He decided to go with the east. In the end, just getting the nd conquered as soon as possible was the primary priority. He would come across the south-eastern temple anyway, when he went home.

  On the map, the distance between the two temples was shorter than any other distances they had walked so far. Despite that, it took them the longest time. Ivan insisted he knew another shortcut, but that turned out to have been recimed by nature since he had st used it twenty years ago, and so they had to trace back almost two hours of walking. That was in addition to the already te start they had to walking that day.

  Hey compined, but not so much that it got grating. Simirly, Helenn remained cheerful, but not to the point that her optimism began to annoy the two men. Both the angel and the demon knew how to reign in the excesses of their personalities. Hey, especially, showed consideration.

  “Would you like me to hunt?” she asked, when they finally turned in for the night. The offer came out of nowhere and surprised the rest of the camp.

  Ivan halted in sharpening his swords and looked at the demonette. “You do not seem the… hunting type,” he said carefully, giving her enormous assets the most non-sexual inspection a man was capable of.

  “Careful, I can slice your throat open with the same ease you would out wrestle a child,” the succubus stated dismissively. Demonstrably, she inspected her nails, which extended gradually into sharp, demonically glowing cws.

  “Did not mean no disrespect,” Ivan mumbled a gruff apology.

  “So you did mean disrespect?” Hey asked, a bit of mirth in her voice. “You have to be careful with your double negatives,” she expined to the army man. “In any case, I believe I could enthrall a deer with exceptional ease.” The cws retreated, and her attention shifted to Rykard. “Would you prefer my help, Rykard?”

  The sovereign’s eyes were drifting along the edge of the clearing. They were still over three hours away from the temple and had decided to use this dry and even spot as their resting grounds. It was quiet, too quiet even for the middle of the night. All of the local wildlife was gone.

  He narrowed his eyes, when he saw something sharp glint for a split second in the starlight.

  Hey and Ivan, he trusted would have reacted properly if he had warned them, but Helenn probably would have overreacted in some fashion that betrayed that they knew about the incoming ambush. Rykard had to make his decision on what to do before he told them anything.

  Without a single word, Rykard raised a hand. Everyone was confused at the gesture at first, then armed when he gripped the air itself and rent it open like a pesky piece of flimsy cloth. Out of the dimensional gash poured a tide of bioluminescent creatures, half rodent, half anglerfish.

  They streamed towards the nearby brushes. “WHAT THE FUCK?!” someone screamed, moments before the fast, tiny things reached them.

  It was at that point that the hidden bandits charged towards the clearing. That was, the quarter of them that weren’t suddenly covered in rat-sized creatures with needle-like teeth. Those people tried to tear the summoned beasts off them before they could be bitten. Universally, they merely deyed the inevitable.

  The bandits charged at Rykard. One was stopped by Ivan, who drove his opponent back in a storm of bdes. Three came too close to Hey. Their heads turned in her direction for a split second, then they stayed on her on the double-take. Slowing, then dropping to her feet, they caused her to sneer, as if she had just discovered rotting fruit in her storage.

  “That you even dare annoy me with this!” she roared and put one of her shoes on top of the man’s head. He just smiled and perhaps even would have licked the dirt off her high heel, if she handn’t kicked him before he could. The others kept drooling, two steps removed from her.

  Helenn, meanwhile, hovered over to Rykard, hiding behind his broad back. Three more bandits had made their way towards him, but the only thing they managed to do was put themselves closer to the origin point of the nightmarish rodents. Dozens of them streamed up the bodies of two of them. The st managed to leap across the stream coming for him, his axe aimed squarely at Rykard’s head.

  The sovereign stepped aside, grabbing Helenn with one arm, then catching the man’s face with the other when he flew by. Taking a firm step forwards, Rykard pressed the bandit’s head into the dimensional gash.

  It did not pass through. The gash was a short lived one-way portal and that was all it needed to be as well. Where the face remained in pce, a myriad of teeth came out and retreated, taking strips and chunks off the man's skull, then tearing into the bone itself.

  The man’s scream turned from raw torture into distorted gargling sound. His cheek had stopped existing and the entire right half of his head gradually followed. Rykard only let him go when the small creatures had devoured half of the head. The remains of his brains spttered out of his open skull when he hit the ground.

