear it first. The entire ‘Gambit’ Platoon under Captain Venalles was wiped out, and all of his men were found as various grotesque remains. Whatever, or whoever did this, had no problem dispatching any of our soldiers.” Replied the Sergeant, with the Lieutenant behind him scowling when the rise of voices climbed around them.
“WHAAT?” cried out more than one voice from the crowd.
“Wait, does that mean Captain Venalles is dead?” A gruff voice muttered from the back, but still managing to carry itself in the dense body of soldiers.
“FUCKING TRINITY BITCHES, I’M GOING TO-” began another before being drowned out.
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“Damn, Corporal Patches was in that Raid. He was a damn fine soldier.” Said the closest to the officer group, a junior NCO who was attached to the sister raiding party, “Tricksters”.
Finally, Commander Helms put his foot down, “ENOUGH! Squabbling over this won’t help any of us. We underestimated the firepower of the target that Captain Venalles and his men for their mission, we will NOT make this mistake again.” Turning to his Lieutenant, he said “Tear down tents and prepare to move out. We are setting the Company on the offensive. I want this camp torn down and on the move in the next hour. You got that, Lieutenant Yuma?”
“Yessir!” Replied the young officer, who proceeded to relay his orders to the crowd of soldiers around them.
Suddenly, a voice cried out.
“WHAT ARE THOSE!”
Turning around, he saw more than a few heads facing the morning sky. Glancing toward what they were gaping at, he too was perplexed; no utterly shocked would be a more appropriate word. ‘That had to be a few dozen, no, well over a hundred angels surrounding the camp’. Helms thought to himself in alarm.
Ever quick on his feet, the Commander turned and yelled “Belay that order, take up arms, men! They are our enemy! Do not fret! We are stronger! We will never surrender!” Rallying his men, he quickly met the enemy head-on.
- Gabriel POV -
To call it a slaughter would be modest. His one hundred and twenty low-tiered Angelic summons, made up of the spell [Angelic Guardian Swarm], more than easily wiped out the 164 humanoid lifeforms in the camp. Not even a single loss from the level 10 swarm of Angels. Technically, he could have increased their level up to around level 20, but that would have consumed over a quarter of his mana; something that seemed pretty dumb, especially since he wasn’t even sure if the low-level swarm would be able to keep up with the equal leveled humans. However, the two races are nowhere near comparable in terms of levels, as the lower angels managed to destroy the humans that outnumbered them.
“Hmm… I might need to do a few tests and figure out just how strong a level 10 Angelic Guardian is” Gabriel said under his breath, thinking back to the process needed to even summon these Angels.
Traditionally, summoning was as simple as casting a spell and having summons just show up out of thin air; okay, maybe not as simple as that, but the only cost needed was mana and an open enough space for them to spawn in. Summons also had a limit, and though Gabriel can still feel a generalized limit within his psyche, he managed to summon way more than what AdvenTravellers ever allowed him. However, now Angels need “Souls of the Unclaimed and Uncorrupted”. Luckily, though, there were more than enough souls Gabriel could collect through his slow journey to the encampment of these people of the “Tripartite”. Between the Temple of a dead Pantheon, and the few frontier villages that were already raided, there were enough souls that he could store and use; like right now.
‘Gather up, form columns of twenty’. Gabriel silently commanded to the forces under his control. Suddenly, all of his summons rushed him, before automatically finding their spots within the hundred-twenty angel formation.
“Your orders are simple. Each group of twenty will act as informants in different regions of this continent. Utilizing your [Ethereal Plane] passive ability, you will relay reports through a pre-determined messenger, and deliver cohesive and descriptive reports on the progress you have made in your prospective regions. With the maps we have retrieved from the destroyed encampments we will…” Gabriel continued relaying orders, giving out missions and rules of engagement for his summoned army.
- Three Hours Later -
Gabriel, now with no summons around him, found himself lying comfortably on the surprisingly fluffy green grass just outside of the neutralized encampment. His hypothesis appeared to be correct, as his summons not only managed to leave the maximum distance field but also exceeded their time limits as well. ‘I wonder if they have good penmanship. Wait… do they even have high brain functions? I mean, they never spoke, and they never made any independent actions… shit. I might have used the worst summon for this task. Oh well, I can always just unsummon them if they prove to be useless.’ Gabriel thought with a sigh.
Gabriel knew nothing of the world around him, besides the map that he found inside of what was likely once a command tent. Several names popped out at him; The local countries being “The Old Empire”, as labeled on the map, “The Tripartite Confederation”, the country that belonged to the soldiers that raided the temple, and another Country, the “Western Republic”. Just across the stream, a region called “The Toma Plains” and “The Wild Lands” also existed, and just between them, a forest nation called the “Elven Kingdom”. ‘What an unimaginative name,’ Gabriel thought to himself. To the north of all of these nations, a mountain range called “The Winter Domain” stretched from one side of the continent to another. Finally, an unmarked piece of land lay somewhere south of the Toma Planes and the Wild Lands. He couldn’t figure out why it didn’t have a region name or anyone claiming it, but he decided to leave it alone; maybe one of his summoned groups would find out for him.
Still staring at the clouds, Gabriel began to decide what to do next. ‘I guess I could return to the temple grounds and inform the clergy people that the war camp is no longer a threat. I’m not sure what they will do if I give them that information though. Leave? Stay? I mean, I bet a bunch of religious goobers like them would rather stay on their holy ground and wait to be slaughtered again, but I’m pretty sure Simon has a head on his shoulders… ah. Oh well. I may as well inform him. Won’t be my fault if he doesn’t heed my warnings,’ Gabriel decided.
And so, Gabriel the Archangel, ever so merciful, leaves the butchered and haunting remains of the enemy encampment to rot on the sudden battlefield that was their encampment. For those that would come across it in the coming weeks looking for the missing Company, they would explain it to themselves as an elite force sent by the Empire as retribution for the attacks on their border. Brutal but efficient men had come and left, leaving none of their own dead, but allowing the rest to be food for the vultures and wildlife. They would never have expected that this would be the first of many assaults made by the Armies of Heaven.