Their march towards the final battle of the war between humanity and demons was a hurried, wild thing. The Mercenary King wasn’t hurt during the whole debacle with the king, but he was definitely left with something to prove.
As such, the pace he set was at the limit of what his cards could help the army withstand. Rowan and the other epic tiers had little trouble, of course. But any lower level rare tiers were visibly starting to struggle when the march was finally called to a halt some three days after they’d set out.
Oh, they’d had several rests along the way, but even with them accounted for, the soldiers had only gotten around ten hours of sleep overall against over sixty hours of marching.
“Are they going to be able to actually fight tomorrow?” Rowan’s voice betrayed his worry as he swept his eyes over the troops they passed on their way to the central tent.
“My cards are perfect for this kind of thing, my lord. Don’t you worry one wit about what might happen to them. They’ll be ready.” Lucius’s voice was steel, and his eyes flinty enough to catch fire.
The man had almost entirely dropped any kind of casualness. It was only at rare occasions that he slipped up now, seemingly set on truly treating Rowan like nothing less than his sworn lord. It was stifling, even if Rowan was aware of all the benefits of having the man in his debt.
“I trust you, of course. I just… worry. This is it. This is everything that we’ve been working towards. If we can just pull this off…” Rowan sighed, dropping his head on his chest as he walked.
He couldn’t voice all of his doubts, all of his fears. Perhaps it wasn’t perfect, but he’d managed to get through all the obstacles he’d faces so far with relatively few losses. The worst he’d fared was the mansion of the legendary demon, and there was little he could readily do about dimensional shenanigans. Despite that, those losses stayed with him.
Something also told him that the final legendary demon and the demon king after them wouldn’t be quite as simple to dispatch.
So, as he walked past rows and rows of tents, of soldiers who’d willingly placed their lives in his hands and followed him all the way out to the heart of the frontier, Rowan couldn’t help but wonder how many of them he’d be able to bring back home.
They were still a day out from encountering their final challenge, at least according to the nebulous senses of Blake and Kayla, and his confidence was already starting to show cracks.
Olivia could clearly tell as much, too. She’d spent most of their time glued to his side. She was right there at the moment too, hugging his arm to her chest in a way that Rowan definitely found a little distracting.
He would have been able to appreciate the moment far more if he wasn’t wondering if both of them would survive the battles ahead.
When they finally reached the tent, voices were already echoing from inside it. Rowan easily recognized them as Blake and Kayla, though he didn’t like the sharp tones he was picking up.
“And I’m telling you, for the thousandth time, that we can’t just throw people at the problem while you blow everything up from the sky!” Blake snapped as Rowan pushed open the curtain separating the interior of the tent from the outside world, the sound suddenly growing much louder.
“I —” Kayla had a feral snarl twisting her features, and Rowan knew there would be deadly venom on her tongue.
“Really?” the Stalwart Hero cut in resolutely, sending both of them disapproving frowns. “I leave you alone for, what? Twenty minutes? Fifteen? And you’re already on each other’s throats?”
Rowan would have expected Blake’s fiancées to be right there with him, but all three of the women were, surprisingly enough, absent. Tamara was there, but the woman was studiously staring at a corner of the tent and pretending like it was the most fascinating thing in the world, so she was no help whatsoever.
“She started it!” That was Blake’s stunningly wise response, and Rowan really wanted to facepalm at how whiny the other hero’s voice was.
“And I am, as such things go, ending it. Now, can you two actually explain to me what caused this whole mess to begin with?” Rowan was trying to be patient, he really was. However, the sheer tension between the two reminded him of all the times they chose to broke up.
They usually showed up a couple of days later, looking loopy and sporting stupid grins. He was fairly certain that would not be happening this time though.
Whatever fight they had before parting in the kingdom’s capital, Rowan could tell that something fundamental had been broken in the relationship between them. He strongly suspected that Blake’s issues and his goddess’ influence were a strong reason why, but it wasn’t like Kayla didn’t have plenty of fun hang-ups herself.
“I’ve been trying to explain to this idiot here that we should have the army storm whatever defenses we discover at our destination. While the foot soldiers do that, I can prepare a Gran Ritual with Tamara’s help. They’ll be practically nothing left of our enemies if you can buy us enough time to pull that off,” Kayla said as if it were a perfectly reasonable plan.
“And how many soldiers will die during the wait? How many lives would be lost so you can prove that you’re the biggest and baddest mage around?” Blake’s voice was scathing, and Rowan could see that it made Kayla’s blood pressure soar with incredible ease.
