And (N)one Shall Remain

Two days later, a supply convoy from deeper in the demon territories traveled northwards to the captured Fort Gurzil, guarded by the sizable force that accompanied it as usual. The demon soldiers that accompanied the convoy had rather bored looks on their faces. Most of them felt that having so many people – including three fourth tier fighters – to guard a supply convoy was overkill, as it was doubtful that the humans would be willing to sneak a strong enough force to be able to intercept them.

 

Both sides had snuck forces into each other’s territory in the past, but in practically every instance, it was small forces. The force of six fourth tiers with nearly fifty third tiers the demons sent out – which Alissa’s group met – back then was a rarity and took quite a bit of effort to slip through the border. Most of the time, the teams that slip through the border number in the single digits, twenty or so at most.

 

More than that, neither the humans nor the demons were all too willing to risk their precious fourth tiers in such missions, as being on their own behind enemy lines was far from an enviable situation. The risk of such teams perishing was very high, as the other side could simply call upon more forces to overwhelm them once their existence was discovered.

 

It was a risk neither side was all too willing to take. 

 

Of course, neither the humans nor the demons were aware that a third party was actively sabotaging both of them while they fought each other.

 

As the supply convoy kept to a tight formation while they walked over the mountain path, they were completely unaware that behind the bend after the second bridge were a group of people waiting with ill intent. Ilavakide, Dai’Vasy, as well as two of Ani’s people who were best with ranged weapons and the five from Zikeal waited behind the bend, prepared to spring the ambush.

 

The five infiltrators from Zikeal were too weak to join the ambush in melee, but they were decent enough to provide some ranged support, which was why Esperanza allowed them to participate together with the ranged group. The plan was to cut both bridges and strand the supply convoy between the streams, so the group would only have to engage them from a distance.

 

Esperanza herself had brought the bulk of the group and hidden themselves – if it could be called that – in a small alcove higher up the mountain in the section between the two streams. Once the ambush was sprung, they would literally descend upon the supply convoy from above and strike them down with extreme prejudice. All the members she brought with her are people who were well suited for such a tactic.

 

She naturally made use of [Veil of Entropy] as added insurance when the supply convoy drew closer, of course. 

 

Meanwhile, Ani would be the one who gave the signal to spring the ambush. She, along with two other of her people who were of Gour-Ug’rech descent hid themselves in the bottom of the first stream, making good use of their natural advantages since to them staying underwater in the stream was nothing difficult for them. 

 

Other than them, Legisvula and the other two scouts from Ani’s group also accompanied them, using their respective stealth skills to stay out of sight near the first bridge. Ani’s group would leap up from the stream to block the convoy’s rear guard from interfering while the scouts cut the bridge down. That would serve as the signal for Esperanza to launch her attack and for the second group to cut the other bridge down and support them from across the gap.

 

The demons that escorted the supply convoy outnumbered Esperanza’s group by tenfold, true, but out of their numbers, only three were at the fourth tier, and even then, two of the three were on the very low end of the tier, people who recently reached the tier, most likely. The third one was around the middle fourth tier and was the only serious threat to Esperanza’s group.

 

In contrast, out of Esperanza’s little group of twenty-five, nineteen of them were either at the fourth tier or had enough power to match one. Ani, Esperanza, and many of the

[Progenies of Yore] could handle the mid-fourth tier demon in single combat, while the rest could easily handle the other two. Most of them could also handle the weaker demons by the dozen.

 

The only true hard part for them was to find proper hiding spots where there were few to be had, and to ensure that nobody lived to tell the tale after the ambush, as they could not afford to have their existence exposed for the time being.

 

It took a while for the supply convoy to pass over the first bridge, and only when the last member had stepped off the bridge did Ani’s group react. She took action personally, making full use of the water manipulation abilities of her class to rise swiftly towards the bridge. The stream was a rapid one, one that would have washed away most people, but fourth tier fighters with classes linked to the water like her could handle the current if with some difficulty.

 

As Ani burst out from the stream and landed just past the bridge, close behind the rearmost members of the supply convoy, closely followed by the two who was with her, the hidden scouts – who had hidden themselves on precarious perches by the cliff beside the road – climbed out, still stealthed, and quickly sliced off the ropes that held the first bridge in place. 

 

By the time the supply convoy managed to react at all, the first bridge had been cut off and fell towards the stream below.

 

That naturally elicited an angry bellow from the leader of the convoy, the mid-fourth tier demon, and he leapt towards the back from where he was situated at the head of the convoy. The other two fourth tiers followed after him as well, which were something Esperanza’s group counted on. Ani’s group struck first in order to lure the enemy fourth tiers – who were all likely capable of just jumping over the stream even with no bridge – towards the back.

