Without warning, Elyss turned and ran toward the queens’ cage as if she was going to attack it as she always had. The mole king and his soldiers followed in quick succession in their usual lumbering waddle that was surprisingly fast yet looked so silly. 

The mole king soon pulled ahead of his soldiers, being much faster than the rest, yet he was still far slower than Elyss. If her goal was to run away, he’d have no chance of catching up. However, this was a battle and she couldn’t use magic, so she had to return eventually to the same place.

Not anymore.

If Camilla, Lucienne, and the mole queens’ cage each formed a corner of a triangle, then now Elyss was leading the moles chasing her toward the outside of the queens’ corner. She went straight past the cage without stopping. After a moment of confusion, the moles followed, completely unaware of her plan.

Normally, once she’d gotten far enough ahead, she’d try to break through the cage, but this time she continued to run far away from the cage. As expected, the moles stopped past a certain point, unwilling to get too far away from the cage. That was the furthest they’ll go. 

Once Elyss was sure they wouldn't go any further, she looped around and charged straight at them. They stood fast, bracing for a savage fight, but instead of taking the moles to their offer, she dodged past them, moving toward the cage. The mole king gave a shrill cry, rallying his subjects behind him.

“Yeah, yeah, shut up!” she growled. 

“What?” Camilla asked.

Oh, Camilla could hear her. “Nothing…by the way, I’m coming over.”

“Okay. Huh? Wait, what are you doing?”

Elyss didn’t answer Camilla’s question since she’ll know the answer soon anyway. To the moles’ surprise, she ran past the cage once more. Confused squeals and grunts came from behind, but she paid them no attention.

The earlier she got to Camilla, the more impact she had. Hard and fast. That was what her plan required.

It took but a few short seconds to cross the rest of the distance between the cage and Camilla’s position, but that distance took much longer for the moles to traverse. She was fast enough that when she crashed into the backs of the moles fighting Camilla, they froze up as she sent three of them flying and pinned another under her front paws. 

Wait, backs?

She heard Camilla, the latter’s voice edged with mild irritation. “Geez, let me know before you do something like this, will you?” she complained.

“You knew I was coming, so you made them turn their backs to me?” Elyss asked in surprise. How long had she been since she told Camilla that she was coming over? Less than ten seconds, and Camilla managed to react in such a short amount of time, even preparing the scene to better exploit her explosive entry?

“Yeah. This was a good idea. I wish I thought of it as well,” Camilla said, shaking off some of the blood stuck to her sword.

The moles had turned their backs to Camilla when they looked toward Elyss and she took full advantage of their carelessness to partially decapitate one, slotting her sword neatly in a weak point between two metallic plates of armor before tearing through the spine. She tore out her sword when the armor lost its strength with its owner’s death.

Elyss didn’t waste her opportunity either. Before the moles could react, she leaned down toward the mole trapped under her paw. No matter how much it struggled, it couldn’t break free. With a toss of her head, Elyss tore open the mole’s throat, tearing through the armor plates as if it didn’t exist.

If only all her kills were this easy.

Sadly, the cavalry was here, for the moles, that is. She dodged out of the way just as the mole king came barreling over the spot where she had just been standing. It skidded to a stop, snarling up at her.

“Noisy, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Can you use magic now? Are you far enough away from those things in that cage yet?” 

Elyss blinked in surprise. “You know about the queens too?” Despite being the target of the interference, it had taken her a few times to figure out what the source was. Yet, Camilla figured it out so easily.

Camilla’s next words made Elyss want to curl up and hide in a corner.

“It’s hard to not know when you keep screaming about it through telepathy. It was really distracting, you know?”

“…Ah… Sorry, I guess. But I can’t control it, okay? It really was annoying.” 

“I bet it was.” Camilla folded her wings. They shrank to stay out of her way and wrapped around her waist. 

She didn’t need them anymore now that Elyss was here, bringing with her the zone of chaotic mana that stopped the casting of all spells except the simplest, and reinforcement magic that remained close to the user. 

It seemed that the main reason that the moles managed to corner Camilla the first time was because of the earthen metal spears that kept cutting her off. No more spears meant no more problem, and since Camilla was more nimble on the ground anyway, it was an effective increase in power for Camilla.

Despite the increased number of moles and even the mole king himself, Camilla still managed her dance of death. Weaving through the slightest gaps between moles, she managed to keep herself from being surrounded. Her sword never stopped moving, only ever growing faster and faster with momentum until it finally hit with a force that crushed through armor like it wasn’t there. After sundering the metal covering the moles, it continued on, cutting through hide and flesh. 

