Explosions continued to rumble across the castle grounds as the ridiculous engagement between Rio and Joker continued. At this point whether or not the area could still be used could be called into question, with holes being the least of the countless dangerous leftover of their fight. The mindless minions that only had one reason for existing, to kill everyone were not surprisingly eliminated in droves from the crossfire as they tried to reach Joker.
"What is this even anymore." Gwyn held her head as she leaned against the opening of the window, "this can't even be called a rebellion at this point."
"But because of that we can take a breather." Tarbalt walked up and held a glass of water out to Gwyn. "Shea's group is coming in to the castle now, we're only missing Hesn's group."
Aside from about half of the minions chasing after Joker futilely the other half was engaging to remainders of the traitors, only a hand full was heading towards the castle itself. In fact even some of the forces the noble's brought were engaged in the fight since the spawn point for them was near the south gate where the majority of their men would be coming from.
"How long do you think the dragon will last?" Gwyn hadn't been fighting with Rio for that long of a period of time, although that was because of how high speed their fight was. If it was based on power, considering how many times the dragon had breathed out flames it wouldn't be strange if it started decomposing soon but if it was time based Joker may run out of the mysterious vials that she was currently using to fight on par with the dragon.
"Probably not that long." Tarbalt squinted at the nobles forces and pointed his finger at them, "White clothes."
"The hunters?" Gwyn looked in the direction Tarbalt indicated and saw that indeed there were a large amount of Vampire Hunters heading towards them through a sudden cleared open space. The soldiers around them were compressed against the walls and each other as much as possible almost as if they want to get away from the hunters, well not surprising considering the record the hunters have of killing people that were in their way. "So they did end up joining them..."
"Gwyn!!!" Shea came running down the hall while yelling, Caroline and Tryn close behind along with two suits of black armor. "What... What's the situation? Why's there a dragon?" Gwyn passed the glass of water that she was sipping out of to the breathless Shea.
"Well, we're currently holed up in here while Joker is fighting the dragon, as for why there's a dragon there... I don't really know, guess the man that called himself the minion master summoned it? Although I don't know where or how he managed to kill a dragon first."
"What?" Shea poked her head out of the window and saw the figure of Joker throwing something at the dragon that was countering the flames. "How?!?"
"Who knows, probably some potions Shin made? I mean if it's him..." Gwyn shrugged and looked down at her equipment; Shin, someone truly incomprehensible with common sense.
"... The hunter's are with them..." Shea's face was grim but she was only surprised for an instant, it wasn't a secret that the hunter's weren't content with the royal family but to go to the point of rebelling, it was a little unexpected.
Gwyn jealously looked over at the two sets of armor that was following Shea, "You had two following you?"
"Ah? Oh yeah, they were really helpful... they almost blocked of the entirety of the gate by themselves and didn't take a scratch from the fighting." Shea paused then sighed, "I'm glad we aren't fighting them or Shin."
"I think I would just give up if we were," Gwyn blinked at the surprised looks the people around her were showing, "What? Even I know when I'm outmatched, and plus this is beyond just out matched, it's like an ant trying to fight against a god. E-Enough about that, there's two here with you Shea but where's the others? There was twenty of them right?" Gwyn looked at the two armor but as expected they remained silent, well not like they have a mouth in the first place.
"I don't know, their deployment was left up to Joker..." Sudden screams and sounds of heavy impacts drew their attention back outside the window.
Gwyn had a wry grin on her face, "Guess there's our answer..." Looking at the two stoic demons behind them Gwyn once again held a hand to her head, "Really what is going on today."
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Silver was leading the group of hunter's towards the castle and the jester fighting the dragon as just in sight when everything in their surroundings blew up. Removing the hand that was protecting his eyes from the clouds of dust that went up because of the impacts Silver looked around and immediately froze. In the various craters created by their fall were varying monsters made of black metal surrounded by bloody corpses of the unlucky, soldiers and hunters both. It wasn't hard to find where they came from, hovering in the air above them were winged monstrosities made of the same material, menacingly glaring at the humans below them.
Silver pulled out his crossbow and shot at the one closest to him, the sound of strings releasing could be heard around him probably the veterans that were in the group he lead. However the second before the bolt was shot a panicking soldier that was running away from the monster bumped into his hand causing the bolt to miss it's target by a large margin. "Incompetent fool!" With a slash of his blade Silver quickly dispatched the soldier who interfered, but there was more than just one soldier that was running.
