Hera and the Harmony Guardians rushed out of their tent. It was very strange to think that the humans were attacking the camp. Any team that tried to get here would be sandwiched between two armies. Even if part of that army would need to cross a large area to arrive, that didn't change the fact that they would be trapped.

No general worth their salt would be stupid enough to send a hit squad to the middle of the enemy camp, knowing they would accomplish nothing. The Empress might hate what the guild was doing, and she thought the humans were fools for falling for the propaganda related to the other species. But they were not stupid. Which meant they were up to something, some kind of trick or angle that would benefit their goals.

As they left the tent, everyone was already moving to intercept the incoming attackers. But things were also very chaotic. People were running in different directions, which stopped the group from understanding the actual location of the trespassers.

"Nimbus, check the skies. Tell us what is going on," Hera said just as she summoned her entire Court.

"Do you think there’s some Soldiers of Strength here?" Vash asked.

"That is a safe bet. I don’t see why they wouldn’t use their best weapons against us in an attack like this," Skyler looked around, searching for an officer or someone in a leadership role. They could move independently, but it would be better to know where everyone was going. But he couldn’t find anyone who might be able to tell them more.

'Hera! There’s a group to the left. They are coming out of a tunnel.'

"A tunnel?" Hera frowned. That sounded extremely stupid, especially considering it would just pop them in the middle of the camp.

"Something’s off," Flint frowned.

"Yeah. Why would they be doing this?" Roan turned to the dwarf.

"A distraction maybe?" Hera suggested.

"Can Nimbus see if there’s anything else going on?" Skyler asked.

The Empress passed the message along to the Sentinel, who looked around but couldn’t find anything. Going for a different approach, she called him back down and gave him a [Royal Quest] to scout the camp. Using his griffon form, he could cover a very wide area in just a few moments.

While they waited for him to get back, the group rushed to the side, following the largest flow of people. They all arrived at one of the tunnels seconds later. There were a couple dozen humans making a perimeter around the entrance as more and more continued to pour out. They were already encircled by the alliance, who was relentless in their attacks. If the humans wanted to take advantage of the dropped guard from those in the camp, they should have come here just after the shift change. But now, everybody was more or less rested. More importantly, a lot of the members of the army were getting ready to take a nap, and those invaders had just stopped them from sleeping.

Unfortunately, the Harmony Guardians weren’t able to enter the melee. There were already too many people surrounding the humans. They were relegated to firing long-range spells and trying to intercept any attacks that went straight. Even that only lasted a couple of minutes, as Nimbus quickly returned from his mission. He landed by the group and returned to his titled form.

"We have a problem."

"Another?" Neria asked.

"Yeah. One of the tunnels didn’t stop here. I only noticed it because of the mana flow. It keeps going about two or three kilometers north, towards the city," the Sentinel explained.

"Towards the city? What are they trying to do?" Hera frowned.

"Oh no. Do you think they’re doing that again?" Skyler turned to Roan and Flint.

"It’s possible. Last time it worked. Even if we have some defenses in place, we don’t know if they’ll be effective," Roan replied.

"What is going on?" Hera turned to the Beastman.

"When we arrived, they told us how the humans were able to push so deep into our territory. They were using chemical warfare. They would send a group towards one of the cities, drop a bomb filled with toxins, poisons, and diseases, and let it fester. After a couple of days, everybody would be infected, and they would send a few people who could do more damage to those who were poisoned or suffering any ailments, kind of like your Ailment Mastery skill. At first, we didn’t notice because those diseases were mostly harmless. People would feel their throats scratchy, but nothing serious. But the last couple of times, they used something much more vile. People quickly got sick, and the children took the worst of it," Roan explained.

"So much for not harming the kids," Hera sighed before turning to Nimbus. "How many can you carry?"

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

"Two in the air. I need to get out of the camp through the air before hitting the ground and running," the Sentinel explained.

"Who’s going first? We need someone here to warn the alliance about what we found," Hera asked.

"You and Vash," Flint replied without missing a beat.

"What? Why me? I should stay here and find someone to warn them."

"Hera has the numbers, and you can buff her. Your legacy can also help. Vulcan is still out for the count, so we might need to test that costume that makes us interrupt strength mana," the dwarf explained.

"I’ll find someone. You two go. Send Nimbus back as soon as you can to get the others," Roan added.

With an outcome decided, everyone started to move. But before Nimbus returned to his griffon form, he said, "Try to find a place at the edge of the army. If we’re on the ground, I can carry you all in one go."

