Free Web NovelChapter 58: "Hold the line! Keep your feet!"
A short distance away, near the edge of the clearing, Adara and Mestin sat on a pair of felled pine logs, resting during a brief break from the labor. The air around them was no longer calm.
Ever since they had broken through their seclusion a few days ago, a vibrant, humming aura of Light Orange energy wrapped subtly around their frames. The density of their energy is many times higher than before. When they unleashed their aura, a suffocating pressure erupted, and the air itself seemed to constrict in their presence.
"My strength really has basically doubled..." Mestin mumbled, his massive hands casually polishing the haft of his colossal war hammer. "It feels good."
"Aye, it does." Adara replied softly, her fingers tracing a glowing, intricate geometric pattern in the air. A soft, amber-tinted light followed her touch, humming with a frequency that made the nearby grass bow. "The amount of Vitre running through my blood and body is many times more than it had been previously."
The two of them continued to stabilize their newly acquired strength and casually chatted, smiles of joy and satisfaction on their faces.
Inside Bramm’s cabin, however, the atmosphere was entirely devoid of that gleeful atmosphere. Keren stood before Bramm, his green travel cloak stained with dried mountain mud and the dark bloodstains of wild predators.
He had just returned from a grueling three-day reconnaissance deep into the forest lands, and his sharp, vulpine features were grim.
"It’s a bloody slaughterhouse down there, m’Lord," Keren reported, his restless emerald eyes fixed on the tactical map pinned to the heavy timber table. "The war’s officially begun. House Morvayn and House Draken have finally collided in the lower passes with everythin’ they’ve got. I’ve found at least three separate battlefields from the last forty-eight hours alone, just completely littered with the bodies of high-house warriors and slaughtered beasts alike."
Bramm leaned heavily over the table, his dark grey beard caught the low candlelight as his deep blue eyes scanned the marked positions. And the primal beasts? If the fighting is that thick, the Vitre alone would have drawn them out..."
"Aye, it’s worse than the soldiers," Keren said, his voice droppin’ into a low, tense hiss. "The fallout from those clashes is intense. I could feel the Vitre runnin’ right through the air long before I even reached the battlefields. With that sudden influx, more and more primal beasts are appearin’ around the area—hell, just today I saw at least five Orange-tier beasts..." freeweɓnovel.cøm
Keren’s report was instantly severed by a sudden, frantic shout echoing from the camp’s iron oak fences.
"Rider! Signal on the ridge!" one of the regular watchtower guards roared down, his voice cracking with panic. A second later, the heavy iron-oak watchtower shook as a horn blew—a long, agonizing, continuous blast that tore through the mountain air.
Before the echo could even fade, one of the twenty summoned warriors came sprinting through the command tent flap, his breath uneven and his eyes open. "Mormaer! The scouts on the perimeter have just sent word! The high houses’ clash has triggered a massive displacement! The primal beasts are erupting, it’s a beast tide!"
From the treeline to the north, the sudden roar of beasts echoed across the reach. The earth shook slightly as the beasts came charging out of the dense undergrowth, like a massive wave. The beasts hit the palisade walls with a charge.
Beasts of all sizes and types rushed up the walls. They rammed against it, and the walls kept trembling and started to crack.
"To battle! On the towers, don’t let a single beast get near the inner area!" Bramm’s voice thundered from the camp’s main approach. He came sprinting down the path, bursting out from the cabin, and Keren followed in pursuit.
Telarin had ordered his men, who had been sparring and training, to the walls and was already engaged in battle with some beasts who came over the walls.
From his left, Bramm could see Resven and his detachment of men rushing towards the fences... They were the ones tasked with helping Valerius with the mining operations.
"Resven, help Telarin with the ones on the walls!" Bramm ordered as he moved with astonishing pace, already at the gates. "Strike force, with me! We’ll hold the gates!"
He came to a halt before the gates, the chorus of men behind him. The impact of the beasts made the fence and its walls crack and creak, and even the gate itself shook with the velocity of the beasts ramming into it.
"Keren! Get your scouts on the walls and kill the wall climbers and aerial beasts!" Bramm’s voice boomed as he took another step forward, his aura roaring to life. The dark red hue flared to the sky as he grasped his great dane axe.
"Mestin, take the left flank! Adara, take the right! Do not let them breach the gates!"
The collision was horrific. A massive wave of True Red beasts and squealing Razor-Boars slammed directly into the camp’s walls time after time. Telarin and his men were already taking care of the weaker beasts in the northern area.
Notification continued to ring out in Bramm’s mind as time passed. ’Silence!’ he hissed mentally at the system. He could not afford a distraction like the time he was sparring against Adara. One wrong move and he would be dead or at least, seriously injured. free𝑤ebnovel.com
The sound of thousands of pounds of frenzied muscle crashing against the heavy iron-oak timbers echoed through the valley like a continuous, rolling thunderclap. The entire defensive perimeter shuddered under the sheer kinetic impact. Earth and loose gravel sprayed upward from the base of the logs, and the heavy timbers groaned, threatening to snap at the joints.
"Hold the line! Keep your feet!" From the north, Telarin’s voice barked over the roaring chaos. Standing with a low center of gravity, his blocky, 5’10" frame was completely unyielding. He killed beast after beast with spears and axes that he imbued with his Vitre.
Creating shockwaves as the spears and axes impaled and pinned their targets to the ground.
