Chapter 510: Monster Horde [Bonus - ]
Down on the floor, Silas let out a breathless muffled grunt as Aeliana tightened her grip around his neck.
The high-elf had tucked her nose under his jawline with her breath hot against his throat and her smaller hands clutching the fabric of his coat as if she were drowning at sea.
She was trembling slightly, but the fierce stubborn line of her jaw told him she would rather have her limbs severed than let go of this position.
Silas let out an amused resigned sigh. He brought his arm up, wrapping it securely around Aeliana’s slender waist, his fingers resting gently against the curve of her hip, letting her draw all the heat she needed.
"Comfortable, Aeli?" Silas murmured into her blond hair.
Aeliana gave a tiny frantic nod against his skin and a soft purring hum vibrating in her throat as she closed her eyes, completely dead to the world.
Gradually, the cavern settled back into stillness.
Morwenna eventually forced Eluned to lie down on the adjacent mat, where the Goddess spent twenty minutes muttering curses about unfairness before the heavy warmth of the fire claimed her.
’Elu barely slept...’
Tasmin curled into the shadow of a supply crate, her daggers never leaving her reach.
Aurelia and the Princess lay side-by-side beneath a thick wolf-pelt blanket with their quiet whispers dying down as their breathing synchronized into the gentle rhythm of deep sleep.
’Well riding over such a long period is an experience for them so I’m not surprised.’ Silas thought.
Over by the Alpha wolf, Thor was still awake.
The God of Thunder had rolled onto her side, propping her head up on one thick calloused palm.
Her storm-blue eyes watched the sleeping camp... the way the elven girl clung to Silas, the way the firelight softened the lines on Morwenna’s face and the unshakeable peace that filled this cold lightless hole in the earth.
’I really enjoy my time with them...’ Thor mused, her rugged face softening with an unfamiliar warmth. ’It’s strange. For a long time, I walked between halls of gold and blood. Gods bickering over celestial thrones, titans breaking stars... it was all so loud and so heavy but here... sharing cold pork in a dirt hole, watching mortal women brawl over a sleeping spot... it feels so wonderfully normal.’
She looked at Silas.
The mortal had his eyes closed now with his breathing steady, his hand resting protectively over the elven girl’s spine.
He carried the weight of an entire territory, yet he bore it without the hollow arrogance of the kings she had slaughtered in the past.
’Maybe next time... I will join their foolish block game,’ Thor thought with a quiet, internal rumble of amusement. ’I could easily crush their runes so dragging for Silas’s chest might be an entertaining diversion.’
Then, a sudden dark cloud passed behind Thor’s storm-blue irises as her broad jaw tightened and her teeth clicked together with a sharp suppressed grind.
’Loki...’
The name hung in the back of her divine mind like a venomous needle.
Her sister’s senses were everywhere.
The Trickster had eyes woven into the dimensional fabric of modern Earth, watching the noble families and tracking the movement of divine relics.
Once the Princess returned with her, Loki would take notice and once Loki discovered that Thor had forged an emotional attachment to this mortal... it was only a matter of time before she descended.
Thor’s fingers dug into the basalt beneath her blanket, cracking the stone to dust.
The thought of seeing Silas’s calm eyes glazed over by Loki’s emerald illusions... the thought of seeing him kneeling beneath her sister’s silver tongue with his mind hollowed out into a laughing puppet... it made the thunder in Thor’s blood surge with pure murderous fury.
’How do I prevent her from finding this place...?’ Thor questioned silently, her eyes fixed on his sleeping profile. ’What should I do to shield him...?’
She had no answer as only the quiet crackle of Aurelia’s flame to keep the shadows at bay.
Four hours later, the change came.
It was not a sudden burst of light, but a slow sweeping absence.
Through the thick barrier of Eluned’s root wall, the wet relentless scraping of the leeches began to falter.
The heavy suffocating pressure that had weighed against the stone like deep water gradually thinned, draining away into the lower fault lines of the basin.
The necrotic fog was gone.
Silas opened his eyes with his Gold Core flared to life instantly, sweeping away the cobwebs of sleep with a single cycle of golden heat.
"Aeli," he whispered, gently tapping the high-elf’s shoulder. "Shift’s over, little secretary. Time to move."
