CHAPTER 474: WAR OF IRON - PART 4 - ENTER THE ROSE

Amarena sped through the docks at a blistering pace, looking for anyone with demonic features and four arms. Above, she saw Cassiel trying her best to avoid any fights as she searched from the air.

The docks were largely abandoned except for mages trying desperately to counter the incoming spells from the enemy fleet, which was growing closer with every second. However, any building that mages fired back from became the focus of multiple artillery spells. Already, half the waterfront looked destroyed, except for the wooden docks, which were all intact. A few burned-out ships poked up from the water or floated away, having been cut loose when they’d caught fire.

Though she had almost no experience with large bodies of water, and none at all with ships, Amarena guessed that the enemy fleet was looking to make landfall soon, to judge by their approach. She chose to ignore them, for now, since she didn’t know which side was in the right.

When she came near the blue crystal tower, however, she found something she couldn’t ignore.

An Elevated with black godflesh electrocuted a defender with a lightning bolt, a merciless look in his eye. A moment later, an arrow fell out of his back. She’d never seen an Elevated with black flesh, and somehow the gold looked more like it was filling cracks than the more elegant patterns of a normal Elevated.

Perhaps he was some sort of elite or stealth Elevated? But what drew Amarena’s eyes wasn’t his demeanor but the sword in his hand. A unique weapon she knew well after countless sparring sessions with Kir.

Kangetsu...

How the hell did he have Kir’s sword?

I suppose I’ll take my answers once I defeat him. Amarena readied herself for a fight. The moment he turned his back, she accelerated towards him, reaching for the long haft and intending to pull Kangetsu from his grip before forcing his surrender.

*

Some instinct made Rainer turn as a purple-bodied blur nearly toppled him over. He managed to stay standing, but then he was confronted by another problem.

Kangetsu was gone.

Realizing he was unarmed, he instantly turned and drew his claymore, just in time to see that the purple-bodied blur was actually a purple-skinned demonkin... But then his mind caught up to his manasight.

No... that’s not a demonkin, she’s an archdemon.

"Nice sword. Where did you get it?" she asked.

Rain glared at her, "What are you doing here, demon?"

"I asked first," she said.

"I have nothing to say to you," Rain spat, his eyes following a hallucination of Kir reaching for Kangetsu, one arm hovering over he shoulder as if to lean upon her, before he lunged forward and struck out with all the speed he could muster.

The clang of steel against kiralloy rang out, the latter leaving notches in Rainier’s claymore as they traded blows. The way the demoness’ arm blurred with every parry told Rainier that she was fast, possibly thanks to some sort of speed mavenry.

The knowledge that he was being toyed with only heightened Rain’s anger, and he poured mana into his body to increase his speed and perception, trying to match her. He managed to draw more effort out of her, and as soon as he had an opening, he loosened one hand from his sword and threw a bolt of lightning into her.

After all, Malz used to say it’s impossible to dodge the speed of light.

The force of his blast sent her back a few steps, burning a wound into her shoulder.

"Guess it’s time to get serious," the demoness snarled with pain. Behind her, a strange silvery orb that looks somehow wrong hovered to a stop. But Rain had no time to contemplate it.

Shit, he thought as the demoness shifted into war form, growing taller and more heavily armored as she expanded. Rain unleashed more lightning bolts, but they failed to score as deeply as the first. And the first thing she did as she finished growing was to place Kangetsu into her dimensional storage before drawing a pair of dark short swords, streaked with green-silver orichalc.

Realizing she’d just made the fight much harder, Rain leaped into the air, barely dodging the demoness as she blurred into her own leap, losing none of her speed despite her new bulk.

But he failed to dodge her sword, and a deep cut opened on his hip as he grunted in pain. Golden blood spilled, but his godflesh began to repair the wound all the same, faster because of the amount of mana he was flowing into his body just to keep up.

