As we got close to the northern wall, we hid nearby and observed the gate, waiting for it to clear out. With all the new quests released by the adventurer guild and the hefty rewards, there was almost a continuous stream of adventurers walking out the gate.
Around twenty or so minutes later, we finally saw our chance and I said: "All right, this is our chance. We will make a line and the ones in the back must be careful to not deviate from the person in front. Understood?", as I asked the last question I turned towards Velor who seemed a bit more simple minded than the rest.
Seeing everyone nod, we each grabbed on each other's waist, I cast the invisibility spell on all of us and we started moving towards the gate. It looked kind of silly but thankfully no one could see us or we would probably die of shame.
We walked slowly while I kept looking back to make sure no one will stumble upon something or touch someone, but no one did and we were soon past the gate. After guiding them a bit further away from the main road, I canceled the spell and everyone could finally see again.
"That was scary, but I'm glad it worked out." Exclaimed Lysa.
I nodded and said: "Now we should go as close as possible to the battlefield and tunnel underground from there."
Everyone agreed and we all started sprinting north. Once we reached one of the army camps, we decided to not risk getting spotted and I started creating a tunned about five or so meters underground.
Creating such a large tunnel and making sure it won't collapse was more tiring and time consuming that I expected, but we still managed to reach deep behind the enemy lines a day later. Once I let everyone know that we were in the center of the enemy camp, Lysa said to me:
"How's your mana? Can you fight or do you want to recover for a while?"
I checked my mana on my interface and noticed that I had around half of left. It was not that big of a problem since I still had 1000 mana stored inside the staff. After pondering for a while, I replied: "I can fight, but I think it would be better if I slept for a about three hours or so. That should bring me to my peak and it would be safer in case anything unexpected happens."
The others agreed and I created a small partition underground and went inside to rest. As I laid down and was getting ready to sleep Anise, came and sat down nearby.
"Was the person you met underground when you destroyed the magic circle the Grand Duke?" she asked while resting her head on her knees.
I opened my eyes and looked at her. Seeing her worried expression I replied: "Probably, but don't worry, he shouldn't have any way to figure out it was me who destroyed the circle."
She shook her head gently before saying: "I'm not worried about that. I'm worried what would happen if word got out that the imperial family was involved in something like that.."
"What do you mean?"
"The Onwell family has ruled the southern continent for as long as it's recorded in the history books. All their members have always been kind, fair and merciful, some people even calling them saints. Honestly, they are the support pillar of everyone in the continent, and now with the human-demon war, the need for that pillar of support is even greater than ever before. If word got out that a duke of the imperial family was devouring the souls of the people that died on the battlefield it would plunge the Empire into complete chaos, which will only serve to help the demons."
"Well, the circle is now gone and I don't plan on saying anything about it. There is no point on worrying about it since it's beyond our control."
"You're right, but I still can't stop thinking about it. I grew up reading and hearing about them as well. Can I stay here with you? I promise I'll be quiet."
"Of course you can. Come here." I replied and we both snuggled to sleep. Around three hours later, Ai woke me up since my mana was fully recovered.
Opening my eyes, I gently nudged Anise to wake up since she fell asleep as well, and we both walked out. Lysa and Velor were both awake, chatting softly, and it looked like they didn't sleep at all.
Looking towards them, I asked: "Are you guys ready?"
They nodded and I started raising the ground up together with us. I planned to make a platform where we could attack from without getting swarmed by the army. Once outside, we looked around and saw that the mindless demon army already started climbing on top of each other to reach our platform.
Lysa was the first one to attack, mana swirling wildly around her almost as soon as we got out. I noticed her eyes turning completely golden as a suffocating atmosphere spread around the platform. Raising her hand up, she created three fist sized golden spheres that kept hovering around her hand. Once the spheres took form, she waved her hand forward and launched them far off into the distance. At the start nothing happened, but soon a blinding light came followed by a huge explosion. The explosion probably ended up killing thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people.
Like she didn't want to get left behind, Anise also started channeling her mana and a ring of fire appeared surround the platform we were sitting on. The ring of fire started expanding slowly and burning out everything in our surroundings.
