All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 273: Kingdom Come + Book 2 Announcement

"Uh." Tony looked at me with confusion in his eyes. "I'm your paladin. Paladin of Spot."

Ah, that's cool. They named a class after me. That was cute.

"I think a good portion of our army is actually a similar class." Arthur chimed in. "Though with how much you've been involved in the church, I wouldn't be surprised if you get a more unique class upgrade at 50."

Susan nodded. "I have some Rangers of Spot working under me."

Beatrice perked up by that. "Oh, that wasn't an option I received. I did notice that there's a few other class choices that people have. A few Priests, Paladins, Rangers, someone even got Baker of Spot. I'm not really sure how that works, but it's interesting to see."

I was surprised. It was interesting that the system still called me Spot, even when everyone else called me Void. How did it know my real name? I mean, I'd never exactly hit it, but still. It was nice to be reminded of home.

"All right, everyone, focus," Arthur said, bringing everyone's attention back to the present. "It's time to head in. The rank and file have the castle perimeter secured, but we'll need to break past enemy lines to get into the keep."

"Right." Beatrice nodded. "The demons don't seem like they're letting up, but they have to be coming from somewhere. We need to find out who's controlling them. These demons are more organized than they should be, especially considering how low level they are. They shouldn't be able to make decisions that are anywhere near this strategic. So I'm assuming something's either summoning them or controlling them, possibly both. We need to get in there and stop it. That'll help minimize the casualties more than any front-line fighting we could do."

Tony raised his hand. "Are you sure they just weren't hiding inside already? Because they don't look very organized to me." He indicated a group of demons swarming a particularly well-defended section of the army with frenzied and random strikes. To be honest, I agreed with him. These things certainly didn't seem very smart to me.

"True, it doesn't look organized, but none of them are attacking each other," Beatrice shrugged. "That means something's clearly controlling them."

"I wasn't aware that infighting amongst demons was a thing," Susan said.

Beatrice nodded. "Yeah. Normally it's not within the same species, but there's enough different types here that there should be some regional conflicts, at least. Based on the demonology that I've read something more powerful needs to be keeping them in check for them to be acting like this."

"Any idea on a level range?" Arthur asked.

"Level 50 plus," Bee said. "It could be something like an archdemon or a general. Maybe even something more powerful."

"Well, if Lord Void is coming, I'm sure we will prevail." Arthur said.

With that, we finally reached the front lines of the army. Soldiers locked their shields together, stabbing spears and swords into the tide of oncoming foes to slowly push them back. As we approached, we squeezed between a few squads and emerged into the torrent of oncoming demons.

As soon as we were through, we made a break for the doors of the keep. Out here in the open, we could easily get surrounded, but hopefully, the castle's corridors would mean fewer directions to defend from. I trusted my humans to take care of themselves, but I diverted a bit more power to my predictive modeling just in case. That way, I'd be prepared for anything that could genuinely threaten them.

Our fighting style was extremely different from the army's. Arthur and Tony took the lead, physically slamming the slightly smaller demons aside with their shields and weapons. Susan flitted around behind, quickly moving in and out of danger and taking advantage of any opportunities that the two men in front gave her to keep them off their backs. Beatrice wielded her broom with vicious accuracy to pick off any targets that tried to catch the others unawares.

However, I noticed she wasn't fighting much at all. She was holding back. Was she saving energy or something else? When she reached forward to smear some ointment on Tony's back, I realized, oh yeah, that's right, she can repair people. It was an incredibly useful skill to have.

I, of course, was not entirely idle. It wasn't a ton of work for me, but I kept all the flying enemies off us as I watched for other threats. Hundreds of flaming explosive bats tried to dive bomb us, but I carefully timed my laser applications when their arcing paths would take them into the swarm of demons rather than our own people. Sadly, it was less efficient than just wiping them all out at once. But that would take too long, and we might have to deal with them landing on us.

Stolen ; please report.

We barely slowed down when we hit the doors of the castle. Arthur's sword caught flame for a second before he slashed the doors open. Together, we barreled into a large and ornately decorated room. Its beautifully tiled stone floors and marble pillars reminded me of the summoning room back at our own castle, aside from the swarm of demons that threatened to scratch every surface, though. That simply wouldn't do.

They turned toward our group and snarled, baring their teeth. A moment later, a hulking form pushed its way through the smaller demons, blocking the way further into the castle. It tilted its boarlike head back and roared to the sky. Terrible flames lit up in its beady eyes as sharp teeth gnashed loudly as it evaluated us. All in all, the thing seemed pretty ugly. contemporary romance

Arthur charged forward, slamming his shield into the massive form and shoving it a step back. Its arm came around and attempted to club Arthur's unprotected side. But before it connected, a brief shimmer of light rose from Arthur's side, stopping the blow midway through and allowing him to jump back.