The prudent thing to do would have been to flee, but Rainier wasn’t about to let Kangetsu fall into the hands of some demon. Gathering his mana, he circled as he unleashed bolt after bolt of lightning.

The demoness was hit by two of his six spells as she ran to the nearest building, her movements oddly flowing and graceful yet unpredictable, before using it as a footboard to leap at him, spinning as she rose into the air.

*

Oh fuck. Oh fuck. Shit!

In her lesser seraph magiform, Cassiel barely managed to move one of her Hekatonkheris hands into the path of an arrow before it could hit her. The act destroyed the hand and sent her reeling as the arrow exploded.

It almost felt as if the entire city was firing on her for not being in a fight. She barely had seconds to look for Maledict’s agent between dodging and fleeing. A pulse of her wings brought her close to a fight between a male angel and a half-elf maven equipped with a javelin that returned to her hand after every toss, her other hand wielding a short sword.

"Seraph, I need help!" the angel shouted, bleeding from a half dozen wounds as he parried his opponent’s sword with his trident.

Not wanting to choose a side when she was ignorant of the situation, Cassie separated the two fighters with her Hekatonkheris, pushing the woman away with a swarm of hands. She felt as the half-elf woman steadily broke through some of the hands, before leaving to find another target now that she was outnumbered.

"Thanks be to you, Seraph. I’m Gefindel." He looked at her with a bit of confusion, and Cassiel felt her gut knot with tension. "Why are you out of uniform?" he asked.

That was when Cassiel noticed he was wearing the uniform of an Executioner, while she was dressed in a wool tunic with slits for her wings and a pair of tights. "I-I don’t answer to you." She crossed her arms, trying to pretend she knew what was going on. "Tell me, how is your operation going?"

"Operation? This is a war. This city has disrupted trade between Heaven and Ayther for centuries." His eyebrows knitted further together out of confusion, until the moment when his eyes narrowed. "I don’t remember seeing you at the briefing. Who are you? What unit are you with?"

Dammit to Hell...

"This one," Cassiel raised her hand and brought one of her Hekatoncheries hands into a jaw-breaking uppercut, before slamming him from both sides of his head. As he fell unconscious, Cassiel had another pair of hands grab him by the armpits and take him to what looked like a relatively safe alleyway.

She was miffed at coming away without answers, but at least she hoped she could delay getting caught.

"Flying was a bad choice," she said to herself as she followed her hands down to the alley, before using them to cover the unconscious angel in a bit of cloth, piling trash onto his wings to keep them hidden.

As she began to turn, however, she saw a new woman approaching, a lyre in her hands and a rapier at her hip. She was redheaded, and her long, wavy locks obscured her race as she walked forward, strumming her instrument.

"Tell me, angel, why did you attack your own?" the lady with a lyre spoke with an almost lyrical lilt, her resonance breathy and slightly dramatic. "You surprised me with your antics o’er Chainsfree, my home."

"Why do you care?" Cassiel asked.

"Because I’m a bard, and I saw what you did. So answer me while I decide whether to let you live." She strummed again, and Cassiel felt the hands of her Hecatoncheries that were near the woman shatter, their mana dispersing.

"Look, I’m not here to fight. My name is Cassiel. I’m not your enemy, and I’m sure you have a lot more to worry about than me," Cassiel raised her hands in what she hoped was a non-threatening manner. "So how about we go our separate ways?"

"I am the Lady of the Lyre, and I have a lot upon my mind," the lyrical resonance in her voice grew, "Rosalinda is the name. Rose, if you will. Surrender, or be felled by my seven strings combined."

She raked a discordant note across her lyre and suddenly, Cassiel felt utterly disoriented as she crouched, wavering where she stood.

She got through my shields? How the Hell?!

"Last chance, dearest angel, to choose your angle." She strummed again.

Cassiel forced her body to stand taller, calling her staff from storage into her hand, before she created more Hecatonkheris.

"That doesn’t even rhyme!" she shouted, launching a hundred fists at Rose.