Chapter 27: Cunnings

Cunning. One of the five main crests of the Ak’hims, known for their agile and crafty ways of combat. A Cunning is often denoted by their short and small stature and their long sleek tail. A lot of Cunnings are also afflicted with a rare condition where their skins can sometimes be pale white, making them look sickly. 

However, do not be fooled by their appearance, for as small as they look, they are no weaklings. They pack a punch for their size and often outspeed all the other crests. Their slender and fast bodies allow them to be scouts and excellent assassins. They are also rather strong duelists, often using dual daggers laced with poison during combat. One strike from a Cunning is all that it takes to take down an opponent.

Kazakiel was one such Cunning. Although he was considered really tall among them, his skills and strength were among the best of them. Unlike the others of the Seventh Army, Kazakiel personally joined Lionel due to a fallout he had with the Second Army, he cannot stand the divide between the crests and the excessive favouritism of Cunnings within the second army. Leida, the first general freaked him out so he decided to join the calmer of the two monsters, Lionel. Most of his men from his battalion followed after his decision. 

As a result, his battalion was rather different than the others. It’s more balanced, a good amount of every crest could be seen in his battalion— except for Analysts, of course. He could never earn their respect. Never had the chance. Not with all the blatant racism in his previous army. When he joined the Seventh Army, Klauna had already taken control of all the Analysts under her. 

At first, he didn’t understand how such a drunkard could command such respect. He started to entertain the thought that maybe the people were right about the Analysts after all, that they are just a bunch of losers. Now he understood how wrong he is. 

The woman known as Klaunalioriratica Analyst was a very fearsome woman. She orders the most ruthless of tactics without batting an eye. As long as the people she cares about were safe, she couldn’t care less about what happens to the enemy. Let it be burned to death by fire or crippling death by a huge explosion or even sneaking to the backline to kill the injured and non-combatant.

Coincidentally, such were Kazakiel's orders. Phase two was simply him charging into an undefended encampment to destroy as many supplies and to slaughter as many humans as they could. This includes the very vulnerable mage corp of the Alliance.

“Captain Kazakiel this is Poi! Can you hear me?” Poi’s voice could be heard coming from a book that the Watchtower Warrior was holding. 

“Goddammit guys, for the last time, stop shouting! You guys are going to be the deaf of me!” Yuupiecca’s voice could be heard coming from the book now.

“WHAT WAS THAT? YOU CAN’T HEAR ME? LOUDER? HELLO HELLO CA— Ouch!” Poi’s loud shout was stopped by a loud knock.

“Oi Senior Balestra! Hit her harder for me! Give th—Arghh! Medica! What was that for?!” A tight slap was heard, cutting off Yuupiecca’s voice.

“Would you guys shut up! If you can’t behave yourselves then I’ll cut the connection!” Harbin’s yell could be heard stopping all further communications.

A full minute of silence occurred after that.

“...This is Captain Kazakiel. We hear you.”

“...General Klauna gives the go for phase two. Yuupie, we are regrouping and are on the way to your position right now, ETA two hours.”

“Noted,” Kazakiel responded.

“Roger, Poi,” Medica was the one who answered instead of Yuupiecca on the other side.

…

The Watchtower Warrior closed the book before giving out a wry smile. “...Quite the excitable bunch aren’t they?”

“You can say that again…" Kazakiel replied with his palm on his face.  

He then turned around towards his men before yelling out. "Everyone! Gather up. Phase two is a go."

About a hundred Cunnings who were sitting down and conserving energy got up and gathered right in front of Kazakiel. The rest of his men were not here, they were somewhere else preparing for a different type of assault.

“Everyone is here and accounted for, Lord Kazakiel.” One of the Cunnings said to him.

“... I’m sure you must have known by now. What we are about to do is quite dishonourable. But I want to say that although she was the one who ordered it. I was the one who agreed to this decision. I was the one who drafted phase two of the plan. I hope you guys will not put the blame on the general for the things we are about to do.”

“Yeah yeah, we know already. Can we get on with the mission, Kazakiel?” One of his men casually said to him.
“Yeah! We won’t be here if we can’t do this right?”

His men spoke to him casually as if they were friends.

Kazakiel could only give them a wry smile and thought to himself. 'What a bunch of disrespectful subordinates’.

“Then I’ll be getting back to the others for Phase Three. I wish you good luck, Captain Kazakiel.” The Watchtower Warrior saluted before walking away. He was escorted by a handful of Cunnings who wore stealth cloaks— the Watchtower Warrior included as well.

“Then we move out men!” Kazakiel yelled out before running forth to the battlefield. His men followed behind closely. The speed at which they ran was so fast it was akin to watching a phantom flying through the forest.

* * * * *

It was just barely past afternoon. The big slaughter-fest in the Plains of Fate continued, not showing any signs of ending anytime soon. Explosions after explosions could be heard as the two forces clashed in a field of blood. Although looking strong, one could tell that the momentum that the Ak’hims had during the beginning of the battle was slowly but surely slipping away. Their fierce assault has somewhat slowed down. 

The sheer firepower of the Demon Lord that was supposed to be on the battlefield was nowhere to be seen. It seemed that Sylendri was currently engaged with a bunch of Alliance elites. A strong and powerful human and his companions were locking down the Demon Lord, silencing her and giving the other soldiers the chance to focus on something else.

