PoV Maxim
"Glory to Maxim and his companions!" were the soldiers' cheers.
As I was walking along the path they created for me, they started cheering more and more, stomping the ground and repeatedly crushing the pommels of their swords against their shields. Among their ranks were some slaves. They had a look of dread on their faces. Most of the slaves didn't have proper equipment, and it was a miracle if they were allowed to hold weapons in the camp.
I then rushed to the tent where the others were holding a private meeting.
"How did they think he was the leader of our group?" complained Giovanni while taking a sip of a weird drink we just discovered. It was dark purple, sweet, and fruity, yet with a bitter aftertaste.
"Shush, don't ruin my precious moment now." I replied.
"Hey-"
"Shut it, we still have to find a way to get inside that fortress." He was shut down by my brother, Alex.
He was the leader of our group as well as the strongest among us. He had recently turned his skin white through an unknown technique to cover up his power.
"It's easy. We just need to surround them and stop them from getting any form of support, and hunger will eventually get them." Proposed Marcello.
"Of course they won't stay still and watch themselves get fucked over like this, so they will-"
"How about just busting through the walls?" My brother proposed.
"We don't know how many soldiers are stationed inside or their strength. Last time Marcello got badly hurt, let's try not to mess this up a second time." Giovanni said while filling his cup once again.
"As I was saying... we should probably start building some siege equipment. We'll leave one of us at each strategic point and-" Marcello tried to propose, but was quickly cut off by Giovanni.
"And how are you planning to make us split? Reinforcements are on the way. If we get surrounded before we even manage to get inside, it's over."
"What do you propose?" Alex asked Giovanni.
He then started writing.
"We'll have to use our ability to fly to infiltrate the castle; I'll use my snakes to poison most of the enemies, while Marcello and Alex will act as our frontline, and Maxim will be supporting me in case someone gets too close after I release my mark. We should probably attack tomorrow morning, as soon as the sun rises." He said.
"A night raid led by me and Maxim. We will open the gates and allow the army to enter the fortress. Meanwhile, you two will fly above the skies to make sure no one escapes." Once he made sure everyone had read it, he burned it.
"So when are we going to start?" I then asked, since I wasn't paying much attention to him.
"We'll start our invasion in three days." He said, but on the tablet he wrote in our native language, "tomorrow".
'Isn't he a bit too paranoid? We've been here for a couple of months and never encountered any big problems.'
"This is getting on my nerves." Said Alex.
Suddenly, many tentacles appeared out of his body and started spreading all throughout the tent. They were expanding slowly and moving around just as slowly until we heard someone gasping. Then they started moving violently in all directions, capturing many of the people who were eavesdropping.
"Giovanni, I'll leave the rest to you." He said.
Giovanni activated his wings to fly high in the sky, then activated his little rings that created projections of his limbs, crushing every survivor that escaped Alex's first attack.
Many soldiers came to us, worried by the sudden attack. Alex chose one of them at random and approached him.
"Do you know him?" pointing at one of the few captured. He had black hair, a scar across his face that blinded one of his eyes, and one of his ears was missing, as well as some of his fingers. He also had tusks.
"Yes sir!" The soldier responded.
"Does he have a family?" Marcello inquired.
"N-no sir-" He couldn't finish his sentence because Alex crushed him with one of his tentacles.
At that point, Alex picked a few among them while Giovanni was busy calming the others.
"Now we know who'll check our food tonight." I said it jokingly.
The previous food tester had died recently, so we executed a good part of the royal faction as well as the republican faction, which is why they ended up declaring war on the kingdom that decided to side with us.
It was something bound to happen, since the king would have used that excuse to execute them anyway. At least we got our revenge before departing to finish our real mission. But it seems the royal faction doesn't fully trust us and tries to get rid of us from time to time.
'This time he's going a bit overboard; there's no need to execute everyone in our way; we just need to incapacitate them till the end of the stage, so that their blood isn't on our hands.'
Before I could finish reorganizing my thoughts, the soldiers had already brought some girls before us.
'Wha–'
"These are the girls they usually frequent. We noticed some time ago that they sneaked into our camp and-"
My brother became enraged to the point where he lost control of his tentacle and squeezed the spies to death.
"And you tell me this now? If they were spies as well, they might have sabotaged our operation. How do you intend to take responsibility in this case?" He was seething. I could see the vein in his neck getting bigger and bigger. Behind him, the tentacles had disappeared, and a massive demon was standing in their place.
