Jon was almost asleep when he heard the crash.
He had just finished meditating for the night—something that had been somewhat difficult, considering his squad’s failure to locate the fugitive this evening—and had gotten into bed, closing his eyes and hoping for a more productive tomorrow. While he hadn’t found the man, he had at least gotten a couple leads. The fugitive was located somewhere in this town, and frequented that adventurer’s guild, so it would be most likely that simply spending some time around the area would turn him up eventually. The sooner that happened, the better. He was aware of the catastrophes that regularly occurred from giving the man enough time to prepare.
It was while he absent-mindedly pondered tomorrow’s plans that the sound echoed through the building.
Jon instantly bolted from his bed, throwing sheets from his body as he rushed for the door. He’d stationed guards throughout the building to ensure they couldn’t be ambushed, but if they’d failed…
Flinging the door open and dashing into the hallway, he glanced down either end of the hall to see who was there. Right then, someone shouted. It was one of the guards who’d been stationed in the hallway. At the same time Jon heard the shout, he also saw what the man was shouting about. The entire wall had been busted down. Standing there in the hole at the end of the hallway, silhouetted by the soft light of the night streets, was a man in glowing white armor. He looked up, and Jon stared at the man’s face, rage etched into his own.
Jon instantly sprinted at the fugitive, who, in turn, turned and started fleeing. He was out of range for Day of Judgment, and that was going to be his main weapon here. Shoving guards and furniture alike out of his way he charged, his target completely having fled the building at this point, running right into the street. Jon briefly wondered why the man would have even come here if he was just going to run at the first sign of confrontation, but concluded that whatever his plan was, it didn’t matter. Jon’s sole goal was to kill him, and all it would take to do that was getting within a few paces. And the fugitive probably didn’t even know he had the capability to kill him like that, so Jon was the one with the informational upper-hand, here.
He trampled over a fallen ally who had failed to get out of the way in time. Sacrifices would be made. A half-dozen other soldiers were bursting out of their own rooms by now, looking around to see what had caused the commotion.
“There he is!” Jon shouted as he chased after the fugitive. “Get him!”
The fugitive was running fast—probably some sort of Dexterity-enhancing Spell. But Jon had some enhancing Spells, himself. He began to cast one just as he ran through the hole in the wall, bursting out into the open streets surrounding the building.
Instantly as he came through, the fugitive turned around to glance back at him. Jon could just barely make out a smug grin on the man’s face, and had to fight off a scowl of disgust from creeping into his own expression. That man was an absolute disgrace.
“There he is!” the fugitive shouted at the empty surroundings. “Get him!”
Instantly, the streets burst to life. From behind every building, popping around every corner, stepping out from behind every tree was an adventurer, all of their weapons trained on Jon. And then they attacked.
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Our group of Classers clashed against Jon at the same time that I cast all of my curses on him. Archers shot their bows, Wizards cast their Spells, and the Melee-Types rushed in to strike him with their blades. Honestly, as I watched him get hit with so many attacks all at once—a good number of which were explosive—I half expected him to just die right there. But unfortunately, just before they hit, I saw the light of his defensive buffs flashing around him. He wasn’t invulnerable, just a lot harder to kill.
But as the wall of Melee-Types rushed in, it seemed like he wouldn’t be able to get past them to attack me. Sure enough, he backed off, dodging and blocking attacks where possible, and occasionally getting in a strike of his own. His touch melted skin and steel alike, and sometimes he’d take a coin out of his pouch and flick it at someone, the thing bursting aflame the moment it touched them. This guy was somehow holding out despite being outnumbered something like fifteen to one. Not winning—not by a longshot—but he wasn’t dying, either.
Just as he was pushed through the threshold back into the broken building, a mass of soldiers came rushing out of the place, charging through doors and crashing through windows. In total, there were about twenty of them, and they instantly ran to confront my own hired help. Their ranged combatants sniped at our Melee-Types from afar as they fought against Jon, while their Melee-Types started hunting down our mages and bow-wielders.
Luckily, we still had Ainash in reserve, having been forced to keep her from joining the fight against Jon because he could instantly kill her. So she, standing in the backlines, tore forth, slaughtering any who got in her way. I attempted to do the same, throwing out strategically-placed curses and Rays of Frost to keep the enemy soldiers from attacking our own squishy back-liners, and Erani took something of a leading role among the Magic-Types, considering her extremely above-average physical Stats.
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All-in-all, the entire battlefield was chaos. In the night streets, out in this abandoned part of town, there were plenty of empty buildings surrounding us, and those buildings did not go unharmed. Magic-Types threw explosives into them when they missed their targets, Melee-Types swung their weapons into their enemies and smashed them straight through the walls…The crashing of buildings collapsing echoed through the night, harmonizing with the clang of steel against steel, the many shimmers and sounds of Spells being cast, and the shouts of pain above it all.
