Akira spent the rest of the morning helping with the many projects that were going on all around Kodria.

His main focus was helping make sure that the farmers had enough tools to quickly clear and till the land to plant the fast-growing crops needed to support Kodria through the majority of winter. He also made sure to keep Kodria's army busy by patrolling Kodria's territory and hunting the monsters that were slowly popping back up in numbers after their population had been decimated by the Molten Onyx Plague. It just went to show how troublesome they were if they were able to bounce back so quickly after nearly being wiped out.

He only took a short break in his busy day to return to the castle to eat a quick lunch and check up on Mileena and the twins.

“How's our prince and princess?” asked Akira, as he and Fluffball entered the brightly lit baby room.

“They won't stop soiling their diapers! Azura, Maya, and Yuki are constantly having to wash multiple diapers every day!” said Mileena. She had bags under her eyes from only getting a few random hours of sleep every day.

“This is normal, until they grow older you will have to deal with this every day,” said the elderly midwife.

She was sitting in one of the two rocking chairs as she was knitting a small silver wool hat to go along with a pair of small silver socks she had already finished.

“Is it really okay to not give them names yet?” asked Mileena.

“We can reveal their names to everyone when the birth festival starts,” said Akira.

“But the festival is in another two weeks...”

***

Far to the north, deep in Demigod territory, a group of over fifty demigods from the guild [FrozenBlood] hid in a small cluster of trees. They were one of several other groups that the guild had sent out on specific tasks.

“That's our target?” asked a female wearing red robes while leaning on her long red staff. “Looks like their guard's strength is weaker than ours.”

“Don't let that fool you, just look at what happened to those that attacked Kodria.”

“That's different. These riffraff are nothing,” said the female demigod as she looked at the dirt walls.

“This should be the last bandit stronghold in this area. If we can clear this town we can complete the requirements to finally take control of the entire area allowing our main settlement to thrive! It will only get better when we capture the minor surrounding towns and villages!”

“Enough talking, we need to finish this quickly so we can join the other teams in capturing more villages and towns,” said a demigod in full plate armor.

The demigods holding staffs, wands, books, and bows readied their skills and blue potions to begin their bombardment.

“Now!” commanded the knight captain.

Dozens of different color skills flew from the cluster of trees and raced towards their target.

Kaboom!

Several of the skills slammed into the earth wall sending dirt exploding into the air opening large gaps in the wall. Another portion of the skills were targeted at the visible patrolling bandits.

The remaining few skills exploded in the air high above the fortified earthen bandit base sending out several area of effect fire, wind, and water attacks.

“AHHH!” “Enemy attack!” “It's the demigods!”

“Forward!” shouted the knight captain pointing his sword towards the broken earth walls.

Over 30 demigods with various melee weapons charged out of the trees. They did not bother to use any type of formation as they rushed toward the openings in the dirt walls.

Arrows began to fly through the air towards the charging demigods in a pitiful response to the ranged attacks.

The bombarding range attacks continued to rain down on the earthen stronghold sending plumes of dirt into the air, and bodies tumbling to the ground maimed or dismembered. The attacks only lessened when the melee fighters reached the destroyed dirt walls and started a rampage inside what remained of the fort.

“Be glad you can be the first that I test my new skill on!” shouted a demigod with two axes.

Several skills flew through the air as the demigods activated their skills and cut down over a dozen bandits with ease.

“Gahhh!” cries of pain rang out as the bandits were cut in half or had limbs severed.

The bandits holed up inside the dirt fort were little more than villagers with farm tools that had been crudely reforged into weapons. They wore little to no armor.

With the might of the demigods and the surprise attack, the bandits stood no chance and were completely wiped out in under ten minutes. No one was allowed to escape.

“Is that all of them?” asked the knight captain. He looked at the roughly 130 mangled dead bodies that littered the black dirt which was now turning crimson from the leaking blood.

“We found a few that were trying to hide in hidden holes but took care of them. That should be all of them,” said the demigod holding the two bloody axes.

“Did we lose anyone?” asked the knight captain as he tried to get a head count of everyone.

“Only Dom Bass,” said a nearby demigod.

“Why do we even bother with him? He is always dying and wasting the equipment and potions we give him.”

“Because we need everyone we can get to stand against the Demon Hunters.”

“Captain! Bad news! I just got a message from the guild master!” shouted a female demigod.

The other demigods that were looting what valuables they could find from the dead bandits stopped what they were doing and looked up towards the panicked girl.

“What is it?”

“Our main settlement was just attacked!”

“How bad is the damage?”

Tears filled her eyes as she repeatedly tried to say the words, “It's gone! We no longer control any territory!”

“Who attacked?”

As they tried to figure out what was going on everyone received a guild message at the same time.

[Everyone is to gather at the Alpha meeting point! We will be launching a counterattack to retake our lost territory! We are facing the combined forces of the Forbidden guild and the Cunning Shadow guild!]

Similar things were happening all over the far north as the demigod guilds fought over the towns and villages like they were the most precious thing in the world. Even abandoned and destroyed towns were treated like they were piles of gold.

Many smaller groups of demigods not part of the larger guilds all tried to get in on the action but were brutally underfunded and lacked the manpower to keep the territories they captured for long.

The many towns and territories were changing hands every day, sometimes multiple times in a single day!

***

Time continued to move swiftly by, in Kodria many projects were being completed and new ones started.

Akira sat on a cushioned chair holding his daughter while Mileena fed their son.

His cute daughter was not fussing right at this moment. Her silver eyes were just quietly staring back at Akira as he continued to smile and study her cute face.

Both of the twins had already reverted back to looking like normal babies.

Their daughter had stayed transformed for 9 days before reverting to her now smooth pink skin, silver hair, and eyebrows.

Akira could definitely tell that many of her facial features took after her mother.

Their son had stayed transformed for 11 days before reverting back to a normal baby like his sister with the only difference being his white hair and eyebrows. His facial features took after Akira's own. He was noticeably larger than his sister and always ate more than her. Leaving Akira with an extended time to hold his daughter and bond with her while his son finished eating.

With both of them staying transformed for over a week it made both Mileena and the midwife very happy. Akira was not sure if what the midwife had said held any truth but decided that he would just have to wait and see.

“Tomorrow you will have to behave yourself during the festival,” said Akira as he looked down at his daughter.

She only stared back at him.

“I know it will be tough with all the loud noises and thousands of unknown people, but if you can stay strong and tough it out, it would help your mother a lot,” said Akira.

“Can she even understand you?” asked Mileena.

“I don't know, but it can't hurt to talk to her,” said Akira with a shrug.

“Yap!” said Fluffball as he looked back and forth between the twins, not sure who to sit next to.

“Is everything ready for tomorrow?” asked Mileena.

“Should be. Almost all of the envoys from the local allies and towns have arrived. The last few should be arriving in the morning.”

“Let's hope everything goes as planned.”