Chapter 83 – Market Warfare

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Simplified Status Page

Name: Reiklin

Race: Human Thrall

Class: Wind Ranger

Level: 148

HP: 153/220

MP: 0/354

SP: 304/320

DP: 1/1

Skills: Bows**(lvl. 291), Snipe Shot* (lvl. 130),

Wind Runner: Rushing Volley* (lvl. 121)(Sacred Art),

Wind Runner: Empower Arrow, Take Flight* (lvl. 114)(Air),

Flight of the Feather* (lvl. 109)(Wind), Light Armor^^^^ (lvl. 46),

Wind Runner: Empower Arrow, Tornado^^^ (lvl. 37)(Air),

Tracking^^^^^^^ (lvl. 70), Hawk’s Eye^^^^^ (lvl. 52)(Sacred Art),

Air Jump^^^^^^ (lvl. 61)(Air), Small Blades^^ (lvl. 23), First Aid^ (lvl. 11),

Cooking^ (lvl. 11)

Traits: Sharpshooter, Loner, Trey Bon’s Minion

Magical Attributes: Air

Opinion of you: Grateful

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Control Limit Slots: 15 of 17 used.

Trey’s Minions:

* Napoleon, Primal Imp, Level 18 (1 slot)(Admired)

* Talsh’Noc’Un, Sword of Ruin, Living Weapon (1 slot)(Content)(Thirsting Level 1)

* Atharost, Ifrit, Level 41 (1 slot)(Very Friendly)

* Rivia Ahst, Culn, Level 24 (1 slot)(Forever Indebted)

* Piggy, High Elf Thrall, Level 1 (1 slot)(Infatuated)

* Karus, Dwarf Thrall, Level 36, (1 slot)(Liked)

* Juila, Human Thrall, Level 1 (1 slot)(Subservient)

* Toady, Oblivion Toad, Level 39 (2 slots)(Unsatisfied and Angry)

* Lil-Daddy, Minotaur, Level 41 (1 slot)(Disliked)

* Fat-Daddy, Minotaur, Level 45 (1 slot)(Disliked)

* Cow-Daddy, Minotaur, Level 59 (2 slots)(Disliked)

* Reiklin, Human Thrall, Level 148 (2 slots)(Grateful)

Trey didn’t know how to tell between magic suppression collars and normal iron ones, but he definitely felt the difference when he let go of Reiklin’s face and made contact with the metal around his neck. Trey felt mana beginning to drain away from him in a similar way that had been done to him when he’d been imprisoned in that dungeon many months ago…

It now felt like a lifetime had passed since then.

He noted that although Reiklin’s status page confirmed he was in the positive category concerning an opinion of him, he was still at 2 control slots… was that supposed to happen? He’d been under the impression that anyone who liked him wouldn’t take up more than one because the willpower exerted over them was less than that of someone who’s mind struggled against the contract’s bonds.

Apparently Reiklin’s level discrepancy was just too large though. After all, he was over 100 levels ahead of Trey…

But that only made him all the more eager to see what Reiklin could do. He just had to remember that Reiklin was a backline fighter… he’d been captured because people had gotten in close - or so went the story Ronnie had told during the auction earlier that day. “Did you find the key, Napoleon?”

The imp, still scavenging coins and loot off the dead men, shook his head no. “I no no find keys.”

Reiklin coughed and scooted back further against the cage to straighten up his back. “Ronnie will have the keys… him or his second in command. No one else. I hope you have another way...”

Trey scowled and snapped his fingers at Ashe. “Get him out of these chains.”

Ashe nodded and pulled out a lock pick, quickly going to work with nimble fingers. Her lockpicking level was pretty low though and her experience matched the level, so it took her a couple minutes to get the shackles around the feet alone. Then she still had the wrists and the collar to go.

“I’m working as fast as I can!” Ashe said under her breath when she caught Trey’s nervous glance minutes later.

He didn’t bother saying anything, but kept looking Napoleon’s way as the imp kept watch at the gate. Time was against them, and the other patrols would come to see what these dead men had been doing soon enough.

