Finding You, Again
Again 15 - Bloodshed

The late night only leaves a view of darkness and also silence.

The Duke's sharpest eyes, too, could only capture the sight of silvery-black water lying quietly in front of him.

The sea water reflected a hint of pale light emanating from the crescent moon hanging in the sky.

Duke's ears moved slowly, capturing the desirability of the drone that once again flashed low above him. The drone has been working almost non-stop since yesterday.

The image, which he took an hour ago, shows a horde of Crispins swimming through the Diomede archipelago. They will soon arrive in Wales.

The entire Alliance army had been at a predetermined place.

Duke and Aygul became the initial troops that would block the arrival of the enemy. That's why he's closest to the water. Warriors who underwent intensive training with the Duke, were all within this army. Coupled with the superior warriors of each pack, including Kamaria.

Abel deliberately set it up like that, in the hope that the enemy's guts will shrink. Duke and Aygul are very suitable figures to be used as nightmares for the enemies who come.

In the second layer, a mixed army of hunters and werewolves led by Urtzi and Rigel. Jacy's army, which is only a few people, also participated in this group. The troops will be assisted by Lui who is heavily guarded by Myra and Roan. Faust and Abel were also in the group.

The position of Lui and Duke who were far apart would not be a problem if later he wanted to perform the relationship magic. Since Lui was currently above the higher ground, Duke's position was still clearly visible to him.

That way Lui could still easily focus her magic circle on Duke. Distance was not a problem for Lui, she just needed a direct view without a hitch.

The last layer of the army is filled by a group of vampires and werewolves led by El and Arkin. Most of the werewolves there were from Blackmoon including Rex. They will guard if the worst possibility occurs, which is if Crispin's forces apparently managed to hit two obstacles in front.

Magena and Arana are in this rearguard.

On a rocky hill not far from the army, three witches each stood guard for each group except the second group, as there was already Lui there.

Their magic power is far from Sorrel or Lui, but with the witches on Crispin's side, Abel hopes their presence will compensate for their forces.

The sound of the sea water tucking, made Duke squint, and his ears were not wrong. His eyes caught the subtle movements coming from the human-shaped figure moving in the waters.

And behind him, a wolf figure followed with the accompaniment of a firmer sound.

The Duke's body instantly shook and not for long, materializing a black wolf with a haunted face.

Next to him, Aygul followed the transformed Duke's footsteps without asking. His eyes and ears had not caught any sound or movement, but their togetherness for several days made Aygul conscious, doubting the Duke's eyes and nose was a foolish act.

"Alert!!" Duke opened his mindlink to announce their arrival.

Instantly the entire Blackmoon warrior could see Crsipin's army through the Duke's eyes.

As already agreed, all the Blackmoon werewolves, in an instant had changed forms, including Myra and Roan. A second later the werewolf from another pack followed him.

With her heart pounding, Lui set foot on the ground to climb up Myra's back. His eyes that had been one hundred percent following the Duke, also began to see the incoming troops.

He knew what his job was and was determined not to mess it up, but this was the first time he had been involved in something so big like this. She is no match for being the principal dancer of the Paris Opera Ballet at the Palais Garnier.

These wars determine the fate of humans and inhumane in the future.

"Pull Bee's deep breath. And calm down, we'll be fine" Duke whispered softly in his head, then followed Myra, calling for more or less the same thing.

The opening of the mindlink between Duke and Lui, was very useful at a time like this. Lui was happy to hear the conversation that was in the Duke's head.

Lui can still know what happened even though there are only wolves around

Not to forget Roan gave a slight leak in the Duke's head, about what he would do once the enemy troops appeared, complete with bloody details and a shattered neck.

Lui shuddered at him, but the thought drowned out Roan's nervousness and funny swearing made him smile.

\~\~\~\~\~\~\~IlI\~\~\~\~\~\~

Crispin's men came out of the water in turn. The first group to arrive on land, checking the state of the beach . But they did not find anything strange, because the Duke and his troops were very well hidden.

