And (N)one Shall Remain

“Good work,” said Esperanza to the [Progenies of Yore] as they returned from taking care of the group of six temple guards quietly. She was made aware of her success from the souls she received – she found out that Dali and Gordy could act as extensions of herself in that regard since the souls of their kills were always conveyed to her as well regardless of the distance – and made full use of it in this case. 

 

The two dogs – she knew that they were most definitely not what they seemed, but whatever they truly were, they were clearly content to play the part of pets, so she didn’t care either way – had been bored with little to do of late. Due to how the humans in Ephemera did not have a habit of rearing dogs for whatever reason, she could not bring them to the cities while they were infiltrating, so the two had mostly stayed with the rest of the group that hid themselves in the forest.

 

They relieved some of their boredom by hunting – in fact, ever since they entered this dungeon, Esperanza had let them loose to both scout out their flanks and to allow them to unleash the pent off frustration on the dungeon’s creatures – but she could feel that they wanted to do things together with her like they used so, which was why she made sure to give them a vital role in the battle to come.

 

“Are we going to strike at them now, Exalted One? Or should we wait until they send off more people first?” asked Val-Kas’j politely. 

 

“There’s eighteen of them left, I’ll take on the three fourth tiers myself with Dali and Gordy, so that leaves fifteen for the nine of you, should be doable, no?” Esperanza asked back to the [Progenies of Yore]. The kids looked at each other and exchanged glances briefly before they turned back to her and gave a firm nod together in reply. “Try to give two to Mel, Di, and Ila, they didn’t get to kill one already after all. The rest you kids can divide amongst yourself.”

 

“Understood, Exalted One,” nodded the [Progenies of Yore].

 

“Anyway, we got them at a disadvantage and even took out a bunch of them already, but that’s no excuse to go into a fight stupidly, so here’s what we’re going to do…”

 

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“They haven’t returned yet,” grumbled Father Poligenes in a rather frustrated way as he complained yet again to the two Temple Knights. While the two were technically the ones in charge of this expedition, as the ones more used to combat, Father Poligenes outranked them in the temple’s hierarchy, which probably made them a bit nervous about his dissatisfaction. 

 

“Perhaps they are delayed, Father,” replied Brother Brodwick with a rather exasperated tone of voice. He somewhat understood why the Senior Priest was troubled, but in his mind, he still associated it more with a civilian being unnecessarily paranoid. Sure, the scouts not reporting back was potentially alarming, but he knew people, and also knew that such cases were more often than not just people forgetting the time to report back or getting distracted or the like.

 

The six he sent out towards the path they took had not even gone for ten minutes, for Courage’s sake. Even if they ran into the “missing” scout at his presumed location, who Brodwick thought maybe just got entangled with some creature but felt they could take them out on their own – a typical case of bravado amongst youngsters – then given how far out he sent the scouts to range for the main group, they wouldn’t be back until at least another five minutes.

 

If they fail to return in another ten minutes, then Brodwick and Maetel would consider going into high alert and mobilize the rest of their group to search for their missing members. Where possible, the temple guards left no one behind. It was something that had been drilled unto them since young, and they adhered to it even decades later.

 

Brodwick was just about to add another retort to Father Poligenes and his paranoid worries when he caught a glimpse of something in the forest that he recognized as a speeding arrow a moment later. Before he could yell out in warning, however, the arrow reached its target and pierced through Brother Jaraven’s head from one side to the other, killing the temple guard on the spot.

 

At the same time, the temperature suddenly started to grow colder, as a multitude of figures rushed out from the woods around them.

 

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Ilavakide had struck the first blow because she had the best-suited skillset to do so.

 

While the Ragah-fiq girl could unleash arrows at a fast pace from her bow, her best skills needed her to focus the effects of several skills on a single arrow and that took a moment of concentration, so using it to open an ambush was the most effective use of her skills. She aimed for the highest level temple guard who happened to be one of the furthest away from the fourth tiers, just to make sure she would be able to score the kill.

 

Sure enough, her arrow, enhanced by multiple skills, went straight through her target’s head – pulping his brain in the process due to an effect from one of her skills that emitted a destructive shockwave inside the target struck by her arrow – and out the other side. The temple guard at the cusp of the fourth tier dropped  dead right where he stood.

 

Ilavakide did not revel in her kill, and instead she nocked more arrows on her bowstring and loosed another barrage aimed at the temple guards and priests as a whole. Alerted, they naturally blocked or otherwise stopped her arrows from landing, but those arrows were meant as a distraction anyway. They acted as a cover while the rest of the [Progenies of Yore] revealed their presence as they rushed out from the forest’s cover.

