RD 5 Ch 12

The battle was a brutal sight dead bodies were piling up on either side. We had taken the field at no small risk, I felt a responcibility to make this count. If we could repell the army, perhaps we could get enough breathing room to do more than slowly lose ground.

Their stank of blood and the noise was a clatter of weapons, explosions of abilities and choatic shouting that made it impossible to organize the soldiers.

The demon general had begun to ignore me, instead cutting through my soldiers, creating a trail of blood. Our numbers were outstripped by the demons by far. Even if we had the wall and a level advantage on them, the general was a problem.

I roared, crashing into the demon army as I swirled my hand in the air, leaving a trail of blood. I activated Blood Hex, the curse  spread behind me before collapsing down on a patch of demons, increasing the gravity such that they were pinned and easy prey.

In my wake, soldiers took easy pot shots at the pinned demons. The area of the hex became an impromptu barrier for my soldiers to use as ranged casters were able to use it for protection.

Realizing what I could do, I created two more, nearby giving the group an even stronger battlement in the midst of the fight.

Jumping as a bleeding giant into the midst of the demon army, I spun showering hundreds with my bloods as Sanguine Locking blossomed into thorny vines that locked them in place for me to sweep through them.

So much blood flooded the ground that a small lake of it was forming and my Bloodrage Ascension was feeding off of it and extending its duration continiously.

Demons rushed me by the dozens only to add to the growing pool of blood.

A grin spread across my face, with this much destruction, I was going to be able to singlehandedly win the battle for my people. Their moral was skyrocketing seeing the destruction that I alone brought to the battlefield.

So, it was no surprise when the demon general found me once again. This time, he managed to sneak up and pierce his blade through my hand in a vain attempt to stop me. Making me bleed only gave me more opportunity.

Crimson red thorns of sanguine locking blossomed from his blade, chasing up and wrapping around his hands. This held him in place long enough for me to backhand him into the ground.

At the last second, he disappeared as if his entire body unraveled. The bandages scattered into the air and reformed on my shoulder where his blade found my throat before I had a chance to react. 

I swatted him off like the pest that he was and launched Sanguine Slashes at his airborne form while blood dripped down my shoulder.

The demon twisted, catching those on his blade and breaking the Sanguine Locking off his wrists. He had just enough freedom to glance down at the army and use an ability. He shot across the space, landing on Kal.

Before the man even realized he was in danger, his head rolled from his shoulders. Befitting Kal, even headless he made one last stab at the demon general.

The demon let out a cackling laugh as dark, gloomy air began to seep out of Kal's body. As he flipped away.

Immediately, there was a reaction in his men when the gloomy air touched them. Their eyes looked hollower, listless as if they had lost their hope and purpose with Kal's death.

The moral gauge in the corner of my vision dimmed and started losing ground quickly.

Alarmed, I rushed to the demon general with a charge, smashing my way through enough demons that I was unsure whether it was my blood or theirs that coated me heavier.

The demon general ignored me, using his swift movements to tear through the officers on my side. Each time, gloom bloomed from their bodies that spread through my men and threatened to lose the entire battle.

Frustratingly, I knew without men to lead, being a king, lord, or even the leader of a fortress had no meaning. In fact, I would ask myself, what was my purpose in being a leader if there were no men to follow?

There had always been the option for me personally to do enough damage to the enemy troops that we could win this battle, particularly if their general continued to ignore me. Yet sometimes, building things was so much harder than destroying them.

Protecting what you've built requires constant effort and vigilance, while tearing it down can be as simple as a moment's whim or the infantile tantrum of an unfit king. If I won the battle simply by destroying the enemy troops, I would be a powerful force, but I wouldn't be a lord, much less a king.

Ignoring the demons taking easy pot shots at me, I shouted at the top of my lungs causing demons from every direction to pay attention to me. I was the biggest target on the battlefield and they knew it.

Demons turned to me throwing abilities out and many rushing to me.