“I’m trying to ensure our victory here, you bloody idiot! If you have issues with doing what’s necessary for our victory, then you can shove your sword —”
“Kayla!” Rowan took another deep breath, counting to five. Really, it was his fault. He knew they were a hive of issues and just about as willing to set things aside as a honey badger hopped up on poison, and he’d still tried to make them get along.
“Do you see what I’ve been dealing with, Rowan?” Blake demanded, crossing his arms. “If she could have her way, we wouldn’t even have an army by the time things are through.”
Rowan was tempted to snap back, but the entire thing was rubbing him wrong. Instead, he looked his best friend in the eye and posed his question. “What’s really bothering you here?”
Blake froze like a deer caught in headlights, while Kayla perked up, smelling blood. The smile she sent the other hero was positively vicious. “I think he’s just sore I was right, in spite of what he said to me when we parted the last time.”
Blake gritted his teeth, but Rowan noted that he didn’t exactly deny the accusation.
“Okay, listen. I’ve known you both for a while now. I have no idea what happened between you. But! Blake, we both know you weren’t entirely yourself up until recently. Likewise, Kayla, you’ve been kind of… well, horrible, to say the least. So, I’m going to walk out of this tent, and take Tamara and Olivia with me. We’re not going to let anyone inside, but we’re also not letting you out until both of you sort out your shit!”
That said, Rowan angrily marched out of the tent, glaring at the banished mage until she reluctantly and sheepishly followed.
The next hour or so was admittedly awkward, what with hints of shouting making their way to them in spite of Kayla’s magicked up tent doing a marvelous job of dampening sound. However, when the two heroes finally emerged, they did so looking relieved, and even with faint smiles on their faces.
It was much easier to sort out their plans after that.
—
About a day later, they were finally close enough to the seat of their enemies for the heroes and their parties to sneak ahead of the army for a quick peek.
The first sight of their enemies was admittedly intimidating. They were situated right in the middle of the ruins of some ancient, once glorious city.
Ruins swept up into the sky, grand homes hinted at former greatness, and a fortress that did a solid job of pretending to be a castle jutted out from the center of it all.
It was the only thing that still stood intact.
Some spots on the walls of the glorious structure were still white, hinting at the marble originally used it in its construction. These spots practically shone with inner radiance, like they were trying to shout out their divinity to the world.
Such pieces of the fortress were by far in the monitory, however, and confined to its outskirts. They seamlessly connected to some kind of dark material that did the exact opposite, swallowing up every trace of light that landed on it.
There was an odd, patchwork quality to the transition between the two materials that made up the structure. It was almost like some giant had come across a ruined city, and decided to rebuild the most glorious building it knew in the middle of everything.
Except, for lack of identical material, shiny white marble was substituted for black stone.
Rowan couldn’t tell how he knew, but he felt that this was a result of countless decades, of millennia of conflict that spilled out and destroyed everything in the vicinity only for some otherworldly force to swoop in and revert the damage imperfectly.
Perhaps, at the start, there was a lot less black in the fortress’ construction. How many times did it have to get destroyed to get to that point? How widespread was the destruction? Were they about to contribute to the last few spots of white disappearing?
Of course, while the fortress was breathtaking, far more important were the troops manning it. The same amphibians that Rowan had once fought all the way back at Felton’s Mill clambered over the walls, patrolled the ramparts, and manned the gates.
The difference was, these particular specimens were far larger and more menacing. Rowan was wiling to bet that not a single one of those were under the rare tier, and each and every one looked ready and dedicated.
Far above these ‘basic’ troops, wraiths cut across the sky. There was a whole cloud of them releasing ghastly wails into the darkened skies, but four stood out even from where Rowan was watching. Those four, the hero knew, were likely to be in the epic rank, and far more dangerous than their lesser kin.
Finally, there were the troops that were making Rowan’s palms sweaty and his armor stick uncomfortably to his back.
There were dozens of featureless knights, just like the one that had almost ended him before Kayla summarily executed it.
Rowan knew there was little reason for him to fear the monsters. He’d advanced far past the hero he used to be back then. However, there was something about them that screamed danger and despair at the hero. Something that made them stand out even in comparison to the wraiths overhead.
As he continued to watch the armored silhouettes haunt the walls of the fortress, he realized what was bothering them.
