Chapter 94: Godbeast

The growl was low at first, guttural, and it reverberated through the bones of all who heard it. Then it became a low rumbling sound that slowly changed into a deafening roar.

Windows rattled along the fort wall, and a few of the younger knights dropped to one knee without meaning to. Down in the city and the plains, the fighting slowed, and even the beasts stopped for a few seconds and looked towards the sound.

It had been a little over twenty minutes since the entire phenomenon began, and by now, trees were no longer raining down from above, nor were rocks and dirt.

Smoke from the city drifted across the swamp, and the sky had turned the color of dirty iron.

The beast was fully on its feet, slowly getting used to its new sensations.

Its head swung slowly from side to side, taking in the burning city, the fort, and the little lights moving on the wall.

“Mikael,” General Erica began after closing the distance between them. “It is good to see you in good health.”

“General. A pleasure meeting you once more. You look even more astonishing than the first time we met.” He shook her extended hand.

Her grip was brief and firm, a soldier’s handshake, and she let go first.

“Is that so?” The compliment fell flat. Not that the time was particularly favorable for one.

Mikael did not seem to care.

They both turned to focus on the massive creature.

“That, judging by its size, is a Godbeast, if I am not mistaken. General?”

“True. However, it seems to be rather a young one. That would explain why it was always resting and we never detected it.”

Just then, the creature’s head came into full view. It was like a turtle’s, just exponentially bigger, and with a mane of green.

Mikael had read about creatures like it, and the books had not done its size justice.

“A Lion Turtle! That would explain why it was never detected before. Their massive shells, the forests they carry on their backs, are said to act as a natural cloak. Not to mention that, while they sleep, they enter a near-dead state.”

Erica gave him a sideways look. Few people outside the military academies knew that much about Godbeasts.

“See how huge that thing is, General? I feel like one cut from a sword will not solve our problem here.”

He said it lightly, but he was measuring the beast with his eyes as he spoke.

“True. I be—”

“General! Report from the Western Quarters! The rise of the Godbeast triggered a third wave but now the wave is much more scattered and wild. At this rate, the northeast will be overrun, and the civilians haven’t fully evacuated yet!”

General Erica sighed and rubbed her temples in slight annoyance.

She looked at the turtle, then at the wall, then back at the turtle, and ran the numbers in her head. “Captain Behemoth, is he back?”

“Unfortunately, no, General! We have heard no word from him.”

“Deal with it yourselves, then. You are knights, are you not? I’ll be going to stop the big guy, so sort yourselves out. Dismissed.”

“Yes, General!”

The messenger saluted and ran down the stairs two at a time. Erica watched him go and wished, not for the first time, that she had ten more Behemoths.

“So, how is this type of beast usually beaten? Conventional weapons and spells won’t cut it,” Mikael stated matter-of-factly.

The end of his statement was answered by a trembling of the earth. The Lion Turtle moved a limb, and it was not difficult to notice that it was generally moving towards the fort.

Another limb rose a few feet into the air before slamming down hard onto the ground.

Trees from its back slid off and crashed onto the ground, and the sound reached them a moment later.

“Just watch, brat. Off I go,” the General replied with a smug smile before leaping off the walls once more.

As soon as she touched the ground, her form zipped off as crackling lightning that travelled at neck-breaking speed.

A line of white light cut across the ground towards the turtle, and then there was only thunder.

Meanwhile, Mikael sat atop the wall and calculated just how exactly the Godbeast could be felled. After moments of thinking, a thought came to him.

Something that massive would naturally have an enormous amount of mana.

A creature that size, alive for centuries, must be holding more mana inside it than the whole city combined.

It was something he had briefly noticed while he was in the forest for the transmutation process, and also something he desperately needed if he was to stay longer on this plane of existence.

But Ragnarok, at the moment, had gone AWOL, thanks to the rain of trees and rocks. Mikael could still sense it on the battlefield, somewhere around the turtle, and Kadre was most definitely not with it.

