The Fiend's Creation System

Attack 4

Back at the Second Sanctum, Julius immediately fell on his knees in pain when Proto had been sliced in two by Balt’s sword.

He felt Proto’s memories and emotions flow into him and when he saw the dire state his wife was in, Julius roared in anger.

“THOSE BASTARDS!”

His wife had tried talking to them but they only responded by raising their weapons at her. Eisha had also been a little too hopeful so he couldn’t help but become a little bit angry at her. He just wished that she had listened to him from the start instead but then he noticed that something was wrong with her.

Eisha wanted to open a dialogue with the humans precisely because she knew that even if it went bad, she would still be able to get out of there safely. However, from what he saw through Proto’s memories, Eisha’s transformation had somehow weakened her instead.

If her skill worked normally as intended, there was no way those humans would have been able to trap her inside an encirclement.

“Those humans...what kind of  despicable ploy did they come up with this time?!”

Julius was already making his way out of the Second Sanctum. Only a few hours were left before the new hero unit would spawn but he immediately left along with most of the fiends there.

“We’re going to rescue Eisha. The place she’s at isn't too far away from us. Looks move!”

Julius used his Metamorphosis and began rushing through the barren lands of the Shifting Hallows alongside his other fiends.

“Please, Eisha, hold out until I get there!”

Julius moved as fast as he could while Eisha did her best to defend herself against the paladins trying to kill her.

Things were hard for her as Metamorphosis only gave her a momentary burst in strength before she began to feel weak again. Luckily, she had been able to jump in to the crowd of ordinary adventurers and mercenaries.

Now the paladins had to comb through the mercenaries and adventurers to get to her. Eisha had transformed back to her normal form and wasn’t making it easy for the paladins.

The adventurers and mercenaries were captivated by her beauty and she charmed them into blocking the paladins. 

Balt grew angry at the stupid mercs and adventurers so she just ordered her paladins to begin cutting them down as well. As long as they could kill Eisha, the witch, Balt believed that the pale abominations would stop their attacks on them.

There were some powerful mercenaries and adventurers that weren’t affected by Eisha’s low-ranked [Charm] skill which she had somehow just acquired so they helped their charmed allies in getting back their right minds before they started attacking Eisha again.

She didn’t know what to do at this point except to dodge the chaotic attacks of the humans around her. Eisha’s fiends were close by and they managed to regroup with her but the paladins also finally caught up with her.

“Attack! Don’t let her escape!” Balt roared.

At this point, Balt no longer cared about their previous conversation. Although he was the one who wanted to retreat first earlier but now that they were in this situation, there was no turning back.

He needed to get rid of the woman before he could turn his focus onto the other pale monsters.

“By the Lord’s Holy Will, bless my allies, grant us an unwavering spirit! [Fortitude]!”

“By the hand of the Lord, guide our actions so that our swords strike true! [Focus]!”

After invoking his spells, a glaring light was emitted from Balt’s body and it empowered his fellow paladins who began rushing towards Eisha’s fiends and clashing swords with them. The buffs Balt provided enabled his allies to gain an equal and almost overpowering standing against the fiends. 

He still wasn’t finished as he raised his sword high up and chanted, “By the Lord’s hand, I deliver divine punishment upon you demons! [Judgement]!”

A large amount of mana began gathering on his blade until it was too blinding to even look at. He faced Eisha and the fiends before rushing forward. He kicked back one of the fiends before swinging his sword.

A concentrated beam of mana flew out from the sword and struck the fiends. Balt had been aiming his attack on Eisha but when the fiends noticed this, they quickly rushed over and covered her from the attack.

The sword aura struck Eisha’s and blew them back. Their bodies were strong so they weren’t cut apart but the injuries they sustained were lacerating. The sword aura lingered in their wounds so they couldn’t heal and instead bled profusely.

“Corner these demons! Don’t let that witch escape! Kill them all!”

Balt was speaking quite confidently despite knowing that they were outnumbered. However, he didn’t need to actually kill every fiend that was attacking them. All he needed to do was eliminate the ones in front of him and kill the witch that was controlling them.

After that, Balt suspected that the monsters would become headless flies without their leader so it would be easier to exterminate them one by one. He had to live and report back to the church that the threat present in the Shifting Hallows was real and they needed to do something about it.

With this in mind, he forced the paladins he was leading as well as the mercenaries and adventurers that the church had hired and commissioned to continue pushing and attacking the fiends.

The fight was bloody and chaotic. With every fiend that was slain, 2-3 humans were killed in turn. At the rate they were going, the humans would be the ones that would lose.

However, the paladins were a different issue. The magic spells and empowering skills that they used were somehow fatal to the fiends. Their powerful vitality and recovery powers were impeded so they couldn’t heal from their injuries fast enough before the paladins slew them.

Eisha also noticed that the paladins seemed to be siphoning the fiends’ lifeforce with each of their attacks. The paladins fought in a frenzied manner as if they had lost their minds.

They fought with reckless abandon and even disregarded any injuries they sustained because they would be immediately healed by the surviving priests that had somehow been able to regroup with them.

Eisha’s fiends were being tied up by a few paladins working together. A 4-man cell consisting of 2 paladins and 2 priests was needed to tie down one of Eisha’s evolved Fiend Soldiers.

There weren’t many of them, to begin with, so the church’s forces could tie them down easily. They were easy to pick out in the crowd of fiends since they were larger and each had a unique appearance that separated them from the rest.

