I watched her battle from the distance. She was quick, cold, and calculating. There was a silence in the gunfire on this end, but this would not last long. It still boomed strongly in the distance.

I glanced at the road, at the monsters that were used as a shield in the process, some were still dragging themselves towards the barricade.

Did all of this come from having her watch and focus on military tactics? Or was this her in general?

I saw making her way back. It seemed she had managed to take out the first problem in our way.

"Master, the unknown monsters that were seen seemed to have a unique ability. They are able to stop everything around them in a certain range from attacking. For now, I am not completely sure the entire range or if they have any other attacks, but they made the ones, we recruited attacks come to a halt as if an outside force were controlling them. I don't know if it would affect us, but they seemed to be occupied in only sitting down. The human's also in retreat did not go in a certain distance of them."

"I see, then can we move forward. What would happen if we attacked them from far?"

"Apologies master, I am not certain."

"Ok, let's go forward and test it."

"Master, it could be dangerous."

"If we can't defeat them, I will stand no chance against what I have to face in the centre, who knows how many more of them they are," I said as I walked in the direction towards these strange monsters. I was followed by an entourage of monsters both from mine and the ones I had convinced to come along.

It didn't take long before I was standing a short distance away from them. I had seen them from far, but seeing them up close, they did not look intimidating in the slightest. They both had colourful furs, one was red, and the other was orange, half the size of an adult. Huge eyes, clawed like hands, and a mouth that look like a grin as they sat lazily down on the road.

Surrounding them were the monsters, I had commissioned to destroy everything here, but yet they sat there. These ogres, gremlins, centaurs, freaks just stood there doing nothing. Some of them that I saw from the weapons they carried in their hands were at least adapted to combat, the rest continued to hold on to any crude weapons they had.

I wanted to shout at them, but one look was enough to tell me that it would accomplish absolutely nothing.

Looking around at the corpses, I saw a gun. It was secured firmly in a dead man's hand. His mutilated body lay flat on the ground. What would happen if I used this, I wondered.

I walked over to him, and as my hand tried to remove the weapon. It was like his body alone was still fighting a war—it refused to let go until I yanked it completely off.

Now then, as I looked down at it, I came to the realization I had never used one before. It couldn't be that hard, could it? All I would have to do is point and shoot. No, it would be best to not use it as I looked at Zikshita.

"Hey, take this gun and shoot," as I point at the cenatagar near the monsters that was on all fours, "shoot him in the head."

"Yes, master," she replied as she took the gun from me.

The connection I had with the other monsters was fading, they were being wiped out. I turned my head in the last direction the monster had died. It seemed the second wave had failed too. It was not a big problem. I had expected the worse and there were still far more waves to come.

Ready, the third wave. I commanded in my mind and I felt them moving to my response.

"Master?"

"It was nothing, sorry."

With the gun in her hands, I watched as she aimed it at the cenatagar's head. She really had the look as if she knew what she was doing. One shot was all it took for the cenatagar's head to splatter like some sort of pinachata upon the ground. Blood splattered everywhere upon those seated on the ground, but none of them moved. The creatures did not respond as I had hoped they would. Perhaps it was because it was not aimed at them?

"Let's try that with one of the creatures this time, however, albeit a little differently."

I scanned the monsters with us to look at one who might be able to shoot it before finding one. You will do fine, I thought.

"Zikshita give him the gun and have him use it this time," I pointed towards the first creature seated on the road, "shoot him in the head and lets see what happens."

Zikshita did as I commanded, and handed the gun to one of the cenatagars, showing him how to use the weapon. When she thought he had the basic understanding of it, he aimed it as I wanted and before he could fire the creatures both responded. One sprang forward towards the attacker. It was short of me. It wasn't fast enough that I couldn't dodge it, I wanted to know if it was able to affect me.

I heard a loud thud as the creature that was holding the gun fell. My body felt normal, I turned to see that only those that were mine had been unaffected, all the others were affected by its presence.

A smile came to my face that was what I was looking for, I wondered as I stepped closer to it about to end its life if it would show me any signs of fear.

***

I overlooked the entire thing from on top of a building. It was dangerous probably to be this much in the open, but I really didn't think they could harm me, at least not with gunfire. What I had expected to take a day had raged on into days. My reports from my other Lieutenant Brad told me Samael had not once moved since the beginning of this fight or had he employed any of his men. The only time he left was for food that was available in abundance. The farseer was with him as well, I was starting to have doubts on the usefulness of that demon. If they had pulled their weight, this battle would have probably been over. I had to leave now and then to find more troops to join this war.

We had wasted too much time on something trivial and it seemed now, we would pay the consequence for it. The enemy had dug themselves in deep, and their positions now looked far more capable than before. The battle raged across building to building and on the streets. These men seemed so fanatical to a man that did nothing to deserve this much loyalty. Fanatical to the point of suicide. If they couldn't win with their guns, they flat out refused to be taken prisoner. They resorted to dragging their enemies with them to whatever hell awaited. I watched some buildings collapsed to the ground. The insides exploding out and the shrapnel hitting my own men. I had to admit this fighting was brutal, even for humans. I had lost a few of my own. It irked me to no end to feel their loss, like losing my very own child.

No one would be spared, the guilty or the innocent, all would die for this insult.

This kind of fighting left me going with the beginning strategies of using waves to take the damage. I would not lose another one of my own like this again. Hernado would pay eventually for this.

He even had more creatures, ones, that I was familiar with in his own arsenal, they were collared like some sort of pet as they let them loose armed with detonated devices against the onslaught of an army approaching. They were getting far more creative in the way they fought using the weaknesses that we had against those primary those lazy ass creatures that seem to make everything around them unable to move. They blocked them whenever there was a horde approaching and used that to slaughter them. The further we pushed in, the more space they had to ambush us from behind and in front. With so much death and blood in the air, it was hard for those who would normally have sensed them quickly to detect them.

It was all going to shit. At least some of these monsters were getting smarter thanks to Zikshita. They were now using the weapons that they found from the dead men to fight back with from a distance. The aim was honestly shit, but it was far better than their beginning strategies. Several harpies took to the skies to harass those on the road, but those hidden within the buildings were problematic for them.

Even Zikshita with her speed was having a tough time, and I had to withdraw from her twice—you can't dodge an attack that has no escape.

Women and children loaded with guns fought like savage hounds, they died in the streets of what looked like holes, sniper pits and fighting hand to hand strapped in grenades. None of them were giving ground easily, and that truly was making me annoyed. All now I could be with my own daughter instead of having to deal with this. Something that was utterly beneath me.