The forest was calm, she thought as she moved forward. The old man was quiet, his face a mask of solemn determination. She did not know where this human got that kind of determination, nor did she particularly care her little sister was the type to get attached to humans, not her.

The two walked in silence, not making a sound except for the human rustling the leaves. She noticed that he looked around with a scowl every once and a while. She raised an eyebrow at that; however, she had other things to worry about.

She reached a glade and felt something off; her guide frowned deeply and whispered something. She felt a pulse of healing energy that energized the forest, she was about to comment on it, but something stilled her tongue.

The forest grew slightly, the air became cleaner, but nothing else happened. Then, finally, the human looked around his frown, deepened, and whispered under his breath, "Where are they?" This confused her. Who was this human waiting for? What were they? Was he actually a druid?

These questions and more appeared before her, but she kept quiet. She could wait for this old fool to spout it out. She had all the time in the world, unlike the mortal in front of her. She had many years, nay decades ahead of her while this human was burdened with but a scant few decades. 

How pitiful, she could not understand how her sister favored them over other mortals like the elves or pixies. However, she could understand her sister's dislike of the dwarves. She frowned at the thought of those stunted reprobates and their eyes that were always aflame with greed.

She shuddered at the memory, causing the mortal she just scorned to raise an eyebrow at her. She says nothing and continues deeper into the forest, feeling that something is wrong and riff with danger.

The human tapped the ground staff in hand; this startled her as she never saw this human with a staff. He did not enter the forest with one, nor did he grab one off the forest floor.

This baffled her; however, she would never admit it. Though she could see that grin on the human's face, it seems that he expected this. "Curse him." She thought, rage and anger burning inside her.

She forcefully calmed herself as the shaman continued deeper into the forest. A few minutes later, they stood before a large clearing. The shaman stopped and nodded at her, sweeping his hand toward the darkened patch of the forest; she could feel the danger.

When she entered the opening, she felt clear danger from her surroundings. She took a deep breath and looked up. A scowl formed on her face as she saw the problem. Oread, it was an Oread that seems to have bonded to a human.

The creature was large, far taller than her, and she felt a shiver down her spine as she looked up at the beast.

…

The spirit was looking down on a glorious sight, there was so much death, and it could feel the intense emotions of fear coming off the goblins as they were torn to shreds. It writhed in pleasure as those goblin's fear, pain, and hatred were siphoned into its core strengthening it.

The mistress has found an excellent mate, and it wants to be by her side to feed off her mate's kills. This would be a heaven, though if it was honest, it did not care about the slaughter as long as it could leave the Abyss. It was fine.

It shivered as it pondered the Abyss and felt lucky when it found the summon gate, which led to it meeting the mistress. The Abyss was crowded and bestial the creature shook its head solemnly; it needed to focus on the link it shared with its mistress for her to collect her prize.

The link burned to life around it with a ghastly green glow that anyone could see. This was the reason it needed to hide away from the mortals. At least until the shackles could be woven into the ether around it.

It felt the connection take hold and heard the mistress's voice in its mind, "Number 72, why have you contacted me? I was… busy." It could hear screaming in the background of the mistress's location, but it dared not comment on that. It could not as it wanted to live.

“Misssstrissss I havvvve found your mate.” It hated its voice; however, it could do nothing about it until it grew more powerful. Then, finally, the screaming turned into whimpers as The Mistress turned her full attention to the spirit in front of her.

"Show me, my master, now, or you will be thrown back into the abyss for interfering with important matters." The spirit bowed as it snuck its way to the battlefield and then whispered. “Missstrisss, I ssssee your mate.”

It felt power pour through it as her complete focus was given to the spirit. "Ah, my beloved master, how you must be aching without me." Then her voice started shaking as it got closer to her beloved mate. It felt worried as they both beheld the wounded and bruised form of its mistress's mate.

It felt utter rage from the connection as the chains that bound it to her started to tighten, which caused it to feel the burning pain shoot through its soul. "Oh, my dear master, how I wish I could go and aid you right now. However, I must deal with this vile rat."

The spirit heard a nasally voice begging for its life, how wealthy its father was. How it could stop the bandits from attacking the Mistress' town. This was of no interest to the spirit. Nor did it feel even a tinge of interest from its mistress. The screaming continued as its mistress roared in anger at the victim. 

