Angel Monarch

A few minutes before the explosions David and his cohort was hiding in a small room in a factory. A window overlooked the large square that the self-propelled artilleries were going to use as a staging ground.

There were dozens of the vehicles, and still more pouring in. By their intel they expected at least 50 to be sat up, with 25 more in reserve.

The whole place was guarded by about thirty ascended and a hundred evolved, and that was with ignoring the five thousand regular soldiers. They were moving down there like ants.

Some evolved went door-to-door, checking each building for any enemy troops. They were still a few minutes away from their large factory.

David spent another few seconds watching everyone, then turned towards the woman standing close to him.

Relma's –the scout's– eyes were glossy as she watched the square from a bird's eye view. Her ears were projected to one of the ascended commanders on the ground, listening in on his conversation.

After another minute her eyes focused on David and she became a bit wobbly. Some other member held her up, while she made the report.

"They will start open fire in two minutes, but the stationary artilleries are going online in less than a minute!" She said, now standing on her own.

David nodded and glanced outside for a moment. The evolved inspectors are about the enter their factory. It wouldn't take long for them to find the cohort.

David:

After you hear the first barrage blow the three artillery sites!

Frank:

Got it! Kill all those mushrooms for me!

He didn't understand what the fuck Frank was talking about, but David knew not to think about it too much.

Turning towards his cohort he summoned his own armor, which was different from the cohort's.

The armor slithered onto his body covering everything except his head. It looked very similar to his snake-form's skin. It wasn't an item, but something he gained with his heritage.

From his vambraces one long fang-like blades protruded out on each arm. His shoulder plates had two snakeheads atop. He looked really scary in the armor.

The cohort were already in their full kits with weapons, armor and everything else out.

"We move out when the explosions will go off! Formation 3! Make sure to destroy as many artilleries as possible, don't get stuck fighting with other ascended, and don't get surrounded!"

Each member nodded and summoned their helmets. From behind David's back, his armor slithered over his head and closed off, like a snake was swallowing him.

It only took a few more seconds to hear the explosions. In that moment the twelve person cohort led by David, jumped out the factory and landed on a small group of soldiers. They were setting up one of the artilleries, which parked right next to the factory.

They all died within a second and one of the cohort members tossed a small metallic ball inside the artillery's barrel. It was one of Frank's bombs, which took out the whole vehicle and a small area around it.

With that done the cohort went in separate directions, splitting into four groups.

Formation 3 consisted of the twelve members splitting into groups of three and running off, trying to complete their objectives separately. Each would have one person with a towershield, one with a sword, and one with a ranged weapon.

It was highly efficient in a chaotic scenario, which meant it was perfect for this. While the four groups ran off, David threw about ten balls farther away in different directions. Some took out artilleries, some landed in groups of soldiers, but all of them increased the already existing bedlam.

The explosions of the three artillery stations had already caused a lot of confusion and panic, but the smaller explosions only made it worse.

The regular soldiers ran around like headless chickens, the evolved were looking around not knowing what to do, and the ascended were disoriented.

The four groups were like wolves hunting down their prey. The explosions never truly stopped as they blew up more and more artilleries. They even managed to kill quite a few ascended when they were alone or in twos, but if they came across three or more, they instead abandoned them and ran away.

They would give them chase, but a few seconds later David would appear. His sole purpose was taking out as many ascended groups as possible.

He has already killed nearly ten of them, and he was currently facing down four.

They moved slowly and cautiously around David, encircling him. One of them had a small limp and David spotted a tiny trickle of blood flowing out of his armor. Another looked a bit shaky and a third seemed to bit disoriented.

He noted that these three had suffered some small wounds from his or someone else's bombs, which was quite lucky. The fourth was the one he had to watch out for.

It was a female judging by her armor, she was small, barely reaching David's shoulder in height. Her whole body was covered with a tight monster leather armor, even her face. Only her eyes were visible, and just by one look David determined how dangerous she was.

She seemed steady, grounded and even a little too calm given the situation. Her two weapons were a pair of shortswords. Their dark green blades glistened in the low morning light. They seemed to be covered in some liquid, which somehow didn't drip from the blade.

"The famous Serpent of Time, how peculiar. Where is your bitch friend? I still need to shove my swords up her golden ass!" Behind his helmet David's expression grew grim.

He had never personally met her, but it was well known who this woman was...

"So this is where you ran after the loss at Sofira! I heard Sera beat you quite thoroughly. She said that your soldiers had to drag away your unconscious body!" His expression didn't change, but he prepared for the blow that was about to come.

What he said was a lie. Sera did talk about their duel in Sofira, but it wasn't a clear victory for her, it was actually a stalemate, with both of them nearly dying. In reality this woman was very similar in strength to Sera, which was reflected in her title and chosen name... The Acid Empress.

Her face was still covered, but David knew that she was grinning madly behind the mask. Her body changed postures, lowering, readying to pounce.

"I will enjoy showing your head to that fucking WHORE!" She cackled as she screamed the last word in pure rage.

She was in the air in the next moment, her sword's tip only a few centimeters away from David. There she floated in the air, stopped in time.

David wasn't stupid and didn't try attacking her. Instead within the second of stopping her, he turned around and stabbed both of his vambrace-blades into the disoriented person behind him.

The man screamed silently as he was tossed straight at the Empress. In that moment the freeze stopped and her swords pierced the confused man's skull.

The blades sizzled as they entered through the helmet. There was no resistance as they burned through the armor.

She didn't even care about killing a fellow soldier. Her blades moved upwards cutting a straight line out of the corpse's head. She screamed in anger and was about to run after David, who used the distraction to get away, but at that moment she noticed two small balls about a meter away from her feet.

With a grunt of annoyance she crouched low to the ground and placed both blades in front of her, making an 'x' shape with them.

The two alive ascended didn't know even see the balls. Both died in the upcoming explosion.

David continued to run without looking back. Behind him the Empress's shriek echoed through the battlefield followed by a few more explosions, as more and more artilleries got destroyed.

From the remnant stationary artilleries a barrage went off. The three explosives weren't enough to fully destroy all of them, but they prepared for that as well.

Each of his cohort's group would make their way to one of the sites and take care of the remaining artilleries. David would also take one group and make his way to the place where Sera should already be massacring the enemies.

He ran on while weaving between broken vehicles and thousands of corpses.

In front of him an ascended appeared, but David didn't even slow down. The man seemed a bit disoriented, but his eyes quickly focused when he saw David sprinting towards him.

He raised a summoned polearm, but just as he raised it and was about to slam it down on David, his movements stopped. He couldn't move a muscles as the blade on David's vambrace entered his skull.

The fight didn't even start and it had already ended. His running speed didn't decrease one bit, instead it increased.

Behind him, he heard the wrathful shouts and angry screams of the Empress. He didn't think the bomb would kill her, but he hoped that it would stun her longer.

Suddenly the whole eastern part of the city got shaken. His head turned towards the wall between the northeastern and southeastern gate...

The wallbreakers were in place...

Without care for the Empress he ran faster while furiously typing to the group that was supposed to accompany him. Eventually he met up with the others and the four of them ran to the square to assist Sera!