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The empty space that delineated the cutoff between the outer city and the inner keep was already lined with the ashes of the fallen demonic soldiers. But now, as the dead advanced, I saw defender mages take active interest in the city’s defense for the second time.

Navigating out of the tower and finding a new spot inside one of the houses closest to the inner wall, I could just about spot the groups of casters. They were dressed in richly adorned robes, and most wore a tiara with jewels that glinted in the light of fires and torches, sending a kaleidoscope of colors dancing over the mana users’ faces.

The host of undead was probably an unnerving sight, but the mages were unyielding. Again and again, they attacked. First, they would raise their hands and begin a low chant. The jewels in their tiaras would glow. Then, spells would rain down from above, striking at the corpse soldiers who were trying their very best to hack through the gates.

In spite of their eagerness, however, the mages faltered before the tide of death did. There were simply too many corpses to torch. The entire city had been slaughtered, leaving only the elite few safe behind their final defenses.

Their power might have been enough against normal foes, but now they were facing corpses enhanced by demonic magic. I got to watch a slip of an undead girl effortlessly tear off a house door and then launch it so forcefully that it reduced the head of a startled mage to mist.

The girl’s undead comrades quickly followed her example. Rocks, pots, every random item that could be picked up was hurled at the defenders with unnatural strength. It meant the locals needed to expend power and personnel on shields.

As a nice little cherry on top, the gates were definitely faltering.

The demonic soldiers had tried and failed to break through in their initial onslaught, but the undead were far more united and determined. And they had demon-magic.

As I watched, four special undead charged the gate together, all glowing with an unholy red light. One wielded a giant hammer, one a huge sword. The massive spearman I noted before had managed to find a replacement spear. And a rogue-like figure flitted among them, somehow cutting spells out of the air.

Frankly, I had no clue how any of these defenders had been brought down in the first place, but I was definitely grateful they were on our side now.

The efforts of the wall staff grew more desperate at the sight of these four undead, their attacks became a hurricane of mana and destruction. But even then, the ’special four’ prevailed. The lesser undead literally threw their own bodies into the way of the spells, sacrificing themselves to bring down their former allies.

Speaking of allies…

I decided to turn my attention from all the drama at the gates and do a little scouting.

I knew I wasn’t the only surviving demonic soldier. I wasn’t surprised to see scores of my comrades hiding behind houses or peering through windows, watching the battle at the gate. What did surprise me was how calm and prepared they all seemed. They were all demonstrating levelheadedness that either meant they found a way to deal with the command or collected ten souls already.

They were also much better equipped than before. Everyone now had far more gear than the original distribution, and a few even looked like they were wielding uncommonly powerful weapons. A man with a glowing hatchet stood out to me. So did a woman with a bow that looked to be made of bones and tendons.

All told, while more than three-fourths of the army had likely perished, we still had a decently sized force waiting for the gate to fall.

Each and every one of them were my rivals once the attack started again. But they were also rivals I could potentially profit from, since many of them had at least ten soul crystals.

The idea of killing them didn’t particularly upset me. It was one thing to carry the lives of innocent defenders on my conscience, though my determination to succeed in this new world had grown so much that I felt excited gunning for them too.

My fellow soldiers?

Well, not only were they eying each other hungrily, but all of them were probably in the same situation Hayden had once been in: eager and willing to be there. They had signed up to invade a different world and slaughter its inhabitants.

A bit of murder within the ranks was to be expected.

My little scouting stroll ended when I heard the dying creak of the gate. The exhausted mages still kept up their assault, but the undead had finally proven themselves more stubborn than wood and steel.

The breach of the city’s final defenses announced itself with one final groan. The gate collapsed, and every undead fighter streamed into the opening.

Like most of the surviving soldiers, I didn’t immediately follow. We watched and waited like jackals, eyeing each other to see who would be the first to lunge at the carcass of this city.

Finally, someone made a move. A scruffy-looking man lunged at another demonic soldier whose skin, I realized with a start, was bright blue. The scruffy soldier managed to catch the blue guy unaware, his dagger biting right through his victim’s spine.

The clatter of soul crystals hitting the ground announced the start of pandemonium. Some of the demonic soldiers chose to run towards the main battle of the siege, but many stayed to fight each other.

I was one of them.

My first victim was a man who looked to be about my own age, wielding a short-handled hammer. He was so focused that he barely saw me approach. His eyes, fixed on a fleeing soldier, were full of hatred and anger. I extinguished them with a brutal blow to his head from the pommel of my sword.

The man went down in a heap, making it easy to slit his throat and be done with it. He burst into ashes a moment later, and I scrambled to shove six brand new soul crystals into my bag before anyone snatched them away.

Everywhere I looked, someone was dying. Even groups that had entered the fray together were fracturing quickly, as some members managed to grab more wealth than others. Which then led to a cycle of violence and backstabbing.

I participated with relish.

Here was a chance to lose myself in it all. The murder compulsion, along with my initial brutal actions in the invasion, had left behind a current of dark impulses. It was like a toxic lover’s heat, lingering in the bed long after their departure.

