Chapter 107 - The Horde (Patreon)

“How can you possibly have a kid if you’ve been asleep for the last year?”

Jiran laughed, enjoying constantly getting under his uptight cousin's skin.

“It’s a technique Lenton taught me to speak with an entity connected to Madra. You’ll see. Well, never mind. You won’t see, because she’s invisible to everyone but me,” Jiran shrugged before moving toward the edge of the woods with a growling Niya on his heels.

They moved slowly, soon leaving the cover of trees and stepping onto rolling hills that meandered for a dozen kilometers before reaching the City of Mortan. The city’s walls towered above the Graymin army which stretched as far as the eye could see: A roiling mass of black, an ink stain upon the tapestry of the empire, a blight upon the land that devoured anything it touched. Between the shifting humanoid bodies, a wet, purple blemish could be glimpsed covering the ground.

Occasional blasts of varying elements could be seen sprouting from all along the imposing fortifications. The ineffectual attacks appeared as nothing more than harmless fireworks sprouting within the impossibly vast army. A child throwing pebbles into a lake would have made more of an impact.

"What's that purple stuff all over the ground?" Jiran wondered aloud.

"That's the stain. Though some call it the malaise or the filth." Niya responded. When Jiran quirked a brow in her direction, she elucidated, "It spreads wherever the Graymin go, eating everything beneath it and feeding them in the process. Apparently, taking back land by clearing the stain is a huge burden on the engineer corps."

Before Jiran could inquire further, an explosion at the edge of the horde threw a fountain of Graymin into the air. From their distant vantage, the shadowed speck that dashed beneath the throng of airborne beasts was no larger than a pinhead.

“Ravenna?”

“Yeah, looks like it. We’re not going to know for sure without getting closer. Ugh, remind me why I agreed to do this again?”

“Binoculars would be pretty handy right about now,” Jiran put a finger on his chin as a sudden thought popped into his head.

“What are binoculars?”

Jiran didn’t bother answering as he focused on creating the mental image he wanted.

I know binoculars have four lenses and each serves a specific purpose, though I have no clue what those are. Hopefully, I can brute force it with a little extra mana.

He formed an image of a clear panel the size of his chest that would distort any light passing through it in a convex pattern. He reached for his mana and sent it through his channels where it was converted to the light element before flowing from his hands. A shimmering lens less than a centimeter thick appeared before their faces, causing Niya to jerk back as if stung. The image of a woman, blasting her way through thousands of Graymin jumped into focus upon the lens. Jiran let out an accomplished chortle, happy his idea had worked despite the fairly large drain on his mana.

Niya stifled a shout before gingerly sticking a finger through the small layer of light, distorting the entire image. Jiran smacked her hand away, his focus entirely on the woman steadily advancing on the city walls.

Fire bloomed all around her body, spreading in every direction and incinerating any Graymin that got too close. She left a trail of molten soil and bubbling filth behind her. Flames licked at the bodies of any creatures that tried to flank her, leaving a charred trail of ruin in her wake. Her hands were raised before her, firing small balls of fire one after another. Each caused a large explosion when they landed, creating a path for her to quickly dash through.

A huge Graymin sprouted a dozen meters before her. One of her fireballs hit it square in the chest, causing its scales to turn a bright red, though the ball failed to explode or cause any real damage. The Graymin reached down into the ground in a blur of motion that made Jiran’s stomach queasy. When it stood, a huge boulder rested in one hand.

“That’s a Rook! I’ve never seen one before. It’s huge, what tier do you think it is?”

Jiran clicked his tongue when Identify failed to read the beast’s information, despite being able to see it clearly through the light screen. “High six or low seven, I think. It’s moving a lot faster than Markhiss could but beasts have higher attributes than us. I can still kinda follow its movements though, so probably not seven.”

The Rook’s arm glowed briefly before the energy it was channeling flowed into the boulder. Its arm then flickered forward, sending the rock hurtling through the air toward Ravenna. She increased her speed, charging straight at the rook while her fire devoured everything nearby. Two more tendrils of crimson light sped past either side of the Rook to decimate the beast’s beyond.

She moved so fast, Jiran failed to perceive her punch. Her fully extended fist released a wave of force that crashed into the hurtling boulder. A fifty-meter-shockwave rippled out from the point of impact, sending lower-tier Graymin flying through the air by the thousands. She arrived before the Rook, a light jump brought her level with its face. She punched again—once more too fast for Jiran's eyes to track.

