Dragon Gods Reign

[High order territory]

Calmly waiting even as the arriving soldiers surrounded him with drawn weapons, Feron did his best to seem harmless. From keeping his hands away from his weapons to backing slightly off when a spear tip came too close, he left no idea unused in the attempt.

Soon he saw the crowd of soldiers scuffling around, followed shortly after by a man stepping out from between them. Coming to a stop in front of his men, the officer's gaze momentarily rested on Feron before wandering across the other four.

Realizing their power, he became increasingly nervous during the process until he reached Goddard. Thinking for a moment, he soon came to a decision.

“I don't think I have any choice but to trust you and ask for your assistance. All of you would be helpful, but bloodline users especially so.” He said, realizing that by after onto the wall and through defenses, their group could likely sweep through the forces stationed on it.

His words were followed by a sigh of relief from both his subordinates and Alorick's group.

“That's why we're here.” Alorick answered him.

“Then-” The officer started but was interrupted by a sudden explosion near them.

In an instant all heads turned towards it, still getting to see the quickly dimming piece of the barrier that extended up from the outer edge of the wall. A second later it had completely returned to its invisible state, with only the slowly dispersing cloud of smoke being left from the attack.

“The enemy is approaching!”

As the shout echoed across the wall, the soldiers instantly went into action. Amidst the clattering of weapons and armor plates, they ran along the wall and to their positions.

Despite this, it quickly became clear that they were vastly understaffed, with sometimes as much as forty meters being between groups of defenders.

“Just don't make me regret my choice.” The officer said to Feron before hastily following after his men.

Slightly stunned by the suddenness of the development, Feron slowly turned to Alorick with a questioning look.

“We'll just join in on the defense, the plan fell through anyway.”

Acknowledging his decision with a quick nod, their team directly jumped into action.

Spinning around, Goddard didn't waste a moment before unleashing a sea of fire onto the approaching undead. A moment later the three aura users arrived next to him, each bringing their own specialization to bear.

Feron and Somir both conjured up different elements and clad their weapons in them. At the same time, Myra moved to cover what little of Goddard's body was left unprotected by the battlements.

Cautiously waiting for the first enemy to break through the sea of fire, they didn't dare to take their eyes off them for even a second.

After a couple of seconds, a screech echoed out from the flames, shortly followed by a blur shooting out of it. Sailing through the air, the being was on a trajectory to fly over the wall and land inside the city until it reached the barrier.

Crashing against it with a confused squeal, the metallic monster lion became discernible as it helplessly fell down along the barrier.

Acting quickly, Somir, the person closest to it, dashed closer to it and swung his two-handed greatsword. Right as the monster reached the top of the battlements, his strike effortlessly ripped through its body and cut it in two.

Despite this, there came a dozen or more new shrieks from inside and across the flames. And this time it was followed by not just one, but at least twenty weak monsters flying through the air.

As soon as they came into view, Alorick cast two spells. In short order, two gravitational masses formed a few meters ahead of the barrier. Drawing the flying monsters closer with increasing force, they grouped most of them into two masses.

Having understood his thinking as soon as they saw the spell, Feron and Somir had both been ready for that moment. Swinging their weapons, they each unleashed an aura projectile towards one of the spells.

The crescent slashes both reached their target quickly, carving through most of the caught monsters. Those that weren't struck by it didn't fare much better as Alorick didn't keep his spell up any longer than necessary, consequently causing them to crash to the ground.

Stepping forward, he took aim at the disoriented monsters and called down a bolt of lightning on each of them. Appearing out of thin air fifty meters or so in the air, they left their targets no chance to react before flooding them with a lethal dosage of electricity while also burning a hole through their chest.

Watching his targets collapse to the ground, Alorick turned to the couple of monsters that his gravity spell hadn't caught. Upon seeing them being just as incapable as the lion at piercing the barrier, he was relieved even before Somir and Feron cut them down.

“Goddard, conserve your energy.” He warned.

“Are you sure? The zombies would-”

“Yes, I am.” Alorick interrupted.

After hesitating for a second longer, Goddard relented and stopped the wave of fire. Taking a step to the side to be fully protected by the wall, he took a breath of respite.

Alorick was meanwhile watching with hopeful eyes as the storm of flames slowly died down. But when the first burning zombies tumbled out of the weakening flames, this hope started to fade.

Nonetheless watching attentively, he saw the silhouettes of a multitude of monsters just a moment later. Standing at their center was a lone humanoid figure that made him frown as soon as he noticed it.

But despite the vampire also noticing him, the former didn't act. Instead, he simply watched as more and more zombies managed to make it through the flames

Recognizing that he wanted to drain their energy by sending the zombies in first, Alorick found himself in a conundrum. If they leave the city's defenders to take care of the zombies alone they would likely break through the wall. On the other hand, if they help out then their team will be exhausted even before engaging the vampires.

After some deliberation, he came to a decision and ordered, “I want no single zombie to make it onto the wall so unleash hell on them.”

As soon as his words fell, he rose a few meters into the air and unleashed a volley of spells. Filling the air between the zombies and himself with the glow and crackle of lightning, he landed a devastating first blow right into the enemy's center.

But when the smoke cleared, the hundreds of zombies he had wiped out were already replaced by a flood of new ones. Slowly filling the gap, the reserves were simultaneously refilled by zombies shifting over from their sides.

During this time his subordinates didn't just watch, instead launching their own indiscriminate volleys at the approaching horde.

