All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 330: Little Rascals

My fight had gotten a lot easier. The first Lieutenant fled and was quickly followed by three others. They flew out into the city to take on my allies. Suddenly, I only had to deal with three Lieutenants, which was far more manageable.

Now that I had an instant of breathing room, I took in the enemies before me. There was the death knight, of course, his black armor as shiny as ever. The other two were new to me. One appeared to resemble a skeleton not unlike the ones I'd met so long ago, but wearing long robes and a gray crown. Waves of bluish energy rolled off of him like mist. The last one looked like a woman but with massive wings attached to her back. It made me hesitate for a moment, but a look at her soul revealed the same spiky red mass of a demon. Whatever this was, she was no human.

With my burden lightened, I was able to better optimize my evasion patterns. This stopped me from accumulating more damage, but the incoming blows were still too much to completely repair myself as we fought. Though I was able to dish out some hits of my own.

As it was, one of my thrusters was still busted. If I couldn't fly, I wouldn't be able to move effectively. Even worse, both of my wheels were busted, and my front sensors had cracks running through them, interfering with the data that I received. All of that was slowly being mended, but every time my repair progress bar reached the threshold for any given part, I would be forced to take another blow to avoid something worse.

But when the fourth Lieutenant left... If I had a mouth, I would have been grinning at the two that stayed behind. In fact, I considered projecting a happy face at them to communicate my glee but decided against it. My resources were better spent elsewhere. Three foes might have been a fair fight when I was in this state, but two? There would be no contest, especially since the winged one that had been healing its allies even faster than their normal regeneration abilities had left.

I blasted the death knight lieutenant, forcing it to cower behind his shield before going after the walking pile of bones. My Divine Sword cleaved through the jumbled mass of bones that it used as a forearm. As I dove for its chest, I turned my vacuum on to full power.

The wind whipped around us, tearing at its clothes and sucking in a few smaller demons that were unfortunate enough to be nearby. Dirt and nearby objects swirled toward me, buffeting the pile of bones as they tumbled through the air.

It hovered backward, shooting bolts of energy forward and calling up walls of bone to stop me, but it wasn't enough. I barreled forward, dodging what I could and throwing up walls of sealant where needed.

My rear sensors registered as the death knight came up from behind to pincer me in. But even as I received another blow from behind from its shield, I kept my course and cut through the skeleton's chest. The golden light of my blade sliced deep into the bone as the Lieutenant let out a shriek. But aside from a few scattered shards, I still wasn't able to pull the whole thing into my dustbin. Not yet.

As much as I wanted to focus on the skeleton, I had other problems to address. I turned to drive back the Death Knight. I casually splattered one of the archfiends with a simple flick of my Grabby Arm and then smashed into the overpowered Lieutenant's shield, forcing it back a half step.

That the lesser demons were still trying to interfere with our fight was surprising. For the most part, they had all seemed to have learned better and steered clear, running out of the gate or deeper into the fortress when our battle had begun, especially once the three flying Lieutenants had left to go deal with our other heavy hitters. But who knew? Maybe their predictive models were just that poor.

The second that the death knight gave the slightest bit of ground, I pressed forward, moving up high in a feint that caused it to raise its shield slightly and block its vision. In the same instant, I rebounded off of the shield, turning and flipping around to return to my assault on the mass of bones. I started pouring on everything I could think of. I blasted it with my lasers and chopped at it with my sword. I even let loose a torrent of acid, which began to earth through its bones with a loud hiss. But still, it kept fighting. It was surprisingly resilient.

One thing I did notice was that the skeleton didn't seem like the other Lieutenants. It didn't regenerate damage in the same way. No, the wounds and holes I peppered it with stuck around. It just didn't seem to care about them.

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Eventually, though, I caught an opportunity. I got between its legs and, stretching my sword out, I slashed upwards. An arc of golden light carved through the air, cutting it completely in half, and I watched as the bones fell into an inert pile. I let out a beep of celebration and quickly consumed the remains, but I noticed something was wrong. They were just normal bones.

