I reached into my utility belt and eagerly opened a metallic tin can filled with Valerian weed. It was a major commodity in Pherae. A person with high Intelligence could relive virtually any memory with near perfect clarity, including all the physical, emotional, and mental stimuli. This would lead someone who suffered great trauma to go insane, a common result for the mage-heavy Pherae population. It was easy to imagine a magical experiment going horrifically wrong. The drug induced a pleasant euphoria and a sense of relaxation. Getting absolutely stoned blunted the effects of constantly reliving your worst nightmares. I didn’t have any issues due to my passive resistance to mental effects, but I wasn’t going to refuse the freedom to chew on some weed. Technically, I was no longer part of the US Army, so its rules and regulations no longer applied. That was how I justified it when I bought ten tins from a distributor selling their stock near the Alliance command tent.

I packed a wad into my lower lip and savored the tangy, floral taste, and sighed. My shoulders slumped and the tightness in my back disappeared. Now that my mind was a bit clearer and drained of the adrenaline haze that often accompanied me for hours after a battle, I could reassess our strategic situation. I opened my World Map while gently sucking on the wad through my teeth and playing with the threads of sweet saliva with my tongue.

Over 1,000 red dots coalesced into one gigantic ball about five miles east of Caraetous Pass. Bloodlust and hunger overcame fear. My own forces, denoted on my map in blue, were mostly gathered in the war camp, with a few units pulling the bare minimum of security within the small road. They were mostly made up of Martha’s platoons and Victor’s cavalry. They were, by far, the least exhausted. The melee Classes and the logistics division were both run ragged. The pike line held seven hours straight and chipped away at the horde. The logistics teams had to load 250-pound boulders into four trebuchets as fast as possible so they could keep up with my firing speed.

At the rate the horde was regrouping, they would restart their assault within the next six or seven hours. I looked back toward the war camp, using my magnified vision to analyze the overall state of my troops. Many dragged their feet. The rain made their armor heavy. Others simply sat in circles with their helmets off, heads hung, and mouths open. Sweat and rain poured freely from their bodies. They were in no condition to fight. I could force them to mobilize within the next five or six hours, but that would just lead to a future loss.

Further north, along the mountain range, a mass of green and red dots merge into each other. I furrowed my brow. I anticipated that, because of the size of the pass, the number of demons sent to Caraetous would be a fraction of their main force, but the horde’s overall density surpassed any of my expectations. Morgan was wrong. This was not a horde of 10,000 demons. She missed at least one zero.

I returned my attention to the eastern exit, towards the Blighted Lands where the demons fled. Martha and Victor caught my eye. They were watching the pass as forward scouts. I dismissed them to rest, but being young and spry had its benefits. I trudged over to them and waved them down as they turned to salute me.

“Relax. Captains, what are you doing here?”

“Ensuring the camp is not ambushed while we recuperate, General,” Victor answered. Martha nodded once. An arrow was already nocked preemptively into her bow.

“Did you eat?”

“Yes, General. We shared a meal together shortly before taking this post.”

“Good. Maintain this position. Captain Dauf and Finlay will take command for now.”

“General?!” Martha was alarmed at my strange declaration but I shook my head to deny her worst fears.

“I’m going to take care of the rest of the demons myself. Make sure the army rests and prepares to march at a moment’s notice.”

“Are we abandoning the pass, General?”

I glanced at my World Map and saw the number of green dots was rapidly decreasing.

“I haven’t decided yet,” I admitted with a distracted tone. Victor and Martha understood I was scanning something they could not see and flipped through my World Map. Now that they were part of my 2nd Squad, they had full access to my Skill.

“The Thaysilian, Pharae, and beastmen armies are vastly outnumbered,” Martha concluded, her eyes as wide as dinner plates. “Wasn’t there only supposed to be 10,000 Beur demons?”

“Yes. And while that may be true, we’ve all overlooked one major aspect: the Rift is maintained by three Demon Gods, not one.”

“Legends say the Demon Gods hate each other almost as much as they hate the Primaries. Do you think they’ve truly allied as one?”

“I can’t be sure,” I swiped some rain from my hair. Seras did say the balance was tipped too far in the Demon God’s favor. This sudden development was probably one of the reasons why

Seras summoned me in the first place. “Either way, we have to deal with the immediate issue. The horde we just fought off is already starting to regroup. Ensure the troops are well-rested and well-fed.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

By the time I returned, we should have a better understanding of our allies and their conditions. It was entirely possible they could hold. I suppressed the urge to cringe at my own naivete. The Alliance was outnumbered almost 10 to 1, and the other nations didn’t have Mythical weapons and armor and a Hero to compensate. Worse still, the other two major locations for demonic incursion were borderline open fields, where the hordes could use their overwhelming numerical advantage to the fullest.

“I’ll be back.” I broke into a light jog and telepathically summoned Renala from her little rain bath. With an annoyed squawk, she rose from her belly and leaped off the mountain top to gently glide in my direction. As soon as I cleared the pass, I high-jumped and she reached down and swept me out of the air and set me into the saddle. I patted her on the neck.

