Free Web NovelChapter 43: Saga 43: The First Strike
It began, as these things always seemed to in Kael’s admittedly limited experience, with fire.
The eastern market district erupted in flame just past midnight, mutated creatures pouring out from the shadows between stalls in a screeching, chittering horde—the same purple-cracked corruption that had plagued the Sumbiya Highlands months earlier, now unleashed without warning in the very heart of the capital itself. Screams tore through the night air as citizens fled in every direction, Six Brigade patrols scrambling desperately to contain the chaos even as more rifts tore open across the district, each one spilling out fresh horrors.
Kael was awake and moving before the alarm wards had even finished their first ringing cycle. "System, status, now."
[Multiple breach points detected simultaneously across the district. This isn’t a raid in the traditional sense. It’s a distraction, and a well-coordinated one at that.]
’A distraction from what, exactly?’
The palace’s ancient foundations groaned audibly beneath them—a sound no living person in the capital had ever heard before, deep and grinding, like the earth itself waking reluctantly from centuries of imposed sleep. Baldric, coordinating the defense from the guild hall’s central command room, went visibly pale as reports flooded in from every direction at once, faster than his officers could even relay them.
"They’re hitting six separate locations simultaneously," he said, voice tight over the communication ward, barely holding together under the strain. "Market district, north gate, the aqueduct, and three separate breach points directly beneath the palace itself. Azure Blake, I need you at the palace immediately. Now, not in five minutes."
Sylvia was already summoning her ability, hair bleaching silver-white as she took to the sky in a single fluid motion. "Claire, Harriden, clear the market district civilians first, that’s the priority. Yuki, north gate needs you. Kael, with me, palace is our target."
"On it." Claire’s staff cracked against the ground, ice walls slamming into place around fleeing civilians even as she began herding them methodically toward the nearest evacuation points, voice hoarse from shouting instructions.
Harriden melted into shadow entirely, a hundred doubles springing into being almost instantly to cut down mutated creatures before they could reach anyone still trapped in the burning stalls.
Kael sprinted alongside Sylvia toward the palace, the ground trembling harder with every single step they took, that ancient groaning sound rising steadily into something almost, horrifyingly, like a heartbeat.
They arrived to find the palace’s outer wards already failing catastrophically, cracks of sickly purple light spiderwebbing across ancient stone that had stood undisturbed for three centuries, and standing calmly amid all the chaos, hands folded behind his back, clearly waiting for them—
Minato.
"Hello, Sylvia," he said, voice carrying easily over the screaming and the roar of distant fire. "I was hoping it would be you two who arrived first, before anyone else."
Kael’s mana surged instinctively, ready for a fight. "Get away from the palace. Now."
"I’m not here to fight you, if that’s what you’re bracing for." Minato’s expression carried none of the malice Kael had fully expected walking in. If anything, standing there in the firelight, he looked exhausted, hollowed out, a man carrying far too much weight for one set of shoulders. "I never wanted this to reach the capital, whatever you choose to believe about me. But the Ring doesn’t ask permission from anyone, least of all me."
Sylvia’s swords dipped lower, hovering but not yet striking. "You had a choice, Minato. Everyone has a choice."
"Did I?" His laugh carried no humor whatsoever. "Perhaps once. That choice narrowed considerably over twenty years of being told there was nothing left to return to. Believe what you like about my reasons. It changes nothing about tonight."
Behind them, distant screams carried across the burning district, mixed with the crackle of collapsing structures and the guttural roars of mutated creatures. Kael’s attention split painfully between the immediate conversation and the mounting chaos spreading through the capital at large.
"If you’re not here to fight," Kael said, "then talk fast. We don’t have time for riddles tonight."
"No," Minato agreed, glancing toward the palace’s failing wards, cracks spreading visibly even as they spoke, "you really don’t."
Elsewhere across the burning district, Claire fought her way through a knot of mutated creatures, ice walls rising and shattering in rapid succession as she herded another group of terrified civilians toward the evacuation checkpoint. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead, and her staff had already cracked once from overuse, held together now by a hasty binding spell.
"Move, move, keep moving!" she shouted, voice hoarse. "Don’t stop for anything, just get to the checkpoint!"
A mutated wolf, twice its normal size and crackling with purple corruption, lunged from a side alley toward a straggling child. Claire’s spell caught it mid-leap, freezing it solid before it could reach its target, the creature shattering into harmless fragments on impact with the cobblestones.
"Thank you, thank you—" the child’s mother sobbed, scooping the boy into her arms.
"Just keep moving, there’s more where that came from," Claire said, already turning to face the next threat pouring from the shadows.
Across the district, Harriden’s shadow doubles worked in eerie, coordinated silence, cutting down threat after threat with mechanical precision even as his own reserves steadily depleted. He’d lost count of how many doubles he’d sacrificed already, each one dissolving the moment it took a fatal blow, buying precious seconds for the fleeing civilians behind him.
"Report," came Baldric’s voice over the communication ward, strained but steady.
"Market district’s holding, barely," Claire responded. "We need reinforcements before the next wave hits."
"Reinforcements are stretched thin across every breach point. Do what you can. Azure Blake’s true fight is at the palace—that’s where this all ends, one way or another."
Yuki, meanwhile, had reached the north gate to find it already overrun, mutated creatures pouring through a widening rift in the ancient stonework, guards falling back under the sheer weight of numbers.
"Alriec." Brown light engulfed him instantly, cowboy attire settling into place with practiced ease. He drew both revolvers in a single fluid motion, twin barrels already crackling with charged magicules.
"Everyone down!" he shouted at the retreating guards, giving them just enough warning to hit the ground before unleashing a sweeping arc of concentrated fire across the breach, vaporizing a dozen creatures in a single blinding flash.
"Gate’s holding, for now," he reported into the communication ward, breathing hard. "But whatever’s breaking through, it’s not stopping. Feels like something’s actively pushing from the other side."
"Understood," Baldric’s voice crackled back. "Hold as long as you can. Reinforcements are coming, but everything’s stretched to breaking point tonight."
"Story of my life," Yuki muttered, reloading with practiced speed as another wave of creatures began forcing their way through the widening rift.
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— End of Chapter —
