Almin sat on a crate and watched the lord duel with the demon commander in the distance. They moved almost too fast for human eyes to track, although they disconnected as the lord would occasionally land a blow on the demon commander. He kept his rifle trained on the demon commander, ready to intervene whenever it would be convenient.

  “I suppose the rumors of him being an Adamantine ranked adventurer are true then.” Birgen leaned against the box next to him. While most of the soldiers wore their simple fatigues and maybe some armor if they chose to, Birgen wore his full dwarven complement. He refused to be parted with it, and barely allowed for it to be painted in the camouflage standard of the guards.

  “Hmm. I haven’t heard those rumors, but I don’t spend as much time drinking as you do.” The dwarf grunted and shuffled away to another firing position.

  The demons on the wall seemed equally interested in the duel. They peered over the black stone crenelations at the two whirling figures on the field. Almin propped up his rifle on his tripod, and took a potshot at the defenders. A single humanoid demon that had exposed itself too much stumbled forward and fell off the wall after a brutal hit to its midsection. After that, the demons didn’t look over the wall.

  ————

  After another long exchange from which Kyle had come out on top, he decided to end it then and there. He retreated backwards while still facing the demon, and drew his revolver. He’d had these bullets thinly tipped with silver so he could kill demons with them more effectively.

  “Alright! You can clearly see I’m winning, surrender! This artifice I hold in my hand can kill you in a second!” The demon, now much slower and covered in huge bruises from both gauntlet and hammer, simply spat at Kyle. “YOU know I’LL never surrender to-” Kyle cut him off with a pull of the trigger.

  The 14x40 silver-tipped armor penetrating shell left the barrel with so much force that the air burned slightly after it passed. Kyle proceeded to pull the trigger two more times. A perfect Mozambique drill shooting maneuver.

  Two shots to the body and one to the head later, the demon was dead. Just like Bariyon had promised him earlier, when the silver touched the demons flesh, it suddenly became anomalously physics-breaking. It was as if the demons body provided no resistance-it simply melted around the silver, even though it interacted perfectly normally with the uncoated portion of the shell.

  No matter the physics-defying magic, the effect was undeniable. Whatever physical resilience the demon possessed simply parted before the silver tips. All three bullets exited the back of the demon and lodged themselves in the wall a few hundred meters away. Every pair of eyes on the battlefield looked at the smoking revolver in awe.

  And then the mortars fired another volley, and the battle resumed.

  ———

  Kyle had no way of knowing at the time, but surrender and mercy were unknown concepts in demonic culture. They were vaguely aware of them from human travelers and traders, but they had no context for a battle ending in anything but death or retreat. And in a siege, traditionally only one of those options was available.

  Kyle gave the order to pound the garrison to dust; he wasn't about to have his already massively flimsy-in-close-combat troops undergo urban combat with the various demons who could shred through them by the dozen.

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  The demons made several desperate pushes against the trench lines, but they were torn to pieces by gunfire. Even those with heavy armor barely lasted longer. In the end, Kyle was forced to have troops march through the blasted out ruin. A few died to demons who’d hidden, determined to take some humans with them, but losses were incredibly low compared to the death they’d dealt.

  And so, the battle was won with little real effort. Things had gone so smooth-until they didn’t.

  ———

  In the command bunker at the base, Kyle and his officers completed a briefing. “And so, in about two weeks, we can start mining for Adamantine and Demonite, as well as farming blackroot, cinderbells, and soulflowers. In fact-”

  At that moment, an arrow broke through one of the small windows on the concrete structure and exploded on Kyle’s helmet. The magical explosion resulting from the enchantment rolled over the room, outright killing the nearest officer, and wounding the others in the room badly. In an instant, Kyle sprinted full force through the concrete wall with an explosion of dust. In the distance, soldiers and mages looked on in shock. Except for one, who slinked backwards through the crowd with a scowl.

  Kyle instantly locked his vision on the would-be assassin, but he was overcome with a strange sense of vertigo the moment he looked at their face. ArmorFS_AI-V.23.2, activate anti-memetic defense subroutine 01. The armor began autonomously sprinting after the figure, who obviously noticed the armored titan moving directly towards him. Kyle focused his efforts on getting the gathering soldiers out of the way.

  “Go help the officers! Grab the medics, tell them to bring their burn kit!” Men sprinted off to do that, while mages sprinted towards the fire to put it out and heal the officers.

  The base went into lockdown. No longer was it a basic concrete platform and some tents. It was a proper fortress with ammo storage, vehicle pools, and barracks galore. Men on watchtowers scanned for suspicious figures, and soldiers moved in groups of two or three with their guns loaded.

  The assassin hopped the fence, and Kyle’s armor autonomously followed. The troops must not have noticed them due to the memetic defense against being looked at that Kyle circumvented with his armor. After a minute or two of chasing, the figure turned around and pulled out a black greatbow and quiver seemingly from thin air.

  “I don’t know how you’re following me, or how you survived that runic arrow seemingly unscathed, but your invasion of Kanaduran ends here. The Demon Lord Dahubu the Blooded has ordered your death!” “You're welcome to try, assassin.”

  The fight was interesting, as Kyle’s armor blurred the enemy on his HUD so he wouldn’t be struck with the headache and nausea that the memetic agent caused.

  However, by taking one of the explosive arrows head on, Kyle was eventually able to close with the assassin and land a devastating punch on their shoulder.

  Spinning to the ground, the demon fell limply and didn’t get back up.

  Kyle pulled out his revolver and pressed it against the incapacitated demon's sternum. “Tell me why I shouldn’t execute you right now, scum.” “Hah! There’s no reason you shouldn’t!” Kyle agreed and pulled the trigger. The demon's entire chest cavity was instantly vacated.

  Once the demon was fully dead, they were enveloped in red flame. A moment later, the flames across the body subsided, and what they revealed was changed on a fundamental level. No longer did the visage of a random soldier adorn the body-now a lithe and tall demon in scale armor lay on the ground. On her-as the corpse was definitely female-forehead, the mark of an open hand reaching through an upside down pentagram was branded.

  Some kind of assassin order, judging by that edgy marking. Either Dahubu and the Ahugib Empire are closer than the Magocracy thinks, or they have informants amongst the Ahugibbians.

  I’m done with this dimension.