The two forces were so preoccupied with each other that they failed to see the movements of the Seventh Army behind the scenes. Kazakiel swiftly arrived at the enemy encampment with his division of sneaky assassins. With a motion of his hands, he ordered his men to raid the encampment. The Cunnings split up and formed small groups before entering the enemy’s encampment at different points.

Kazakiel had a few trusted men follow him and entered the encampment from one of the back entrances. With silent footsteps, they briskly walked through the place to find valuable strategic targets. Seeing a rather large tent that was bigger than the rest of the tents, Kazakiel concluded that the area was of significant importance and placed down a ‘package’.

It was a time bomb. Something that Kazakiel had the honour of planting during those three months that they took to retreat to Prashyufa from Fort Kron.

Satisfied with the placement of the package, Kazakiel moved to his second objective, to kill as many humans as they could in the area before escaping the place. Sneaking around the encampment, he saw a few mages taking a break from bombardment duties and a few more mages doing said bombardment. It looked like they were swapping places with each other in order to conserve mana.

Kazakiel took out a mini crossbow and signalled his men to do the same. He then marked the humans in front of him before counting down with his hand from five. 

*Chak *Chak *Chak *Chak *Chak

Five arrows, five dead humans with a bolt to their head. It was instant death so they didn’t make any noise. Kazakiel and another Cunning then moved closer to the area to keep a lookout while the others started to hide the bodies of the humans. Once the bodies were hidden, they moved to scour the encampment to find more humans to kill.

He gave his men an hour for the operation but ordered that they were to immediately retreat if they were found. During that one hour, Kazakiel and his men killed many humans. They pretty much killed anyone, the mage corps, medical staff, non-combatants like the cooks and other logistic workers such as maids, butlers, and many more. He felt bad about them, but war is war. He was an assassin meant to do dirty jobs like this. The only things that Kazakiel didn’t kill were the children who were in the camp for whatever reason.

His empathy proved to be a detriment as the children were the one who spotted the Cunnings and alerted the humans to their presence. Large alarm bells were rung and the whole encampment was on alert. An army was soon dispatched to the encampment to assist the patrol guards in dealing with the intruders.

Gritting his teeth in frustration, Kazakiel quickly packed up and started to run away from the area before they could surround him. On his way to the escape path, a few patrol guards appeared and blocked his way. A futile attempt; Kazakiel and his men were ex-elites from the Second Army, the best of the best. They would not be taken down so easily. The few guards were soon dispatched and they soon escaped from the encampment.

He could see the other Cunnings making their escape too as he exited the camp. Using his mouth like a whistle, he called out to the others to group up on him. All the Cunning in the area soon gathered on his location as they made their escape— through a small hill surrounded by plenty of trees.

“Men count! One!” Kazakiel said out loud.

His men then continued with a two and a three and so forth. All the way to ninety-six. It seemed that they came out with a slightly less number than they came in with. Kazakiel gritted his teeth harder. They were good men, elites that were almost impossible to replace at this point.

“Enemy following from behind!” One of the Cunnings said to him.

Kazakiel nodded before climbing swiftly on top of a tall tree branch. He then observed the detachment that chased them into the woods. He estimated there were about one thousand humans chasing after them. Idiots and fools, all of them. There was no way they could beat the Cunnings in a dense forest like this.

“Spread out! Devastator formation!” Kazakiel yelled out to his men.

The Cunning then beautifully split themselves into three lines. The two lines that were on the left and the right vanished into thin air while the middle line started to climb up the trees, jumping from one tree branch to another.

*Chak *Chak *Chak

Out of nowhere, crossbow bolts started appearing, hitting the humans that were chasing after them. From the left side of the detachment were Cunnings stabbing the humans with their poisonous knives before disappearing into thin air again. When the humans were too preoccupied with what was happening on the left, more crossbow bolts appeared from the right side to kill more humans.

The back and forth continued endlessly as the Cunnings picked the humans little by little, one by one. Eventually, the humans' numbers were reduced to the point where they could no longer put up a good fight. Fearing for their lives, they started to run away from the forest and back to their camp. Too bad the Cunnings were much much faster than them. Kazakiel was not about to let them get away.

However, before he could say anything, the ground beneath the humans shook and long drill-like tails came out of the ground to stab the humans. The ground then burst out and a few dozen Saboteurs came out. Stabbing and clawing the humans who were running away. The Cunnings saw this chance and let out more crossbow bolts at the humans, finishing them off.

It took them a while but every single one of the human detachment that was sent after Kazakiel's battalion was slain. The teamwork between the Cunnings and Saboteurs proved to be rather effective.

“Are you alright, Captain Kazakiel?” Blackmask asked as the two groups gathered up. 

“Mostly fine. We lost a few men back there. Why are you here?” Kazakiel asked Blackmask.

“I was ordered by General Klauna herself that we needed to accelerate phase three. She told me to find you. On the way here I heard the ringing of the bells and rushed as fast as I could.”

“Accelerate phase three? Why?”

“It seemed that we are losing the battle faster than expected.”

Battle of Fate, Status so far:

Ak'hims.           :  7000 Dead. 13147 Soldiers remaining.
Seventh Army :  5 Dead.         1547 Soldiers remaining. 
Alliance            : 19631 Dead.  52512 Soldiers remaining.

Kotohood

Thanks for reading! Next chapter will be on the 20th of February.
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