The boar demon roared in anger as its giant, club-like appendages started to rain down fierce blows upon Arthur's shield. I would have intervened, but I didn't need to. It didn't take long before Susan appeared, gripping the beast's ear as she stood on its back. Her dagger slid into its shoulder over and over again with the ease of a duster slipping between dirty blinds.

The thing shook, throwing her off, but not before the damage was done. Blood began to pour out of its wounds, making a mess on the floor. One that I promptly remedied with a swipe of my Mop. Tony appeared on the other side from Susan, swinging his hammer at the heel of the monster and sending it to one knee. As it crumpled, Arthur then ran its head through.

I knew I had nothing to worry about. In fact, my sensors informed me that Beatrice had not even fought; instead, she raced after Susan and was currently slaughtering a dozen small demons who had tried to jump on her as she stumbled back to her feet, shaking her head. Once Beatrice had fought off the assault, she removed another stick of balm from her belt and applied it quickly to Susan's head and arm. The woman's eyes cleared in 2.31 seconds as her arm straightened from its previously awkward position.

I watched them work for a couple of seconds, trying to understand how I could fit into the team dynamics. They were doing well, and I didn't want to disrupt their flow, after all. But seeing that they had things mostly in hand, I just zipped ahead of them a little bit and started clearing out the massive amount of demons waiting in the hall to ambush whoever came inside.

Spinning with my laser. I also touched the ones close to me using my Mop, drying them out to the point where they crumbled into dust at a touch. I considered bringing out my Divine Sword, but there was nothing even worth using it on. Nothing had defenses that could stand up to my Sanitation Lamp or my Mop at close range.

By the time the group handled the big demon, most of the smaller demons had already been cleaned up. I continually funneled their remains into my dustbin as I hovered in the air. The constant stream of transmuted energy was more than enough to fuel this little rampage of ours. Things were going quite well.

Less than a minute after we entered the hall, we regrouped in the center of it. Heading deeper into the palace, we battled against a constant tide of weaker demons, though "battling" might have been a generous term for it. It really felt like we were simply sweeping them aside as we traveled. We met more resistance on occasion, but nothing nearly as intense.

Arthur mostly led the way, distracting and keeping the attention of the more powerful enemies, while Tony and Susan attacked from the sides and rear. Beatrice kept everyone healthy while also occasionally getting in some powerful damage if anyone else was having trouble. At the same time, she would sometimes use some of her alchemy supplies to hit critical weak points when necessary. Really, it was fun to watch. I got to focus on the most important duty of all: clean-up.

As I reached the entryway of what appeared to be the throne room, my sensors picked up something approaching from the side. A massive demon with thin, spindly legs wearing what looked to be the mockery of a clean suit.

Beatrice spoke up for the first time, warning everyone. "Watch out! That's an archfiend! It's got to be at least level 60."

It let out a screech that completely peaked my microphone. The humans all clapped their hands over their ears. The archfiend straightened to its full height of 11.52 feet as its minions heeded its call. Unreasonably large numbers of strong demons raced towards it. I could hear them thundering through the halls of the palace as they converged on our position, but our party recovered swiftly. Beatrice quickly touched everyone, and they let go of their ears.

Looking around, I realized that Susan had disappeared. I didn't notice where she went, which was strange since I had specific scripts responsible for keeping track of each person. Suddenly, she reappeared in my sensors' range behind the demon, her dagger making a few quick cuts to the back of its legs and eliciting another keening screech. Before it could react, she dove for its head. It turned and swatted her aside, but somehow, she managed to get her other dagger in the way of his claws, catching them and simply skidding backward a few feet. She didn't even lose her balance.

Beatrice ran ahead of Arthur and Tony, thrust out her palm, and screamed something. A blast of sand and grit flung out in a cone directly centered on the demon's chest; the mockery of a clean suit was shredded off of its body, and its flesh soon followed. All of this before I needed to actually intervene.

Tony and Arthur came from the sides, hacking at the archdemon as it flailed and screeched in pain. In a matter of moments, the thing was defeated. The party stood there, catching their breath for a short moment,

I was quite proud of their progress. I barely had to do anything here. All I really needed to do was watch and make a few precision strikes to keep everyone safe. Something that was even easier now that I could make invisible barriers. But they were all doing fantastically well and hopefully getting all the experience and levels for themselves. All of them, especially Susan and Tony, had grown so much since I first met them that I couldn't be more proud.

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