Mum froze in her work as soon as I explained my plan. She did not lecture or even obviously reiterate everything I said to point out the flaws, which was, in this case, the hundreds of devourers scourging through the valley. We did not have the luxury. So only her brows knitted as she considered me.

I could tell she was conflicted about letting me go on my own even for a minute when we were surrounded by those demonic creatures, no matter how sound the plan seemed in my mind. But she also saw the sincerity in it. I was not only planning to arm Aleya with her commissioned gear, but also to equip all the warriors with the surplus of fabricators catching dust in the workshop.

Most of the Sentries and Militia were Noble Class, although they had their preferred weapon and some ragtag armour which could withstand the devourers for a time, they could always use something better.

"Well, Jinn is close by," she finally said. "It shouldn't be a problem." Her gaze narrowed on me. "Promise you won't go out of your way to confront the monsters."

I nodded.

"Say the words."

I complied. Surprisingly, it went easier than I thought.

"Good." Still, she turned towards one direction and shouted, "Larius!"

Immediately, the balding headmaster left what he was doing and presented himself.

"I have a bunch of fabricators back in the workshop that will be of much help to you," she said. "Go with Arilyn to retrieve them."

The headmaster blinked. "How many of them are we talking about?"

"Enough to arm fifty men with at least a piece of Prestigious Class armament, and many more of Noble class."

Larius swallowed his breath. "I'll call up everyone I can find, and—"

"We don't need many people," I said, holding up my wrist that bore the band of protection. "My storage device can hold most of the pieces. We only need a few to carry the surplus. Call up Instructor Delric, and I'll inform Aleya."

The fewer people that went with us, the quicker we would be.

I shot off to find Aleya. She had not travelled far, standing close to her father in a heated argument.

I barged right in. "Come with me to get your gear."

"You alone?" she cried, and probably was about to tell me the frailty of it. I did not let her.

"No, come on, I'll show you."

Aleya did not need any more convincing. We crossed the broken arches and met with Delric and Headmaster Larius, only to be slowed down by the resident speedster.

"Let me come with you," Priam said, appearing before us. For a moment, I could not help but wonder if he had advanced to Noble Class already.

Aleya glared at him. "Priam, how many times do I have to tell you, it's not safe out there—"

"You're not safe," Priam said. "I'm faster than you, Delric is super sturdy, the headmaster is Prestigious Class, and Arilyn..." his gaze drifted to me. "Well, he can fly. The only one who'll be in trouble is you."

As if to back up his words, his figure blurred once more and he stood next to Aleya, arms reaching to unsheath her sword, only Aleya was well past his antics and caught his arm and threw him down. Priam fell with a muffled cry.

"Stay put," Aleya commanded before striding away.

I shook my head and headed towards home. It was merely a couple of miles, and would have barely taken a minute or two at full speed, but I hovered between second and third gear, making sure I was not outpacing the others. The one who matched my pace the best was, without doubt, the headmaster... and Priam?

To add to everyone's distress, that rascal had not stayed put. Not only that, he advanced as though he were in a race with the others. I let the headmaster and Aleya deal with him, and found my attention moving elsewhere.

We had barely covered half the distance when I understood what Mum meant when she said Father was nearby. The devourers had already entered the valley, and the only thing stopping them from devouring the folks was Father.

I could not quite see him, but the aura that radiated beyond the wheat fields and the empty houses was definitely his. As I drew closer, I saw dozens of mangled devourer corpses, with limbs and heads severed and scattered on the ground, black blood marring the pathways I used to take to the Institution. More of their numbers lay scattered at the back, where a dark figure ravaged through their ranks like the storm incarnate.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

Without an Ashhound to impede his path, Father was unstoppable. Even the two-and-a-half-metre elite ravagers were barely a couple of sword moves away before meeting the earth.

It seemed he alone was keeping these creatures at bay while the rest of the militia took the people to the shelter.

As though noticing my approach, Father held his sword aloft in the air and shouted, "Why are you here?"

"We need to get weapons from the workshop," I shouted, eyes lingering on the demons he fought. He made it look so easy, effortlessly butchering over a hundred such creatures. Looking at his sword forms that ended the demons one after another without even a single resistance, I could not help but think that perhaps we were not in that much trouble. As long as Father stood against them, the abomination could not even enter the town.

"What's stopping you?" his voice came, and once again his figure faded to the more populous areas with demons.

I shifted to my left and burst directly before our home, which was barely a few hundred metres away.

Meanwhile, the headmaster had Aleya, Priam and Delric hanging in the air with a levitation spell, just to be safe.

