"Knights, form a protective circle around the mages. Mages, use spells to take out the red-eyed ones and slow down the purple-eyed ones. Once we have decimated the red-eyed ones we'll take out the purple eyes one by one."
Sigh, prince Gideon was still a little new to strategizing. When fighting a nonhuman enemy it was vital to take into consideration the enemy's special characteristics.
"Prince Gideon, the purple eyes can create more red eyes as long as there are humans around. Taking them out should be your priority."
"But look at how many red eyes there are. If I were to attack the purple eyes first we would surely get wiped out."
"Sigh, what would you have done if all of them were here?"
"All of them?"
"Judging by their numbers there is at least one more group of them."
"We are fortunate indeed. Could I trouble you to address the issue of the purple eyes until we have dealt with the red eyes?"
"You will be on your own for a while then. Is that alright with you, prince Gideon?"
"I am not as weak as you make me look. I can hold my own."
"Very well, I'll be off then."
After saying my predetermined lines I left the prince's side and jumped into the fray. In truth, this here was only about a quarter of all the vessels. If all of them had been here the massacre would have been truly horrible.
At any rate, my task was to fight the vessels. I sent a few tendrils of darkness spearing for the majority of the vessels. One or two got stabbed through the heads but the other all dodged or parried my attacks.
Being attacked in such a way awoke the vessels' sense of danger and they all zoned in on me. I was now their highest priority target.
After all, they couldn't know that I was their creator and master. I controlled them through a dark fog origin that sent commands to them. As long as I didn't use my magic to form that dark fog origin they would think of me as nothing but an enemy.
Two that seemed more physically oriented charged at me and tried to cut me into ribbons with their sharp claws. I used my cane to redirect their swipes to hit each other and stabbed one of them through the eye with a thin elongated dagger.
Their claws cut deep but they weren't deterred by injuries that didn't hit their vitals. One of them lost all strength after being killed by my dagger and the other wasted precious time to get his dead friend's claws out of himself. Enough time for me to stab him through the eye as well and jump away to dodge the incoming salvo of spells hurled by the others.
Many nobles were also trained mages so a good portion of the vessels had retained the ability to use magic. Their use of it was a little clumsy and many of them couldn't use spells of their level. Nonetheless, they were dangerous opponents for all of the people present except for me.
To answer the salvo of the vessels I sent a few spears made of darkness their way. As a group, they formed a shield made of dark fog and effortlessly blocked the dark spears by letting them sink into the fog.
This gave me the time to close the distance and with a light tap on the ground, my cane elongated and released a blade. I was now holding a scythe.
The fog shield also dissipated as the dark fog origins were spent and needed time to recover the fog they had just spent. It would take them about a minute until they could once again release any fog-based abilities. And one minute was plenty of time for me to do some cutting.
I used a tidbit of space magic to flash and appear straight before them. My scythe swung out and within moments three heads with purple eyes were lopped clean off.
I let the momentum of the scythe carry on and guided it over my head into a downward swing that buried the blade deep in a vessel's skull.
Pulling the half a meter long scythe blade out of the vessel's skull proved to be quite a challenge so I resorted to using it as a hammer to get myself some space. With the area around myself clear I placed one foot on the head that was stuck in my blade and pushed it off. Doing this didn't fit my image but who cares.
Half a minute left before they would start to reuse the fog. The vessels were starting to feel really threatened so they called back some of the pawns that were fighting the knights. The pawns moved to surround me while vessels prepared to cast all their spells at once.
They were right where I wanted them. A wave of darkness spread around me cutting all the pawns and vessels in half at the waist. The pawns immediately stopped moving but the vessels struggled on with foggy tendrils extending from their cut-off torsos to their lower bodies.
However, with their mobility reduced to the bare minimum I sent another barrage of sharp tendrils to pierce their heads. Nearly at the same time prince Gideon and his troops finished off the remaining pawns. Some of the pawns being called away to deal with me had eased the pressure on them by a lot.
I waded through the ocean of corpses on the ground and rejoined prince Gideon. There must have been at least 200 pawns and around twenty vessels. If the knights and mages that hadn't made it were added the total amount of corpses approached 250.
"You are truly strong lord Raven. For you to deal with the purple eyes all by yourself is a testament to your power."
"I believe we have bigger worries than my strength. We should burn the corpses and check on the other groups."