Chapter 23: Opportunist

Men in black and silver steel marched through a rocker terrain. All adorned in blue and green with the insignia of the Celestine Empire stamped on their chest and flags. Above the soldiers, a General past his prime with a dense beard watches over them, bracing against the bitter cold.

"How much further now?" an officer asked.

"Another couple days down this mountain path, then we'll be in Dahlia," The General said.

"Good, it was starting to get colder."

"SIR!!" a soldier shouted.

The soldier approached the two men on a horse, with urgent news. The two men looked over, with curiosity.

"What is it son?" The General asked.

The Soldier immediately saluted. "General Will! We're getting reports from the frontline that the army from the Confederations is approaching! Sir!"

"What???"

Both of the men were befuddled by this report. They then turned their attention back to the marching soldiers to find them all at a standstill.

********

At the frontline soldiers stand firm with their governing superior standing by as they all watch the Confederate army approach them. The only indicator of their presence being that of their red flag embroidered with their countries symbol.

Cold sweat streaked down the commanders' face as he finally see the face of the troops that approached them.

Among the soldiers in the confederate army there were men whose skins were pale and gray with gashes and wounds. Some of the men he saw even had arms missing or eyes.

Soon the soldiers in the front would witness this too, panic starting to spread as a singular thought formed in all their minds.

"THOSE MEN ARE NOT OF THE LIVING"

The commander panicked and looked back at the frontlines. "WHERE'S THE HERALD!?"

The clopping on the rock terrain is heard as the man in question arrives. "Y-yes?"

"C-check on the state of those men and if you can, find their commanding officer-"

Suddenly an arrow struck the Herald in the neck. The commander could only look back at the approaching army in shock. The army before them started the charge!

"DEFENSIVE FORMATION!!" The Commander order.

He then fled behind the frontlines as his men brought out their shields and spears, readying for an oncoming assault.

BOOM!!

The commander turned to find the soldiers of the frontline being hurled into the sky by some unknown fiery explosion. "What in God's name?" He can only mutter from the sheer shock of seeing his men being torn. And then the following men started to get massacred by the undead looking soldier before them.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING MAN!!" the General arrived, scolding his commanding officer.

General will then turned his attention to soldiers before him. " ENEMY AMBUSH STRAIGHT AHEAD MEN!! DON'T FALTER AND SHOW NO MERCY TO THESE HEATHENS!!"

General Will pushed ahead into the horde of undead soldiers, slicing as many of the undead men as he could from his horse. Inspired by their generals bravery, All soldiers around him and his commander charged into the horde before them. Cutting, slicing and defending against the horde of savage undead soldiers before them. 

With the inspiring figure before them they fought and pushed back against the undead monsters. their advantage became overwhelming and their victory became practically assured.

"WE CAN DO THIS MEN! STAND FIRM!" General Will declared.

Suddenly.

BOOM!!

BOOM!!!

Blood and limbs flew through the air as even more explosions sounded, killing more of their men.

"What the hell is happening!!" Will Looked around, completely befuddled.

A rumbling sound then echoed through the mountain side path. The commander looked up the mountain to find boulders rolling down at their troops. It isn't long before he and some of the troops around him are squashed like bugs by the rolling boulders.

Upon hearing the devastating screams of the soldiers behind him, General Will turned to find over half of his men behind him dead.

"This can't be…" the general could only look on in absolute shock.

Some of the soldiers around the General started to Panic some even retreating.

"STAND YOUR GROUND MEN! STAND YOUR GROUND!!" Will tried mustering up what little courage he could from his troops. But it was all for naught as some of the troops retreated from the monster before them, being slaughtered and maimed.

Seeing no other options even the General reluctantly retreated. "FALL BACK! FALL BACK!!" The General raced through the field of corpses and fleeing soldiers on his horse. His face becomes more determined. "GEORGE!! READY THE PIPES!!"

Even more explosions followed behind General Will. the heat of the fire pressed beneath his back with each explosive force after another. until the explosions couldn't reach him any longer.

Further up the mountain the Officer that was with the General earlier panicked. He orders his men around him to fetch the supplies in question and raced to get their troops into position to counter attack. They start opening a barrel full of metal pipes on a stick along with some gray looking powder.

The piped sticks are passed around from soldier to soldier. Each one being hastily filled with some powder with white glowing my fragments.

"W-what the hell do we do with this again." a Soldier quickly asked.

"IDIOT! Just send your magic through the handle!" another answered.

"O-oh yeah."

"READY!!!" The Officer stood at the front line with his hands raised. And just as the General and most of the other soldiers made it past… "FIRE!!"

