BXBX NOVEL Chapter 74: Pawns
"You did excellent against Baltimore, you fight with quite the exceptional will, your battle acumen is very impressive but unfortunately your body seems to be misaligned and is holding you back." The demon said, its body radiating so much heat that in just the few seconds they had been close she found herself already beginning to sweat.
"Thank you," Hannah replied
"Are you naturally polite or are you still spooked by my presence."
Considering their current stances, Rehabab's question to Hannah was a rather weird one but like they were in a world of their own she casually replied him.
"I think Both"
"Hmm, Hannah, commander of the human army, I am Rehabab, 4th champion of his lord Archduke Matleshore.
I wish I could say it was a pleasure to meet you, but unfortunately, it isn't, you are too weak at the moment, and we unfortunately met far too early in this war which is just starting.
I would have loved to kill you when you had a decent amount of power." Rehabab said.
"I can say the same."
"Hmm true" The demon said and the next instant it sent the back of its right hand flying at Hannah, the woman reacting quickly and swinging her blade to clash with it but in the end only found her sword being pushed to the side and huge hand giving her a slap the sent her body stumbling backwards.
"I have to keep him busy at all costs" Hannah roared in her head and burning more of her life force, she sent her aura rising far higher than previously several red veins faintly becoming across her body while her eyes had a faint trace of red to them.
With a sneer, Hannah rushed forward, covering the distance between her and Rehabab and then swinging her sword at him once more, hoping that Rehabab would try to stop it with his arms once more.
As if understanding that there was more to Hannah's swing this time, with shocking agility Rehabab leaned back with blurring speed at just the right time, this move making Hannah's bade miss him by just an inch, but then when the blade went past and he moved to recover his proper posture, Hannah used the swing o her sword to turn around and to his amusement deliver a hard kick to his chest with her left foot, the kick having him take three steps back.
"How do you know my name," Hannah asked as he raised her sword cautiously and slowly began to move around the demon while she kept her aura high, the woman not letting the power flowing through her dwindle even a bit, after all, her goal was not to defeat Rehabab but to keep him busy.
"Considering we are on a battlefield with thousands of people that know your name, that and other important pieces of information isn't a hard thing to get"
When Rehabab spoke these words, his eyes narrowed on Hannah and then temporarily moved to her army, this action sending the commander's brain thinking at several times their normal speed and within her, she quickly decoded Rehabab's words and a suspicion came to mind.
"You introduced yourself as the champion of an archduke, not as the commander of this army, are you not proud of the soldiers."
"Baltimore was their commander, I am here only to ensure that our first action against this world does not fail, and it a good thing the leaders thought to deploy me considering that idiot's, performance."
When Hannah heard Rehabab's words, within her mind a single mocking thought was created.
"Never send a brute to do a commander's work"
For a man who had silently sat down throughout the first phase of a war not caring even when one of the major players in the war died, Hannah had wondered why he was being quite chatty with her considering he looked like the kind of person who would had better things to do and would rather crush her instantaneously and now she knew why.
Rehabab was stalling, not destroying her immediately because he was trying to find out how her army knew about their arrival beforehand and even though that information was something that had been brutally kept from her, she saw no need to inform him of this, the game they were playing was more fun.
To keep Rehabab from suspecting a thing, after hearing his reply, Hannah waited a few seconds before charging him once more, the woman swinging her blade at him with full force, forcing him to take a few steps back before she herself also retreated and while circling him brought up another topic.
......
Watching the human commander circle him, Rehabab sighed in his mind at how lower-rank beings always for some reason thought they had a chance to outsmart someone who had climbed into a realm above theirs.
Though he couldn't read her mind Rahabab was a being of hell, and though fire was his domain, that didn't mean that his senses were closed off to the emotions of people.
Emotions were the most powerful tool of beings of darkness and when Rehabab saw tidbits of excitement in Hannah after he insinuated that his soldiers had gathered very vital information, he decided to let the game keep going, after all, even though he had his own agenda.
To hell with how Hannah and her army had known where and when to ambush them, finding out such information was a work for the commanders and other glorified grunts in the army.
It had been thousands of years since the underworld reconnected with the world of the living as they called it and just like every other champion who had been holed up in it, he wished for glory, and what better way to get it than through defeating a worthy opponent, a worthy opponent whom his enemies were just about to summon.
Demons were the ones to invent the concept of summoning higher-level beings, this concept being created by their ancestors during the Heavens' Gate battle hundreds of years ago when the demons had been stretched thin and didn't have enough powerhouses to man various strategic locations.
Did the little girl before him think a mere chaotic battlefield would mask the aura of a summoning ritual brewing?
On this one battlefield, while the grunts fought their hearts out, several other minds used them as a board for their chess game, Hannah and Rehabab trying to outsmart each other while Blake stood on an elevated position well removed from the immediate sense of any of the powerhouses, watching as his own plans played out.
"And so with this, you have deployed all your pawns, their lives all at the greatest of risk and the moment., and what makes this even better is that you've already set up the same ascension ritual back at the site where the villagers have been kept, so if all fails here, then you will still have a fall back option," Lena said standing next to Blake her hands holding onto his arm.
"Yes, I've made use of all the useful pawns" Blake said and Lena could not help but feel a chill go down her spine at the coldness she felt in his tone.
Part of Lena's mind told her to leave Blake and flee, but then the other part of her mind and whole heart told her to stay and with a smile the woman held his arm tighter, rubbing her head on his shoulder.