Martin, Freya and Marcus had gotten admitted into The Thunderous Hawk legion without too much trouble.
They seemed to be mass recruiting cannon fodder. The military meet will probably have a tournament of soughts to classify high level cannon fodder from the low level ones. Of course it will also be used as a premise to decide the balance of power between the various camps.
The Thunderous hawk legion was an extremely loose group, they were basicaly an affiliation. They didn't bother much with the members.
The leader of the camp didn't even bother showing them his face and just had them enrolled and told to come at the event on time and report to the senior members. It was quite anti-climatic.
The meet would help them gain a lot of intel on the demons, only exiting wouldn't be as easy as entering was.
No important information will be revealed to the mercenaries either.
They were nothing but pawns.
They knew that themselves too, but neverthless those who do survive and have a lot of kills become legends.
It was still chance for him to experience life in the demon city and analyze the characteristics of Diablo as a person and if needed as a target.
Martin wasn't arrogant enough to think that he could kill the Demon lord inside the palace but if he were to ever take a single step outside then, hehe....he would show him just why he was called the blue phantom.
As they split up for the night, Martin decide to explore the city and walked into a pub and listen on the latest gossips.
"Hey, have you heard that there is a devil on the loose."
"A DEV-shhh! Keep your voice down idiot!"
"Yeah, so what about it?"
"They say he goes around and haunts the dreams of corrupted merchants and forces them to release all their slaves.
Those who don't agree die gruesome deaths while asleep."
"Yeah, they call him the Bloody Liberator"
"I hear he might go for the army next, and the war is just around the corner too!"
"Utter nonsense! Its probably just a rogue beastman, I am telling you I don't even understand why the lord even bothers hiring those lowlives"
"Well, its better they work for us than those humans. We have already lost too many loved one to them."
They chatter went on, but Martin couldn't help but feel even more intrigued.
Just how many hidden players were there in the shadows.
They had just had a run in with the winged order not too long ago, now there was some crazy bloody liberator on the loose, not to count he himself was one big variable to the situation.
Why can't things be simple for once. Just go and kill the demon lord, easy-peasy, in and out. Hidden and players and schemes seemed to be flying all over the place.
He then decided to go pursue the clues left behind by the winged order. Just yesterday night there seemed to be a new inscription on it. If his guess was right it was a notification of a meeting.
The only way to stop feeling uneast is to investigate, tackle and eradicate all problems.
Worrying wouldn't solve anything.
---------
Lucas observed his target Emma White, the silver-haired, blue-eyed ice queen. He had been observing for a day. The more he oberved the body language and quirks the better he would be able to formulate a plan to deal with her.
After all no matter how emotionless she may seem, the micro-expression were extremely easy to read for a veteran like Lucas.
After all to this date only Diablo has managed to stump him, to an extent Liliy too, she somehow manges to influence him not to pay too much attention to her micr-expressioms. He always subconsciously seems to ignore her. All he could do was just keep hs guard up.
The target seemed awfully agitated, she seemed to be.....anticipating something.....
As Dusk started to settle, she slipped away from her quarters and headed towards the outskirts of the city.
Following closely behind in the shadows, Lucas couldn't help but find his thoughts grow wild. Was she perhaps meeting with a secret lover? Perhaps it was a human and they had a forbidden love.
Of course not! Lucas noticed that he was getting too distracted by random thoughts lately. Emma White did seem to be anticipating something but her malice towards it wasn't exactly hidden either.
--------
As the moon slowly rose and shined upon the ground. Emma entered the Graveyard of the fallen.
The big Inscription read, here lie the damned.
Yes this was the graveyard where they buried the corpses of all humans, beastmen and traitors.
Where all the criminals and outlaws were buried.
Why bother burying humans you ask? Well yes, they could just destroy the body but one of the previous demon lords had a twisted pleasure by burying them all together and claiming that all their souls would all go to hell. No one knew what he was really up to.
The Graveyard was- of course abandoned and thus seemed to be the perfect place for clandestine meetings.
Feeling a sense of danger she immediately channeled her steam element to levitate herself up in the air, immedeately forming multiple icicles to counter-attack.
"Who are you? Were you the one who called me?"
"Quit perceptive aren't you miss? You can call me shadow."
"What an original name?"
"Now, now quite fiesty aren't we?"
"I am quite a straightforward person you see. Let me cut straight to the point."
"Now miss do tell me, do you believe in life after death?"
"..."
"What, is this supposed to be some holy propoganda now?"
"I will take that as a no.
However, the 7th demon lord, Lucifer the 3rd believed in it. After all he wouldn't have made such a hellish graveyard for the damned otherwise."
"Nobody had really ever proven the existence of souls but the demon wanted those buried here to suffer anyways.
That's what they did. Lie here and rot away tormented by the malice and damned to hell."
"That was when our Lord and Saviour decided to enlighten them and save Us all."
His voice stated to fragment such that it seemed as if multiple voices were coming from his mouth
"Those that were dead shall now rise
those that trampled from above shall fall
We suffered in life, we suffered in death
We will make the world suffer in undeath
We are the Revenants Of the Flying Eye"
The wind started howling and blowing wildly, the crysthaneums lying on the graves started to float and swirl in the wind.
The man who called himself shadow slowly removed his cloak to reveal his face.
It was covered in bandages, his eyesockets were empty and his teeth were dirty and rotting.
"The Lord saved us all. We will spread his holy message and enlighten you all to the divine truth."
"The time for the world to join us in undeath is approaching soon. Please suppoert our noble cause General White and become one of us."
Ravenous laughter slowly rose in the air, and the ground started to rumble as varoius corpses dug their way out of the ground and slowly surrounded the Demon general.
"Shit!" Emma couldn't help but curse at her current situation. She was completely surrounded. No matter how strong she was, a general without an army was nothing but a joke.
She knew that this time she was in deep trouble.
She would have to fight tooth and nail to get out of this one.