Chapter 30.1 - The Battle for Vork

‘Shit.’

That was the first word that came to Sithis’ mind and was repeated numerous times by Trey’s own thoughts as he looked at... probably another 70, maybe 75 enemies in front of him. He saw some of the bodies lying about, noticing that there were mages in teal robes amongst the dead as well as those from the group of the poorer-looking people who knelt or sat in chains.

Beside him and exiting Oblivion through the green mana portal on his right came Napoleon, the imp giddily jumping on over and exiting the green with a startled stop once he saw everything there. Atharost came on Trey’s left, and as the living bonfire pushed through and exited to stop next to his master - the greater class demon pulsed even more brightly in challenge to the new threat.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Insects…” Atharost growled, flipping his flickering tail back and forth. He was itching for a fight, awaiting Trey’s signal to charge headlong and incinerate everything that moved.

That would have been a bad idea though. Trey knew it. There were too many enemies to handle, but even with numbers on the enemy’s side... the culn and cultists took a step back almost in unison when they saw the ifrit.

The two groups just stared at each other, not knowing what to say or do until Rivia made an appearance. She’d lagged behind the others, being in the back and healing from afar and as she stepped out of the green liquid wall she came to a stop next to Napoleon.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “Wench!” one of the culn officers called out after seeing she was one of his own people. He drew an ebony sword and looked anxiously, even angrily between her and the others that had just come out. “What is the meaning of this? Why is Captain Xhawhan’s head laying at my feet and who are these other demons you present yourself with? Speak!”

You could cut the tension in the air with a knife.

Rivia looked over to Trey and then to Atharost, both men not paying any attention to her and looking ahead at the crowd of enemies and chained prisoners. She nervously gripped a small steel dirk she had picked up off a corpse on the way, and said a small prayer to Alkir. Quickly coming up with a mediocre plan to get them all alive, she did her best to put on a calm expression and began to spout bullshit.

[Ancient Demon Dialect] “There has been a coup.”

It was a longshot. The demon lord presiding over the territories these culn lived in was powerful with few enemies strong enough to dethrone him and they all knew it. Rivia was banking on the fact that she was a culn as well, and that they’d trust the words she spoke for it. The real story was much more unlikely anyways, and if she even had told them the truth they’d call her a liar and try to kill her. So this was the best she had.

Adorek, the old dark haired cultist leader, frowned immediately. “A coup? Has Lord Aahdexiz been killed?”

Adorek was shoved out of the way by the original culn officer to address the girl. “You lie! Where is the proof in your words? I do not know of any who would enlist an imp into their army!”

Rivia scowled and protectively picked Napoleon up. Her voice became stern and it grew in volume to feign confidence. “This imp is my personal pet, so watch your tone, underling! You should know that you speak to a woman of noble blood, pledged High Priestess of the dark goddess Alkir, praise be unto her! Unless you want my slaves here to take your heads, unless you want me to retract the offer of allegiance I was going to give you, you will remain QUIET!”

The officer’s jaw dropped for a second and he recovered himself soon after. He eyed Napoleon, then the ifrit, and the… he didn’t know what the other one was. His identification skill wasn’t good enough to figure it out either. If what the girl spoke was true about being of noble birth, or even a high priestess, then the officer had every reason to believe that she would have slaves. An ifrit slave though… Now that was a rarity. He had to tread carefully, because if this woman was right and there was another army on the other side of this gate backing her... then he’d be a fool not to switch allegiances.

“I would have heard of an ifrit slave if there had been such a thing!” the culn soldier called out, weapon still in hand but now looking a little less certain. “Also, what type of creature do you possess that holds the large sword? I have not seen the likes of him before and am unable to identify him.”

“His information page says he’s human...” Adorek muttered before he was swiftly backhanded by the officer for interrupting. “I can’t get a read on his class though. At his level, he shouldn’t be this hard to identify… How strange.”

Rivia had heard the cultist loud and clear, and she rolled with it without skipping a beat as she became more confident in her story’s ability to work. “His name is Trey. He is a prized human, yes, but he is a longstanding experiment of my house. We have been using human slaves that please us and manipulating them with black magics, trying to make them more… like us. As a reward for their faithfulness. Forgive me, but that is all I can tell you about him.”

This piqued the interest of the culn soldiers and cultists alike, with murmuring spreading between their ranks instantly.

Just like Rivia had expected. The cultists that supplied her people with slaves were focused on one thing: power. Though the culn themselves only had a few talented mages and soldiers in their arsenal, their master Lord Aahdexiz was a species of greater demon called a ‘Hellspawned Devastator,’ and was much more knowledgeable than the culn he ruled over.

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“Trey, please remove your mask. Show them that you are one of them, and what they have to gain by joining us over their previous lord.” Rivia said loudly, commandingly, as Trey looked slowly over her way.

She was afraid that Trey would be mad, that he’d strike her like he had in the fortress she’d called home. However, the look he gave her wasn’t one of anger over giving him a commandment, but of amusement. He was smiling.