The other Fiend Soldiers were something each paladin could deal with and the adventurers and mercenaries were able to pin a few of them down if they worked together.

The battle entered a stalemate as neither side was being pushed back, but Balt’s target was still just Eisha. He and a small group of his most elite paladins were pushing through the battlefield in Eisha’s direction.

Eisha noticed this already and was frantically trying to run away. In her current condition, she wasn’t able to fight and as time passed by, her situation worsened.

She didn’t know why but after running for a while, she suddenly collapsed on the floor as her body began to heat up. Thanks to this, Balt was able to catch up to her. Seeing the woman crawling on the ground trying to get away from him, Balt hesitated for only a fraction of a second before he raised his sword.

“I honestly thought that you monsters were going to be a threat...looks like I was wrong.”

Balt swung down his sword and stabbed it into Eisha’s back.

“Ugh…”

Eisha couldn’t feel the pain since her body’s heat was escalating and numbing all of her senses. She didn’t know why this was happening but if she looked at her status screen, the percentage next to her level was now at 80 percent.

The other paladins that were with Balt began to repeatedly stab their swords into Eisha. They slashed her arms and legs until finally, she stopped moving. Balt ended the woman’s suffering by stabbing her through the neck. After he made sure that Eisha was dead, Balt turned around and began walking back to the battlefield he had left in order to chase down Eisha.

“...What a pity. She was such a beautiful woman,” One of the paladins said after he looked at the dead woman’s face.

“There’s no need to pity an evil being,” Balt said. When he arrived back at the battlefield, a paladin came up to him and reported.

“Sir, those monsters aren’t stopping!”

“Th-they’ve all gone crazy…”

“Then we’ll just have to exterminate them all!”

*****

Rushing his way towards the battlefield, Julius suddenly felt that his connection with Eisha had disappeared just like his connection with Proto. He tripped and fell to the ground when he tried to connect his mind to Eisha like he normally did so that he could speak with her from afar but wasn't able to.

“Eisha?!”

He wasn’t able to establish the connection and even if he could, he wouldn’t receive a reply.

“Eisha!”

Julius frantically rose to his feet and rushed towards the last known location he felt Eisha was at. In his metamorphosis state, Julius was able to quickly arrive at the spot within 10 minutes, but unfortunately, 10 minutes was a little too long…

“...”

He stumbled over to Eisha’s mutilated body and fell to his knees. Even though the corpse was flat on its belly, he could tell that it was his wife. He wouldn’t miss that beautiful and silky auburn-colored hair anywhere.

Julius flipped her over and held her in his arms, tears streaking down his face. Her blood covered his hand and arms as he felt the numerous stab wounds on her back. Eisha’s arms and legs were also slashed apart and although they weren’t sliced off, they were badly mutilated.

Finally, there was a stab wound on her neck. Even after attacking her to the point where she was no longer alive, one bastard had even decided to stab her in the throat for safe measure.

His rage and anger began to spill out as a subconscious destructive urge began to surface. The fiends that were currently battling the humans and the fiend he had brought along with him quickly felt his rage and madness.

Julius felt a destructive urge take over him. He looked at his map and saw that many of his fiends were still entangled with the humans in the nearby area. The battlefield was looking grim as the fiends lost their commander, Eisha, and were only rampaging about mindlessly while the humans teamed up to slowly kill them.

“Kill…”

“Kill everyone!”

Julius growled angrily at his fiends that were waiting behind.

“Don’t leave a single one alive! Kill them all!”

At his command, the fiends he had brought began to surge towards the nearby battlefield. In his rage, he had ordered every fiend under his command. Even the ones far away at his Sanctum heard his orders and began moving.

“Then, raze that disgusting human city for me!”

“Destroy it! Trample it!”

“And those bastards from the church… I want you to desecrate their church and burn it to the ground!”

All of the fiends raised terrifying howls in acknowledgment to his orders. Julius began bleeding through all of his orifices after giving that command but he could careless what happened to him now. Julius just knelt there on the ground, completely despondent. He didn't know what to do at this point. His only family in this world had died and it was because he had ordered her to deal with the humans.

The humans had killed her but it was he who let Eisha come out here alone to deal with them. He knew that Eisha wanted him to rely on her more so he gave her many important tasks, all of which she had brilliant completed. However, this time...this time she had to deal with the humans.

They weren't monsters that could be handled with brute force and overwhelming strength. These bastards were shameful and cunning. Julius didn't know what kind of magic they used to weaken Eisha to the point where his wife wasn't able to fight properly, but it was effective. This was a miscalculation on his part for being so overconfident and looking down on the humans.

"If only I didn't send her...If only I was more patient...It should have been me that went to deal with those bastards, not her!"

 With the system’s reminder Julius immediately remembered.

“Th-that’s right. The hero unit! They should be able to heal her!”

Julius quickly picked up Eisha and began rushing towards his Second Sanctum at full speed. There was still another day before the second hero unit could spawn but he’ll ask the system later if there was a way to speed it up.

It notified him to take Eisha towards the second hero unit and awaken them so that they could treat her. The system wouldn’t uselessly alert him of anything if it wasn’t possible to do.

Since it was possible to save Eisha using the second hero unit then it was naturally possible for the system to speed up the spawning process. He just hoped that Eisha would remain in her critical condition, clinging onto life, and not pass away on the way there.

"Please Eisha, hold on!"

"..."

Julius didn't receive a reply but Eisha's hand which was lying limp on her stomach began to slowly tighten into a fist. She heard him loud and clear.