Chapter 671: What Have We Learned?

"AHHH!"

"Wow, easy there!"

"Wha... huh... where..?"

"You’re in the medical ward of the Piercing Sword Legion, you’re alright."

"But... but I was..."

"It’s alright, calm down and lie still. Your life isn’t in any danger, but you’ve still been severely injured."

Listening to the unfamiliar healer who was tending to him, Timothy Balfour could do nothing other than nod.

Even if he wanted to get up, he couldn’t. He had tried just now, but failed miserably as pain wracked his entire body, obviously the result of the battle aboard the Legion’s ship out on the Lorren.

The black-cloaked attackers had swarmed them with reckless abandon, not caring at all about their own lives. It seemed like as long as they could kill him, or one of his fellow soldiers, these maniacs didn’t care at all whether they died as well.

It made them terrifying opponents to face, as only death was able to stop them.

Even killing them, though, had consequences.

Timothy and the others had long been briefed on the ’self-destruct’ ability of these mysterious attackers and how, whenever one of them died, they would explode violently, injuring or even killing all those who got too close.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with his fellow soldiers from the Raging River Legion’s Second Regiment, Timothy had stabbed, slashed, and chopped up several cloaked attackers. It wasn’t his first time killing other humans as he had experience with bandit suppression in the past, but that didn’t mean he was a madman who enjoyed the sensation of his spear piercing flesh and blood.

It was a brutal battle filled with chaos, explosions, and death.

At some point, Timothy obviously lost track of his surroundings.

Perhaps he was struck over the head, or perhaps he had gone dizzy from blood loss, but whatever the case, he had clearly lost consciousness and then somehow wound up here, in Amherst.

Lying in the medical ward, aching all over, and still feeling rather dizzy, many thoughts swirled through Timothy’s head.

He was alive, so he assumed that they somehow won the battle, but how many others from his Regiment survived?

One of the last things Timothy recalled was watching Commander Jennings fighting 5 enemy Spirit Initiates.

Despite being heavily outnumbered, the Second Regiment Commander was still able to hold his own, but the enemy combatants were all suicidal fanatics who cared nothing for their own lives, making them incredibly difficult to deal with.

What the ultimate outcome of that fight was, Timothy didn’t know.

In fact, he didn’t know anything right now, so he was very much hoping someone would explain it all to him.

Fortunately, it seemed that the medical staff were given orders to inform the higher-ups as soon as Timothy or anyone else woke up, so it wasn’t long before several familiar faces filed into his room.

.....

Seeing Timothy, all bandaged and bruised, try to lift himself and salute, the first thing Allina Crest did was order him to lie back down.

She, along with Elliot, Teagen, Lucas, and a couple of Spirit Initiates from the Piercing Sword Legion had all come together to see the young man, hoping he could provide them with some answers to the many, many questions they still had regarding the incident.

Once his wounds stopped smarting from trying to move just now, Timothy asked the obvious question, "How is... everyone?"

With a dark and gloomy expression covering her face, Allina reported bluntly, "Only 472 members of the Second Regiment and the ship crews survived the attack, and most of them sustained injuries comparable to your own."

"Wha..." Timothy gawked, unable to believe what he had just heard.

There were 1,000 soldiers in the Second Regiment, and another 150 crew manning the 5 ships, all of them were alive last night, yet now, less than half were still breathing...

Wait, last night?

"What... what day is it?" Timothy stuttered slightly.

It should have been obvious to him the moment Allina and Lucas both walked in that more time had passed than he thought, but in the fog of pain and confusion, that little detail had slipped his mind.

This time, it was Lucas who stepped forward and answered, "It’s the 5th of January, Tim. You’ve been unconscious for almost 5 days now."

"Tss... 5 days..." Timothy gasped, only to wince when he felt a pinch in his lungs.

"How did I... what happened to..." the young man suddenly found himself feeling overwhelmed, uncertain of what he should say or ask next.

"Easy there," Elliot calmed his little nephew, "Calm down and take a breath."

"We know you’re confused, Timothy," Teagen comforted, "Just relax. You’re safe now."

Safe? Really? Timothy seriously wondered.

5 days ago, on a military deployment with the entire Second Regiment around him, Timothy had felt completely safe while sailing up the Lorren.

Obviously, he wasn’t.

"I know you’re not feeling great right now," Allina spoke up next, switching to a formal tone, "But I need you to answer some questions. Can you do that, Captain?"

Knitting his brow, Timothy nodded, "I’ll do my best, Vice-General."

"Good, let’s get started."

.....

"So, what have we learned?" General Killian Roth asked the slightly unusual pair standing in front of him.

"Not much, unfortunately," Lucas sighed.

He and his group had just finished interviewing Timothy and a dozen or so others soldiers who had regained consciousness today, but despite asking all of them every question they wanted to, the amount of useful information these survivors were able to provide was quite limited.

When he landed in Amherst the day after the incident, Lucas had been both concerned and hopeful.

Concerned for his friends and for the others from the Second Regiment he knew, but also hopeful that some new clues as to who this invisible enemy that continued to plague them might be found.

Unfortunately, while his concerns turned out to be perfectly justified, his hopes had quickly been dashed.

The casualties from the attack were severe, to say the least, with several people Lucas was acquainted with having perished in the battle.

Thankfully, Timothy had survived the incident, partly due to his higher-than-average skill and strength, partly because he was a Balfour and thus afforded more concern than an ordinary soldier, and partly because he was one of the test subjects for the next-generation armour Lucas and Braxton had been working on.

Even with all those things going for him, though, Timothy was currently bedridden and not likely to fully recover for several months to half-a-year. That was how serious the situation was.