[ARC X: WE'LL KILL 'EM ALL]

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Principality of Eleos

The walled fortress city of Instadt had been breached.

Nearly eight demons, all of them marked as 'lesser demons', entered, their carnage unstoppable. Plumes of smoke rose high in Instadt, as both soldiers, city guards, and civilians were slaughtered en masse by the monsters.

Just days ago, they were recommended by the Eleos Imperial Army to flee to Armonia. Nearly a quarter of Instadt complied, others fled to surrounding villages and towns, believing that the city was too much of a clear target, while half remained, fearing for their lives and believing that leaving its protection was suicidal.

Now, they regret it. There was to be no salvation. They were all about to be mindlessly slaughtered without a chance to fight back.

That was the thought of a young woman hiding under the rubble. She should have followed her father on the journey east, but now, here she was, hiding, as a group of city guards, each of them holding a shoddy musket, opened fire at a demonic creature resembling that of a massive black spider.

They fired an ineffective volley before they broke and panicked. The spider demon took that as a cue to charge, skewering or slicing the men brutally with its long appendages as it did. The young woman tried to hold off the urge to scream until the spider turned to her.

This is it…

The woman felt like she was about to puke, as the creature ominously eyed her. As one of its appendages rose to the sky, she screamed, but she knew it was pointless, and then, she closed her eyes as it dropped downward.

Yet nothing happened.

Instead, a powerful boom pierced her ears, and before she knew it, the demon was spilling out disgusting green blood, before another shot pierced its body. She screamed again, trying to cover her ears, as the brief battle continued.

Multiple scattered shots struck the demon, but this time, the small bullets somehow pierced it clean through, and the demon let out a powerful shriek.

Then, a final beam of light burned its body, and it lifelessly collapsed on the ground.

The young woman couldn't believe it.

They said, no matter what they tried, unlike other monsters, these creatures of hell were simply impossible to kill, that if they were spotted, those who saw them were as good as dead. None of the soldiers or city garrison, many of them powerful mages and adventurers, managed to scratch these horrors.

Yet…yet…

Before she could fully process what had happened, she found herself staring at the barrel of a musket of peculiar design. Above her was a young man, probably the same age as her. He was wearing a dark blue uniform, well-made and simplistic in design, alongside a simple cap-like hat of similar color.

D-did he do that?

The man suddenly lowered his gun, as the young woman turned to her side. No, it wasn't just him. There were dozens of soldiers wearing the same uniform rushing through the streets. They seemed…almost alien, and foreign to her. Were they from the Empire?

"Hey miss," the young soldier who found her spoke again, taking her out of her dazed state. "Are you alright? Do you need water? Food? Any injuries?"

"H-how?"

"What?" the soldier frowned. "If you're fine, just go to the rear. It should be safe to walk over there. I don't have time—"

"Wait!"

She took his hand before he left, as the soldier was seemingly in great hurry.

"Who are you? Who are all of you? How…how did you people kill that demon? That's impossible!"

The soldier looked at her tiredly, before a smile grew on his face.

"My name doesn't really matter, but if you're asking about us…well, we're from the Ygeian Expeditionary Force, and we're here to liberate all of humanity from the demon scourge."

Before she could ask for more, the soldier was already on the move, same with everyone who was flooding into her city. There were musketeers, mages, knights, and swordsmen, all of them seemingly moving fast and with great purpose.

Ygeia.

Ygeia.

It didn't make sense to her. That was the principality furthest west, said to be a backwater compared to the rest of the continent.

How were they…

She was soon dragged by one of the soldiers out of the combat zone, and the young woman, the moment she managed to get some water, pestered her saviors for explanations.

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August 10, 1539 CE

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Western Eleos

The entire Ygeian Expeditionary Force was on the move…

And it wasn't just them. Brigades from both the Asfaleian and the Nomosian Imperial Armies were now attached to the YEF, boosting their numbers beyond their reinforced corps-sized formation.

Every brigade of the YEF now boasted land dragons, which had been fast-tracked to replace the old carriages and wagons they used. As it stands, the formation was the size of three infantry divisions in Hans' original world by now.

Nominally however, they were divided into two corps—the I and II Expeditionary Corps.

The I Expeditionary Corps consisted of the following: the 1st Anti-Demon Unit, 3rd Anti-Demon Brigade, 5th Anti-Demon Brigade, and 31st Holy Nomosian Brigade.

The II Expeditionary Corps on the other hand was made up of the 1st Anti-Demon Brigade, 2nd Anti-Demon Brigade, the 2nd Holy Asfaleian Brigade, and the 3rd Nomosian Brigade.

All in all, they were an extremely mobile army of forty thousand soldiers, carrying approximately three hundred artillery pieces of various calibers, and they were moving throughout the strategic space in the size of individual battalions.

