The Demon Lord Is An Angel-Chapter 479: War Of Iron - Part 9 - Debris and Destinations
Ferro ran, keeping low and avoiding the air as he made for the docks through the alley-mazes of Chainsfree. He followed the sounds of battle, which grew closer with every measure. Turning into an alley, he heard a sound that drew his eyes skyward as the building began to collapse.
At the last second, Ferro pushed power into his shields, hardening them against physical impacts. The dull thud of stones, accompanied by the sound of something else, ground into place as he was held in by the debris. Unable to see, he created a light.
Red dripped down his protective barrier, seeping past an arm. His heart in his throat, Ferro quickly cycled through his suit’s spells and chose a simple blast of magical force, pumping it through his shield.
Or at least that was his intention.
Forgetting his shields blocked both magic and objects sent him flying backward from the rebound of his spell. It was enough to bounce him out of the rubble until he rolled to a stop, his back slamming against a wall and his chest feeling for a long moment like someone was sitting on him.
As soon as he regained his breath, he looked at the damage remembered the hand. Running to it, he started to pull rocks from the top, using magic to lift the ones that were too heavy for him until he pulled an orc from the rubble and gently lay her in the alley before checking her pulse.
She was still alive, but Ferro was not a healer.
"I’m sorry... I’ll send help," he said. Standing, he ran in a straight line until coming out on a main street, where a pitched battle was being waged. He grabbed a soldier and pointed into the alley. "Straight that way is a woman who’s wounded. She needs a healer."
The soldier, a boy who couldn’t have been very old, was all too eager to find somewhere else to be, and before Ferro could stop him, he ran down the alleyway, what little metal there was for his armor jingling.
Ferro had to reassure himself that he’d done what he could as he resumed his run for the docks. Maybe he should have flown-
CRACK!
The sudden rapport of a strange weapon blasted into Ferro’s shield, breaking several hexes that filled just in time to receive the next blast as Ferro turned.
Coming from the alleyway, a surprised-looking human held some kind of tube that he cracked open and pulled small cylinders from, dropping them to the ground before slamming a new pair into the weapon and snapping it back together.
The man was slower than an archer but the weapon hit harder than any bow Ferro had ever seen.
Once more, Ferro poured magic into his shields, a sustained flow that weathered the two blasts repeated by his enemy. And the moment the man cracked the tube to reload, Ferro dropped his shield and blasted his enemy’s face with a ray of freezing mana.
The man cried out, and Ferro left him there as he dropped the weapon and held his face. Ferro started sprinting for the ocean, where the heaviest battle was taking place as the Syndicate forces opened gaps in the defenders’ formations.
He found himself halfway between the crystal tower and the other end of the docks, and far above, a massive explosion sounded as the fortress beyond the inverted dungeon lost an entire section of wall to the magic assailing it, heavy stones crumbling into the bay.
Ferro had a choice to make. If he went left, that was where even more slavers and mercenaries were making landfall. The dungeon tower to his right, however, seemed a likely thing to attract trouble.
Before he could choose, someone tackled him from behind, and Ferro struggled as he was lifted back into the alley, until a familiar voice said, "Ferro!"
It was Kir, and the demonkin ignored Ferro’s shields completely as the strange mana around his body dissolved them. He held Ferro against himself and started to pet between the catkin’s ears. "Ferro."
"No..." Ferro moaned. He’d been so close. If Kir was here, then Val might die. If he didn’t find her, tell her to run or... or something!
"Ferro! Kir!" Malz’s voice suddenly called out. She was panting and out of breath, and Anko was carrying the angel with her upper arms.
Anko set her down with a huff. "Fuck you’re heavier than you look."
Malz ignored her. "Are you okay?"
"What happened at the wall?" Ferro asked as he continued to be petted from behind.
"Kir happened," Anko said. "Wiped out, like, half of the enemy army."
"I doubt it was that much," Malz countered. "But he left a pretty big crater at the end of the pass. They’ve been routed for now, but they’re probably regrouping."
"Look, I-" With a surge of effort, Ferro pulled himself free of his much-larger companion. "I’m glad you’re here, but I need you to do something for me."
"What is it?" Malz asked.
"I just... need you to take Kir away. Keep him away from the docks, please."
"Why?" Anko asked.
"Because my sister is here and... I need to be the one to find her. He might... he might kill her, Anko."
"I doubt it," Malz said. "He got stabbed a lot before he destroyed the people that were doing it."
"Please!" Ferro begged.
"But we just found you!" Anko’s voice was full of frustration.
Malz grabbed Anko by the shoulder. "We’ll take him to the Chapterhouse or... or something," she said.
"You better come back alive, or I’ll kill you!" Anko pointed at him with her two right hands.
Malz reached out and touched Kir, and Ferro realized that he had also been held by a being that by all rights should have burned him. But he had no time for such mysteries. Valera was here, and he needed to find her before it was too late.
"I will," he promised, before walking to the front of the alley and choosing his direction.
*
Valera hadn’t trusted the new weapons the Syndicate had acquired by the crate, from workshops in Amrita and intermediaries that traded with Norneau, but she saw their effectiveness firsthand as the newly arrived mercenaries pointed them and fired. Waves of lead and iron-cored bullets slammed through weaker shields and even penetrated the shields of foolish mages who hadn’t thought to shield themselves against physical attacks.
Such a simple premise. Create an explosion in a barrel that would expel metal rocks. Like some sort of jumped-up slingshot.
So when one particularly incompetent merc dropped his "gun" on the first shot, furthermore spilling the little "shells" onto the street, she relieved him of his weapon and ammo pouch before pushing him away with an order to "Get a weapon you know how to use."
When he seemed about to protest, she drew her cutlass and pointed it at him until he retreated.
Valera didn’t know how to use it either, but she was a quick study, and she watched someone with a similar weapon until she had it down.
If we’d had these at the start, I wouldn’t have had to waste time on that dwarf, she scowled.
She loaded the weapon with two of the shells from the ground, then bent to pick up the rest and toss them into the satchel she’d liberated from the mercenary. Looks simple enough. As she shouldered the gun, she looked over at the captain, who’d been staring at her since she sent his man away.
"What?" she challenged.
"Good hunting, Miss Razor," he gave her a small salute.
She felt a little grateful he hadn’t made assumptions about her just because she was about half his size and a rust catkin. But she said nothing as she assessed the situation on the main road nearest the rightmost side of the dock.
Looks like we’re winning. Heaven has more brains than the Syndicate, that’s for sure.
Or maybe they just weren’t as likely to cheap out. The battle in the air seemed to be largely settling in the angel’s favor, and as she thought that, a mage fell from the sky wrapped in flames. Those angels with nothing else to do but dodge started to provide covering fire for the mercenaries below them, hitting the defenders with precise bolts of white or black. Those hit by the latter burned with a strange kind of fire that left no mark as it consumed their mana.
She noticed that the fliers with some sort of white flesh where normal limbs or body parts should be were not the ones firing the black flames, but maybe they were some kind of inferior angel or something, it wasn’t her problem.
A few angels seemed dissatisfied with fighting in the air and drew weapons, manifesting strange forms as they began to alight on rooftops and scour the buildings of defenders.
Alright, Val. Time to earn some coin. Time to fight and survive another day.
She returned to her mercenaries, who were mostly resting except for a few high-endurance mavens, and gave her orders.
Pointing up the road towards the center of the city, she snapped, "Get up. We’re taking the enemy stronghold."
