The city of Norach, 64000 citizens…and 150000 refugees.
3rd person POV.
Duke Leonard stands atop the balcony of his office, overseeing his crowded city and the flow of refugees. In the distance, he can even see those accursed blood red monstrosities burning down another village. He can only pray that the villagers have already fled as his army is still mustering.
It was too sudden. The bishop had just told him that the heroes had been summoned, then the rifts opened and the monstrosities marched out. They burned down everything in their path, cleverly avoiding any fortified settlements that could offer the slightest bit of resistance. The beacons are still lit as the marauding bands ignore the watchtowers as they ravage the land.
He can feel a headache coming up the moment he glances at the burning fields and all the losses that entails. Not just the losses of this year, but also the amount of food he has to give out to keep everyone alive in winter. At least most of his citizens are still alive and can replant next year.
As everything goes south, he can now find joy in the little things as light at the end of this dark tunnel. For example, one of the behemoths just gets its skull blasted open by a mage riding a wyvern, while the rest of the wyvern strike team obliterates whatever forces the behemoth had. In peacetime, he hates those wyverns because they keep shitting everywhere during their patrols. Now, he understands why the king keeps sending them on patrols. He even wishes to have some for himself. Unfortunately, as his advisors and vassals say, his land doesn't produce nearly enough tax to justify that expense.
…
Though he can afford it. 'Maybe I will keep one in secret. No one has ever gone to that emergency hideout in the middle of the forest before, so I can hide the wyvern there. If the situation requires me to escape to the hideout, I can also use it to deal with any encirclement. Yeah, I can justify like that if I ever get found out as well.' He thinks with a suppressed smile on his face.
Footsteps sound out behind him. He turns around to meet the gaze of Sir Thomas, his Marshal. Thomas stops just before him and reports: "My lord, 12500 soldiers, 200 knights and 125 mages have been mobilized. What are your orders?"
Leonard then walks over to the map laid out on his table, "Keep 2500 soldiers garrisoned here, march the rest out to Keinhark bridge, the one leading to the heartland, and secure it. Afterward, I'll send a message to Duke Richard through the mages, he still owes me once and will help if his land is safe. Whether Richard sends aid or not, leave whatever forces you feel fit to hold the bridge and start clearing out the countryside, in particular, the road leading to the counts' capitals."
"Yes, my lord." Thomas quickly leaves.
Walking towards the plaza where the army is preparing themselves, Sir Thomas ponders who he should leave behind. The city's 1600 men-at-arms are a must as they have many incentives to fight to their last. Some of the older knights should be left behind for their experience. The mages can all be brought with him as the city still has many mages that refused to join the army, but willing to defend the city. With that, a list of 2500 people to leave behind appears in his mind.
Quickly assigning who to stay in the city and who to go with the army, any objections are promptly ignored as the army rushes out before any can be voiced out. While there is a faster route, Thomas decides on a few detours to gather more forces from his liege's barons.
The way to the first baron is relatively smooth sailing, emphasizing on relatively. They meet multiple ambushes along the way. Evidently, the behemoths are more of very expensive distractions than proper attacking forces.
The first ambush is when they march past a burnt village. A large group of imps and hellhounds assaults the skirmishers scouting the path for the army. The imps, while weak physically, are somewhat decent in magic, as in they can learn low level spells quickly. As such, the skirmish opens with a massive volley of minor fireballs, which mostly miss or dissipate midway due to how spread out the skirmishers are. The few that hit set the unfortunate men ablaze.
The skirmishers quickly gather themselves into a square and form a shield wall around themselves. While most of the soldiers don't know magic, their knightly commander does. The knight then proceeds to draw magic circles to conjure up their own fireballs to fire into the sky, signaling the main army for aid. The soldiers quickly take out their weapons, either preferred or the only one they can afford, and begin to return fire.The knight finishes just in time for the hellhounds to descend upon them.
To be more accurate, the hellhounds are intelligent enough to not charge at the wall of shields and spears, so the unfortunate burning men who haven't been dragged into the formation yet become their targets. Of course, the soldiers won't let their comrades die like that, so they ward off the hellhounds with rocks from slings and arrows from bows and crossbows. Both of which are significantly more lethal than they sound, especially fired by the people near the front who have a relatively unobstructed view of the hellhounds.
However, they fail to save their comrades as most are burned to char by the flame spewing out of the hellhounds. To the average soldier, technically levy, they know little more than their village and the nearest urban area. Consequently, seeing these wolf-shaped red things that spew out flame and have hollowed eyes does quite a hit to morale. At least the ones on the front, the others can't see the hollowed eyes, but they can see everything else.
