Chapter 20: Chapter 19: Shadowchaser

Explosions erupted alll over the place, adding to the confusion. Iona left with the other squad to reinforce the other mage squads above the wall, leaving Rayse and his squad to face the large harbingers by themselves.

"Hold, men." Luke commanded. With Brig and Iona gone, he was next in the command chain.

"Focus on what's in front of us and follow the plan. We kill as much as we can while falling back, before linking with the ones up on the wall a few blocks in." He commanded. The squad dug their heels in, preparing to engage the enemy.

Rayse gritted his teeth as he intercepted the closest harbinger. He bashed his shield at it, trying to knock it off balance. Aside from angering it even more, Rayse only managed to make it stagger a few steps backward. It roared and loosed a massive straight punch, which he hastily deflected. 

"Argh!"

He immediately regretted doing so. He crumpled to the floor, barely succeeding in diverting the blow upwards. The beast was on him immediately. It brought up both of its arms in a clubbing blow, determined to crush him into paste. Rayse launched spears into it, hitting every vital spot he could muster. Still the harbinger brought down his fists, forcing Rayse to roll to safety. He sprang up, ready to engage once more, but the harbinger stayed motionless. Its heavy panting stopped abruptly, before falling as if it were a puppet with its strings cut.

Rayse was spent. He succeeded to beat one, but it took so much out of him. He looked up to see even more of this variant entering through the gates, with even more of the normal ones following suit.

"Oh, a brave one." said a voice from the shadows. A demon stepped forward, his horns and claws glowing a similar shade of purple as the large harbingers' skin.

Rayse plopped a glass vial into his mouth, and soon he was back in fighting shape. Wary of the newcomer, he went back to formation with his squad. They had each taken out a berserker on their own. Far better than he managed, in fact. 

"Hey kid, you're too eager. You'll die if you keep fighting them like that." Sonia chastised. She ruffled his hair again, embarrassing Rayse even further.

"I'm working on it." he grunted.

"Focus up, you two. We've got to take this guy down before we're overrun by these freaks." One of the others said. It was Luna, one of Rayse's squadmates.

"Oh, cmon, sis!", another responded. "That's just easing their tension before we clash."

He winked at Rayse and leaned in.

"Sorry. She's like that, but she really cares, you know?"

"Hey, Polo! I hear you gossiping about me! Stop it!"

The demon had been talking while they were bickering, completely ignored. He shook his head in disappointment, before slashing the harbingers around him. Their wounds glowed that same sickly purple, spreading quickly until soon, they were the same hulking mass of flesh that Rayse had just defeated.

This guy's a problem. Rayse sighed.

"Bring me your captain, and I promise a quick death for you and yours. What do you say?" He continued.

"I mean, he's back there if you want him." Brandon said smugly.

"You're never gonna reach him though, so why don't you and your friends go back to your master?"

"Are dogs of this world so eloquent? I've not had one speak to me like this." The emissary answered.

"You there," He pointed to Luke. "Go fetch me your master before you become lumps of flesh on the pavement." He gestured forward, commanding the berserkers to resume their march. It was a slow, threatening pace instead of their usual wild charge.

Luke just grunted, stepping forward with intent.

"Alright, men. New plan: Annihilate the berserkers and their emissary leader. Also, try not to die." 

"""Yes, sir!"""

Luke nodded in approval, before kneeling to the floor. 

"Earth Scar!"

Rayse marveled as Luke pulled a large section of the ground in front of them. The ground collapsed all around the intruders, gathering them all in a deep ravine. The emissary lept back, hastily converting more harbingers into his berserkers.

"Let's go, sis!" Polo stepped forward with his sister, who both followed his lead. They knelt on either side of Luke and simultaneously started casting a spell.

""Avalanche!"" 

The siblings' spell caused the ground to shake once again, this time enclosing the berserkers below.

The newly made berserkers were unfazed, and continued to charge like nothing happened. Sonia, Brandon and Rayse went up to intercept them as their allies recovered. They fought in tandem. Brandon focused his attacks to the berserkers' lower body while Rayse and Sonia cautiously fought them.

Rayse fared much better this time, no longer daring to match his opponents' strength. He abandoned his shield entirely, focusing instead on his spearmanship. He dodged a hammer like fist by side stepping it, then delivered a quick cut to where the berserkers' achilles tendon would be. 