Since both of them attacked already, it seemed it was my turn next. With a thought, my Staff of the Eternal appeared in my right hand and I channeled all of my mana together with half of the mana stored inside the staff. The air all around started swirling, a huge hurricane slowly taking form. The fire ring created by Anise also started burning more fiercely thanks to the wind created by the hurricane and started following the wind currents, spinning together with them.
A fire hurricane soon took form and started growing larger and larger, completely blocking our sight on all sides. As Lysa and Velor were gawking at the endless fire raging all around, Anise, who was still relatively calm, said from the side:
"Are we safe here? It's already starting to get hot."
I nodded and replied: "The eye of the storm is basically the safest place one can be during such a hurricane. It might get a bit hot but I'll start cooling the air around if it gets too bad."
"All right." Replied Anise as she started looking carefully at the fire hurricane with a pondering look, like she was studying it.
Lysa came back to her senses as soon as my words ended and asked with a complicated gaze: "What about the people fighting on the battlefield, are you sure they won't be in danger?"
"The hurricane only has a radius of around five or six kilometers at the moment, it won't reach them."
"How far is the battlefield?"
"20 or so kilometers. The mana I supplied to the spell should end before it reaches a radius of 15 and the spell will slowly dissipate."
She nodded and sat down on the ground while continuing to stare at the storm. It took a total of over fifteen minutes for the hurricane to finally die down. Once it ended, ashes started raining down slowly from the sky over the now completely barren land, painting a picture of complete desolation.
"That spell is really terrifying." Mumbled Lysa.
I nodded and said: "When I decided to combine a wind hurricane with Anise's fire spell I never imagined it would end up being so powerful. We should start heading out before someone comes to check out what happened. I imagine the whole thing was visible even all the way inside the city."
Lysa nodded and I was about to start creating a tunnel underground when I noticed that Velor was still frozen on the spot with a fearful expression on his face. I walked up to him and place my hand on his shoulder while asking: "Are you all right?"
He jumped slightly and turned to look at me with a frightened expression. He looked like he wanted to say something but in the end just left to sit near his sister.
Letting out a sigh, I brought us underground inside the tunned we used to come here and we started heading back. As we were making our way back, Anise walked up close to me whispered: "Too bad I can't level up the same way that you do. I would have gathered a few good levels there. What level are you now?"
This reminded me that I didn't even check my level. After asking Ai, my status appeared in my vision.
[
Name: Ethan Knott
Age: Avatar 19;
Race: Avatar Human;
Experience: 321 653/450 000;
Health Points: 570/570;
Mana Points 122/810;
Level: 54;
Vitality: 57;
Strength: 60;
Dexterity : 58;
Intelligence: 81;
Resistance: 56;
26 free stat point
———
System Points: 102 382 120;
Spirit: 760 (Soul damaged);
]
'Ai, how the hell did I level up so much?'
[Your kill count reached over 8 million this time. Half of that experience was shared with Anise, but you still got 4 million kills worth of experience. ]
'So much? Too bad I didn't unlock the party function and lost half of that experience. With it, Anise would have reached over level 40 as well.'
I sighed and replied to Anise: "Level 54. I'm sorry."
"What are you apologizing for? It's good that you got stronger." She looked and sounded fine but I could see that she was still feeling bad about getting even further behind me in level.
I put my arm around her and brought her close as I said: "Don't worry. You'll catch up in no time." I planned on unlocking the party function as quickly as possible and help her level up as well. I only needed to find a warrior.
After taking a moment to pacify Anise, I looked behind and saw Lysa staring at Velor with worried look. Slowing my pace a bit, I came next to them and asked: "What's wrong Velor?"
Velor stopped an looked at me with conflicted eyes before saying: "I don't understand. How can you be so relaxed? You just murdered millions of people." As he started reprimanding me, his voice started getting louder and louder, in the end basically screaming: "Don't you feel guilty at all? They were not even adventurers or warriors, but normal humans with no fighting capabilities."
