Maids were meant to cook and clean.

  Not this maid.

  Priest Captain Richal had been involved in many a campaign, rising through the ranks of the Order through dedication, hard work and an uncanny ability to survive close calls. He’d earned his Adamantite stripes and he’d been rewarded with a platoon of his own – twenty-four others of either Orichalcum or Adamantite rank. He didn’t get to such a position by being distressed when faced with adversity.

  When the bells rang and lesser men than him began panicking, he was already leading his platoon to the west but none of them were prepared for what faced them. In all his years in the field, he’d never quite seen an opponent like this.

  The tall maid was almost too pretty for the carnage she was leaving behind her, long black hair flowing to the waist of her black skirt, with green eyes that sparkled in her olive-skinned face. She walked through the encampment like she was strolling through a garden, sweeping through them with a monstrous axe, lopping the heads off men like they were unwanted weeds. Hundreds of soldiers lay scattered around her, screams caught in their throats, eyes staring up to the heavens looking for gods that didn’t exist.

  She needed to be stopped but she had carved through the regular soldiers without needing to take a breath. She was certainly Starforged – she had to be to slice through so many, so quick – but he and his team had faced just as bad, if not worse.

  This is what they were trained for.

  “When I give the order,” he barked at his team, “I want the tanks to move in and maintain aggro. Jalen, Cristine, Paletta,” he addressed three of the healers, “your priority is the three tanks. The rest of the healers help but keep an eye on the rest of us.”

  Thirty metres ahead, the maid noticed them, her head tilted slightly as her eyes passed over his platoon. Her lips curved slightly at the corners. She started walking towards them, axe held by her left side, the black axe-head brushing the grass. A soldier charged her other side, broadsword raised over his head. She kept her eyes fixed on the platoon, as she stuck out her fist in a lazy manner. The soldier’s face caved in like a resistible force meeting an immovable object, the sword dropping from limp hands before he crumpled to the ground.

  “Once the tanks have her attention, everyone else take her down,” Richal said, grabbing the crossbow strapped to his leg. As soon as he held the crossbow grip and [Loaded], the weapon drew on his energy, arrows forming in each slot of the six-cylinder barrel, ready to fire. They could be imbued further with his abilities according to what the situation demanded, but he needed to manage his energy usage.

  The seven healers positioned themselves so the three he had called out had a perfect line of sight to the three tanks. Their hands glowed with a faint green light as they pre-emptively healed, a similar faint green effect wrapping around the tanks. The other four healers spaced themselves to cover the rest of them as the mages and rangers spread out almost into a semi-circle, Richal standing in the middle of it.

  The maid stopped twenty metres ahead, returning the axe to her back. She gave a wide yawn, patting her mouth with her hand several times as if she were bored. Richal gritted his teeth.

  Underestimating them would be her undoing.

  He placed the crossbow sight to his eye and imbued the first arrow with [Initial Shot], a skill that would make the first arrow far more powerful than the rest but the energy cost would take several minutes to recharge in combat. That’s what battles against greater foes came down to – could they defeat her before their mana and energy ran out, even with their potions.

  The rangers by his side nocked arrows to bows as the mages began their casts.

  “Tanks. Go.”

  The tanks [Charged] from different angles, shields strapped to one hand, swords held in the other. The other warriors ran behind them waiting for the right moment to pounce, while the assassins stalked through the fields to get behind the maid, activating their [Stealth] until the right moment.

  The maid waited for the tanks to converge. Sylvia got there first, swiping upwards at the maid’s right side with the curved blade in her hand. The maid stopped it with her forearm, but almost immediately, Harben swung his broadsword at her head from the other side. She gracefully ducked below the blow as Harben’s swing continued on. Sylvia bobbed her head below the blade as she glided past the swing and swapped places with Harben. Nikel charged between the two of them with an overhead swing that the maid easily sidestepped.

  The three tanks immediately followed up with further strikes, one attacking as the other two slid into position, all three working in tandem to keep the maid’s focus on them. The other warriors were dashing into position as the assassins waited to come out of the shadows.

  “Ready!” Richal shouted to his ranged units above the din of the battlefield, as soldiers screamed elsewhere, bodies thudding to the ground, metal groaning with every step, clanging with every swing of a blade.

  The maid had friends.

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  He would help the rest of the soldiers soon. First, his team needed to take this threat down.

  “Unleash!” he roared, pressing the trigger of his crossbow. The [Initial Shot] whistled through the air at the maid’s head, disappearing upon contact with whatever invisible shielding she had. Still, his eyes widened slightly that the arrow hadn’t even slightly knocked her off balance. The cylinder took half a second to rotate, as the next arrow clicked into position and he fired again until he had depleted all six.

  The soil around him groaned as head-sized boulders lifted into the air and shot forth towards the maid alongside fireballs and ice-spears as more arrows were unleashed by the other rangers, imbued with their abilities, all disappearing on impact, if they were able to hit her at all.

  He [Loaded] again, took aim, fired normal shots as he tried to follow her movements and understand her rhythm. They needed to wear through her defensive abilities but there was no point wasting energy without understanding her patterns as best as he could so he could direct the others.