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All of this happened within the first few seconds and the already chaotic area quickly turned into a scene from hell as the demons started moving. It was a blood bath completely and utterly as dozens of men fell to each attack the demons made with their claws, teeth, tails or weapons. All of the soldiers were already in a complete route disrupting the hunters that were trying to fight. "Form a line! Kill anyone who runs!" Unlike the easily scared standard troops the hunters were at the very least trained to fight monsters, following Silver's orders they quickly reorganized themselves and blocked off the soldiers path of retreat.
"Turn around and fight you cowards!" Silver yelled at the desperate soldiers as he cut down another two that were fleeing, caught between the hunters and the demons the number of soldiers that was left there drastically fell. With the chaos of the battlefield relatively calmed down at the expense of the noble's troops the hunters were then able to fire their bolts at the demons without interference, the sharpened silver began hitting their marks but the penetration was lacking.
Only several minutes have passed but the soldiers there were all but wiped out and the area around them were empty except for the hunters, the demons and the corpses. Without caring about the various needles that were poking at them the demons had slaughtered the soldiers but with them gone their attention was turned towards the hunters causing a large amount of the new hunters to shake in fear. The tense silence that was created by the demons having finished the soldiers off and the hunters that had ceased firing simply because it did nothing was interrupted by a giant fireball smacking into one of the flying demons.
"Meddling mage." Silver looked back towards a tall tower where the mage council was situated, several more fire balls was being sent his way. "Attack!"
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Durmez had just gotten back to the tower and just so happened to be passing by a window when he saw the demons drop down on the hunters. It was needless to say something that greatly intrigued him, they were obviously not hostile to the royals so he was very curious on how they were being controlled. He decided to thoroughly interrogate the royals once this was all over but first they had to win. Gathering a group of the top mages he lead them to the roof to shoot supporting fire at the demons, who were now engaging the hunters in a melee and obviously winning, the hunter's won't appreciate the support but at the same time they couldn't win without it.
"Come, let's begin casting." Durmez and four of his colleagues in the center in a circle and started chanting while channeling their mana. Below them was a complex spell circle that glowed in reaction to the mana they were feeding it, originally it was intended to be used against the dragon after it's existence was revealed but the demons were a bigger threat and if it took the sacrifice of a few hundred hunters then so be it, rather it would be welcomed.
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"Aww, done already?" The sun had started rising when wet globs of flesh finally started melting off the dragon's body. At this point Joker has used hundreds of different potions and chemicals already all to varying effects, in fact there had been several times when the fire breath had won out almost scorching Joker. "I still had so many things I wanted to try on you." In truth however those were all low tier concoctions that Shin had made while experimenting over two years time and Joker had countless amounts more of them in the storage ring that she was given, in fact there were many mid and high tier vials that could have easily defeated the dragon. She didn't use those only because Shin had wanted battle statistics of his various creations, something about how stats didn't tell him how effective they were.
A loud cracking sound was followed by the sound of a heavy but wet impact as one of the dragon's forelegs was broken leaving the dragon barely balancing upon its remaining foreleg. "Guess this is as far it goes, and I wanted to be praised more for getting a lot of information." Sighing Joker took out a vial that was different than any she had taken out before, in the first place the glass and liquid itself could not bee seen as the outside of the vial was painted with black and yellow strips with a skull and cross bones on it. "Well since it's the end let's finish it with style!"
The obviously dangerous and suspicious looking item was casually thrown into the air by Joker towards the downed dragon that was now struggling to lift its upper body off the ground after it's remaining foreleg under the weight of it's body and from the decomposition broke off. Upon impact the thick glass shattered revealing it's glowing green contents before releasing a blinding flash of light. When the light receded what was left in front of Joker was another large crater that was giving of steam in all the colours of the rainbow.
"Ah... maybe I shouldn't have used that." Joker frowned as temperature suddenly rose and the surroundings turned red. "The sun's rising this fast?" Joker turned around to face the southern gate and stopped. What was in front of her was not the sun but a giant fireball instead that was headed right for the gate where the hunters were currently engaged with the demons.
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Note* A bit later than what it was originally supposed to be, backspace op. Things should wrap up in two more chapters I'll say then we're headed back to Shin.