A few days later, not much had changed. We were still walking forwards towards where the frontline should be. Although we were going at a slower pace, we would reach the duchy"s capital city soon, which was worrying as we definitely had not pa.s.sed the frontline yet.As we walked I could tell that we were getting closer to it though. As the bloodstains seemed fresher as did the other signs of battle that were around, such as the ground still having footprints in them from heavy infantry. Finally as well we saw bodies. This meant two things, one the bodies had not yet been removed by whoever was moving them as the frontline was close, or they did not need any more bodies. I personally was hoping for the first of the two.
After a few more hours of traveling, we could hear the faint sounds of battle. Which as I looked around, made expressions of relief appear on nearly everys face"s.
"Alright, we will take a break early today. Once it is over, we will have to sneak past and probably break through the demon"s lines. So be ready, some of you will die."
Hearing Dubh"s speech, I would say it was rousing and inspired me, but well it didn"t. Taking note, if I was ever in command, I needed to be good at speeches, I found a spot on the ground and sat down, resting my back against the tree.
"I hope the others are alive and managed to get back to outside safely, I am glad as well this sword listened to me the other day when I said I didn"t want it to read my thoughts. That voice was starting to get annoying."
I felt a hand shake me, opening my eyes, I saw that it was Erebus.
"Come on kid, it is time to get moving. Damm, I can hear something coming, be ready to move."
Getting up, I looked around and I saw the rangers who were alot like me, getting shaken and told to get ready. I heard a thud, from where Erebus had gone. Looking in that direction, I saw him coming back, with a dagger in his hand. There was black blood dripping down off of it.
"That was a patrol, we won"t have much time before they know that we are here. Dubh, what are your orders."
"Damm, sneaking through won"t be an option now. We will have to break through. Form the star dragon formation. I hope to see you all on the other side."
I was directed by Erebus and a few other rangers, to a point in the formation. I was positioned on the outside, of the right point.
The formation itself was rather simple. It was made up of three points, which were shaped a bit like claws, these points would be connected to the body which would have the strongest fighters, who would kill anything that was tricked into coming close by the points.
Then we began to move.
Starting off, it was slow at first, as we still wanted to avoid detection for as long as possible. The few demons we did run into, were all lesser grade demons, so they were taken out easily.
"The a.s.sa.s.sination style fighting is insane, they are all only taking one attack to kill the demon they come across. Why does n.o.body talk about the rangers more? They are just as skilled as the knights in this regard."
Now it was my turn, there was a lesser demon, walking straight towards me. Crouching low, into the bushes and undergrowth, I hid myself completely and waited for its approach. As I was waiting the spirit"s voice appeared again.
"When you attack, stab straight into the beast"s neck and up through its head. It will kill it instantly. Oh, use me to do it. I have not felt the feeling of blood in years."
Taking out my sword quietly, I didn"t have to wait much longer for the beast to arrive. As it got close enough to me so that I could strike, I moved forwards and upa at the demon. The sword piercing straight through where the spirit had said. The demon was killed instantly and without letting out a noise.
I felt my back warm up a bit, as the rangers all seemed to stare at me. This didn"t last for long though as a roar could be heard throughout the forest of where we were.
Then I ran, along with the others, we all ran straight to where we could hear the fighting taking place. As I barreled through the last part of the forest, I saw it. The battlefield. Compared to the others I have been in and the one in the spirits world, this one seemed bigger and more deadly.
I could make out thousands of soldiers, in a wide variety of formations, all moving towards the demon horde. Allow the horde did seem much smaller than what it was before. I guess this is due to the fact that there have been lots of demons being killed as they advanced.
It didn"t take the demons that long to notice that we had just gotten out of the woods. A deep voice came from the demon"s lines.
"More of them to our back"s. Kill them all and you will get a blood feast tonight."
After the voice had finished speaking, a loud roar could be heard from the demons, as at least a quarter of the horde turned around and charged towards.
"s.h.i.t. How can we charge through all of that?"
A Lot of the other rangers on the points had said similar things, and they thought it as their faces suddenly became extremely grim. At that moment Erebus ran past me. As he moved, I felt the air around me tighten and suddenly become heavy. Looking at the demons, it seemed like they were struggling against something.
"It must be his aura, but can he fight all of those at once?"
Then we all began to move, with Dubh motivating us as we went, his way of motivating that is. Which was on the lines of move or you will be feeling my fist.
It didn"t take long for us to reach the demons, lucky I wasn"t at the very tip of the point, but I felt sorry for the one who was. He slashed and stabbed at the demons, as we got to them, as we slowly penetrated into the demon"s ranks, I started to attack, always aiming for their vital points, aiming to kill them as soon as I could.
Erebus must have a really good control of his aura as well, as it only affected the demons and not us. This made it much easier for us as the demons were not moving as quickly meaning that we could attack them quicker and get past them much more quickly.
It only took around five minutes for us to get past the demons, as I got out, I could see our next challenge. The rest of the demon horde as well as the halestorm of magic and arrows that was currently being used to keep them at bay.