They weren’t acting like monsters. They were acting like people. His haphazard count put the number of knights at twenty, and every time they crossed each other’s paths, the monsters paused, clearly conversing.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Rowan obviously couldn’t tell what they were talking about at such a distance, but their motions were animated, almost cheerful.
The knights were also the only monsters with true individuality. The wraiths looked pretty identical to each other, and while the amphibians did have some characteristics that set them apart from each other, Rowan would struggle to pinpoint which was which if he was unlucky enough to be introduced to them.
The knights didn’t have this issue.
Each armor was personalized in a way that showed great care and even greater craftsmanship. Their weapons differed wildly too, from swords to mallets to flails and even a spear. These weren’t just some mindless mobs out to conquer another world. These were people, sentient and fully in command of their faculties.
Granted, that only made their sins worse.
“Okay, I’ve seen enough.” Rowan whispered hoarsely, mind spinning. “Let’s go back.”
The others were similarly silent and worried, so their way back to their temporary camp was silent and fraught with worry.
“There’s so many of them.” It was the first thing said in their meeting, and de Vort’s worry was echoed on the faces of everyone there.
Just the number of amphibian troops was… worrying. Rowan would easily put them at two or three thousand from what he was able to gauge. Adding on top of that the hundreds of wraiths, along with a whole contingent of epic tier knights?
Yes, they had reason to worry.
“We can do this.” Surprisingly, it was the Mercenary King who spoke up, face set in an expression Rowan entirely didn’t like. “As epic tiers, we’ll need to seriously push ourselves, but I can empower the army long enough to give us a real fighting chance. I’ll just say it now: I can, at most, last half an hour. After that, it’s up to the soldiers themselves.”
Rowan gnawed at his lower lip furiously, but he had no choice but to eventually nod his head. “That’ll have to do. Can you mages do something about those wraiths, Kayla?”
At that point, Rowan really didn’t even want to bother directing a similar question at Tamara. The woman had spent the entirety of their last march right by Kayla’s side, pandering to her every whim, and their bond showed she was ecstatic the entire time. It was plainly obvious who was in charge of the mages.
Kayla took a deep steadying breath then nodded, an unusually solemn expression on her face. “Yes. We’ll take care of it.” Rowan could tell from their bond that the heroine was nowhere as calm and certain as she wanted to appear, but the Stalwart Hero certainly wasn’t about to pour cold water on their morale.
“Okay, then. Jacques, Amanda, can we count on you two to protect the army as well as you can manage? Marcus, I think, can handle protecting all the epic classes, right?” The beast folk offered up a nod and a grin, which Rowan returned.
The women exchanged a look and then glanced at Blake worriedly, but they eventually confirmed they would do their best.
“Okay, then, I guess the rest of us are on the offense. Unless you’d like to take up a more defensive post, my dear?” Rowan directed the question at Olivia, but she just shot him a look and rolled her eyes.
He couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips, giving the tense moment just a touch of brevity as he lost himself in her eyes.
Blake clearing his throat snapped them out of it.
“Right, well, is that our whole plan?” the other hero asked, eyes fixed on Rowan.
The Stalwart Hero simply shrugged. “Not much else we can do, I’m afraid,” he admitted, once more savaging his lower lip. If it wasn’t for his healing, it would be past tender at that point. “We can only hope things go well.”
Everyone nodded and gave their assent, and so their final planning sessions was sealed.
—
Rowan was convinced that something would go wrong and that they’d be discovered before they were ready. In spite of that, no such thing occurred.
The demonic forces seemed completely content to man their fortress and pay attention to nothing else, even if that something was basic scouting of their surroundings. All that meant the humans were free to properly mass up, get in the right formations, and perform their final equipment checks.
Rowan really didn’t want to give any grand speeches, and even briefly hoped for an early attack on their position, but as the nominal leader of the army, the job did fall to him.
“I can’t know your reason for joining this army,” the Stalwart Hero began, sweeping his eyes over his troops from one of Kayla’s floating mana platforms. “Some of you likely joined due to money, some because of levels, and some because you want to make this world safe for your loved ones.
“I’ll say this now: your initial motivation doesn’t matter.
“We are here now, all of us, because we managed to pull off what many didn’t think we could do. We are here now, because we killed a legendary demon, overcame the scheming of our own allies, and because we managed to climb higher up the tiers than anyone expected!
“We are here now, because in every battle we faced, every challenge we got, we won!
