Demi-Human In The Wrong Time

Altair Maxwell, leader of the Demi-Human Survival Coalition, was in trouble.

A few days ago she had been called to the Council of Four and they voted unanimously to appoint her to be the leader of the Demi-Human Survival Coalition. It was hours after that they announced it to the rest of the surviving Demi-Humans and also declared the previous leader dead. They did not have knowledge of how the old leader died but they had lost contact with him several weeks ago.

The problem was that Altair Maxwell wasn't qualified to lead anyone. She was raised by Humans until four years ago when her Demi-Human traits showed up on her. She didn't even know she was a Demi-Human until then. When her hair color changed to silver, her eyes to green, and her complexion became flawless, it made it impossible for her to continue living with her family. She was chased out of her home by her parents and had been on the run since. Eventually she was saved by the coalition, but things weren't going well for them.

She wasn't very useful for the coalition at first. Due to being raised by Humans as a Demi-Human, she wasn't able to develop any of her Magic. She had always found it strange that she couldn't use Magic like her siblings, but after her characteristics emerged it became obvious. Human Magic and Demi-Human Magic could not be mixed. If you were a Demi-Human you could only use the Magic on your Demi-Human side. The problem was, Altair didn't know what the other half of her race was so she had to fumble around in the dark to figure out how to use her Magic.

It took her a couple years before she figured it out. Using the teachings she had gotten from her parents and the other Humans where she lived, along with exploring her own Mana, she successfully managed to tap into her own Magic. As a result, she quickly ascended from being useless to the coalition to being a war god. Her unique Magic, threads that she could move like her own arms and have at any size she wanted, creatures made of shadows that obeyed her every command with a thought, and teleportation were so immensely powerful that the war to survive against the Humans seemed like it could actually be turned around.

At least until the former leader disappeared and they selfishly appointed her as the new leader. In Human years Altair was only fourteen years old, but due to her Demi-Human blood she still looked like she was ten. She had a plethora of combat experience but no leading experience. She felt it was a disaster to appoint her as the leader of the coalition and she wasn't alone.

However the Council of Four had spoken and voted her into the position. There was nothing to be done as they were the elders of the cause and the backers of the Demi-Human coalition. Even though they were Humans they weren't like the rest of the Humans. They felt that Demi-Humans were very useful to the Human race and should be allowed to live peacefully alongside the Humans. They would make great allies in times of need and they had already demonstrated their prowess in suppressing dragons, demons, and other threatening forces against Humans.

The pressure of leadership quickly stacked up on Altair and she felt like running away from it. She couldn't though because everywhere else in the world would hunt her down and kill her. In fact, in the Human nations, she was called 'Monster Queen' and 'Demon God' due to her performance on the battlefield. There were even rumors that the Humans had summoned God's Hero to smite the Demi-Human Survival Coalition once and for all, but no one put any credit on that claim.

That all led up to a secret meeting that the generals of the coalition wanted to have with Altair. The generals were working in tandem with the Council of Four and the summons she received had been from the Council of Four themselves. It was safe to assume that this secret meeting with the generals was completely approved of by the Council. She didn't think anything of it because she was, rather forcefully, the new leader of the coalition. So she went there with a minimal escort. They were the generals of their side. There was no need to be afraid of anything.

The meeting place was in a secluded section of the Forest of Daum. Altair had never been there before but when she arrived to the hidden base in the forest she wasn't shocked by how shabby and rundown it appeared. There were several dozen small tents placed around a hastily built shack. There were a few hundred Demi-Humans walking around in patrols and making sure things ran smoothly. The entire little base of theirs was completely surrounded by the forestry of the area. It was so dense in some areas that even the light of a fire couldn't be seen through them at night. All in all, it was a great place for a secret meeting, or so Altair believed.

Altair was led by an officer to the general's shack in the middle and was greeted by the seven generals that the old leader had appointed. They all had stern expressions on their faces, despite the group only appearing to be twelve to thirteen years of age. Altair knew that they were all older than they appeared, as Demi-Humans aged far slower than Humans did.

There wasn't much customs or traditions among the Demi-Humans as Humans had. This was mostly because the vast majority of Demi-Humans died young compared to Humans. As far as Altair knew, there were no second generation Demi-Humans in the entire coalition. All of the Demi-Humans were first generations that had come from Human homes and environments after their traits emerged. The last second generation Demi-Human was the old leader, who was supposedly dead now.

