All the Dust that Falls

Chapter 280: Dawn of a New Kingdom

By the time Susan and I got Tony outside, he had mostly figured out his floating and was able to move around at a brisk walk. Luckily, he didn't need to move any faster than that, as most of the demons ran away screaming when they saw him.

We avoided running into anything super powerful, or perhaps it was more accurate to say that they avoided us. However, once we were outside, more of the actual conflict appeared. Our soldiers had taken up most of the courtyard and were almost to the palace buildings.

The shield wall was holding steady. But I saw Beatrice by herself, beyond the line of soldiers, out in a little bubble of calm. Both sides avoided her as she took on two Archfiends at once, with a third lying dead behind her.

Susan stopped and stared as Beatrice wove through the Archfiend's attacks and used concentrated projections of her aura to dismantle any magical attacks she couldn't avoid. I couldn't blame her for watching. Beatrice truly was impressive. The display almost felt like I was watching myself fight or clean a fully optimized room. Each move was completely efficient, and each strike was effective.

"Dang," Susan whispered. Tony was busy looking up at the sky before he eventually settled on what we were watching.

"Wow. She must have powered up a lot from the lieutenant fight," Tony remarked. "She might have gotten as much out of it as I did."

Susan and I glanced at each other. Well, I wasn't sure if I'd go that far. But Beatrice was doing quite well. He started slowly floating towards the line of soldiers.

"Where do you think you're going?" Susan stopped him, grabbing his wrist and planting her feet. Her efforts still resulted in her being slowly dragged along the smooth marble.

"I'm gonna go join the fighting," Tony said as if it was the most obvious thing ever.

"No, no, you're not. First of all, you're not nearly quick enough to fight when you can barely move faster than a walking pace. Second, you just lost a ton of power and levels. And third, I'm sure you don't know how to fight the way you are now." Susan let go of his wrist to tick off the points on her fingers. Luckily, Tony was polite enough to listen instead of trying to make a break for it.. Or maybe he just realized he wasn't fast enough to make it before Susan caught him once again.

Tony looked down at his hands. "Ah, you are right. I forgot my hammer. There's no way I can fight them all bare-handed."

"That's not what I meant," Susan glared. Tony sent her a mischievous grin. In response, she did her best to bodily haul Tony away, which was a rather useless attempt. He was already in the air, and she'd already demonstrated that pushing him around wasn't quite so easy.

"Well, at least I'm safe against kidnapping," Tony said as she eventually pushed him off to the side. At that point, I had to take care of several more demons who decided to take notice of our presence. I quickly put them down with precision shots before Tony and Susan even noticed.

While the pair got out of harm's way, I cleaned that mess up. Once all the demon attackers were neutralized, I quickly rejoined the humans and carved a path towards the shield wall. An easy task between spinning with my Divine Sword and firing my Sanitation Lamp.

Both were quite effective, but if I held the sword behind me while firing the lamp ahead of me, I could just spin and take out tons of stuff. I only had to be careful to turn the lamp off when its path would intersect with soldiers or one of my other allies.

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We made it back in just time to watch Beatrice down the final Archfiend. As soon as it fell, the slight cohesion that the demons displayed failed as they started attacking everything nearby, including other demons of different species.

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Bee panted as she limped back behind the wall of soldiers. The human barricade that had once repelled the demons' charge now simply served to corral the ongoing chaos. After their leaders were killed, the demons' little bit of discipline dissolved, and their forces turned into an all-out brawl.

This was both good and bad news for the defenders. In some ways, it was easier to contain, and in some ways, it was harder. But overall, the new battle landscape was far less predictable. But as long as the soldiers were vigilant, there was almost no chance that the demons could get through.

Bee's repair skills were working overtime from the numerous heavy wounds she'd taken fighting three Archfiends. She had really expected more trouble from the encounter, but as she had learned how to integrate her All Seeing Eye skill with her improved pathing, combat became simple. It was as if she was just following a set of alchemy instructions. Move here, duck here, strike here.

The Broom Proficiency she had helped a lot, too. There was no move she couldn't do or avoid with the combination of the two, and her Holy Aura worked amazingly to stop magical attacks. And to top it all off, her repair skills kept her fighting even through the worst of the injuries. That massive gash in her leg barely even bothered her at this point.

Bee, though, couldn't help but be proud. She'd taken on three demons at levels 59, 62, and 63 at the same time. Each well above her level. Not only had she survived, but she had won, beating each of them down to the point where she was confident in saying that she could repeat the act.

This fight felt more important to her than even the lieutenant's fight. It was the capstone of her achievements and only hers. It finally felt like her build made sense. All of her skills synergized with each other in some way, combining or building off of each other to make the others better. And all of them managed to contribute to the fight.

She wasn't exactly the most combat-oriented build. In fact, very few of her abilities actually were combat-oriented, but she served as a good healer who could dish out damage.

But that wasn't really what her class was about, either. It seemed to be less about combat, neither direct damage nor support, and more about organizing people. And now that she had finally put down the most dangerous threats, she could really do her job.

The sun was starting to rise after a long night of fighting. But she wasn't ready to sleep. Not even close. There is so much to be taken care of. And finally, she had some space in which she could figure out how to do it.

Heading over to an officer, she requested updates from the city and found that the flying demon attacks had lessened significantly. Her destruction of the Archfiends had turned the battle and given others an opening to act. During that time, it had allowed a unit of Susan's rangers and some of the local adventurers to strike at the summoning circles, destroying them in a way that wasn't easy enough to repair.

With that act, the flood of incoming flying demons had stopped, at least. As they took care of the remaining ones, their numbers were quickly whittled down by allied forces throughout the city. Beatrice was glad that she had made it in time before they managed to do any real damage.

As the dust from the battle settled, she sent out messengers calling for a meeting of all of the higher-level officers and her most trusted people. The city was theirs. The false king was dead. Now, they had to step up and run things themselves. And there were plenty of changes to be made.

She noticed that Tony was back. It was already hard to miss him as he stood head and shoulders above most people, but now, with the extra foot and a half and floating hair, he was practically a lightning rod for people's attention. She made her way over and found Susan and Void there as well. There was something more she had to do. Something that she had heard of in stories but had never thought to see. A final ritual the hero always performed for their king at the end of the battle.

In a very formal manner, Bee dropped to one knee in front of her master and bowed her head. Normally, Void wasn't a fan of such things, but it felt like the right thing to do for the special occasion. With pride filling her voice, she declared, "Master, the city is yours."

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