Nimbus, Hera, and Vash quickly took to the skies. Even the Sentinel would take a few minutes to reach the tunnel he found. That wouldn’t be their final destination, as they also had to find whoever came out of it. It was very likely that someone else also noticed the tunnel, especially its opening, and there was also a good chance that the people from the city would be able to see the humans before they reached the walls. But it wouldn’t sit well with any of them to pretend they hadn’t seen something this dangerous, especially if the safety of the children was involved.

Not that there were many children in the city. Most of the civilians had already been evacuated. They were all in the villages and settlements closest to the doorway, opposite where the humans were coming from. But there was still a handful, mostly the children of people who had to stay behind and had no one else to take care of them.

But for Hera, the main issue wasn’t simply the number of children or people who would be affected by this chemical warfare. The problem was that if it worked, the humans would start escalating. The more successful they were with those kinds of tactics, the more they would appear everywhere. And if they were too successful, even the alliance might start doing something similar. Hopefully not when children were involved, but if they got desperate enough, she wouldn’t put it past them. Any animal would lash out when it was cornered.

This meant that this was a Pandora’s Box starting to open, and maybe, just maybe, if they were fast enough, they would be able to close that box before its contents started to spill out. But before doing all that, came one big problem: how were they supposed to find the group that was trying to sneak to the city? Nimbus hadn’t found the people, only the tunnel. Locating a random group of people in the middle of an open field who were probably trying to be stealthy wasn’t going to be easy. But that’s what they had to do.

Finding the actual tunnel wasn’t hard. It was just far away from the camp and in the middle of some rock formations that made it blend with the environment. But, as Hera expected, there were no tracks leaving the tunnel. Maybe people didn’t even come out of it; this could have been just something they set up to use later. Yet, Vash and the Empress weren’t about to take their chances.

Still, neither of them was particularly great at finding people who were hiding. But one thing the Ophidianite had on her side was numbers. She called the entire Court out and summoned all the snakes from her bracelet, sending them to spread out toward the city and ping her if they saw anything.

"Nimbus, we’re going to look for them. Go get the others. If possible, get Roan too; someone else can go after an officer," Hera turned to the Sentinel, who nodded and dashed away. He never left his griffon form to make better time.

Vash, Hera, and the Court slowly started walking toward the city. Even if they couldn’t see any tracks or people, they had some knowledge of stealth missions—enough to know that those doing a task like this would generally go for the shortest paths.

They moved quickly but methodically as they tried to find this group, this infiltration team that could be heading toward the city. Their pace had to be fast enough to keep up with the hypothetical humans but also slow enough to allow them to properly observe their surroundings.

Yet, the minutes slowly went by, and there was nothing for them to find. No trace of a human, no footprint, no sound, no scent, nothing. Not even the trails of mana themselves could give a hint of what was going on. The longer it went without anything coming into view, the tenser everyone became. Could they be too late? Maybe the attack on the camp came after this group had already started to move. Maybe they were already in the city.

Hera’s heart kept pounding in her chest. She was supposed to be an Aspirant Hero—someone who saved others, who protected others. Could she have already failed? If that was the case, what would happen to the future Ophidianites? If she couldn’t even stop a single team from getting to a city, how was she supposed to lead or protect an entire civilization?

Distracted by those thoughts, the Empress failed to notice the growing rumbling coming from beyond the army. Only when a massive lightning bolt struck the ground, illuminating the entire area, did she realize there was something going on.

"What the hell was that?" Hera gasped.

"I think that was Thor," Vash replied, floating down since he was taking an aerial view of the area.

The Ophidianite blinked slowly. "As in, the god of thunder?"

"No. Well, sort of. One of the highest-level dwarves is a mage called Thor. He’s kind of leaning into the idea of God of Thunder really hard, so his spells are more lightning-based. He was here, but they were hiding him until they found something. I’m not sure exactly why, but there was a specific target he had to get rid of. That’s probably him."

'Hera!' Robin called. 'Back there, near the tunnel. I just saw some movement.'

'Are you sure?' the Empress glanced up.

'Positive. Someone was coming out of the tunnel.'

Hera turned to Vash. "It seems the tunnel team came in first. Robin saw some people leaving the tunnel. Let’s go back."

The harpy just nodded, and the two of them rushed toward the entrance of the tunnel again. It had already been more than enough time for Nimbus to come back, which meant that something was going on back at the camp. Maybe the situation was too bad, and he had to help the others, but a more likely answer was that the humans did something so no one would be able to leave.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the right time to try to figure that out. They were getting close to the tunnel, and there was a group of five coming out of it. Five humans, and it was obvious they were trying to do something to mess with the alliance. Something that Hera, Vash, and the Court would be sure to stop.