A few more days of fighting passed. The opposing army returned for another go, and we were driven back to the safety of our walls. My terror was something that people could get marginally better at resisting, especially if they were ready for it, and especially if their shepherds were inspiring courage unto them. Both armies had also suffered greater casualties, with the opposing forces suffering at least thrice as many as ours, but we were still outnumbered and they were more easily able to absorb all the losses. Now we were in a siege that would not be broken.

The walls were contested by earth mages from both sides, and despite our lower numbers, that we had in spades. The dwarves in particular were extremely adept at the element, and Moonwash helped greatly alongside many others. Not to mention all the steel or stronger materials used to reinforce the structure or mixed into the very foundation, making them harder to affect and change through the forces of earth magic.

And then our reinforcements arrived.

Tyranights woke the sleeping camps of our enemy in the most bloody manner just before sunrise. They then fell back and ran away, losing a few people in the process, especially as the Edengarians had their own tyranights with them, but not as many relative to their number. Our tyranights met up with the cavalry change led mainly by centaurs and sundertops, with a few of them allowing people to mount, but most riders just rode animals and monsters. The Edengarian side, incidentally, rode their centaurs without care if they had to.

The advance party sent after our tyranights were outright trampled. Our new allies hit the dug-in encampments hard before they could get their bearings. More soldiers then poured out from the fortress, and I flew alongside them. The rest of the hellvesters also joined this final charge on the ground as I rained magic upon my foes while breaking their spirits as much as I could.

Finally, even the cohesion inspired by the shepherds broke, and the enemy was routed into a full retreat.

The siege had been broken, and now they had to make the long march home while still constantly being hounded by our forces.

We had won.

~~~

[Evil Eyes has reached level 38!]

[Demon Skin has reached level 39!]

"Are we not gonna do anything?" Therick asked as we watched dozens of executions from upon the ramparts. Some of the opposing soldiers chose to surrender, but they were only killed without trial. New Grandera may not even be familiar with the concept as it had only ever truly fought an enemy that did nothing to extend a diplomatic hand.

"They would've done the same," Granuel countered.

"I can see it. But I thought we were better than that."

"Then I guess we aren't. We haven't exactly been any better, have we?"

My friends' gazes inadvertently turned towards me because of how I had behaved similarly in the past.

I shrugged. "Hey. War is complicated. I don't think it's quite the same as our typical small conflicts. I understand why they do it, but I don't know if they should. Like, there's no diplomatic bridge between our two nations at all, so the exchange of hostages or any other step usually taken for prisoners of war could not be taken. Soldiers are more powerful than average and trained to fight, so it's hard to just release them, they're already indoctrinated, and it's harder to keep them imprisoned. You can do something about it if you want, though. Maybe you have a solution we just haven't thought of."

No one took me up on my offer.

~~~

"Bandits," Granuel calmly said as we traveled through the road away from the very frontlines.

"How many?" I asked.

"Around a hundred. Well-armed, and decently leveled. More than I would expect of their ilk."

"Any gold-rankers?"

"...None that I can detect."

"Eh. Should be fine then." I shrugged and leapt out of the wagon to slaughter them all. It appeared that my enemy had the same idea for their attention immediately focused on me the moment I showed myself. Projectiles impacted where I had just been, but I was already running. I dove into the treeline where they were, and immediately pasted the first centaur I came across. A crustecar tried to protect his allies, but his shell cracked against my blade, and the second strike scrambled his brain like an egg. The human mage behind him was beheaded, and the archer split in half.

I dashed again, just before the next set of projectiles could reach me, but they were few and far in between because of the terrain. Trees were ruined and battered, many of them began to fall, but for now they protected me as I bathed in blood and continued my slaughter.

An ogre swept low for my legs, but I easily dodge the telegraphed attack. He hesitated as he searched for where to swing next, and the minor pause proved fatal when I buried my blade through his chest and out the other side.

I was already moving before he could fall, but I took the time until I reached the next poor sucker to think. Something felt unnatural about that ogre's hesitation. Hell, this entire fight had a weird feeling about it from the start, and I finally realized that it was because some of them were holding back. They were trying to avoid lethal strikes.

"You motherfuckers…!" I growled. I knew exactly what it meant to be captured by these lowlives, and I would never allow myself to be taken. I wanted to rip each of them limb from limb and shove the pieces of gore into their own mouths for even making the fucking attempt.

…But, almost miraculously, I held myself back from immediately reacting. Only a token force had been sent to hold down my friends, and they were easily defeated. Moonwash finished her ritual, and fire rained upon this side of the rainforest to set the trees ablaze. I grinned and added my own flames, so that the environment may truly be transformed into a facsimile of hell!

"A–AAAAHHH!!!"

"FUCK! FUCK!"

"It's the evil fire!"

"SHIT!"

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"STOP!"

My enemies were not a fan, but I couldn't care less for their pain. If just this much was enough to disturb them, then why the fuck did they ever think that they could capture me of all people? Some still managed to shoot through all this confusion, but the projectiles were easier to dodge now that I had better knowledge of how they were aiming. A human swordswoman tried to meet me in single combat, but the added restriction she'd made for herself made her even easier pickings. The flames spread further, and my enemies began to scatter, slowly losing sight of the battle. I burst out from the very flames that they feared, and grabbed a belfegor woman who I gutted in front of her friends. People of the same species descended from some trees whose canopies remained yet unburned, but I reacted fast enough with my intimidation package. They still managed to grab on, but they could not hold on for long once my constant leakage of hellfire restarted. I listened to their screams, I doubled their pain, I gave them what deserved, and soon they could no longer even think to retaliate.

"Stop! I give up!" someone shouted, while a handful more tried to run away.

"I surrender! Please don't hurt me!" Another one fell in supplication, and I actually hesitated for a moment as to whether or not I should kill them.

