This time, the demon reacted too late.
By the time the fourth tier demon managed to react to her ambush, her spear was already mere inches away from his back, as the demon had been preoccupied by one of Sir Inolet’s attacks while Alissa struck. It was far too late for the demon to do anything at that point of time, other than slightly shift his body so that Alissa’s spear wouldn’t go cleanly through his heart like she had intended.
Instead, her blow pierced through the right side of the demon’s back and went out his chest, the bladed spearhead smoothly slipping in between the demon’s ribs and slicing through his right lung in the process. It was a grievous wound, but not one that would be instantly fatal. Still, it was plenty for Alissa’s purpose, as the injured demon was clearly weakened greatly by the blow.
The demon forcibly tore his body off the spearhead the next moment, causing the wound to bleed profusely but also freeing himself to retaliate, but even as he turned around all that greeted him was the sight of the edge of a shield approaching his face. The demon managed to tilt his head at the last moment, so instead of crushing his nose and worse, the shield only cracked his left cheek instead, leaving a bloody gouge in the process.
It was obvious that the demon was reeling from his wounds and somewhat disoriented from her ambush, as he only barely managed to raise his blade to block Alissa’s next strike. The demon should have been close to her in power, since he managed to block Sir Inolet while working with another demon, but instead, she had a clear advantage over him with her ambush.
Naturally, Sir Inolet made good use of her ambush as well. The old knight immediately left the wounded demon to Alissa – a gesture of trust to the girl he had been training for the past months – and charged straight towards the second demon instead. The second demon was more of a defender, class and skillwise, and he was immediately put in the backfoot as Sir Inolet rushed him with full force.
Alissa continued her assault on the injured demon, attacking with what most would have considered recklessness, but was actually a calculated move on her part. Even if she traded wounds with her opponent, she could just [Respawn] at worst, while her opponent wouldn’t be able to do the same. Besides, he was already injured and desperately tried to stay alive.
Whereas Alissa lacked that need to stay alive. She knew how the math goes. Even if she traded herself to take out this one demon, it would be worth it since that would in turn free Sir Inolet to kill the other demon. Then nobody would be left to stop the old knight, one of the most powerful humans in the Kingdom, from rampaging through the demon horde at will.
As such she pushed relentlessly against her opponent, taking a few cuts to her body in exchange of landing more wounds on the already badly injured demon. Her spear lanced towards the demon at every opportunity, and she wasn’t shy about striking with her shield either, when she wasn’t using it to defend against the demon’s blade instead.
Finally, after several exchanges, Alissa spotted an opening and rushed in with her spear leading the way. This time the demon chose to fight back the same way, using his long blade to threaten to skewer her. He had seen her ignore light blows to land a blow on him, but he still believed that she wouldn’t be willing to trade life for life.
The demon hadn’t realized yet that Alissa was one of the [Heroes].
As such, she only grunted slightly and scowled from the pain even as the demon’s blade pierced through the lighter armor that covered her abdomen and out her back. At the same moment, her spear pierced straight through the demon’s throat, the broad bladed spearhead nearly decapitating the demon outright, ending his life that very moment.
The demon still had a look of disbelief in his eyes even as his body slumped down to the ground, as dead as he could be.
Alissa gritted her teeth as she pulled the blade out from her abdomen. Fortunately the odd fabric that doubled as light armor – the soulbound artifact she received before heading to the frontline – was capable of repairing itself and would naturally put pressure on her wounds, so for the time being she didn’t need to do more about her injuries.
One look to the side showed her another very dead demon, one with his whole body charred to a crisp. That was clearly Sir Inolet’s handiwork as Alissa remembered the old knight using the fire element to empower his blade earlier. The skills Sir Inolet possessed gave him a highly flexible fighting method that he could adjust to fit the situation by empowering his blade with different elements, but once he had one set, he was pretty much stuck to it until the cooldown refreshed.
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Even while she winced from the pain of her injuries, Alissa turned back and ran towards where the battle was still raging. The situation had clearly turned for the better for the human side, as she could see Sir Inolet single-handedly fighting off five of the undead abominations, including the two [Advanced Patchwork Colossus Lvl 47].
That naturally freed up the rest of Alissa’s party to take on the other abominations, with Joshua even helping out Sir Marsten and Magus Drummond against their opponents. The demons also clearly noticed that they were disadvantaged. The lookalikes sent out by the humans had clearly done their job and kept the demons doubtful as to the location of the [Heroes] and their party, so they were somewhat caught off guard to see the whole party attacking them.
Before long, another of the undead abominations made a mistake and Sir Inolet directly incinerated its whole form with one powerful blow, increasing the pressure on the remaining abominations. For the most part, the two [Advanced Patchwork Colossus Lvl 47] had taken the brunt of that pressure, clearly a higher grade than the rest, but even then they were still disadvantaged against the experienced old knight.
