Angel Monarch

Chapter 77: Final Preparations

In the streets of Havel a dark haired man was leading a group of 10 people. It seemed like they were sneaking towards something and after a couple of minutes they saw it. A dozen Tainted were eating a large corpse of some other monster.

The man in the lead made a couple of hand movements, giving the others orders silently. Half the group went to the left and half to the right, encircling the beasts.

They weren't too strong just Tier 2s, but they were perfect for increasing Essence.

The Evolved went to their places, everyone of them knew what to do. They have done this a lot of times.

The ranged began to open fire, while the melee users defended them and delivered deadly blows of their own. It took less than a minute to kill all of them, when they were done their leader spoke. He didn't move from his position since the beginning. He needed no more Essence since his core was already saturated.

"Good, bring the meat and lets go back." Said Will and began looking around the place, making sure nothing ambushed them.

'Its been a week since Lucy and Faith let. In that time they should've already found the entrance or at least know where it should be. Which means the attack is soon to come.'

Suddenly he heard a noise and a beast jumped at him, he summoned his spear impaling it.

"You have killed a Corpse Eater, a Tainted of the 3rd Tier! Your Soul Is Fully Nourished! Try ranking up to further nourish it!"

Will dismissed his spear and continued looking around.

'Based on our past information, The Hold has about three times our number in regular soldiers. Probably even more now, because a lot of us are Evolved.'

He stopped again, when he saw the others finishing up.

"Move out!" He said and began walking. The others already gotten used to the way he speaks so they just followed him in silence.

'We have by our last count 1543 personal. From that 1471 can fight. And also 496 of them are Evolved. A lot more than we initially thought, also with our constant training and hunting, all of them are elite millitary personal. Their cores on average is at 600/1000 Essence.'

Another monster jumped out in front of them, but immediately got shot.

'With the training the Evolved and regular soldiers received, we have a very high chance at victory. Of course they still proabaly have some secret weapon up their sleeves, like those big railguns.'

Suddenly he saw movement in the sky, but before one of the Evolved could shoot, Will said.

"Hold your fire! Or you want to shoot down out best scouts?"

The Evolved didn't answer just shouldered her gun and went to attention. In front of Will, Lucy landed and a second later Faith came out of her shadow.

"It's nice to see a friendly face around here!" Said Lucy and hugged Will.

"How is the training going?" Asked Faith as pragmatic as ever.

"Good to see you two as well. The training is going better than we initially anticipated, we can discuss it once we went back." Said Will in his usual emotionless voice.

The girls nodded and they continued back to The Bunker. After about an hour they finally arrived. The ten Evolved said goodbye and went on their way. Will, Lucy and Faith on the other hand went to find everyone. Luckily Hellfire and his team haven't left yet, so they can began the planning immediately.

"So, Faith. Did you find it?" Asked Bea, she has been very anxious this past week.

Faith nodded. "Yes, we found it. The entrance is in a crumbling building, but just like the girl said I can't enter it unnoticed."

Bea was trembling. 'She feels happy but dejected at the same time, understandable given the circumstances.'

"What about the guards?" Asked Hellfire, he was very calm at least on the surface. Will could never really see through his mask, he was a master of diguising his emotions.

"The area they guard has decreased since our last attack and their main headquarters changed to that building." Answered Lucy. She was scared for some reason, probably because of her brother.

Will's guess was on point. "What... What will we do about Nightmare?" Asked Lucy in a sad voice.

"We will kill him of course!" Answered Hellfire, than looked at Bea. "Won't we?"

"No! What... what if he can be saved! We can't just abandon him!" Lucy sounded very anxious.

Hellfire just shook his head. "Does he even deserve to be saved? After everything he has done?"

"He... he is under some spell... maybe it can be broken... he is your best friend, you can't just give up on him!" Her voice changed to anger.

"He was my best friend, until he threw me into a cell and began torturing people for fun!" Hellfire's mood was very similar to Lucy's, but also different.

'It's like he's constantly fighting with his anger, interesting.'

"That... that wasn't him!" Lucy shouted.

Hellfire was about to retort, when Will had enough. 'Lets bring this conversation back on track.'

"Bea, what do you think?" Will's voice was emotionless and firm. Because he spoke little, people listened to him whenever he opened his mouth.

Everyone turned towards Bea, who had a thoughtful expression on her face. Eventually she made a compromise.

"If we find a way to save him, we do. But our main priority will still be killing him. He is too dangerous to be left alive."

Lucy nodded and stayed silent. She knew that it's the best Bea could do, and understood the danger of confronting Nightmare. Capture was not an option.

"Okay, now lets begin the planning. How do we turn a 3 to 1 siege into an overwhelming victory? Any ideas?" Said Bea and they began finding a way that could win.

It took them a lot of hours, but they came up with a way. It will have a lot of casualities, but if there is a chance at victory they will take it.

Will followed the others out of the room. Tomorrow the Siege of The Hold begins!