The contours of the coastal areas are bounded by low hills and boulders, making their hiding easier.

Minute by minute, with turns Crispin's troop emerged from the water.

Most of them were still human, but among them, Duke could see dozens of wolves crossing in the form of wolves. Duke suspects they are Serbian Stray.

They did not care if crossing in the wolf form would make them slow down.

And finally the figure that the Duke was waiting for arrived, he could see Egon and also Crispin coming out of the water. They were among the last to come out of the water.

"Grand!!"

The harbingers of battle began with the Duke's long howl into the night sky, as Crispin's feet stepped on the ground.

Blood spilled two seconds after the howl was heard.

Duke snatched the vampire closest to where he was hiding and tore most of his body with his teeth. There was absolutely no resistance, as the attack was barely visible

But the smell of black blood carried by the coastal wind, made the enemy aware quickly. They fought fiercely. But Duke and Aygul are not easy opponents.

Unstoppable, the two of them broke through and slaughtered every enemy that confronted them.

The troops that have been trained by the Duke, are actually very useful. They fight vampires in a more relaxed state. For them fighting the Duke was more troublesome.

Alva and the other witches don't want to be left behind. They were fire element magicians, then right on the shoreline, the flames expanded very quickly, preventing the enemy troops from retreating back into the water.

The blazing flames behind them ensured they could only move forward.

And that fire was good news for Hunter who was in the second group. Their eyes could not see in the darkness like vampires or werewolves. That flame made them able to see the path of the battle very clearly.

Including Lui, as she was trying not to look at the contents of the Duke's head.

The battle he saw there --- was too terrifying!!!

He was trying to attract a sight that only his ordinary eyes could see. Although the ability to close his mind was not perfect, at least he could divert his mind by looking at the battle that was illuminated by the light of fire.

Lui could clearly see how the alliance army had managed to repel the enemy, but the blood and also the swaying of the flying body parts, once again tested her guts at the maximum point.

Time and again Lui tried to shut her mind, lest Duke feel her uneasiness.

But after half an hour had passed, some parts of the defense of the alliance army were repulsed especially in the distant parts of the Duke and Aygul.

The first cause is, the loss of the alliance army, the second cause, Crispin was not as stupid as the Duke had expected.

Crispin instantly understood that Duke and Aygul were very strong opponents. Crispin deliberately chose the most distant part of them, so that his army could still move forward.

The Duke can see this, but cannot dwell, because he is always in the support of the enemy that looks not to end.

Aygul himself was in the same position. The great power they wielded, made the enemy troops concentrate on attacking them both.

Crispin was no opponent to the common werewolf. As he advanced alongside Egon beside him, he brought death to every enemy that was nearby. Their nails and claws had both been drenched in reddish blood.

The gap created by Crispin, made it easier for his troops to keep advancing.

"Pace, howling. I need to look at you" Lui's voice rippled out inside the Duke's head, amidst the frenetic sounds of battle.

The Duke understood, there was an enemy army approaching them. He didn't like to imagine it, but this was a risk they had to bear.

"Roan, take good care of him" said the Duke, having previously thrown the neck of the enemy that had been broken from his muzzle.

Raising both of his front legs, Duke howled as hard as he could.

"Lock!!" Lui exclaimed with all her might, when she finally found Duke.

He had already prepared his spell earlier, only needing to lock it. His ice stick had been pointed straight ahead.

And a blue magic circle, appearing under the Duke's feet.

The circle made the enemy who was near the Duke stop moving in shock. They looked in wonder, how the Duke's black body was now covered in a soft blue light.

While the Duke laughed out loud inside his head, because of the power of the elves flowing in his body, expelling all the fatigue that began to attack.

Especially because Duke opened his mindlink with the citizens of the pack earlier. His body felt very light and fresh. Very much different when he felt tired from the mindlik when Brawl.

"Nice Bee" he exclaimed in excitement.

Without waiting any longer, the Duke began slaughtering the enemy who was still foolishly looking at him while dumbstruck. Not long after, the nearby vampires and werewolves had been crushed under the Duke's feet.

