Free Web NovelChapter 215: Disbelief
Earlier tonight, the 3 Spirit Initiates left to guard Redwood Town had met and briefly decided who would be stationed where.
Sir Green naturally remaining close to Princess Christina at the Town Lord’s Manor, while Commander Levins and Commander Foster had taken the military camp and Town Square respectively.
There was no special reason for this assignment, really just a casual ’you go here, I’ll go there’.
About half-an-hour after General Balfour and most of the Spirit Initiates departed, the Sunchaser, accompanied by 11 Tartans and their riders, returned to Redwood Town and touched down at the military camp.
Commander Hubert Levins briefed the newly returned soldiers and then re-assigned them to the defence lines, worried that a large-scale beast attack could happen at any moment.
However, another hour-and-a-half later, with no signs of danger appearing anywhere around Redwood Town, most of the soldiers and militia were recalled, allowing them to get something to eat and to rest.
Old man Levins himself also relaxed a bit and entered into a kind of light meditative state, only sweeping the eastern part of Redwood Town he was responsible for guarding with his Soul Sense every quarter hour or so. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm
Everything seemed to be going better than expected, with no disturbances, incidents, or beast sightings to speak of; that is, until about midnight, when everything abruptly changed.
Sitting aboard the Sunchaser, quietly cultivating, Commander Levins felt it was about time for his regular inspection and began releasing his Soul Qi.
Hubert had already done this over a dozen times tonight yet not once had he found anything worth noting, so he wasn’t expecting anything greatly different this time either. However, when he spread his Soul Sense out over Redwood Town, he ’saw’ something so shocking that he literally leapt to his feet.
Gawking dumbfoundedly, Commander Levins swept the eastern quarter of Redwood Town with his Soul Sense again just to be sure, but he still couldn’t believe what the feedback was telling him.
Needing to confirm what was happening with his own eyes, the old man jumped off the Sunchaser’s deck and dashed out of the military camp. free𝑤ebnovel.com
20 seconds later and 500 metres away, Hubert Levins was again flabbergasted by the sight before him.
Where once there was a dirt road lined with neat rows of buildings, there was now a tropical forest.
This magically appeared forest only extended for a few hundred metres in every direction, seemingly having been transplanted right into the middle of Redwood Town.
Walking up to the closest palm tree, Commander Levins knocked on it with his knuckles a few times before he punched it hard, breaking it in half and causing it to topple.
Confirming for the fourth time that what he was seeing and feeling was real, and not some elaborate illusion or the result of some cultivation dissonance, old man Hubert became incredibly alarmed.
When he swept this area just 15 minutes ago, everything had been normal; but now, this part of Redwood Town had swiftly and silently been transformed into untamed wilderness. That alone would have been cause for great concern, but from what Commander Levins had sensed earlier, this inexplicable phenomenon was actually happening all over the eastern quarter.
Releasing his Soul Sense fully, Commander Levins wanted to locate and make contact with the other Spirit Initiates, hoping to coordinate a response to this strange event with them, but when he tried, he was shocked to discover that both of their Life Auras had vanished, along with wide swaths of Redwood Town.
Hubert Levins also caught the moment when a number of buildings and people on the western defence perimeter vanished into thin air and were replaced by what looked like a sandy beach.
Even witnessing it happen in real time left Commander Levins in disbelief. This was unlike anything he had ever even heard of, much less seen in his 258 years of life.
Still, as one of the longest serving soldiers in the Raging River Legion, it didn’t take long for old man Levins to pull himself together. He might not know what was going on, and he might be powerless to stop it, but that didn’t mean there was nothing he could do.
Racing back towards the camp, Commander Levins drew a flare from his Space Bag and fired it into the air. It was a blue light, meant to signal others to gather towards his location. From what he could tell, there weren’t many human Life Auras left inside Redwood Town, but there were some.
As long as this strange phenomenon continued, sending out search and rescue teams wasn’t an option.