Not just because I was big and loud, but because of what I was doing. Rather than fight the demons, I focused instead on a massive inscription. Using my own blood, I spun it out overhead, even as my life bled freely from dozens of wounds that continued to pile up faster than I could regenerate.

That same blood dripped upwards off of me joining the massive inscription that continued to expand above my head. It grew large enough that it cast a dangerous red light over the battlefield and most heads had turned my direction to see what exactly was about to happen.

Morale dipped dangerously as my men watched me bleed. Yet, their own hope and faith in me wavered at a standstill, pushing back the gloom of the demons and the horror of the present situation.

Blood continued to trickle off of me, my men and the blood on the field of battle. All of it split into drops that were pulled upwards to the expanding inscription like rain falling in reverse.

More started flowing from the walls as soldiers cut themselves to donate to the growing power above me. It was their faith that helped me finish it.

All while I was being hammered by spells in every direction, even from my own allies as they threw what healing they could spare at me. The entire battlefield felt as if it hinged on the completion of my massive hex.

It felt like forever, but it was less than a minute before my massive inscription completed itself in the air. It hovered over the battlefield, connecting my life to my men's. 

Activating the inscription, it shot out in a hundred directions, weakened but still effective. I drained the life of a hundred demons at once, using myself as a battery and conduit before sending life and healing out to my men. It was a dangerous move. If my own life hit rock bottom from the sudden pull, then this would all be over. 

A hundred wounds ripped open on my body as I gave my life to my men.

The demon general found himself blade-buried in one such man who refused to die. The red tether from my massive inscription kept his heart pumping and filled him with blood and life.

I didn't even know the soldier, but his valor would be remembered.

He grabbed the demon general with what strength he had left, holding their sword within his chest. No less than a dozen men pounced, stabbing the demon general from every direction.

Razor-sharp bandages unspooled from the demon general as he spun, cutting all of them a thousand times as he tried to free himself from the encirclement.

Yet those cuts healed as quickly as they were made, pulling dangerously on my own life. I had to focus and launch more blood siphons into the demons that were now attacking me with a panicked frenzy. For everyone could sense that I had become the fulcom on which the balance of this battle rested.

Despite it all, my men didn't flinch or hesitate. Their faith that I would keep them alive buoyed them beyond any natural cause. They put every ounce of their strength and life into killing the demon general before them. More and more piled on, and even with my healing, they died one after the other like blown-out candles.

Their light was snuffed out before the strength of the demon general as he fought like a caged animal, but even then, he simply wasn't strong enough to keep them at bay. Anyone he couldn’t kill in a single blow added to the mass and was kept alive by myself.

It was heartening to see their faith in me and their self-sacrifice. They continued to pile in, refusing to give up or lose hope, even as they replaced those who had just died brutal deaths.

My heart went out to them. Even under the strain of keeping my forces alive, I refused to look away. To do so would be a failure to acknowledge their heroics and their effort. 

One by one, they fell and tore the Demon General down, even as he collapsed onto the battlefield. The fight wasn’t quite over, but they rallied cheering loudly enough for the entire field to know what had happened.

Those in the fortress jumped from the walls to join us knowing that the battle was close to an end.

My own efforts pivoted from keeping that mass alive to keeping the most wounded on the field alive. It was a painful splitting of my mind as I scanned the field with Soul Gaze collecting the information of dozens of people at once.

Even with my intelligence and spirit stats my brain felt like it was melting as I held the massive inscription in my mind and teathered hundreds of Blood Siphons through it both to my people and to drain the demons.

Each time I tried to processes what was happening and moving siphons from one target another it felt like my mind was at the brink of collapse.

When the system message pinged that said we had repelled the Demon Army, I still was unable to acknowledge it. I could only continue my vigil over the battlefield draining and healing our way to victory even as the demons turned and tried to escape into the hills while nearly the entire fortress of men swarmed them like locusts.

That was, of course, until the option was taken from me.

My vision went red, growing darker and darker until everything went black and a system message cirped at the only thing left in my vision.

[Congratulations!]