Before he even made the decision to switch plans, one member of the group already sprinted forward to break a cell open.

“Momma! Momma!”

“It's okay, mommy’s here now. Mommy’s here now.”

He couldn’t very well blame the woman. Only one of his group had someone to reunite with, but the reunions continued as the other groups came up and cells were bust open.

Parents reunited with their kids, husbands and wives reunited with each other, and parties reunited with one another. It was potentially dangerous to start celebrating before the actual work was done, but seeing all of the tears of joy kept him silent on that point. He didn’t have it in him to ruin the moment.

It’d been long, so long, since he did anything that could even be misconstrued as ‘good’. Seeing such moments of joy and release and knowing he caused it… he couldn’t quite describe the feeling. It felt so odd, so alien, and it touched him in such an intimate place. He took a deep breath to savor it, but then immediately pushed it to the side.

No distractions.

The second layer was a massive open space. There might have been over a thousand former slaves jammed tight into rows and rows of cells and there was still space for a hundred more to work various contraptions.

While most ran for the rows, Dalric headed toward where there were still people working. Even with no one to watch over them, twenty-four burly humans groaned as they spun a large wheel. Though he couldn’t see what the product of their efforts was, he could smell it. They were the first he freed.

Beyond them there were eighty more tiring themselves for some unseen purpose. When he broke both the wheel and the chains of the first group, they all stopped working and stared at him. Shock and disbelief featured on almost every face.

With all one hundred and five of them free, he turned back to the rows of cells. All together, there might have been fourteen hundred people on the floor. Organizing all of them would be hell, but thankfully he had just the person.

“Ryku! Come here.”

He came. By the expression on his face, he already knew exactly why Dalric had called him over.

“I need you to organize these people. It's good that we let them out, but we need to make sure they don’t hamper us going into the battle.”

To his credit, he only lightly grimaced, “Of course.”

While Ryku went off to do that, Dalric found one of the stairs and began climbing it. As he moved up the steps, he noted they lead to a vertical metal door instead of a horizontal one. It was also enchanted, unlike the other one.

Last line of defence.

He wasn’t there to test said defence, not yet. He just wanted to do some reconnaissance. The earth between the second layer and the first was so tightly packed and reinforced that his ahjer sense didn’t pierce through at all. He hoped getting closer would help, but when he reached the top it was still the same. Nothing.

Unfortunate.

He went back down and provided Ryku some token support. He didn’t really need it in fairness, he was a surprisingly competent leader and organizer. In much less time than expected he settled everyone down, sorted them out, got them food and makeshift blankets, and broke the cells down to make more open space.

They made a lot of noise in the process, removing any ideas of catching the guards upstairs unaware, but the speed at which it all happened made up for it.

Dalric didn’t know whether to be singularly impressed by Ryku or impressed with the whole Paragon organization. He leaned on the side of being impressed with Ryku personally, but he was vaguely interested in what kind and how much training Paragons received. A silver badge wasn’t that high up the ladder, it’s only fifth out of the eight ranks.

Though I guess he did say the top two were only for the truly extraordinary.

Once everyone was free and everything was set, they moved back to the original plan. There were only two stairs between the second and first layer. Both were wide enough for five people to stand side by side, but the limited access points meant their opposition only had to defend a small area. Even just one more would have meaningfully thinned the amount of defence they could stack at the top of any one of the stairs. Alas, it was at least better than just one.

They’d split up into groups again, but now they had around sixty combatants. A few extra decided to join them in their assault. Dalric couldn’t make them armor and he warned them that joining without protection would likely kill them, but they were content to come up in plain robes or fashion makeshift protections.

After a quick talk, he split the groups twenty-forty. His group had the twenty, they’d all been picked out because of their supposed skill, speed and explosiveness. They would attack their side in a blitz, looking to immediately overwhelm them.

The other group had the more tankier individuals, they’d attacked more cautiously and attempt to draw their side into an extended battle. Once Dalric’s group was done with their side, they’d circle around and attack from behind. With this, he hoped to focus the heat of battle on the top fighters and minimize casualties amongst the rest.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Ready?”

They were in position now, just behind the thick, enchanted door. Dalric looked around and met nothing but determined faces. It was a good sight. He nodded while using a bit of the ahjer he’d recovered to conjure himself a helmet.

“Good.” He signaled the whistleblower, “Do it.”

The second he gave the command, he charged forward. The screeching tone of the whistle synced perfectly with the thunderous impact of Dalric’s empowered fist and the metal door. It flew off its hinges, shattering crates and furniture stacked behind it. Before it could even hit the ground, they were under attack.

“Fire!”

Bullets rained in from all directions, peppering his armor. He wasn’t entirely sure how much damage they dealt, but he was still glad to have made the helmet. It wasn’t anything strong, in fact it was weaker than the armor he’d made the others, but it took a bullet and only dented slightly.

~I invoke: Cursed Winds~

A gust of purple-tinged wind blew in his direction.