The imps pour out of their hiding spots just as the hellhounds switch their targets to the shield wall. As the hellhounds charge, they are greeted with a volley of light javelins from the soldiers, which thin out the hellhounds rapidly. By the time contact is made, there are less hellhounds than soldiers at the front, letting the soldiers isolate and kill them one by one. While the flame spewing from the mouth of the hellhounds is terrifying, the round shields that the soldiers hold are covered in leather, preventing them from bursting into flames. Furthermore, the majority of the skirmishers are equipped with range weapons, because they are skirmishers, thinning out the enemies with range weapons is their job. Consequently, most hellhounds perish without setting anyone on fire.
When the last hellhounds die or flee and then get killed by arrows or rocks as they flee, the imps have gathered into several columns of their own and surrounded the skirmishers on 3 sides. The knight leading the skirmishers, Sir Robert, observes the battlefield from the vantage point atop his horse. He counts some 5 columns of imps, probably a hundred each. Then he glances down at his own force, a single column of 100 and a squadron of 30 light cavalry.
As neither the soldiers nor the imps are particularly brave, or rather reckless, enough to charge into melee, the range battle begins. While small fireballs, rocks and arrows fill the sky, Robert calls for his squire, Jacob:
"Jacob, gather the light cavalry and charge out at our left flank."
"Yes, sir!" Jacob starts to wade through the crowd with his horse to regroup the light cavalry, which has been separated by the chaotic grouping of the formation.
He then turns to his page and his standard bearer, telling them to slowly move northward back to the main army. As the banner moves, the men follow, moving the whole formation. Soon, the light cavalry sally forth. Seeing that they can't outmatch the fireballs of the imps, they choose to charge at them with a spear gripping tightly in their armpit. No longer protected by the shield wall, many horses are hit by the, mostly missing, flaming balls and almost shake off their riders and flee. Luckily, the sheer momentum of their charge and the determination of their riders keep them rushing toward the imps' formation. In addition, all of the skirmishers wear gambeson with a thin layer of leather on top, preventing them from bursting into flame without enough concentrated firepower.
Soon, the light cavalry is upon the imps. The imps form a shield wall of their own which quickly gets holes poked into it by rain of arrows and rocks. The cavalry crashes into the first row, crushing many imps to their death, with only a few grazes from the imps' spears. The second row, much less damaged than the first, holds out slightly better, up to 5 cavalrymen are hit, but they are still crushed under the sheer weight of a horse and its rider. The third row absorbs the rest of the momentum, finally ending the charge at the price of many wounded imps with broken bones. Unfortunately for those imps, they almost immediately get impaled by the cavalrymen's spears, who promptly turn their horses around to prepare for another charge.
The imps who see this, naturally, become afraid and stick closer together. As a result, the formations of the imps become densely packed. While it provides excellent protection from the light cavalry, who are currently trying to find a weak point to charge in, it also slows down the movement of the imps greatly.
Sir Robert allows himself a smile seeing this scene. A few of his men have almost broken formation and flee, thinking that the whole unit is about to be encircled. With the left flank stabilized, a route is secured and the men stick with each other to pass it.
Elsewhere, a hellknight sees the same thing and, with a roar, signals for the imps to charge in. Such is the strength of the roar that the soldiers can hear it and brace for the clash. Sir Robert almost manages to figure out where the roar came from, but the warcry from the imps quickly drowns out the roar. The high-pitched sound, almost like that of an opera singer, is an unexpected oddity in the middle of the battlefield. As such, the men are unnerved by it. To make matters worse, the sound sticks as a ringing noise in the men's ears, preventing them from properly listening to each other's shouts.
The imps' columns charge forward, like a red tide rushing across the rain of rocks and arrows. Taking advantage of the situation, the light cavalry counter charges the imps' column on the men's left flank, once again dealing many casualties. This terrifies the column next to it, slowing them down as they refuse to change their densely packed formation. Consequently, they suffer many injuries and deaths of the hail of arrows.
For the soldiers on the right, this matters little as all of their focus is on the imps charging toward them. The moment an invisible line seems to be crossed, the javelins are released. Dozens of imps fall onto the ground, their bodies trampled by the imps behind them. The imps attempt to fire a volley of fireballs to weaken the shield wall. However, the imps behind them keep pushing them forward as they continue to run, thus preventing magic circles to properly be drawn.
The imps reach the front of the right flank. As the ones on the front slow down, those behind them push them forward. Despite their best efforts, the chain of imps crashing onto the back of each other results in the skewering of many imps as the columns hit the shield wall. True to its name, the shield wall stops the charge like a wall, wounding and killing many with its counter force.
There is an exception, the center column manages to stop just before impact and launches a massive volley of fireballs, downing many men. With the shield wall damaged, the impact is much less severe than on the right. Seeing this, Robert can guess that whatever that roar came from, probably a hellknight based on his education, is personally leading there. With the right holding and the left still thinning the slowly approaching imps, Robert decides to leave the men to fight on their own and makes his way to take down the hellknight.