"How dare you keep me from my master, you misbegotten servant, I would kill you, but that would be too merciful." The spirit shuddered in fear as it felt such killing intent that the very air became cold and a brief flash of green light severed its connection.

The spirit stealthily slipped away into the background, though it did not notice the glowing eyes that tracked it. The Tech-Priest hummed with curiosity as it watched the being made of shadows and chuckled solemnly as it slinked away from the tech priest's sight.

…

Christapher was looking at the map that was provided to him by professor Writhe, "We would like you to summon your earth elementals to shore up the mercenary's position on the hill, the-" The young noble glared hatefully at the professor and uttered a single word. "No."

Christapher sneered at the professor as Writhe made a circular motion and spoke, "Christapher, you must explain why you are unwilling to aid a mercenary defending the same town as you." This got a frown; from the young noble, "Is this required for a grade?"

The comment earned the boy a smile from their professor, "Yes, as when you take over your father's office, you will be forced to deal with mercenaries lat-" The noble snorted as he spoke, "I will not aid the federation nor anyone who uses their weapons…."

The noble turned away from the professor as he stated this. Complete rage filled him so much that even the professor was surprised by the ferocity of his statement. This allowed the noble enough time to get up out of his chair and turn to leave.

"I assume that we are done here, no?" The boy sneered at the teacher, malice dripping off each word. Writhe chuckled coldly as he nodded, allowing the boy to leave. Professor Lilitine narrowed her eyes on professor Writhe. He could feel the judgment in her eyes.

However, his joy was palpable, "So that is how it is, hahaha. Alright, let him go; we have enough on our plates already. I will watch over the mercenaries. Personally, they have me interested in what they will do tomorrow."

This did not sit well with Lilitine, but she knew that she could not reprimand the brat, and her partner would have to aid her fellow student instead of her. This was due to how the Headmaster promised the children that Liilitine would protect them no matter what.

So she could not just leave the students even if she wanted to help her peer, nor could she watch over the boy and learn about his fighting style. So this means Professor Writhe will be the one who will do that in her stead… how irritating she could only sigh as what is done is done.

Meanwhile, outside the tent, Christapher was fuming with rage. He knew he needed to do something, so he took stock of his summons. He looked at his summons and smiled coldly as he found that he had plenty of wind elementals.

He was afraid of using his elementals proactively as tales of goblin shamans tainting elementals into destructive beasts. Christapher would not allow that to happen to the elementals. They were important to him much more than those surrounding him.

He smiled gleefully as he summoned the wind elemental. It was a lesser variant one that he had trained for stealth. However, it was not able to conceal its magical presence. Therefore he could not allow it to go after the secrets of the enemy.

But the mercenaries were of the federation, so of course, they would have no means of detecting the elemental. So, with that in mind, Christapher sent the little puff of wind to the federation dog's lines so that it could keep him updated.

…

Tarphus worked hard with a few of his troops, digging small holes for the enemy to fall into, staking small sharpened stakes into the ground so that they could slow the enemy down, for he learned that seconds can mean the difference between life and death.

It was with that knowledge that Tarphus redoubled his efforts so that the troops would get as much time as possible to kill the filthy Xenos that would gather before them once more. Of course, this did not stop the troops from grumbling about it; however, Tarphus knew that would be the case and pressed on for their safety.

Tarphus smiled as he completed the last fortification before the wave tomorrow. While he did not know if the goblins would attack his position, he would be damned if he did not try to fortify his area to the best of his ability.

The Tech-Priest helped every once in a while. Though it mainly was helping one of the conscripts as well as Ari. However, it set up a smaller trench as a fallback position, which allowed Tarphus to feel a small amount of relief as they could "Tactically Withdraw" when things get tough.

But for now, the troops needed rest, so he ordered them to sleep. He set up watches and slept for the next day. Tarphus had a gut feeling that something was wrong, but he could not do anything about it. He could only rest.

The next day Tarphus looked into the nearby forest movement flickering constantly. He could swear that he saw one of the wood elves. Though there was one that stopped just in sight of the tree line.

It was tall and very slim; Tarphus could see the creature clearly using his bionic eye. It was wiry, but the muscles were most certainly there. Tarphus shuddered with fear as he realized that the beast was covered in the greenish-black blood of the goblins.

