Three days after they left, Kiel's team of two humans and one angel went on the move again.
"I feel like there's more cities around here."
Kurena looked down from the Bird B summon she was riding on, noticing a change in the scenery below.
They had always traveled south so far, but they had barely seen any towns.
Three days of traveling and the streak of light still kept on going, vanishing far in the horizon.
According to Sophie, the spot where the streak went into the ground in the west side of the Confederation was overrun with Pagan Worshippers.
Kiel looked down as well, and noticed small villages and bridges on rivers and other structures dotted around the grasslands.
As far as they could see, there were no houses with obvious signs of fire or destruction, so the Pagan Worshippers had likely not reached there yet.
"Yeah. Wait, is that a royal palace? I guess this is probably Carvaluna's capital then, considering they're a kingdom."
They were flying above a location with far more cities built close together, and in the center was a castle town, together with a magnificent castle that made one think of a king.
That was the Kingdom of Carvaluna, one of the two countries Merus mentioned.
Merus had lived a hundred thousand years as the First Angel, so it was impossible for him to remember everything that happened everywhere in the world.
He had the duty given to him by the God of Creation Elmea, so most of his time was spent working for Elmea's Church.
All Merus really knew was that in the south of the Confederation were two countries, the Carvaluna Kingdom and Carvalonea Republic.
Carvaluna faced the north, Carvalonea the south, and both shared a border.
They used to be a single country in the past, but then the southern half rebelled against the monarch and formed their own republic. That happened one or two decades ago.
Merus had never heard the full story, so he could not tell exactly how much time had passed.
When the rebellion started, there was a tremendous amount of bloodshed between the two countries, and their relationship was still surprisingly sour.
They flew over Carvaluna's capital, where most of its inhabitants lived, but the streak of light kept going on past them.
No one had figured out exactly what the Demon King's Army had planned, but they were mostly certain it involved creating an enormous number of Pagan Worshippers.
Kiel wondered if they had started spreading the Pagan Worshippers from Carvalonea instead.
Carvaluna's capital did not seem to be affected by anything yet, everyone looked peaceful.
They had no choice but to keep going south, following the streak of light.
Boooom!!
A moment later they heard a loud explosion as flames rose up.
More explosions followed after the first one.
"They're fighting!!"
"Is it the Pagan Worshippers? Hm? Are those fortifications? Is this the country border then?"
Kiel leant forward and looked around trying to grasp the situation as a whole.
The first thing they could see was a large river flowing perpendicular to them, from east to west.
The river had been there for a long time, eroding the ground and forming a sharp inclination on both shores.
Because of that erosion the river's surface was below the ground, and the inclination made it impossible to cross easily on boats.
There was a large bridge joining both sides, but it had already been destroyed and sunken into the river.
Both sides of the river were dotted by fortifications built with even spacing, seemingly defending one side from the other.
Considering that, Kiel's team decided to assume that the river was the border separating Carvaluna from Carvalonea.
It was common to use mountain ranges or rivers as delineation for country borders, and it was also common to build fortresses along them to defend the country from intruders.
There were fort cities in both Latash and Giamut up to the north as well.
Kiel grit his teeth.
If his assumption was correct, Carvaluna was not fighting Carvalonea this time.
They had just flown over Carvaluna's capital.
The fire they saw earlier had occurred on Carvalonea's side.
But there were no signs of a battle.
It seemed like Carvalonea's fortifications had fallen to the Pagan Worshippers.
That also meant it was quite possible that all of Carvalonea had already been attacked by the monsters.
The Pagan Worshippers also looked different from the ones in the Holy Land, their legs looked like a goat's.
They easily swam across the river, and their feet had no issue gaining purchase on the eroded and slanted shores, climbing up and heading towards Carvaluna's fortifications.
There were easily more than ten thousand Pagan Worshippers already surrounding one of them.
It was possible they had just started reaching Carvaluna.
The soldiers on the fortification desperately aimed at the biggest monsters, unleashing magic and volleys of arrows, but that did not slow the monsters at all.
The strange Pagan Worshippers and monsters clung onto the fortification's walls, growing more dense there.
At this rate, they would only be able to hold out for the rest of one day.
There were also giant type monsters sprinkled amongst the Pagan Worshippers.
Compared to the fortification's walls, they looked enormous.
Though then again, the fortifications were not that tall in the first place.
They had been built only to defend against human armies after the countries split, so ten meter walls were plenty high.
