Chapter 91: Beast Tides (3)

“Huh?”

Mikael flew several feet, the cold air hitting his skin where it was bare.

He could feel the ground shaking under him as the beasts kept coming.

When he fell, a small crater formed at his landing point, and in his hand the scythe was still held quite tightly. It had somehow been stabbed into the ground.

Dirt and gravel rained down around him. He tried to sit up and could not.

The attacker was charging, seemingly focused on just Mikael: heavily muscled bull-like beast with a broad axe. A minotaur.

It was almost twice his height, and every step it took left a print in the dirt.

Mikael’s body still refused to move, no matter how much he willed it, straining and groaning.

His thoughts ran back to a few moments before, to after he had picked up the scythe. Something must have happened then.

He had thrown the scythe, run after it, spoken to himself, and then touched the handle. It was the touch that had done it.

The broad axe swung up, stirring dirt and stones without losing any momentum.

Mikael’s finger twitched. He was back in control. The feeling returned to his hands first, then his arms, and then everything else at once. He waited until the axe’s blade was just inches away from him, then aimed for its flat side and kicked it in the direction of the scythe, and using that motion and the contact, he leapt to his feet!

Ragnarok, however, remained on the ground even after the axe hit it hard.

In the brief window in which the beast was distracted, Mikael reached a probable conclusion. His soul, at least the converted parts of it, was reacting to the scythe, for some reason he was not currently in a position to work out, thanks to the executioner that had been seeking to cleave him in half.

“Like I’d die to mere mindless beasts. Insulting.” He charged, and his punch connected with the stomach, which startled the minotaur, who wondered how something that size could have such force in its punch.

The minotaur grunted, confused.

It swung the axe, but the person it was supposed to hit was already airborne. Since the force of the swing had been excessive, the beast had shifted its center of balance and its weight entirely, leaving it unable to defend against the kick that knocked out a few teeth in a spray of blood.

“Come on, impress me a bit more, you cow.”

The minotaur snorted blood and tried to stand. Its legs shook.

Not waiting for it to recover, Mikael unleashed a flurry of punches and kicks that finally brought the beast down to the ground. It let go of the axe, which turned out to be its own execution weapon.

Mikael stood over it for a moment, breathing hard. His knuckles were split, and his back ached where he had landed.

* * * * * * * *

The streets were emptying ahead of her, as the people had mostly moved up to the evacuation point. A few persons were still left, some actually breaking into houses and making off with things that had been left behind in the rush to save lives.

Doors hung open along the street, and abandoned carts stood in the middle of the road with their goods spilled across the stones.

Just down the street, a pack of dim blue wolves howled and gathered around something, an unlucky person who was being eaten alive. The screams were heartrending, but for Kadre, going there was a lost cause. She would just get eaten for nothing, and like Mikael had said, she was quite weak in terms of rank.

Kadre kept to the wall and moved past the end of the street without looking back.

She continued, steel daggers drawn and in hand, keeping her breathing slow and her steps light. Overhead, the powerhouses currently in the city fought it out: the Guild Master, the Captain she had met earlier, and the fire-breathing dragon that had led the tide. Beams of lightning and bolts of fire rained down.

Every few seconds the buildings around her shook and a burst of light flashed across the street.

She headed to the old building where the little boy she considered her brother lived. She was sure he wouldn’t be there, but she wanted to be absolutely certain.

Fortunately, he wasn’t.

The house was still standing, the room was empty and the bed was made. She stayed in the doorway a few seconds longer than she needed to.

Something caught her arm from a corner, and she startled, went for its neck. It turned out to be a young human knight who looked more afraid and fidgety than she was.

He could not have been older than eighteen, and his sword was shaking in his hand.

“Civilians can’t go this way, ma’am! Head to the northeast, please.”

“Yeah, I’ma do just that.” She sprinted off, and found the solace of high ground once more as she climbed up a roof.

The knight watched her go, then turned back to his corner, glad to be alone again.

She leapt into the air to reach the next roof, and was suddenly swept away by something fast!

* * * * * *

General Erica reached the fort’s main command post just as the second wave was forming.

She had been having dinner in her quarters when the horns first sounded, and she had been in her armor and on the move before the third horn finished.

Her plate was still on the table, half finished, and she did not give it another thought. As she suited up, she tried to work out what she could from the pattern of the horns. And as she rushed up the stairs of the eastern wall, the conclusion she reached was that this was something more than mere territorial displacement, the kind that led to normal beast tides.

Two waves in two different directions did not happen by accident, and she made a note to say so in her report.

The Ravagers had struck two places in what looked like a coordinated attack, rushing out in two streams. The smaller, much nimble ones, like the water wolves and the maybach tigers, headed to the city, and the much larger, armored variants like the trolls headed for the fort.

She leapt off the wall, her Sage aura flaring and causing many to shrink back: men, her knights, and beasts alike.

“Heed my call from the heavens, and upon my enemies, bestow a death faster than they could see.”

Her voice carried across the field without effort.

Lightning moved as dark clouds quickly gathered above. As soon as she touched down on the ground, she completed the chant.

“Thunder God’s Roar.”

A massive beam of lightning struck down from the darkened skies, covering roughly a hundred feet! The air screamed in protest before the impact, a massive column of white-hot heat that turned sand to glass in an instant and left nothing but a smoking crater and piles of ash where flesh once stood.

The knights on the wall stared down at the crater. Some of them cheered, and she did not stop them.

General Erica drew her sword. “Fall back!”

“Fall back!!”

“Fall back! It’s the General’s Domain!” rang out all through the field.

Her knights pulled back from the line in good order, dragging the wounded with them, and the gap behind them widened quickly. Erica did not look back to see whether they had obeyed. They always did.

“Innate Soul Domain.” The number of beasts was quite large, and this would be the best way to end things quickly.

“Grave of Thunder.”

A dome of compressed storm clouds began locking over the battlefield, translucent and crackling, sealing everything inside in a self-contained pocket severed entirely from the outside world! No sound escaped, and no one could enter or leave.

Inside, the Ravagers turned in circles, snapping at the air, looking for a way out.

In her mind, she saw the blue runes marked on her targets, on the Ravagers and none on her knights. Once the domain was sealed, she had willed special marks to be placed on her enemies, while whatever allies were left inside remained unmarked.

And she, the owner, need not aim; the marks brought the attacks upon them.

“Fulmina!”

Bolts of lightning came down in large numbers, landing in a chaotic, unpredictable web across the domain and striking the Ravagers dozens of times. Many ran, but none could escape the fury of her lightning, until her domain was finally lifted.

When the clouds thinned and the light came back, nothing inside was moving.

The air was filled with the stench of burnt flesh, and wisps of smoke rose here and there.

Not even armor could protect the beasts from the attack.

The knights who had been standing behind her lowered their weapons slowly.

Barely moments later, the ground trembled and the sound of hooves crashing filled the air.

The third wave was coming!

Down on the field, the horn-blowers sounded the alarm again, and the knights who had just finished catching their breath began to form up.

The General, with lightning crackling around her, shot up the fort walls and back onto the command post. Casting such a large-area domain did take its toll on her stamina and mana, but it didn’t stop her from moving.

“I need a comprehensive report now. And where is Captain Behemoth?” she asked, receiving a book, glancing through it, and giving it back.

“Currently facing an S-Class Ravager, a dragon of sorts. And we’ve got news, General. Troubling news!”

Gracias!