"You still think this is safe?" Aleya glared at Priam, whose face had gone completely ashen as soon as the grotesque reek assaulted his nostrils. He didn't even have to look before he vomited what he had eaten that afternoon. "I told you not to follow."

"There was no time to bicker," Headmaster Larius said, the strain of the spell evident on his face.

Our house was in a less dense area of the valley, surrounded by fields with merely one nearby house of the Stonecutters. There were hardly any demons loitering about there with nothing for them to ravage. The headmaster ended the few we saw on our way with quick energy blasts before we landed on our doorstep.

Mum had also locked the entrance to our home, so I wasted a few moments there, before bursting forth straight towards the corridor beside the kitchenette. The others followed without question. They simply watched as I traced my palm over a tampered iron wall, tens of essence threads springing forth to enter its frame, and the formation shell within.

I had done this a number of times, but somehow the combination runes I had to undo danced at the tips of my threads, as the door finally unhinged.

The iron door slid into the wall, as a light construct lit up automatically, revealing a staircase down to the workshop.

I jumped down after a couple of steps, the others following suit.

"Wow, this place looks... packed." With that said, Priam unlatched a battle axe from the side wall.

"Is this it?" Aleya asked, drawing closer to the wooden mannequin that held most of the Stormguard set, leaving out the kneecaps and the upper braces, which rested on the desk.

"Help yourself," I said, tossing her those pieces. They were going to be the weak spots in the armour once she wore it. Not that the devourers could see through it. Not to mention the forcefield would be able to neutralise most of its weaknesses for a time.

Aleya nodded, getting busy. Her brother had already lost interest in the axe once he found the Stormguard set and joined her.

While the siblings got busy with the set, I turned towards the other wall where various weapons and items were displayed, starting from swords, sabres, spearheads, bows, to sickles, shovels and some farming tools. But they were not all.

"Is all this going to fit in your storage?" the headmaster asked, gesturing to them.

I smiled and was about to show him when I remembered the blessed stone was already half filled.

"Give me a moment." Quickly shifting to the desk, I pushed aside all the scattered tools and scraps before accessing the storage. One by one, I began to unload the books held within.

The headmaster exchanged a look with Delric once it was over a dozen. "How many of them are there?"

"A good book is a man's best friend," I said, getting faster with it. "And I have dozens of best friends."

"How do I put this thing on?" Aleya said in confusion, holding a piece that should go above her hips.

"I think it goes here," her brother said, pressing it onto her back, but could not quite latch it. The gear was not like regular plated armour; there were dozens of smaller components that clamp on via a magnetic formation to form a set.

A couple of minutes passed, with the siblings fumbling with the pieces. I was finally done with the desk stacked with volumes as tall as me. But instead of helping them, I touched the fabricators on display, connecting them with telekinesis and pushing them onto the blessed stone one by one.

Of course, I left out stuff that was useless in our current predicament, and mostly took prestigious class lances, swords, hammers, and axes. There were only eighteen such pieces there, a few of them even crafted by me.

"This is it?" Delric asked. He always had his ear on the echoing screeches.

I smiled, then moved to the opposite side of the wall and stood by the smaller study desk. Once again, my essence threads sprang forth, revealing a gleaming secret formation lock embedded into the wall. As soon as I fully unlocked it, the wooden beams and hardwood began to undo themselves, opening a window to a secret storage room. This one had been built after the legionaries had been piling up their repairs on us for months, and held most of their repaired armour sets and weapons.

Of course, there was no point in making it a secret room, but Mum left the job to me, and I thought it would be a terrific idea. Well, looking at the expressions of my audience, it sure was.

Inside was littered with fine hardwood boxes, each holding a centurion set. Various other pieces were laid in heaps on the other side, which required repairs, but there was enough good stuff that we did not have enough good men to arm.

"Take as many boxes as you can carry," I said before helping myself to more of the weapons.

They did not question and managed four boxes each, which held one full centurion armour set, whilst I opened the boxes to slip in all the breastplates, gauntlets, shields and spears, until the fourteen cubic metres of space within the blessed stone was packed full. The headmaster could probably carry more with telekinesis, but he needed to keep his hands free for any threat.

Whilst all these pieces of gear could not quite push most Noble Class to Prestigious rank, they would surely elevate their fighting capacity by a notch. Even common folk could kill demons of the lowest rank if they had one of those energy-blasting Pilum, even of the noble class.

"You two done with that?" the headmaster asked the bickering siblings, coming out of the secret storage. "We don't have much time to waste."

As if a timely reminder, a blood-chilling scream reverberated outside our house.

"You know," I said, "maybe we should all wear a piece or two before getting out."

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