He had not expected the thing to wander off. It had never done that before.

“What was I even thinking, leaving it with her?”

The booming of thunder and the wild crackling of lightning above the Lion Turtle pulled Mikael away from his train of thought. The bolts of lightning came together at once, and in one very sudden attack, a beam of lightning struck the neck region of the turtle, forcing it to bend one knee and roar in obvious pain.

It had attackers!

Following the General, Mikael leapt off the wall, bringing genuine shock to the faces of the knights who were around at the time!

He landed on the slope below the wall, rolled once, and started to run.

However, unlike the General, he couldn’t use any spell to boost his speed. The mana in the air was too thin, too little for him to manage anything of the sort. Not to mention that his soul was literally half-undone, and the key to completing his nigh-impossible task required an absurd amount of mana.

And that was standing right in front of him.

—

Over at the battle with the Godbeast, a flurry of lightning attacks kept raining down on the Lion Turtle, causing the massive monster, over a hundred feet tall, to throw a tantrum.

It stomped all over the ground in a bid to lose or even crush the tiny nuisance. But its massive size and height were huge disadvantages, and its efforts were futile.

“Innate Soul Domain, Complete Revelation!”

The dome of storm clouds quickly stretched to over three miles in radius, fully enveloping the Lion Turtle. Unlike the previous time, the domain this time appeared more volatile, stronger and fiery.

The effect of the dome on the outside world was nigh-destructive. Bolts and thick beams of lightning scattered everywhere, striking down anything in their path. The ground shook with each strike, and fires started in the grass.

Inside the dome, the air smelled sharp, like metal after rain.

“Grave of Thunder: Zephyr’s Blade!”

General Erica gritted her teeth in sheer agony as her Soul Essence, saved up over some time, quickly dissipated! From above, a sword, massive and made entirely of lightning, dropped onto the Lion Turtle, causing a great deal of dust and smoke as the vegetation and soil on its back got mixed into the fray. The light from it lit up the whole field white for a few seconds, and the knights on the wall shielded their eyes.

Much smaller swords of lightning also formed, and the rumbling of thunder filled the world. Repeatedly, these swords of lightning kept raining down, chipping away at the beast.

Her hands were shaking, and she pressed them against her thighs to keep them still.

After the barrage ended, the General was greeted with a sight she more or less expected but was surprised by nonetheless. Aside from minor injuries and scratches here and there, the beast was mostly fine.

“Tanking even an attack from my Soul Domain. Godbeasts really are another thing altogether,” she muttered, smiling sadly.

She wiped sweat from her forehead with the back of her glove and checked the dome again.

Her Soul Essence reserves were nearly exhausted, and since, unlike mana, they took a while to refill, this was going to be a long fight.

However, just as the dust and fumes were settling, a bright light began emanating from the direction of the Godbeast’s head.

An attack!

BOOM!!!

A steady, concentrated beam of some kind of energy shot out onto the barriers of the dome.

Heat rolled off it in waves, and the clouds of the dome boiled where it touched. Since it could not effectively perceive its enemy by sight alone, only by aura, the beam moved with the aim of locating her.

The beam moved slowly across the inside of the dome, sweeping from left to right.

Anyhow, its size was still a major disadvantage.

But even General Erica was at her wits’ end. Based on the attack, she could deduce that the Lion Turtle was almost Sage rank in the human ranking system. That meant the beam was rather effective against her domain, as they were almost of the same rank!

She felt the heat on her skin every time it passed overhead.

And letting that beam of energy escape the domain would prove extremely destructive to the fort, the knights, and possibly even the city just a few miles away. So she had to continuously repair the cracks the attack caused in the dome.

Each time one split open, she sealed it, and each time it cost her a little more.

And a few moments later, another perplexity arose: someone entered the domain.

Without her permission!

See y’all tomorrow!