The effect was tremendous. The beast went down in a heap, not in pain, but simply because his feet could no longer hold his weight.

As befitting their name, the berserkers did not give up at this. It crawled forward, determined to fight to their death. It came to him soon after in the form of a spear piercing the back of its head. Rayse turned to see Lacey had chosen to commandeer his spears for the time being, supporting everyone from behind. She winked at him before gesturing that he focus on the task at hand once more.

Rayse nodded and looked back at the enemy. He had been keeping an eye on the emissary, who was skirting around the battlefield. It looked like he  preferred to let his thralls attack rather than take action himself.

Rayse brought down more of the berserkers, already getting the hang of their terrifying, but simple attacks. He focused on immobilizing them, confident that Lacey would finish them off for him. All the while he kept an eye on the enemy leader.

Rayse noticed that the purple light from his horns kept flickering widely. He watched as the emissary converted the next batch of berserkers. The glowing dimmed until it was barely visible, until suddenly it regained a little bit of color. A swift look at his companions confirmed his suspicions: Brandon had just beheaded one of them. That gave him an idea.

"Guys, listen!" He said, falling back to regroup with his friends as he took a quick count of the berserkers on the battlefield.

"Out with it, kid." Luke urged him. They had rejoined the battle at some point, but they were slowly being pushed back despite their success. The chaos all around them meant that hoping for reinforcements was out of the question. It also meant that if they gave up even more ground, there would be a lot more enemies in town, and their forces are spread out too thinly as it is. Some harbingers had been spilling out into the outer areas of town at this point, razing and destroying everything they could.

"These berserkers are tying us down too much. We must take out the emissary!" Rayse explained.

"But how?" Luna said irritably. "That guy's mana is endless. He replaces them every time we kill them!"

"Not exactly. He could only make about twenty of them at a time. See how he stops making them once he reaches that number?" He gestured to the next batch of berserkers lumbering their way towards the squad. "His horns aren't as purple now, either."

The two groups once again clashed, and Rayse started to feel fatigue setting in. At this rate, they'll be pushed back completely until they are beaten down.

"Don't kill them yet! Render them immobile so we can take care of the emissary!"

"Sonia, Rayse, and Brandon, pin them down. I will go with Polo and Luna to confront the emissary. Lacey and Eric will stay here and support both teams from the back." Luke ordered.

The plan in motion, Sonia, Rayse and Brandon charged deep into enemy lines, drawing the berserkers' ire.

"Valiant!" Sonia shouted. Her body grew in size in response, matching the size of a regular harbinger. She wielded her greatsword with ferocity, slicing a lot of the berserkers at the waist. Rayse and Brandon took care of the rest, using their squadmate as a distraction to immobilize even more of them. Eventually, most of what they had to deal with were regular harbingers while keeping the crawling berserkers at bay.

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Rayse grew impatient. His stamina had started to bottom out, and he could tell it was the same with Brandon. They had been fighting constantly for a while, and they hadn't gotten word of Luke and the others succeeding yet.

"Can you handle things here? I'll go reinforce Luke and the others. They seem to be having trouble."

"Sure, man. Sonia's taking care of most of them anyway." Brandon said as he did a spinning slash, slashing three harbingers in half.

Sonia laughed in response from ahead.

"Look at you being proactive! We'll handle things here. Go help Luke so we can fall back into the inner city."

 "Need a lift?" Brandon offered.

"Uhhh…Sure?" Rayse answered tentatively.

"Jump!" Brandon casted his mobility spell on Rayse, boosting him high up into the air.

He slowed at about twenty feet, about the height of the wall. Rayse hung onto his floating spears as he surveyed the battlefield from above. From what he saw, the men on the wall were all but wiped out. There are several pockets of fights here and there, but brief flashes of lights accompanied preceded the screams that he had learned to tune out.

The scene chilled him, but he forced himself to look away. He scanned the ground, looking for signs of Luke and the others. He succeeded, but what he found was far more terrifying.

He found them right underneath the gate, surrounded by harbingers as they clashed with two winged enemies. 

"No!" He shouted, commanding his spear to fly in their direction. 

"Steel Rain!" Rayse shouted, causing his other spears to swiftly fall on the battlefield. The rain of spears hit the two emissaries, leaving their wings in tatters.

"Rayse! After him! He went beyond the gate!" Luke said, pointing somewhere beyond the gate.

