Sorry this one was so late. The internet at my house stopped working, so I had to work on it sporadically.
"There's a massive horde of Demonic Beasts incoming," Shamir reported.
"Hell's bells. The Wandering Beast's horde, now?" Margrave Edmund fretted. He and Lady Judith von Daphnel had linked up with Claude's main force, but there had been reports of Almyran forces attacking Goneril, and the main Riegan and Albrecht contingents had been forced to defend Fódlan's Throat.
"It gets worse. Nemesis is with the horde. And it appears he has some way of controlling them," Shamir added. "The Beasts aren't tearing their way through the countryside the way you'd expect. They're headed for us, and they're moving fast. We maybe have two hours before they arrive? Possibly less."
"Nemesis? The Nemesis?" Lady Judith asked.
"Unfortunately," Claude confirmed.
"Legendary warrior or not, he's still just one man," Acheron said dismissively. "How dangerous can he be?"
"I saw him taking on Rhea, Edelgard, Dimitri, the Death Knight, and about a dozen guards, and I'm pretty sure he was winning," Claude said with a grim look. "We could potentially kill him if we throw enough soldiers at him, but with the Wandering Beast's horde coming for us at the same time, I don't know if we can afford to try it."
He then brightened just a bit. "That said, I do have a few ideas."
Lysithea, not for the first time, was thankful that Lorenz let her use Thyrsus. Usually, it was because Thyrsus shielded her from the negative effects of using Dark Magic. There was a reason most Dark Mages and Dark Bishops only used Miasma Δ; it had the fewest side effects of all Dark spells. But in this case, she was thankful for a different reason. With Thyrsus, she could hit targets that were much further away.
Claude had ordered the quick construction of "hedgehog fortifications," a group of barriers created by lashing three logs sharpened at both ends together in such a way that the logs all stood at right angles to each other. The fortifications were sturdy enough that even Demonic Beasts would have a hard time getting through them. And from behind the fortifications, Lysithea unleashed Dark Spikes T against Nemesis.
Dark Spikes T was at its strongest against mounted foes (that was the reason why it had been so effective against the Death Knight), and fortunately for her, Nemesis was riding. He was riding a Beast that most certainly wasn't a horse and probably had never been, but it didn't matter. Dark Spikes T formed spears of energy above the evil king's head, which quickly descended to impale Nemesis and explode. When the explosion faded, Nemesis had a few punctures surrounded by burns, but was still very much able to keep fighting. His mount wasn't so lucky; one of the exploding lances of dark energy had pierced its skull and ended its life.
Nemesis managed to surprise her, though. Seemingly, he had gotten his sword an upgrade since last time. In response to him being attacked, Hate Eternal charged with electricity, and a Thunder spell struck at her. Lysithea panicked, knowing she wouldn't be able to counter it...
...Only for Manuela to ward her, causing the lightning to bounce harmlessly off of her. "Keep hitting him! I'll handle his counterattacks!"
Nemesis snarled, and two lupine Demonic Beasts attempted to attack Lysithea, only to get caught in the hedgehog fortifications. Nemesis shouted something Lysithea was too far away to hear, and walked up to the fortifications and began smashing them. Taking that as their cue to go, Manuela warped the two of them away from the fortifications.
"Your turn, Count. Light him up," Claude told Lorenz. Lorenz nodded and rode near the fortifications, throwing a fireball and then riding back to the main force before Nemesis could retaliate. Nemesis held up his sword to guard against the spell, but Lorenz's fireball wasn't aimed at Nemesis.
It was aimed at the barrels of blasting powder that had been mostly buried beneath the fortifications and covered with brush. Upon making contact, the fireball set off a chain of explosions, sending splinters and half-destroyed fortifications into Nemesis and the two Beasts caught in the fortifications.
Unfortunately, while the two beasts were killed by the massive stakes driven into them by the explosions, all they seemed to do to Nemesis was make him angry. With their path cleared, Nemesis pointed Hate Eternal at the Alliance forces, and the Demonic Beasts charged.
The Alliance contingents buckled under the pressure, but for the most part, they held. However, both Nemesis and the Wandering Beast seemed to be unstoppable forces that devastated the battalions that tried to attack them.
When Marianne realized the Wandering Beast was advancing in her direction, she didn't panic. She didn't precisely want to die anymore, but she wasn't afraid of death either. However, she realized that she wouldn't be the only one who could die if the Beast didn't change direction.
She grabbed Servius and dragged him over to Hilda's wyvern. "Get him out of here," she told Hilda.
"And leave you on your own against that?" Hilda protested. "That's not a fight, that's a slaughter!"
"Do it!" Marianne demanded.
Hilda tried to protest again, but Marianne shoved Servius onto the wyvern and convinced it to fly off...somehow. Hilda wasn't exactly sure what she had done.
"We have to go back for her!" Hilda said.
"No, wait!" Servius protested. "The Wandering Beast is being controlled by someone. That's why it isn't acting like a normal Demonic Beast. I'm good with tracking spells; I can track the control spell back to the source. If we take out the controller, the soldiers may be able to drive it off."
"You're going to help?" Hilda asked skeptically.
"I would rather she not die while I'm in her debt," Servius snarled. "And she's the only person in your group that I don't find absolutely insufferable."
