My (Monster?) Hero Life

Chapter 160: Nothing personal

As Kace watched the carnage unfold, Sophia finally appeared beside him. The last conversation they had was in the council chamber, where she had turned into a blubbering mess. Kace just thought that she could not control her nerves around him. In truth, it had taken everything she had to not act on her own impulses. 

With an appraising glance, Kace appreciated her beauty. He still hated her personality to some extent, but just because he is on a diet. It does not mean that he can not look at the menu. He nodded at her in greeting to which she returned the gesture before turning her sad eyes out towards the battlefield. 

She was born after the great war, so this was her first time taking part in something of this magnitude. She was strong but not overwhelmingly powerful, a random powerful spell could be enough to end her life. She had every reason to be nervous, but at the same time, this was her home, her family. She would not abandon either just to save herself.

"What took you so long?" Kace asked as he watched her contemplating her chances of survival.

"My mother had me fetch Celia from her cell. She's been temporarily pardoned to help deal with this crisis." The sad tone in her voice would have tugged at anyone's heart. Kace, however, only cared that it was another high-level combatant on their side. He had no intention of being considerate towards her feelings.

"Well, better to be useful out here rather than waiting for death in there." He replied while Sophia's expression turned ugly.

While conversing, some of the heroes managed to make it past the bombardment and quickly approached the walls. Off to Kace's right, Marquis Perez gave the order for the vampire archers to take aim. He swung his arm down to give the order to let their nocked arrows loose. Thousands of arrows leapt into the sky, and like a blanket came down to cover the ground outside of the walls.

Very few of the heroes managed to survive the storm. This was due to them wearing better quality armour or having large shields covering their entire body. Cheers went up from the heroes side as they saw their comrades reach the bottom of the city walls' safety. It was a position that made it notoriously difficult for archers to be able to target them. 

Kace looked towards the sky to see the cracks in the barrier, getting larger slowly over time. It was only a matter of time till it failed and then they would have to worry about a bombardment of stronger spells. Luckily the main body of the vanguard force before them was too far away to use their archers. They would have to position themselves within the range of the arbalests and catapults for their arrows to reach up here.

The one good thing was that they had caused a massive batch of casualties to their opponent between these war weapons and the barrier. It gave them a solid morale boost while weakening the resolve of their enemies. Kace thought about the cheer that had been sent up due to the heroes that made it across the killing field. A sadistic smile crept across his face.

"Shadow."

"Yes, my Lord?"

"I want you to take a group, kill the heroes who make it to the base of the wall before they can do anything."

"As you command." Shadow flashed a merciless grin before disappearing into the shadows.

Sophia looked at him in shock with how casually he had just ordered the execution of a whole lot of lives. It was cold and merciless, without a hint of emotion for their enemies. She would have liked to think that she could have done the same but after seeing the consequences to people's lives that such an order would bring. Well, she was no longer confident that she could.

"Don't show any pity for them. They are warriors, they knew what they signed up for. If we don't kill them now, they could be the reason someone close to you is killed later." Kace stated as he met her gaze. The memories of the chances he had to killed Phillip and Sarah swam in his mind. His failure to kill them earlier led to the death of some of his closest friends.

Sophia recognised the pain in his expression and guessed that he had learned this truth the hard way. She swore to take this lesson to heart and never forget it. The woman in her wanted to comfort him, but this was neither the time nor the place for such things. That and she was scared that he would reject her.

As the pair continued to watch the battle unfold from atop the city walls, Shadow and his group made their move

"Do you think we're safe here?" A blonde-haired hero with green eyes asked his companion standing next to him. Both of them were leaning against the walls of the city while looking at each other.

"How the fuck should I know?! It's a bloody war for god's sake! Anything can happen!" The tall woman beside him replied curtly. Her nerves were frayed after surviving crossing the field. Any moment could have been her last. 

She looked around to figure out how far the others who had made it across were from them. There was a good bit of distance between each group as they had been too afraid to run across in large groups in case it drew the attention of the vampires too much. Now that they were here, they were too afraid to move to meet up in case the vampires above decided to target them.

The woman looking behind herself suddenly felt a spray of warm liquid splatter into her long brown hair. It ran down her neck and into the insides of her armour. 'What the fuck!' She was scared to see what had caused it, but some unseen force appeared to compel her to do just that. 

As her head slowly turned to look back at her companion, her eyes looked past where his head should have been as bursts of blood erupted from the headless neck. His lifeless body seemed to fall to the ground in slow motion, revealing the cause for his untimely decapitation. Standing there at about the man's waist height was a dark-skinned goblin-like creature with glowing blue eyes. A large scythe seemingly made from the shadows themselves was in its hands.

"Nothing personal, kid." Shadow laughed maniacally as he swung the scythe towards the stupefied hero