I gave in to that current, letting it sweep me away.

It was easy to block out the faces of my previous, innocent victims by replacing them with the twisted expressions of my fellow demonic soldiers. This came with the additional comfort of knowing that I was definitely killing heinous human beings, each with their own bag of souls.

Well, mostly human beings. Several times in the mindless melee, I came face to face with humanoids that were definitely not of my own race.

I cut down what must have been an elf of some kind, the man trying to gurgle out one final spell even as life left his eyes. It had been a nasty surprise when he started shooting sickly green rays of light from his hands, and my thigh stung fiercely where one of those spells had tried to eat its way through my flesh.

I was also responsible for the death of a cat-like man whose weapons of choice were his claws, and who left behind several long gouges in my arms as a parting gift.

The last of my non-human encounters was what I guessed to be a harpy. She managed to swoop down, close the talons of her feet firmly around my shoulders, and take off in an instant. If I hadn’t managed to strike above me quickly enough, luckily landing the blow right on her leg, she probably would have dropped me from a height that would crush every bone in my body, instead of a few measly feet.

That one I failed to kill. She just shot me a venom-filled glare and then ascended higher into the sky, looking for easier victims.

On and on we fought, comrade after comrade falling to my blade. Their faces were starting to blur. The streets were now slick underfoot, too covered by blood and ash to provide stable footing for the dance of death we were all willingly engaged in. Wounds piled up on my body, and I kept fighting on, ignoring the pain and exhaustion. I was pulled forward by my guilt at killing those helpless defenders and pushed onwards by my greed to carve out a better life for myself.

Our numbers were also dwindling. It was hard to tell in the heat of battle, but out of the hundreds of soldiers who had passed through the portal, I was reasonably sure that less than a hundred had actually survived.

Finally, some unseen signal must have gone up to end the dance. We all went still, panting and eying each other warily. Then my other senses caught up with me, and I could actually feel it.

A roiling miasma of power was crawling over us, dimming our urges and greed.

"Enough."

The demon’s voice was cavalier, like he was ordering unruly children to behave instead of chastising soldiers for killing each other.

"The best have earned their place, and the weak have been revealed for what they are." The demon appeared at the edge of our combat area, surveying us with gleaming eyes. "I will not allow any senseless slaughter past this point."

I recognized the demon immediately. It was the same commander with crown-like horns who had first ordered us to charge.

Now that I had the time and inclination to inspect him, I could admit this demon was impressive. He wore just enough armor to cover his vitals, yet left most of his dark red skin exposed. His body rippled with every step he took as his powerful muscles squirmed. His eyes, a steely gray cut through by red pupils, assessed us with expert attentiveness.

I knew the demon was a monster, in every meaning of the word. That didn’t stop me from standing straighter when his eyes landed on me. A hint of something like approval appeared in his gaze, and my chest swelled.

"You have proven yourselves above your fellows, base creatures that they are. Therefore, you will get to bear witness as we wipe out this pathetic nest of humanity and claim it for ourselves. You will even be able to extract your own tithe in blood and souls, if you are skilled enough. Follow."

We followed.

With Hayden’s talents under my belt, I could feel the demon’s mana reach out and nudge each of us. I didn’t fight it. I let it direct me the same way it pulled the others, corralling us into neat rows until we actually resembled a marching army.

Overhead, the last few fighting mages noticed our procession immediately. Arcs of spells came barreling our way.

After a single glance, the demon ignored them all. His confidence proved valid when a dome of red mana appeared over our entire group. The spells bounced harmlessly off the dome, then winked out.

In retaliation, our commander raised his left arm in a careless motion. A whip formed within his grip and cracked out. It extended well past the top of the wall, effortlessly slicing through every human who happened to be in its way.

Screams and whimpers of terror heralded the humans’ scramble to get out of the demon’s range, clearing the wall of most remaining threats in moments. The few that stuck around met their end with just another few cracks of the commander’s whip.

He scoffed, but I sensed a hint of respect in his mood for those who tried to face him down until the very end.

Compared to all the chaos and violence of my previous battles, this was literally and metaphorically a stroll. The demon advanced, and all who dared to face him simply perished.

When we finally ventured past the opening in the wall, we were greeted by the clamor of battle. Demonic soldiers and undead alike were tearing into the human troops, but this time, their quarry was a little tougher to bring down.

Already, two of the four special undead were gone, their remains scattered across the ground. Facing down the other two was a band of knights that literally shone with an inner light, and whose commander more than matched up to any fighter I’d seen so far in size and ferocity.

There were other champions of humanity there too. A woman wielding two flaming swords. A man with a lightning bolt for a spear. An archer who stood on the roof of the inner keep, his arrows tearing furrows into the ground. A knight wielding a mallet, his armor oversized and strangely shaped, like a stack of onions. There was even a diminutive mage, floating several feet off the ground as grimoires and orbs orbited her. They all stood in the path of the demonic army.

The demon looked at them, then smiled.

"Right. Let us begin."