Now he only needed to break through in order to reach where Crispin and Egon were, lest they move any further. Hopefully, it will be easier to do with the help of Lui's power.

Meanwhile Lui, closed her eyes and concentrated fully.

The cold fog slowly rose from the sea level, then Lui led her ashore. The fire that had been burning was extinguished instantly.

Not surprising, because it was predicted. Once their fire was extinguished, Alva and the two other witches immediately left his post on the hill, and joined the witches on the third group.

They were actually quite happy to rest for a while. Keeping the fire burning while occasionally burning enemies who try to run drains them.

Not only from the sea level, the piles of snow fields that were not far from the beach, also began to emit a fog that slowly moved towards the enemy troops.

Lui shrewdly led the fog past the alliance troops who were still on standby, and encompassed one by one the enemies who were still busy fighting. They don't realize how the cold is starting to take over their leg muscles.

After being felt enough by Lui, she opened her eyes and seemed to light her blue eyes.

With a bang on her wand to the ground, the fog that had spread out was becoming increasingly cold, and it ended up freezing everything Lui wanted.

Vampires and enemy wolves that were busy fighting, suddenly could not move at all.

The alliance troops instantly roared happily, seeing their enemies freeze.

And the roar was greeted by the howls of Rigel and Urtzi, and the troops in group two that were around Lui, darted forward into the battlefield.

From the corner of his eye Lui saw how Faust and Abel danced their weapons between the werewolf and the silent vampire. The two of them obviously practiced together often.

Faust shrewdly and calmly went forward firing a gun and slashing his sword. Abel was guarding his back. He slashed anyone who tried to get close to Faust. The combination of the two is quite deadly.

Troop two, very quickly destroy the enemy who is in a state of near-paralysis. Lui's magic lasted for quite a while, before finally some of them could move again. Especially for a nation of vampires who live without the sun, they recover faster.

But Lui manages to steal their time. Group two forces managed to resoundingly repel the enemy forces.

Roan moved uneasily on the spot where he stood, his claws already itching to feel the blood of the enemy troops. But he was in charge of guarding Lui with Myra.

"I'm sorry!" whispered Lui, looking down at Roan's ears. He understands his anxiety.

It was just that his fighting instinct was automatically activated, as his nose smelled the fishy smell of blood.

But Lui could no longer hear Roan's reply. The contents of the Duke's head were filled with flash of the fight and also the reports from the warriors made him unable to hear anything else.

Lui by herself was increasingly trying to block that thought, while summoning her magic.

And now he has to do it again. With her eyes closed Lui began to summon ice fog from the surroundings.

Suddenly, Myra who was next to him snarled sharply.

Lui tried to hear what Myra said in the Duke's head, but the Duke's head was still filled with chaos. Lui opened her eyes, looked towards Myra, and followed the direction of her eyes.

With his eyes widened, seeing the figure of Egon and Crispin was not far from them. Not only the two of them, dozens of ferocious wolves were at their side, while tearing apart anyone who came.

Lui's face paled, puzzled as to how they could get past the second-tier army so quickly. Lui directly pointed her staff at the horde.

And Lui saw the real horror, they paused for a moment, but two seconds later, they shook their bodies and walked back.

They were barely affected by the coldness of Lui's mist.

"Serbian Stray" murmured Lui understood.

The wolf that savagely slaughtered the Alliance forces was the Serbian Stray. They are used to living in freezing cold.

But most astounding Lui, Crispin and Egon did not even blink receiving the attack of fog. The two of them remained forward, and freely snatched away anyone who was nearby.

The Duke tells Crispin that he has taken the power of the Elves from the Black Forest. He could only guess they were both immune because of it.

"I will kill you right now!!!" A rude cry ranted in Lui's mind, but it wasn't the Duke's voice.

A white shadow shot towards the point where Crispin and Egon were. Simultaneously, an overwhelming sense of pain and anger hacked into the concentration of Lui as well as Duke.

