Chapter 54: The Valley Erupts.

The first arrow crossed the valley before the monsters understood they were under attack. It descended from the northwest slope with a shrill whistle and punched through the eye of a six-legged predator drinking beside the pool.

The creature collapsed without a sound.

For half a heartbeat, nothing else moved. Then Odhran’s second arrow struck another monster through the throat, and the valley exploded.

Roars erupted from every direction. Sleeping beasts surged upright, winged creatures launched from rocky shelves, and dozens of Lesser Monsters turned toward the hillside as Mana signatures flared among the descending Walkers.

Jet sprinted beside Frey through waist-high grass while the Raid Team spread behind them exactly as planned. Ahead, a hulking creature resembling a rhinoceros covered in overlapping bark plates lowered three horns and charged.

BOOM!

Its feet tore chunks from the earth.

"Take its legs while I keep the head away from us!" Frey shouted, throwing his left hand forward.

Two Vritra Coils streaked past Jet and wrapped around the monster’s horns. They tightened, wrenching its head sideways without stopping the charge completely. Jet accelerated toward it instead of retreating. The rhinoceros tried correcting its direction, but Frey’s Coils pulled again.

Jet slid past one horn, planted his left foot beside its foreleg and swung the Vorpal Blade through the softer joint behind its knee.

SHRAK!

Blood sprayed across the grass. The leg collapsed, and several tons of muscle crashed forward. Jet pivoted away before the body struck him, then drove his blade beneath the jaw and through the skull.

There was no time to harvest.

Three wolf-shaped monsters covered in grey quills bounded over the corpse. Jet met the first while Frey intercepted the other two. The wolf snapped at Jet’s shoulder; he twisted aside and cut across its muzzle, only for quills along its back to suddenly launch outward.

Jet threw himself behind the dead rhinoceros.

THUD! THUD! THUD!

Quills buried themselves through bark plating inches from his face.

Across the battlefield, Frey’s five Coils moved independently around him. One caught a wolf around the waist and squeezed until ribs cracked. Another wrapped a second monster’s hind leg and jerked it backward as Frey rushed forward, twin curved blades flashing. His first sword knocked aside a claw. His second carved through the throat. He released the corpse immediately and turned toward Jet.

"Stay down!"

Jet flattened himself.

A Vritra Coil swept over the rhinoceros carcass, struck the quilled wolf and hurled it sideways. Jet was already moving when it landed. He crossed ten meters before the creature regained its footing and took its head with one clean slash.

The battlefield widened around them.

Not every Awakener fought with weapons.

Twenty meters away, a young Second Generation woman slammed both palms together. The Divine Rune tattooed around her forearms ignited orange, depicting interlocking jaws formed from geometric lines.

"Cinder Maw!"

A burning mouth manifested beneath an approaching insectoid monster and snapped shut.

BOOOM!

Flames erupted between spectral teeth. The creature staggered free with half its abdomen burning, allowing another Walker to drive a spear through its head.

Near the pool, an older man tore his glove away and exposed a black tattoo shaped like branching cracks across his hand. He pressed his palm against the earth. Dark lines raced outward beneath three charging monsters.

CRACK!

Stone pillars erupted from below. One monster was launched into the air; another had its chest impaled; the third avoided the initial strike only for Bastian to meet it with his tower shield.

BANG!

The collision shook the ground.

Bastian slid backward nearly two meters, boots carving trenches through mud, but his shield remained upright. He roared and shoved forward. Safiya appeared from his flank, both narrow spears thrusting simultaneously into the monster’s exposed ribs.

Everywhere Jet looked, Divine Runes were entering battle.

A tattoo resembling translucent wings spread across one Walker’s shoulders before compressed wind formed around her arms. Each punch released a short-range blast capable of staggering monsters twice her size.

Another Walker carried a Rune shaped like chains around his neck and chest; spectral links erupted from the ground wherever he pointed, restraining limbs long enough for teammates to finish the target.

None of them looked overwhelmingly powerful. Their abilities had ranges, limits and obvious demands on Mana, but together they transformed the Raid Team from armed humans into a coordinated supernatural force.

