Bloodbound Codex: I Grow Stronger in Secret

Chapter 31: Velgrath

The black flare appeared beside the red emergency signal.

For several seconds, no one on the northern road moved.

The D-Rank explorers understood what the signal meant, and the rescued civilians understood enough from their faces. The children stopped crying. The merchant gripped the coachman’s shoulder harder. Even the brown-haired woman lowered her dagger slightly as her gaze stayed fixed on the sky.

The spear-user swallowed.

"...That’s not supposed to happen this fast."

Someone behind them asked in a cracked voice.

"What does black mean?"

The brown-haired woman answered after a short pause.

"It means the first line is gone."

Silence followed.

Atlas remained still beneath his hood. He did not comfort them or repeat the obvious. The situation had changed. Their task was no longer simple observation. If the first line had fallen this early, the outbreak was spreading faster than the Guild had planned.

Staying here was suicide.

Atlas turned toward the group.

"Move."

His voice cut through their panic because it was calm.

"If we stand here thinking, we will die here."

The words were not comforting, but they were useful.

The D-Rank explorers snapped out of it one by one and began moving again. The civilians followed with trembling legs. The injured coachman leaned against the merchant, while the woman carried one child and pulled the other forward by the hand.

Atlas naturally stayed at the rear.

From the rear, he could see the road, the civilians, the explorers, and anything following them. It was the safest position for controlling the situation without making himself the center of attention.

The road back to Ormolio had changed.

Earlier, it had been dangerous because monsters might appear. Now it was dangerous because the defense line behind them had already failed. That meant anything from the outbreak could reach the outer roads without warning, and their group was too weak to handle anything above C-Rank directly.

Atlas’s steps remained quiet.

Spirit Tails continued correcting his movement beneath the surface. His balance adjusted before roots caught his feet, his weight shifted naturally when the road dipped, and his body reacted faster than before. The Trait was useful, but not mastered. Twice, Atlas had to slow himself because his body moved faster than he intended.

Power without control was still danger.

A growl came from the trees.

The group stopped.

Atlas looked left.

The bushes trembled, and five thin wolf-like monsters emerged from the forest. Their bodies were covered in patchy gray-black fur, and parts of their skin looked bare and rotten. Their gums were exposed, showing rows of yellowed fangs dripping with dark saliva.

Rot-Fang Strays.

D-Rank monsters.

Not as dangerous as the Bloodmire Crawlers, but the group was carrying civilians and already exhausted. In that condition, even D-Rank monsters could cause deaths if panic spread.

The spear-user raised his weapon.

"Damn it... not again."

One Rot-Fang Stray lunged first.

The brown-haired woman slashed toward its neck, but the creature twisted away and snapped toward her shoulder. Atlas stepped in with one short movement and struck beneath its jaw.

Crack.

The monster collapsed before it could bite.

The woman stared for half a second, but Atlas had already moved away.

Another Stray rushed toward the child holding the merchant’s coat. Atlas nearly moved too fast, then forced his step to remain within human limits. He reached the monster before it leapt and drove his knee into its side.

Boom.

The creature crashed into a tree and stopped moving.

The spear-user killed another with a desperate thrust while the other D-Ranks surrounded the remaining two. The fight lasted less than a minute, but everyone except Atlas was breathing hard when it ended. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

The spear-user looked at him.

Not afraid.

Suspicious.

"You keep saying luck..."

His voice was slower now.

"...but luck doesn’t continue to occur like that."

Atlas looked at him from beneath the hood.

"Then call it fear...?"

The spear-user frowned.

Atlas turned away.

"Fear makes people move faster right?"

No one had a good response.

The words sounded too simple to argue against, and the situation gave them no time to question him further. The pressure from the north was still growing, so the group started moving again.

Far north of them, the second defense line was failing.

The Guild had formed three layers against the outbreak. The first interception line had already collapsed under the first wave. The second combat line now stood between the monsters and the final city defense route. If that line broke too quickly, Ormolio would have almost no time to prepare for direct defense.

The battlefield was already a mess.

Around twenty C-Rank explorers had died. Some were crushed by larger monsters. Some were dragged down by Bloodmire Crawlers. Some died so quickly that nearby fighters could not even identify what had killed them. The remaining C-Ranks tried to fall back, but the monsters pressed too hard.

The B-Rank explorers moved forward to stabilize the line.

Spirit bullets tore through weaker monsters. Binding chains erupted from the ground. Burning Spirit flames pushed the front wave back for a few seconds. That small delay saved several C-Ranks from immediate death, but it did not fix the real problem.

