BXBX NOVEL Chapter 339 338: Taking The Armory (2)
Leone PoV
Anput hid a small smirk as she led her portion of the squad away, and I could feel the Demoness beside me stiffen slightly as she watched the lithe, tanned Jackalkin saunter away, her tail swishing as her blade was held loosely by her side.
To be honest, I could understand a little of what made Anput was currently trying; if I was right about it, anyways...
If my read on the haughty, proud, and sometimes insufferable Jackalkin was right, she was angry.
Those obsidian voids that took placed of her eyes spoke volumes to me, because...
Well, I felt the same.
I was also currently confused and angry at Jahi\'s actions earlier.
What had she done with that human woman, and why did she look so... intimate with her?
Gnawing at my cheek, I turned and looked around the Armory instead, distracting myself temporarily as Jahi turned back towards the rest of us.
The Armory complex was open and currently crawling with humans.
They were hiding inside the storage rooms, forge pits and some were brave enough to congregate in the open and prepare to charge at us, staring in our direction before letting out a shout.
"Shields! Iaso, keep everyone healed. Leone, thin \'em out."
Nodding, I took a deep breath of the ash laden air of the Armory, the sweltering heat feeling much like home as I condensed the latent Fire Mana into my palms.
Tracing out runes as fast as I could, I solidified the vibrant scarlet flames and created a staff, which I would use to better control the mana around myself.
In the same moment, I felt Janus stirring in the back of my mind, my ever loyal Orthus sensing the danger and expressing his desire to protect me.
Smiling slightly at my faithful two headed hound, I raised my free hand and washed as the elaborate, vast summoning circle appeared on the ground before me, cracks splintering the Armory\'s floor as Janus clawed his way out into the open.
Frowning at the way the circle erased itself from my memory, I sighed before muttering "Get them Janus...", with one of his heads turning towards me and letting out a deep, sad bark.
Tilting my head, I watched as the large beast lumbered away, his heavy paws thundering against the ground as he joined the soldiers in front before lunging towards one of the human men.
Maybe... he is that in tuned with me to sense my emotions so easily?
My lips tugged upwards as I watched him bound around the Armory, one head keeping watch while the other sniffed the floor for the human\'s scents, though that frown returned as I followed behind Jahi and the other soldiers.
Stepping over the dismembered corpses of the humans, I sighed as I saw the loss of life, my desire to keep them alive fighting with the reality of the situation.
A reality that Kat had forced me to see when we had first arrived at the border of the Empire and the Kingdoms only a week or so ago...
These humans deserved this after continuing to fight so desperately despite knowing that they were outmatched.
They understood that, and yet they continued to fight.
Did that make us the monsters they believed us to be, or were they just too stubborn to surrender and live another day?
Were they smart to not just throw down their arms and accept a fate under the Empire, or were they just idiots that would rather die under our blades?
Anput and Jahi both called the humans \'weak\', \'chaff\', or \'worthless\', but was that all they really amounted to?
Just \'chaff\' to be cut away under our blades?
Could these people not be reformed and shown the error of their ways?
Or was that arrogant of me to assume that they could be changed?
What would Kat say in this situation?
Glancing into one of the forging pits, I sighed as I shook my head wryly, the stench of burning blood, flesh, and ash assaulting my nostrils.
Why am I even trying to assume that she would think about anything besides herself in these situations?
She\'s made it damn obvious that she\'s a selfish Dogkin - to remain hidden from the world, to be given our love, to be allowed to slaughter the helpless as she paints herself with their blood, to be allowed to create a cacophony of suffering that we found hideous and unnerving, but that she found so satisfying and beautiful...
Isn\'t that what makes her so beautiful?
The fact that \'perfect\' is not even a word most sane people would chose to describe her in any facet of the imagination?
That to us, she is just perfect because she is exactly what she wants to be, uncaring of the world?
All she wanted was to be our faithful, dangerous, sexy maid that riled each of us up with how damn perfect she was for each of us...
All she wanted the world to see was us, and how perfect she believed we were...
And yet, now she was gone.
Not dead, but not by our sides, and I could already see the fractures she was leaving behind with her absence; fractures I needed to heal no matter the cost.
Too much balanced on us remaining together, both personal and politically too.
Anput and I were only Jahi\'s fiancee\'s currently, and if, gods forbid, Anput or I decide that we don\'t wish to follow through with the marriage, Jahi might be forced, or inclined to take another woman into her fold.
Something that I can\'t see happening, but that is the path that remains if we don\'t get this together during this Crusade.
It\'s extreme, but reality often doesn\'t care for ideas like \'extreme\'; after all, Kat is gone, sucked into a portal and spat out somewhere far away.
That was extreme, so who\'s to say that wasn\'t the last \'extreme\' thing we\'ve seen this year?
Sighing, I raised the staff of solidified scarlet flames and willed the flames from the forge into my control, morphing them into a cluster of sickles that I sent flying towards a charging squad of humans.
Wincing slightly as I watched the blades slice cleanly through the humans\' flesh, I sighed again as I continued forwards, towards the heart of the complex; the heart that was occupied by the remnants of the force sent to fortify the Armory.
My thoughts and mind shifted from my own problems to the problems of my new people.
This complex would need to be in a fully functional state when the occupational force came, and I was still a Princess of the Empire, no matter how you tried to argue my marriage to Jahi.
Officially I would \'relinquish\' that title, but none in the Empire would ever argue with me about the blood coursing through my veins.
As such, I felt the weight of such precious blood just as the rest of my family does.
These would become my people, and I wanted to help them going forwards.
If some needed to die to display the hubris of their ways, then so be it.
For the better of all, a few shall be sacrificed.