Gyuki and his troops marched his troops forward to outflank one of the sides of the enemy. Gyuki felt confident in his abilities to demolish he enemy however commanding soldiers was another matter entirely, even if it was just a simple order. He couldn't help but wonder if they were to claim victory here together now that there are very few demons left as generals would he have to pick up the mantle of commanding troops? Would Dodomeki? He never had to do any commanding before, it was mainly cleaving as a battering ram of destruction or lurking in the shadows on backline sabotage missions. However if he this was what Mitsuko wanted he could do it…but would he do a good job for lady Mitsuko?
'Lord Gyuki we have made visual contact with the enemy but it seems we may have had...reinforcements?' A soldier stated. Gyuki was confused, reinforcements? He wasn't aware of any reinforcements, he halted his soldiers and took a few steps closer to look at the enemy. As he examined the situation more closely he found the enemy was being attacked by…frogs? He was confused, he wasn't aware of any demonic frogs under Orochi. All of a sudden he heard something on top of the wall to his side. He looked up to see a shadowy figures leap off and ambush him. Another frog appeared armed with a sword as he grabbed a hold of Gyuki's tusk and tried to attack Gyuki with it. He grabbed a hold of the arm that the frog was going to attack and throw the frog behind her and forcing it to let go of its tusk with his strength. The frog however as he was flung to the side it released its tongue and wrapped it around Gyuki's left tusk. Dragging him to the ground as his body was twisted before landing on buildings.
'General Gyuki!' One soldier exclaimed as he landed, they all looked to see the attacker, unsure of what to do as two more frogs appeared on top of the wall, hunching over the edge, eyeing up their prey as they licked their lips.
'erm, defensive positions!' Gyuki ordered hesitantly, he figured that should be the best thing to do. It's not like they could charge this enemy. The soldiers obeyed as they adopted a shell formation with pikes on the frontline forming a 360 degrees circle with infantrymen in the inner circle. However, the frogs laughed at their attempts and used their tongues to snatch a couple up and gobbled them. Their screams muffled as they were pulled in and devoured. The frog that toppled hopped on one of the roofs in front of Gyuki and laughed.
'This is the great devourer that we heard so much about? Tch, pitiful.' They arrogantly boasted as Gyuki stood up meeting the frog in the eyes with a hateful glare. He examined the frog as he rose, noticing his viridian green skin with a lighter leaf green underbelly with bulbous eyes, cute at first but on closer inspection held hatred and contempt.
'Call this pitiful!' He growled as he raised his club high to smash the frog, the frog however easily evades the attack as it hopped to another house quite far away to Gyuki's left, outside of striking range.
'Haha, you truly thought you could get me with an attack that slow? You really are as dumb as you look.' They chortled as he glanced to his right to see they're siblings leap down and began to swing and slash at the troops. Hacking them away. The giant frog hopped on several houses towards Gyuki, keeping him guessing where he was going to go. Each hop several tens of rooftiles were removed due to the sheer force of his speed combined with his weight. It was a miracle the house didn't buckle immediately. They hopped with such speed he saw Gyuki having trouble spotting him. They smiled as he drew his blade he hopped on the final roof before leaping forward, aiming for a slash towards Gyuki's torso. As it was about to strike however it found itself swatted away by Gyuki's club as it was flown across the various roofs of the buildings. As a result of this, many citizens of the house rushed outside and sprinted away as far as they could after seeing the monsters destroy their homes. The frog landed on his legs eventually and wiped blood trickling down from the side of its mouth and looked down at the bright green blood while chuckling.
'Heh, you're faster than you look I'll give you that.' It croaked, Gyuki glanced back towards his troops, seeing the carnage the frogs are doing to his soldiers. They didn't really stand a chance to fight against these. His thoughts drifted to Diamondback, realising that even though he's a very capable officer and warrior, he may need more of the troops than Gyuki does.
'Troops, fall back. Assist Diamondbacks forces, he may need your help more.' He ordered.
'But lord Gyuki-'
'That is an order! I will be fine, leave this to me.' He bellowed. The troops understood as they started to flee albeit begrudgingly. The frogs surrounded Gyuki and laughed as they performed short hops around him.
'Haha! You really think you can take us on by yourself? You shouldn't have underestimated us. You just dug your own grave, boar.' The first of the trio laughed. Gyuki got into his battle-ready stance as he raised his club to his face level, his eyes darted to all three of the frogs rapidly, anticipating their strikes.
