The area was clear of Darkness’s army, but a quick look to my Protectorate Map showed that was because they were no longer following directly behind us. Now they were marching in a direct line to cut the angle of our new path. Guessing at the angle of their altered path I suspect they intended to cut us off before we reached the small army of Malatians we were going to meet. I didn’t think they’d be able to, but it would be damn tight. Satisfied knowing where they were and what they were attempting to do, I shot off toward our army.

They felt my approach before they saw me, and Sania turned back to come and meet up with me. She was only a little taller than Olata and Danivra now, yet as she approached I marveled at how powerful she still looked. Lithe and graceful she thundered through the air as if she was born to fly. As she came to a halt in a tight, smooth arc to fly by my side, I noted no jerkiness in her movements at all and I was impressed. I also suddenly felt self-conscious about my own appearance. I didn’t have a mirror, but I knew what a Baatazu demon looked like, and it wasn’t pretty.

“Everything okay?” she asked with a breathtaking smile. “I didn’t sense that you were in trouble at any point.”

“Yeah, it was okay. They’ve set up an excellent little defensive position in the lower part of town, and the Dwarves don’t seem to be able to put any more numbers there yet. I reckon they’re trying to crush us here first. Then they’ll go crush Far Reach. Not that we’re going to let any of that happen.”

“No, we’re certainly not. With you back, I have faith.”

I laughed in response, and Sania looked puzzled. “I was thinking the same about you, oh Demi Goddess, Amarok, Super Sania. What was the glow around you when you came through the portal? I didn’t have time to inspect it properly.”

“Ah, when I became an Amaroks I had a path to choose and I opted to be able to create a shield like what Wind of the Wild can create.”

“Not his teleportation skill? I’m really surprised by that.”

“It wasn’t available. He told me that skill was special to him alone as far as he knows. But back to the point. Evolving into an Amarok and choosing that Skill unlocked a new Ethereal skill! It’s a personal shield. It lasts half an hour with a four hour recharge and while it is active, I am as invincible as your Immortal Shell parts. I can cause a lot of damage with my strikes too, as it causes Ethereal Damage.”

I could hardly contain my amazement. “That is an awesome skill. I see me and you standing toe to toe with anyone in the future.”

“As do I. Though I really want to find a way to teleport,” she said with a surprising amount of intensity.

“We will make it one of our goals,” I replied. “And if it works out that it’s not in your power set, we’ll still work it out. Hell, I’ll find a way to transfer the Protectorate title over to you if it comes to it.”

“No, that is yours. You earned it,” she said fiercely.

“We’ve been over this. Stada let me kill him.”

“Exactly,” she said, softening her voice.

“Well, it’s not off the table no matter what you say. I… er, I’m sorry for how I look at the minute as well. It’s going to cause problems.”

She laughed this time. “I have no doubt you will look like something else next week. I love what’s inside you.” She touched my head and my chest as she spoke, and I shivered at the energy of her touch.

“Thank you,” I replied. My voice barely above a whisper as we flew overhead of our eclectic but impressive army.

“We’ve had some losses,” I noted, and Sania’s body seemed to tense up slightly.

“It has not been easy with you gone. It is true. The day you left… While we waited for you to return and portal us home, a portal did open. But it was an army from Agorak that came through. We were completely unprepared, and lost too many people far too quickly. We fought back, but had no other choice but to run or risk being wiped out. Many of those following us are from that army. Egard was there with them.

“Shit, really?”

“Really?” Danivra said, coming to fly alongside us. “Sania almost managed to kill that unpleasant stain on Falritas.”

“That would have been fitting if you did,” I replied. “So… Egard is with that lot, then?” I asked looking to the west.

“He most certainly is,” Danivra answered. “I suspect the King of Agorak may well be with them, too.”

“Good of them all to come to one place where we can kill them all then,” I replied with both doubt and a burning desire to make it so. “I reckon Grimstrom must be around here somewhere too, because he wasn’t at the prison when everything kicked off.”

“It would be good to rid ourselves of these enemies. Though I am eager to see how complete this Sphere of Influence of yours is Clive.”

“Yep,” I nodded. “We all need a break. If it works, I intend to take a little time off to get the restaurant open.” As I spoke the words, I expected everyone to groan. But thankfully they weren’t a bunch of dicks and understood the nature of my obsession. I wanted, for as long as feasibly possible, to increase my cooking skill and to create perfect food for the people of Far Reach. I wanted to make them all stronger for this journey they had embarked upon with me.”

As we traveled, I kept a close eye on Darkness’s army. Their path was much clearer now and it was painfully evident that they were racing to meet our allies before we did, and that was not a good thing for anyone. On our side at least. We could fuck off in a different direction and portal the hell out of here. Without fuss, that was true, but it would mean sacrificing our best ally’s troops and I couldn’t help but feel that would backfire on us spectacularly in time. That and I looked after my friends for better or worse when I could.

While I did wonder how they were moving so fast and imagined they were all buzzing off their faces on Multi-Vits, of which we had none left. It was unlikely that was the only explanation for their increased speed.  

“Looks like Darkness is going to attempt to take out the Malatians first,” I told Sania, Danivra, Ewan and Olata and Grigor. “They’re moving fast, but they’re also strung out now, so basically, the fastest among us are going to have to go and help out.”

“We can take the Wultr ahead,” Grigor suggested.

“Best to keep the army together. We six can put up enough resistance until our armies join,” I replied, eyeing Grigor. Amazing to think he was the weak link in our group, despite being Level 68 after our travels around Kalabri.