It may seem large, but that was practically the smallest army to advance toward the Imperial Capital since the start of the Virtus Empire's history. For context, Hans read that when the Vanus Republic once conducted a siege of the Imperial Capital two centuries ago, they did that with nearly three hundred thousand soldiers.

And they might be extremely mobile, but at the same time, they only had enough supplies for twenty days. Thirty if they could live off the land's food supplies. That was roughly enough to reach the Imperial Capital, yes, but…

That was the reality they had right now. They were on a suicidal mission in all but name.

Right now, Hans and Adelyn were once again spearheading the advance of the 1st Anti-Demon Unit. Almost every ten minutes, each battalion of the expeditionary forces received a communique from General Kohler's mobile HQ, where the Empress was located.

While Hans and Adelyn were the spearhead of the entire force, Elisa became the full-fledged brain of the entire shtick, and it was an extremely demanding task, one that Hans wondered how she was even doing it.

But apparently, during her escape, she only slept for three hours straight for a month until they were rescued by General Kohler's relief force. With the high-quality communication crystals resonating with her, it also meant there was less magical load whenever she used her abilities, so that helped.

In any case, though, this journey wasn't going to be an easy one.

"She said there are demons ahead over there?" Hans asked, his turret aimed at a city currently being cleared by a formation from the 31st Holy Nomosian Brigade.

"Yep. She assured us we've got them surrounded."

"Still, it's a waste of resources," Hans groaned. "We should have bypassed it."

"There are people in that city. It's only been freshly attacked."

"And that changes nothing. Now one of the battalions of the 31st Holy Nomosian Brigade is going to lose irreplaceable munitions and equipment. And we're slowed down…"

"You complain all that, but I bet you wouldn't be that different and choose to help anyway."

"Shut up."

As the battle in that city raged on, Hans and Adelyn got back on the road and sped ahead. In ten minutes, they received another update from the Empress, telling them that the roads were clear for the next twenty miles, and thus, the two got on the move.

Quite frankly, Hans and Adelyn could easily reach the Imperial Capital in days. The Wanderfalke could cruise at around sixty kilometers per hour at sustained speeds. That meant travel there realistically should only take a day total.

Most wagons and carriages used by the YEF on the other hand averaged around twenty to twenty-five kilometers per hour in the changing terrain, but still, that was good enough to reach the Imperial Capital in a week.

They could practically blitz straight there, and indeed, that was what they were mostly doing…

Except, there were so many stops. Each time they reached a village, a town, or a city, or if they were warned of demon activity ahead, they would have to reroute or place halt orders.

Not only that, every time they found a living settlement, they'd have to briefly occupy it to give orders to the civilians and soldiers in charge there. Largely, they had been welcomed by local forces and people, but there had been friction.

In a few hours, Hans and Adelyn sped straight into another town. He didn't even bother learning its name, because that would be a pointless endeavour, but the two managed to find the town's mayor and the guards in charge.

First, things started amicably, until the two told them to stop packing up to leave.

"But we all have to move to the Imperial Capital!" a fat man—the town mayor, demanded. "Now that you, reinforcements, are here, we can finally do that!"

"And why do you have to move there?" Hans would ask, as he had asked a dozen times already since this expedition started.

"Because the Empress said so!"

"You've been misled."

Hans and the town mayor, and the military officer beside the fat man argued briefly, while Adelyn stood beside him. This was just routine at this point, and a problem that was slowing them down badly.

People, everywhere, all afraid for their lives, wanted to use them as a ride to salvation—the Imperial Capital. It was a strange, surreal thing to Hans.

It was as if they had to charge through a herd of sheep trying to run to their butcher, while they're trying to reach the butcher, kill it, and save the sheep.

It was a difficult situation.

He didn't know how to deal with it.

"We have the Empress with us," he would say.

"We have updated orders," he would say.

"The pope is compromised," he sometimes tried.

But they were foreign to this land. So Hans and Adelyn would eventually leave the angered locals and speed forward, leaving that problem to the unfortunate schmucks at following up in the rear.

By the time they broke around forty-four miles from their starting positions, a halt order was given by General Kohler, transmitted of course by Elisa. Most units by this point were still on the move, trying to avoid any of the remaining moving demons, but they were largely settling into good defensive positions.

They had advanced with a deeper thrust that would not have been possible without the Empress, but now…they would have to rely on themselves as she took a rest.

Deep in enemy lines.

Hans and Adelyn moved straight into a well-camouflaged area, their mechs stopping and hiding, while they ate with Alizée on the side of a broken tree trunk. As they ate, Hans looked at the distant fields, his eyes straining as he dug in on the simple soup Adelyn prepared.

"So," Adelyn broke the silence. "What do you think?"

"Well…" Hans sighed, looking up at the moon. "To be honest, I don't think the next few days are going to go as smoothly as this day."

"You expect another major battle?"

"...I guess. Just a hunch though. All I know is that the pope isn't going to sit idly by with his pawns being bypassed," Hans frowned. "I don't think I'll even sleep well tonight."

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