The second lock clicked and the shackles around Reiklin’s wrists were free. Rubbing the sore spots the metal had created and giving Ashe a nod of thanks, he anxiously awaited Ashe’s third try. Unfortunately, the lockpick broke with a snap. Swearing and throwing the broken pieces to the ground Ashe tried again, succeeding upon the next attempt with another pick.

“Take us with you! Please!”

Trey turned around to the whispers of a desperate middle-aged man in plain brown clothes and a balding head. He was in the same cage as Reiklin but had seen far less abuse.

Name: Peasant Man

Race: Human

Class: Farmer

Level: 2

HP: 100/100

MP: 0/0

SP: 100/100

DP: 1/1

Trey raised an eyebrow and shook his head, apathetically holding out both hands. “Sorry. We’re running out of time and I came here for new thralls… you’re not a fighter and would be useless to me.”

Trey’s eyes shifted to the women in the other cages nearby. He still had to collect some of them for his up-and-coming brothel, but he was running out of time and wasn’t sure he’d want to stay much longer.

“Please!” whispered the farmer frantically, his eyes growing desperate as he tried to break away from the chains binding him. “I will serve you well! I do not wish to die here! Soon they will kill me and feed me to their dogs, I have gone through the auction 8 times already!”

Reiklin got up gingerly from his sitting position, loving the feeling of being free from his chains as Ashe dropped the metal collar to the ground. He let out a sigh of relief and stretched his muscles, wincing due to the poor shape his body was in after the torture and abuse. “What is your name?”

Reiklin was addressing Trey.

He turned away from the farmer and gestured to himself with a thumb at his chest. “My name is Trey. You can also call me master. Either works.”

“Please!” The farmer was begging again, this time more loudly. Another slave, a peasant girl in her late teens or early twenties, put her face to the bars of the next cage over. A green-skinned goblin, a couple of elves, and some more human peasants in all without clothes were looking his way with hope on the horizon and holding their breath in anticipation.

There was one though that sat as far back in the corner of the cage he was currently in and had a look of revulsion upon her. She was a priestess of some sort, Trey wasn’t sure exactly what type - but he’d seen that same look on other orders who worshipped gods unrelated to the Infernal crowns. Demons were evil to them, and it was highly unlikely this woman wanted anything to do with him.

The farmer began to grovel, throwing himself at Trey’s feet through the bars. “I’m begging you, summoner… please. Take us with you. Take ME with you!”

Ashe shook her head when he gave her a glance. “I don’t have time to pick all these locks, we’ll be caught for sure.”

From the back of the adjacent cage, a dark-skinned African-appearing man raised his head. He was young, and a little on the shorter side but his musculature was quite defined. After listening to them talk and seeing the events unfold – he thought he’d have something to say. “You, demihuman girl. Pass me one of the picks, and I will help you. Not only that, but I will be in your debt.”

Ashe gave the man a sideways glance. “You know how to pick locks? And… you do realize that we’re here for thralls right?”

The young man grinned mischievously. “I’m a professional thief. They keep me locked up in this pen with that archer because it’s closer to the center of the compound, and they don’t want me getting out. You’ll find that most of the more valuable slaves are kept in the inner pens… As for being a thrall – it is a better fate than being dead. They intend to sell me to the gladiator pits, and I am no fighter…”

“So you’re not a rogue then?”

“I said I was a thief. I have the thief class, it is completely different than the rogue class. You should know this, being a rogue yourself.”

Ashe paused. “I’ve never seen anyone with the ‘thief’ class before.”

The man gave her a wide grin. “That comes with the class. How do you think people would react if they identified someone and saw that we were registered as thieves? Wouldn’t be good for business. Our class is able to temporarily adjust itself to people who would identify us – giving us fake identification pages. Let me out, and I will show you.”

Ashe raised an eyebrow, then slowly turned to Trey. “Have you heard of this before?”

Trey just shrugged. “No, I haven’t. Not of the thief class anyways, but I have heard of some people being able to fake status pages. Anyways, we need to hurry. Give him the pick, it won’t hurt us to let him try.”

Ashe gave a brief nod, opened up a pouch and produced another pick. Tossing it through the bars over to the self-proclaimed thief, it landed in his hands – and he immediately went to work on his own shackles.

But then Trey had another idea… one fueled by greed and self-interest more than anything else. The men here could be used as cannon fodder for the upcoming fight.

