Chapter 10

  Riaret the Severing Strike walked along the rampart on the city wall. Dirty, exhausted, her body aching, her favourite halberd, her bonded weapon, felt heavier than ever in her hands. But that was no reason to stop or to rest. The last ten thousand of her troops needed her; without her powers as a general and her collection of aura skills, the city of Orroth, along with its defenders and considerable population, would have been lost already to the nearly half a million strong minotaur army surrounding them. She knew what they were doing; keeping her and her army pinned down right here, so their stupid king could go around and do whatever he wanted without anyone in his way. The damn beasts! She loathed them as much as any fire or ice-demon would, and a lot more than fire and ice-demons loathed each other. But at the same time, she couldn’t help but be a little thankful for the influx of EXP they had brought with them. The fighting had been hard and never ending, but in the past fifty days since the first of the tree-bark skinned bull bastards had breached the gateway between the Third and the Fourth, she had gained 10 whole levels, pushing her to Level 40. A serious achievement. Of all the generals, maybe Tarashak and Kralsen would be capable of reaching it, but she was sure the Demon Lord of the Fourth Ring was the only one in the realm who had ever reached level 50. Or had been.

  She could feel it; her bond with the Lord as his general was no more. Which meant the vicious, powerful bastard was dead. Served him right. But the Ring was fine, none of the tell-tale signs of it being abandoned to decay were present; the sky still burned, the Wilds still spawned wildlife, the population didn’t go into a frenzy, and as a general, she felt she had options to bond with a new Lord. The title wasn’t lost, and since the walls were still standing, reinforced by the city’s defensive aura emplacements, it must have gone to the Heir. That meek, little, hapless and so far, nameless girl that one of the former Lord’s concubines had birthed for him not that long ago. Well, it just meant it would be easy to seize power; how hard could it be to force such a young and weak lord to relinquish her control of the Ring? Whatever skills and traits she had would be low level and almost useless.

  Riaret smiled as the thought of becoming the Lord of the Fourth Ring herself rolled around in her mind, but at the same time a feeling of regret welled up inside her. Which didn’t happen often. She should have challenged that idiot Ugrathar for the realm ages ago. Not just her, all the generals should have. But none had. Huge mistake. They wouldn’t be in this mess if they had done so and won. When had demon generals become so fearful for their own lives that they would hesitate to throw themselves at a more powerful foe? When had she become so afraid of losing and dying? It was … undemonic. Was it too late now? To take the title from the heir and try to fix the Ring? The girl was a new and weak lord, and if she didn’t kill her, someone else would. Any demon strong enough would do it, that was a given. Yes. The generals should have done this long ago. Maybe they still could.

  The only problem was that without her bond to a lord, she had no way to know what had become of the other generals, and therefore no way to know what was going on in the realm at large, or in Demon Lord Ugrathar’s Scorching Castle of Unimaginable Power and Suffering. On the upside, with the idiot gone, hopefully the era of giving everything stupid names was gone too. Ah, one could only wish; if the little girl stayed in power, she would no doubt keep the habit alive, which had no doubt been the first thing the old Lord hammered into her. Typical of the dynasty.

  The soldiers holding the western wall of the city stirred, two thousand demons — warriors and mages — rushed to the edges of the ramparts, glowing red swords and spears at the ready, burning arrows begging to be loosed, red and black mist gathering around mages, promising devastation to the enemy in the form of skills and spells. Even some of the ice-demons residing in the city, those with high enough levels and decent enough skills, were here on the wall, waiting for another assault to begin. Any second now. Or … not. She could feel her captains on the other walls, their reports echoing in her mind, speaking of calm and no signs of movement from the besieging army.

