473 17

I rushed into the fray without hesitation. My enemy couldn't see in the dark without their goggles. I danced through the shadows. Ripping off goggles as I went. They weren't trying to kill so I wouldn't try to kill them.

A simple strike to the back of the head for each of them was enough to put them down. I went at it a bit too hard for a few that had taken some of our people down. I could feel their skulls against my hands. Skin splitting against my hand. They were going to need healing, and soon.

A flash of light was enough to let me know that Aurora was in the fight as well. I hoped that she wasn't angry enough to kill them. I wouldn't really blame her if she did. We didn't exactly have room or time for prisoners. We were going to have to do something with them that would take them out of the fight.

My complete lack of mercy caught many of them off guard. Some of them looked surprised for a brief moment before my hand came down. I was pretty sure that all they saw of me was the red flash of my eyes as I jumped in, and out of the shadows with ease. Night truthfully was the time of darkness. The problem was how much mana it cost me to jump in, and out of shadows.

I was running low on mana rather quickly. I could draw mana from the air around me, but that wasn't a permanent solution, and it took time. I started using the breath technique that Wyatt showed me. Drawing in mana little by little as I used it. I was using more then I was regaining so I would still run out, and it took a good amount of my concentration so I took a few hits, but even the strongest human wasn't able to hurt me much.

My skin was hard enough to handle small blades. Even magical items would bounce off my hardened skin. As long as they were blunt they wouldn't pierce my skin. My armor protected me from any sharp weapons. If I couldn't knock the goggles off then all I needed was a flash of light.

Closing my eyes, and firing off a blast of fire was more then enough to disable anyone that was looking at me for a few seconds. By the time they realized what had happened I'd already taken them out. I took out over half of the invaders on my own before the camp had the chance to wake fully. Ethan took out the rest in a single surprise attack. All the twisted broken limbs told me that he hadn't been gentle with them either.

Here I thought that I was being rough on them when Ethan had barely stopped short of killing them. Aurora had actually killed four in her rage. Shredding them badly enough that the only reason we could tell that they were human was because they still had their clothes, equipment, and armor mixed in with the meat paste. It was a gruesome sight. I chose not to let the others see this.

Burning the corpses, and keeping a few belongings to identify them with. None were mages. That much I knew before I rushed into the fight. Aurora went around collecting the still living attackers. Placing them all in one spot.

Healing them just enough for them to survive. Leaving many of them badly wounded. I asked her why. Her answer was simple cruel logic. Wounded men would slow down the enemy much more then corpses would.

"We won't keep prisoners," Aurora paced around all the wounded men slowly, "We'll send back their wounded men. If they let them die then that is their mistake. It will hurt their moral to watch their own men die knowing we sent them back alive."

"What if they heal them, and send them back at us?" I countered.

"They will heal some of them, and send them back," she snarled.

She was tempted to just kill them. Even if she wasn't my bonded I could tell that much.

"Killing them won't do us any good," she snarled, "We have humans among our ranks. They will leave us if we don't show some mercy. Even if they were attacked as well."

She kept her voice low. Her tone screamed anger. I was surprised by the level of control she was able to show us now. She was still young yet she showed much more maturity then I thought possible for a creature that was barely two years old.

"What about the ones you killed?" I rolled my stiff shoulders as she continued to pace.

"You burned them already," she snorted almost dismissively, "The casualties were quite low considering we were the ones that came under attack."

"I guess you're right about that," I leaned against the second wooden barrier, "The next wave will be even worse then the last one."

"They'll know that we're serious," she paced around the outside of the group slowly, "They'll start taking us seriously. We'd be doing much better if we could call the werewolves or any of Wyatt's other allies here."

"Even if we could call them they wouldn't be able to come here without permission from the government," I shrugged in defeat, "If we had Wyatt's spatial ability then we'd be able to bring in whoever was willing, but we don't so our chances of surviving this are slim at best. It might be in your best interest to think of fleeing with Eliza, and her students."

Aurora stopped, and snarled at me. Apparently I hit a nerve.

"I don't like that idea either," Eliza suddenly cut into our conversation, "My students, and many of the others I brought here told me that just the three of you was enough to take down all of these men."

"Took you long enough," I smirked tensely, "I was beginning to think that you were going to spend the rest of your night confirming what we already did for you."