“... Also, we’re going to kill Ronnie anyways.” Trey motioned over to the slaves still locked away. “We could use some help. How about we have them fight alongside us, we can lure Ronnie out into a choke point near our reinforcements and numbers won’t matter as much there. Reiklin, if we gave you an opportunity to take a shot would you be able to nail him when you saw him?”

Reiklin’s eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed all along his nude frame. His jawline clenched and he closed his eyes just momentarily. “Yes. Give me the shot, and he’s a dead man. I just need a bow.”

Ashe held out a crossbow for Reiklin to take, but the wind ranger declined.

“I mean a real bow, not a crossbow. I’m not accustomed to using those.”

Ashe shrugged helplessly and looked around, not finding any such weapons on the men they’d killed earlier. “Well it looks like we’re shit out of luck then. Should I get started on the other slaves?”

Trey gave her a thumbs up. “Get as many as you can before the next patrol arrives. I’m going to-”

His words were cut short as the sound of an alarm bell rang across the compound from where he’d first killed those men at the table.

Fuck.

Ashe and Trey exchanged nervous glances and lights began to appear within the barracks as candles, lanterns and torches were promptly lit. Napoleon raced over from the gate and started swatting at his legs like a madman, pointing to the gate frantically with his ears flat against his head.

“They they moving fast!”

He heard Izumi’s cannon go off with a thunderous boom and resultant screams as the projectile plowed through bodies, metal and wood in a spray of debris he could see even from where he stood.

“They’re fighting?!” Trey exclaimed incredulously. “What the fuck!? Why are they fighting!?”

“I don’t know, but we don’t have time!” Ashe grabbed Trey’s wrist with one hand and began to pull. “Let’s get out of here now!”

Neither of them saw that thief disappear from the cage and out of sight, but the dark-skinned man gave a brief glance over his shoulder, a salute, and a grin; before nimbly climbing and hopping over the side of the wooden pen walls.

Swearing to himself amidst the sudden yells and begging pleas from the prisoners, Trey gave Atharost a single direct order through the master-minion link. ‘Burn it all down.’

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Not even a second later and Trey saw an inferno bloom into life above the wakening encampment, and with a malicious cackle they could all hear where they were hundreds of feet below - they saw Atharost give it his all. The ifrit poured almost half of all the mana he had into a downpour of flame along with Boxamoth that came out to join him. Torrents of fire rocketed downwards, and to Trey’s surprise the ifrit didn’t go for the ones fighting Izumi… instead, Atharost targeted the barracks.

The two-story wooden building stood no chance as the entire thing was engulfed in flames within seconds. Screams of horror and pain raced skywards as Napoleon continued to rain hell down onto the unfortunate victims still inside. From the sheer number of notifications he was getting, Atharost had already killed many dozens if not more within a very short time.

Very nice, as to be expected from a greater class demon. Now Trey had time to buy with two separate distractions going on. Hoping that his heavy hitters he’d left behind would be able to protect Izumi and Rivia in the backline, he focused on the more immediate dilemma at hand.

“We don’t have time to unlock them, but the element of surprise is gone anyways, right?!” Trey drew out his greatsword and chaos mana flared to life along the blade. Grinning stupidly Ashe’s way, he raised it into the air. “Time to cut through some chains!”

Trey’s assumption that Talsh’Noc’Un could handle these bindings was on the money. He didn’t bother on cutting their shackles, but only focused on cutting the chains holding the slaves down to their cages. 16 more slaves were quickly cut out of their cells and directed to follow Ashe, though their shackles he’d left due to time constraints along the feet and wrists made them unable to run fast or move appropriately. A couple of the men were still given weapons off the dead mercenaries Trey’d kill not long ago even despite this.

Many of the slaves thanked him profusely as they rushed out to follow Ashe and Napoleon back the way they’d come with Atharost giving them aerial support as they went. The barracks was nothing but a bonfire now but the screams all around the encampment and the clash of weapons were heard at different points in multiple directions.

“Master, are you coming?” Reiklin was still waiting for him after he’d cut the last slave out of the cage. It’d been the priestess who was now unmoving and holding herself back against the cage in dread, unwilling to come along and cursing at Trey for being a demon worshiper.