Aeliana stirred, letting out a tiny sleepy mumble and her eyelids fluttered open, her silver-gold eyes meeting his at point-blank range.
It took her precisely two seconds to realize that her face was buried in his neck and her legs were still clamped around his thighs in a vice.
"Haah!"
Aeliana scrambled backward so violently she nearly collided with the sleeping Thor.
Her spectacles flew off her nose with her hands flailing as her face turned the color of a blazing forge fire.
"L-L-LORD SILAS!" she squeaked, grabbing her ledger to hide her entire face. "I... my I apologize... the cold was..."
Silas chuckled, pushing himself up to his feet and adjusting his tunic.
"Save the apologies, Aeli. You kept me warm. Pack your bags."
"Up and at ’em, girls!" Morwenna’s voice rang out, her boots already crunching across the stone as she buckled Tidebringer to her hip. "The air’s clean! Let’s get our boots on the trail before the sludge comes back!"
Eluned yawned delicately, stepping to the cavern mouth as she tapped her living staff against the floor.
KRA-CRACK!
The massive interwoven roots uncoiled, retracting smoothly back into the stone frame with a dry wooden hiss.
The late morning air struck them like a physical blow.
It was completely scrubbed of the foul, coppery rot that had choked the gorge earlier.
High above, the tangled black canopy of the forest still partially shadowed the path, but the sky had opened up, dumping silent sheets of powdery white snow that blanketed the crags in pristine ivory.
Silas mounted Valkyrie with fluid grace, pulling the heavy silver-threaded hood of his cloak over his dark hair.
"Strike formation!" Silas commanded. "Tasmin, take point and wolves on my mark!"
HOWOOOOOOOL!
Titan and Valkyrie lunged from the cavern shelf simultaneously, their broad paws pulverizing the snowdrifts as they hit the gorge floor.
The eight Blessed Wolves hit a thundering coordinated dead sprint, their bodies cutting through the powder like high-speed cutters through foam.
All of the girls felt completely refreshed.
The warm venison, the hours of rest, and the relief of escaping the fog had restored their combat edges to razor sharpness.
Riding bareback atop Titan, her blonde locks whipping freely in the freezing wind, Thor let out a broad breathless grin.
’It feels nice...’ Thor thought, her knuckles tightening around the leather reins. ’It feels like... being a soldier.’
For centuries, her existence had been a monotonous cycle of celestial boredom.
Wrestling three-headed cosmic leviathans, shattering void-beasts with a single flick of her hammer... it was so effortless that it had lost all flavor.
It was dull but this... riding in a tight wedge with mortal companions, watching their flanks, feeling the rhythm of the wolves’ breath, the bite of real mountain air...
This was anything but boring! It was magnificent even and it made her feel alive!
Thor grinned wildly, leaning forward over Titan’s muscular neck.
"HYAH!" Thor roared, slapping her heels into the Alpha’s flanks. "Run, beast! Show these mountain crags how the northern skies move!"
Titan let out a thundering roar, surging three paces ahead of the column, breaking the tight wedge formation.
"Thor, check your speed!" Tasmin shouted over the wind, her daggers gleaming as she adjusted her line. "You’re dragging the vanguard’s spacing out! Keep the flanks tight!"
Thor blinked, her triumphant grin instantly withering into a comical sheepish pout.
Her shoulders slumped and her storm-blue eyes dropped downcast toward Titan’s ears like a reprimanded schoolgirl.
"I was merely... going faster..." Thor grumbled beneath her breath.
Silas brought Valkyrie alongside her, glancing at the towering warrior with a warm approving smirk.
"Good pace, Thor," Silas praised, his voice carrying easily over the rushing gale. "Your mount is moving well so just keep him half a stride behind my flank so we don’t trip the formation’s blind spots."
Thor’s eyes widened slightly.
The downcast pout vanished, her lips curving upward into a wide pleased smile that reached her eyes.
’For some reason...’ Thor thought, pulling Titan back into the designated slot with her heart feeling curiously light, ’hearing compliments from this mortal brings a real smile to my face.’
Silas turned his focus back to the horizon, exhaling a quiet relieved breath.
