Despite the turn in the tides, most of the Rebels still hold firm, doing their best to eliminate the Loyalist leaders.
Cain can hear the calls of an attack on the King's position, but even with only the three Bone Dragons left, he's in no state to assist, so it will have to be left up to the others.
On the ground, Misha and Mythryll are hard-pressed. Misha has her companion Demon out, as well as Lamia Scourge Casters and Shamans as her Summons from being Cain's Lieutenant. She might not have wanted the title, but it's become essential to their survival today. Both ladies have called on Record Keepers, the giant feathery demons with immense magical knowledge, as their Guild Skill summons.
The King wasn't too shocked at the news that the big Summon was a Guild Skill, having already seen how overpowered Cain is, but Duke Archibald gave them a look that said an endless stream of marriage Alliance requests were in their future. Epic summons are too good of a bonus for the greedy Dukes to pass up. They'll have to warn the other Guild Members later.
The Record Keepers have put up a magical barrier around their group, keeping them relatively safe from spells and projectiles, but a large group that arrived late managed to sneak around the primary battle and up the palace walls to come close to the King.
Being Merged with her bodyguard and Sorcerer category summons has given Misha a much larger mana pool, but the rear lines are still very short on healers. The majority moved forward to save as many Nobles as possible in the primary battle, leaving just her and two others from the Palace Staff here next to the King and his top Commanders.
The force attacking them is heavy on warlocks, who used a Demonic gate to get themselves on the walls close to the King once they heard the basic layout of the battle. Since neither of the ladies had called any summons yet, the attackers were taken off Guard by the Lamia and suffered multiple casualties at the start before they could get organized. Still, after that, they began to overwhelm the defenders.
Misha doesn't get all of Cain's buffs to the summons, so even ranked up by her Skill, they're not as overpowered as his are, and the snake girls with their light armor are repeatedly massacred.
She's used to healing, not calling and coordinating summons, so Misha hasn't discovered the issue with her deployment yet; the issue being that with the caster-type Record Keepers, and no Kone Clones for Snapping Turtles, they're short on tanks.
The Lamia have a mobility advantage, though, and when they can get past the front lines of warriors, they do an incredible amount of damage to the warlocks and healers. So far, not enough to kill many, but the healer's mana is dropping steadily.
All of the Kone clones and their Dragons have been trying to target healers or the Necromancers. It's been working reasonably well, and they've managed to mangle a number of them, learning from the fights against Gnolls that bodies need to be intact for resurrection.
Up above, Cain had found himself in hand-to-hand combat with a winged Beastkin Paladin, who flew up to challenge him when the Necromancer stopped Summoning Bone Dragons and started to focus on saving himself from the Wrath of Duke Chen and his monks.
A thrust of his spear is turned aside by the Paladins shield. Then, the counter thrust is knocked aside by Cain's Scimitar while he throws a kick towards his opponent's face. In mid-air, it's awkward but unexpected, and the Paladin Turtles behind his shield to save his beak while Cain goes on the offensive.
A flurry of jabs fails to make it past his opponent's defenses, and the skilled fighter recognizes [Shield Breaker] in time to dodge and save his equipment. Though physically outmatched, the Paladin has fought against poor odds all his life, unlike Cain, who has had an easy ride with the overwhelming might of his summons.
His reverie about the unbalanced nature of the Summoning classes in group combat is interrupted by an agile flip of the green-winged avian, trying to get behind him to attack. The Paladin is treating him like a Raid boss and not a Transfer, doing his best to avoid being hit, having seen that a solid blow from Cain's spear can one-shot many fighters.
Cain parries the flurry of blows, circling high to get the Paladin back in front of him in this three-dimensional dance. He very nearly loses his Scimitar to a masterfully executed disarming technique. Still, He manages to catch it again as it falls, putting a bit of distance between himself and the Paladin as they both regroup.
The Paladin goes for a shield slam, but in the air, it's much easier to dodge, with Cain twisting under his feet and aiming an attack up at him that forces Paladin away again. That gives Cain a precious second to call back the copies of Kone that have fallen, with instructions to send two of their wings to reinforce Misha's position.
The Snapping Turtles that they call into the fray almost instantly change the balance of the fight near the King, panicking his enemies and putting them into a full retreat, running from the battlefield while they still have their lives.
Their retreat signals a turning point in the battle. The Necromancer uses some emergency token to escape the battlefield, leaving the Rebels with very few Summoned defenders to take the brunt of the damage and they start blowing a repeating pattern on their horns that Cain assumes mean an order to surrender, which is followed by the sound of weapons being dropped ringing through the city center.
"I surrender." The avian Paladin says sadly, wisely placing his weapons and armor in inventory instead of risking dropping a sword on someone's head.
"I accept your surrender. Tell me, are you a noble or an enlisted soldier?" Cain asks, curious who he was facing. Though seriously outmatched in stats despite his slight level advantage, this Paladin was an outstanding opponent. The fact he is still a Paladin at level 230 and not a second advancement class suggests to Cain that he's enlisted and lacks access to the skills to obtain the type of Class he would like.
"I'm a Captain of the border guard working for Baron Cohen. Far from wealthy enough to even be a knight." The man laughs, his wing feathers ruffling with the changed motion as he hovers.
"Then what possessed you to come here, risking your life to continue the Succession wars? I've only recently arrived in the country, and I can't seem to grasp the finer points."
The Paladin shrugs, then shake his head as if the answer is impossible to explain adequately. "Everyone can be noble with enough wealth. The lower nobility doesn't mean much more than property owners here in Skyview. But the Advisors have shuffled everything around since the King fell.
At first, they ran things unattended because the Crown Prince died with him. They put all the Beastkin armies on the front lines, then removed the Eastern and Northern border guards to let the Gnolls rampage through our lands. Your territory is three-quarters of the way across the country from the border, and you still get attacks, don't you?"
At Cain's affirmative nod, he continues. "It's far worse near the borders, and nobody has done anything to stop it. The few Nobles we still have after all the fighting told us that our territories are deliberately being left leaderless until the locals are dead so that humans can move in.
It whipped the commoners into a frenzy and convinced them to join the fight. Instead, what we found here was just another political play for power. But we were already moving, and it was too late. All we could do was hope to win and put a Beastkin on the throne."
Cain considers what he's heard for a moment before summarizing it for the King, sending it in Raid Group chat for all to see and learn the tactics used to bring the army here. He claimed to have gotten it from mental interrogation, saving a bit of face for the Paladin and possibly his life should his traitor friends find out he was the source of information.
"I'll assume they didn't tell you the latest proclamation then. Any daughter of a noble that doesn't have a betrothed or a husband is now eligible to be considered for the Royal Harem. There is a good chance that Beastkin Royals will walk the palace of Skyview within the next few years."
The Paladin smiles at the good news, though it has nothing to do with him directly. "Do you think things will change? Or will we be going home to a future of the same thing we've been facing for the last year?"
"It's changing. Only two advisors remained loyal, Archibald and Chen. I am not sure who the King will pick to replace the others, but he's already begun to become aware of the problems they'd been causing around the country. I will personally ask him to move forces to secure overrun areas around the border, but at the moment, I'm not even sure anyone alive knows what needs to go where."
Cain looks over the battleground, where hostilities have mostly ceased. Nobody is stopping the healers from resurrecting as many as possible, and the Seraphim are doing the same for the loyalist side, bringing those who can be saved back to life. It's been far too long, and the wounds are too severe to save many of the fallen, but they all do what they can to minimize needless loss of life.
