The Demon King's Paladin Part 2. All Out War.

Chapter 556. Finishing This Side's First Phase

" I see... If that's the case, we can only suck it up and keep moving."

" What? But... The Elf... He has to still be around, right? It's only been around 20 minutes. Can't we still find him? Them? If there were more survivors? The other Elf with the one that stayed to fight... He ran, so he's somewhere, isn't he?"

" What way did he run?"

" That way."

The Demon pointed to the South... That wasn't great news... From what he's described, Morgan and Lee were able to break out of their cuffs somehow. From there, one of them, I'm not sure which... Was able to run away due to the other being a distraction. From there, a fight broke out. Around 20 Demons vs 1 Elf. I'm not sure how the fight actually went since the Demon I'm speaking to was the first of his group to attack, he was countered with some kind of Wind Magic that cut him up badly enough to make him pass out from either the pain or the blood loss. So reviving him, aside from adding one more body to our fighting force, was more or less useless as an answer to the question of what the hell happened here. The story he gave me didn't even really answer any questions, it just added more questions. Either way... This guy is more or less done here.

" What's your name?"

" Huh?"

" Your name, what is it?"

" Carnus."

" Okay, Carnus, I want you to head slightly Southwest from here, you'll find the men there, speak to either Lieutenant Tala or Denise and they'll fill you in on anything that you need to know."

" Wait... That's it? I tell the story and we're not going to go look for him?"

" Okay, how many Elves do you think you could handle right now? Is that sword even yours?"

" I... I can use a sword, Sir. What about you? Why are you cowering from them? You already beat them didn't you?"

" Yes and no, and I'm not cowering, notice how I'm telling you where to go to meet back up with a group of our soldiers? I'm going around healing any of the injured and sending them back to the rest so we can consolidate our forces. The Elves are on the march, they're coming here, we have about an hour.... I have about an hour to heal as many of us as I can and then we'll need to get ready to fight the Elves."

" Th... The Elves are coming?... Here?"

" Yes."

I quickly answered his question, but like I said, I am pressed for time.

" Look, you have a choice, you can run South until you run into the Elves and die there, or you can go to the group and help prepare. You need to make that choice, I know what I need to do."

" I..."

" I'm not arguing with you, it's not like you'd listen to me either way. The choice is yours, I'm leaving now."

I turned from the Demon and began to make my way West, if there's any bright side to any of this, I can now see the untouched forest where there was no damage caused by the tanks. Sure, there were still multiple piles of bodies, but I'm sure there's still some live ones.

" Wa... Wait!"

Just as I began to take my first few steps towards the bodies, Carnus called out to me. I turned to him before answering him.

" What do you want?"

I looked at Carnus and I could see that he looked a bit strange... a little like he was trying to avoid making eye contact with me.

" I... I just want to say... Thank you..."

" Oh... Yeah, don't worry about it."

I thought that was a bit strange... I guess he felt the need to thank me, but didn't know how to after he tried to get into a fight with me? Or at least that's what I'll go with. Anyways, I need to get a move on. I quickly ran to the next area that my Holy Heal Spell hadn't reached, this time I felt a bit lucky, even though there were quite a few craters, I looked around to see that a good amount of bodies were moving up and down. That means there's a good amount of survivors. I didn't wait to heal them.