Chapter 34 — The Final Battle (Part 1)

July 19 finally came and that day, from the very morning, Meredith felt that the opponents were approaching. Around noon, she notified everyone:

"The army will soon emerge from behind the trees, they will come from the forests to the east, I feel the very strong demon energy. There are a lot of them... More than we expected. They also took the worst scum from the Underworld with them—vampires, strigoi, trolls, and other monsters—all children of the darkness," Meredith said, staring at the forest wall.

"So many minds..." Alice added, focusing hard on understanding the thoughts of the enemies.

"Can you read all of their minds?" Rita asked, looking at her with concern.

"I understand the thoughts of the demons, and the others have far less complex minds, so I have no problem understanding the thoughts of trolls, strigoi, and similar creatures. It will be worse with vampires, because some of them are "shields" and therefore can block their mind just like Tess." Alice replied, still focused on the thoughts of approaching enemies.

"Their emotions are very strong and are dominated by anger and a great will to fight... It will be a fierce battle for sure." said Elisabeth with a stony expression on her face.

"I hope we can withstand the fight until midnight." Rita sighed, looking towards the forest from which the enemy army was to emerge.

First Selene was sitting in the tent with Johnathan and Isabelle, hearing and feeling Damon's presence nearby, and Alice walked inside a little bit later. Selene was more and more nervous with every minute that passed, and prayed all the time for the positive outcome of this battle for their side. She also hoped the losses to be as low as possible, and Maria with the other angels could keep up with the healing so that as few people as possible would lose their lives. Ah, if only time could pass faster and it would be midnight already! Then Selene would finally be able to calmly get rid of Alistair and give her friends a decisive advantage in the fight. Unfortunately, she had to somehow endure these several hours, not letting herself be killed at all costs.

~~~~~~

Around 12:30 p.m. everyone could hear thousands of footsteps that were getting closer and closer. Selene sat snuggled in Isabelle, trembling as she heard the approaching army of demons. It was the first time Selene had witnessed something like this, so no wonder she was terrified, while others remained stoically calm. Alice the tent for a while again, but soon came back, announcing what she, Elisabeth, and Meredith had sensed.

Eventually, from behind the trees, countless hordes of demons emerged, then vampires, and behind them other evil beings and monsters, in total almost 500.000 of enemies. Everyone gathered on the hill looked at this army in slight horror. Even in Elisabeth's eyes a fear flashed, although throughout all the years of her life she had a lot of tough battles with only slightly smaller hordes.

Damon came into the tent, where Selene sat with Isabelle, Johnathan, and Alice, just to say, "They are here." Soon after, he was gone.

"It's finally beginning." Alice added, a little frightened by the number of minds she heard and their hateful thoughts.

Johnathan squeezed his wife's hand tightly and Isabelle returned the gesture. As always, their eyes said much more than they could now express with words. One could see that they were a bit scared and worried as well, but their eyes also showed hope and readiness to repel any attack.

Selene swallowed, sensing for herself a tremendous amount of bad energy and the many dark auras that no doubt were getting closer. Until now, this battle had seemed a little bit unreal to her, but now she felt exactly how great the threat was. Selene felt the tension building up, heard the rumble of the ground in the valley caused by the thousands of marchers, battle cries, but also the menacing growls and terrifying hisses she'd only heard in horror movies before. Except that they were very real.

~~~~~~

Both armies attacked each other almost simultaneously. First, the arrows of the elves fell, from which some of the trolls and strigoi that were thrown at the first fire fell dead. Then the fairies and dwarves took care of the rest of the creatures, followed by angels and magicians from Siberia. Vampires attacked them from the enemy side, and at the very end demons also entered the fight, so wizards and sorceresses took up a battle with them. Despite the outnumbered army of demons, the fight was extremely even.

Alistair stood on a nearby mound and watched it with a slight smile, because so far everything looked reasonably well for the very beginning of the fight. Then he turned to Salvatore, Johann, and Chris who were standing next to him.

"You probably know well what your task is. You have to break through to their camp and get to this largest tent. They hide the "chosen one" there, I can feel it. And don't even dare to come back here until you eliminate her." Alistair ordered firmly.

Without unnecessary words or procrastination, all three of them set off through the forest, so as to be unnoticed in the enemy camp. Salvatore got there first, because Johann and Chris came across Marco patrolling the area and began to fight him. Meanwhile, he continued on towards the largest tent, where the "chosen one" was to be located. She certainly wasn't sitting there alone, but Salvatore was sure he could deal with the few people who guarded her.