“Now, it is finally time for the last step. It is time for us to excise the presence of demons from our world, and reclaim the peace they stole from us. Today, we are going to make sure that all our loved ones can rest easy knowing they’re safe! Are you with me?”
The answering roar was so loud that Rowan knew the demonic forces had heard it. It also made his blood roar in his veins, to see these people so readily put their lives in his hands. He flexed his legs, jumped, and slammed down in front of the army like a meteor. Raising his spear high, the Stalwart Hero let his voice echo out over his troops.
“Charge!”
The Mercenary King roared, and then the entire army was moving. The man’s entire body had swelled up with gold and red mana, making every vein squirm and every muscle bulge. The rest of the soldiers seemed to be in a similar state, their stats suddenly pushed to new heights and their courage unnaturally bolstered.
Rowan saw none of this.
The Stalwart Hero put his words to action, literally tearing up the ground with his steps as he streaked towards the fortress.
The fortress’s front gate was closed, and looked to be made of extremely solid metal that even modern artillery would struggle again.
Rowan didn’t care.
As he picked up speed, pushing his body beyond anything he’d ever done before, he also threw his life-force, mana, and every shred of his health into his spearhead. The tip of his spear resembled a small sun when he finally slammed into the gate head-on, before the defenders could even understand, let alone respond to what was happening.
The explosion was deafening as the entire construction exploded. Metal creaked and warped, before it shot upward like the payload of a catapult and decimated the entire wall of the fortress. The gate’s arch crumbled too, rocks and dust raining down on the panting form of the Stalwart Hero.
Rowan was in excruciating pain. His opening move made it trivial for his army to stream into the fortress and bypass most of the issues that came with a siege, but it wasn’t without a price.
Every muscle in his body was shredded. Every bone was at least cracked. The only reason he was even standing half-slumped against his spear was the sheer force of his regenerating mana keeping him upright.
In the time it took to experience all of this pain, his body was already halfway recovered.
The legendary card Rowan had earned off of the king’s demise was stitching his body back together almost as quickly as it had come apart.
The defenders of the fortress had only just started to scramble and sound an alarm as he shook himself off, cracked his neck, and went in search for some demons.
He was distantly aware of the screaming of his troops as they charged in his footsteps, and then the snap of bows as the demonic forces finally managed to rally. He needed to find a way to the top of the wall, but he couldn’t spot stairs anyway.
It took Rowan a second to realize the flaw in his thinking. He blinked and shrugged, then leaned on his stats, every single one of them. With one bounce that left a small crater in the ground, he slammed halfway up the wall, and pushed again, using the momentum to launch himself the rest of the way up.
Then he was on top of the wall, and his spear found the throat of the nearest archer daring to shoot at his troops.
The battle developed into a whirlwind of pain, worry and death from there on. No matter how many amphibian soldiers Rowan killed, there was always another one popping up to face him. No matter his ferocity and clear relish as he ripped their fellows apart, the enemy soldiers rushed up to face him.
Rowan could respect that.
It made it easier to kill as many of them as he could manage, seeing as they were delivering themselves to him.
The wraiths were a bit trickier. Several times, one of those would manage to sneak up on him in the chaos of battle. Every time, he would experience water suddenly filling his lungs, and his body struggled to move under the sway of the wraiths.
The amphibians would rush forward, and the Stalwart Hero’s blood would flow like a river, making the ramparts slick and tricky to maneuver.
Unfortunately for them, his stats were far beyond theirs, and no matter the damage, his body refused to shut down. An inner explosion of mana would rip apart the card effect and let him deliver swift retribution against the wraith that dared get in his way, and the soldiers were then mopped up quickly.
He didn’t care that such stunts left his body shredded from the inside out because the damage would always fade within a matter of seconds.
It was only when he heard the alarmed shouts of soldiers and Blake’s scream of pain that Rowan was snapped out of his bloodlust, suddenly realizing that he was surrounded by a corona of blood that swirled into him from every direction.
A frantic look around let him spot his fellow hero down in the courtyard of the fortress, surrounded by the entire troop of demonic knights. He was fighting valiantly with Lucius, Olivia and the Treagon by his side, but they were getting pushed back by the overwhelming number of epic tiers arrayed against him, and Blake was bleeding from his side.
Blake hadn’t quite inherited the improvement to Rowan’s card. Blake’s link registered the change in Rowan’s deck, and the [Knight]’s previous regeneration card was replaced by a slightly superior version, but the epic tier card that allowed the link to form struggled to properly replicate the effects of a legendary.
