Chapter 475 - Strike the city Heart (Patreon)

Hera's Status

Alex was moving slowly between the houses. Her objective was to find the leaders of Bonpei and take them out. She hoped that by doing that, she could end the war without having to fight the entire army. It might be just a baseless idea, but being this deep into enemy lines wasn't a pleasant experience. Any noise would make her worried that something was getting closer and force her to duck down. She had already killed a couple of warriors and even a few civilians. She never meant to kill the innocent people of the city, but they came at her, so she had to defend herself. Like Hera, the assassin did not struggle as much with the idea of killing someone as long as it was just self-defense. As a matter of fact, during the attack on Dzviery, a few people were killed by the crazed explorers because Alex pushed them away when they tried to hit her. Yet, she did not feel even a tinge of guilt about it. With the centaur and everything happening in the towers, The only thing that mattered was survival.

Some voices echoed through the side of the road, making Alex jump down and stick as close as one of the back walls of a house as she could while, at the same time, she made a gesture for the scouts to stop moving. For a moment, she forgot that she was alone. After Hera called for backup, the assassin sent the scouts to her aid, which meant that she had no one to help her while inside the city. Most people might find that a bit unnerving, but Alex was somewhat happy about it. If she was moving in a group, She would have to worry about everyone's position, and it'll be harder to infiltrate certain places. Places that had a very big chance of being the location of Bonpei's generals, mayors, or whatever was the leadership title. Aside from that, she also had one special trick on her sleeve that worked better when she was alone. In reality, having the scouts with her shouldn't matter for this particular trick, but she preferred to use it on her own.

Even after the voices had stopped, Alex remained hidden without moving for a few moments. She was trying to ensure that there was no one around her and that she was properly hidden from most things. Taking a deep breath, Alex closed her eyes and felt a slight tingle on her face. Almost as if a tear was going down her cheek. When she opened her eyes, there was a golden trail on the ground, almost like a yellow brick road leading her to her destination.

With a smile, Alex started following that path. She was still being very careful not to be seen by anyone, but there was no doubt in her mind that she would find the leaders of Bonpei as long as she followed this road that could only be seen by her. If there was anyone around, and they were paying very close attention to the assassin, they Would be able to notice that the irises in her eyes were turning yellow and that her pupils were a very dark shade of purple instead of the usual black.

She followed the yellow trail until she reached a large building with a few guards in the front. She was being guided inside, but it seemed like there was only one entrance, the front door. Looking around, it was very likely that this was the place where the important people of the city were gathered. The building looked much more sturdy than anything else in the city, and there were few guards around the area. Redirecting personnel in the middle of a war wasn't something that people would do unless there was a good reason for it, and Alex doubted that it would be because they were protecting some valuable object.

She would first have to take care of the surrounding patrol to infiltrate that building. The last thing she wanted was for some of those guards to see her sneaking in and trap her inside. Since she could not find any hidden entrances, she had to assume that there were no hidden exits. The existence of a secret tunnel was possible, but she might not have enough time to look for something like that.

Her first step was heading to the back to remove the guards stationed behind the building. Alex prepared her Windchaser spell and activated a skill called [Splinter Strike] before deciding which of the three guards she would attack first. Luckily for her, they all gathered to talk about something giving her a perfect opening. Using the wooden scabbard that would increase the damage she could deal when using a quick draw, she sent off a wind blade towards the guard in the middle of the group. The spell flew through the air, unseen by anyone, thanks to her stealth skill, and even before it hit her target, she activated her Windchaser spell. This allowed her to fly along the wind blade and hit the guard less than a second after her first attack. Doing so caused her to trigger her sneak attack twice, and thanks to the [Splinter Strike], a part of the damage she caused ricocheted to the other two guards. In less than 2 seconds, She had killed a pair of guards while the third one was quickly dispatched as she noticed that he was still struggling to stay alive. It didn't take much, just a simple stab in the back of the head, for the last member of this patrol group to die without making a single noise.

Feeling satisfied with the results, Alex went after the rest of the patrols. She was like the reaper in the night. A phantom that would just move and leave death in its wake. In less than 5 minutes, all the guards patrolling this building were no longer a problem, and the assassin could start moving inside. Before stepping in, she started the Cutting Vortex spell that created an area around her that would deal small amounts of damage to anyone inside it, as if they were being cut by blades of grass moving inside a whirlwind. One particularly fun part of this spell was that the vortex could also capture any wind-based attacks and spin around her while she moved. After casting her wind blade a few times, she was almost like a blender, ripping everything apart just by being close to them. Now that she was ready, Alex stepped inside the building. A part of her hoped that the people inside were just sleazy nobles who thought they were better than anyone else. She did not enjoy killing constructs that looked like people. Still, if those were the kind of people who would try to save themselves while their citizens were dying, the type of uptight asshole that was portrayed in so many books and shows, she wouldn't mind trying different skills and spells to see what would work best.