I-it smiled at him, such a bright and charming smile it was so… enchanting the world slowed down, and colors started to swirl into existence around him. He felt giddy, almost drunk, on what he did not know, but under that, he was deeply compelled to reach this stranger. 

The creature shifted and turned, raising its hand and motioning, beckoning to him. It moved into such a beautiful figure to him. The creature tilted its head, biting its lip in such a suggestive and tempting way.

It was so… alluring that he took a step towards the forest, then pain riddled his body. He turned to the source of the pain and saw Kit hovering on his shoulder. Tarphus turned toward the figure again and saw that it was gone.

This greatly confused Tarphus, but he could not afford such thoughts, as he heard it marching, Tarphus could not see them, but he knew that a horde was approaching due to the sheer amount of weight behind those thunderous footsteps.

It seemed as though he had ticked off the orc commanding the invasion, as Tarphus saw line after line of goblins arrive out of the forest. Tarpuhs smiled coldly as he witnessed the horde, no army marching calmly and stoically towards his lines.

They were as lightly armored as before, and there were small holes in their ranks; however, it was filled by the goblins behind the front rank. They constantly moved forward; it was strange like they were facing a mindless mass that only knew how to move forward.

Tarphus heard a chuckle from the Heavy Weapons team as they lined up the heavy autogun. The enemy started to stumble as they hit the mud before the traps. This was giving Tarphus more time; the resupply was just three hours away.

The enemy started to walk past the traps; those injured by said traps were trampled on. Their guts exploded under the weight of their own comrades as the uninjured remorselessly drove onwards, meeting the same fate.

They then got to the mines. Tarphus felt proud about those mines each took with them scores of enemies. This should have broken them. The fire, smoke, and screams would break lesser humans, much less these cowardly creatures, but they continued marching forward.

Their blood soaked the ground, their marching churned it and Tarphussmiled joyously as it turned into a viscous mud. This further slowed the marching horde giving the defenders seconds as the goblins approached the firing range.

Tarphus was grateful that he did not aim for any area on the goblins, ideally, just point and shoot. This allowed the heavy weapons team to have a blast both metaphorically and physically as their AP rounds shredded the hapless goblin mass.

There were pauses between each wave which gave Tarphus enough time to look over to the battle being fought below him. But, unfortunately, the two sides fought so bitterly that Tarphus could not fire into the melee due to his fear of hitting allies. 

Instead, he could only focus on fighting his battle so that the goblins would not flank the defenders. He ducked quickly as arrows started to fly into the trench line. He did not know how many arrows as the sky darkened with the sheer amount of them.

Tarphus felt a twinge of despair as he looked up, so many, too many. Fear threatened to overtake his heart as he looked into the darkening maw of the arrow storm. Tarphus acknowledged this fear but felt a burning hatred. It scorched him. Healed him and gave him enough strength to squash the fear with utter brutality.

Pain riddled his body as several arrows pierced his flesh. However, he did not dare to yell, nor did he scream, as that would damage morale. Instead, he just gritted his teeth as he raised his gun, firing blindly down the slope to give Guile covering fire so that he could work on the wounded.

With so many arrows riddling her body, Ari slumped over; she screamed in pain about the arrows piercing her body. Guile rushed over to her, but Gudo was there first, and his colossal frame blocked the trench as he kneeled down, trying to tend to her wounds. 

Gudo showed that he was no medic as he tried to rip the arrows out of Ari immediately; however, he was shoved to the side by an enraged Guile before he could do any damage. Gudo was about to punch Guile in retaliation when more arrows showered the trench, hitting some soldiers.

Tarphus yelled out, "Gudo, I swear by the Throne and He who sits on it if you do not cover the heavy team, I will personally execute you for disobedience!" This stops Gudo dead in his tracks; he glares at Tarphus, unmoving, clenching, and unclenching his hands. 

Tarphus then grabbed his pistol with pure rage in his eyes, not flinching as arrows flew by his head. Tarphus then coldly leveled his pistol at Gudo, eyes narrowed. Gudo looked to his left as he felt a weak tug on his arm.

Ari looked up at him, tears brimming with tears. A sad and small smile meekly dressed her face as she spoke softly. "Go, they need you. Please…." Her head promptly collapsed, rolling forward as Guile continued to tend to her wounds.