The monsters answered with violence of their own.

A reptilian beast with a hammer-shaped skull smashed through one of the stone pillars and rammed two Walkers aside. Another monster spat green fluid across the grass, and everything it touched hissed violently. Winged predators dived from above, forcing the ranged teams to divide their attention between the pool and the sky.

BOOM!

Something enormous struck the ground farther east.

Jet glanced toward the sound and saw Adesewa moving.

One Regal Coil Lion had crossed half the island, its serpentine body throwing water several meters into the air as it lunged after her. Adesewa’s bronze spear met one massive claw.

CLANG!

The impact released a visible shockwave across the pool.

Jet forced his attention away.

That wasn’t his fight.

A horned cat lunged from his right. He caught its foreleg with the Vorpal Blade, redirected the claw past his ribs and drove his shoulder into its chest. The monster stumbled. Jet cut once across its abdomen, stepped behind it and severed the spine.

"Jet!"

He turned at Frey’s warning.

A boulder came spinning through the air.

Jet sprinted forward as it smashed into the ground behind him.

BOOOOM!

Earth and stone erupted upward. A crater swallowed the spot where he’d been standing. The creature responsible lumbered from behind a broken tree: a squat Lesser Monster with four muscular arms and a shell of jagged stone covering its back. Two hands ripped another chunk of rock from the ground while the others hammered against its chest.

Frey grimaced. "That ugly bastard is mine. Keep those two off me while I get close enough to stop the throwing."

Jet saw the approaching monsters and nodded. "Go. I’ll keep your path clear, but don’t stand in front of it if those four arms start swinging."

Frey surged forward.

The stone-backed creature hurled another boulder. A Vritra Coil struck it midflight and altered its trajectory just enough.

CRASH!

The rock demolished a tree beside Frey.

Jet intercepted the first monster trying to flank him, a lean quadruped with a split lower jaw. His blade met claws twice in rapid succession, sparks flashing from hardened bone.

The second attacker came from behind. Jet kicked the first backward, ducked beneath the second, and opened its stomach as it passed overhead. He turned immediately, blocked a descending claw and drove the Vorpal Blade through the first creature’s chest.

Frey reached his target.

The four-armed monster swung.

WHOOOM!

Frey ducked beneath the first fist and crossed his blades against the second.

BANG!

He was thrown backward, boots leaving the ground.

Two Vritra Coils caught nearby trees and tightened, stopping him before he crashed into the trunks. Frey dropped, released them and attacked again. This time three Coils wrapped around separate arms while the remaining two attacked the monster’s legs. It fought against the restraints with enough strength to make every spectral serpent tremble.

Frey didn’t try crushing it.

He used the single second they bought him.

His blades crossed through the creature’s throat.

Blood burst across its stone chest.

Elsewhere, the Raid Team’s formation was beginning to stretch. The first assault had killed several monsters quickly, but the remaining creatures were spreading instead of charging blindly. Trees collapsed beneath missed attacks. Grass burned where Cinder Maw had struck. Craters, broken stone and pools of blood scarred the once-pristine valley.

Jet heard someone shout behind him.

A Walker from their mobile group had turned toward a wounded teammate for half a second too long.

A thick-bodied beast with a skull like an armored bull hit him from the side.

CRACK!

The man’s ribs broke audibly.

He flew several meters and slammed into the earth hard enough to fracture the ground beneath his back. His weapon spun away. Before he could recover, the monster reared above him and raised both forelegs, each ending in heavy black hooves large enough to crush his chest.

The injured Walker lifted one arm uselessly.

The hooves descended.

A Vritra Coil shot across the battlefield.

It wrapped around the monster’s neck and snapped tight, jerking its entire body sideways just before impact. Frey came with it, sprinting behind the spectral serpent. He planted one boot against the creature’s shoulder, used the Coil’s tension to pull himself upward and swung both curved blades across its exposed neck.

SHRAAAK!

The monster’s head came off.

Its body collapsed beside the wounded Walker while the severed head rolled through the grass.

Blood shot into the sky like a fountain.