Chapter 93: Beast Tides (5)

Back atop the command post of the fort, General Erica sat with a lot less urgency than earlier, before the waves began.

Her armor was scorched along one sleeve and her hair had come loose from its tie, but she barely noticed either. She had taken off her gauntlets and set them on the table beside her.

While the third and possibly last wave was coming, the number of Ravagers she had seen was a lot less than in the second, a quite welcome development.

Down below, the knights had started carrying the wounded off the field, and the healers were already running between the lines.

“And what is this troubling news?” she asked the knight currently assigned as her attendant.

“Demons, General. The mages have picked up Khyronian mana signatures just outside the Dry Swamp. While they couldn’t exactly pin down the number of demons, it is a given that they are here and are-“

“Probably the cause of these quite unusual tides.”

“Yes, General.”

She did not like how neatly it all fit together. Two streams of beasts, two targets, and now demons at the edge of the swamp.

“And their general rank? What do we suspect it to be?” she asked, rising to her feet.

While this region was not at the border, it was a bit close. Even so, for a few Khyronians to slip in and stay for who knows how long was concerning. But the fact that they hadn’t been noticed meant their rank and strength were not something to worry about. General Erica made a mental note to go and end them once the defense of the fort and its neighboring city was done.

“Send a part of the mage corps to the eastern section. The civilians from that city would probably be escaping from our northwest, so the east section must prevent ambushes on them. The archers and the rest of the mages should get ready to release a full volley on my signal. Also, get the knights on the ground to fall back around here so they don’t get hit. And for the third time, where the hell is Captain Behemoth?”

“Still in the city, General!”

She had half expected that answer, and it still annoyed her.

She sighed. “Well, he could basically lead the adventurers in defending the city. Good. If possible, try to get the beasts gathered in one place. I’ll take care of them all myself.”

She flexed her fingers and felt the lightning gather along her forearms, ready.

Her aide bowed before sprinting off, the clanking of his armor on stone completely drowned out by roars and the explosions of spells down below.

At the bottom of the stairs he nearly collided with a runner and kept going without apologizing.

“Attacking the region where a Sage ranker resides. A very foolish tactic.”

Lightning ran along her fingers as she said it, and she did not bother to hide how much she was looking forward to it.

She kept her eyes on the swamp for a long moment before she turned.

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A few yards away, Mikael tore off the head of a six-legged Ravager, then flung its body hard enough that it killed another of its kind. Not even checking to confirm the death of the beasts, he quickly checked his clothes for signs of filth: blood stains, bits of flesh. Fortunately for him, all he got was the stale smell of his own sweat.

He wiped his hands on his coat anyway, out of habit.

He thanked his past self in his mind for being smart enough to reinforce his body’s physical capabilities as soon as he took over Adrian’s body! From above-average strength and speed to a sort of regeneration, albeit very much slowed! Since he had no celestial essence to use, these had been his saving grace since the ruckus began!

Every muscle in his legs hurt, but he did not slow down. There was a certain thrill about this activity, and the sensation of hard work and sweating was novelty.

Just then, overhead, the aura was unmistakable. There was a higher rank at Fort Erica. Now he knew why he had been headed there in the first place. It was what had attracted him.

It was strong, stronger than anything he had felt in this city so far, and it felt like it was waiting for something.

However, the ground beneath him groaned and cracked, making Mikael leap a few yards into the air. In the next heartbeat, birds, countless of them, took to the skies from the direction of the wilderness, and something that made Mikael -that made the entire populace doubt their own sanity slowly popped out.

Even the knights on the fort walls stopped shouting and stared.

The trees rose, their massive ancient trunks tearing free with roots the size of temple pillars, and earth sloughed away in cascading sheets that swallowed hillsides!

The ground shook so hard that stones rolled down the hills and landed in the river.

What rose beneath the canopy had used the entire forest as a disguise for so long that even the inhabitants had completely forgotten its existence. It had moss for scales, rivers for veins, and a small mountain range for a spine.

After the first couple of minutes, Mikael decided he had seen enough. He sprinted back to where he had started from, towards Ragnarok and towards his companion, the master thief.

He ran along the tops of fallen trunks, jumping gaps as wide as streets.

Kadre was much closer to the forest when the split occurred, and her survival instincts kicked in!

She tried picking up the scythe, but the moment she touched it, she felt as if her very soul was being dragged out of her! She let it alone and fled as the first tree slammed into the ground a few meters behind her! All around, countless beasts ran, prey and predator alike. There was only one idea in all their minds, one instinct: survive!

Branches whipped her face, and she kept her head down and kept going.

With her nimbleness, she managed to get atop a dusksteed, a race of wild horses that outran most Ravagers. It paid her no heed as it ran. The stranger on its back was not compromising its safety, it assumed, and it kept on between the trees. Having settled, Kadre turned back to look at the absolute monstrosity. She could make out limbs slowly raising the body of the largest thing she had ever seen.

The horse was shaking all over and breathing hard, but it did not slow down, and she did not ask it to.

The shadow of the thing moved over the trees behind them one row at a time.

The back, or rather the shell, of this monster had already blocked her view of the moon and the sky, casting a very long shadow that only served to scare the beasts further and push them to run faster.

A sound arrived at least ten minutes after the earth had decided to spit nearly a hundred meters of itself out of the ground. The grumble was low and guttural, and it rumbled at a pitch that went through skin and made even bones vibrate in resonance!

Kadre clamped her hands over her ears, but it made no difference. Somewhere behind her, a pack of wolves howled and broke off in different directions, and nobody went after them.

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Mikael jumped off the last stone despite the rumbling in his body, and was finally atop the fort, on the section where he felt the most powerful knight was.

Midway he’d decided to trust Kadre’s instincts and had turned back towards the fort. The aura felt familiar. A few images of who it might be flashed through his mind as he strolled over to the room that was basically the command center.

The soldiers on the wall saw him pass, and none of them tried to stop him. Most of them were looking the other way.

A couple of miles away, all the dust, stones and rubble slowly settled, revealing a mountainous being seemingly standing on four mounds that were probably too large to even be called legs. At one end, a long coil rustled, rough-looking, and slowly stretched out a mile or three, followed by the sounds of massive structures cracking, the bones of this monstrous creature probably getting their joints back into shape in preparation for its first steps.

Birds that had not fled in time dropped out of the air, and swamp water slid in long sheets across the ground. Dust drifted over the fort in a thick brown haze, and the sky overhead went dim.

Ahead, General Erica had felt the presence of Mikael. Being unclear on who it was, and since demons had been reported a couple of minutes ago, she stepped out.

Her hand was already on her sword, though she had not drawn it.

The wind carried the smell of wet soil and old wood up to the wall.

However, the sight of the intruder brought upon a few emotions she couldn’t exactly understand. All she knew was that they washed all over her. Relief at a familiar face, then anger that it wasn’t the demons, and then resignation at the lad.

She had not seen him in months, and she had not expected to feel nostalgic.

The white hair, the lazy yet somewhat arrogant posture, everything else was pretty much the same, save for the eyes, which now looked… golden, for some reason.

She looked at them a second longer than she meant to.

Mikael raised a hand in acknowledgement, but just as he was about to utter his first word of greeting, a gust of wind pushed him forward.

Behind Erica, a knight shouted something that nobody heard.

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See y’all with tomorrow’s chapter.

Au revoir (^^)