The monster flew out of her way as her fist connected with the side of its head in a wicked hook. Without missing a beat, she crouched and jumped off the air, blasting forward while staying only a meter off the ground. The wall she rushed toward erupted in blazing fireballs and lightning bolts as the city defenders joined the fray from on high. Rain appeared from clouds on high, soaking hundreds of Graymin, only for them to freeze solid within sheets of sharp ice a moment later. By the time she reached the city wall, Jiran’s heart was pounding. She shot straight up it, so close she could have reached out and run her fingers along the stones.

That’s when Jiran realized there were no gates anywhere along the wall, only smooth stone. Just when he thought she would make it, five boulders blasted out of the horde, each from a different direction. The ground around each rook shook under the immense forces of those throws, sending lower-tier beats sprawling. They rocketed toward her so quickly, they appeared more like brown beams of energy than projectiles.

Ravenna's form flickered with a teleportation, but something prevented it, leaving her in the exact same location. She turned instantly—putting her back to the wall. Her face was marred by fear as she screamed out a wave of force that knocked three of the attacks away at the last second. Each rock blew through the city walls like they were breaking through paper before continuing into the open sky beyond.

Jiran’s palms began to sweat as he saw the woman, or what was left of her. An arm and a leg had been pulverized to nothing. She must have been holding her blood in with her aura as it was pooling around the stumps—all that was left of the two missing limbs. Human hands reached through one of the fresh holes in the wall and pulled the woman inside. Before any additional attacks could be launched, the holes were sealed by solid stone as if they had never been.

Niya’s jaws clenched so hard he could hear a creaking like a tree about to topple. His own teeth felt hollow, the desire to grind them was a bone-deep ache as bile crept up his throat. “No way, Jiran. We are not going in there like that. She’s way stronger than us and you saw what happened to her.”

“You don’t have to come, Niya. Like I said before, I can find you again any time.”

“Go screw a morrkrat. I’m not leaving. I said ‘going in there like that.’ We need a real plan. Charging across an army of Graymin was idiotic. She’s lucky there wasn't a bishop out there.”

Jiran dropped his magnifying light. Even though he only used it for a few seconds, it drained nearly ten percent of his remaining mana. He made a mental note to work on its efficiency later as he turned to Niya.

“I’ve got a couple ideas that should work but I’m going to need a rest first, and a lot more mana.”

Niya shook her head, completely exasperated. “Fine! Whatever. You know you’re about the most stressful person I’ve ever met, right? Sometimes, it’s better to take a step back and maybe not rush headlong into danger. You should try it.”

Jiran made the sound of a cat puking to illustrate what he thought of her suggestion before playfully shoving her shoulder. “C’mon wuss, let’s go find some grub.” She grunted but followed behind him as he dashed to the south.

Over the next hour, the two managed to find a measure of peace as they put distance between themselves and the horde. Jiran crushed two more Graymin patrols, refiling his mana each time, before finding something that piqued his interest.

EXP + 42

A dozen tier three Graymin were hauling the corpses of several beasts on their shoulders. They trudged north, toward the far side of the city, while paying no attention to their surroundings. Jiran leaned closer to Niya in their crouched hiding spot behind the lip of a hill. “What are they doing?”

“Feeding the filth, probably. Once they give it enough and it seeps into the city, they will be able to bypass the walls. At least that’s what I’ve heard. Not sure how they do it since the wards are supposed to stop that, but that’s why we’ve been losing ground to them so quickly over the last few seasons.”

Some kind of teleportation maybe? All the more reason for me to liberate those sacks of mana they’re carrying instead of letting them feed that gunk.

“Well, their loss is my gain!” Jiran shot forward as he pulled himself down the hill with his aura. His passing made no sound as he hovered less than a meter off the ground. Before they noticed him, he was amidst the Pawns and froze them before draining a few and killing the rest. He scooped up the corpses in his aura and flew back to Niya who was tapping her foot when he arrived.

“If you’re bored, you could always kill a few.”

“My attacks aren’t as… subtle as yours,” Her tapping foot increased in tempo.

“Oh really? What kind of attacks do you have? Last time I saw you fight, you were swinging a spear around complaining that you couldn’t hit anything,” Jiran’s grin split his face as he taunted her about their last spar in the desert. He vividly remembered how livid she was that she couldn’t hit him even once with foresight allowing him to see her moves a split-second before she launched them.

“Liar! I was not complaining. You were cheating!”

“Hey, keep it down. We’re trying to be sneaky, remember?”

Niya tsked but relented and stopped tapping her foot. “Got everything you need?”

“Yup, this should be plenty. Let’s go.”

