The androgynous voice hurriedly replied. "I still can't detect anything. A village like this should not have the spells to block my detection. This should not be possible."
She started running towards the direction where she though she heard the faint cry coming from. "Try searching for souls instead. Some of the souls of the dead should still be lingering around, but you should be able to tell the difference between a living soul and a dead one."
The androgynous voice took its time to reply, and she could not hear the cry anymore. "I got something. That half collapsed building to your left. It's hazy as if shrouded by something, but I think I could sense a living soul inside." The voice finally replied.
She had left the detection spells to the androgynous voice simply because that wasn't her specialty and the owner of the voice was very good at it. As she rushed into the house and used her magic to support the crumbling building, she came into a fairly large room with a body in the center of the floor. The body belonged to an old and disfigured woman. The body had not been disfigured by the attackers; rather they were old wounds from a long life. The woman had been killed with one strike to the heart, by an angel's blade judging by the wound.
She looked around the room but couldn't find any sign of the child whose voice she had heard. "I need a little help here."
"Give me a second." The androgynous voice replied. "Whoa! Whoever hid the child did a great job of it. I had to forcefully break the spell. Look under the floor next to the corpse."
She rushed next to the body of the old woman. Now that she knew where to look, she could see some of the blood running unnaturally towards something under the floor. As she removed the floorboards, she could finally see a small bundle soaked in the old woman's blood slightly twitching, making the faintest breathing sounds. The baby had been hidden for a while, and would have died in hours if she had not come along.
She fed some of her magic to the baby, trying to heal any wounds and diseases, and to provide the baby with some strength. Once she was certain the baby had enough strength to survive for a while, she laid a finger on the baby's forehead and delved inside the baby with her senses, trying to find if there was any damage she had missed. She withdrew her senses as if in recoil almost immediately. "What is going on here?"
She used some gentle air magic to clear some of the blood off the baby and looked stunned for a moment. This baby clearly didn't belong in this village. The foxlike face and white fur of the baby became clear once the blood and soot was removed. There were no races like this baby on this world. She looked at the magical symbols around the hiding place of the baby. The symbols were carved into the stone walls of the small cubbyhole. This was not something created in a hurry just before the attack, and the spells were foreign to this world. She recognized them though.
"What's wrong?" The androgynous voice asked, clearly confused by her reaction.
"Give me a few seconds to piece this together." She replied, while staring thoughtfully at the symbols.
Suddenly she turned towards the corpse of the old woman, and turned it around to get a better look. The old woman had hidden it well with magic, but she was clearly not a demi-human. This was a pureblood devil. The woman had lost her right arm at some point, cleanly cut off at the shoulder. There were numerous old but already healed battle scars on her body, and the woman had managed to lose an eye at some point in the past.
"They usually had a tattooed insignia on their right shoulder, but this one has lost that shoulder. By design I suspect." She mumbled to herself.
"You're not thinking..?" The androgynous voice asked, clearly knowing where she was going with this thought.
"One way to find out." She replied, putting a finger on the woman's forehead delving inside the corpse. Delving dead bodies was not a pleasant experience, but she knew what she was looking for, and found it immediately. There it was, a dormant magical insignia inscribed on the now dead heart of the old woman. A magical insignia that said a lot about the old woman's origins.
"Is she really…?" The androgynous voice asked with trepidation.
"Yes. She was once a member of the Hounds of War, the elite unit serving the thirteen hells." She replied, still trying to piece together what was going on.
"What was one of the Hounds doing in a backwater place like this? I thought all their members died either when the thirteen hells were destroyed, or during the first years of the purge. One would think the angels would make a priority out of hunting them down." The androgynous voice wondered.
"I'm guessing it has something to do with this baby." She replied quietly.
"The baby? Why would one of the Hounds care about a baby? I would understand if she was the child of one of the lords of the hells, but the hells fell several years ago and that baby can't be more than a few months old." The androgynous voice questioned.
"I don't think that's the reason. When I delved the baby, I noticed a few weird things. Firstly, there's a reason why we didn't detect any mana from her. She's a psion, and thus has no mana or ki. Secondly, I couldn't determine her race." She replied thoughtfully.
The more she thought about it, the more certain she became that the old Hound was here to protect and hide the baby. There seemed to be no other purpose to hide in such a remote world, and the Hound seemed like she died without a fight, simply trying to avoid anything happening to the baby. That was not normal behavior for the elite unit that had claimed countless lives during the war, innocent and otherwise.
"A psion? Well that explains it, I suppose. Psions use their own form of power instead of mana or ki, which would make her hard to detect. Psions are extremely rare, but that hardly qualifies as something important enough for perhaps the last Hound to sacrifice her life over. The baby looks like a fox demon of sorts though, so I have no idea what kind of trouble you could have with recognizing her race?" The androgynous voice replied with slight confusion in its voice.
"She may look like a fox demon on the outside, but that's not what I sensed inside her. She seemed like a mix of several races. I could detect at least five for certain, but I suspect there's more. Those five are simply the dominant ones. It didn't seem like a natural mix from breeding either. Someone made her that way on purpose. The only reason she looks like a fox demon of some kind is because the other races are still dormant inside of her." She explained her vague feelings. It was difficult to delve a psion, because the psionic power naturally repelled the delving. She could force it, but that would hurt the child.
"Someone made her like that? What other races are inside her? And perhaps more importantly, for what purpose?" The androgynous voice questioned.
"I'm almost certain that someone went through a lot of time and effort to make her as she is. Time, effort and a lot of power. As long as the other races remain dormant, I can't identify them without being too forceful, and that could kill the baby. As for the purpose, your guess is as good as mine." She replied.
"You're going to keep her aren't you? Not that I mind, but the angels already dislike you. Harboring a few demons is one thing, but this will surely piss them off if they find out." The androgynous voice pointed out.
"I asked for a survivor, and now we have one. I'm not going to throw her away after searching through all those fields of carnage and genocide. Whatever her origin may be, it is not her fault, and I wouldn't be any better than those fanatical angels if I threw her away." She felt some hope. Maybe this child would offer her a small chance at redemption.