He wasn’t going to leave her behind though, she was a commodity. He walked back inside the cage and slammed her head against the metal bars to daze her. Her protests ceased somewhat but not entirely, so he did it again. Blood trickled down the woman’s head and she slumped forward, but he was certain he hadn’t killed her. Metal chains clanked against each other as he threw her over his shoulder and turned around to leave.

Racing out of the slave pen with Reiklin on his heels, he didn’t go far before meeting a group of mercs rushing past. They saw him in the torchlight and stopped, pointing out at him and screaming something indecipherable back from where they’d come before two chaos balls exploded into them and ripped them apart.

“You have gained XP.”

Or at least, ripped most of them apart. There, standing in the dust and atop the smoldering ground, was Ronnie the Auctioneer; mage robes singed with flame and a very bad burn across the left side of his face. His features were contorted in rage and the purple arcane shield he’d constructed last second to save himself was put down just as he returned fire with neon-purple energy projectiles.

Trey ducked and rolled, barely avoiding the first one and putting up the priestess he was carrying to block the second. The mana tore into the slave, leaving a seared hole the size of a basketball in her upper back and killing her on the spot as her internal organs burned away.

“SUMMONER!!!” the scrawny irate mage screamed as he prepared another attack. “I’LL HAVE YOUR HEAD!!!”

Cursing his luck and shoving the dead woman to the side, Trey opened his mouth and breathed hellfire as his features changed into a demon’s again. The corridor was flooded with deep red flame, purging Ronnie’s reinforcements as they rounded the corner and making the mage construct another arcane barrier to block the attack.

“You have gained XP.”

Immediately Trey shadowstepped behind the mage, swinging Talsh’Noc’Un around in an arc to direct it into his opponent’s back when Ronnie blink-stepped away a few yards to the left. Trey’s swing cut through nothing but air and left him open for yet another attack where Ronnie sent bolts of purple lightning directly into Trey’s chest.

Trey spasmed, losing nearly half his HP in one go and gasping for breath as he dropped Talsh’Noc’Un. He hadn’t expected that kind of firepower. Large gaping holes were showing across his body and he had a bleeding status effect flashing in his HUD.

His rage bar immediately spiked to 66% and everything went red. Pain reduction, insanity and damage bonuses all skyrocketed, and Trey instinctively let out a roar of the banshee.

“You have gained 1 level in the skill Roar of the Banshee.”

Grinning in victory and cursing his opponent for what he thought to be the final time, Ronnie lifted his hands to summon the arcane mana. To his immense surprise nothing happened, and it was then that he realized he was silenced.

Panic overtook the mage as Trey burst into action, leaping forward to clear the distance and bringing his greatsword down. Ronnie barely managed to dodge the attack but tripped over a piece of debris that’d broken off one of the wooden stakes, fear evident in the firelight of his burning estate.

“WAIT!” the scrawny mage shrieked just as Trey’s tail whipped around and impaled his left eye. The mage reeled back, screaming as Trey’s insane laughter engulfed Ronnie’s world. Ronnie thrashed around on the ground, trying to pull the tail out as Trey’s demonic appendage wriggled its way further into Ronnie’s skull.

Ronnie desperately continued to try and pull the demon tail out of his face to no avail. The mage’s remaining eye began to bulge with another scream of horror and then popped from its socket as the tail exited the other side and yanked - sending chunks of skull splattering across the dirt pathway and leaving Ronnie dead on the ground without half his face.

“You have completed the quest: Kill the Auctioneer, and have completed the side quest of making Ronnie’s death brutal. You have gained XP. You have gained 1 level in the skill Aspect of the Devil: Tail. You have gained 3 overall levels. You have gained Reiklin’s absolute devotion, Reiklin’s opinion of you has improved from ‘Grateful’ to ‘Devoted.’ You have gained Eleknar’s favor and an immediately usable minion evolution stone that you may apply to any one minion of your choice. This evolutionary stone has been placed within your shadowform storage compartment.”

