All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 334: Oh No

Arthur stood atop one of the gatehouses, looking down over the city. From his vantage, he scanned the city blocks that his army had taken, their status obvious by the colors of the uniforms flooding through the streets. The cordon they were maintaining was growing ever larger as they subdued resistance and rescued the populace.

Despite what he'd expected, Arthur felt that he could actually call this invasion a rescue. The people did have some pretty mixed feelings about welcoming them, of course. On the one hand, they were an invading army bearing the colors of the neighboring kingdom, with which diplomacy had not been good for several decades. On the other hand, they weren't demons.

The fact that they were fighting against those demons was earning them a lot of goodwill from anyone who wasn't fighting alongside the things. Even where that wasn't the case, people were staying in their homes and threatening anyone trying to get in, demon or human.

That was about as much as Arthur could hope for. Actually, it was significantly better than he had feared. However, the fact that most of the city guards weren't even putting up resistance made little difference to the outcome of the fight. Still, it helped massively reduce the amount of collateral damage to both civilian lives and the infrastructure of the city.

His officers stood around them, one of them sitting in a cross-legged pose with his eyes closed, keeping their makeshift command post hidden from the enemy. If that dropped, they would be a rather easy target for some archers. Being this close to the action wasn't a risk that Arthur would normally take, but Lieutenant Wilber had been working on this skill quite a bit. It would also help him respond more quickly if something went wrong. Plus, the vantage was something that he rarely got to see. Between this and his new skills, he could observe the battle truly in real-time rather than through just reports.

And that was why he knew right away when something was wrong.

The steady advance of his troops halted. All of them. It happened within the span of a second, all across the city. Arthur blinked and activated his General's Eye skill. A bit of air in front of him focused, and he zoomed in, magnifying one specific skirmish. His men seemed to be engaged with the same demons that they were fighting earlier. But now, rather than holding their own, they were being pushed back.

Arthur swore, his gaze flicking between battles. Wherever the fighting had been relatively close, soldiers were now being forced to retreat to the last checkpoint. Even his strongest fighters were having trouble for some reason.

It made no sense. Greater imps that Bee told him were level 20 or 30 were now winning against soldiers he personally knew were level 40 and 50. They had rolled over them only moments ago, even with the greater numbers of the demons. They couldn't withstand the physical might, let alone the skills and training the soldiers brought to bear. But now, these same imps had turned the tide. The little monsters took hits that should have killed them and kept going.

A sword strike to the chest should have cleaved clean through the thing, but now only made it halfway. The imp had a chance to strike back before it died, catching the soldier off guard and costing precious extra seconds for him to pull out his weapon. And during that time, the rest of the swarm kept coming.

What was happening? It wasn't as though the demons had multiplied. Rather, it felt as if they'd all gotten stronger. Much stronger.

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Arthur's frown deepened as he began barking out orders to reinforce and regroup. Some of his stronger groups were managing to hold out, but not by much. Even more strangely, the relatively rare human soldiers of Barleona didn't seem to enjoy the same effects.

As he sent another runner out with orders, Arthur unsheathed his sword and stepped forward. Whatever this was, he didn't like it one bit. And he intended to fix it.

---

It took a little bit of experimentation, but I found a much more successful tactic against the Death Knight. Rather than hurting him, I found it more productive to move him.

My Sanitation Lamp carved through the rock around my opponent as a gale of air picked up, flinging him backward. I stabbed my sword into his shield. Our combined masses crashed through the partially destroyed wall, taking us along the shortest and most optimal path toward Beatrice and her own battle. But my opponent didn't seem to mind too much. It took advantage of our proximity to bash at my side.

The blow flung me to the side. I activated my newly repaired Thrusters to regain my position in midair, avoiding yet another wall collision. However, as I processed the scene before me, I was a bit shocked.

Beatrice was engaging a Lieutenant by herself while the Nighty Knights scrambled around, hacking and slashing at a diagram on the floor. In contrast, a second Lieutenant stood at the center of it all, seemingly content to ignore the chaos as it chanted. I supposed the blue bubble around it might have helped with that. But all of that was much less important than the black rift forming in the center of the room.

The widening portal of nothingness felt unfathomably empty, as though it sucked even light itself inside. In fact, to my sensors, it felt just like my void. So far, nothing had come out of it yet. But I had a bad feeling.

The Death Knight took advantage of the brief separation, taking in the scene with one glance. He skidded to a halt next to the angelic Lieutenants Beatrice was fighting and grabbed it. I readied my thrusters to boost forward, fearing they'd try to flee again. But instead, something else happened. I noted that her eyes seemed to widen in an expression I read as panic and fear.

She screamed in terror as the Death Knight kept its momentum, spinning to fling the half-formed creature through the rift.

It fell into the darkness, then hung suspended there. Its form slowly shrank as though it were falling farther away. Still, it was impossible for my sensors to penetrate the rift and tell if that actually was the case. Soon, it vanished with a small twinkle.

I froze, my processors, erroring out. That made absolutely no sense. Had he just killed one of his allies? That just made the fight easier for us. So why?

Glancing around, I saw that I wasn't the only one.

The whole room froze. No one breathed. No one twitched. Even the Witch Doctor had ceased his chanting. Time seemed to stand still as we waited for the results.

The Nighty Knights, though, didn't get the memo. One of them let out a cheer, breaking the silence as they finally managed to damage the ritual circle. Slowly, the rift began to close. The Death Knight charged forward at the children, but Beatrice and I formed up to block their path. But as we prepared to continue the fight, a set of long fingers wrapped around the edge of the closing portal. A second hand stretched out, gripping the other side, and they pushed apart to rip the hole in reality wider.

A man stepped through the gap. He was tall, about 5.7 inches above average height, and wearing a sharp suit. His skin was entirely pale and unblemished, so much so that I couldn't even detect an out-of-place hair across its surface. But his eyes weren't those of a human. They were entirely black.

Immediately, I knew it wasn't just another Lieutenant. Nor was it an actual human. This was something else. I recognized that suit. Flipping through my memory banks, I realized that it wasn't just from my other home, either. I had seen an image of this suit once here, across from a carving of an old human champion who had disappeared so long ago. It had been worn by a man with a blacked-out face, one hovering above an army of demons.

My soul sight revealed nothing but a black orb. Something in my sensors tingled at the man's very presence. Using Convergence of the Faithful, I drew on Beatrice's Scan ability to get more information.

Name: Demon Lord. Race: Demon Lord. Class: Demon Lord. Level: 100

Beatrice must have done the same thing that I had. In the utter stillness, I heard her whisper quietly. "Oh no."

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