Wading through the crowd of men, his standard bearer dutifully follows behind. Though with the whole unit being pressed from all 3 sides, the column is still slowly falling back toward the main army. When Sir Robert reaches the fourth line, he sees the demonic warrior. It's…not actually hiding very well. True to what Robert has been taught, the tallest imp he can see is barely matching the shoulders of his men. In contrast, even when hunched over, the hellknight is obviously taller than a man and sticks out of the red mass like a sore thumb. Though considering that no projectile is hitting it, the soldiers probably also notice it and wisely avoid messing with it.
Sir Robert raises his sword, an arming sword, and his heater shield up high. The hellknight notices him, stands straight up and raises both of its arms high. Its roar is a clear answer to his challenge. He quickly notes that one arm is carrying a battle axe and the other is carrying a spear. He then lowers his arms and goes over to his page to change weapons.
He recalls what he learnt about the hellknight back when he was still a squire. The hellspawns, in general, can transform their body almost at will in Punishia. In Livingior, they can only last as long as their mana allows them to maintain their form. Thus, they try to choose the most efficient shape possible, which usually involves similar anatomy to living creatures.
The hellknight is one of the kinds that can start to ignore the rules. Able to transform their body more easily, they can specialize in fighting against a specific foe. Luckily they are not at the level of transforming mid-fight yet. So he plans to show it his sword and shield, then switches to his poleax, which his page is handing to him, to give himself an edge over it.
As he makes his way to the front, the hellknight moves closer to the front as well. They both slow down at the third line. Since whoever dares to charge in will also have to take down the surrounding men or imps, neither side is particularly inclined to make a move without the other doing the same.
As each step is taken, Sir Robert attempts to pull the hellknight closer by shortening his steps. Unfortunately, the demon notices it and also shortens its steps. Soon, both of them come face to face with each other. Sir Robert mutters a short prayer to the Goddess and activates all the magical equipment that he has.
Feeling the extra power coursing through his body and seeing the slight blue glow of the spherical field protecting him, Sir Robert steps into the first row. The soldiers next to him notice that he lacks a shield and try to pull him back and cover him with their shields. They stop once they notice all the fireballs being dissipated by the field.
Opposite to him, the hellknight steps forward, the projectiles, launched by some braver soldiers behind him, bounce off its scales. Glistening under the sunlight, that's something it has just added to itself and would be problematic for Sir Robert to find a weak point with his sword. Fortunately, he has a poleax. The beast has also switched its weapon to a two handed mace.
He observes the surrounding imps and the ground to realize that there is an odd shadow. His master once told him that the best weapon is the one that can't be seen until it's too late. However, during the spar right after that, his master held a blunted dagger in his shield arm and split his focus enough to defeat him normally. Now, he needs to figure out how much he needs to care about that hidden weapon.
The hellknight begins, with a deep voice: "I am chieftain Galber of Chanllior Dynasty. To whom do I have the honor of fighting today?"
Sir Robert freezes for a moment, he was not taught that the hellknight can speak. He quickly recovers and answers: "I am Sir Robert, an aristocratic knight under Duke Leonard. I am of no House nor Dynasty. I am not aware that your kind can speak. My apologies if that comes out wrong. Though I do wish to know why you would want my name?"
The hellknight's face changes to what can be considered a grin, "I am not surprised. My kind has not appeared en masse in Livingior for a long while. I wish to know of your name as there are bounties in Punishia for every noble."
'Indeed, the old legends that the hellspawns are organized and disciplined are not wrong. What has happened in between that the hellspawns are now known as an oversized rabble?" Sir Robert thinks, face unchanged.
Seeing that the other seems to have finished, both warriors hold their weapons tight and slowly move forward. As the distance closes, the edge of the chieftain's form becomes slightly blurry, affected by the same magic-disrupting field that protects Sir Robert from the fireballs. The moment both step into the reach of each other's weapons, the fight begins.
Sir Robert starts with a simple thrust, which Galber avoids with a side step and counters with a downward slash of the mace. Sir Robert parries the slash and steps backward outside of the mace's reach. A soldier behind him launches a stone at the demon's eyes, forcing the hellknight to dodge. Sir Robert rushes forward in an attempt to swing at the chieftain's leg. An imp rushes in and blocks the strike with its shield and is knocked over by the force. The hellknight kicks the imp away as it almost disintegrates from the magic disrupting field.
Meanwhile, the light cavalry squadron is slowly falling away from the fight as a column of imps keep them in check as another engages the left flank. At that moment, a dust cloud suddenly rises up further from the north. One of the imps columns on the right flank disengages to form a tightly packed wall in an attempt to hold against whatever is coming.