’I can’t feel it anymore,’ he thought, monitoring his internal circuits. ’The crawling oily oppression that came with that necrotic fog is completely gone. The air is clean.’
For the next four miles, the detachment ate up the distance with terrifying efficiency.
The high basalt walls gradually receded, and the suffocating canopy of twisted pines began to thin with the trees growing sparser as the trail approached the lip of a massive geological shelf.
By late evening, the bruised purple-gray sky was beginning to streak with dark crimson at the edges of the jagged mountain horizon.
Suddenly, a low concussive vibration began to shudder through the bedrock beneath the wolves’ paws.
It was not an earthquake.
It was the sound of thousands of tons of living muscle, iron carapaces, and shattered bone grinding against each other.
A deafening chaotic cacophony of guttural roars, shrieking mandibles, and wet rending flesh rolled across the open terrain.
Silas pulled Valkyrie down to a controlled lope, glancing back over his shoulder toward the secretary.
"Aeli! Are we on time?!" Silas called out. "We’re leaving the timberline!"
Aeliana leaned over her wolf’s shoulder with her fingers rapidly tracing the lines across her book.
"We are making good time, Lord Silas!" Aeliana reported loudly. "We are roughly twenty-two minutes behind the schedule due to the rest interval, but our velocity is holding steady! Once we clear this clearing, the descent canyon is less than five leagues north!"
"Eyes sharp, everyone!" Silas commanded with his hand locking firmly around the hilt of his golden longsword. "Listen to those impacts... We have mass movement up ahead. If we can bypass it, we do so. The priority is burning the lost time from our rest, not collecting trophies."
"Agreed!" Morwenna called out from the rear.
The Blessed Wolves crested the final ridge of black shale and every single rider, even the obsidian bird, instantly froze.
"By the stars..." the Princess whispered, her hands flying to her mouth.
Before them stretched an enormous, sunken plateau... a lightless expanse nearly a mile wide, flanked by towering glaciers of blue ice.
The entire basin floor was a churning sea of carnage.
It was like two unstoppably violent tides of monstrosities had collided head-on in the center of the clearing.
On the western side surged a massive horde of pale multi-legged horrors... hundreds if not a thousand of burrowing crawlers, acid-spitting carapaces, and armored centipedes tearing out of the deep earth.
Crashing into them from the east was an equally colossal army of mutated frost beasts... Spine-Hounds the size of horses, horned ice-bears with crystallized claws, and winged carrion-drakes dropping from the clouds.
KRA-BOOOOOOOOM!
The sounds of violence were deafening.
Limbs were torn from sockets, carapaces were shattered under multi-ton impacts, and geysers of black, green, and azure blood painted the snow in violent abstract murals of slaughter.
Silas’s blue eyes narrowed to cold slits.
’I’ve only seen this kind of monster volume during the early founding days...’ Silas thought. ’When the territory was still an open beacon and the first waves crashed against our crude palisades. The monsters around the Keep eventually learned to fear our steel but even then... Was it ever this much?’
VUUUM!
Silas analyzed.
His vision swam with rapid data.
[Target Analyzed: Glacial Bone-Shatterer (Tier 4 Boss)]
[Target Analyzed: Abyssal Carapace-Titan (Tier 4 Boss)]
[Target Analyzed: Frost-Gilded Basilisk (Tier 4 Boss)]
Right in the center of the bloodbath, three Tier 4 entities were currently engaged in a three-way brawl.
Two of them resembled large armadillos encased in layered plates of petrified, glowing blue basalt that deflected every blow like solid fortress walls and their spiked tails whipping through the air with enough force to level a building with every swing.
The third was a mutated serpentine monstrosity with six jointed limbs and an armored crown of frozen bone, snapping its jaws shut with concussive cracks that pulverized dozens of lesser beasts into red mist with every strike.
Silas’s jaw tightened.
’Well, damn. Multiple Tier 4s tearing each other apart.’
High above, the obsidian bird fluttered erratically, hovering three feet above Silas’s head.
The power of colliding high-tier mana was rattling its crystalline feathers, making it let out a panicked wheezing series of clicks as it refused to fly into the storm of shockwaves.
"Silas!" Tasmin pointed her dagger toward the eastern perimeter. "Look there! Along the cliff base!"
Silas’s eyes followed her blade.