The stronger monsters had reached the line.

"Hold formation!"

A loud voice carried across the battlefield.

"B-Ranks to the center! C-Ranks fall back! Protect the support relic users!"

The man shouting stood near the middle of the second line.

Rovan Halbrecht, The Branch Guild Master In Ormolio.

Peak A-Rank.

His Spirit-coated blade cut down one lunging monster and shattered another’s chest with a kick. He was strong enough to control part of the battlefield by himself, but even his expression had turned grim.

The ordinary monsters were not the main threat.

The Qield’s Watchers were.

One of them finally stepped forward.

Until now, the A-Rank monster had mostly observed from the side of the battlefield. Its dark wolf-like fur shifted beneath the wind, and the horn on its forehead pulsed with dense Spirit. The moment it moved, every trained explorer near the center noticed.

A B-Rank Spirit User shouted immediately.

"Focus fire! Don’t let that thing reach the line!"

Spirit attacks struck the Watcher from several directions.

Boom.

Booom.

Crash.

Smoke covered its body.

For one second, some of the explorers hoped the combined attack had worked.

Then the Watcher walked out unharmed.

It looked across the human line once.

Then disappeared.

The nearest B-Rank barely lifted his sword before the Watcher’s hand closed around his skull.

Crunch.

His head collapsed under its grip.

Another explorer attacked from behind, but the Watcher cut him open from shoulder to waist without turning properly.

Rovan moved instantly.

His blade collided with the Watcher’s claws.

Clang.

The impact threw him several meters backward, and his boots carved lines through the dirt before he stopped himself. Both his arms trembled from the force.

Rovan’s jaw tightened.

’We can’t kill them.’

His gaze moved to the wounds already closing on the Watcher’s body.

’We can only delay.’

That was the real problem.

The Guild did not need victory. It only needed time. Five hours. Long enough for S-Rank reinforcement to arrive. But against monsters that could regenerate and ignore most attacks, even one hour would be difficult.

Then the battlefield changed.

The monsters stopped moving.

Not all of them at once, but enough that every surviving explorer noticed the shift. Bloodmire Crawlers stopped feeding. B-Rank monsters stopped charging. Even the Qield’s Watchers turned their heads toward the northern ruin.

Their bodies lowered slightly.

Not fear, it was Submission.

Rovan’s expression changed.

"No..."

The ground trembled.

From the direction of the mutated ruin, a deep sound crossed the forest.

A wingbeat.

BOOM

The northern battlefield shook.

Trees bent from the pressure, dust rose from the ground, and several wounded explorers collapsed. The second wingbeat followed soon after, disturbing the red and black flares in the sky.

A C-Rank survivor whispered with blood leaking from his mouth.

"...What is that?"

No one answered.

Everyone knew what it meant.

The Boss was coming out.

The third wingbeat arrived.

Then the entrance of the Cataclysm Ruin exploded outward.

BOOM

Stone shattered, trees tore from their roots, and black Spirit pressure rolled across the forest. From the darkness of the ruin, something massive unfolded.

Wings appeared first, Huge and it seemed Eagle-like.

Several hundred feet wide when fully spread, covered in black feather-like armor that reflected faint Spirit light.

Then the body emerged.

A gigantic bird-like monster stepped out of the ruin. Its talons scraped against the earth like curved blades larger than carriages. Its black serrated beak looked built for tearing through armor, and pale-gold Spirit burned in its eyes. A crown-like structure of bone and dark feathers rose from its head.

Velgrath, the Crowbeast.

The S-Rank Boss of the mutated Cataclysm Ruin.

The moment Velgrath spread its wings, the battlefield lost its structure.

C-Rank explorers collapsed from pressure alone.

Several B-Ranks dropped to one knee.

Even Rovan Halbrecht staggered as blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

The Qield’s Watchers lowered their heads. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

Every monster beneath Velgrath submitted instinctively.

Far away on the northern road, Atlas stopped mid-step.

The civilians behind him stumbled, but he did not move.

He had not seen the creature.

Every instinct inside his body gave the same answer.

Something far beyond him had entered Eliomor.

Atlas’s fingers tightened beneath his cloak.

His body trembled faintly despite his control.

Back on the battlefield, Rovan slowly lifted his gaze toward the enormous shadow covering the sky.

Velgrath turned its head toward Ormolio.

Then its wings spread wider.

The wind pressure ripped trees from the ground and sent corpses rolling across the battlefield.

For the first time since the outbreak began, even the monsters below stopped moving.