Meanwhile Diamondback was in a deadlock with an enemy of his own as the frog's sword clashed with his halberd. His troops around him held off the frogs though a couple suffered the same fate of being devoured. Diamond pushed the sword away using all his strength and attacked horizontally, however the large frog planted his kite shield into the ground and blocked the attack with ease. He counter attacked using his sword aiming at his torso. Diamondback tuck jumped as he leapt in the air and as he landed the frog immediately raised his sword and slammed it down on Diamondback who blocked the attack with his shield. Though the strength of the attack shook his arm and made him crash on one knee. Diamondback raised his elbow, forcing the blade to slide down the tilted shield and land besides Diamondback who stood back up and struck the back of the frogs wrist, causing it to spurt out some light green blood as diamondback charges forward once again. The frog reactively recoiled his sword arm and shook it as it caused some amount of pain he wasn't used to. He unleashed its tongue on Diamondback who blocked with its shield but to his surprise it stuck on. He instinctively held on to the shield as the tongue was recoiled back into his mouth. Diamondback flows right in but grabs the upper lip of the large frog and stood on the bottom. The tongue releases its hold on the shield and tried to bite down on Diamondback, however his immense strength prevented from doing so. It moved his shield arm closer to his mouth to prevent him from escaping. It recoils its head back so that Diamondback's back was facing the sky, giving him little chance of escaping. Diamondback knew however he couldn't keep this open for long as he peered inside the mouth to reveal pinkish walls, a longue tongue which slithered around like a snake inside and what appeared to be an endless black abyss at the back of the throat.
Diamondback let go of one arm with his spiked halberd however this gave the frog a chance to capitalise, still Diamondback held on as he gritted his teeth with determination. He used his halberd and stabbed the inside of the mouth, causing blood to spill out, his spikes were able to penetrate the soft flesh, hearing a loud painful moan bellow from the abyss he was faced with a frightfully powerful wind coming from inside as the shield arm was moved away and the wind forced diamondback to fly across the battlefield and crash into the side of a house. The citizens inside were petrified, screamed and sprinted away from the action as fast as they could. Diamondback groaned as he sat up, moving away several bricks on top of him to find the frog spit up blood to his side and hops to his location and tries to stab him with his blade. Diamondback quickly managed to evade the attack by rolling out of the way as the blade crumbled the building into a pile of rubble. He stood right up and examined the battlefield. He saw one soldier climbing on the back of one of the frogs and took a couple of stabs in the back with his sword. The frog croaked loudly before it used its tongue to stick to the soldier from behind before slamming him to the ground. He used its trident to skewer the soldier as they bounced from solid concrete. Diamondback turned his head to the other side and another warrior frog used their shield to sweep oncoming soldiers, one managed to cling on to the side, only for the frog to slam the side of the shield to the ground, creating a fissure in the concrete. The body of the soldier was split into two. Diamondback looked up to his opponent as he grimaced, these frogs were not something he was aware of and never encountered. He wasn't quite sure on how to deal with this effectively along with his soldiers dying left and right. He gazed up to see him laughing deeply while croaking. His sickly green skin made him stand out from the usual bright green ones that he saw around him. Moss seemed to form on his back with black lines all around the body.
'Hohohoho, you are strong, demon. You are strong indeed. However, you and your forces will die like the rest and will be forgotten in the sands of time.'
'Then in that case give me your best. If we're so weak it should be easy for you to finish up right?' Diamondback retorted, the frog chortled.
'Hoho, I like your enthusiasm demon. I suppose we're all allowed to have delusions before the demise.' He stated before he lunged in again with his sword.
Meanwhile in the main palace Zheng Jiang ascended the palace going as fast as she could, trying to ignore the wound that was inflicted on her. It was an amateur mistake for her to let her guard down like that. Nevertheless, this is something she must contend with for now. She ascended the stairs, higher and higher in the palace. Even though her niggling injury was a hinderance she had gotten used to it by now…at least it didn't hurt nearly as much as it initially did but she knew she must not exacerbate it. As she ascended the next flight she narrowly avoided a thrust attack from a glaive aimed at the side of her head as she stepped back. Avoiding a couple of steps and letting out a small yelp in surprise before she looked up to find two elite guards waiting for her. equipped with glaives and bronze caps. Their faces were quite young, no older than 35 at most. They smiled dastardly to reveal their horrid yellow teeth, with one of them having a scar underneath his left eye. The other one missing a couple of teeth. Both of them had beards, though one was bushier than the other while being very unkempt. They used their glaives to poke and prod Zheng Jiang down the stairs. Keeping her at a distance, with the thin corridor as she started to descend there was little, she was able to do. Each poke and prod was met with red sister axe. Steel clashing loudly in the narrow corridor. She was unable to deflect them away long enough to close in. They saw their smug looks through their eyes as they kept pushing her down. At this rate she was never going to reach Zhang Yan, she needed to wait for an opportunity, but it had to be soon.