Hilda thought about it, then realized she probably wouldn't be able to do too much damage to the Wandering Beast even with Freikugel. "Okay, find the controller."
As Hilda and Servius tracked down the controller, Marianne took a more advantageous position from which to fight the Wandering Beast; namely, the far end of a large pond. Only Raphael, Margrave Edmund, and his personal guard were with her, and them only because she couldn't convince them to go. Raphael had traded his usual leathers for full Fortress Knight armor and an enormous battleaxe. Generally, he preferred to use his fists, but when Demonic Beasts were involved, having that extra reach was often the difference between living and dying. Margrave Edmund, meanwhile, was in his mage robes, and most of the Edmund soldiers were either mages or heavily armored knights. Hopefully, it might make a difference.
As Marianne expected, the monster that had once been her ancestor charged through the pond rather than trying to circumvent it. And that gave her an opportunity. "Infriga!" The water of the pond froze into spikes, piercing the Beast from beneath and holding it in place. While the Beast struggled to free itself, Raphael and the Edmund knights began to hack at it with their axes, while the mages bombarded it with light magic. Whenever the Beast managed to break the spikes holding it in place, Marianne unleashed her Blizzard spell again.
Whether the strategy would have been enough was uncertain. It might have been. However, another Demonic Beast apparently saw fit to come to the pack leader's aid, and attacked the Edmund soldiers. Seeing an opportunity, the Wandering Beast also broke free, its jaws lashing out, just missing Raphael and clamping down on the soldier next to him, crushing the man as if his armor was not there. "This is bad," Raphael said nervously.
"Telum Agneae!" A silver-blue magical projectile fell from the sky and hit the Wandering Beast's would-be rescuer, followed by an arrow embedding itself in the smaller Beast's eye. Marianne turned to see Lorenz and Leonie, with more troops at their backs.
"Bring down the Beasts by any means necessary!" Lorenz commanded. The troops complied, hitting both Beasts with everything they had. The Beasts fought back, taking out many of the soldiers attacking them.
Until the Wandering Beast stopped. It turned, snarled, and ran in the other direction. The other Beast, without its pack leader, fell not long after.
"Where is the Wandering Beast going?" Marianne wondered. And she might have been imagining things, but its snarl sounded oddly like "Nemesis."
Claude was currently running for his life.
Sure, he and the Deer had fought tough opponents before. But Nemesis just seemed to be so invincible. He, Ignatz, and Shamir were loosing arrows at Nemesis whenever they got the chance, but the arrows shot from ordinary bows didn't seem to do much more than scratch him. Even the arrows from Failnaught only seemed to leave shallow wounds. Lysithea, Manuela, and Balthus were bombarding him with magic, but that didn't seem to be doing much either.
Nemesis seemed to tire of the chase and threw a Thunder blast at Claude. Claude jumped out of the way, but a stone slipped out from under his feet, and he fell to the ground. And Nemesis was quickly almost upon him.
"Not happening, pal!" Balthus shouted, and drove his right fist into Nemesis's solar plexus. He tried to follow up with a left hook to the head, but Nemesis caught his arm.
"You are that traitor Chevalier's descendant," Nemesis realized. Seeing Vajra-Mushti on Balthus's hands seemed to anger him, and his grip tightened. "Your ancestor had no stomach for true power, and I doubt you do. You are not fit to wear one of my weapons. I may be here for the Almyran's head, but first, I will eliminate you and take those gauntlets."
If Balthus had been wearing the original Vajra-Mushti, he might have avoided damage from Nemesis's grip. However, he was not. Aside from the Crest Stone inside the right gauntlet, the Vajra-Mushti on his hands was pure umbral steel rather than dragon bone. It would still hold up against most attacks, but Nemesis was just too strong, and he crushed the left gauntlet and Balthus's hand inside it. To his credit, as he was doing so, Balthus kept his assault on the wicked king going, hitting him several times in the head, but it just wasn't enough.
Claude knew that he had to do something. Even knowing it could turn out badly, he called on as much of Failnaught's power as he could, and channeled it into a shot. "Fallen Star!"
The shot hit Nemesis in the shoulder, and it actually seemed to leave a real wound. But it just wasn't enough, as Nemesis threw Balthus to the ground and prepared to bisect him with Hate Eternal.
However, before he could get the chance, the Wandering Beast appeared from behind him and clamped its jaws around him. Nemesis managed to fight free, but not without taking severe wounds.
"Your fault! You did this to me!" The Wandering Beast bellowed.
"You always were a disappointment, Maurice," Nemesis spat back.
The Beast roared and attacked Nemesis again. No one dared interfere in the fight between the two, instead getting as far out of the way as they could. The fight between the two of them lasted a few minutes, with both Nemesis and the Beast receiving many significant wounds before Nemesis finally managed to put Hate Eternal through the Beast's neck, killing it.
The Wandering Beast finally disappeared, leaving only the corpse of Maurice and his Relic weapon. Nemesis tried to walk over to collect Blutgang, but he collapsed to his knees before he could reach it. He then seemed to realize that he would be fighting no more that day, and activated his return switch.
A few seconds later, Hilda's wyvern returned and Hilda and Servius dismounted. "I got the guy controlling the Beasts," Hilda said. She then looked at Maurice's body, and then at Claude. "Did we win?"