"I am deeply sorry, sir, next-" He was decapitated in place.
"If you have something to confess now, it's the perfect time. If I discover anything new, I'm prepared to haunt you for the rest of your pathetic and insignificant life. WAS I CLEAR ENOUGH!"
There were a few suspicious reports, but no serious problems had emerged at the time.
"I don't really want to get out of here. I still have yet to experience a real blade dancer yet." I said to my brother.
"I'm sorry, but since I cannot guarantee your safety, I decided that our priority is clearing the stage as soon as possible." He answered while creating many weird symbols on his body.
"We're sorry if we got in your way of enjoying a top-tier prostitute." Said Giovanni sarcastically.
"Ha ha ha, very funny... You should be a comedian. " I replied, clapping my hands.
"Thanks! It was unfortunate that I was a bit lacking in my looks; otherwise, I might even have dethroned you back-"
"Shut it." My brother stopped us by punching Giovanni away and putting me to the ground, as well as putting me in a chokehold.
After tapping his thighs three times, he let me go.
"Boss, you should stop spoiling your brother." asked Marcello.
"Are you telling me how to raise him?"
"No, I wouldn't dare, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to interact with him due to your overprotectiveness."
My brother stood still for a moment, thinking about it, then said
"We'll talk about this later. Now we must concentrate on completing the stage."
PoV John
I woke up in the middle of the sky, floating thanks to Kane's magic abilities. Kane would usually fly in circles around big skyscrapers, all the way to the tip, and then dive towards the ground.
'Where are we headed to?'
As soon as I tried to move around, I felt intense pain in my back. My legs were a bit numb, and my neck was incredibly stiff.
Nina was still knocked out, Manni was giggling by himself, and Marcus was orbiting around us.
'Why is he flying around us?'
I felt a bit guilty when I saw Nina. She was still unconscious. At the same time, I felt a bit angry at her for using magic in our duel.
It wasn't against the rules, but at the same time, it wasn't completely ethical to do so. I realized it after her knee strike.
After some time, we finally reached our destination. It was a very specific subway station. It was a lot bigger than usual, and it was the meeting point of many of the routes that that city has. Above it, there was a shopping center that was now completely raided.
I had to swallow my saliva for what I saw next, and then I felt like I was suffocating. Many corpses were on the ground; many of them had bled out, while others probably died of hunger.
"What the-" was Kane's reaction. He was a bit shocked to see all of that.
Manni puked, and so did Marcus.
He then made us wait outside while he was searching for something inside. Marcus was tightly hugging Manni, and Nina was still unconscious, while Manni was still trembling for what he had been. When Kane returned, he was dragging one of those capsules that were often used for hyper-realistic games, along with a small girl with dark hair.
She was extremely small, maybe six or seven years old, extremely slim, sickeningly so, and completely dried up. She had barely any energy to open her eyes for a couple of seconds at a time. She had many bruises all over her body. Her face was swollen, and her body was covered in black spots. The mere fact that she was able to breathe was a miracle in my eyes.
I don't know what Kane really did, but it made the air difficult to breathe as well as heavy. It felt like we were being pushed towards the ground with every inch of our bodies. Manni started coughing. Marcus didn't seem affected by it. I started breathing, and Nina woke up. She didn't appear to be bothered by it.
Soon after, a portal appeared in front of us, and Daniel walked out of it. He was pissed at first, but as soon as he saw the little girl, he rushed to cover her with his slime-healing, whatever that is.
"What have you done? What happened?" Asked Daniel in their language.
"I didn't do anything, I (Incomprehensible stuff) dead, mother." He responded.
At that moment, I saw Nina's face go from a slight confusion or irritation to a pale state. It was probably an extreme state of pity combined with sadness.
We returned immediately after. As soon as we set foot in our home, Kane stormed outside and flew away while Daniel and Nassus were taking care of the little girl. I felt a bit stranded walking in my own home. I didn't know what to do or where to go. The others probably felt the same, as we were simply walking around the almost empty complex without doing anything specifically. We would often pass by Daniel's room where the girl was resting, then take a sneak peek at her condition and go back to roam somewhere else before repeating the entire process.
Daniel, after creating the cocoon, had gone to cook a stew for her while Nassus was using his magic to keep her stable. Manni remained outside, sitting at the entrance near the capsule Kane had just brought us.
That night, we all dined at the same table. It was a rare occurrence to see all of them dining at the same time. They were interested in the little girl and were analyzing her.