“It’s been a while since we fought together, huh?”

She growled, and her eyes flared brightly. Heat built up all along her body. The rain hissed and formed a trail of mist as we flew at over 100 miles per hour. We caught up to the horde relatively quickly. I had an arrow already nocked and Renala’s saddle was custom-made to hold quivers as close to the rider as possible. Even so, I spit out my dip and shoved Magic Crystals into my cheeks to replace it.

I had no reason to hold back now and neither did Renala. Friendly fire wasn’t an issue.

My attack range with Failnaught was now reaching superhuman levels; a grand 500 meters, comparable to the maximum engagement range of an M4A1. With my Designated Marksman Skill, that doubled to 1000, about half the range of a 50 caliber sniper rifle. Combined with my magnification, I now could effectively eliminate targets long before they even saw me.

I switched my selector lever to fully-automatic and primed High-Velocity ammunition. Then I loaded fragmentation grenades.

Renala’s presence was not subtle. The sound of her huge body soaring at her full speed carried far and the beast-like demons had powerful senses. Thermal imaging revealed the Greater Demons, glowing brightly with felfire coating their armor and weapons. They were rallying some kind of ranged response to our approach. They were only a few miles away from the pass. We’d be upon them in seconds.

Once I was in range, I opened fire. My arrows cut through the air and nearly supersonic speeds, augmented by my superhuman abilities, the eldritch power of my Skills and Aspects, as well as Failnaught’s own ability to increase projectile speed based on my Dexterity.

Fully automatic pushed my firing speed beyond the limits my Attributes could manage. The recoil on my body would be horrific and the MP drain was intense. The Magic Crystals turned to dust in my cheeks, forcing me to drool out thick, dirty saliva or pause my shooting spree to spit it out.

I opted to make my arrows replace the rain.

From my position, above the demons, it looked as if I had unleashed a steady stream of wood. I wondered what it looked like from below as my arrows landed, impaling dozens of Greater Demons, then exploding, sending bits of bone, wood, metal, and felfire all around at supersonic speeds. The size of my arrows meant the overall explosion was greatly reduced, but the shock and concussive pressure were enough to at least knock them down and drain their HP.

I shoved more Magic Crystals into my mouth and switched to incendiary ammunition as Renala finally started her attack run, announcing her arrival with an immense wave of golden dragonfire. Even the hardiest demons lasted less than 5 seconds, their HP and Constitutions erased by Renala’s breath weapon. Bodies were instantly turned into ash. The stronger ones left bleached bones behind. Water did nearly nothing to dragonfire and instead spread it further like oil, killing dozens more.

Renala’s wing beats were now so strong and wide that the gale-force winds they produced passively deflected normal projectile attacks and sent the demons sprawling backward like a cardboard box caught in a tornado as she skimmed close to the surface and released another wave of annihilating flames.

I focused on those outside of Renala’s kill zone. My volleys had to be timed with each flap or they would have been thrown drastically off-course, but my telepathic connection with Renala guided me through. She was almost an extension of my own body; her wings were mine, and my shots were hers. I could even expand my awareness through her senses if I tried and I was sure she could do vice-versa.

Together, we were like a tidal wave of flames and arrows, crashing into and drowning the horde with fire and explosions.

Screeching took my eyes from the ground to the sky, where a gigantic flock of flying bat-leeches descended upon us. I switched out my empty quivers with fresh ones from my Bottomless Dufflebag and replenished my MP.

“You lot could learn a thing or two about noise discipline,” I mocked then fired into their massive formation. I didn’t have to aim that much to hit anything; these monsters were huge. So I strafed my point of aim left and right. The monsters fell like the rain, their bodies shattering on the ground in broken, pulpy puddles.

Eager for some aerial combat, Renala charged into them, dragonfire exploding from her mouth. I watched in grim satisfaction as the flaming corpses fell upon the horde below, crushing and burning more. My daughter’s flames danced among the rain clouds like lightning through the sky.

Back and forth we looped around until Renala was so spent she could no longer unleash her flames and had to rely entirely upon her claws, fangs, and tail. I wasn’t an expert at transferring energy from Magic Crystals into another person like Lydia was, so I decided to end our raid.

In a fraction of the time, we annihilated almost as much as my army did over the course of seven hours.

I looked at my Experience bar and grimaced. Renala ate half of all my Experience, and I was finally starting to feel the strain. I was only 25% into 8th Level. As we retreated into the sky, I shot down any hostile aerial units until they disappeared off my Map. The red dots on my World Map were culled to only a few hundred. Even if my army was tired, this number wouldn’t break them. Most importantly, I wiped out all of their leadership and most of the leech-bat monsters. By the time the lesser demons recovered, my troops would be ready.

Hell, I even doubted they’d make it past my artillery fire next time.

But, my adrenaline high crashed when I scanned further north and noticed the green dots were in full retreat.

“Fuck.”