Stephen was still at his desk, strategizing, tired, exhausted, and drained. As the primary strategist, he supervised both the fourth layer and the war effort in the Obscure Guild. He couldn’t be everywhere at once and hadn’t slept well in the last three days.

He massaged his head. “I’m envious of Deputy Kray. She’s keeping the Topaz Guild in check while I have to do all the hard work.”

His tablet’s screen lit up. [Incoming Call: Gabriella Rivampe]

“Stephen, did you see the video?” Gabriella was shocked after what had happened to Aaron and Ejiro. “Remove it right now!”

“I’ve seen it. We’re trying… it keeps getting reuploaded. The entire media’s talking about you right now. We can only limit the rumours and the video’s spread. I’m already busy with other matters.”

Stephen frowned. “Don’t go killing yourself, alright? Wait for the Western Army.”

“...Alright.” She hung up.

Stephen’s assistant entered his office. “Sophie?”

“There’s one of Gabriella’s loyalists on the line, Victor. He says you know him.”

…

“Christopher!” Gabriella glared at Christopher Fireblood, the Alpha. Her wings grew from her back, sticking out of her shirt as her eyes turned black, her claws extended, and her fangs cut into her lower lip.

He grinned at her. “Yeah?”

“Prepare to go to Karl City!”

“Well, you heard her!” He ordered the other werewolves beside him. He was excited. “This is going to be fun. We don’t need those punny humans to defeat the reptoids.”

For a moment, Gabriella wanted to go back on her word. She knew her decision was stupid, but Aaron and Ejiro were in danger. They weren’t immune to death. Certainly not if she waited another day.

…

An hour later, Torque City, Fourth Layer. There was a main gate to the fifth layer, but the problem was that the fifth layer controlled it, not the fourth.

The gate was opening, putting everyone on edge, from the guards to the millions of residents who refused or couldn’t evacuate to a safer city. It had been a month since it had last opened. A baby at a nearby park felt his parent’s fright and started crying, causing a chain reaction of dog barks, screams, and whines.

Two large metallic sounds echoed throughout the city.

The doors to the fifth layer were wide open, and the ones who entered were Zephyr’s army. The cursed had no remorse towards humans and didn’t spare any.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

His army was large, but it wasn’t the quantity that made it dangerous. Twelve cursed skeleton wizards were flying above Zephyr. Hundreds of reptoids fought in the front, causing a massacre. Tens of thousands of skeleton undead were in the rear.

While some skeletons could only wield a sword, smarter ones could wield guns, others wielded magic, and very few could make other skeletons: the wizards.

To make a skeleton cursed, wizards used a portion of their mana on a human’s corpse. As the flesh decomposed, the bone creature grew increasingly lively with each infusion of mana they provided it.

…

“The Fourth Layer is under attack!” Sophie interrupted Stephen’s conference with the loyalists.

“Already?” Stephen’s eyes widened with fear. “Was it in Torque, at least?”

“Yes, your prediction was correct. However, we didn’t have enough time to evacuate all the citizens. Micky and Scott couldn’t set up the protective gear in time.”

Victor exchanged a look with the other loyalists. “That’s not good. We’ll use everything we have to slow them down. Please think of a new plan, Stephen.”

…

More vampires finally arrived at the battleground. There were also human mages. They fought valiantly against the reptoids and the skeletons. However, they were outnumbered and too weak.

The reptoids had silver armour, silver spears, silver knuckles, silver bullets, and so on. Despite their weakness to silver, some vampires managed to kill many of them.

The masked vampires fought in the busiest street. They used the decor to avoid bullets and sneaked in their own attacks, using their agility to counter the reptoids’ strength.

Their leader, Rib, threw a plasma disk that melted the reptoids’ silver armour. He had killed five of them in a single throw. As an enemy started firing at him, he flapped his wings and dashed to the side while another masked vampire sliced the shooter’s throat.

“I’m going ahead,” Rib told him before jumping three meters in the air, right onto the mass of reptoids.

-Clank clank clank!

The skeleton-masked vampire stepped on countless heads while advancing toward his target. A skeleton caught his boot, but Rib broke its fingers with his sword and marched forth. The other vampires who noticed the man revered him from afar.

After travelling a kilometre inside the enemy’s grasp, Rib struck his scimitar onto a reptoid’s head. He raised the body towards his target, Zephyr Dragos, and kicked it off his sword. The corpse collapsed and slid all the way to the ruler’s feet.

“Hello, are you challenging me to a duel?”

…

“We need to blow them up,” Stephen told Micky and Scott over his tablet.

Scott nodded. “Got it. One of the engineers already arranged something just in case.”

…

Another fight was happening above ground: the reptoids also had many

aircraft. Aerial warfare put the vampires at yet another disadvantage.

Outclassed, they tried firing at ships with explosives, using their wings or helicopters to fly above ground. It wasn’t enough.

But when they were about to give up an unmanned jet suddenly flashed past everyone, straight towards the gate.

“Stop it! FIRE!” A reptoid general ordered every fleet. All the aerial vehicles focused their sights on it. However, the jet could go faster since it didn’t have a human on board.

Not even three seconds had passed, and it was now at the city’s main gate.

“FIRE!!!” The general repeated, but it was too late.

The aircraft’s bottom lid opened, and an item plunged out. The commander squinted. It was falling towards the sea of skeletons.

By the time he realized it was a bomb, it had exploded.