~ CHAPTER 282

The sun had gone down and the flow of demons being shot at from the walls of Traehall slowly began to increase as time went on. It was no wonder Meena and Twill had been making so many arrows. It was one of the few safe ways for the people here to kill the demons from a distance without magic. The soldiers shooting arrows or crossbow bolts from the walls looked exhausted as well. There were enough of them that they had a rotation to keep relatively fresh soldiers on the walls, but they had been doing this for days now.

"Your wall is melting," Torien pointed out as she shot another demon from the parapet.

I frowned. "I don't think I should use the mana to reinforce it. It's expensive, and I might need the mana later if something big comes our way."

"I don't know. I think the wall might help keep the horde manageable," Torien replied.

I looked away from the crowd and off into the distance of the forest. "The trees out there are still burning. Something is keeping the fire going. The trees should have already been reduced to ash, but they continue to burn as if they were fighting off the fire themselves. There might be a nature mage involved, like Bella," I said.

Torien exhaled as she shot another arrow into the crowd with the other guards. "Could be a lot of things. Could be a demon, could be a cultist, could be nature-aligned monsters in the forest."

"Are we going to be able to handle the heat of a forest fire while looking for the dungeon? They're probably using the fire as a literal smokescreen to make it harder to find." I sighed as I scratched the base of my horn.

"All of us going will be succubi now," Torien whispered. "I don't think you need to worry with our heat resistance," Torien replied.

"Lilith, I'm back."

I turned to see Sibyl walking up to me. I took a distance away from the soldiers so that the two of us could talk privately.

"What did you find?" I asked.

She shook her head. "The slaver's guild building you told me about burned to the ground. When I asked around, I heard that there was a conflict not too dissimilar from what happened in the capital not long ago in Traehall. It doesn't seem like there were any demons involved, and it was smaller scale, but someone started a riot and essentially everyone who worked there was killed. Since the records burned down in the riot, the mayor of Traehall had all of the slaves released for now, but that only exacerbated the problems here once everyone got trapped in the city. There's more people on the streets than there would normally be, and none of them have any money or professions. The only upside is that almost all of the ones with combat classes are helping the city guard right now."

"Did they do this in response to what happened in the capital?" I asked.

Sibyl shook her head. "No, there's no way that they would have heard about what happened in the capital yet. Word had only barely reached Goldenhearth when we arrived there, and this place has been cut off for long enough that we're the first ones who would be able to tell them the news. Part of the deal the former slaves made was that the city would pay to free them after this mess if the capital branch tried to 'reacquire'

 them once all of this blows over. If we tell anyone about what happened in Goldenhearth, the support the guards are getting might disappear."

"Would they do that?" I asked. "If the city walls fall, then everyone would likely die here anyway."

Sibyl shrugged. "I don't know, but do you want to take that risk? I don't think we should tell anyone until after things have stabilized. It's not a stretch to think that they were attacked by the cult of Amphores too."

I sighed and scratched the back of my head. "I don't want to lie to anyone, but I don't think we can afford any fewer people manning the walls right now, either. I think we should still tell the guild master though. She'll have a better idea of what to do with that information."

Sibyl shook her head. "I think it's better if you just play dumb about it and let them hear about it from another source once messages are being carried again. We don't want anyone to know that we were there that last day. If we start spreading the information freely, especially to someone like the guild master, people will start looking into how we know things. It's not worth the risk for us."

I shrugged. "Normally, I would agree. But I trust the guild master here. I think it's better to give her the information now. Will you go tell the others before linking back up with Raya?"

"Sure. Good luck. From what I've heard, things will start getting intense soon," Sibyl said before quickly skipping down the stairs.

I went back up to the wall. "Torien, any changes?"

"Their number is increasing still. This is starting to get ridiculous," she replied.

I picked up the crossbow that had been left for me and reloaded it with a bolt before shooting aimlessly into the crowd of demons. There were so many that I didn't need to aim to hit something. Raksha'va had warned me to keep my mana as high as I felt comfortable with until something big showed up. I was using a crossbow after a short introduction, just like many of the other strength-based fighters that were helping hold the wall.

Every now and then, a wall of fire scorched a different group of the gathering demons. Morrigan was hard at work clearing out large swathes of them and collecting the mana. Her casting depended more on her stamina. With her new karma ability and the abundant amount of fire mana in the air, it was too good of an opportunity not to try and kill as many of them as she could. She was still trying to pace herself so she wasn't exhausted, but so far, she had done most of the killing in our group. Even Raya was getting more practice with fire magic and wild casting.

A warbling screech howled through the air as a dozen of the grotesque banshees wailed and tried to come in for another diving run. Torien was quick to shoot an arrow enhanced with shadow magic at one of them, and the others with me shot their bows and crossbows as well. Our group hit all of the bat-like demons this time, but I saw the signs of healing magic off in the distance as Bella healed someone who had been less lucky. She was working hard at keeping everyone healthy. I just hoped she was still in good shape when we took on the next part of our mission.