She was a bit shy, had trouble eating, and would start crying occasionally. She was inconsolable; she wouldn't talk to anybody and was extremely lethargic. We didn't talk much during dinner. Nina was the only one that was constantly trying to get her to talk. After a couple of tries, I gave up. Same for Marcus. Manni tried to be a little more friendly, cracking a few jokes and showing her his collection of games.
She threw up often, and every time Daniel would return with a lighter meal, Kane would help her eat and use a bit of magic to help her digest the food. Still, it was a constant thing that happened at intervals of usually two to three hours.
Kane was the only person she ever showed affection to, and he often let her sit on his shoulders. When he wasn't around, she would cry in a corner and ignore whoever tried to console her.
I pitied her at first, but now the only thing I could feel was mild annoyance, so I left.
One week passed and she showed no progress; two weeks passed and she was still locked up in Kane's room; three weeks... She got her own room. She still locked herself inside the room. Four weeks later, there was still no progress. One month later, I had given up on ever seeing her again, but Kane formally presented her during one of his lessons, and from that point on, she joined our family.
PoV Maxim
Scaling the walls was an easy task for me. Activating my marks has become way easier since we came to this place. Giovanni was having a bit of a hard time. His left side of the wall was a bit more frail and prone to crumbling, so he was climbing with pieces of rocks that would get stuck in his marks, making the process of climbing much harder.
There were many soldiers that needed to be taken down in order for us to claim their defensive walls; from that point on, controlling the many gates would've been a non-issue. To do so, we divided ourselves into many smaller groups; our objective was to isolate the few zones that had some sort of bell or alarm system.
One of our companions used his mark to summon over a couple hundred snakes that quickly poisoned the guards inside, and we would finish off any suspecting enemy.
Once we reached the top, we found a group of soldiers talking among themselves. They were happy because they received the news that we would attack in three days. One of them had brought some drinks, accompanied by some loaves of bread.
"Maxim, switch to your blades." Whispered Giovann
After carefully securing my grip on the walls, I switched. The tentacles disappeared, and flying blades appeared instead. Eight of them, to be exact. This had to be a quick job since if anyone saw the blades killing the guard, we wouldn't have more than ten minutes before the enemy was on us.
'This was too easy; is there something I'm missing?'
As my mark changed form, so did the tentacles. They became blades the size of a tower shield. I carefully made them move in very dark or out-of-the-way spaces, then decapitated them all at once. We then climbed over the wall and threw the corpses outside.
"Remember to open the gate; do not break it, or it might kill us all once the reinforcements come." Giovanni said before unleashing his snakes.
They were extremely small, the size of a pinky, yet they were as fast as one of those small species of six-legged lizards, and they were venomous. The drawback to his ability was that he wasn't able to switch until at least one of them had physically returned to his body, and the switch would be weakened depending on the amount gathered. In other words, he had now become useless.
In terms of fighting capabilities, he was not much of a fighter. He barely knew how to punch properly when he came to this world.
"South Gate, as fast as possible." He said.
The gate was being guarded by a small group of soldiers. Unlike most of the soldiers, who barely had any armor and were mostly equipped with farming tools, they had proper armor, a shortsword, and a shield. They were all poisoned and were holding their throats as they were suffocating to death.
Once we entered the tower that was over the gate, we found the mechanism to lift the gate, but before we could even lift it, the sound of a loud bell startled me.
"Shit! I'll lift the gate, go, and protect the entrance, Maxim."
I immediately went outside to see, and I saw the entire fortress waking up and rushing to prepare themselves against the intruders. There were a few that had already climbed and were charging at our location.
Everyone got distracted as Alex emitted a strong light in the middle of the night. That was probably the signal for the army to march in. The distraction was short-lived, as my brother decided to stop his light and land on the other side of the wall, so that both entrances were covered. I noticed that most of the snakes were heading back to us.
I sent most of my blades to kill the soldiers stationed on the walls, but most of them parried them.
I then tried to concentrate the blades on my nearest enemy. I aimed them at both his legs, head, back, and chest. He managed to block only the one aiming at his chest but was later killed by the rest of the blades. I quickly recalled the blades, but they were intercepted halfway. A group of masked men managed to run on the walls and kick away all the blades before they could return to my side.
'God damn Giovanni, you left the big ones alive!'
They managed to keep advancing, blocking, kicking, and punching away the blades. One of them lost his legs after punching down one of the blades that was aimed at his chest.