BOOM!!

Another unknown explosion decimated the holding the pipes in their hands. Explosions and bangs rang out, and small invisible fragments and fire scattered across the narrow battlefield. And before they knew it, the undead rampaged through their horrified troops.

The soldiers that tried to fight back found themselves slowly getting overwhelmed. Even The General couldn't hold out any longer, as his horse was slashed and killed leaving him completely vulnerable. Finally a swing from the undead soldier with a true aim. Stopped.

The general looked to find that the undead soldier stood frozen, blade at his neck. He looked around to find all the other undead soldiers frozen as well, leaving everyone befuddled.

"So, you are their General."

General Will looked into the direction of the voice to find a blue demon in dark gray armor. the demon with black hair and beard before him looked down at him smugly. 

"That was far too easy, your majesty. Are you sure this is the Celestine Empire's army?

The General became instantly shocked upon hearing those words. This time a beautiful looking red demon woman with black hair and violet joined in. she looked down at the general disappointed with the results of the battle.

"Surely this is just a mercenary group." Azar said.

The Demon King, Lucius picked up the General from his fallen horse. "Now if they were a mercenary group, they would be wearing these crests. Perhaps that Explosive Fire ball Lillian taught you was more devastating than we initially thought."

Azar started to play around with the magic, creating another Explosive ball within the hands. "Oh, why do humans have to be so weak? I guess we should just kill them."

Unknown to either Lucius or Azar, a Soldier out of sight was readying a Pipe weapon in his hands. The soldier with a great fresh scar on his face and ginger hair aimed from the side of the demons.

Lucius readied his other hand. "Perhaps we should…"

The scarred soldier then yelled. "LET GO OF HIM YOU BASTARDS!"

Both Lucius and Azar became alert.

BANG!

An invisible projectile landed at Lucius's arm, penetrating the skin and flesh followed by some immense fire magic that shot through the other side of his arm almost hitting Azar.

"YOU DAMN FOOL!!" The general Yelled.

Lucius became half burnt with a huge gash from the attack. This shocked both Lucius and Azar.

"THIS ISN'T ANY ORDINARY DEMON!!"

Lucius's arm instantly started to regenerate itself.

"THIS IS THE KING OF DEMONS!!"

Cold sweat ran down the soldier's face. Before he knew it, Azar was in front of him. She scowled at the man, frightening him into falling on his back. He looked around to find the undead soldiers now surrounding him too.

There's a pause amongst everyone as heavy footsteps approached them. From behind Azar Lucius came from behind, this time dragging the general by the neck with his other hand. Lucius looked at the general with a smile.

"I have no further use for you." he said. Lucius then squeezed the general neck with his one hand in front of the soldier.

"No!! Stop it!!"

Lucius squeezed harder.

"S-stop it please!!"

POP.

"Oh, So that's what happens when you squeeze hard enough." Lucius laughed as he promptly let go of the dead general's neck, allowing it to fall towards the now terrified soldier. "Now… What's your name?"

The terrified soldier didn't answer. Azar kicked him to the ground and kept her feet on the soldier's chest. "He asked you a question! Sound off, if you don't want to die!"

"I… I…I-I-I…"

Azar was starting to get impatient, so she pressed down harder. "D-d-d-donovan Mills!!"

Azar became disgusted as she looked at a puddle forming beneath the soldier. "Ugh. The kid just soiled himself." She backed off letting Lucius handle the rest.

"Two names, Huh… If I remember correctly, in the Celestine Empire, only Nobles are supposed to have two names. A tradition that's been copied by this country to a fault." Lucius moves in to grab the stick pipe weapon the soldier used earlier. "There's only been three people left to have left scratch, let alone a wound on me."

Lucius pointed the pipe weapon at the soldier. "Congratulations Donovan you became the fourth person to make me bleed." Lucius gave a wide smile. "I'll have to thank you properly."

The undead soldiers grabbed Donovan, lifting his limp body up. "Take him to my tent."

By some miracle the Soldier, Donovan spoke back up. "Y-you won't get away with this!" 

Lucius Looked back at the man as he pinched his own fingers to bleed. He simply smiles at the soldiers before letting his blood drop onto the ground before them. A sound rang out like a drop of water entering into a pond, followed by some mysterious force that dispersed itself throughout the area.

Donovan Watched in horror as his once dead commanding General, Rose from the dead. Slowly his other allies rose as well. The Soldiers still alive could only cower in fear as their previous friends had now become lifeless husks under a demon's control.