Even though the moles continued to switch out their wounded members, their overall force continued to shrink, unlike before. These weren’t wounds that could be nursed with a few licks and then it’s back into the fray they go.

Each blow from Camilla’s greatsword left huge gashes from which blood poured from. Although the moles were hardy enough to not die immediately, they probably won’t make it through the hour. If they kept fighting, they might not even survive for ten minutes as they bled out.

As she watched Camilla weave and reap her way through the enemy ranks, Elyss couldn’t help but feel pride well up in her chest. This was her idea that worked—an idea that even Camilla didn’t come up with.

And it wasn’t like she was useless either. This time, it was the mole king that was desperately trying to get somewhere, only to be stopped at every turn. Whenever the mole king tried to attack Camilla that was butchering his subjects, Elyss fended him off, chasing him all over the battlefield. 

Although he was bigger and stronger than the other moles, he was still a good bit smaller than Elyss was. Weaker and slower. His only advantage was his numbers, but even that was lost when considering how most of the mole soldiers must put pressure on Camilla or risk her running loose.

 The mole king was in a lose-lose situation and there was only a slow, grinding loss versus a quick, decisive loss waiting for him.

A joyful cry of exhilaration escaped from her mouth as she jumped onto the mole king’s back, flattening him with her weight. Gripping on tightly with her front paws, she began to use her hind legs to claw his back over and over again, making sure to reinforce her claws as she did so.

While she skidded off the armor at first, she soon tore past the plates, sending them flying. The plates turned back into dirt as they flew and she managed to get to flesh underneath. The mole screamed in pain.

It thrashed and bucked to try and get her off but she held on tight. Only when it threatened to roll onto its back did Elyss finally separate, landing on an empty patch of ground and licking her paws in satisfaction.

“How does it feel? Painful, right? You’ll feel it again and again.” Although she didn’t know if the mole understood her, she taunted it anyway. It made her feel better, and it was payback for that frustration of being able to do nothing earlier. As a mole charged her, she batted it aside with a contemptuous swipe of her paws.

“Elyss, don’t play with your food. They might try something else.”

“Like what?” Elyss asked reluctantly. She wasn’t playing with her food anyway.

“They might try to take Lucienne down with them. She’s fine right now, but if the moles decide to concentrate all their force on her, she’ll be in trouble.”

“Isn’t she having trouble the same reason you are? Because of the spikes these rats keep making?”

“I don’t think so. She always has a place to retreat to because Kagriss uses her magic to keep her back clear of moles and as long as she dodges the spike itself, Kagriss is destroying them so they don’t obstruct her. Unfortunately, it seems that she just lacks training and can’t handle that many opponents at once.”

“…you know a lot, don’t you?” 

“I had time to look while I was in the sky. As a former templar, she should be trained in clearing out large numbers of undead. While individually stronger, it’s the same concept for these moles. Lucienne should really be having less trouble than she is right now.”

 …and Camilla was brutally honest too. But Elyss liked people that don’t mince words and neither was she on the receiving end of the criticisms so it’s fine. 

“Well…” Camilla coughed as she stepped around a striking mole and knocked it off balance for a finishing strike, “it’s not entirely her fault. Given her experience, that’s excusable. The fault lies with me for putting her in a situation that she’s not ready for.”

“Was she in any real danger?”

“I trust Kagriss to keep her safe… Anyways, I think we’ve cleared out enough moles. Should I have Kagriss put her with the twins? The three of us should be enough to take out the rest.”

Cleared enough?

Elyss looked up from her chase. She had been so absorbed in trying to kill the fleeing mole king that she didn’t notice that mole bodies littered the ground, most of them having suffered a single mortal wound that either killed them on the spot or bled them out shortly after.

The living ones, once a crush of bodies that endlessly hounded after them, seemed much sparser now. Without her realizing it, Camilla had cleaned up so many of them.

“Things didn’t go exactly as planned, but this works too. Kagriss might not hear me from here so can you tell her to find an opening to get Lucienne out? After she put her somewhere safe, we can concentrate on clearing out the rest.”

Camilla dispatched another mole, each kill faster than before. The moles were showing more and more openings now that they couldn’t simply throw their numbers around. Before, if they left themselves open to attack, Camilla couldn’t do anything because another mole usually forced her to defend. Things were different now. 

“Okay.” 

Elyss broadened the range of her telepathy. When she gets excited and shouts in her mind, the range goes quite far, but having to consciously extend the range was a bit troublesome. Still, she managed it even in the heat of battle.

“Kagriss. Camilla asks you to retreat with Lucienne and then rejoin her.”

“Understood.” The reply came quickly, edged with impatience and relief. Since telepathy was close to the mind, it was harder for even Kagriss who usually showed no emotions to hide how she was feeling.

