Marked Ones: Advent of the Demon Prince

The assault had been going rather poorly, but the human forces were doing better than could have been expected. Though the beastman soldiers were individually stronger and had more unit cohesion, the fact that the entirety of the human army was all Marked Ones gave them some advantages.

The biggest one is that marks were about as varied as the people themselves. Some had abilities as mundane as creating a water spout, or lighting a campfire. While others had grand abilities that healed major wounds or cracked the very earth beneath them.

This massive variation between every one of their soldiers made the enemy cautious, and being overly cautious was just as dangerous as being ignorant of the danger. They both led to mistakes.

Lucius stood on a hill overlooking the battlefield. His group had been waiting for Alorek to reinforce their lines and draw even more of their units away from the border. While the drawn-out battle did draw some of the reinforcements out, there were still not enough pulled into battle to allow them to make a move.

He had watched as many of the Marked Ones had used water spells and abilities throughout the battle and saw that most of the terrain had turned into a watery, mucky mess. This gave him a brilliant idea.

"Hey Mia, go ahead and get ready. I'm going to ensure we get the opening we need." He informed her flatly.

"Alright, but make sure you get back here. I don't really want to do this without you on my team, got it?"

Lucius smiled to himself. He and Mia had come to an agreement. She would look the other way with some of his tactics as long as she did not know about them and was able to maintain plausible deniability. It was quite the improvement over how Jen and other adventurers would yell at him for his plans.

The boy moved further up the hill, which did expose him visually to anyone that paid attention to him. Thanks to the battle ensuing though, he doubted anyone would care to pay attention to a lone person on a hill.

It took him a few minutes to find a good spot to place his distraction and settled on a space with a lot of Alorek soldiers concentrated together. There were also a lot of allies in that spot as well, but it couldn't be helped.

Lucus gathered his mana and focused on his strongest offensive spell that he could use at long range. "[Tempestas: Lightining Strike]"

He uttered the activation phrase with a voice as cold as ice and uncaring as stone. The air crackled with electricity as the mana gathered together the power of a lightning strike.

Though he was only a Beginner Rank, the water across the battlefield in combination with all the people wearing metal armor and holding metal weapons would amplify the damage of his attack several times over.

In an instant the bolt of lightning hit the ground, throwing dirt into the air causing it to shower down on friend and foe alike. Electricity arced across the battlefield expanding both the range of effect and the damage dealt.

Lucius couldn't help but whistle to himself, surprised at the outcome. It was more impressive than he imagined. Though his interest was short lived as he turned on his heel and slowly walked back to Mia and the others.

"That was some light show." Mia blurted out.

"Probably best to treat it as such." Lucius advised. "Let's go, the way forward should be clear now."

Everyone had a general look of unease on their faces, especially Marie who could probably tell what happened since she was a very adept magic user herself. Despite that, no one said anything to him as they simply gathered their things and began to move on.

Mia placed two fingers on the crystal earpiece she was given. "Moving out."

There was a pause as she seemed to be focusing on something being transmitted to her.

"I don't know what it was. All Lucius said was he was going to create a distraction."

"No, I don't know what he did, he did it on his own."

"Yes, sir."

It was only a one-sided conversation from their perspective, but from the sound of it Commander Laris had also seen the effect of the spell from far away. It was certainly hard to miss an errant lightning bolt on a clear day.

Mia gave him a concerned look as if asking if it was really okay to just place the blame on him like this. However, Lucius merely gave her a shrug. In his mind this was only holding up his end of the bargain; giving Mia plausible deniability.

No doubt Commander Laris would be furious when he found out the details, but Lucius would be behind enemy lines and inaccessible for now. Besides, if they won the war, would it really matter in the end?

Everyone moved quickly across the rocky hills they had been waiting in. As they got closer to the Alorek border, it would become harsher terrain and eventually turn into a sandy desert. Once there, finding supplies like food and water would become difficult.

Thankfully Marie was a mage that could use all Elemental Magic, so through her spell they could conjure water to drink as needed. Food would be harder to figure out, but they packed a large number of rations and would replenish their supplies from the caravans they were to target.

For a moment Lucius wondered if what he did earlier was the right thing to do, they were his allies after all. However, the moment that flash of regret came to mind, a familiar chill at the base of his skull dashed the worries away.

It had been a while since he felt that sensation. It seemed whenever he just did as he wanted without regard for others, nothing would happen. But if he showed concern for anyone other than those close to him, it would appear and seem to swallow those feelings up.

It wasn't painful, but it was unnerving. Slowly, but surely Lucius was sure that he would not have those thoughts any more. Not that it bothered him, but he could foresee it being a problem for those close to him.

One person in particular flashed in his mind, Rena. She had wanted to be his… moral guide or filter before. Though after they started dating and expressed their feelings for each other, she did not seem to care about that responsibility as much.

Lucius was fine with being who and what he was, but he was not too sure about making Rena out to be that way.

'Push comes to shove, I'll just handle it all myself, no need to involve her in those situations in the future,' he thought to himself. Then he remembered that in order to be concerned about such a future, he needed to first survive this war.

Renewed in his determination, Lucius rushed forward. As always, he was the forward scout. His senses were as sharp as the other beastmen, if not sharper. He also knew how to circuNovelFireent those senses, so in order to best perform ambush attacks, he would take the lead.

He found himself suddenly excited for the battles to come.

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