Gudo looked down on her anger and rage, trying to consume him. Gudo then hung his head as he got up, gripping his gun in both hands. Gudo whispered to Guile, who promptly returned the comment. Tarphus could only nod as he got back to firing at the enemy.

It took minutes before the last of the archers were annihilated; Tarphus took stock of the situation. The conscripts were scuffed up, but they were good. However, Guile walked up to Tarphus with a solemn expression.

"Sir, she is stable… however, she will not be able to use her left arm." He pauses, looking down with regret weighing him down. "The arrow went through her muscles and pierced her bone then out of her arm. All this completely shattered the bones in her arm. Unfortunately, I do not have the means to heal this. However, the Tech-Priest offered her a new arm in the future."

This surprised Tarphus. However, he could not do anything right now… "Fuck it, Get one of the conscripts and the stretcher. Move Ari to the backline, then return here. I have a feeling that this is far from over."

Tarphus turned back to the forest as he could faintly hear the woods. It sang to him what… he could not understand. Tarphus nodded as Guile walked away; his footsteps were loud enough to break Tarphus out of his mental fugue.

It was horrible the smell of the decomposing corpses arrayed before the trenches. Tarphus could only breathe through his mouth. Beside him was the fuming Gudo. Tarphus felt him shift ever so slightly, looking between the corpses and Tarphus. 

Tarphus spoke, "I understand what you feel. In fact, mine died… However, yours can still live. As long as you follow my orders, we might all live through this." This caused Gudo to tense up. "Sir, if you ar-" Tarphus looked into Gudo's eyes with such rage and loss that forced him to stop in his tracks.

"No, I will not blackmail you nor any of my troops. I am no tyrant. However, this relationship goes two ways you will follow my orders, and as a result, I will do my best to keep you all alive. Do note that I am only human. I will likely fail once or twice; by the throne, I have failed so many times already."

Tarphus looked back to the field of corpses with a look of calm. "Be angry at me all you like… it won't change a thing, but as long as you follow my orders, that is all that matters. Because I am human, I will make mistakes, so that is why I will rely on you and my troops to keep me in check."

Gudo nodded at this but did not utter a single word, he did not need to for the rage, and animosity was still there, only slightly appeased by what Tarphus said. Tarphus could only return this nod, and he continued to stare out onto the field.

One and a half hours were needed for the next resupply. However, Tarphus knew that he would not be given that time. Even now, as he stood in the trench, he looked out to see more heavily armored goblins.

They were taller and faster than the goblins; however, they were just as robotic as the prior hordes. They were mowed down quickly, though the armor would allow them to have the bullets ricochet. All in all, it was good training for mobile armored targets.

But that was all; also, Tarphus was glad that he learned to conserve ammo in the challenge. Otherwise, he feared what would happen. No, he knew what would occur. The bastards would run through his trench, murdering as they pleased, and then make it down to the defenders below.

Tarphus knew this, and he felt trapped as he could do nothing about it except hold the line in his bloody trench. Then, Ari popped up in his mind, and his hands began trembling. This was the first time he truly felt that his soldiers' lives were in his hands, more than he was responsible for them.

It was something he acknowledged, of course, as he was supposed to lead them, however… Ari almost died due to his orders. Tarphus started to think hard about what he could do about his situation, but he kept drawing blanks. 

Tarphus started hyperventilating over the ordeal as he felt that they all were going to die for once, he could not respawn, and he did not know if his squad would respawn. Fear was threatening to consume him, but then he felt it patting on the back of his helm, then a cold metallic voice spoke.

"Adrenaline and heart rate has increased seventy percent, temporary loss of equipment factored in… Ninety percent chance of depression administering head pats and compliments to alleviate the situation."

Tarphus felt like hell; his arm still hurt due to the rough treatment of the wounds caused by those accursed arrows. However, he felt the head pats even through the helmet. Though he also heard the hissing of steam getting released from the arm of the Tech-Priest.

He felt relief at the Tech Priest's touch, though its encouragement left something to be desired as it amounted to him speaking in high gothic and zeros and ones. Finally, it stopped when Tarphus grabbed a hand. He turned to the Tech-Priest with a smile on his face as he spoke.

"Silence, please. I am grateful for your company, my friend, but I would like your silence right now. The head patting is also unnecessary… just stand there for a little while." The Tech-Priest nodded, and the two just stood there waiting and thinking over what had happened and the future.