A storm warned them of its inevitable approach. Soon enough, they’d be swallowed by its vicious roars and falling rain.

Whilst lightning coursed through the sky illuminating even the darkest crevices that dwelled within the city, Kiran approached the closed gate leading into the middle section of the city while Lucias walked ahead of him with an entourage standing by his side. He went up the steps leading to the top of the wall to confront Drexo who remained down below on the opposite side.

The soldiers stood out of Lucias’s way. Kiran remained back a bit not wanting to show his face to the banespawn on the other side.

“How wonderful of the mighty serpent himself to come here before us,” Drexo pronounced from below. “Have you brought him with you?”

“It matters not,” Lucias declared.

“If it didn’t matter, you wouldn’t be here right now with us speaking with words rather than clashing with swords.”

Lucias maintained his composure. He kept his hands behind his back and didn’t seem to fear a banespawn potentially shooting an arrow into him. Even if he were hit, it wouldn’t kill him due to his nature, but Kiran certainly wouldn’t feel comfortable standing on the edge of the wall facing down towards such a grim and rotten being like Drexo and his minions.

“Let me make this all simple for you Lucias. Even though we have already seized much of your city, I’m still willing to strike a bargain with you. Hand Kiran over to me, and we’ll walk right out of here and return to Eylswaer.”

“Did you truly believe that assaulting my city and my people would make me amicable towards this request of yours? It did quite the opposite. In fact, it has only made me more adamant to deny the thing you want most from me.”

Drexo began to laugh. Some of his fellow brethren laughed with him. “What is one human to you? Would you sacrifice your entire populace for someone of his ilk? He is the worst of what humanity has to offer. He’s an utter abomination! And yet, you’d protect him of all people?”

“I gladly give my protection towards anyone who has served me loyally and has done nothing to earn my ire. You on the other hand, have done everything in your power to ensure there will be no peace between us. You’ve unfortunately condemned your kind Drexo, when we’ve had peace for all these years between us.”

“Peace,” Drexo said with utter disdain. “You’ve been threatening us since we arrived here in this domain of yours. We did not come here as enemies, yet you and that wretched woman to the west, saw fit to exterminate us.”

“Am I to be taken for a fool? Your kind immediately began assaulting us all resulting in us taking appropriate actions to curb your aggression. If there’s anyone to blame for that, blame yourselves.”

“I will not take responsibility for the actions of a single clan who are no more.”

“No worries,” Lucias grinned slightly, “the admittance of your kind being responsibility is sufficient.”

“Regardless of our pasts, I now know of your true strength. For a while, I believed it reasonable to fear you. You’ve done well to garner quite the reputation. But from what I’ve seen so far, I am far from impressed. The number of fighters you have are pathetic. Your capability to defend yourself is minimal as shown by your inability to even protect your front gate.” Drexo began to pace around judging by the heavy footsteps he heard. “And still even now, you stand behind those tall walls, sheltered from the fight, and you’d have us all believe that you’re more than the squirmy little familiar that you clearly are.” Drexo paused briefly until replying further more. “We will not submit to you any longer Lucias, and we will have our demands met, whether you like it or not. Your city will be razed by our hands and your people killed or subjugated by us. They will serve our needs rather than it being the other way around. As for you, you will die by my own hands as I strangle you to death!”

Though Lucias did not change his expression whilst gazing down from atop the wall, something dark within those red eyes of his coalesced. “Do as you must. But know that I will not spare any of you myself after this is all done.”

“The serpent speaks so mightily for one who fears his own strength. I know what you are Lucias. A Divine Familiar fearful of his own power. I know you will not use this strength of yours for you cannot control it. My strength, on the other hand, is entirely up for me to decide. And it seems clear now, that you mean what you say in regards to not handing over Kiran. Fine, so be it. We will tear down every building and slay every human or familiar we find out here in the meantime.”

Lucias walked away from the wall with a less-than-ideal expression on his face. He eyed Kiran briefly before walking down the wall with Halmond off to his side. Kiran followed from behind. “I didn’t expect we’d resolve anything,” Lucias said, “but now I am absolutely sure of what must be done.”

War or major conflicts in general were something Lucias wanted to avoid at all costs, even if it put himself and his people at risk. Things had progressed to the point however, that there was no option for attaining peace with the banespawn.