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  She walked to the edge of the rampart, squeezing in between two spear wielding warriors, and peeked through a crenel in the parapet wall. The outer areas of the city lay in ruins beyond the wall, razed to the ground and flattened to allow the enemy to march at the fortifications unimpeded. Under the rubble, thousands of minotaurs and as many of her fellow fire-demons alike lay dead and buried. And a march to the wall was indeed taking place; but it didn’t look like an assault. A single demonic minotaur walked forward from the ranks of the enemy army at her section of the wall — at least a hundred thousand of the hated Third Ring scum, spreading out for as far as she could see. That single soldier, or perhaps mage, walked the distance halfway in a few minutes, then stopped. No, this wasn’t an assault. It couldn’t be an assault. A single one of them? Riaret racked her brain. A trick? Or a mage so powerful he could bring the walls down by himself? The Third Ring had very few mages, but the few they had were exceptionally skilled and powerful. They had, however, already tried their skills against the wall before, with dozens of mages working together, and the walls stood tall and strong still. No. This was something else. Requests for orders from her captains on the wall flooded her mind, but she wasn't sure what was happening yet.

  ‘General, what is this?’ the demon on her right asked, his sharp teeth on display as he sneered.

  ‘We’ll see, won’t we?’ she said.

  Riaret unleashed her auras, enveloping most of her troops on the western wall.

  Fortitude of the Demon General’s Soldiers. Aura skill. (Level 13)

  Invincible Soul of the Demon General’s Mages. Aura skill. (Level 10)

  The Demon General’s Ferocious Fighters. Aura skill. (Level 15)

  She grinned as her troops perked up, becoming stronger and more efficient killers, and she had no doubt they’d hold the wall as well as they had been ever since the beginning of the invasion. Let the Third Ring scum come! Let them rush against the walls and into the blades, spells and skills of her army! Let them die and surrender their EXP to her and her soldiers! But instead, the sole minotaur, standing halfway between them and the enemy army, opened its big, disgusting mouth.

  ‘Hear me you burning lowlives!' the hated creature bellowed. 'Your lord is no more. The coward ran from us but couldn’t escape the might of our King. Our champion had slain him right at the edge of your pathetic Ring, at the border of the Dreaded Fifth. His pitiful heir is in our hands, wresting control of this horrid place from her a matter of time only, and our King will be named the ruling Demon Lord of the Fourth Ring. Then your walls will crumble, your cities will be undone by his authority, and you will all perish under our hooves. Surrender now, beg for our mercy, and we might let you live.’

  Riaret clicked her tongue in annoyance; so, the stupidly powerful and stupidly stupid bastard had run after all, huh? That wasn’t much of a surprise, if true. He had deserved to die, no doubt about that. The Heir in the hands of the enemy, though? That was bad news. She didn’t imagine the kid would last long, and if the minotaur scum-king gained the authority over the realm, all he’d need to do was to revoke the right of a city to exist, and the walls would crumble to dust in short order. Ah, who cared about details like that? If the walls were to crumble under her, then let them crumble. Her army would still fight to the last demon standing. No mercy, no surrender, no slacking off. It was how a demon should fight.

  ‘Archers! Kill that piece of shit minotaur this instant!’ she bellowed her order.

  The archers loosed their arrows, the vicious grins she had expected to see on their faces all there. A hundred flaming arrows streaked across the distance, Hell Mana leaving trails of fire — some of frozen air — and the skill-imbued projectiles all but obliterated the speaker, tearing its revolting body into small chunks of charred flesh.

  ‘Come and get us you worthless animals, my halberd is thirsty for your blood!’ Riaret yelled, her voice amplified by a skill, and the thousands of soldiers on her section of the wall cheered and shouted their own insults at the enemy.

  The response from the invaders was a hundred thousand minotaurs roaring in unison, the sheer volume of sound making the walls tremble under the feet of the defenders.

  ‘Alright you smoldering bunch of magnificent demons! Get ready!’ Riaret yelled at her troops.

  The soldiers cheered once again, readying their weapons, their skills and their Hell Mana for the assault that was sure to begin.

  As the mass of enemy warriors took their first step forward, the only thing Riaret could do was to smile to herself: so much EXP, so much power, so much growth right in front of her. It was worth fighting and dying for. Let! Them! Come!