I transmuted them to be sure, but I didn't feel the familiar rush of power that I would expect from such a powerful enemy. Even as I struggled to find the energy within them, my sensors picked up something. A stream of blue-white mist flew away from the remains, diving over the fortress wall and off toward the mountains before I could catch it.

Huh. That was weird. But I didn't have time to think about it as the Death Knight closed in again. Now that it was one-on-one, I expected to finish the fight quickly. But its defense was still impeccable. Even as I chipped away at its shield, I didn't manage to harm it much. Apparently, he had found ways to counter my attacks from the last time we met. But despite the apparent stalemate, I was pretty pleased.

All my injuries were rapidly repairing themselves, and soon, I would not be hindered anymore. The damage I did take wasn't enough to outpace regeneration, which was great news. Still, I needed a way to do real damage to it. Once I destroyed its shield, though, that would be a different matter entirely. It would just take a little bit of time, and hopefully, it was time we had.

I heard Daedalus roar out a question intended for me. Would I really mind if he made a mess? Well, we were planning on cleaning this whole place up anyway, so it wasn't going to make much of a difference. Too busy to fly up and have a proper conversation about the philosophical implications of mess-making, I just projected a simple sign of acceptance above the city. I tried not to waste too much processing power on the simple task, but I wanted to make sure he got the message.

Moments later, the wall behind me disintegrated. I barely had time to get out of the way of a gout of dragon flame as it burst through the black walls. As I forced my opponent to choose between taking the brunt of it to its back or my sword to its face, the death knight hissed in annoyance. It had to stoically stand there while the back of its armor began to fuse together from the sheer heat. Only after a few moments was it able to break free of the flame.

Well. that certainly was a mess. I looked over the melted and destroyed rock that now covered the ground. I considered cleaning it up right then but held myself back. There were more important things to do. But at least it meant Daedalus was doing well.

As I continued the fight with the Death Knight, suddenly, my priorities changed. I registered the Nighty Knights as they swarmed through the openings in the walls, leaping and flying over the suddenly lava-like floor with ease. I needed to keep this overpowered Lieutenant from engaging them. It wasn't that I didn't think they could handle such a battle. It was more that I needed their help elsewhere, deeper in the fortress.

As they formed up and made to assist me, I beeped at them, telling them to stand down. I twirled in midair, coming at the demon from the side as Felix yelled a response. "Let us help!"

But I pointed insistently to the commander of the Nighty Knights, directing him further in. If I was correct, there was a high probability that one more Lieutenant was hiding there and doing something nefarious. Besides, someone needed to shut off the flow of demons at the source. There's clearly some sort of summoning circle bringing them in constantly.

I conveyed all of that through a quick series of beeps. The Knights knew me well enough to parse through the message without effort. None of the Nighty Knights seemed happy about this, and I saw a couple throw spectral weapons at the Death Knight as they sprinted past, moving deeper into the fortress.

As I fought, I kept an eye on them and used my sensors to track them further inside. I hadn't done a full scan on the area, as I just didn't have the processing power to take my attention off my fight for long enough right now. But now that I was only fighting one of the Lieutenants, I could keep an eye on the Nighty Knights to make sure that nothing went too wrong. If it was necessary, I could always step in to help.

They executed well-planned and perfectly practiced tactics, taking hallway after hallway, holding choke points, and using them against their enemies' careless rushes. They had enough healers and combat medics that whenever someone did take an injury, they were quickly pulled back and healed and soon were back up in the fight.

I couldn't help but feel a bit proud of the display. They had grown up so fast and learned so well. Truly, they were so efficient that it was hard to find areas to improve. However, I did make brief notes of a few minor things to brief them later. Much later.

As they made it through the inner walls of the first fortress and past the inner gates, they started to meet less resistance. But just as they could feel the difference in the environment, I could as well. Something heavily magical was going in there. And they were going to need some help.

I moved to follow, but the Death Knight stopped me. He conjured a wall of duplicate shields that spanned the hall before me, blocking my progress. Thinking on my wheels, I let out a frustrated series of beeps and called to my most faithful friend. "Go help them!"

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