Silver gasped in air painfully as he pushed himself backwards, a hand on his stomach where it seems several of his ribs have been broken. Despite the pain and humiliation of being blown back a far about thirty meters by one of the demons, he has never been so thankful to anyone before because in front of him was a completely melted and burning scene of hell. "Those old withered twigs!" Tracing a line of fading red light it led back to the mage tower where the fearsome attack originated, there was no way that they didn't intend on taking out the hunters at the same time, even the demons are nothing but melted piles of metal.

"That was really hot!" Silver pulled out a short sword that served as his side arm as a figure walked out from inside the castle. "It's a good thing they shot it here, I don't think I have anything that would be able to completely counter that." Joker was standing there using a fan of knives in an attempt to cool herself down.

"You!!!" Silver remembered the report of a jester fighting the dragon, and the one in front of him fit the description in addition to the nonchalant attitude it had to the current surroundings.

"Oh, there's someone still here." Joker kicked at one of the piles of melted metal, "Hey get up, you're still alive right?"

In response to that the pool started to collect together into a very unstable body that had some similarities to one of the winged demons from before, it was not the only one. In total five of the demons were still functional to some extent despite being in a liquid state although only two were able to form any real shape of a body the others unable to get past the blob stage.

Seeing the surreal situation unfold before him even Silver started losing his grasp on reality, or rather his mind was starting to rapidly break down. Even if he were to ignore the fact that Joker had defeated a dragon alone the sight of the melted nightmares slowly making their way towards him was unbelievable. His opinion towards the mages aside, their strength was undeniable and the strength of the previous attack would have even taken out a dragon. Then did that mean those demons were stronger than a dragon?

Joker looked curiously at Silver who suddenly started laughing maniacally, "I didn't even do anything and he's a;ready broken... Well he's just a small fry anyways." Turning back to look at the pools of metal that didn't budge Joker sighed, "I'm going to get yelled at for this aren't I? Although I never thought they would have that kind of attack." Lifting her head from her depressed state Joker turned towards the second wall where the sound of many boots stomping on the ground started to annoy her. "These damn pests, they just keep coming and coming. If only I could just nuke them." Joker pulled out a light blue potion that was contained within a vial shaped in the form of a pair of wings and poured the contents into her mouth. Immediately a pair of white wings appeared on her back and lifted her into the air, if it wasn't for how she looked the men that saw her after she rose up over the wall might have mistook her for an angel ascending from the battlefield.

As it is what greeted Joker was obviously not shouts of joy or amazement but a multitude of projectiles both of physical and magical origins. "Annoying!" Throwing the knives that were in her hand Joker dodged the oncoming attacks with ease, it was not her first time using this potion although the reasons greatly differed. Casually lifting the hand that had the storage ring on it Joker made a swift action like she was commanding an army to attack.

"A potion that enables flight!!!" Durmez was looking from the back of the horde of men currently pushing their way towards the castle, with the demons and dragons gone it was deemed that it would be safe for them to do so. Rather they didn't really have a choice since the hunters tragically perished alongside the demons.

"Do you know how big of a problem you've caused?" Lord Velmark had to personally come out with his personal army as the vanguard to convince the other nobles to move. It wasn't surprising considering what befell all the others who had marched upon the castle that night.

"That's inconsequential, it's a potion that enables flight you know!!! It's something humanity has been trying to make for ages now and even the elves with their knowledge of magic and vast resources were unable to achieve." Durmez brushed Velmark's worries aside as he continued to study Joker, how many secrets would he find from torturing and dissecting the demon?

