CH1010

Getting glances from the two sirens keeping the area secured, they turned back the moment they recognized him, focusing instead on preparing for any more demons to make it through while he went inside the house they were protecting, surveying it as he did.

The first thing he noticed was Delair, his eyes locking onto the girl and just how much blood she was covered in, with his senses catching up to tell him that the vast majority of it wasn’t her own. A few cuts on his student but nothing serious, letting him take in the rest.

With one of the siren guards on the ground, missing an arm, Woszan tending to her while Mirrian and Kalley sat nearby, gripped in their own fears, it wasn’t hard to put together what happened. In the initial attack, it seemed the injured one had lost her brace with her limb. Something that should have been manageable, all of the sirens who’d been sent to protect the young demigod and her mother had a level of charm that meant it should have been controllable, but it was still a passive skill and as such, needed a certain clarity of mind to really do so. As it was, the downed woman was trying, but she still let a bit get through, just enough to draw a touch of attention from any further away demons.

It was even affecting the rest there to an extent, five other dryads stuck with them beyond just his student, but at the very least, the strength of that passive magic was far more manageable. For Thera or even Kalley, the nature of that power may have been so great that it essentially suppressed the higher functions of anyone unlucky enough to be in their range and made them the sole focus of their thoughts, but for the dryads around them, it seemed the fear was keeping that effect in line in a way similar to how enough willpower would protect one from the same.

Well, for the most part at least, he acknowledged, seeing his student had been dangerously drawn in for a moment and saw in other minds that the timing lined up with a wave of pain that had made the woman on the ground lose control.

As he processed all of that, he materialized a new brace on her remaining arm and dark resistance amulets on the dryads’ necks, all of it done in a fraction of a second before anyone there could react to his arrival, with his student being the first.

“Ben!” she yelled, running to his side the instant she stood and clung to him, letting him feel her shake from the fear of it all as he reached down to gently rub her head.

“I’m here, kiddo. Everything’s going to be okay.”

Seeing her like that, all thoughts of giving her trouble for running back into that mess left his head as he instead focused on comfort, applying a subtle bit of calming to all who were there, even if that only made what they were going through more manageable, leaving the most composed of them to speak next.

“How’s the rest of the village looking?” Hentath asked, her thoughts with her people and filled with her own worries.

“At least a third of the village should be safe. I got as many to the gate out as I could on my way here, and I cleared all of the demons I saw on the way too, so it should be easier for the rest to work on evacuation.”

“Bodies then?” the older dryad asked, not truly wanting to know but getting relief as he shook his head.

“Not that I saw, but plenty of injuries. I’ve made arrangements on the other side to get them looked after, but for now we need to get all of you moving as well. We’ll… I’ll handle getting you all to safety.”

Despite killing his way to them and leaving a mass of corpses in his wake, from what Ben could see, he couldn’t just simply have them follow along as he guided them. They were too injured, too scared from the experience, with only two warriors really available to help. Even Hentath, who seemed the most put together, was too low on mana to completely depend on, the older woman having expended so much of her power setting up the tree barrier that had protected them. With her soul modified, she’d be back in shape to help soon, but with more people potentially still in danger, they couldn’t just sit there and wait.

Leaving him with one option for managing them all, even if the cost on him was going to be high as he broke down the house containing them and, as he’d seen Thera do before, spent his power to raise them all on a platform of dirt beneath them, beginning to fly them to their escape.

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