Trey continued cackling and didn’t stop. There was no stopping this. Everything was so fucking funny he just couldn’t bring himself to do anything BUT laugh. Instinctively, he knew this was the insanity creeping in… the one his class was responsible for, but for some reason - he was still able to think clearly despite this. His mind was like a steel trap even despite the urges to rush forward into battle, he felt smarter and quick-witted beyond anything he’d experienced before. It was almost as if he’d taken a stimulant, and the rush it gave him… was amazing.

He could feel Sithis in the back of his mind spurring him on to great heights of euphoria as he turned his attention to the fighting across the compound.

His friends were there. They were fighting for their lives… and taking all the fun!

Talsh’Noc’Un activated Berserk, sending him into even more of a frenzy on top of what his climbing rage bar was doing to him.

Berserk: Tremendously increases aggression. Vast but temporary increase to

strength, speed, dexterity, intelligence, and faith. +180 to full body

physical and magic resistance. Immune to all debuffs. Lasts until out of

combat. Cooldown: Long

Hellfire seethed out of his mouth with every breath he took and veins along his arms and legs bulged. He felt tougher, stronger, and wanted to kill something right fucking now. With a crazed roar he didn’t even bother to follow the path but instead blew away the wooden wall of stakes with a blow from his greatsword and tore through to the other side with Reiklin hot on his heels in a mixture of complete glee that Ronnie was now dead - and concern about Trey’s obviously off mental status.

Ignoring the cages of slaves and coming to the next wall - he tore through that one as well, sending wood and debris flying across his path before stepping into the next alley. He did this again twice over, ignoring the pathways and barreling through the compound while demolishing everything in his way until he bulldozed right into the fight.

His devastating blow to the last wooden wall startled most of the people there, and they couldn’t react fast enough to get out of his way - some of them taking the brunt of the impact due to debris or chaos magic from his blade. Numerous enemies died right on the spot.

Over 50 more mercenary soldiers were wedged into a chokepoint as they tried to get out at the three much-larger minotaurs standing their ground in the front, many of these mercenaries being afflicted with pestilence from Rivia and screaming or writhing in pain while they tried to push forward. The healers on the merc side just couldn’t keep up with all of the afflicted in the meantime as it spread upon contact, and were doing their best to keep the frontline alive.

Karus the dwarf lay dead on the ground with numerous smoldering craters where lightning had struck him repeatedly, the minotaurs had numerous wounds similar to those but also had many arrows sticking out of their bodies. Rivia was doing her best to heal them as well but it was a losing battle, and she’d just finished using immortal’s infernal blessing as the orange light of immortality faded away from the biggest minotaur: Cow-Daddy.

Trey oriented himself to the situation, so caught up in his want to kill and with so many targets to pick from that he was having a hard time choosing which way to go. Then he noticed something odd even despite his mindset. The ground underneath him went pitch black even in the light of the fires around them, spreading out like a thin blanket of darkness. As the ground changed, the mercenaries standing on it began to take dark damage with tiny sporadic flares of green or black energy erupting from their skin and also becoming a little bit more sluggish. Rivia was putting her new weapon: ‘Shepherd’s Black Crucifix’ staff to good use:

Field of Agony: Plant this staff into the ground and say the words ‘Field of Agony’ for this effect to occur. Once done, an area with a radius of 70 yards surrounding you will darken and the ground will turn black. Those you view as enemies will take 0.05% Dark damage to total health every second they remain on the blackened ground and are also given a minor fatigue debuff. No MP or DP cost to use, long cooldown and may be interrupted if the staff loses contact with the ground.

It would take about 33 minutes for Field of Agony to take all 100% HP for any target on the area of effect, but it was still continuous and painful percentage damage that affected everyone standing on it simultaneously. It also stacked with Rivia’s pestilence miracle nicely, as her pestilence spread like crazy amidst the clumped up bodies.

Despite the overwhelming odds, the three large demons on the frontline were putting in real work. They were significantly tougher than the ones Trey’d fought in Oblivion. Over two dozen enemies lay dead at their feet, while the minotaurs stood swinging large axes and a warhammer in long arcs to keep the foremost of their enemies away. Wounds that the foremost of the mercenaries received were being healed by priests and paladins in the back, with the few mages they had firing off lightning spells.

But with Trey’s recent arrival, they were now targeting him. A bolt of lightning struck him across the face, but the berserk ability from his greatsword nullified most of the damage. Fortunately Trey had come upon their backline, and none of them had expected to be flanked in such a manner.