"Inconsequential?!? The hunter's aren't going to keep silent about this! and now that you've basically destroyed the area around the castle, how are we going to restore it to functionality?!?!" Ever since Silver had left with his group Velmark had been having a huge headache, adding to that was Durmez who completely ignored any of the potential problems his actions caused. In the first place Velmark had intended to win quickly with a surprise night attack using numbers except the gates never opened, all except the south gate if you counted destruction as opened. Since he was the one intending to take over the capital he would have to be the one to fork out the finance required to restore the area, but in addition to the destroyed walls there were large stretches of scorched earth that would take even more money to fix. Looking at Durmez's reaction to Joker, Valmark could do nothing but sigh. With what just happened it was likely he had just made an enemy of the hunters and while he could kill Durmez to try and appease their anger it was just as likely to end up in a situation where he had to fight both mages and hunters.

"My lord!!" A heavy impact knocked him off his horse and onto the ground as he was starting to get dizzy trying to calculate everything. While he was still trying to figure out what was happening several smaller impacts could be felt through the hard metal that had collided with him.

"Damn it! Someone hit that thing!"

"It's impossible!"

"Retreat! Retreat!"

"Cut down any man who tries to run!"

Screams and shouts further confused Velmark as he started to recognize his surroundings, seconds later the thing that was on top of him was removed and he as roughly pulled up by several pairs of metal gauntlets. "My lord are you alright?" One of the soldiers that Velmark recognized as one of his personal guards was holding a shield up in front of him covering for Velmark as he spoke.

"What, happened?" Looking around at the chaos Velmark frowned, rather than fear his mind was in turmoil from the sudden events, after all he wasn't used to the battlefield.

"It started raining daggers and knives all of a sudden, the jester somehow made a bunch of them appear." The one who answered was Durmez with a high pitched voice. Looking to his left Velmark saw a sight that almost made him lose his dignity, it was a gruesome sight with soldiers and horses alike filled with blades, in fact Durmez was laughing hysterically and grinning like a child while he was bleeding from a cut on his cheek. Velmark didn't know what was more surprising, the fact that he was somehow calm albeit still shocked about the incident or that in front of Durmez stuck in the barrier that the mage had deployed was literally a wall made of blades of varying sizes.

"Was that a creation ability? Or was it a storage one?" Watching the creepy sight of an old man giggling like a child left even the soldiers around them to temporarily freeze up, although the screams of dying men quickly jolted them back into action.

"Please- Retreat to the back *cough, my lord!" To his right Velmark saw the sorry sight of the captain of his guards, his back had been pierced through by many blades and he was coughing up blood. Velmark wasn't as naive or stupid as some of the other nobles, he quickly realized that the man that was dying in front of him had saved him, even if it was in a rough way, from death.

"I'll do that and... thank you." Quickly retreating while being covered by shields Velmark said that quickly to the man who had showed great loyalty towards him, those words of thanks were the least he could do for the dying man.

"Did... Joker just turn back the entire army?" Shea was looking at the retreating soldiers in amazement. Of course routing an army is different than destroying one but doing it alone against that size of an army was still an impossible feat or it was supposed to be.

"Yeah... But I don't think she'll be able to do it for long." Gwyn frowned, time and time again Shin and his subordinates had saved them one way or another but now that they've retreated into the palace they've left all the walls open so even if Joker can defend one side once the nobles reorganize themselves it won't be hard to overwhelm them with sheer numbers.

"You're right, I can't keep this up." Startling the group that was by the window Joker's voice came out of one of the two remaining armors. Lifting the helmet up Joker pointedly looked at Shea, "I think it may be time for you to open your surprise."

"Can't you just keep forcing them back? You seemed to have great success before." Caroline placed herself in between Joker and Shea and stated with a glare, she did not trust Joker or Shin's surprise at all.

"I'll run out of weapons before they run out of meat shields you know, plus I can't watch all four sides while throwing that amount of weapons at the enemy." Joker shrugged while she stated that, in truth however while she was limited in the amount she can take out at once (so using clones won't make a difference) she wasn't going to run out of daggers any time soon. The amount that was in the storage ring is actually at such a high amount that Joker could continuously take them out at max capacity for several days straight.