They flew for thirty minutes, not daring to rise far from the ground with the image of the half-dead Ravenna fresh in their minds. Jiran stopped them in a basin surrounded by tall hills and began to dig down at an angle with Metal Manipulation. When the tunnel was fifty meters deep, he closed it off, leaving only a few tiny holes for air to circulate. They were plunged into complete darkness, but with their auras to see, neither minded.

“I’m going to call Daughter which is going to completely drain my mana. Can you prepare some of that meat while I talk to her?”

“Sure dear,” Niya drawled in a sickly sweet taunt. “I’d love nothing more than to cook for you and rub your feet.”

“Hey! I still remember when you did that, it was really nice.” Jiran moved to take his boots off but stopped with a bark of laughter when Niya kicked dirt at him.

She moved to the opposite side of their little cave and started tearing into one of the tier five corpses with her bare hands before roasting the meat with a gentle flame. Jiran smiled and leaned against the wall. He took a deep breath of the delicious aroma of high-density, cooked meat, then fed his mana into Revelation.

“Father!” Daughter squealed as she leaped out of thin air and threw her arms around him. Jiran’s body stiffened as her starry, immaterial form pressed against him. She released him and stepped back a moment later when she realized he was frozen stiff.

“Sorry, I was excited to show you how much I’ve grown. We are so much… more now,” Her voice was full of a longing that sent a shiver through her cloudy form. Jiran understood all too well. The heady rush of ascending was a nagging in the back of his skull that never quite vanished.

“No, it’s fine. I was just surprised. It’s good to see you too, Daughter.” Jiran stepped forward and returned her hug quickly, once more shocked at how solid she felt. She laughed delightedly at his touch for only a second before turning serious.

“Mayalyn is fine, she is in Mortan, as you suspected.”

Jiran found himself torn between relief and anxiety as he met her starry eyes. He took a deep breath to regain his composure. “Before I forget, thanks for helping me find Niya. What you did with the map was ingenious. If I had been even a few minutes later, she might have been killed.”

“Of course, Father. I’m delighted to help. You do not realize the magnitude of the gifts you have given me. My appreciation will never wane and I will always be here to assist you however I can.”

“That’s reassuring. I was starting to feel bad about how much you do for me with nothing in return but a little mana.”

“I know your feelings better than I know my own, that is why I spoke of your gifts to me. Please know that I receive far more from you than you from me,” Daughter pressed on, changing the topic before Jiran could respond. “As soon as you are in the city, I will update your map with Mayalyn’s current location.”

“So, you think I should go in there? Any advice on how to get in?”

“Your plan should work so long as the situation does not change. Though you should be careful and keep listening to your cousin. Her caution is warranted and you have a tendency to be… reckless.”

Jiran’s nose scrunched as the criticism hurt a little more than he wanted to admit. Though he did nod in acceptance. “What about adding markers on my map for Micah, Samris, Lenton, and my parents, would that be doable?”

“I could, though it would be a considerable drain with no current benefit to you. The distraction may even be a detriment. I would not suggest it.”

“Okay, never mind then.” Daughter showed off her dimples before one of the stars in her eyes lit up.

“Before I go, you should know about Duchess Ravenna. She is unlikely to be reasoned with. The woman wants nothing more than your death and her injuries have only exacerbated that desire.”

“Can you mark her on my map as well once I’m inside the city so I can avoid her? That is, if she sticks around. Since I’m not there, maybe she’ll leave?” Jiran questioned hopefully.

“Doubtful, though possible. She will need time to heal herself. If she remains within the walls by the time you arrive, I will also mark her location.”

Jiran opened his mouth to thank her again but she placed a finger against his lips. “No more thanks are necessary, I can feel your gratitude as well as your fear for Mayalyn. Remember that your feelings are my own. You have time to do what must be done, use it well. Goodbye, Father.”

Her finger vanished along with the rest of her, leaving Jiran standing in the dark with an awkward expression. He drew in a deep breath and blew it out with a sigh as his brain grappled with everything she’d told him.

I learned more than enough. Mayalyn is fine, I have time to get everything in order, and my plan should work. Daughter really pulled through, again. What would I do without her?

Jiran snatched a few cooked portions of tier five meat from a growing pile and floated them over to himself. Now that his concentration was higher than a tier five beast, the meat turned dry and bland in his mouth. Regardless of the taste, his mana slowly recharged as he tore into the food.

After steeling his nerves for the pain to come, he pulled his aura inside his body and used it to rip a gaping wound in his chest.