Devourer

Chapter 89: The Fall Part 1

“Times up.” I said as I looked at the city before me.

“Excellent, you want to make the final announcement?” Cecilia asked as she got off her velvet couch and the servants with fans and plates of food stepped back with bows.

I turned to Cecilia as she channeled power into her hands, her hands glowed blue as arcane energy sparked off. 

Mahaila had been giving her magic lessons so she was now far more powerful. As a Heir of the Firstborn she can devour the essence of others to gain power but she hasn’t needed to devour anything just yet. If you would compare someone’s ether potential to a cup, filling it isn’t difficult, making it bigger is the tough part. Basically at the moment Cecilia hasn’t reached her natural potential which is apparently very normal. Heirs were naturally very powerful for humanoids, to give a little context, apparently the first humanoids the Watchers were all Heirs. It had something to do with how my predecessors created the Watchers. So since the Watchers made all other humanoids based on themselves, apparently this heir stuff is some kind of recessive gene that was passed down from the Watchers.

“I look forward to actually trying out my new tricks.” Cecilia said as a wide grin as her hands sparked.

“Well it would leave an impression.” I replied as I spread my wings and sent a mental signal to my modified fliers and the phoenixes. I have made sure to keep my phoenixes hidden, they have had only one major engagement and that was at Beralis. So Tralis has no idea my phoenixes exist. 

One last push for surrender, with little grandiose intimidation. I took off into the air right as I heard the horns being blown from the human army. I could immediately sense the ripple of fear across the walls.

I flew high up into the sky and as I did so I saw my flyers and the phoenixes descend out of the thick clouds. I could hear screaming from below in the city, kind of shocking huh? Seeing a dozen phoenixes in the air above them. That’s right, the phoenix the jewel of the Elysian empire. The power that made the Volerians stay the hell out of Elysia all those millennia ago. The Elysians only had the red fire phoenixes and Azatharine is a white fire phoenix born in the final stages of the age of the firstborn. 

Now then time to send my message, I ordered the flyers to descend. They were basically giant flying megaphones that were designed to send a message to a besieged population. They proved quite useful throughout this campaign with them shouting demands at the entrenched cities. They were especially useful as a final warning, like a “surrender now or die” kind of deal.

So now without further ado, the message…

Attention slaves of the false king

This is your final offer to surrender, you have ten minutes to open the gates

If the gates are not opened I will open it myself

If you wish to surrender remove yourself from the walls or be incinerated

My children will not strike any unarmed man, women or child

If you are armed, then my children will feast

Well that’s about as clear as I can make it. Now let’s see what they will do…

The plan is pretty obvious honestly. I knew they were going to burn the slums and the south town beyond the walls. I don’t really mind, that’s on them. When we win, we can just pin it all on them. The people will be more willing to work with those that rebuild the city rather than those that attempted to burn it down.

Mahaila has been giving us some great intelligence. Cecilia placed a small force at the south side just to make them actually burn the slums. The thing is a firewall keeps us out, well not really my hive can burrow, it just keeps the humans out. But what it does do is keep them in. They are basically building a cage and removing a path of escape.

Still something about this plan bothered me. Yes it can be construed as a group of corrupt nobles doing everything they can to stay in power, even if it means burning the world around them to the ground. But yet something about this defense plan seemed like there was an invisible hand. Perhaps it’s paranoia or intuition but the feeling was there.

An invisible hand is not just a conspiracy theory either. The book I got early on was from my “Friend down under.” who was named A. It’s definitely not Australia and there are some demons with names that start with A. There was Asmodeus the Demon Prince of Lust, Astaroth of the Ars Goetia who are this kind of Demonic Nobility, Alastor the Archdemon who serves the Demon Prince of Greed Mammon and maybe Azazel the traitor angel. 