I activated a second mark as soon as I was in range of their abilities, as I was one of the few who could do so. One of them threw a knife at me. I blocked it with one of my many tentacles, then made them attack wildly all around me while my blades rained down on them.
They had an inhuman precision in each of their strikes; every punch, every elbow, and every kick always landed on the part of the blade without the edge. With each strike, they were able to seriously damage my blades and my body, as both are linked to one another.
One of them, despite all of that chaos, managed to reach me unscathed. I tried to strike him with one of the nearest tentacles I had, but he managed to sidestep it and unsheathe his blade. Just as I was about to get cut in half, something hit him from above and made a hole in his body.
"Maxim, are you ok?" It was my brother's voice.
"Look at yourself. You're full of wounds already. That's why I wanted you to stay back. Why can't you just listen to me?" He said this before hugging me.
The sound of a horn being played was covering the voices of the many soldiers that were cursing at us. They were careful. One out of every three men was carrying a torch. Most of them were wearing red vests and were singing the national anthem while charging at us.
While charging, some of them got attacked by the returning snakes, so they started prioritizing those, giving me enough time to turn off the tentacle ability and launch the blades at them. I aimed at the only person who was wearing full-plated red armor.
Without even looking at it, he dodged the first blade. He turned away and sidestepped the second one. He grabbed a nearby curved sword, the only one that didn't have a double edge on it, and cut the third blade in half.
"WHAT!" I shouted as my arm almost split in two.
'No one was able to damage our marks up until now. What the hell is this? I better retrieve all the blades and focus all my energy into healing, otherwise I might bleed to death!'
As I was thinking of a way to fight him, my brother pulled out his wings and charged at him at maximum speed. I used the seven remaining blades to shield him from any arrows directed at him.
He rapidly switched from wings to two massive armored arms. With the one on his left, he punched the soldier, while the one on his right was sweeping, grabbing, and squishing whoever was unfortunate enough to stand less than 40 meters away from him.
The red soldier managed to block the attack but was buried underground in the process. My brother then grabbed him and launched him high into the sky. He switched abilities once more. This time, he created many dragon heads from his left arm that extended their necks to reach and attack the flying soldier.
He tried to cut them off, but he couldn't move properly in mid-air and was ultimately attacked in his blind spot. The creatures then coiled around him, blocking his limbs, and only then would they start to slowly eat him alive.
The soldiers tried to intervene by attacking my brother, but I simply made it impossible by making the blade rotate around him. Giovanni finally managed to get most, if not all, of his snakes back because he also switched marks. He started using his wings to fly up and monitor the situation as well as capture any eventual messenger that escaped.
Meanwhile, the army led by Marcello had finally arrived. For some reason, all the soldiers were covered in mud and were barely wearing any armor. They seemed exhausted, but we had the advantage. Plus, their defense had been breached. My brother was in the middle of the enemy camp and was causing as much chaos as he could. Most of the elite and magical soldiers had been poisoned in their sleep. This was the perfect invasion.
As soon as he managed to get inside, Marcello switched from his usual mount ability to his armor. He would then make his way through the enemy line using mainly brute force. He took a sword from the ground and recklessly swung it with all his might. As soon as it broke, he took one of the many axes that were lying on the ground.
The skirmish didn't last long before the enemy decided to surrender. My brother then proceeded to mercifully execute them all. He doesn't seem to have any remorse for killing them, something that Giovanni seems haunted by every night.
'I honestly don't get why he is so affected by it? He just needs to convince himself that this is just a hyper-realistic simulation; we had a bunch of those back home, although they were heavily censored for obvious reasons.'
As I was forming my thoughts, Giovanni returned. He seemed to be in a rush. He had sweated a lot and was breathing heavily. He grabbed me by my left arm and dragged me in front of my brother. He was resting, using his tentacles to heal small cuts that were all over his body.
"What's going-"
"They betrayed us... The royal army is marching towards us. They're five days away from here. We should-" He said this, pointing at the south on a map nearby.
My brother got up and started walking around in circles while Giovanni gave us his detailed report of what he saw.
" Damn it! We were almost done, but now this? How are we even supposed to kill them? I'm sure they have over a dozen escape routes, plenty of skilled warriors at their side, and a whole lot more soldiers to wear us down! If by any chance we managed to poison their water supply, we could probably weaken their—no, that's impossible; how about hiring?—the only possible solution is to abandon our men and head to the capital by flying above the clouds; we'll strike them at night when they least expect it." He was thinking out loud.
"What do you think?" He then asked us.