The demons that were running at us notably slowed in number, and I saw a small pop of mana in the distance. "That's the signal! Lilith, go ahead. We're holding this fine!" Torien called out.

"Be safe, Torien!" I said as I quickly ran down the stairs and sprinted to where a large demon had been spotted. This had been the plan, spread out and wait for one of the larger demons to show up. It appeared in my group's stretch of the wall we were covering, but it was as far away from me as possible while still being in my zone.

It took a good five minutes to make it over to the spot where the demon had been sighted. It was at times like this that I really noticed how much stronger my body was. I only stopped to grab my cursed claymore that had been left out for me, in case my rapier-like mithril sword wouldn't be enough on its own. I made it back to the edge of the wall and got my first look at one of the larger demons we were on guard from.

The demon was huge and lumbered on four limbs, charred black skin stretched over its bones like a burned mummy, and its eyes glowed in a bright orange-red. It was hunched forward and walked like a gorilla with bulbous front legs, but despite its appearance, it was moving quickly. Its lumbering gate didn't slow it down at all as it knocked down and trampled the demons in its way. Trails of fire wicked across its skin and burned everything in its wake. I wouldn't be surprised if this is one of the things keeping the forest burning all this time.

It howled and spit fire out at the walls, burning everything in front of it to a crisp. Right now the smooth face of conjured stone had held up to its onslaught, but it was also shrugging off the arrows that it was being pelted with.

"Lilith! It's regenerating! Normally, fire wouldn't be the best thing to use against it, but it's worse than that! It's healing it!" Morrigan called out in mild panic.

"I'm going to have to fight it up close, I think," I said as I looked down at the demon. "It's just going to shrug off any projectiles. Can you keep the demons around it off of me?"

"Are you sure?" Morrigan asked me with a concerned voice.

"I'll go down when Silva and Sibyl come over. For now, see if ice does anything to it. I know there's lots of fire mana around, but even slowing it down a little would help," I replied.

"Alright. Just be careful," she said as she summoned an array of icicles in front of her using the dregs of the ice mana nearby.

Silva and Sibyl reached me shortly after that, and the two of them leaned against the wall to quickly take it in.

"We're going to have to go down there to fight it," I said.

"Three on one shouldn't be too bad with our strength. We just need to be careful," Silva said.

I nodded and began casting my enhancement magic on myself. I would need everything I could get out of this fight. I cast [Augment Speed], [Augment Strength], [Hasted Perception], and [Blade Waltz] on myself and struggled a little with the drain of four enhancement spells all at once. As soon as I finished, I jumped off the wall with the others. The drop would have once scared me, but I knew our reinforced bodies would be able to take it without any issue. I ran at the demon the moment I landed and felt my connection with the other two strengthen as we opened our shared perception through the bond.

The demon roared as it saw our approach and immediately spit a gout of flame at me. I leapt to the side and rolled out of the way. My enhanced speed and strength made the maneuver effortless as I repositioned away from the others. It turned to follow me just as Silva came in range to dig into the back of its ankle in a devastating jab. I felt the attack connect as a muted shared sensation through the bond and took advantage of the monster's distraction to duck into its guard and shove my blade into its chest.

I wasn't sure how well I would be able to affect it, but I shoved the sword as deep as I could. The mithril blade was more of a rapier-type weapon, which suited my enhancement abilities, but I wasn't able to go deep enough to cause severe damage to such a large creature. I triggered [Melee Hex] and ripped my blade out of the demon's chest before slipping out of the way of its flailing.

Sibyl took the opportunity to jump on its back. The small cat woman looked absolutely tiny compared to the giant brute of a demon. I hadn't had much opportunity to see Sibyl fight in the past, but her movements looked so graceful and practiced. I think she has taken well to the changes to her body despite the much different shape and stature she now has. She stabbed her sword into the demon's neck a few times and tried to find purchase on something critical, but she wasn't able to make any headway before the demon threw her off like a bucking bronco. Sibyl twirled in midair and landed heavily on her feet, but she only stumbled a little as she stood back up. True to her word, Morrigan sent a wave of fire around us to push back the demons that had begun to collect nearby. We carefully circled it to stop the demon from healing itself with the nearby fire.

The demon roared and began to collect fire mana in its maw. The only reason I had time to react to it when it spun around to target me was because I had felt Silva's reaction through the bond. I threw up a [Light Ward] in front of me and pushed mana into it to block the monster's fire attack. The fireball exploded between us, and the pane of light magic exploded with it, but the [Light Ward] had done its job and blocked the magical attack.

It was tough, but with the three of us, we could kill it. There were a few ways we could deal with its regeneration. We just had to find a good opening.

I clutched the grip of my sword and prepared for the next round.

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