Rayse held onto his spear, sailing past his friends to once again venture beyond the city. He crossed the dark fog that surrounded the town, scanning the ground for any signs of the emissary. He activated his vision spell once again, willing it to work. It shut down almost instantly once again, but a brief flash of purple caught his eye. 

He was closer than he thought, limping away from the mass of harbingers trying to get into the town. Rayse urged his spear forward, even risking putting a hand inside his crystal pouch to absorb more mana. He landed ahead of his mark, cutting off his escape.

The demon was in terrible shape. It seems that Luke and the others did a number on him before the other emissaries held them off.

"You…" The emissary said, wounded but still very intimidating.

Rayse quietly got into his stance and pounced, hoping to finish the fight quickly. The demon fought like a cornered animal, wildly brandishing his claws to prevent a clean hit from Rayse. It made him tentative, astounded at the demon's resilience.

"Thrust!" Rayse shook off his hesitation and shouted, augmenting his spear with a spell. The swift strike hit the demon in the stomach. The emissary staggered back and stumbled, lying face up on the floor.

Rayse took the opportunity, stabbing downwards to finish him off, when the demon did something incredible: He caught his spear with one hand.

Rayse struggled, using all his might to push the tip even further to no avail. The demon stood back up with the spear still in his hand,unwilling to let go. Rayse noticed that the demon's other hand wasn't holding onto the wound on his stomach, but was digging his own claws into it. Purple light spread from the wound all around the emissary's body, giving him unholy strength.  

"Thrust!!!" Rayse shouted once again out of desperation, but it was too late.

"Enough." The demon said, snapping the spear in half. The spearhead thrust into the ground, the spell Rayse casted on it all but useless.

"Thrust!" Rayse wasn't done. He tried to attack with his broken spear, but the demon batted it away and punched him in the gut.

Rayse doubled over, kneeling on the floor as the demon stood over him. He tried to pull himself up, using the emissary's clothes as handholds.

"Pathetic." The demon said. He slashed at Rayse's chest, making him fall on his back. Blood sprouted from his chest, but his armor saved him from the worst of it.

"That's a good piece of armor. With my berserker strength, you should be sliced in half. But no matter, now you get to bleed to death instead." He jeered, before once again continuing his escape.

"Wait." Rayse managed to say. His hand went to his potion vial, splashing it all over his wounds.

The demon stopped and looked at him.

"Do not struggle, child. Go to the abyss in peace."

"You should go on ahead. I'll catch up once I catch my breath." Rayse said, trying to get his last vial to drink.

"Foolish to the end… Very well, I'll grant you a swift end." He brought up his blood soaked claws, ready to end Rayse for good, but before he could bring them down-

Sssp!

"Ack!" The demon arched his body back in surprise. He looked down to see a spearhead, blooming from his chest like an iron flower.

"Cough, cough. Took it long enough. My last spell was for that spear, by the way. Not the one that you broke. Hahah.." Rayse chuckled to himself.

The demon knelt, clutching the spear in disbelief. Rayse stared at him from the ground and brought up his hand, commanding the spear to pass through the emissary completely. He caught it and inspected the tip, where a purple jewel was skewered through. 

Rayse held the jewel, hoping to absorb it to get back the mana that he lost. He was completely spent. He doubted he could walk back into town, even with his wounds healing.

He laid there for a while as his body knit itself back together. I hope the guys are okay, he thought. His eyelids drooped dangerously.

"What do we have here?" A chilling voice said out of nowhere, snapping him back into wakefulness.

Rayse looked around in alarm, but he was still too tired to get up. He tried to look around, but he couldn't see anything beyond the fog. A lithe outline formed from the fog, stepping out from the distance. They stood over him, features gradually getting clearer despite the darkness. They crouched, and suddenly Rayse found himself looking at a woman.

"Is that Vilam's heart in your hand, boy?" the voice continued. The woman's mouth did not move, but he could clearly hear her cold voice permeate his bones.

"W-who-" He started, before the woman snatched the mana heart from his hand. She inspected it briefly, before dropping it on the floor.

"Almost empty. Such a waste."

"Hey!" Rayse protested weakly. He almost finished draining it, but there was still a little left. He tried reaching for the heart, but the woman kicked it away to the darkness beyond.

"Don't be so stingy, boy. Here, Why don't I give you this instead?"

She set something wet on top of his chest. Rayse looked away from the strange woman to her 'gift', only to scream.

He was staring face to face with Carrack's severed head.

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