As one of the glaives pressed an attack towards her, she attacked the polearm itself, the axe slammed against the wooden polearm against the wall, splintering the wood as the metal blade crashed and bounced on the stairs. The elite guard was totally shocked as his eyes widened with surprise and fear. He was not able to hold on to that expression for long however when suddenly Zheng Jiang threw her left axe at his head, imbedding it into his skull. He groaned weakly before he plummeted backwards on the steps. His partner was aghast as he saw his partner got impaled by the axe before his eyes darted back forwards only for Zheng Jiang to deflect the panicked attack as he stepped back. She got in close and tackled him to the ground, he let out a painful grunt before Zheng Jiang righted herself on top of him and started to hack into his chest, blood spurted out with each attack. Zheng Jiang restrained herself from wailing on the newfound corpse as she stood up and went up more flights of stairs after retrieving the other axe from the guards skull. She examined the corridors more closely as she neared the top. The walls were adorned with paintings, gold decoration and his own personal banners. Tch, the arrogance of this man truly has no end she thought to herself.
As she reached the top of this flight, she found herself in a short corridor, empty windows were on her left side, she could hear the fighting and death more clearly on the outside despite her being so high up. She would glance down at the carnage however she thought she wouldn't be able to make much of the situation anyway since she was so high up. She traversed the corridor, her axes wielded in each hand. Despite the action outside they were drowned out by the by the creaking of the wooden floor with each step she took to her destination. She stopped suddenly in front of what seemed to be more of Zhang Yan's elite guards. Two more guarded stood attention at a wooden door, both equipped with shields. One armed with a spear, the other a handaxe. She concluded that must've been his personal quarters or something. As she approached the door the guards immediately went not battle stance, hiding their faces from the eye from the bridge of the nose downwards with their large circular shields. Zheng Jiang growled to herself, she wanted to get Zhang Yan already, not to fight more of his cronies. The guard with the spear glanced at the axe guard and motioned his head towards Zhang Yan as if he was ordering him to engage with her. The axe guard shot him a disgusted look before obliging. He inched closer to Zheng Jiang tentatively, knowing full well his comrades failed to stop her at a supposed advantageous position, so he had to be careful to survive and get glory. Zheng Jiang got in her battle stance as she hunches her body, ready to dodge and weave out of attacks. They paced from side to side, each one anticipating the others attacks.
Zheng Jiang out of frustration made the first attack with a overhead swing. The guard easily blocked the attack before countering with an axe strike to her neck. She ducked underneath the attack and counter-attacked with her left axe going for his right shoulder. He managed to deflect the attack as he twisted his body to the left to attack again. Once again Zheng Jiang ducked and weaved under the attack, she spotted an opportunity while performing the manoeuvre. She extended her axed and struck the front of his right ankle which was exposed. The force of the attack forced the guard to trip and fall forward while making a gash at where the strike was. As he was falling zheng Jiang quickly used her other axe to quickly strike down on his neck. The impact decapitated him instantly as the axe cut through the wooden flooring. The head of the guard rolled away from the body as blood spurted out from the wound as it poured out. She shot up a death glare at the other guard who was quivering with fear but he hesitantly inched closer to her.
'You don't have to do this.' She stated leaving him slightly bewildered.
'You can just let me go through and you leave and never return. Just put down your arms and never let me see you in the mountains again.' She said, giving him a chance. Her quarrel was with Zhang Yan, she was feeling oddly charitable to the quaking guard. He looked like he was contemplating the offer before stoically readying his spear and striking. Zheng Jiang quickly reacted as she wrapped her arm around the wooden polearm along with his wrist. He was so surprised he couldn't counter the envelopment of the arm and when he pulled it, Zheng Jiang held on tightly so he couldn't escape the grip. She shot him a cold uncaring glare before she raised her axe high and hacked away at the arm. The guard who let out a shriek of agony with each strike, blood spurted out before finally the hand was cut off, each strike sent a wave of pain crashing through his body. The guard was in so much pain he had to slump next to the wall. The shield was let go and Zheng Jiang walked to the guard, she examined the face closely, he was quite young, couldn't be older than 28. His beard was small and pointed downwards. He was cleaner than the others in appearance, a newly recruited guard? A prodigy? It didn't matter now. Fear and panic set into his frightened eyes as Zheng Jiang crouched down in front of him. She stared at him with a cold expression as she examined him, she gave him a chance. He refused. This was the consequence of his actions. He is now reaping what he has sown.
'Wait…please don't.' He begged for his life as he started to hyperventilate. Zheng Jiang cared not as she stood up and struck the axe dep into his neck. He couldn't stop it as she removed the axe. He began to gurgle as his mouth and throat was filling up with blood. Zheng Jiang opened the door to find…another flight. She sighed out of frustration, how much more does she have to endure to get at him!? Although she had a feeling he was very close and this was the last hurdle. With that in mind Zheng Jiang took a deep breath and winced as she was reminded of the wound that was inflicted upon her. But once she exhaled, she climbed up the stairs leaving the guard to suffer for choosing the wrong choice.