Chapter 54: Scouts On The Highway
Through the tinted glass Theo watched Aide Lance step out onto the asphalt, alone, in a suit, with a pale blue sword he had not bothered to draw.
Frost went out from under his shoes in a thin pale sheet, and kept going, twenty meters, forty, out ahead of the convoy and up the road toward the tear in the world. The temperature inside the cabin dropped until the window fogged at its edges, and Sesan lifted her head.
She looked at the frost on the road.
Then she looked at Lance’s back, and for the first time since Theo had known her there was a different expression on her face. Her brows pulled tight together and stayed there, almost exuding hostility, and her small hands closed hard on the belt across her chest.
Just as Lance stood, something descended upon him with a frightening intensity. For a moment Theo was sure he didn’t catch it. Then his eyes released a golden glow, and the movement seemed to flow down before his sight, slow enough to follow, slow enough to name.
Talons as large as a human arm came down on Aide Lance, but in the same breath a vapor of ice blasted over him and solidified, forming a half covered cocoon that was instantly shattered as the creature’s talons crashed into it. Chips of it went skating across the road like gravel.
But Lance was afforded enough time to move. He swung his sword upward and clashed with the talon of the large bird. This caused a thunderous clash that even slammed against the window of the vehicle Theo was in, hard enough to press him back into the seat.
The bird shrugged off such a powerful attack with its talon and immediately rose into the sky.
’Aide Lance is A-rank. If it was that difficult, then does that mean that monster is above A-rank too?’
It was then that Theo’s Genesis Eyes decided to respond.
[Species Name: Skyshriek Flockhunter Classification: Apex Aerial Predator Current Rank: IV Threat Level: A [Threat Assessment] [Warning!!!] [While Threat Level is A, when this creature is not in their habitat and subjected to migration, their threat level can upgrade to S] [Combat Evaluation] They are extremely difficult to escape once targeted. They’re individually manageable for experienced A-rank Heroes Their greatest danger comes from their overwhelming numbers and perfect aerial coordination. They are capable of tripping an entire wildlife within days if forced to settle. [Recommended Response: Never engage in open space, force them into forests, caves, or enclosed terrains where they cannot exploit altitude, or coordinate dive attacks.]
Theo was almost done reading when he heard a thunderous sound.
This one did not come from Aide Lance. Someone else had joined the battle, he was sure about it.
He stuck his eyes to the window, and there, saw a flash of yellow cape.
A lady in blonde hair flew through the air and landed on the ground, and the asphalt split out from under her boots in a ring. A Flockhunter dove immediately for her, but she had a far greater advantage. She shoved herself out of the way with staggering speed, and was already above the bird in the blink of an eye. The next blink, she slammed both hands down on the bird, crashing it to the ground, and Lance did not waste that effort.
Several spears of ice spiraled forward and stabbed into several parts of the bird, the wings, the legs, the head, the torso, brutally mangling the thing before it had the chance to attempt to stand. Steam came off it where the ice went in.
The other flockhunters in the sky released a piercing shriek like a sound of grief and anger woven together.
More Heroes were out now and all trying to fight the birds from below. The transport was completely still and Theo, where he was, was beginning to worry a lot.
There were a couple questions his mind couldn’t forgo.
’How did the Association not know about this? A gate just manifest out of the blue? Or was it hidden?’
Theo’s gaze sharpened in a dangerous manner.
’Am I even sure I can trust the association?’
Even though he knew he was overthinking, Theo was still convinced he couldn’t trust anyone, especially these people. But what he believed was that as long as their interests aligned, he could at least expect certain things of them.
And right now, the association wanted something from him. At least until he proved them otherwise by not being some SS-rank, he was not going to get betrayed.
He was not naive enough to build an entire identity on that, but he was reasonable enough to hold it, based on the logic so far.
The battle continued outside and Theo got more nervous not being able to do anything inside. His hand was on the door lever and he did not remember putting it there, so he took it off.
The heroes were winning, and that was the first thing that felt wrong.
A woman in a Southpaw coat came out of the treeline with something long and bright in both hands and took a Flockhunter through the wing on its way down. A man from Stratham put a wall of hardened air across the road and a diving bird broke itself on it, and the body slid down and lay steaming in the ditch. Somebody cheered. Somebody actually cheered, out there, on a highway with a hole in the sky at the end of it.
Then Jupiter Lady took another one out of the air with her bare hands, and the cheering got louder, and the heroes on the asphalt spread out into the open to get themselves a clean angle at the sky.
Theo watched them do it with his eyes burning gold, and something in his chest went cold and stayed there.
’Never engage in open space.’
The system must have given such a warning for a reason, and so Theo couldn’t do away with the worry that they were all in open space right now, fighting those bestial birds. Every one of them, strung out thin across two lanes of highway with nothing over their heads but weather.
Uthed had not moved from his seat. His sword was still across his knees and his hands were still folded on it, and he was watching the sky through the top edge of the window with his head tipped back, the white blindfold turned up at the glass as though the glass made no difference to him at all.
"Mr Theo..."
His gaze moved between Theo and the window.
"What?"
"The battle has been going on for a dozen minutes, and the heroes have slaughtered a lot of these birds, but their numbers do not seem to be reducing. I suppose the gate in front of us is still open, but creatures, especially like these, can have certain patterns and behaviors."
Theo glanced at the birds. Indeed, they still flooded the sky, while many were nailed to the ground in different macabre ways, wings folded the wrong way, beaks open on the asphalt.
But he still couldn’t fully comprehend where Uthed was going.
"I think these monstrous things may be testing the waters."
That was when Estea chose to chuckle.
"At least, this one has stayed in the tower long enough to know that monsters can be intelligent too."
Theo raised his head slightly and weighed what Estea had said, and still glanced at Uthed with a doubtful expression.
While Estea, with her hands folded, simply said.
"Tell your friends from the association they’re merely slaughtering scouts."
"Scouts?"
"That is a migration." Estea’s amber gaze did not leave the window. "The real flockhunters are yet to arrive..."