Jon had retreated fully into the building by now, using the half-broken wall as a choke point to keep himself from getting overwhelmed by his many enemies. Though, a good number of the Melee-Types on my side had splintered off from the main force, either taking cover from the potshots being thrown at them, or chasing after the shooters, or fighting off the enemy soldiers who had come to engage with them at a close range.
At this point, Jon only really had to stand back and watch, as did I. If he tried to get closer, the soldiers would fight him off, and if I tried to get closer, he’d kill me with Day of Judgment. I stared at him, and he met my gaze. In the town block-turned-battlefield, I felt what was almost a sense of calm, gazing at my true enemy amongst the chaos.
Jon shouted over the cacophony of sounds. “Do you see the destruction being wrought around us, Arlan? Surely you know how much suffering you cause by fighting. Surely you see that some people here will not make it out alive. Your selfish decision to fight an unwinnable battle will cause the deaths of countless innocents, as it already has, and it won’t even save you in the end. What is the point in fighting?”
“You think this battle’s unwinnable?” I shouted in reply, gesturing to the fighting around us. “You think you’re immortal? It’s only a matter of time before you lose.”
It was a matter of time. He was in range of Crippling Chill, and that was the one Spell I had been keeping active on him this whole time, never letting up. And every single second that passed, it would tick away, dealing its damage and making itself even stronger through Cumulative Catastrophe. Given enough time, he’d either get paralyzed from the Stat loss, go limp from the Stamina loss, or die from the Health loss. All three, eventually.
“You’re truly naive if you think this is the battle I’m speaking of,” Jon said, scowl on his face. “You may kill me. You may kill all of my personal soldiers. You may escape this place, hide yourself, become unknowable. But the battle against the Demons will never be won. You will never defeat them, and they will never leave. Not until you are dead. For as long as you struggle against the inevitable, they kill more. Innocents are dying because you are alive!”
“Fuck you!” I shouted back. Honestly, I barely even wanted to engage with his arguments—I’d have rather just ignored everything he said, at this point—but I wanted to keep him arguing, so he’d keep feeding Cumulative Catastrophe. “Who do you think is making the decision to kill those people?! It’s not me. It’s the people you’re working for. Stop helping them, and maybe more will survive.”
“Getting the Demons to leave is the only sensible option, and the only sensible way to accomplish that is by killing you. They’ll invade this place next, you know! They’re already gearing for war. These people will be the next victims of the Demons. At least, they will unless you die. Right now.”
“You’re not convincing me to fucking kill myself!” I said.
“The sooner you die, the sooner everyone is safe!”
Gods, I thought, is he just fucking dumb? Is this some sort of last-ditch effort to get me to surrender?
“Arlan, behind you!” the voice of Index startled me, and I turned to see one of the adventurers I’d hired, one of the high-Strength Melee-Types, standing behind me.
“Hey, what are you—”
He put out his hands and shoved. I stumbled backward as he stepped to follow, then he lifted a leg and kicked me in the gut, pushing me further back. The bastard was trying to get me into Jon’s range!
I hurriedly cast as many of my curses as I could on him, but before I could even finish mentally running through them all, a Sorcerer from the backlines saw what was happening and shot an Explosive Firebolt in our direction. Not aimed at my betrayer—aimed at me.
I tried to duck below it, but it was aimed at the ground by my feet, so there was nothing to dodge. Instead, it hit the dirt and blew me back even further. The Sorcerer was thankfully not so high-Level that he could throw me away like Erani’s Firebolts tended to do, but I still stumbled backward, and glancing behind me at Jon, I saw him making a mad dash for me in my moment of weakness. Normally, the wall of Classers fighting at the hole in the wall would’ve blocked him from leaving, but I was seeing a notable lack of resistance in those people. Some seemed to refuse to fight whatsoever, while others seemed reluctant enough for Jon to rush by before they could make up their minds.
I tried stacking as many Expedites on myself as possible and making a mad dash for survival, but before I could take more than a few steps, the bright light appeared above me and crashed straight down. I activated Time Loop before the pain of death reached me.
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In the dark space, I would have definitely called Jon all kinds of mean words if I’d only had a mouth to say them. The fucker wasn’t talking to me, he was talking to my allies. I was so used to just fighting alongside Erani and Ainash—people I could actually trust—that I’d forgotten some people could be swayed into acting against their allies through some stupid monologue.
I tried to calm myself down, which was actually a little harder to do when I wasn’t capable of taking deep breaths. It wasn’t their fault, really; I mean, Jon had basically threatened them by saying the Demons would come after the empire next. Which, he was probably lying with his whole “they’re already geared for war” comment, saying whatever he could to convince them to change sides. It was my fault for being too single-minded and chasing down what I’d thought was a sure avenue to victory without considering the people around me. The more people in the fight, the more variables.
I felt myself beginning to fade, and moved to pick a time to go back. If all I had to do to beat Jon was win an argument, then so be it.