I sighed and was about to reply when a loud slapping sound was heard through the empty tunnel. Lysa put down her hand as she replied instead: "Didn't we set out to do just that? Didn't we conclude that this was the best choice? Did you think we're going to kill a handful of them each and go back home. Why are you putting all the blame on Ethan? He isn't the one who killed them, we did. All of us."
"But.." *Slap* Velor wanted to retort, but Lysa cut his short again with another slap. Velor looked like he was about to explode, when he looked at Lysa and noticed that tears started falling down her cheeks non-stop and he swallowed the words he was about to say.
"I'm sorry sis." Said Velor in a quiet voice as he lowered his head.
Lysa then turned towards me and surprised me by bowing while saying with tears still clearly falling clearly to the ground: "I'm sorry about his words."
I sighed and helped her up before saying:
"Why are you crying now? And why did you have to slap him? He's right. I was the one who murdered millions of people. And Velor, it's not that I don't feel bad about it, it's just.. complicated."
Normally I would have probably reacted the same way Velor did, but now I know this was the best choice if I wanted to save the world and keep Anise safe. The fact that I received the quests to destroy the magic circles and kill all those demons and demon controlled humans means that they are one of the reasons that lead to the world's destruction.
'If I let the demons recreate their circles and bring the war to a stalemate again it would have even made the situation worse. Like this, the humans can finally push the demons back. After loosing Senna, I didn't want to have any more regrets because of my 'stupid morals' as she would put it. I don't plan on going around killing randomly, but I won't give anyone the chance to take something from me again.' I said in my mind while clenching my fists.
[All of them would have probably ended up dead anyway and would have even taken others from the human's side with them. There is no need to fell bad about it.]
'Are you trying to console me, Ai? I see that I'm not the only one that has changed recently.'
[I'm just stating a fact.] replied Ai in an indifferent tone.
'Well, thank you anyway.'
[..]
"We all agreed on this from the start and are equally responsible for it." Said Lysa as she grabbed her brother by the arm and started walking ahead. She was obviously affected as well but she was a lot stronger than her brother.
Being left alone with Anise, she said to me:
"Are you really okay?"
I nodded and said: "I'm fine. I think I already got used to this world full of killing." Letting out another sigh, I grabbed Anise's hand and followed after Lysa and Valor. I already started coming to terms that this journey will involve a lot of killing..
The rest of the journey back was relatively quiet, each bothered with our own thoughts. Once we reached close to the city wall, we got out of the ground and headed towards the gate. As we got close, we were stumped by the amount of people waiting to get in. Since the gate was completely blocked, we had no other choice than to sit nearby and wait patiently for the queue to clear.
A couple of hours later, when we already started getting annoyed, I happen to spot a familiar face. I turned towards the others for a moment and said: "Wait here for a moment, I'm going to speak with someone."
Once the others agreed, I went towards a young man carrying two swords on his back.
"Hey Oliver. How are you?"
That's right. The young swordsman was Oliver Aranna, the one who told us about the Trials of the Eternal.
Oliver turned around confused before a smile appeared on his face as he said:
"Oh, hi Ethan. I was just returning to report the situation in my sector. I didn't know you were already in Bastion. Where's Anise?'
"She's resting a bit away from all the noise. I spotted you and came to say hi."
"I'm glad that you're both fine. What are you doing on this side of the wall? Did you join the war as well?"
"Something like that."
"I would love to chat with you some more but something happened and I need to deliver my report. How about we speak over some drinks inside the city?"
"With this queue it'll take a while to get in. Since you're with the military, do you have a way to get us faster inside?" I decided to try my luck since I really didn't feel like waiting for all this queue to finish.
"It must be because of the fire storm. Sure, go and bring Anise and I'll take you inside with me as part of my squad."
"We have two other members in our party. Is that okay?"
"Sure, but please hurry. I'm already late."
Nodding, I went back and relayed the news to the others. Overjoyed, they all followed after me and we walked up to Oliver.
Once we got close, both Lysa and Velor stopped in their tracks. Curious that their footsteps stopped, I turned back and saw a strange expression on both their faces. As I was about to ask, I heard Oliver say:
"Lysa, Velor, so this is where the two of you were hiding."