"Can anyone hear me?" Blue asked through the communicator. She wanted to talk to Alex about Hera, but she wanted to ensure that the explorer couldn't listen before saying anything. Unfortunately, there was no reply from anyone. Either because they were too far away and the range of the communicators wasn't enough or because they were too busy to reply.

"Heavy clouds are forming, we must release some of the weight, or we will be the ones receiving the rain of iron," Stormcloud floated around the controller. At the same time, the small window that Blue used to look over the battlefield changed the view and showed all the high clouds in the sky and how many arrows and other projectiles were gathered above them.

"What are our options? Can we transform the arrows into something useful?" Blue asked.

"I fear not. Even using them as our own ammo would be impossible to your own capabilities. What we can do is shift those clouds towards the heart of the enemy's forces and simply drop the spell. With some luck, a few of them will strike true, killing some of our enemies for us," Stormcloud had a smirk while he spoke.

Blue nodded and took a moment to figure out the best target for that move. It was a bit of a complicated game. She had to First shift one of the three clouds under this protective layer and change how it worked, and then she could move the cloud holding all that ammo. If she did in any other way, there was a chance that the army would be exposed, and that wasn't ideal. It took her about 5 minutes to complete the change and move the protective clouds to a place where they could actually do some damage. Then, as per the herald's suggestion,  she simply let go of the spell allowing all the are rows and other projectiles to fall back to the ground. This attack, if one could even call it that, was more effective than she expected. When the rain of arrows fell down on the city, a considerable number of soldiers ended up being hit by them. Even better, there were some trick arrows in the mix that exploded with the impact. Some created blocks of ice, others made snow or smoke, and there was even a particularly nasty one that seemed to only paralyze those hit by it but in a very large area.

This new, unexpected attack also helped the volcano tribe army. Most of the opposing warriors went into a state of confusion while they tried to scramble to avoid the arrows. Doing so created a very large opening in their defenses, and the tribesmen were ready for it. With a concentrated push, they broke through the city's outer defenses and started swarming the insides. Blue did her best to keep the people safe, but they were going too fast and too deep for her to be able to follow. That's when an idea came to mind. She could use a spell to taunt her enemies, and she could put a spell inside a cloud. Now, what would happen if she put the taunt spell in a cloud? Would anyone who saw the cloud want to hurt her, or would they try to hit the cloud itself? Either way, both effects would help a lot at this moment. On the one hand, the people of Bonpei might try to pass through the volcano army to reach her; on the other, they would waste time trying to hit something in the sky.

Having Stormcloud as a legacy made blue try to think outside the box more often. Because of that, she always kept a couple of her clouds empty so another spell could be placed inside them. She quickly put a spell inside one of the clouds and sent it up to be hovering above the city. The storm started to become larger and larger while a red hue covered the sky. A few flashes illuminated that area, but instead of the sound of thunder, Blue's booming voice yelled, 'Come get me!'

After a few moments, a voice came through the communicator, "You could have given me a heads-up. Hearing your voice out of nowhere made my heart jump out of my chest."

"Alex, so you can hear me?" Blue gasped.

"I can. I didn't reply before because I was hiding and couldn't say anything. All the leaders of the city are dead, by the way. I'm not sure if there are any others controlling the army, though," Alex was leaving the protected building knowing for a fact that there was no one else alive inside it.

"That's good. I think we just have to wait for the rest of the army to die then. Say, do you think Hera is okay? She's been going back and forth between being completely fine and freaking out."

"I would honestly be surprised if she was. The way she's acting reminds me a bit of how I acted when I thought I had killed you two. You know, just diving into everything you can at full speed to occupy your mind," Alex sighed.

"What did you do to get better?" Blue saw some of Bonpei's army trying to reach her, almost like frenzied monsters, yet they were all killed off by the volcano tribe before they got close.

"Honestly? I found you guys. Or you guys found your way back. I don't think whatever I went through would help her now,"  Alex looked around and saw that all the volcano tribesmen had stopped fighting. There were still some people in the city, but they were all civilians, and the attacking army didn't seem to want to kill them, "Can you still see anyone fighting? People kind of stopped here."

Blue looked around. The army had stopped. It was almost as if they were waiting for something, "Not really. Everyone is just standing still here."

Some minutes passed without the two of them figuring out what was happening. All the fighting stopped, and everybody was just standing still. Suddenly, a notification appeared in front of them.

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You have completed the dungeon quest.

All of Bonpei's forces were destroyed. The Volcano Tribe is the winner of the war.

Rewards: 80 000 gold. Volcano Tribe gift
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