They headed down the steps as the gate appeared to become assaulted once more. Luckily this gate was heavily fortified, but if the banespawn kept at it long enough, eventually it would likely fall through pure brute force.

“Thanks for not handing me over to him,” Kiran said.

“You’re welcome.” Lucias made a left down at the corner of the street and headed up further through the city. “I am not one who would sacrifice any one of my people or those like yourself. Besides, once we have resolved this matter, it’s important that you remove this darkness for not just your own sakes, but for ours as well.”

The last thing he wanted to be dealing with, was the banespawn. He wanted to focus entirely on the matter pertaining to this darkness, but life wasn’t always so linear.

“If I may sir,” Halmond said.

“Yes?”

“How is it that Drexo knows of your—rather—particular nature?”

“I was wondering that myself.”

“I don’t think it’s unreasonable to suspect that someone is closely monitoring things from the inside and relaying this information to him. They might also be the ones responsible for sneaking the banespawn into our city.”

“Your concerns are my own undoubtedly. For now, let us try to figure out our immediate strategy for resolving this ordeal.”

Not long after their brief encounter with Drexo—that expectedly didn’t go anywhere positive—everyone of import gathered near a rectangular table situated inside a building not far from the gate being assaulted against.

Most of the leadership within the coalition gathered around while many of Lucias’s own people including Felmir gathered as well.

Along the long rectangular table, was a depiction of the city outlined in great detail.

For the purposes of this meeting, Felmir took on a human shape so that he could point with his finger on the map. He was quite grizzly looking in this form with long curly brown hair and a big bushy beard. He had dark brown eyes and enough hair on his chest that his shirt didn’t hide, that he thought he might be the hairiest person alive even when he wasn’t in his usual bear form.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Felmir leaned onto the table as they all stood around. “From what one of Halmond’s scouts has recently reported to us, more banespawn are on the way here making it necessary for us to retake the front gate if we’re to prevent even more from flooding into the lower sector.” Felmir dropped a wooden bear figurine at the front gate being depicted on the map. “Though we failed in defending it before, we can always retake it.”

“How many reinforcements are on the way?” Lucias asked towards Felmir.

“Another hundred or more. They shouldn’t be here for another day or so, but they could always get here quicker than we’re expecting.”

“We can’t afford for more of their forces to make it in” Lucias stated firmly. “Eliminating the banespawn that are currently here will be a struggle. If more of them make it inside, I’m not sure we can win without taking drastic measures.”

“Agreed,” Rinas said.

“As for Drexo,” Felmir stated, “if we were to eliminate him, that would be a huge boon for us but he’s easily one of their most talented fighters. It may be easier for us to avoid him while whittling down the rest of them in the meantime.”

“Heh,” Abigail muttered aloud. “Just leave the big guy to me. I’ll kill him myself if I have to.” She began to pout a little as no one thought to actually leave such a responsibility to her.

Felmir carried on with their strategizing instead. “In order for us to secure the front gate, we will need two separate teams. One team to try to pull off a distraction to lure them away, and another to strike whoever remains after. After we have secured the gate, we will have to continue to defend it for the foreseeable future.”

“Who would you want to try to seize the gate?”

“I will take part along with Rella and Shauz. I’d request several from this coalition of yours as well who you believe would be of great use.” He eyed Rinas expecting him to know who best to choose.

“I’ll have Silvy, Abigail, and Frederek have them and their teams to accompany you.

“That should be sufficient,” Felmir said.

“As for the other team, Kiran, I’ll have you and Lar go with Hoghdar, Zorge, Juna, and however many others you deem necessary.”

“I shall accompany them as well,” Halmond said. Kiran had never seen him take part in an actual fight. Normally they fought purely with words. He supposed that having some eyes in the sky would prove useful so he’d have his uses.

“Very well then,” Lucias said. “Let us continue strategizing for what we will do elsewhere whilst the front gate is being tackled.”

Several more groups were formed. While Kiran would be part of the team trying to retake the front gate, other teams would attack other subjugated points in the city to distract and try to save anyone who hadn’t escaped into the safe parts of the city.

They didn’t have a whole lot of time until they had to make their moves since reinforcements were on the way so they had to act quickly and get their plans into motion.

The storm became increasingly louder and more notable. It hadn’t started to rain yet, but he expected it would begin any minute now.

Different wooden figurines were spread out across the map. He wiped his brow and gripped the table as Lar stood beside him while several others argued over a few of their strategies.