 

It was right at that moment that Esperanza and the rest of her group came out from the alcove they were hiding in, [Veil of Entropy] dismissed, and jumped or ran down the cliff towards the supply convoy. Tiesya and Val-Kas’j specifically went towards the second bridge, and as they landed, the two swiftly sliced off the ropes holding the bridge in place with their weapons before any of the demons could get across. 

 

The last group hiding behind the bend also came out as they heard the sudden commotion and rushed towards where the bridge ended on their side. The archers quickly lifted their bows and began to shoot at the demons, aiming at those further away from where their allies were fighting, while Dai’Vasy worked her magic and made it even harder for the demons to retaliate. 

 

Esperanza herself aimed straight for the highest leveled demon tackling him in person as she sent out Dali and Gordy to rampage amongst the weaker demons. Nalihimatu and Resitia aimed for the other two fourth tier demons since Val-Kas’j and Tiesya were further off to the other side, while the rest joined Dali and Gordy, attacking the demons wildly together with the rest.

 

Silently, Esperanza also commanded Dali and Gordy to stay on guard on the cliffside, in case some of the demons tried to escape from that side out of desperation. The two dogs were capable of traversing the cliffs more easily than anyone else, and Dali in particular would be able to chase down and kill anyone trying to escape thanks to his speed and spatial skills.

 

As for Esperanza herself, the mid fourth tier demon proved to be a bit of a challenge. The demon in question was clearly one used to charging into enemy lines on their own, given that they wielded a pair of flails as their weapons. Not the sort of thing you’d swing around while your allies were within your range, to be sure, unless you had some sort of supernatural control over the chain connecting the spiky metal balls to the shafts, which this demon clearly did not.

 

Instead he swung his weapons with horrifying speed and power at her, the openings he left behind essentially covered as another swing from his second weapon closely followed the first, and a third would closely follow the second, a clear case of a fighter who lived by the saying that the best defense was a good offense.

 

He swung his weapons with enough force that Esperanza was forced to evade his attacks, for once. Her amorphous body was sturdy, and it was very difficult to kill her compared to another fourth tier her level and attributes, but she was still destructible and her opponent seemed to be specialized in destroying things, as he demonstrated by punching a sizable crater to the mountainside with one of his missed swings.

 

Instead, Esperanza fought him using her own innate advantages, her flexibility and control over her shapeshifting in particular. She shed all pretenses – she had adopted the usual human guise at the start of the ambush – of being “human” as her arms turned into six tentacle-like limbs, five of them tipped with bone claws and the last holding her dagger, and struck at the demon with them from difficult angles.

 

At the same time, her legs spread out like a puddle from below the knee, acting like suction cups that allowed her to move directly on the cliff with ease while she fought against the demon in question. The demon was forced to take more measures swings as she counterattacked and had to switch to targeting her limbs instead in order to defend himself.

 

Meanwhile, a massacre happened beneath them as the rest of Esperanza’s group directly crushed the rest of the supply convoy. With their fourth tiers all occupied and no escape routes left, there was nothing the demons could have done against their assailants despite their advantage in numbers. They were just overpowered too greatly to be able to fight back.

 

It didn’t help that the bulk of the third tier demons amongst the escorts were at the front of the convoy, where Val-Kas’j and Tiesya were. The two turned their attention to those demons after they dealt with the bridge, and quickly proved themselves to be more than a match for those demons. The two of them had already slain seven of the third tier demons in the short time since the ambush began, and even then it was only that much because the rest of the demons shied away from them, fearful of their prowess.

 

The slaughter that ensued on the other side of the field was even more exaggerated. The rear of the convoy was mostly held by the weaker demons, those lower in the third tier or even just in their second tiers, and those had absolutely no hope in all the hells of stopping Ani, a fourth tier warrior halfway up the levels of the tier. 

 

She was an existence that only the strongest demon in the group – the one Esperanza was tackling – could even fight against, the number of the weaker demons rendered pointless as she crashed through their formation together with her subordinates. Legisvula and the other scouts then finished off those left behind their wake, as sometimes some of the unfortunate demons ended up with crippling injuries instead of being instantly killed.

 

Some of the demons even flung themselves off the cliffside in desperation, taking the chance that they might survive the tumble rather than fight against Esperanza’s group. Dali saw it happen and flashed down to chase after those that tumbled down the cliff, dispatching down with a bite through the neck in case the fall failed to end their lives, while Gordy spread herself into mist that devoured others trying to escape from that direction.