Though twice that size would have been needed to defend against the Demon King's Army.
"Let's go help them."
"Yeah, we need to. I don't think those forts will hold for much longer."
Anyone could tell the monsters were overwhelming Carvaluna's defenses.
Kiel began to plan a way to deal with the monsters after agreeing with Kurena.
'Kurena, Kiel, you two can take care of the center one then.'
"Hm?"
Kurena and Kiel were thinking of going to help the fortification that looked about to fall, when Merus pointed downwards.
'It seems there's three forts in total. I can take care of two with my summons. I'll leave the third one to you two.'
"Seriously? I thought it was just one, but gotcha then."
Kiel answered in a more relaxed tone, after Merus told him to speak more casually the day before.
There were three fortifications closest to the river.
Kiel and Kurena had been looking at the biggest one out of the three in that region of the river.
The other two looked pretty small by comparison, but they were there, on both sides of the bigger one.
Merus had Shared vision with the Insect A summons coming behind them, and he ordered them to spread out.
That gave him a far wider point of view, making it easier to understand the situation.
Merus could destroy the torrent of Pagan Worshippers that crossed the river and attacked the smaller fortifications.
That was why he told Kurena and Kiel to take care of the bigger middle one.
Kiel had no complaints with that strategy, and they knew how to proceed now as well.
He had spent a lot of time with Allen, so he was comfortable with Merus' way of fighting, as well as hearing his short and commanding words.
Allen's orders were always short too.
There were many times when he had to ask afterwards exactly what Allen had been wanting him to do.
During lunch breaks in dungeons, Allen would explain his orders in more detail, and teach them how to follow them better.
Kurena and Kiel straddled the Bird B summon, and flew straight towards the spot with most monsters.
Since the walls were so short, Rank A monsters could easily reach up and grab the soldiers atop the walls.
There were already many soldiers reduced to lumps of meat there, either crushed or squeezed by monsters.
"Ghah!!"
"Commander Muhan!"
"Stay back! Nghhahhh!!"
One of the soldiers, who was referred to as commander by another one, was grabbed by a monster that resembled a gigantic monkey.
As his body was shaken, his ornate helmet fell to the ground.
He tried setting himself free, but his armor creaked as it easily broke apart.
The soldiers swung their swords at the monster, desperately trying to free their commander, but it changed nothing.
The troops stationed on the border were not strong enough to resist the Demon King's Army.
In the Five Continents Alliance, they only pick soldiers with a Talent to fight the Demon King's Army, but this was simply the border of a small country.
The height of the fortifications' walls also made it obvious they were not meant to fight such monsters there.
There were scant soldiers with Talents amongst the troops stationed there either.
"Let go of Commander Muhan!!"
The soldiers looked frantic as they struck their spears forward.
They continued attacking trying to save their commander, but their weapons were not sharp enough to even shave the bristles growing on the monster's hand.
There were only loud metallic sounds, as if the giant monkey monster's hair was made of steel.
That was likely an A Rank monster, meaning there was an enormous gap between it and the soldiers' stats.
In this world where Talents and stats decided everything, that difference was all the more despairing.
No matter how hard they worked, the stats of someone without a Talent would only reach the hundreds.
A Rank A monster easily had many thousands.
Wielding a steel lance would never be enough to cover for that deficit in stats.
The monkey monster seemed to grin as it squeezed Muhan harder, as if playing with a plush toy.
"Ghaaahhhhh!!"
His armor was crushed inwards, his bones broke, and blood splattered from his mouth as he shouted.
It seemed to keep its hand above the walls just so the other soldiers would taste absolute despair.
The overall morale of the soldiers would plummet after seeing their commander get crushed like that.
Though maybe the monster simply enjoyed being cruel.
Its big monkey grin simply kept getting wider and wider.
When Muhan could no longer scream anymore, a girl with pink hair fell from the sky.
"Yahhhhhh!!"
'Aguh?! Guhyaaa!!'
Reaching the area above the outer wall, she swung her Adamantite Sword onto the arm that held Muhan.
The soldiers had struggled to even scratch the monster's skin, not being able to even cut a single hair off, yet the girl sliced through the arm that was as tall as a human like it was butter.
The monster seemed confused as to what had happened, only feeling pain when it saw its own arm fall onto the wall with a heavy sound.
It used its remaining hand to tightly hold where its hand used to be, and the monster screamed loudly.
