Luna bent over with her hands on her knees and took a breath as she pushed her falling few black strands and one white from her long amber-colored hair tied into a high bun back over her long and pointy ears.
She stood up and watched the snaking line of young and old people carrying what little possessions they had left slowly coming out of the forest filled with gigantic trees and plant life as they stepped onto the pitch black dead earth filled with death mana with the outermost trees and plant life blackened from it.
Then she turned around and she could see the infamous pitch-black city of the dead in the distance.
"Huh? Where are all of the undead shouldn't this place be crawling with them?"
Arthur asked with surprise after walking close to Luna because he was fully expecting to see thousands of undead walking aimlessly around the city and upon spotting them start attacking them with gusto.
"That man must have exterminated all of them already."
Luna with a fresh curved scar running down her left eye through her cheekbone muttered under her breath unsurely because after all there was no guarantee that he did and the truth was that the reason she couldn't see them was that the undead were busing tearing down the city's wall but because of the distance she couldn't see it.
"No, I still sense their unholy presence but it's weird I also sense a ting of holiness in it."
Merlin a purebred elven druid with a wizards pointy hat and robes who looked like to be in his fifties but was actually much older than that to be exact he was already over 1000 years old who during his search for the prophesied holy land saved Luna and her pack then the 98 heavy infantry legion surrounded them and almost killed them all chipped in.
"So what are your orders alpha Luna do we march into the city or...?"
Arthur trailed off because there was really no other choice but to march to the city since the legions scouts were rapidly catching up to them.
Luna wasn't sure what to do either so she remained silent as she considered her course of action only for the screaming of people and cold weapons clashing mixed with the sounds of horses iron plated hooves hitting the ground to ring out from inside the forest.
"Master Merlin, please lead the people towards the city of the dead if the crones weren't lying we will find salvation there."
Luna said as she took off her greatsword from her back while Arthur pulled out his sword which was a family heirloom that his father gave him before running off to fight the empire's soldiers with Eclipse from its halbert hanging from his leather belt on the left side.
"I will I can still do that."
Merlin said allowing Luna and Arthur to sprint back into the forest with superhuman speed.
Tch! That wretched alchemist to think that he use such a sinister poison on me.
Marlin cursed in his mind as he started encouraging the people to pick up pace as he clutched his stomach where the still not fully healed wound from a poisoned crossbow bolt from all those years ago.
Despite him using his own eleventh-order healing magic on himself and countless high-level rare healing potions was starting to bleed again from him picking up pace himself.
The reason for that was because the terrifying poison in his body was powerful enough to poison a dragon that had seeped into his every cell and was slowly killing him from within the only reason why he is still alive after all those years is because he is a druid that cultivates life mana that is constantly regenerating his dying cells.
So because he used up all the spare life mana and potions he had to save Luna and her pack he currently was no better than an old mortal man with his staff made from a Yggdrasil branch.
That he used as a walking stick heck he couldn't even cast a simple first-order healing spell now, that's why Luna didn't ask him to help fight the empire's scouts.
...
"Fucking goddamn green skins!"
Lilith in her all-black mark 2 exoskeleton armor which was covered from head to toe in goblin's green blood that had mostly dried off by now.
Cursed under her breath as she sat at the edge of alpha bats opened side with her legs dangling in the air with her safety cable preventing her from falling out from the gunship.
While the horrifying things she witnessed inside the cave that they found which contained limestone one of the main ingredients of gunpowder plagued her mind.
The massive cave was inhabited by a horde of wild goblins which didn't come as a surprise to her since she already knew about them courtesy of the dwarves.
The intel on them was that all goblins are males so they need other species of females to reproduce that's why they are so highly aggressive and act like barbarians.
At first, after killing all the adults and entering deeper into the cave she wasn't planning on killing the goblin children because of her motherly instincts that weren't blocked.
Because she wasn't on DAM since there was no need for it, the goblins with their bone weapons and a few rusty iron ones couldn't harm them at all.
But after seeing the pregnant elves with their limbs broken and covered in festering wounds staring aimlessly at the cave's ceiling with their blank eyes getting raped by those said children as if they were some kind of sex toys.
She changed her mind she didn't even bother wasting her ammo, she just squashed their heads with her fists and feet and after she was done she mercy-killed the females.
Which overall left a bad taste in her mouth and she had her suspicions about why, she was going to visit Natasha and confirm it.
"ETA till base 2 mins."
Came Yin's voice as it did the forest beneath her disappeared and the scene of Luna and others fighting the mounted imperial scouts in legioneers armor appeared.
Lilith's view immediately enlarged and she could see that old men and young boys whose beards hadn't grown out yet were doing their best to protect the fleeing people behind them.
"Senior Lieutenant Yin stop the gunship! Jack contact the HQ tell them that we need backup! The rest of you wake the fuck up and put on your war faces we got some civies who need saving!"
Lilith roared into Yins and her platoon's communication channel making the sleeping jarheads in their seats wake up at once.
"Yes, mam!"
Jack replied as he started contacting the HQ while Yin after giving the order to bat one and two turned around her gunship.
"Bravo to Hotel Quebec we spotted civies who are being attacked by unknown hostiles on our way back and were going to engage them requesting backup over!"
"Hotel Quebec to Bravo understood the rapid response force is on their way ETA 10 mins over!"
"Bravo copy over!"
"Commander Lilith, I'm going perform a strike run jump out from the back!"
"Understood!"
"You heard the woman get your asses up and prepare to jump!"
"Yes, mam!"
The second squad all equipped in black exoskeleton armor with skull paint jobs covered in goblin's blood answered in unison as they stood up and disconnected their safety cables just like Lilith while the happy-go-trigger gunners equipped in their old gear who were manning the miniguns started grinning evilly.
...
As Luna swung her greatsword sideways and decapitated a charging at her rider in half with her sword slicing easily through his gray steel legioneers armor thanks to her superhuman strength.
She looked up to the sky only to see three strange flying monster start spewing out fire and smoke making the ground beneath them rise into the air while the riders together with their armored warhorses that got into their line of fire got turned into bloody meat chunks.
Tratatatatataat...!
As they finished their killing spree and started climbing into the sky she saw 40 soldiers jump out from their backs and land heavily on the ground creating craters and making the ground around them crack as dirt rose into the sky.
Bang!BangBang!...
Phewphephewphew...
As these thunderous noses rang out the same that the flying monsters made but much quieter the empire's soldiers started falling down dead one by one with fist-sized holes in their chests.
Suddenly Luna felt something hot fly past her left side at an extremely fast speed to the point that her cheek started burning only to hear something crash behind her with a heavy thud.
She looked back only to see a dead rider with its head gone lying lifelessly on the ground which was greedily absorbing its blood.
Luna turned back and she saw Lock the second squad's alpha groups sniper with a skull paint job and a white bullseye around his right bloodred glowing round visor give her a thumbs up.