“Of course, mistress.” Trey stated in the demonic tongue and bowed to her, commanding the infernal mask and jaws along with the claws to fade away and reveal his more human features. These cultists, who craved power more than anything, began to mutter more loudly once his mask disappeared to reveal his human face. His eyes were still glowing red centers surrounded by black he still had the horns and tail, but he definitely looked human otherwise.

“They are tricking us.” one of the prominent cultists in the group said stepping forward from Trey’s right. The guy was gaunt, frail looking and very pale with a hood covering his head. He pointed to the ground and summoned a demon to his side the same way Trey did with his own demons, but the summoning was somehow a lot faster and it surprised Trey to see the spell so efficient or that someone else had the same abilities that he did.

The demon that was summoned - Trey was unfamiliar with. It looked like a slightly bigger, more muscular version of a panther with six legs and red scales along its body. A frill around its neck was colored shades of orange and yellow, and the eyes looked like solid green gemstones.

Trey immediately understood why the man could use that ability when his identification page popped up alongside his minion’s, and Trey began to worry. They both seemed strong.

Name: Cultist

Race: Human

Class: Warlock

Level: 21

HP: ???, MP: ???, SP: ???, DP: ???

Name: Oblivion Striker

Race: Oblivion Striker, Beast/Demon

Class: ???

Level: 20

HP: ???, MP: ???, SP: ???, DP: ???

Thankfully, as Trey went around the group identifying the other people there, he found that for the most part they were much weaker than the speaker and ranged from levels 3 to 18. This was aside from their leader who was level 23, and the three ebony-wearing culn officers who were levels 19, 19 and 27. Regardless… Trey wasn’t going to be able to beat all of them. He was a lowly level 9, even if he did have a ton of buffs from that essence he’d bonded to. Even if he did have 3 minions helping him… a fight was going to be beyond tough.

The challenging cultist continued to glower at Trey after letting his words sink in, stepping forward warily and letting his hands drop into a position where he could cast aimed spells with ease.

“This man is an infernal summoner!” he shouted out, pointing to Trey and looking around at his fellow cultists. The prisoners just listened intently, waiting for what was going to happen and cowering in hopes they wouldn’t get caught in a crossfire.

“For those of you who can, identify him and see for yourselves! I believe it is likely that these are his minions!”

Trey’d been called out and the tension was building. Even though being an infernal summoner didn’t necessarily mean that these other demons with him were his, the question looming over the onlookers was: where were his minions, if not here?

His heart started to beat faster and he began to hold his breath, but he remained outwardly calm as the cultist began to try and persuade his fellows of the truth. Then… he saw something out of the corner of his eye. Far out on the edge of the village in the cover of trees. He couldn’t make out exactly what it was, but he could have sworn he saw movement.

“There is no army!” The gaunt cultist scoffed arrogantly as some of the others began to draw weapons or prepare magics. Firebolts, condensed electrical discharges, dark orbs and various other magics soon started popping up to aim at Trey. “LET US KILL THE SUMMONER AND CLAIM HIS-”

Atharost’s torrent of a fireblast nearly roasted the man alive, but the warlock was able to bring up a barrier of dark mana just before the attack connected. It hadn’t been constructed in time to save his feet though. The impact boiled the man’s skin, and the warlock began screaming as he fell while the earth underneath him was singed black.

In an instant, all hell broke loose.

“GET BACK!” Trey screamed as he let loose two simultaneous chaos balls to the right and left just as an electric bolt slammed into him. He dropped, stunned by the electric shock while numerous magics were exchanged between Trey’s minions and the closest of the cultists. Immediately he felt Rivia’s hands grab ahold of him and pulling him back towards the gate. Meanwhile Napoleon let loose firebolts as fast as he could, barely dodging a shard of ice that would have impaled him one second earlier - only to have another shard of ice strike Napoleon right between the eyes.

The little imp fell dead to the ground, stopping the demon’s absurd barrage of insults in their tracks.

“Your minion Napoleon has been killed.” the mechanical voice of the All Spirit said.

Screams erupted all about them as Atharost shot skywards and started raining down fire blasts while cackling like a madman. The ifrit simultaneously placed a ‘Wall of Flames’ spell many times Trey’s standing height inbetween their group on the ground and the cultists, obscuring vision and letting Trey have a way out into the village on the right-hand side.

“Let’s go!” Rivia yelled while straining to try and half-drag half-pull Trey across the opening left by Atharost, but she gave up halfway amidst the screams on the other side of the flames when she realized Trey was just too heavy. Rocketing magics whizzed a few feet overhead coming through the wall of flames as the two lay close to the ground.

“You must get up or we will all die!” Rivia yelled, channeling a Rejuvenation miracle on Atharost while concentrating on his figure flying overhead. Atharost was racing about at high speed and dodging numerous magical attacks while doing it, by far outclassing his enemies on the ground and keeping most of them preoccupied while he burned many of them alive.

Trey’s vision was still blurry, but he managed to shake it off and coughed twice before righting himself. The wall of flames in front of them was beginning to die out, the flames were creeping lower and were less intense than they had been just a couple seconds earlier.

“FIRE AT WILL!”

The cry came from the woods on the village’s edge where Trey had seen movement not long ago. A moment later and screams erupted from all around the village, and arrows soared overhead amidst a roar of battlecries right into the bodies of numerous cultists.