Inside the Heart

"Brothers! Onward through the gate!" Immediately, soldiers ran full force into the broken gate.

Through the gate, a large field surrounded a menacing stronghold lined with more soldiers than the wall they were once besieging, larger lines of heavily armored warriors stood around the broken gate with archers perched high on the many posts and parts of the walls of the stronghold, standing next to braziers while preparing burning arrows.

The two smashed against each other, rage and anger filling their minds as clashed swords and pushed with their shields.

Venator stood behind the carnage, looking up, the fire on the walls were slowly dying out, giving Venator another opportunity to flank.

On a pillar, Venator rose high enough to reach the top of the wall, he jumped onto it, through the small patches of blue fire still burning. The wall was barren, littered with scattered bows and arrows along with burned corpses of archers, along the pathway, 2 doors stood on both sides, both heading to towers and other parts of the wall.

As he looked at the top of the tower, archers continued firing, unharmed by the attacks. Venator rushed into the door, smashing through it, inside was a spiral stairwell heading to the top and to the bottom, doors stood on different sections of the stairs.

"If i take out these archers, i can try helping the ones below." Venator rushed up the stairwell, seeing glints of the moon's light through thin slits on the wall to the outside.

Venator burst through the door, seeing a crowd of archers at the edge of the tower's top, a few turning around noticing him. Fire belched out off his hand in a swift motion, ending the lives of the archers in seconds, soon the fire spread around the castle, burning small crates of wood around the place. Venator looked to the other tower before leaving, another set of archers were standing on it. Arrows flew to his location as some of the archers fired at him.

Running back down, he made his way through the wall's path, arrows struck the path, a few striking Venator, but he quickly split off the arrows, continuing onward.

Through the doorway and flight of stairs, he broke down the door. In a matter of seconds, he torched the entire tower, sending the light leather armored archers screaming to the ground as many fell from the top.

Venator walked forward, looking from the view at the soldiers down below, the last line of fighters held firm but were slowly stretching out with more soldiers beginning to flood through the gate, spearmen behind the defenders drove their weapons through the gaps, trying to take out as much as possible.

More soldiers ran out the massive gates into the stronghold, now fortified with barricades sealing the windows and adding more protection to the door itself, it opened and closed repeatedly, sending out more soldier. At the top, more soldiers fired arrows down below. As he looked at the stronghold, he heard a sizzling noise behind him. Away from him, next to the doorway, a box of explosive balls stood, their wicks already burning.

Venator's eyes widened in horror, "Piss." The explosion broke the tower, sending Venator into the sky to the pathway of a wall below him.

Venator crashed down hard on the ground, above him, blocks of stone began falling off the crumbling tower, in fear he began crawling back, getting up to try and run. He stopped until he was far enough, the tower left a large cloud of smoke around the area, Venator coughed from the dust flying everywhere from the tower. Down below, the shock of the destroyed tower horrified a few, causing chaos on some sections of the line. Slowly it began stretching farther, the shouts of both soldiers became louder with the archers firing faster at them, hitting more soldiers in the crowded brawl.

Venator patted down his clothing, removing any debris or dust before looking back at the stronghold's rooftop. "If i can take them out, perhaps there can be an entrance to the inside." Venator readied frost & ice in his hand, he jumped down the wall, soldiers on the ground, not joining the formation all looked at Venator in shock.

"GET HIM!" One of them yelled out. The soldiers descended upon Venator, their armor was heavier and bulkier compared to the other soldiers, fully encompassing each part of their body.

Venator slashed around, his eyes widened in surprise, the bulky and seemingly heavily layered armor was broken through just like the rest before. Still holding onto the bottle's energy, Venator quickly slashed through their numbers, running around he attacked the rest, ripping through their armor into their flesh, sustaining a few slash wounds in the attack, he parried and struck against each one, thinning their numbers. As he continued, the archers above finally noticed his presence, a section aimed down at Venator while a few other soldiers were still in the fight. With little time, he began slashing at the remaining ones, as the last one stood, he grabbed onto his armor. Above, the arrows let loose, Venator hid behind the soldier, still gripping onto him as arrows plunged into the soldier's armor, his grunts of pain quickly ended as the hail of arrows ended.

Now finished, standing around corpses of the dead, Venator began ascending upwards on an ice pillar, archers on the top began firing at him as he rose up higher, Venator forced the pillar to rise faster with the shots of arrows intensifying.

Once it reached to the very top, he jumped down onto the large flat platform, littered with archers and footmen, their armor was similar to the soldiers down below. Sitting at the edges of the walls were crates of different sizes, all opened showing arrows, bows, to the explosive balls.

He began setting the archers on fire, knocking down the large braziers causing flames to spread around, the soldiers all ran around still keeping their eyes on Venator while the platform they stood on burned with orange and blue. Venator looked at the crowd of soldiers crowding against each other, forming a wall of shields in front of him as archers and footmen alike ran around on fire.