Slowly the minutes passed, with the zombies getting closer and closer to the wall with each one. The constant flashes of elemental attacks only slowed this advance, with even the losses from Goddard's flames quickly being replaced by new zombies.

It took until over an hour into the fighting for the first zombie to reach the walls before them, only for it to be incinerated by the enchantments built into it. Despite this, more and more of the undead piled against it, seemingly mindlessly walking against the stone wall.

“They want to drain the enchantments.” Alorick realized after a minute, much to his panic.

Not having the time to warn the nearby units, he was just about to cast a spell to clear the walls by himself, or at least as much of them as he could, when he realized that much of it was already blanketed with zombies.

Seeing them piling into the constant flames, he got a bad feeling and turned to the vampire before them. As soon as he did, his feeling was validated.

Standing with his arm drawn back, the vampire stared at Alorick with hateful eyes as he conjured another spear of blood into his hand. Pausing for a moment, he waited until the monsters near him started springing towards the wall.

“Take cover!”

Shouting a warning to his team, Alorick hastily turned around and ran across the width of the wall. Jumping off of it and letting a wind spell carry him the thirty meters to the closest roof, he ducked just in time for the wall behind him to explode from an impact.

Quickly casting a shield around himself as pieces of stone were flung across the city, he stared at the gap in worry. Not just there, but everywhere he looked, he saw a wave ripple through the barrier, first causing it to light up and shimmer into visibility only to deactivate once it passed.

With the way now cleared, monsters started streaming across the battlements within moments, throwing the defenders into complete chaos.

“Boss, what's the plan?” Somir asked, having arrived next to Alorick from the neighboring roof.

“We'll regroup and stop the vampire, let's hope the others can deal with the monsters.”

Spreading his perception over the area, Alorick searched and quickly found the rest of their team. Moving into the city with Somir behind him, the two headed straight for Goddard's location.

Along their way they noticed multiple locations inside the city from where spells were flung towards the wall, striking the monsters that reached it with deadly accuracy. And though there weren't enough to cover the entire wall, wherever they did help the monster's assault was at least blocked, with it sometimes even being fully destroyed.

Not letting themselves get overly distracted by this, the two soon arrived at Goddard's location. Seeing the open town square next to which he had taken position, Alorick came an idea.

“Somir, gather the others, we'll meet the vampire here.”

Along with those words, Alorick stopped minimizing his presence to announce his position to the vampire. Giving a reassuring nod to the still-hidden Goddard, he ignored Somir's shocked look and walked out into the open.

Leaning against a tree, he kept a close eye on the vampire's movements. And much to his satisfaction, his target took him up on his bait and moved in his direction.

“All civilians, vacate the area!” He shouted with a mana enhanced voice.

For a few moments, nothing happened, with his senses only picking up a few of them shifting deeper into their hiding places. Waiting patiently for some time, Alorick initially only repeated his words in regular intervals.

But as the vampire slowly drew closer, he soon switched to a more forceful method. Casting a spell and ripping open a house without people inside it, he again shouted.

“Get out of here, now!”

Hearing the rumbling of the falling house without knowing that it wasn't inhabited, the people hiding nearby fell into a panic. Within seconds the streets were filled by their screams as they ran further into the city.

Sighing in relief when the last one left the immediate area, Alorick waited a few more minutes until the vampire finally arrived.

“So you've stopped running, finally. Now show me what kind of pathetic trap you've prepared and at least entertain me.” The vampire said.

Slightly nervous due to the confidence with which his opponent arrived, Alorick nonetheless didn't hesitate. Lifting his arm, he directly started the fight by launching a bolt of lightning at the vampire.

Blocking it by forming a small shield of blood across his arm, the vampire also didn't hesitate and rushed towards Alorick. Appearing before him nearly instantaneously, he brought his claws down.

But to his surprise, they cut only through empty air as Alorick had teleported as soon as he had finished his attack. Now standing behind the vampire, he launched another bolt of lightning while Goddard simultaneously struck out with his flames.

Prioritizing to get out of the fire's way, the vampire moved forward before attempting to get out of the way of the lightning. This resulted in it only striking his shoulder, tearing through it, and immobilizing his right arm.

Before he could recover, Somir, Feron, and Myra jumped down from the nearby roofs.

The building Somir had hidden atop was the closest, allowing him to plunge down right on top of the vampire.

Landing with a thud after his target managed to roll away at the last moment, he lifted his sword and stormed right after him.

Caught between his approach and Myra who stood behind him, the vampire's eyes momentarily shifted around nervously. Noticing this and being emboldened by it, Feron also joined in on the attack, only to see the nervousness morphing into a grin.

Right before the three attacks would have struck him in quick succession, he dissolved into a puddle of blood that shot away into the distance. Shocked by this, Goddard didn't react in time to target it while its form simply morphed out of the way of Alorick's lightning.

In about a second the mass of blood crossed over two hundred meters where it reassembled into the vampire's form. Still carrying this momentum, he quickly ran further into the city and away from their team.

“Where did he go?” Somir asked in confusion, though he quickly spotted Alorick and Goddard rushing in one direction.

Following after them with Myra and Feron on the heels, he soon caught up. Running in total silence, the three of them and Goddard looked into the distance with frustration.

Only when Alorick suddenly tensed up were they brought out of their thoughts of regret and broke this silence.

“What happened?” Goddard asked nervously.

“Both vampires are heading for the headquarters.” Alorick said, picking up his flight speed without care for the mana usage.

For a moment after silence reined again until his words fully set in. And as soon as they did, they followed his example and increased their aura output.