If Rowan didn’t do something, Blake would eventually get torn apart.
So, it was a rather good thing that the Stalwart Hero could simply take a running start, leap, and then land right on the back of one of the knights, spear first.
The spear caught the epic demon right in the back of its throat, and the amount of power Rowan infused into his weapon let it shear right through the thing’s armor. Seawater splashed upwards, a bit falling on Rowan’s lips as the hero twisted his weapon and blew apart the knight’s head.
He could have, with his allies there, approached the battle carefully. He could have fought with grace and poise and tactics.
Instead, Rowan charged into the midst of the demonic knights like a rabid beast. They rallied relatively quickly, running most of their attention at the insane hero so willing to throw himself into the middle of danger, but that only sped up their deaths.
Rowan gave even better than he got, dealing lethal damage in exchange for letting them tear his body apart. Their focus on the undying hero also let the rest of Rowan’s allies act, potions and weapons flashing forth to reap the lives of the epic tier monsters.
One by one, the empty suits of armor fell, failing to do more than slightly slowing down the Stalwart Hero. Their doom was particularly sealed by the regular soldiers, who were constantly swarming out of the fortress, seemingly intent on not letting a single person set foot inside.
Each time Rowan was feeling dizzy from loss of mana, life force and blood, all he had to do was direct his attention to the amphibian soldiers. They fell easily, feeding him their lifeblood and keeping the Stalwart Hero in the battle.
When the tide of enemies stemmed and then finally faded to nothing, Rowan was a mess.
His armor and clothing were barely rags clinging to his skin only because they were caked on there by the copious amounts of dried blood, and the hero was desperately panting for breath. He felt like he couldn’t get enough oxygen into his lungs.
On the other hand, he also felt oddly electrified and jittery, like his body was only capable of moving in instinctual spasms.
“You absolute idiot… have any idea… how worried I was?” Olivia’s voice was barely a string of wheezed as the exhausted alchemist stumbled over to him, pale and shivering from mana exhaustion. Heedless of the state Rowan was in, she closed her arms around him and pulled him close.
Rowan let out a shuddering breath, as some of the tension left his body.
“How…” Rowan’s voice cracked, forcing him to cough and wheeze before Olivia forced a water skin into his hand. He drank greedily, before finally refocusing. “How did our troops do?”
Olivia went to say something, then clicked her mouth shut and shook her head. “Follow me.”
Rowan did.
They stumbled their way past the gate, and the Stalwart Hero let out a hiss of pain and regret when he saw the field outside of the fortress. He’d done his best, like Lucius had, but there was little he could do when his troops had to charge across a kill field, and that was before the enemy soldiers had streamed out to meet their own in combat once it was obvious that their tactical advantage was lost.
Bodies littered the ground everywhere Rowan looked, both of monsters and of men.
Suddenly, the Stalwart Hero just felt so very, very tired.
“How many?”
“I don’t know,” Lucious admitted, shaking his head. “We’ll do a count later. We need to head deeper into the fortress. The demon king and his final lieutenant must know we’re coming by now. We can’t delay.”
He was right, but Rowan didn’t need to like it. With one final reluctant glance, Rowan headed towards the interior of the fortress….
…only to be immediately intercepted by Kayla.
“You are not going anywhere looking like that,” the heroine snapped angrily, with more than a little disgust on her face.
Rowan went to protest, but the look on Olivia’s face stopped him dead. He resigned himself to his fate. At the very least, Kayla knew more than a couple cleaning spells, and it wasn’t that hard to get a replacement for his armor.
Apparently, the baroness had packed a replacement and sent it with Olivia, explicitly in case ‘Rowan did something stupid.’ The accusation stung, but not as much as the fact that it was apparently warranted.
With that out of the way, however, they were finally ready to venture deeper into the creepy depths of the dark fortress.
At least finding their way through it was easy. There was a massive main corridor that led directly to its depths, and with all of their enemies sacrificing themselves in a frenzy rather than letting them approach the fortress, they faced no opposition.
In fact, their progress was smooth sailing, right up until they ran into a pair of imposing doors. The others hesitated, but Rowan had very little to worry about anymore.
He strode forward, and, finding no door handles, placed his hands directly on the doors, only to freeze.
Offer blood and enter
The system message practically forced itself into his head, and the doors refused to budge no matter how much power he brought to bear.
With a sigh, the Stalwart Hero banged his head against the doors.