 

Agreement was unanimous and while flying away felt like a slight betrayal of our army, they still had six Nanook and five Amaroks in their frontlines so they were by no means abandoned. 

We flew as fast as Grigor could go, which was still incredibly fast. Though as we dropped down in front of the Malatians, he was all but spent of power. At least that which he derived from me. The soldiers in front of us were completely oblivious to the approaching army and instead had the nerve to bristle as we approached.

I saluted them before I spoke, to break the ice a little.

“Hey guys, I’m Clive. I believe you’re coming to meet us?”

An older man stepped forward. A grizzled weather-beaten Paladin of Devotion carrying a gisarme of all things. With one large hook sharpened to a cutting edge along its curve. And another smaller hook protruding in the opposite direction from the bottom of that blade. He was now leaning on it as if needing it for support, while eyeing me mistrustfully. Judging by his level, he did not need the weapon for support:

 

Karius: Level 94 Paladin of Devotion. Captain of the Thisthal. Nephilim (Human III)

 

“The Clive we’re s’possed to meet isn’t a Demon,” he replied. “And it’s already damn hard to trust the man we’re s’pposed to be looking for, after he already went and killed some of our soldiers a while back..”

“Well, Karius. The thing is, there’s a fuck-ton of Darkness’s soldiers heading this way to intercept you before you can meet up with my army. We came to make sure you survive the encounter so you can either hop on board the common sense train or you can keep going with this shit and end up losing a hell of a lot more folk than I killed when Malatia invaded my town.”

It felt as if he was looking through me, as I waited for a response.

“Would help if you didn’t look like a stinking demon,” he grumbled bitterly.

“Well, it’s not just me here is it? This is Queen Danivra,” I said pointing to the Dokalfar queen. “Wind of the Wild,” I said pointing as Ewan morphed into an Amarok. “And this is queen Olata. I reckon you know who all of them are?”

He muttered to the soldier next to him. A Level 86 Paladin of Devotion named Harle. And while I could hear, I couldn’t make sense of what he said. He seemed to be speaking in some kind of code. Finally, he looked back to me. “How long till they get here?”

I held up a finger for him to wait and entered the Protectorate Map to check. Their troops were stretched out, but the closest were only around ten minutes out now. Flying fast. Some kind of bat creature from what I could make out. Behind them Dwarves, running impressively fast.

I refocused on Karius. “Ten minutes for the first lot. Flying batlike thingies. Then dwarves about half an hour after that.”

“Baravat,” he snapped gesturing for his troops to fan out with a few hand movements. I had to admit I was impressed.

“You guys are not like most of the other Malatian soldiers I’ve seen. You seem… very competent.”

His eyes flicked back dangerously to me. I imagined he was used to people being intimidated by him, though he had definitely picked the bloke today. “We’re Thisthal.”

I waited for more information, but it seemed none was forthcoming.

“How many altogether should we expect?”

“Over a hundred thousand. My people will be here in less than an hour, and then we need to survive for about an hour longer after that before I can portal us to Far Reach.”

“Then that is what we shall do. Try and wipe out these Baravat as quickly as possible. Then make a slow measured retreat. There is an area of defensible high ground a few miles back in the forsaken land. No real cover beyond boulders and ridges, but if we can time our retreat well, it should serve us well.

“Well, you seem to know what you’re talking about so,” I looked around at Sanai and the others, none of them were listening anymore, which I took as meaning they were comfortable with the plan. Instead, they watched the dark swarm on the horizon.

The Barvat’s had come.

As terrifying as they looked from this distance, they also had a distinct unenthusiastic air about them now they finally saw us. Pulling to a halt a half mile away.

“I don’t fucking think so,” I said striding forward and summoning my cleaver. My friends followed. The Malatians remained in their formation. “If they think they’re getting a rest and time to wait for reinforcements they’ve got another thing coming.”

My friends agreed with a variety of replies.

“Kill them all!” I shouted and shot in the air. I didn’t know what the Malatians would do, but I did know we had enough strength between the six of us to cause some serious damage in this first battle.

As we swept forward, flying low across the land, a roar went up behind us. With a quick glance behind me, I saw the five thousand Malatians sprinting after us, over half of them taking to the skies. I slowed a little so they could be close when we hit.

The Baravat's were noisy, ugly, ferocious looking creatures between six and seven feet long. They hissed and snarled from their little pink faces. The only bare part of their black fur covered bodies. Scrunched up snout's sharp teeth in a constant state of motion. Yet despite their display, they were not brave and as we closed they I suspected it was the will of Darkness that kept them there to fight and die, because they clearly didn’t want to stay.

Despite my sympathy for their potential predicament, I still hacked and blasted the living daylights out of them with rage filled abandon. They were still here to kill our people.

They fell quickly and in great numbers. Karius was an absolute fucking terror with his gisarme, and now I could really see the benefit of the weapon in aerial combat. He used all parts of it to control the area around him and in all honesty looked to be as lethal as any of us in the battle.

The Baravat must have finally been given permission to flee the slaughter as they turned as one and fled back in the direction they’d come from. Karius called his men to a halt despite everyone’s eagerness to go after our foe. He was completely right. Though it was hard to watch them go.

Within a few minutes we saw further movement on the Horizon. The sound of the approaching soldiers thrumming through the ground moments later.

As they came close enough to view the details of their troop composition, I saw there were Aragites running at the head of the dwarves. Their red and black cloaks billowing in the wind as they ran toward us. They sent two barrages of Dark neuma blasts at us before falling back into their formation, replaced by a front line of dwarves. I took the moment to roar, activated Call to arms to boost those within the powers radius, as the rage filled faces of the Dwarves came into focus.