“Worn out, eh?” Lar said telepathically so that they didn’t disturb the arguing going on.

“Maybe. All I know, is that if I have to hear Abigail trying to make a case why she of all people should get to directly confront Drexo all by herself, I’m going to start pulling hairs out of my skull.”

“Who knows. Maybe she should.”

“She’s strong, I’ll give her that, but she’s like a tenth of the size of Drexo. There’s no way she’ll succeed against him if several of us couldn’t.” If she could use magic to enhance her abilities, then perhaps she’d be capable of fighting Drexo. She had fought those golems beneath the central pillar after all and they were a fair bit larger than Drexo. They weren’t as agile or capable as Drexo however and of course, she was far weaker right now due to magic not being available currently.

“I believe,” Lucias stated for them all to hear, “that we’ve talked over this enough.” Everyone appeared a bit relieved to hear that. “Rest for a little bit and then get ready for the assault that’ll begin in a few hours.”

When he made it back outside, lots and lots of lightning revealed itself. Rain began to pour down heavily soaking him almost instantly. He went to take cover under the balcony of a nearby building only to end up running into Aphelia as he did so.

“Hey Kiran,” she said softly. “I, uh, don’t know what all you have planned, but I would be willing to help fight.”

“Are you sure? This isn’t exactly your fight.”

She placed her hand to her heart. “I know it’s not. But I believe I can be of great use for you.”

She wasn’t a member of the coalition nor did she have any loyalties to Lucias, yet she was willing to offer her hand nonetheless. That’s how she is, isn’t it? She’s done nothing but be helpful since I’ve run into her. If only her twin sister would be the same way.

“You can come join my team then,” he said. “We’re going to be trying to take control of the front gate.”

Her face lit up. “I’m sure I’ll be of great use to you.”

If she was that willing, he’d gladly have her join them. The fact that she could use magic would be immensely valuable as well so he wasn’t about to complain. Although, he hadn’t gotten approval from anyone yet, he doubted anyone would fuss too much over it.

Not long after encountering Aphelia, he made it to the barracks. He unsheathed his sword and began to sharpen it. It had dulled a bit after his fight with Drexo. Since they were going to be doing a lot more fighting soon, he needed to have it completely ready to go once more so he found himself fixing it up appropriately.

He caught a glance of Juna as she tried to walk past him.

“Hey,” he said.

She stopped and tried to smile at him but her ability to hide her true feelings was rather weak these days.

“I wanted to say something earlier to you but I suppose I’ll say it now. I’m sorry about the other day,” he said. “I shouldn’t have pushed things like I did.”

“It’s fine. I’ve already forgiven you.”

“You have?”

She nodded her head. “I am a bit concerned though about something else.”

“About that whole, soul issue I’m betting.”

“Uh huh. So it’s true then. You really can manipulate souls.”

He shushed her a little. “Not so loud.” She walked up to him and sat down on a crate as he kept sharpening his sword. “I promise I didn’t know. Now that I do though, I can avoid unintentionally participating in it any further.”

“I see.” She said it as if she wasn’t quite sure what to think of him anymore. He hadn’t yet confronted Silvy about it so he wondered how she might react. “So you’re not going to use this ability anymore?”

“I don’t have any plans to.”

“But you might if you have to?”

It would be easier to say no, but Juna didn’t deserve to be lied to. “I can’t make that promise. I wouldn’t use it in an inappropriate context, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

“Kiran, I’m not exactly the most spiritually inclined person, but even I know that there’s never an appropriate time to do such a thing.”

Even if it’s to save yourself or those you love? Rather than confront her with this question, he kept it purely within his own mind. It would be hard for someone to just deny such power when put in a terrifying situation where those you love might die if you don’t tap into this taboo power.

“Don’t worry,” she said softly, “I won’t tell anyone about it.”

“I appreciate it. There’s enough trouble as is going on now. It’s probably for the best that only a select few know.”

“Did you tell Lar?’

“Yeah. I told her earlier.”

Whilst they sat and chatted together, rain kept pouring down.

With this storm, came another storm right after it. It was a storm of violence and that of blood. His own hands would play some part in carrying it out. But it had to be done. For their people and the people of Valak, they had to free this city from its current subjugation at all costs.

He eyed Juna who held onto one of her daggers.

“Are you prepared to fight again already?”

She forcefully sheathed her dagger and stood back up. “I’m as ready as ever.”