  ‘The best war is a swift war and the swiftest war is one with an unquestioned victor,’ Rykard remembered the first lesson of the imperial military doctrine. Cruel dispys were just one way to break the enemy and it worked wonders.

  Besides the three charmed men, the entirety of the bandits began to turn tail and make for the nearby forest. Most of them still had the eldritch rodents all over them. Unless Rykard called them back, the little creatures would gradually gnaw through them. The time they had before the spell forced them back into their home would be plenty for them to kill every st one of the bandits.

  Alternatively, he could let them run. He had three messengers here that he could use to spread the message of who they had attacked and what would happen if they ever committed to banditry again. Not the path to popur support, but his authority would not be questioned after this dispy of power.

  All Rykard did was let the creatures know not to harm the three men that Hey had charmed. “Good job,” he said, as he approached. He ran a hand through her hair. Wild strands parted with silky ease. “You really are a stunning being.”

  The succubus preened at the acknowledgement. Once she realized how broadly she was smiling, she blushed. Regardless, she stayed where his hands could keep combing through the bck-red mane. “As long as you understand that much,” she offered a token of arrogance. “What do you suggest I do with them?”

  “Ivan, can you drag that corpse over here?” Rykard requested, after a moment’s thought. The war veteran picked up the disfigured body, only stopping for a moment to inspect the face.

  “Tzechov’s boy. Always knew he was a good for nothing retard,” Ivan grumbled in his rough voice. He dropped the corpse in front of the three charmed men.

  “Let them go,” Rykard ordered Hey.

  “If you ask nicel-” Hey began, but stopped immediately when Rykard shot her a reprimanding gre. This was no time for their little game. It was understood and she, suppressing a lustful shiver, forced her natural aura to diminish.

  Even with the Charm removed, it took her victims ten full seconds for the light to return to their eyes and another ten before they curiously looked around. One of them let out a surprised cry, when he finally spotted the open head positioned right in front of them. The other two swiftly followed. All three crawled backwards.

  “Your comrades, friends, whatever they are, will all be dead within the hour,” Rykard told the trio, their eyes snapping up to him. One of the bioluminescent rats climbed onto its summoner’s shoulder, baring rows upon rows of crooked, thin teeth. “My little helpers will assure that. You three were lucky enough to be put under my Hey’s influence instead.”

  The succubus swayed slightly in his direction, then was pulled against his side, Hand on the leathercd swing of her waist, Rykard held her with all the possessiveness he felt for her. He knew when someone was a one night stand, a fuck buddy or a haremette and he would always use the words he felt appropriate. She did not protest either.

  “Because of that lucky break,” Rykard continued, “you three have been chosen as my messengers. Let everyone you know and meet know that this is king Rykard’s nd now - my nd - and that I have no patience for bandits and other scum. You will do this and, in return, I will not execute you for the crime of threatening my women… and Ivan.”

  “I was far from threatened,” the veteran responded with dry humour.

  “Y-yes, y-your majesty!” one of the young men managed to respond. That was all Rykard needed to hear. With a gracious wave, he dismissed the three and they made for the trees.

  “Do yourself the favour and do not try to help any of the others you come across!” Rykard shouted after them. “My little helpers won’t kill you, but they will bite if you disturb their meal!”

  “And now we have to find a new resting pce,” Hey compined with a gnce at the corpse and all the blood around. “This pce reeks of blood and guts.”

  “I’ve slept in worse conditions,” Ivan remarked.

  “As have I,” Rykard agreed.

  “Of course you have,” Hey rolled her eyes. “Helenn, back me up here.”

  “Not exactly my kind of pce to sleep, have to agree with Hey, it is all matters of… ewww?”

  “Eloquent,” the demonette said sarcastically. “Now, will you find me a proper pce to sleep or not?”

  Rykard had bet that he would be given an order by the end of the day, but this one he could not say was even remotely unreasonable. They set out in a random direction and continued until they found an acceptably dry spot under an earthy overhang. He spread out the cushions and bnkets he carried with him and offered Hey to y down first.

  “And where will you sle- Ah,” she stopped when he rested next to her. “I suppose that is expected… as is that,” she added, when he stripped down to nothing. “I will allow it.”

  “Yay, cuddle party!” Helenn decred and got on top of it all.

  Ivan retreated to somewhere quiet.