The meeting was fairly bland. They discussed the upcoming battles that would take place, the movements of the Humans, and the rumors of that God's Hero that was going around. Altair deferred to the generals on every issue because she was useless at strategy and tactics. She had long been trained in infiltration, stealth, and straight combat but she had no experience at all in tactics and strategy. She was basically a walking death machine in battle and nothing else to the Humans. She didn't want to try commanding people as she figured it would only lead to disaster.

However, the generals had other plans. The drinks they served Altair with were poisoned with the most devastating poison that could be fed to someone: Mana Sealing Poison. This poison slowly seals all the Mana within someone's body, making it impossible to use any kind of Magic. There are antidotes for the poison, but the effects of the poison aren't noticeable until the victim attempts to use Magic and then senses it. Because Altair had her guard down around people she thought were her allies, she had no idea her power was being sealed away.

That wasn't the end of the plot, however. The generals had formed a secret pact with the Humans to be spared the Humans wrath in return for destroying the coalition. Under this deal they had successfully sabotaged the former leader's efforts and had gotten him killed. Now, with the help of the Council of Four, they were planning to eliminate the biggest obstacle to the Human's in the Demi-Human Survival Coalition, the 'Monster Queen', as part of the deal.

The Humans could not allow someone so dangerous to exist even if there was peace. It could be said that it was solely due to Altair's performance that Humanity had panicked and decided to attempt to summon 'God's Hero'. They were that terrified of that 'Massacre Deity'. In any given battle she alone would slaughter tens of thousands of Humans.

The actual number she could fight was at most slightly above ten thousand though. Her Mana couldn't sustain herself to fight much longer than that before she would become as weak as a civilian. It was just because the battlefield was so chaotic and her performance was so bright that it led the inflation of her performance. Still, she was like a force of nature when engaged and could not be allowed to live.

Even with the 'God's Hero' on their side, Humans weren't confident that he could kill Altair. They had seen his performance against the former leader and found it resoundingly… lacking by comparison. So they demanded that Altair be offered up as well before peace talks could be made.

As a result of all this backdoor dealing, Altair was poisoned by her own people when all she was doing was fighting to survive like the rest of the Demi-Humans.

This led to the ambush by the Humans on Altair as she meeting wrapped up. The ambush started with a fire Magic attack from God's Hero that destroyed most of the hidden base. This was not what was supposed to happen and came as a shock even to the generals.

What was supposed to happen was that they would wait until Altair was leaving to launch their attack. Instead they launched their attack early because the Humans didn't actually care about the deal. With Altair gone, the leadership in shambles, and God's Hero by their side the Humans could take their time to wipe out the Demi-Humans once and for all. It would be as simple as taking candy from a baby, though they would have to find all of the babies to take the candy.

This led up to Altair Maxwell being in trouble. The moment she started to use her Magic in response to the attack she immediately noticed she had been poisoned. It didn't take longer than a couple of seconds for her to realize it was the generals who did it and she immediately lashed out at them with her threads.

In that moment, a crisscrossed wall of thousands of barely visible threads shot forward from Altair's body and turned everything in front of her into cubes, including the generals who had quickly stood up and tried to defend themselves with excuses. The room became a gory mess in an instant when their bodies and the furnishings fell apart. Altair ran out of the room while the threads dissipated into air.

The Mana Sealing Poison was slow acting. Judging by how much her Mana had been locked away, Altair figured it had already been over an hour since she had ingested the poison. She had already lost over half of her Mana. The biggest problem was that she didn't have the antidote on her. Who would bring an antidote to an extremely nefarious poison when they were meeting with their perceived allies?

Altair had worn her standard gear for warfare to this meeting, wanting to present herself as a veteran. She was wearing her leather cuirass and half-plated greaves with linen clothes underneath both. She had a belt on with several daggers, a pouch on the back of her hip for small medicines, and a black facemask stuffed in her pocket. The facemask was a memento from times gone by.

Altair knew she wasn't a god but also knew that she could still fight for a short time before she would be forced to flee due to the poisons effects. She couldn't forgive traitors and had wanted to see exactly what the Humans were up to in this attack. She had yet to find out that it was all planned from the start by the Council of Four to turn her corpse over to the Humans for peace.