2504 Natural Selection (Part 2)



'You want to make sure that the Demons find the leader of the monster army first and keep them alive.'

'No shit, Sherlock.' Lith replied with a telepathic sneer. 'We can't risk a powerful mage or a lucky shot from a soldier taking away your ride. Why do you ask? What did you think I was doing?'

'Well, between the slow march and the odd choice of spells, I thought that you were strutting like a peacock and taking your time as payback to the people of Ne'sra for kicking me out.' She giggled.

'That too.' Lith admitted, making her blush. 'But the main focus is to kill the monsters slowly enough for their leader to understand that they are beaten and call the retreat. I can't just let the children of Glemos escape after the Demons surround them.

'They would sniff the trap and not return to their base until they understand what's going on. Only someone who's running for their life doesn't have the time to notice a stone ring in their pockets.'

'I missed this.' Solus said.

'I missed you too.'

They never stopped advancing while they spoke, checking in with the various units of Demons for the enemy leader.

The soldiers of Ne'sra had disengaged from the enemies, yet the guards were retreating slowly despite Captain Neforce's order because they were helping the civilians to evacuate the occupied zones.

The monsters carried dimensional amulets that they filled with the food provisions they found inside the stores and the corpses of the humans they killed. To them, a shelter filled with people was no different from a warehouse filled with grain.

Actually, due to the famine and the food rationing, there were more people than food in Ne'sra. Now that the presence of the Demons granted them protection, the soldiers were prioritizing the lives of the citizens over their own.

The moment they brought a group of people to safety, the city guards went back inside the battle zone in search of survivors.

'This is bad.' Eryon the Fomor thought while studying the battle from above with his six elemental eyes.

The mages of the Kingdom who had stubbornly opposed him despite most of their spells had proven to be useless had suddenly cleared the field, shooting a barrage of fire and lightning to cover their retreat.

'The plan was working like a charm before those black things spawned everywhere.' When he focused with his black eye on a city block, Eryon could pinpoint the position of the energy masses that comprised the bodies of the Demons.

It not only gave him a rough estimate of their numbers but also allowed him to follow their movements and glimpse on their strategy. It took him but a few seconds to understand what was happening.

'First, the shadow monsters have stopped our advance and now they are hoarding us like cattle.' The Fomor could see his comrades being pushed back in what was only apparently a random direction.

The Demons had cut off all the retreat paths but one so that in the heat of the battle the reverted monsters had been too busy saving their lives to notice the trap. Lith had ordered Varegrave and the others to kill those who resisted and spare those who retreated, hoping to find among them the one who would carry Solus.

Eryon, however, saw it in a much more ominous light.

'They want to assemble us in one place so that they can exterminate us in one fell swoop with their damned tier five spells! Those black things are even worse than humans, playing cat and mouse with my brethren just to preserve a few buildings.' He gritted his teeth, his thoughts full of hatred for those he perceived as tormentors.

'Yet not all is lost. The humans' staunch defense of their homes has filled our amulets with meat while the farmers' market was full of fruit and vegetables. We didn't take as much as I hoped but we've gained more than enough.

'If the other units gathered as much as we did, we have enough food to migrate to a different region and start over before we fall prey to the bloodlust of our fallen state and murder each other for a piece of bread.

'But that's not going to happen if the humans managed to repel them or if I lose our harvest!' The Fomor flapped his wings furiously, using a flight spell and fusion magic to boost his speed.

Each team of monsters had a gatherer with an imprinted amulet and the task of collecting food while the others fought. The rest of the unit had to protect the gatherer at all costs and when that failed, one of them had to pick up the amulet and imprint it.

As long as most of the gatherers or at least their dimensional amulets made it back home, the missions would be a success.

As Lith had predicted, most of those who had volunteered for the assault belonged to the older and more flawed generations who had been deemed unworthy of having an offspring.

The colony had limited resources and they would be employed solely for those who demonstrated the greatest potential like Eryon. He was one of the few natural Fomors born from reverted Balors, sent to the battlefield to lead the troops and bring back the dimensional amulets in case the worst happened.

The children of Glemos knew that the second raid of the cities of the Kingdom would not be as successful as the first and that a third would reap them only death. It was the reason they had waited as long as they could to make the humans relax before striking again.

It was also why they needed to move as far away as possible.

They hoped that this way they would encounter less resistance and that they would escape the search parties of the Council that were getting closer to their hideout by the day.

'We are so close to perfecting our life forces. So close. If only we had a little bit more time.' Eryon thought the same words that Glemos had been telling them for decades to justify his actions and find the strength to fight.

'What are a few human lives compared to the survival of entire species? If only the four races weren't so egotistical, we could coexist in peace. This is just their contribution to our salvation, whether they like it or not!'

The Fomor flapped his wings and dived into the thick of battle, repelling Locrias' blade with his enchanted ax. The Demon of the Fallen had taken the strong body of a Hati and possessed six eyes, yet he was pushed back a few meters.

Eryon's yellow eye produced a spark of golden lightning that empowered the Fomor his equipment, and all those nearby, multiplying their strength by threefold. On top of that, Locrias' sword, Pride, was covered in a thick layer of ice.

It neutralized the enchantments of the blade and bled its pseudo cores, making it no different from a sharp piece of purified Adamant.

Pride had been originally named after his daughter, Gilly, but after it had caused a few misunderstandings, he had renamed the weapon.