  That was his job as the captain.

  One of the warriors’ swords ignited as he slashed at the maid’s stomach and she calmly leant forward as she stuck her bottom out so the sword sliced through air. One of the assassins saw the opportunity and drove his daggers towards her exposed spine but she twirled gracefully, twisting her body so the daggers sailed past her hip, as she rolled over the back of another warrior.

  Richal had seen Starforged before but this maid seemed different. There were no patterns that he could discern. Her movements were more fluid than anything he had seen before. More effortless.

  She moved like living water.

  A fireball flew at her head which she batted away with one arm, ducking under an arrow coming from the other side. She backflipped away when a spike rose from the soil beneath her feet and plucked an ice-spear from the air, crushing it in her hand.

  She continued to dance around the blades of the warriors and assassins that surrounded her, her body twisting and turning to dodge incoming ranged attacks. At points, she used the melee around her like props in a gymnastics show.

  She placed her hands on the back of the shoulders of one of the tanks then cartwheeled over him, before placing her foot on an assassin’s knee, using it to launch herself into the air, hands clasped together in front of her as she pirouetted several times and landed on the balls of her feet, arms out wide with a flourish.

  Then everything changed.

  She glanced up at Richal, her mouth curved into a smile and her green eyes sparkled.

  She shot out a hand behind her as Mikael – an assassin – leapt towards what he thought was her unprotected back. He thought wrong. She caught hold of his face and slammed him into the ground, pressing her hand into his head and popping it like an overripe tomato. Blood sprayed everywhere.

  The others close to her hesitated for a split second, but the tanks were professional as ever, Sylvia launching another attack at the maid’s head, as Harben slashed at her knee.

  The maid tensed her body and both blades shattered like glass as they hit her.

  “Give her everything,” Richal bellowed, but even as he said it, he knew she was too fast. Too strong.

  But they had to try.

  The healers glowed like green fire as they concentrated their efforts on the tanks and the other melee, as the ranged units imbued their projectiles with their most powerful abilities. The mages created the largest fireballs, ice-spears, earth-boulders that they could. One of them [Ignited] the maid, flames flaring around her body as the healers ensured the melee weren’t also hurt by it.

  He imbued an arrow with [Initial Shot] and fired, then imbued the next arrow and fired again, before using his free hand to grab one of the vials at his waist. It contained a brown-orange liquid. He took it down in one gulp, the other rangers nearby doing similar. The mages put vials of blue liquid to their lips.

  Immediately, he felt a warmth through his body, the energy partially restored. Even with the potion, his body could only handle so much fatigue. Three potions at most before it gave out. But it was enough for three [Initial Shots] per potion.

  As he turned back to the maid, he knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  She forced a fist through the front of Sylvia’s plate armour, through her chest and out the other side, as she grabbed Harben by the throat with her other hand and pushed his neck at an angle it wasn’t meant to go. She’d let go of any pretence of needing to dodge their attacks.

  He realised then how badly he had miscalculated. This was no longer about trying to take down a threat. It was about trying to survive.

  “Melee, get out of there,” he screamed. “We’ll cover you.”

  They didn’t get the chance. As if he had given her an order, she moved between the remaining tank and four melee at a speed unfathomable to his eyes, stopping only to unclasp the axe on her back as the melee crumbled to the floor beside her.

  “Whoever can, run,” he commanded his team. “Now. Tell the others.”

  He shot three [Initial Shots], half a second between each and watched them dissipate when they met her. Several of his team continued to fire as well, as a mage, a ranger and two of the healers turned to run.

  The maid tossed her axe in an arc to his right and it flew through the air as quickly as she could move. He was barely able to glance to his right, when the axe whistled past his ear and back to the maid’s hand. She tossed it to the other side, as he was still turning his head to the right, eventually catching the tail-end of the heads of his colleagues toppling to the floor, their bodies in motion, taking a second to catch-up.

  He felt the axe whistle past the back of his head this time, as he turned his head to the other side, catching a glimpse of the axe back in the maid’s hand. To his left, his colleagues were already on the ground, their heads having rolled a few feet away.

  He turned back to the maid, only to find her standing right in front of him, towering over him with a sympathetic smile on her lips.

  “I don’t usually partake in theatrics,” she said. “That’s more Elsie and Elliott’s thing though, I must admit, there is a certain thrill to it.” She winked at him. “Let’s keep that between ourselves.”

  “I don’t suppose I can convince you to let me live?” he asked, dropping his crossbow to the ground beside him. He wouldn’t beg, but nothing wrong with asking.

  “Would you have spared me if it were the other way around?” she asked.

  He paused before answering. “No. I wouldn’t have.”

  “Then you understand?”

  He didn’t answer the question.

  “Make it clean,” he said softly as he removed his leather gauntlets and let them fall to the blood-soaked ground. He dropped to his knees and bowed his head forward. The maid moved to the side of him.

  He didn’t know who she was or what she wanted but having witnessed what she could do, he knew that only the Disciples could stop her. He just hoped someone would be able to tell them about her.

  And her friends.

  The last thing he felt was the wet metal touching the back of his neck.