Even focusing his Soul Sense, Hubert wasn’t able to anticipate what sections of Redwood Town would disappear next, so there was no way the few Sea Establishment Captains in the military camp could do so. He had no idea what happened to the people who ’disappeared’, so he had to assume that sending out his subordinates now would be equivalent to sending them to their deaths.
Hopefully whatever was happening stopped soon, and he could then send people to look for survivors, but until then, old man Levins made the practical choice to protect those he could.
Commander Levins swiftly returned to the military camp and woke up everyone there, ordering them to prepare for an emergency evacuation.
Fortunately, whatever was affecting Redwood Town seemed to not extend into the camp itself, so Hubert ordered his subordinates to set a perimeter and prepare to defend themselves. He hadn’t sensed any physical threats yet, but he wasn’t about to take any chances.
What was more urgent now was to get the Cloud Treading Colts and wagons ready to depart, the Tartans ready to take-off, and to rig the Sunchaser for maximum passenger capacity. Everything that could be offloaded from the Skyship needed to be dumped, whether it was grain, luggage, or weapons, so that it could carry more people.
At the same time, Commander Levins ordered one of the Aerial Knights to take off on one of the Tartans and see if they could get a bird’s-eye-view of what was happening in Redwood Town.
Sadly, the giant Tartan and its rider vanished mere seconds after taking off, despite reaching a height of over 200 metres.
"Damn it," Hubert cursed under his breath when he saw this happen.
In his haste, he had failed to consider that whatever was happening inside Redwood Town might also be happening above it.
Now, it was apparent that moving through the sky was just as dangerous as running across the ground.
With this option cut off, Commander Levins could only resort to spreading his Soul Sense as wide as possible to try to monitor the situation inside Redwood Town.
Unfortunately, even this didn’t do him much good.
Somehow, the old man’s Soul Sense was being blurred. He could sense big changes, like buildings disappearing or forests appearing, but smaller details were almost completely obscured.
It was an unusual situation, but not something Hubert had never experienced before; after all, there were plenty of ways to impede Soul Sense.
Something was happening in Redwood Town, something that seemed able to warp space itself, so his Soul Sense being obstructed wasn’t exactly unexpected. Hubert could still detect powerful Life Auras, like those from Sea Establishment Realm Practitioners, but anyone below that was almost invisible to him.
On that note, Commander Levins did sense a few such powerful Life Auras trying to head east from different parts of town at this very moment. All of them save for 2 vanished before they could make it very far, however.
This remaining pair of Sea Establishment Practitioners, probably part of a larger group that had previously been on defence duty, moved about very erratically, traveling east, then south, then north, then east again.
Sometimes they ran forward, while sometimes they retreated back, but many times they did so, things would appear or disappear nearby.
Someone in that group can predict the anomaly! Hubert quickly determined.
If whoever it was could reach the camp, he could work with them to save more people, but they were still quite far away and he had no way to reach them.
Seeing the solution to his problems within his grasp, but being unable to reach out and actually grab it, frustrated the old man greatly. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do about it for now.
It wasn’t until about 10 minutes later that Commander Levins noticed the frequency of things in Redwood Town appearing or disappearing begin to decrease.
There was no telling whether this was a sign that the phenomenon was coming to an end, or just a temporarily ease, but regardless, it was an opportunity that Hubert felt was worth seizing.
Calling out to the 4 search teams he had put together beforehand, old man Levins ordered them to set off. This was still a big risk, but one he felt he had to take. If there were more survivors out there, this might be the last chance he had to help them.
Unfortunately, Hubert had underestimated just how dangerous the situation still was, and not 5 minutes later, 2 of the search teams he sent out had already disappeared.
This greatly pained the old Commander. First it was the aerial scout that vanished, and now 2 full Squads of soldiers and militia were gone, with no way of knowing whether they were dead or alive.
Despite these losses, however, Commander Levins didn’t back down. The search teams had already gone too far, so there was no way to tell if signaling them to retreat early would even be helpful.
Additionally, the phenomenon really did seem to be dying down; so, for the moment, the old Spirit Initiate decided to let things play out.
That is, until he heard a distant roar and felt the ground tremble beneath his feet.