Then there was the Syndicate, who I have not seen hide or tail of. The only thing I know about them is that apparently they are fighting a war in the north against heaven. Apparently this is very strange since the Syndicate prefers to operate in the shadows. If they are the type of organization I think they are, they would be quite vulnerable to attrition since they will struggle to replace their numbers. The rumors also say they are looking for something but for that whole thing I have no idea on their accuracy. It was kind of like the rumors where someone says “I heard it from a guy who knew a guy”. I do have some suspicions that Mahaila came from the north, that was how she knew about me but then again… no confirmation.

So I am not nearly naive enough to think external hidden influence is completely off the table. Mahaila found me afterall, she has been rather tightlipped about herself and why she is here. Thus far she hasn’t exactly divulged many juicy details. But she’s useful so I decided to leave her as is for the moment.

The basic plan is that since the Volerian crown seems intent on walling themselves in the inner city then we could just let them sit there for a while. Cecilia will deploy her cavalry on the south side to prevent any desperate escapes. The Averlin forces will also be deployed there to bait out the firewall. We won’t let them actually get caught in the trap but Cecilia and I both agreed it might not be the best idea to let them into the city first. They did suffer under the Volerians the most, so them being in the city had the highest chance of… unwanted incidents. We will let them in later but that's after the fury of battle has ended.

The first objective will be to secure the outercity, because that is where most of the people are. Honestly the humans don’t really concern me, it’s how the church feels about me that matters the most. When heaven inevitably shows up I will need them to put in a good word for me. So a relatively humane and nondestructive occupation was needed. That means dead soldiers and the civilians must be unharmed… mostly…

The assault will be in two stages, the first is to secure the outer city then we move on to the inner city. The defenders will most likely attempt to fire magic and other projectiles into the outer city which will cause civilian casualties. So when the Elysians and my hive end up protecting the civilians from attacks from their own soldiers it will look really good for me.

Plus Beralis has been secured and the Wardens are back over here thanks to a little surprise I cooked up. It’s a rather dramatic showcase to the people of Tralis that will require very specific timing. But that’s for the final phase of assault, the whole attack could potentially take a few days considering the complexity of the operation. I don’t have the resources to assault the entire city at once so at least at the initial phase I need to focus on the outer city. I will only redirect forces to suppress the inner city if they start trying to burn the outer city down.

The human forces will attack from three directions and capitalize on the highway to rapidly move through the city. My hive will clear the way, the only danger is that the inner city walls overlook the highway so they essentially have a great position to fire spells and other projectiles down onto the highway. I will need to assign some cannon fodder or phoenixes to pressure to that section of the wall.

Well this is also a great place to test Azatherine’s command ability, air power will win this battle for us…

Now then… I think the time is up…

With that I gave my mental command and I made sure that the command was broadcasted across my flyers so that the whole city could hear it.

All broods begin the assault…

With that I heard a reply of a hundred thousand voices echo forth from the hivemind. This almost otherworldly chorus echoed out over the city and I heard screams of terror from the people within the city.

BY YOUR COMMAND

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.♚.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

Jolin shook as he looked up and saw the monsters above start to dive towards the walls. Jolin was a conscript and was barely trained. He spent the past week shooting this old hunting crossbow at straw dummies, he had no idea how to fight something like an ancient beast or a phoenix… or a dozen phoenixes…

His eyes widened as he saw the white phoenix and two blues dive at the section of the wall he was on. Their wings glowed and with a graceful flap a barrage of white and blue fireballs hurtled towards the wall. Jolin looked on in mute horror as he felt his legs seize up, he wanted to run but he couldn’t move. Then he saw the fireballs impact this barrier right above him. 

Of course… he forgot, the walls of Tralis are enchanted. These enchantments go back to the old empire, they are so powerful and complex no one even knew how to recreate them. If anything will hold the beasts back it’s these walls.

Jolin felt a surge of hope as he saw the phoenixes break off, then he heard screams from behind him. He spun around and he saw the soldiers that were posted on the ground below were screaming in terror as beasts emerged from the ground below. The paved stones bulged upwards and flew away as large monsters burst out the ground. 

Jolin instinctively raised his crossbow but he felt someone grab his arm.