Lucius levitated himself into the sky so that everyone saw him. "You may choose ten among you to return to your country. The rest of you will die." Lucius gracefully floated back to the ground. "You have until morning to choose. if you don't choose, you all die. If any of you try to escape, you all die. If you try to retaliate, you all die."

Lucius watched as Donovan got escorted away. "How you all choose doesn't matter to me."

With his declaration finally done, Lucius takes his leave, leaving behind Azar to take charge over the remaining soldiers. She gaze intently at them before turning her attention back to the Pipe weapons the soldier's used earlier.

She gave a smile. "Hmm."

********

Lillian and Jala watched over the marching group Confederate army from a hillside. Lillian sat on the edge, swinging her leg back and forth like a child. Jala simply watched from behind Lillian.

"It's so boring just waiting. I'm glad they're finally here!" Lillian sighed.

"It's not long now, in a few moments we'll launch our ambush," Jala said.

Lillian continued to look intently at the marching soldiers until she saw something of interest. "Oh. It looks like one of the generals the three confederate Generals are among them."

Jala came in to get a closer look. Lillian pointed to a man with black hair decked in golden armor on a white horse.

"He always did like flaunting his wealth… That Kyrier Man." Lillian muttered.

Lillian got up from where she sat, raising and pointing her arm to the army before them. A powerful explosive fireball manifested itself before Lillian, growing bigger and bigger until it outgrew an entire villager's house.

"I always liked his father better." she said.

"H-hold your majesty-!"

Lillian blasted a powerful Explosive fireball at the army, directed at the General. The explosion from the magic echoes through the grassy landscape. A world of smoke and soot created by the explosion quickly evaporated revealing a misty transparent blue dome encasing a large portion of the army.

The soldiers of the confederate army became alert upon Lillian and Jala in the distant cliff side.

"ENEMY ATTACK!!"

Lillian looked on with curiosity at the blue dome. "So, this is the strange shield you and the rest have been talking about."

"Yes they only seem to appear whenever one of the three generals enter the battlefield."

"Ah. That explains why they're not dead yet." Lillian starts to take her leave as she notices Arrows starting to be shot at them.

"No offense your majesty, but we've already been over this many times."

"You mean in those boring war meetings? I barely pay any attention to those in the first place. I let Lucius handle the participation in those," Lillian Pompously said.

Jala just watched on as Lillian continued to trek down the cliff side path. He looks back to find their army starting to attack from behind the confederate army, catching them by surprise. 

Lillian watches the confederate army getting overwhelmed only for the blue dome to materialize, keeping their troops from getting any closer to the general. It isn't long before the general abandons his entire army seeing that tides are entirely against them.

Lillian stopped, watching in disappointment as the General gained more distance from the battle. "What a coward." she said.

"You're not going to chase after him?" Jala asked.

"No. There's plenty of time to kill him. I'll just rip his head out the next we meet." Lillian seemed bored.

A winged Demon approached Lillian from behind with a message for her. She is given a scroll with a message. "The Demon King wanted me to give this to you," The messenger said. With the message delivered the demon messenger made his way back to the sender.

Without hesitation Lillian opened the scroll, reading its contents.

"Any new orders?" Jala asked.

"No. Something else." Lillian immediately burned the message soon after. "Lucius stopped the Celestine Empire's army from entering into the country. According to him, they have some interesting weapons he wants us to see…"

Lillian looked back over to their demon army easily overtaking the human army. "After this we should continue south, I'm sure Lucius will tell us more by the time we reach the City of Baldwin."

********

It's the dead of night in a campsite populated by demons that are unwinding after a day's battle. Some of the undead enemy soldiers are patrolling the area including a tent that Azar recently entered.

Inside the tent hand an assortment of barrels filled with gray powder and an assortment of enemy weapons include the strange pipe weapons.

Azar opened a vial of blood, pouring it on the ground. She the turned her attention to the Pipe weapons, grabbing from the barrel to examine it. She found that the iron metal pipe was welded and pressed together on its side. She traced her fingers along the pipe that seamlessly transitioned to the wooden handle that pulsed with magic energy.

From a distance she would've taken this weapon as a poorly designed club. But looking at it now, the simple and crude uncovered a new possibility.

Rakon stood tall behind Azar, his look, stern and impatient. "I hope this was important."

"I think I found a simpler solution to your problem, Rakon." Azar Turned to reveal the pipe weapon in her hand. "It might be hard to believe but this stick can kill your brother."

Rakon Raised a brow, unsure whether to believe her words.

"Allow me to explain," she said with a smile. As she looked back at the maimed body of the barely breathing soldier, Donovan.