I hunted down all those who ran away… but allowed those who surrendered to live. This… wasn't any kind of formal agreement between us, but it was what I had settled on with my friends. I was willing to let them decide if they were with me when a battle happened. I put my foot down for those actively fleeing, however, because it might prove difficult to capture them all. And while just letting them go might sound like some sort of good thing, very few of them would change their ways if at all without intervention. Was it really right to leave them to rape and pillage elsewhere? I didn't think so.

"Kill them, Granuel argued. "This close to the border, they were definitely sent by Edengar. Knowingly or not."

"You can't be sure of that," Therick countered. "We're not detectives. But if we let them live and go through the courts, then they may still have a chance, and we might actually learn something useful if you're so concerned about foreign intervention."

Needless to say, they couldn't always come to an agreement either, even without me putting my hands on the scale.

"We'll talk!" one of our captives decided to take her fate into her own hands, and the rest followed.

"I know we were asked to capture Haell!"

"The drop-off point is very far!"

"Just please spare us!"

"You fucking idiots! You just gave away our only leverage!!!"

That was a good point. I was tempted to just kill them right then and there as they confirmed that I was indeed the fucking target… but I'd made a promise to my friends, and patience was definitely the better part of valor here. Therick was right in that they may yet yield more information.

The defeated bandits were taken back to the nearest town, where most were executed anyway, while we learned very little.

A hooded person of ambiguous height and voice that could be any of the bipedal species hardly narrowed anything down.

~~~

We were here to hunt the lizekto. A lizard larger than your typical person, who walked along the canopy and spat magic-enhanced globs of poison. The place was still in the usual rainforest, where our prey had been spotted, and a sizable bounty put on its head. But the point of this mission was not the gold, it was the poisonous materials and the baby my girlfriend wished to find along the way.

"I found it," Granuel said, and the seven of us stopped. One separated from the group, and the rest of us waited for Granuel to give another signal.

A few minutes passed.

"Go!" he whisper-shouted.

I took that as my cue and ran. A blob of lethal acid came from the trees ahead only a few powerful steps in. I dodged and brought down the wall of magic I had surrounded myself with upon the liquid, but a few drops of green still made it to me, and my armor sizzled as small divots were gouged from the mythril. Worse, my wrath had little effect on the poison, and my flames only reduced the substance into gas. The poisonous mist mixed into the air, I inadvertently breathed it in, and that small contact and the terrible internal burns that followed were enough for me to decide to breathe no longer.

I could do this for longer than most, because of my large reservoir of blood energized by the air.

"Blinding Sunlight."

I closed my evil eyes upon hearing Moonwash's announcement, but it still felt like I was staring right at the sun inside my own eyelids. I opened them back up just in time to see a wad of poison completely miss me. The next few projectiles were a breeze to dodge, until one finally managed to find its mark once more, but my wrath magic had taken on a menace flavor to dessicate the damn thing, with a side of rot to make what did make it through less effective. I had opted not to use my hellflames at all this time, so as not to fill the air with poison. It could invade my body in any number of ways.

I made it closer to my target. It became harder to dodge its attacks as I went further. My armor melted from the strength of the acid, until some inevitably made it to my skin.

I felt sick.

More droplets sunk in.

I coughed blood.

Some snuck in through the gaps.

The red came out of my nose.

Vengeful magic flew through the air, but it was too dissipated by the time it made it to my target up in the trees.

So I jumped up, I flew, I finally made it face to face with this fucking lizard, and I delivered my vengeance firsthand. My blood melted from inside my body, and that gave me just the boost I needed to not allow my enemy to escape. It felt the full brunt of wrath upon its side just before it managed to crawl across the branches and away from my clutches.

But not away from Estarian's blade.

He was the belfegor guild master I had met when we had first entered this country, and we had chosen to collaborate with him for this job.

Estarian's form shimmered as he swung through the trees, his skin constantly trying to blend in, making for an effect that made him easier to spot, but harder to actually hit and predict.

It was dizzying.

The lizekto thought the same as the belfegor man took a stab right at its face. A retaliatory glob of acid was spat out, and he was not able to dodge all of it. Estarian immediately swung away, with what I thought was a grimace on his ever-shifting face.

It was enough.

I reached my target, and with the confluence of all my wrath, I sliced it right in half!

But as the two halves of the torso fell away, the lizekto still managed to vomit out some more acid right at me.

My armor sizzled and thinned. I used both wrath and hellfire this time, to get rid of the poison in any way I could. My eyes were closed, and my breath held in, as I weathered the storm. So much of the poison still got in my body, and I felt painfully dizzy as I passed out.

~~~

"Fuck," I awoke with a pained cough. Moonwash was already healing and purifying my body, and I could taste the bitter scent of antidote in my mouth. "I should've dodged that."

"Obviously," Angerly snarked, and I laughed.

It was admittedly a good final 'fuck you,' which I could only appreciate because I survived it intact.

She continued to heal for a few minutes longer, and then after confirming that I was whole and hale once more, she finally set off to butcher our big kill. She started with the small stubby horns on the skull, which were a focus for the rare poison magic that the creature rarely used. Most of its application of the element was internal after all, but I could certainly think of several nasty ways that it could be used for, such as having a curtain of poison around itself or attacking from many angles at once.

I left my girlfriend to the rest of her work as the rest of us searched the area. Granuel was predictably the one who found what we were looking for, and I flew up to the tree he indicated to fetch the greenish egg my girlfriend wanted. I ran back to her and presented our find with a big grin on my face.

"Thank you," she told me, and that was all I needed.

[Regen Heart has reached level 39!]

[Memory Core has reached level 38!]

[Demon Hooves has reached level 38!]

[Extradimensional Demon Blood Storage had reached Level 37!]

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