"What is this surprise? Can't you tell us what it is?" Even though Gwyn trusts Shin to an extent the fact that Joker has been referring to the thing in question as a surprise is, well suspicious... extremely so.

"I can't because I don't know what it is, I was just given instructions about it."

"With the two demons you have there and you we can definitely hold." Caroline turned towards Shea, "Don't accept it, I have a bad feeling about it."

Shea was at a loss as to what to do, they already owed Shin a great deal so it wouldn't make sense for him to betray them at this point, but at the same time she also had a bad feeling about the so called surprise. Gwyn just shrugged when Shea looked for help and Tryn didn't offer any opinions either so it was all up to her to decide. "I'll do it. After investing this much in us I don't see how Shin can benefit from taking any hostile actions against us and if we can minimize the losses even more it'll be a good thing."

"Okay! Let's go!" With a puff of smoke Joker disappeared from inside of the armor and reappeared further down the hall...

"I'm still against this." Caroline had been strongly opposing during the entire walk even though she knew Shea probably wouldn't reconsider, especially now that they've arrived at her room.

"I wonder what it is, equipment or soldiers? Well either way it should be fine." Tryn had left to watch the situation in case the enemy attacks while they were gone but Gwyn had followed along, on her face was an expression of excitement as she was curious to what Shin would've made in Shea's bedroom.

"I present to you the present!" Joker threw the doors wide open with a grand gestures only to reveal...

"Mmfmfmfm!!!"

"Mmmhmhmhmmm mmhmh Mmm!!!"

"Eh, Kaila?" Shea first recognized the person but then started blushing from the situation. Inside the room Kaila and Misaki were tied up in lewd positions and struggling desperately against the ropes which passed through certain locations, the air itself had a peculiar smell to it.

"Err... well this is a surprise.." Gwyn scratched her head while looking away.

"This!! This!! This is unacceptable!!!" Caroline on the other hand was in a fit of rage at the scene, "To think he was doing this!"

"Ah... Oops, sorry I did that." Joker scratched her head with embarrassment as she confessed, "I completely forgot about them."

"""Eh?"""

Ignoring the stupefied expressions on the three girls faces and even more violently struggling duo Joker went over to Shea's wardrobe and patted it, "Shin said that the surprise was in here and that Princess should be the one to open it, I'm not allowed to."

"Umm about Kaila..." Shea started walking towards the wardrobe before stopping and looking towards Kaila.

"Hmm? Oh that, it's nothing just some lessons I was teaching them, you can just ignore them." Joker pulled out a dividing screen from out of nowhere and blocked their vision of the two girls.

"MMmmhmhmhm!!!"

"Mmmm mmhmh MMMHMHMH!"

"But, Kaila is-"

"Just do it already." Joker interrupted Shea and pushed her towards the wardrobe, "I still have a lot of stuff to do back at base so the faster we get this finished the better."

As Shea was about to open the wardrobe the doors to it suddenly slammed open and a hand reached out gripping onto Joker's face. "Who had stuff to do?" Standing there in front of a wall of swirling darkness was a young woman in relatively plain brown clothes.

"Ahh ahh Lady Vilana!!! Please let go!! It hurts!!!" The sight of Joker flailing in the air while being held up by the short girl would be comical if it weren't for the heavy amount of killing intent that was being released by the aggressor.

"Hah?!? You were just lazing about back at base and now you can't even finish this one task by yourself?" The girl's grip tightened and sounds of cracking could be heard as jagged lines appeared on Joker's mask.

"Umm... excuse me... but who are you?" Shea spoke up meekly.

"Hmm?" The girl looked over at the three that were standing there, Caroline was struggling to stay conscious while Gwyn was gripping onto the handle of her sword ready to fight at any time. "Oh, My name is Vilana, I'm one of Shin's teachers."

*Note: I'm heading to sleep now, X.X tired. Still looking at probably a chapter tomorrow if I don't end up falling asleep during the middle of writing.