Myra's anger and agony overcame everything in their minds.

"Yra!!"

"Mom, back. That's dangerous!" 

Almost simultaneously, the two of them exclaimed to prevent Myra. The group he wanted to confront was too dangerous.

But Myra did not hear it anymore, she continued to advance towards the group. While the Duke could clearly see how Myra's mind aired the final moments as her father fought Crispin and Egon.

Myra could no longer hold back her anger when she saw the two of them. All this time Myra carefully, had been storing up those memories, so that Duke would never see them.

But the presence of the two of them broke into Myra's defense, shedding all the anger and sadness due to Owen's departure.

The pain was so strong, it made Lui teary.

"Should I catch up with him?" Roan stood up agitatedly to see Myra begin to fight with the Serbian Stray assisted by Abel and Faust.

"Yes" Lui wiped her tears, and grabbed Roan's hairy back. Get ready if Roan's gonna run.

"No Bee.... Dangerous. Try freezing them. I'll be here any minute" 

The Duke strictly forbade such ridiculous deeds.

Lui had already wanted to refute, as her fog had not had much effect on the entourage. But Duke prevented it again.

"Fog, Lui!!' This time more emphatically, by calling out Lui's usual name, emphasizing her seriousness.

With no other choice, Lui ended up summoning the ice fog again, and tried to make it thicker. A little risky because Lui has never done it, she has to make sure not to freeze the wrong body, or it will be fatal.

"Yes!!" Lui exclaimed in satisfaction, as the fog she summoned managed to stop some of the Serbian Stray and gave Abel and Faust the opportunity to behead them.

"El-carry some troops and help Mom" the Duke finally called the group of three troops.

He had no other choice, as he was again confronted by five vampires, as he tried to get close to Myra.

Lui again tried to freeze some of them, but her magic power, which was still green, began to be uncontrollable.

Many times his mist disappeared until halfway through, while he could feel the magic circle binding the Duke, also starting to blink unstably.

Lui let out a long sigh, tried to calm herself down, then closed her eyes concentrating on fixing the binding magic circle. He has to fix it or his magic's gone unnoticed. It would take longer if he wanted to form a new magic circle.

Fulfilling the Duke's call, El and Arkin dart after Myra. Oulam, Rex and some vampires and werewolves follow him.

*Dine!!" One name suddenly echoed in the Duke's head as well as Lui's, accompanied by an overwhelming fury.

Benak Duke, suddenly filled with a broken-faced werewolf. Lui had seen him with Egon before.

It took a while for Lui to know the anger was coming from El.

Unlike Myra's anger which was punctuated by pain, El's anger was completely pure. Full of feeling to kill.

"El, relax!! I understand your anger, but you won't win if you fight him with a hot head like this" the Duke scolded him.

Lui was astonished, the Duke could still speak that calmly after everything that happened.

But El's fury, closing controls most of their minds. If it was not calmed down, the Duke would have difficulty seeing the progress of the fight.

Slowly but surely El's anger subsided, and Lui was relieved.

El's anger made him uncomfortable, as he suddenly felt like attacking someone, no matter what. Though he did not know at all the reason for El's anger.

And Lui was actually surprised, the usually calm El could feel such strong emotions.

Lui only glimpsed, as El chose to fight against that man named Linus. And the Duke let her, hoping that Myra would be able to hold on until she reached.

The arrival of the third group, apparently resuscitated Crispin if he was pressed. He decided to take a new step to overcome it. His hand reached into the shirt and pulled something from there.

Lui who had just finished fixing her magic circle, looked at Crispin in surprise, she was seen brandishing a gun into the air.

When he pulled the trigger, Lui understood what Crispin was really doing. The thing he was holding was a flare gun.

The gun shot out a yellowish-red glow that was especially striking between the night sky. A moment the Duke looked at it with concern for not knowing for whom and what the gesture meant.

But then he ignored her. All the vampires who confronted him were dead, and now Duke concentrated on running towards his mother.