Soon, the cause comes into view. A squadron of knights and their squires ride hard toward the shield wall on the right flank. Armours of both the men and the large warhorses gleaming under the sunlight, they are a terrifying sight to behold even for the skirmishers. The imps desperately launch as many fireballs as they can. To their dismay, all of the fireballs are dissipated by the fields surrounding each of the chargers.
The first line of the squadron, the squires, open fire a volley of crossbow bolts into the bracing imps, wounding several. As the squires fall back to dismount and reload, the knights ready their lances and charge in. With the weight of armoured horses and its riders, the frontline quickly crumbles under the immense force crashing into it. The magic-disrupting field makes the situation even worse as most imps have already exhausted their mana launching fireballs already. Consequently, many of them run out of mana and vanish before the knights even make physical contact.
Without anything stopping the warhorses, the squadron tears through the entire unit. The next one, still stuck in combat against the skirmishers, meet the same fate. As the entire left wing of the hellspawns is being decimated, dust clouds rise from every direction as light cavalry from other units of skirmishers come to aid.
At this sight, the imps fight harder. After all, they can respawn in Punishia, so their deaths are far less damaging than the humans'. Soon, the knights carve their way closer and closer to the fight between Galber and Sir Robert. Galber immediately abandons all caution at the realization.
Swinging his mace in a large arc, it has such force that the soldiers stepping in to shield Sir Robert against it fall over without stopping the mace. Sir Robert is barely able to parry the blow. Unbalanced, the demon chieftain continues to spin, swinging his tail into view. Wrapping around a one-handed mace, the hellknight can't swing accurately with it. However, with Sir Robert unbalanced by the parry, even a wild swing might just be enough. Unfortunately for the hellknight, it is not. Sir Robert gives the tail enough care that he throws himself to the ground instead of trying to balance himself back up. The mace scrapes the back of his armour as he barely manages to dodge it.
Then a lance stabs through the hellknight, and with the crash of the warhorse, destroying Galber's form.
As the knights disperse the imps' forces, the light cavalry hunt the fleeing imps down. By afternoon, the skirmish is over. A total of 5 good men have fallen, about 2 dozen men and a dozen horses are injured. As for the hellspawns, technically none of them dies. They will be reborn in Punishia and fight again. Information on how long they take to be reborn is questionable at best and dreamt up at worst, so it is still a mystery.
After the unit has finished stabilizing the injured men, they return back to the main army, which has already finished setting up a camp. The injured are sent to the field hospital for the healers to patch them up. The corpses are sent back to the city for proper burial.
For the next seven days, the army marches through 6 baronies and a county. Ambushes become a constant that are almost more annoying than deadly. Fortunately, there are enough secret food stores that managed to survive the demonic attacks that the army remains well-fed. On the way, Sir Thomas takes some soldiers from the Count, calling in the contract between the Count and the Duke. Agreeing with the reasoning that his county will be protected if the bridge is secured, the Count lends 600 light cavalry, 20 knights and 10 mages. The barons are left to defend their own lands as they have less contacts and resources than the Counts, resulting in lesser ability to rebuild.
When the army reaches the bridge, they find that the bridge has already been fortified and garrisoned by Duke Richard. However, there are only a thousand levies, which aren't even Duke Richard's forces, it's one of his barons. Technically speaking, the favor is returned, but it is quite obvious that the Duke is just desperate for any opportunity to remove the potential threat that is a favor owed. Sir Thomas leaves some 2 thousand men there and begins to march towards the other 2 Counts in his Duke's land.
He is decently aware of the heroes' summoning and easily figures out that this sudden assault can only be related to that. Obviously, the heroes are not responsible, but the dark lord that they will have to face is. Naturally, he is too far away and too powerless to affect anything. However, he can still ponder what is going through the dark lord's mind as his minions ravage the lands in his name.
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Meanwhile, thousands of kilometers all the way to the far north, within the ruins of Olta, Danh is, determinedly, taking a shit.
Elsewhere, Lucy is face-palming before the orb. The Succubus Queen is barely restraining her laughter. The newly arrived Dark One has just finished his train of thought. He has neglected to mention that Danh's metabolism has been upgraded, enough to no longer require going to the toilet. Fortunately, Lucy has already guessed his first question, "An hour, he has been sitting there for an hour."
"Why don't you just go in and tell him that?" The Dark One asks with the most speechless tone he can summon.
Lucy quickly responds: "Oh, I don't know. Maybe because someone set up magical protection that prevents anyone, me included, from teleporting close to Danh. I am not gonna appear in front of the restroom, walk in and tell Danh that."
"Oh for fuck sak." With that, the Dark One disappears. The Dark One reappears on the projection. While Danh is still in a daze, the Dark One quickly explains these specific changes and says that he will upload the list of Danh's new abilities to the throne.