~I invoke: Justice’s Blaze~

A beam of pure white light shot for his heart.

~I conjure: Demon Hawks~

A flock of rotting, black and red hawks flew towards him.

~I invoke: Plane of Pain~

Red blobs of jelly broke through the ground around him.

Spells of all different types followed closely behind the bullets. They sought to burn, freeze, poison, shock, rip, trap, dissect, confuse, and even arouse Dalric. His armor tanked all it could, but some affected the whole area. Those he could do nothing about. They covered the ground with all kinds of traps, some parts had frozen spikes, others had a red jelly that set off pain receptors when close.

Not giving them the time to attack him uncontested, he pulled out the uchigatana and continued his charge forward. He reached the first of dozens of makeshift barricades in a matter of moments, whipping the blade across his chest in a perfect arc.

The sixth man to die by its hand came less than a second after the first, all six were sliced cleanly through. He didn’t rest, instead hastily moving to the next group hiding behind a barricade. They suffered a similar fate, being briskly diced in half.

Dalric continued without ceremony again. The third barricade had eleven behind it. Having just watched ten of their number get bisected, some tried to run while others pointlessly fired their weapons at his chest. Neither helped. The ones that didn’t move died first, the thin blade so effortlessly cut through their plain leather armor, but the few that retreated only lived a few seconds longer. With their backs turned to him, he jabbed the blade through the back of their heads with ease.

He quickly looked around, but all the barricades around him just had riflemen behind them. The ahjerists were hidden in the back. Interestingly enough, the final stairway out was just behind them.

“The helmet is weak. Aim for the helmet!”

Whoever was giving out commands was back there as well.

Dalric instinctively dodged as bullets honed in on his head, he had to continue erratically darting around as most of their fire concentrated on him. He was still getting hit of course, but his efforts reduced the damage he’d take. His helmet could only take so many hits before things got dangerous.

This was all still part of the plan though, with so much attention on him the rest of the group came up the stairs mostly unchallenged. The draken woman was the first through, she didn’t quite match his speed, but when she reached a barricade she more than matched his lethality. Heads flew the moment they got in range of her long sword.

Though it was large, heavy, and designed for two hands, she held it in one. And she looked comfortable doing so. There was no loss of control, the precision of her movements was spectacular. It matched their brutality. She seemed to favor decapitations specifically, but decisive attacks to the upper body were her general go to. She pierced through eye sockets and rib cages, split faces down the middle, sliced through shoulder blades, and sometimes just smashed straight through skulls.

~I conjure: Acid Rain~

Clouds of light green manifested above the barricades. They rapidly grew darker before unloading a storm of acid.

~I conjure: Frozen Peaks~

A sudden gust of frozen winds blew by the battlefield. It did little damage to any people, but it irreparably damaged many rifles.

~I summon: Bulls of Baracath~

A small herd of ten dark grey bulls with three-foot horns spawned by the door. They immediately stampeded through the closest barricade to them.

The others followed their lead, hopping into the fray with fervor. Not all could so easily kill the men in front of them, but collectively they brought about a tidal wave of death. It was slowed down somewhat when a decent portion of the ahjerists switched to countering them instead of focusing on him, but they were skillful enough to protect themselves. Mostly.

Their own ahjerists were causing similar problems for their side at least.

“Stop them!”

Dalric made sure to balance aggressively decimating ranks with carefully evading concentrated fire. He needed to make sure his presence was great enough to keep the bulk of the attention on him, especially the ahjerists, but he also needed to not die in doing so. Potentially, maybe die. Whatever the case, he couldn’t remake his helmet and he couldn’t use ahjer to protect his head either. Whether he died or not, he couldn’t afford to be incapacitated.

Backing away from the thirteenth group he cleaned out, he finally took the time to analyze the surroundings. The first floor wasn’t as cramped as he expected. They’d clearly broken down some walls, but even ignoring that the junction that the door led into was quite spacious. They were currently making use of that space to stuff as many men behind makeshift barricades as they could.

It wasn’t a winning strategy, but Dalric did note three people from his side had already died. Two were among the ones that joined him while decked in thin robes so he only partially felt bad about them, but the other got surrounded and had their helmet pulled off. He saw it happen, through ahjer sense, but he was simply too far to do anything. Liv—

Agh.

He refocused on keeping himself moving. The bullet that banged him in the back of the head was surely a fluke, the person that fired it wasn’t even aiming at him, but that was no excuse. Being caught unaware while on a battlefield was the most amateur of mistakes. Now he was in dangerous territory. He’d been hit in the back of the head a few too many times and the plating was getting weak back there. He had to make a move.

Time to go for it then.

He stopped backing away and started charging forward. His helmet was beginning to thin and break down, but they were running out of bullets to fire at it. A few had already run out, opting to drop the rifle for a melee weapon. That meant the threat they posed was gradually on the decline. Most still had ammo to spare, but with their stock also thinning they took their shots more carefully.

The ahjerists in the back on the other hand, still had plenty of ahjer to spend. They were his next target.