A month later. In Livan, Ashton's territorial capital.
It was Virgil's turn to keep a watch on the southern section of Livan. Despite taking the job seriously, he couldn't help but let his mind wander off every so often. Virgil twirled his prized combat knife with his finger in an attempt to cure his boredom.
People were wander below the watch tower, going about their daily training routine. Whenever someone met his gaze, they would smile before hurrying away. It almost seemed they were scared of something. However, they weren't scared of him, but the one accompanying him... Sven.
The aura of death around the Death Baron was enough to make anyone sweat buckets within a second. Even if they knew he wasn't going to hurt them, they couldn't help but fear the undead.
Which wasn't irrational considering what they had been through. But why were they so scared of Sven? After all, he didn't look anything like the zombies. It was because they had seen Sven in action just a couple of days ago when some zombies tried invading their city.
Ever since then, whenever the citizens saw him, they turned pale and quickly averted their gaze before scurrying away. When they saw him, they saw the countless dead bodies scattered around him as he stood on top of them like some sort of devil.
"Weak." Sven shook his head.
"Give them some time. They'll adjust." Virgil chuckled, "Don't you have to train them?"
"Master instructed me to stay here."
'Considering they are afraid of you, its the most rational choice.' Virgil thought before replying, "Right. Right. By the way, I've been wanting to ask you something. You don't mind, do you?"
Sven shook his head. Telling the man to speak his mind.
"Do you think we have a chance? I mean no matter how much we train them, they don't have any real-life experience and throwing them into war like this-"
"I trust master's judgement. If he believes we can win, then we will win."
Virgil nodded his head, "That we will."
In the previous month, he had seen the progress the citizens had made. Earlier, barely a third of them could use weapons. But now almost all of them were either comfortable with a weapon or the magic they had learned.
Hunting monsters for food also seemed to have helped them sharpen their skills. But fighting a bunch of rogue animals and what could be properly trained aliens, were two different things.
One could understand and predict the attack pattern and behaviour of an animal. But understanding their opponents and adapting to their attacks during a battle itself was something only the veterans could do.
Virgil wasn't sure if the civilians would be able to adapt so fast against unknown enemies. But it didn't seem anyone else was bothered enough to think about it.
'Maybe it's me overanalysing everything.'
The second thing going inside Virgil's head was what truly worried him. If the enemies decided to rain hellfire upon them from their spaceships, then what good will ground troops do? If anything, they'll be like sitting ducks waiting to be slaughtered.
But before he could think about it anymore, everything went downhill.
Everything happened so quick...
One moment, Virgil was on top of the watch tower, the next... he was on the ground. The tower had collapsed and he was caught inside the rubble.
Before he could think of getting out of there, he had to cover his eyes from a blinding light coming out of the sky. Through his blurred vision, he could see people running around, panicked.
Some were running ahead with weapons in hand, while some were rushing for shelter. They were here, the Giholos had found them.
"Damn it..."
Virgil's leg was crushed under the rubble of the destroyed tower. Even if he managed to get out of there, it would take him some time before engaging in the battle. His worst fears had come true, the enemies had decided to use their air superiority to get rid of them.
They relentlessly bombarded the city. Countless buildings collapsed, and blood got splattered everywhere. Those with weapons open fired but their weapons were nothing in front of the canons the aliens were operating.
Something weird happened after a while. The attacks ceased for some reason. Instead, huge metal pods rained upon them. One such pod landed right in front of Virgil. Although this was the first time Virgil or anyone had seen these metallic pods, they immediately know someone was inside them.
And sure enough, the pods opened to reveal the Giholos walking out into the battlefield. Weapons in hand, they were ready to kill anything in front of them. Unfortunately, Virgil was right there, unable to move when a Giholo saw him.
The four-armed alien rushed to kill him with what seemed to be a hammer made of mana. But before it could strike him, he slumped on the ground, its blue blood splattering all around.
Sven stood in front of him, with his sword in hand. He was an undead, thus the collapsed tower dealt little to no damage to him. However, what it did manage to do was to enrage him. Even Virgil had never seen such fury in the eyes of the undead.
"You need help?" Sven asked Virgil.
"If you could lift these boulders then yeah, I need a hand..." Virgil spoke through his gritted teeth.
The sudden appearance of the enemies had overwhelmed his senses, thus he didn't feel much pain. But now that the ugly bastard had been dealt with, his pain returned with more intensity than before.
"Healers heal the injured. Those who can move, prepare a defensive line!" Ashton barked orders at everyone, "Whoa, you got shat on pretty hard, didn't you?"
"It's really not the time to make jokes..." Virgil replied while leaning over Sven, "Someone, get me a weapon!"
"Just get healed first. We'll talk about weapons later."
Everyone was a bit confused. They were under attack and yet Ashton was smiling? Did he finally lose his mind?
Their questions were answered a moment later when a portal opened behind him and an army of creatures walked out. An army of Undead and...
"Wraith Wolves!?" Virgil exclaimed in shock, "But how?"
"What do you think I've been doing the last month?" Ashton smiled, "The surprise isn't over yet."
As he said that, a woman walked out of the portal. They had never seen her before, but once their eyes fell on her, it felt impossible to focus on anything else. That was the case for both men and women.
"Anna, try not to overwhelm them, please." Ashton chuckled, "We might be strong but we do need a functional army. Not an army that's too busy jerking off."