A moment of Duke's stride was restrained, when in all the places of the fight, a glowing blood-red magic circle appeared. The circle appears in just about any place but with a very large number.

But back at Duke ignoring her, Myra was more important.

Lui who did not recognize the circle looked at him carefully, trying to see what symbol was inside, but suddenly her stomach felt nauseous. The red magic circle sent a strange nausea to his stomach.

And the answer Lui wanted came about horribly.

The nausea made sense, as Lui understood what magic she was witnessing.

And accompanied by the Duke's desperate mockery inside his head, Lui saw how, the lifeless corpse scattered, re-united his scattered body and woke up empty-eyed.

Even the body of the Serbian Stray, who had been beheaded by Faust and Abel, slowly joined his head and body, and then woke up on his four legs.

Unlike Duke's estimation, the magic circle did not target just any place. With accuracy that would have made Lui envious, the circle was precisely formed under the dead, and resurrected her.

At the sight of it all, not only was the Duke cursing, Roan spewed out a magical curse that Lui had never heard, even the usually very well mannered El could not hold his tongue.

The flare gun turns out to be a sign for the black magician to unlock the powerhouse magic. One type of magic that is forbidden and dangerous, because it requires a lot of Elf blood to do it.

Lui heard this from Alva yesterday, and her stomach was nauseous. And now Lui could not imagine how many Elves had been killed so that they could create that much powerhouse magic.

The body is not a hundred percent back alive. The wounds they suffered still shed blood. Lui could see the broken body part was not perfectly connected.

But it did not reduce their attack power. The corpses were as if moved by invisible hands and continued to storm, no matter how their bodies were getting torn apart .

The situation instantly turned around, the alliance army that had the upper hand, was pushed out very quickly.

"El--- send the whole army right now!!!" 

Answering the Duke's request, from a distance El howled, signaling an attack.

The duke finally reached where Myra was, but did not have time to take a breath, the corpse army had stormed him. And the Duke again cursed, the corpse army was harder to exterminate.

He had not managed to get close to Myra who was fighting desperately against Egon. Crispin faced three opponents, namely Rex, Arkin and Oulam.

"Bee, as much as possible freeze them" the Duke cried, restoring the consciousness of Lui, who had yet to recover from the horrors of seeing the corpses.

Stuttering Lui froze the undead which disgusted her. But a moment later, Lui felt like crying.

Not only because some of them started to approach Roan, but also because he realized the magic of his armor did not help much.

Lui was able to precisely freeze them, but after they stopped and were successfully killed, the red circle shimmered and their bodies rose again.

Lui clung tightly to her grey feathers, as Roan began attacking the corpses that were approaching them.

Roan easily threw the enemy approaching Lui into the sharp rocks around where they were, but like the others, they returned to attack Roan within a few seconds.

No matter how often Lui froze them, and no matter how many times Duke chopped them up, the undead rose up again and charged back.

The trap that Abel prepared, had turned into a nightmare.

"It won't be useful if we can't find the source of the circle. We have to attack the witch who made it" Alva and her coven appear near Lui.

The clothes on their bodies were already very messy, full of splashes of red blood and black soot from the flames.

"They only stopped after I burned them to ashes. But we won't be able to burn that many corpses" Nada Alva was laden with despair.

Roan barked which meant nothing, as the Duke's mind went back into chaos, filled with the panic of the warriors, mixed with the Duke's worries.

But Alva seemed to understand, because he said "I don't know, what a pity. Looks like the witch who made the spell is near the beach"

And the beach today is an impossible place to reach, most of the bodies came from there. And now they are marching towards the land.

"What should we do?"

Pessimism has also destroyed Lui's spirit.

Especially when the corpses surrounded the alliance troops from various sides. While Crispin who was in the middle of the chaos was seen smiling with satisfaction, as if victory was already in his hands.

"Don't be moody like that Lui. You look more beautiful when you smile"

A friendly and warm greeting, very incompatible with the situation before Lui, sounded from behind her.