 

The Temple Guards had been focused towards the direction Ilavakide shot her arrows from, and they were prepared to take on Val-Kas’j, Nalihimatu, and Tiesya who emerged from that side. In doing so, however, they turned their back towards the real threat which emerged from behind them, as the rest of the group made their presence known.

 

Dai’vasy took an opening and froze the legs of a female temple guard to the ground, which stopped her mid-turn, while at the same time, several lances of ice flew out and skewered the unfortunate woman through her torso and at least several of her vital organs. The fourth tier priest managed to react a moment later as he conjured a translucent barrier that covered the rest of the group and held against the [Progenies of Yore] for a moment, but it was too late for Dai’vasy’s victim by then.

 

Not that the barrier lasted for long. 

 

Before the [Progenies of Yore] could land a second round of attacks on the barrier, Dali and Gordy rushed in and directly shattered the barrier by ramming through it with their bodies. Dali then rushed towards the fourth tier female temple guard, who had brought out a large two-handed mace by then, and forced her to back off as he came close to nipping a chunk of flesh from her throat.

 

Gordy on the other hand barreled past a couple surprised third tier temple guards – she only shoved them out of the way, leaving them to the [Progenies of Yore] – and headed straight for the male fourth tier temple guard, who held a pair of short swords in his hands. The man clearly considered Gordy a threat, and moved at a blinding speed to strike at her with his swords.

 

Except he only found that Gordy’s form dissolved into mist just before he could reach her. Mist that soon enveloped him and his surroundings, and started to gnaw at him from multiple directions as he tried to get out from the envelopment.

 

The [Progenies of Yore] rushed through the shattered barrier one after another, each one peeling off to take on a temple guard or two. Ilavakide and Dai’vasy continued to support them from a distance while the others closed in on their chosen opponents and took them one with all the ferocity they could muster, their weapons swung with all their power and skills behind them.

 

Even under the assault, the old fourth tier priest still kept his calm and was chanting some sort of skill. Skills that needed

to be chanted like that were always bad news, so Ilavakide and Dai’vasy immediately focused their ranged attacks on the priest, only to have two of the third tier temple guards intercept their projectiles midway.

 

Just when it looked like the priest was about to get his skill off, however, something flashed past him and the priest stopped his chant as he nearly toppled backwards with his right cheek torn open to the bone. A moment later Esperanza landed on the forest floor, still wearing the “human” guise she used when she struck the demon bases back then, and gave an audible tsk of disappointment that she had not beheaded the man with that strike.

 

The curved antler dagger held by a length of a tentacle-like limb disguised to look like a rope flew back to her hand, and was matched by an identical one made out of bone in her other hand. The second dagger was actually Esperanza shapeshifting part of herself to give the impression that she was someone who fought with daggers that were tied to ropes.

 

She did not say any words and just manipulated her disguised limbs to another assault towards the priest, who now defended himself with translucent barriers, smaller versions of the large one he used before. He managed to block the first few strikes, but was clearly on the backfoot. The man did not seem used to fighting, and he frantically looked around at his compatriots, perhaps in search of the other two fourth tiers.

 

Too bad Esperanza had Dali and Gordy occupy those two for this exact reason.

 

The rest of the temple guards were kept busy by the [Progenies of Yore], with two of them forced to constantly defend the others – and themselves – from the arrows and ice lances that Ilavakide and Dai’vasy kept sending their way. Most of the rest were occupied in combat with the kids, other than another one that fell to a sneak attack from Legisvula shortly after the barrier broke.

 

Val-Kas’j, Tiesya, and Nalihimatu each kept two of the temple guards occupied. The temple guards might have higher levels, but their classes were of lower quality compared to those that the [Progenies of Yore] possessed. As a result, the fighting was far more even than the temple guards expected out of their opponents’ level, and in fact the [Progenies of Yore] were the ones who gained the advantage and pushed them harder and harder.

 

With their superiors occupied in a fight for their lives, the temple guards lacked leadership, which proved to be a disadvantage against the [Progenies of Yore], who were more used to fighting on their own. Esperanza guided them, but the kids mostly fought their own fights, so they were used to fighting either alone or with others, regardless of the situation.

 

In contrast, the temple guards clearly had a more rigid training and were used to fighting like a military unit, which did little to benefit them now that they had been thrown into chaos like this. They were also clearly reliant on the fourth tiers and some of them looked almost as if they had no idea what to do even while they fought back.

 

The first of the fourth tiers to fall in the end was the priest. His class was clearly a strong supportive one, but he was never meant to fight directly, so the temple guards already failed the moment Esperanza reached the priest. The man defended himself desperately, but he could not cover all angles and soon found his guts spilling out from a tear on his abdomen.

 

Before the man could recover from the shock of the injury, Esperanza removed his head off his shoulders with her curved antler dagger.