Alissa heard a sound reminiscent of a horn being blown, and before long she noticed that the battle lines were shifting closer to where they fought. The demons were making a fighting retreat, the ones engaged outside the camp slowly shifting into the camp or to its sides, while keeping their human opponents at bay. It was a full retreat, yet also an organized one, with the demons still maintaining cohesion instead of routing uncontrollably.
Naturally, it hadn’t escaped the eyes of the human commanders either.
While Sir Marsten – the highest commander of Fort Ixlay’s forces – was still engaged in mortal combat with his demon foe, Sir Inolet had enough leeway in his own battle to yell out commands, which exhorted the human soldiers to push harder against their foes. As their lines pressed against the retreating demon lines, weapons met with flesh and people on both sides fell, some dying on the spot.
The demons still retreated in a rather organized manner, despite all the pressure from the human side’s offense. Part of the reason was due to the narrow valley, which slowed the human army, resulting in part of their numbers still stuck on the other side or in transit. That said, the human side had a decisive advantage when it came to higher tier combatants, and it showed.
Since Alissa returned, Nadine led part of the party – Moira, Maribel, Glenn, and Osmond – to rampage across the demon lines and break their cohesion. Everyone in the group had capabilities that could match a lower leveled fourth tier, so there was nothing the demons could do to stop them. All of their own fourth tiers were already engaged at the time and unable to extricate themselves.
By the time the sun began to set, the demons were already driven away from their erstwhile encampment, their forces in full retreat, while part of the human army doggedly pursued them. The other part of the human side’s forces were cleaning up and reinforcing the demon encampment for their own use, because there was no reason to waste the already prepared camp.
The demon fourth tiers fought as long as they could to delay the human advance, realizing all too well that should the entire army take unacceptable casualties they would bear part of the blame for that. Interestingly, the people that the demons prioritized for quick evacuation were their younger higher leveled third tiers. People who stood a good chance to reach the fourth tier in their lives, or even this war.
As time went by, some of the fourth tiers started falling back, escorting the retreating demon soldiers with them. Those who fell back were all the younger fourth tiers, those with greater potential to grow further, while the older ones stayed back to delay the enemy, probably with their lives if needed. It was a pragmatic mindset, likely one forged by the endless war between the two sides.
Of course, it wasn’t as if the human side was unscathed either despite being the victors of the battle. At least four of the lower leveled fourth tiers on their side already died by the time the demons started retreating, and since then, another half dozen took injuries bad enough to force them to retreat for treatment.
The demons were selling their lives dearly, and weren’t taking no for an answer, it seemed.
What came as a surprise was when the last batch of demons were retreating – most of the ones who were staying back to block the pursuit were old demons who had pretty much already reached the highest level they would in life – the female [Great Champion] and her last abomination, the [Masterwork Chimeric Undead Titan Lvl 47], stayed with them despite the other high-level fourth tier demons retreating.
The small group fought desperately, selling their lives as dearly as they could, some even pulling off suicidal attacks just to take a human down to the grave with them at their last moment. By that point, the human side was also quite fatigued after half a day of fighting, so they couldn’t push as hard as they could earlier.
Even so, that did nothing to change the outcome. One by one, the demons fell and died. The human side fought more carefully against the [Mother of Monsters], as Alissa had told them of the champion’s class, so that they didn’t accidentally kill her. As the demon group dwindled down to just four elderly fourth tier demons and their champion, success was seemingly close at hand.
One after another, the elderly fourth tier demons showed their determination to fight to the end. One of them hurled his spear like a javelin even as Sir Inolet’s burning sword pierced through his heart, though fortunately the victim of that thrown spear happened to be Joshua, who was too tired to notice the desperate attack and died on the spot.
Another of the demons, a female mage of sorts, exploded herself, driving Sir Marsten back and injuring Magus Drummond slightly, though the old Magus was likely more bothered by his half-burnt beard rather than the slight injuries on his body. A third of the demons stabbed through Ethan’s chest with all her strength even as a blow from him crushed her head. Ethan shrugged off the injury without much reaction, though.
As for the last demon, he was the least fortunate, as he fell before he could make a desperate attack, leaving only the [Mother of Monsters] and her crippled abomination. One of the fourth tier combatants had just leapt with a length of enchanted rope in his hands, planning to subdue and secure the demon champion, when Alissa noticed the woman’s mouth vocalize a pair of words.
“[Corpse Explosion]”
The next thing they knew, a blinding flash emanated from the [Masterwork Chimeric Undead Titan Lvl 47] beneath the demon champion and a massive explosion engulfed both the abomination and the small woman, along with everything near it.