“Don’t, you have a higher chance of hitting our own. Save it for the gate, the guys below will have to handle themselves.” one of the officers said.

Jolin nodded mutely as he watched the mad struggle below them. He saw a few individuals jump onto the roofs of the nearby houses. They were dressed like adventurers, some of the adventurers didn’t like the guilds policy and they resigned in protest. They were all archers, where the rest of the team was Jolin had no idea but he saw them taking shots at the beasts and killing some of them with hawkish precision. Then he saw puffs of smoke as rouges joined the fray as well, their daggers flashing as they cut down the beasts.

Then Jolin saw something that made his heart drop, he saw one of the rogues attempt to do a teleporting strike on one of the particularly large beasts. The dagger strikes just drew sparks as they struck its thick armor. The beast whirled around quick as lightning and in a flash it had swatted the rouge mid air, sending her flying into the wall of a nearby building. He felt a lump on his throat as he saw the red mark she left on the wall as her body collapsed onto the ground twitching.

“ABOVE US!” Jolin heard someone shout. 

Jolin looked up to see the golden feathered Great Beast diving towards them.

“GET READY!” the officer screamed as Jolin felt all the soldiers around him stiffen in fear. 

To his surprise he saw the Great Beast spread his wings and slow down before hovering right in front of the wall and gate. The whole wall stiffened as they gazed mutely at the Great Beast who was just hovering in the air, its wing’s were not flapping. They were just extended and glowing, as if some magic was keeping its massive frame airborne.

“So you going to open this gate?” the Great Beast asked with a fanged smile.

The soldiers around Jolin were dead silent as they gazed fearfully at the Great Beast. Jolin could feel his bowels about to give way as he gazed at this monster. Its mouth was filled with fangs the size of swords. It had no eyes but the soldiers could definitely feel its gaze.

“Knock knock…” the Great Beast said mirth in his voice as he tapped on the barrier with one of its scythe-like blades. The barrier sparked and Jolin could see the barrier shocking the Great Beast but it didn’t seem to care.

“Alright, fine…” the Great Beast said as it brandished its claws and they began to glow purple and it stabbed it into the barrier going clean through. Jolin could see the cracks in the barrier as it sparked and crackled trying to expel the foreign object.

“I guess I have to help myself then.” the Great Beast said with a laugh as its body glowed. Jolin saw the barrier crackle then he saw wisps of light start flowing from the barrier, towards the claws that were embedded in the barrier and then the same blue glow of the barrier traveled up the Great Beast’s arm.

“What?” Jolin sputtered as he watched in confusion.

“SHOOT IT!” one of the officers shouted and Jolin instinctively raised his crossbow.

Jolin fired his crossbow and he saw his bolt join a volley. But the volley of crossbow bolts and arrows clattered harmlessly off the Great Beast’s hide.

The Great Beast just let out a loud booming laugh as the blue glow started to flood into the Great Beast’s body. 

“You know all of you were sent here to die right? After all if that wasn’t the case, where are the mages?” the Great Beast said and Jolin felt a sinking feeling in his chest.

“ALL OF YOU NEED TO GET OFF THIS WALL!” Jolin suddenly heard a shout from behind him. He turned to see an adventurer rogue shouting at one of the officers. Jolin could see his eyes glowing and a silver plate around his neck, showing he was a silver rank adventurer.

“THE BEAST IS…” the rogue began but then the whole wall shook violently. 

Jolin staggered and when he faced forward again his eyes widened as he saw the barrier flicker and vanish. Jolin cast his gaze to the rest of the wall and saw the barrier collapsing across the entire wall. 

“Draining the enchantments on the wall…” the rogue muttered from behind Jolin.

“That I am, human enchantments, so brittle, so easily overcome.” the Great Beast said it’s body now glowing blue from the power of the walls.

It was then that reality finally truly hit Jolin. He was going to die on this wall…

“Now then.” the Great Beast said as Jolin saw the inside of its mouth glow with power.

Can I interest all of you in an express ticket into the next life?