Not through the goddamn wall.

With another scream of glee and having finally decided which way to go after the attack landed, he activated Talsh’Noc’Un’s obliterate ability. He filled his sword with as much mana as he could muster in the short time from bringing it over his head to make contact, screaming like a madman as he did.

The man in front of him held up his hands to try and block it and screamed out, but the bones and flesh of his body were cut through like butter in a whirlwind of black and crimson energy. The chaos bolts and flames discharged, carving into the densely packed masses that had already been afflicted with Rivia’s Pestilence and Field of Agony.

He instantly killed well over twenty of them with this single blow.

Trey then felt something try to pierce his left calf, but the sword’s berserk ability gave him enough of a defensive bonus that the blade merely bounced off his skin and a minor HP decrease. Comparably, Trey’s skin now had a defensive bonus that was significantly stronger than many of the steel plate armors he’d encountered.

The attack on him had been rather weak, but it still enraged Trey even further. He whirled around, seeing the hooded man responsible for his attack go down screaming under a dagger to the eye socket as Reiklin stabbed into his skull repeatedly. From beyond them he saw Ashe, Napoleon and some of the slaves they’d freed fighting with the mercs as best they could - but many of the slaves were dying like flies and the only ones doing any real damage were the members of his team.

Despite his crazed mindset, a peaking rage bar, and significant kill to death ratio between the two sides, he could tell this was still a losing battle. All about them was a madhouse and enemy reinforcements were still pouring in. At this point though, he just wanted to rip things apart and feast on their flesh.

Again, a blooming explosion of flame erupted into the crowd from overhead where Atharost and Boxamoth were raining down fire into their enemies and loving every second of it.

Trey’s notifications for both himself and his minions were going wild, and he didn’t hesitate any longer to charge into the gap created by his obliterate attack. Chaos balls preceded him and exploded to decimate even more before he made a push with wide carving arcs that took out enemies left and right. Mercs tried to strike back at him and succeeded more than once, but many of the attacks glanced off his body thanks to the berserk ability Talshy had bestowed upon him.

Another of his minions went down - one of the minotaurs died with a spear severing its spine. Choking on its own blood and letting out a final wail as he crashed to the ground, Rivia was not able to keep its health bar above zero. The minion’s name and bars all grayed out on Trey’s HUD.

Lil-Daddy the minotaur was dead, joining Karus in the afterlife.

A loud boom, a blur of motion, and a rush of air preceded the explosion right next to him.

He was thrown back along with a mass of body parts and dead mercenaries as Izumi’s ripper cannon launched another missile into the fray. He got up, slightly disoriented and ears ringing but also laughing like a maniac when he saw the devastation.

She’d almost hit him, but she hadn’t, and in the process had taken out another seven enemies in a split second. Izumi had perched herself atop one of the nearby buildings with that strange metal backpack and the cylindrical metal cannon folded over her shoulder, support beams planted to reduce recoil. She had a good shot to cover their retreat without potentially hitting her allies, and he managed to see her give him a thumbs up from above.

God damn.

He saw a barbed tongue shoot out of the darkness, impale an enemy archer through the lower back and pull the man back screaming into an open maw of his camouflaged oblivion toad. The demon chomped down a couple times, bones snapping and cracking under the pressure to end the man’s screams as Toady swallowed. After the toad’s attack was done it did it again, and again, eating one after the other of these unfortunate assholes who’d been stupid enough to get in Trey’s way.

Yes… this was fun.

Trey met the remaining two minotaurs in the middle, carving up in sprays of blood and body parts what was left of the mercenary group between them with Rivia’s healing constantly putting them back out of death’s grasp. Without her... all the minotaurs would have been dead long ago, and they looked like partially fried pincushions more than demons at this point.

‘As much as I am enjoying this, we must go.’ Sithis’ voice was a clear bell amidst the maddening torrent of bloodlust in Trey’s mind, and it took his symbiote a couple tries to get through to him but eventually it worked.

Trey looked over his shoulder where Atharost and Boxamoth were still blasting the mercenary groups with fire to support Ashe and the slaves, but they were running out of mana and their attacks had slowed down.