She was really angry about something, but it wasn’t Elyss’s business so she didn’t bother asking. She had to focus on her own fight after all.

 

Retreat with Lucienne and then rejoin…

When Lucienne heard Elyss’s voice in her mind talking about, she felt like her heart was going to jump out of her chest. Here she was, struggling harder than she ever had in battle, and that was what she heard.

Every moment was like life and death. A step wrong could make her lose an arm or leg, and then all that awaited her would be the fate of being torn limb from limb by a horde of moles. 

Yet, she wasn’t even allowed to see things through to the end? That wasn’t the plan. She should have dispatched her share of these oversized rodents and then challenged the menace that laid at the end of the battle along with the others. It shouldn’t end for her this way.

The black mist that remained behind her the whole time spread out and began to encircle her. They spread out, driving back the moles that had been conditioned to avoid the mist like death itself. Along with the mist’s spread, Kagriss descended. 

As Kagriss neared, Lucienne almost cried out in protest but she kept the words sealed inside. “I can still fight! Just a little longer…”

Those were words she could not say, because although she dutifully avoided any heavy hits, she couldn’t avoid being just a step too slow to dodge a spike or claw. She was already riddled with wounds both shallow and deep.

But just a little longer… and she’ll have produced some results. All those wounds she suffered was to slowly wear down the moles attacking her. By now, there shouldn’t be a single mole unwounded, and even if they keep switching out, eventually all of them will be too hurt to fight.

Even now, between the narrowing gates formed by the black mists enclosing her within, she could see the blood seeping through the gaps in the armor of the moles. Gaps that she made, yet lacked the ability to widen.

All that effort spent whittling them down but she couldn’t even deal the final blow herself. It was agonizing.

Kagriss was hovering right behind her now, reaching down. “Come on.”

“…okay.” She grabbed Kagriss’s hand, but her grip was loose and limp, as if she was going to slip out any moment. Nonetheless, Kagriss made up for it and pulled her up into the sky and away from the moles.

They looked up at her and she looked down back, but whereas they turned and surged toward Camilla and Elyss as soon as Lucienne was out of range of even their spikes, Lucienne continued to look long after.

Ariel and Sariel sat far away from the battlefield. It took Kagriss almost a minute of flying to reach while Lucienne dangled beneath her.

They landed. Kagriss left wordlessly right after she dropped Lucienne off, leaving her alone with the twins. The two girls rushed over, their eyes wide with concern.

“Lucy, are you okay?” Ariel asked, reaching out toward a blotch of blood on Lucienne’s armor.

Lucienne grabbed her arm before she could touch it, only to realize that her worn out gauntlets were also stained with blood. Part of it was her own blood from when she used her armor to block hits to her body and the rest of it, most of it was blood from the moles.

She took a step back, letting go of Ariel’s arm. “Yeah, sorry.”

“What for?”

“Getting blood on you. We’ll have to get it off.”

Ariel rubbed at it but it just spread out. She made a gagging expression and hid it behind her back. “Never mind that. Are you hurt, Lucy? Do you need any healing?”

Her eyes sparkled.

“Why do you…” Look so happy? Lucienne was about to answer, but she got it. “Ah never mind. I guess I am hurt, a little. You might not be able to see it though, and no touching, okay? And give me that arm.” She mustered up a smile and recovered her armor.

It turned into blood and returned to her body. The blood from the moles that had previously stained the metal gathered into a ball by her side, courtesy of her newfound blood magic. 

She wasn’t good enough to control blood in the middle of battle, but this much she could still do. The blood spread on Ariel’s arm lifted off and melded into the ball along with the mole blood still on Lucienne’s body.

Her own blood that stained her clothes seeped back into her open wounds where they remained, forcibly contained without her body. A vampire that bled out was a failure of a vampire. Even the youngest and most inexperienced of vampires knew how to recover their own blood as long as they weren’t distracted and Lucienne was of no exception.

With the blood gone, the state of her clothes became clear. It was all torn from battle with gashes in her skin where the tears were. Lucienne spread her arm. “Can you help?”

Ariel nodded. “That looks terrible… Sariel?”

“Got it. I apologize in advance if this hurts, okay?” Sariel said. The twins helped Lucienne sit down on the ground and their hands began to glow with a basic healing spell that Lucienne taught them. 

Under the warm glow of the healing light, the wounds began to close, sealing in her blood. It drove away the stress that needled at Lucienne while the warmth lasted.

When the others returned, they found her lying flat on the ground looking listlessly up at the clouds drifting by overhead with the twins playing beside her.