*Author’s Note*

Welp, this is the end of Volume 1 of “Tower Defense Deities”. I mean, Epilogue 2 is going to be posted shortly after this one, but that’s the end of volume 1. I’ve written all of volume 2 already, just haven’t edited it yet. I still have volume 3 of “The Dao of Eros” that needs to be edited and posted too, so I might start doing that one next. I don’t really know. Right now I’m binge-reading “Release that Witch” and getting annoyed at how similar a lot of things in TDD are to it… But overall, it’s still pretty different lol.

In other news, yesterday I finally defeated the Chaos Warriors as the Von Carstein faction. Honestly, there were a lot of times when I was facing ridiculous odds, but the Undead never retreat and never surrender. I remember this one time when all I had left of one of my armies was a singular banshee, who was kited around by mounted marauders(with throwing javelins) for almost 20 minutes before they finally ran out of ammo and had to go into melee. She just barely managed to kill them all with only a sliver of her health left.

Then the most overpowered part is that after the battle, most of the units that were destroyed and all of the heroes, were all resurrected. Vlad von Carstein was only wounded and I was able to recruit him shortly afterwards. Thus continuing my 50 turn long defensive war against the combined forces of Chaos in the northern wastes… There’s just something so satisfying when you finally hunt down and totally annihilate all of your enemies :). My only problem with the Von Carstein faction is that they don’t have any siege weapons. Even the Chaos Warriors have their demonic hellcannons lol.

Okay I’m gonna stop talking about Total War: Warhammer now and let you guys read the Epilogue…

***

“Stop~!”

“My baby~! No~!”

“Sammy~!”

“Gaah~! Ragh~! Agh~!”

“Help~! Help me please~!”

“No more~!”

Dozens of voices were screaming out in terror and dismay throughout a small village to the northeast of that snowy mountain. Men were being slaughtered, women were being raped and children were being captured. The Rusty Saber Bandits however, had nothing to do with that. No, there was a much more sinister and dangerous group of monsters responsible for this horrible event.

“Captain Angelos, we found some of the remnants of Raijin Village!”

Outside of their leather coats and brown fur clothing, all of the men were wearing bronze chainmail tunics, along with bright-red cloaks, thick plate shin-guards and reflective metal helms. Each of them carried a javelin, a large crimson tower shield, a gladius and a small pugio. Every single one of the men had a similar appearance to Joanna, Uriel, Azrael and Henry, especially Captain Angelos.

He was two meters tall, with shiny a breastplate and large pauldrons, while the helmet he wore had a huge amount of scarlet plumage in the shape of a mohawk. His face was partially obscured by the metal helm, but what could be seen was covered in terrible scars. Yet, even under all of that, his hair was black, his eyes were brown and his facial features were nearly identical to Azra’s. Except that this man was far older than the sixteen year old boy.

“Good, bring them here.” Captain Angelos was standing in the middle of the village, with a dozen other large men around him. They were all wearing similar attire to him, except for the fancy plumage on his helmet. Although there wasn’t much resistance against the battalion of soldiers who were pillaging the town, they still didn’t let their guards down.

“Please don’t hurt my granddaughter!” An old man shouted, as he was being dragged in front of the captain, along with a girl who was in her late teens. However, once the two of them were brought before that group, they were released.

“Hehehe~, it’s been so long, so I’m not surprised you don’t recognize my ugly mug.”

After hearing that, the old man suddenly got up off of his knees and lunged towards the middle-aged captain. The bodyguards didn’t react though, because rather than an attack, that elder was actually giving their leader a hug.

“Forgive me! These old eyes of mine almost couldn’t recognize my own son-in-law! Christina, get up and greet your uncle!”

The young woman was confused at first, but she swiftly realized the situation and ran up to Captain Angelos, bowing towards him and saying “Christina humbly greets Revered Uncle!”

“Heh~, the two of you don’t need to be worried. We were coming from the Capital in order to hunt down a rogue Giant who was said to be living in the Northern Mountains. There are still so many of these mongrel villages plaguing the outskirts of the Kingdom’s land… Come with me, I don’t want my niece to see such a messy affair.”

After the three of them went inside of a nearby log cabin, they all sat down at a small wooden round table. The huge middle-aged man took his helmet off and revealed his messy hair, which barely reached his chin. However, there was a huge scar from his forehead, to the back of his skull. It wouldn’t have been too strange in a world with decent medicine, but it would have been impossible to treat such a wound without any surgical techniques or tools, along with skilled doctors.

He smiled wryly, rubbing the scar with his glove-covered right hand, “I know that it looks awful… I received this wound from a Dwarf’s warhammer a long time ago. Even with my helmet to block most of the impact, my head was still split open pretty bad. If it wasn’t for the Great Goddess’ mercy, I never would have survived… Much less recovered and reached such a high position in life.”

Then he cleared his throat and said “Aside from hunting the Giant, we were also sent here to exterminate any villages or bandits we found. We captured and interrogated some of those Rusty Saber Scum… So I thought that it was finally time that I settled my debt with that bastard, Anthony Rust.”

“Robert… Before coming to this village, my daughter and I were living in Salmon Creek. Although everyone else fled already, I think that my daughter Joanna and her son Henry are still there now. If we’re lucky, the bandits might not have attacked the village yet…” The old man stopped talking when he saw a grim expression appear on his son-in-law’s face.

Captain Angelos growled “No. If it wasn’t for those two… My wife and children would still be alive! If I see either of them again, I won’t show them the same kindness that I’ve shown you!”

After a few seconds, he calmed down and explained “It was Joanna who convinced my naive Kara to stay in Raijin Village… If she had managed to save my children, then I would have been able to forgive her, but she actually took her son and left them behind!”

He abruptly stood up, pulled out the gladius from his waist and plunged it into the old man’s chest. Christina screamed “Grandpa no! Uncle, why did you do that?!”

She fell backwards onto the floor and the huge armored man, reached down and grabbed her by the hair. Then he picked her up and threw her onto the bed that was nearby, while snickering.

“Don’t worry! Since you’re my niece, I obviously wouldn’t be too rough with you! If you can serve me properly, I’ll even let you be my own personal little whore! Otherwise, once I’m done with you, I’ll sell you to a brothel in the slums of the next city we come across!”

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