More slaves had joined them. Trey didn’t know how or when, but they still weren’t fighters and were all still shackled at the wrists and ankles - making it even harder to do combat. The enslaved men had taken up whatever weapons they could from the dead, even using their chains as whips, and were doing their best... but dying fast. The women had meanwhile moved into a corner to avoid the confrontation, akin to deer caught in the headlights.

The shrapnel bomb Ashe had taken from Izumi went off, killing another three enemies instantly and injuring more in an abrupt spray of sharp metal shards as it was chucked over the frontlines into the oncoming reinforcements.

Reinforcements again? Where the hell were all these guys coming from? Hadn’t Atharost torched their barracks? How many of these assholes had they killed already?

Trey swore silently to himself as arrows abruptly rocketed out from behind him in quick succession, each of them killing their intended targets with uncanny accuracy. Reiklin had finally found a bow and was unloading with unbelievable speed, one arrow after another rapid-firing into the enemy crowd.

More of them still came.

Karus was dead. One of his minotaurs was dead. Rivia was at 5/76 Divinity Points and could only cast a few more miracles before she’d be useless - at which point they’d have to depend on potions.

“This… is not winnable…” Trey muttered as his sanity returned. “We need to leave.”

He set his resolve and rushed ahead, trying to get to Ashe and succeeding a couple seconds later. She was firing off bolt after bolt from behind the frontline and had just activated her Scatter miracle, sending multitudes of images looking exactly like herself in all directions to distract the enemy. Many of the mercs took the bait, firing and swinging at nothing but illusions to give Trey’s side valuable seconds of time.

He grabbed her shoulder and swung her around. “We are leaving. Let the slaves die in our stead, they can hold our enemies off while we escape.”

She gave him a curt nod, but there were tears in her eyes. “Napoleon…”

She pointed further back, and Trey’s heart sunk when he saw it. His little imp, his friend, was laying lifeless in a pool of his own blood on the ground. Trey’s mouth dropped open involuntarily and a pit in his stomach began to grow. All that talk about how they were just NPCs was meaningless to him now in this moment, and an incredible sadness unlike anything he’d felt in a very long time crept across his consciousness.

What the fuck? He’d never heard the notification about Napoleon’s death… but then again, he’d been in a state of manic rage.

He tried to speak, but couldn’t... until Ashe pushed him back the way he’d come. She yelled at the few slaves who were able to follow, mostly women who’d removed themselves from the fighting as best they could, and began to run.

Trey ran with her, bending down to pick up Napoleon’s little body and trying not to cry as he sprinted ahead with another blast from Izumi’s cannon ripping through another cluster of enemies.

He nearly bumped into Reiklin on the way out. He was obsessively firing into the crowd with everything he had and had laid out well over twenty people by this point.

“Reiklin, we’re leaving. Let’s go.”

He gave Trey a sideways glance after letting loose another arrow, then looked out to where the others were gathering. The minotaurs had already left and were ripping out the arrows and javelins from their bodies. Rivia was completely out of DP by this point and couldn’t cast even if she wanted to. Ashe had led less than a dozen slaves away into the darkness and Izumi was getting down from her perch to hop onto Trey’s oblivion toad.

All that was left were Atharost, Boxamoth, and a quickly dwindling number of panicking slaves who’d been left behind and were just now realizing this.

The young redheaded man, Reiklin, gave a nod. “Then let me finish off with this.”

Pulling back on his scavenged bow and taking in a deep breath, he focused on his last strike. The air about him began to ripple and sway, and as he let loose - a torrent of air mana caused the arrow to explode forward.

It ripped through the clumped-up slaves and mercenaries fighting one another in a whirlwind of power, a temporary tornado literally appearing from the arrow’s path and flinging the crowded men sky high to land to their untimely deaths or blew them up across the compound to land in crumpled heaps. Others simply died because they were too close to the arrow’s trajectory and their bodies couldn’t handle the wind pressure, exploding as the arrow got near.

What was left was a bloodied mass of torn flesh, wood and ground that led out in a straight line for over a hundred yards.

Still, there were more enemies coming. Only God knew from where.

With that - Reiklin left the battle behind, following Trey’s lead as he and his crew disappeared into the dark of the night.