The first wounded began pouring in from the battlefield, but Maria and the other healing angels took care of them efficiently and quickly, so they returned to the fight quickly, supporting their companions further. So far, the makeshift hospital was not overloaded and therefore the treatment was going smoothly and quickly.

Alistair suffered some losses as well, but using his devilish gift, he resurrected every demon that died, making it seem like the battle would never end. Of course, his gift had its limits, so he couldn't resurrect absolutely anyone in a short amount of time and had to take short breaks, but it made the job of the wizards army hard anyway.

~~~~~~

Salvatore was close to his target, the tent where Selene was hiding, when Deborah suddenly stood in his way. She had been on the battlefield so far, but from a distance saw Salvatore sneaking towards the tent, so came here as quick as possible.

"You can't go any further." she said bravely.

"Are you alive? I thought I finished you." Salvatore looked at her, slightly surprised, but also a little disappointed.

"You must have forgotten we have a Maria who can heal." hissed Deborah.

"Ah, yes, my mistake. Fortunately, it can be repaired." Salvatore smiled ominously, and the fireball was already in his hand.

"I'm not afraid of you." Deborah replied, ready to defend herself.

"You are lying." Salvatore said and threw the bullet at her, while hypnotizing so that she would not have time to defend herself.

Fortunately, Damon soon ran out from behind the trees, dragging Deborah aside, and the fireball passed by them both with only a few centimeters to spare. Salvatore looked at her defender disapprovingly.

"You ruined my fun." he said dissatisfied.

"You owe me something." Damon replied, completely ignoring his words, quickly getting to his feet.

"I wonder what." Salvatore snorted with obvious reluctance.

"Your death. You killed Selene's father." Damon replied, glaring at him.

"And you killed her mother, don't you remember?" Salvatore replied, smiling maliciously.

Damon became furious and lunged at him. Deborah watched them struggle with undisguised terror and she couldn't use her gift because they were both too close to each other and she didn't want to burn Damon along with Salvatore.

Most of the time, the battle of those two demons was quite even, but the anger clearly bothered Damon and therefore he made many ill-considered moves and his opponent, of course, did not hesitate to use these mistakes to his advantage. Finally, after some twenty minutes of fighting, Salvatore threw the unconscious opponent off the hill, clearly pleased with his victory.

"No... It's impossible." words blurted out of the frightened mouth of Deborah.

"So, we are finally left alone. It's time to finish the game." Salvatore turned to her with a mischievous smile. He was about to attack her when, out of nowhere, Deborah's mother, Mellisa, appeared.

"I will not let you hurt my daughter. I have already got rid of away once, so I will do it a second time." she said, throwing a potion at his feet, which weakened him seriously.

"Mom, but Alistair can resurrect him." Deborah replied, looking at Salvatore writhing in agony.

"I have another potion here that will prevent Alistair from doing this for a longer while." Mellisa replied to her daughter.

But before either of them could move, Damon suddenly appeared on the hill, with one grip immobilizing Salvatore, even though he was still quite battered.

"Deborah, can you burn him?" Damon asked her, clutching a weakened opponent.

"You're standing too close to him. You might burn along with him." Deborah replied.

At these words, Damon immediately threw Salvatore hard against a nearby tree, and then threw a fireball at him, wounding so much that he was unable to escape.

"Much better now." Deborah spoke up, smiling slightly and focusing her power on Salvatore. Soon he began to burn until turned into a pile of ash, and Deborah's mother poured her potion on it.

"We'll have him out of our heads for now. I don't know exactly how long this potion works, but it will for a few hours for sure." she informed.

Then the three of them went to the tent where Selene was hiding.

"I heard Salvatore's thoughts. He was here, wasn't he?" Alice asked, looking at them closely.

"Yes, he was, but we managed to burn him." Deborah confirmed. "Additionally, my mother..." she pointed at Mellisa standing next to her. "...treated him with a potion that would prevent Alistair from resurrecting Salvatore for a while." she added.

"That's great. Everyone could use a potion like this." admitted Isabelle with a slight smile.

Damon entered last. Upon seeing him, Selene immediately jumped up and put her hands around his neck.

"You don't even know how scared I was..." she sobbed. "When Alice said Salvatore threw you off the hill..." Selene added, cuddled up to him.

"You know, demons don't die from falling from on high, silly." Damon said playfully to soothe her, then hugged tightly and kissed the top of her head, smiling slightly, but seeing Selene's face expression he quickly turned serious too.

"It's not funny at all. And I know that, but I was really worried." Selene said, though Damon's smile was contagious and its very pale form crossed her lips.