Hundreds of rioting keelish surrounded me, both my allies and my enemies mixing together. I counted us lucky that the physical differences between the two swarms were so apparent, as the shorter, stockier enemies were easily identified. Unfortunately, the few hundred that we’d initially thought made the entirety of the enemy swarm were less than half their total number. Of combatants.
My keelish screamed in rage as they threw themselves into the battle, the weaker foes falling like so much grass. The scent of blood filled the air, an extreme slaughter of the foe not deterring them in the slightest. Instead, they used their fallen friends’ bodies as stepping stools and tripping hazards. Though some of my own swarm thought I should stay on the back lines, I waded into battle, my claws and fangs dealing death with every stroke. With [Combatant’s Bloodlust], my every step and movement brought slaughter to our foes, massive red indications of weakness flashing in my view.
I didn’t need to use [Destructive Wave], all of my enemy keelish were far too weak to merit it. Even so, with our foes outnumbering us by hundreds, I felt the tide of battle swaying more unsteadily than I’d like. With [Innervating Address] and [Conqueror’s Rebuke] ringing from my every word, I gave the command.
“Retreat to the flocks! Fight through the weak encirclement, don’t let them leverage their numbers! Work together! If one of ours is felled, keep them from the front lines so we can heal them up!”
Unaccustomed to real battlefield commands, the swarm was infuriatingly slow in response, though it was only the course of a minute or two before we began moving back to reinforce our flanks. I was quick to disengage, the ravening horde of our foes tended to avoid approaching me head on. My face was coated with the blood of my enemies, and the taste of iron filled my snout and mouth. Brutus, calmer and wiser than usual, stayed nearby, weakening anything that dared to approach, if not slaughtering it outright. Ytte, on the other side, was an insatiable berserker, her tail, hands, fangs, and rock all accompanying her brutal magic. She didn’t crush the enemies outright, instead manipulating the stone underfoot to pulverize the delicate ankles of every opposing keelish that approached. Now that the enemies lay crippled, she didn’t care how she eventually dispatched the weaklings that challenged her.
The disengagement was slow going, and even through the appearance of calm that settled over me from [Combatant’s Bloodlust], my rage continued to build and boil, though I fought to constrain it. Though not many, I saw several of my swarm’s corpses left behind. I built a [Crippling Cry] stronger than ever before in my throat, the magic trembling and fighting to escape, but I restrained it. With the increase in my magical manipulation capabilities from evolving [Destructive Wave] and [Disastrous Discourse], I knew this would be different. Even so, I held myself back until the swarm had reestablished a solid line of sorts against our rallying foes.
With each step of retreat, we trod over the corpses of the defeated flanking force, and I could feel it in the energy of my swarm when we’d defeated all the weaklings attempting to pin us down. My magic grew to a crescendo beyond anything surge of power I’d felt before, and I leapt forward into the front lines of our enemies. Brutus roared wordlessly as he tried to follow, but I was too quick. With five quick steps, I was surrounded by my enemies. Perfect.
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As the [Crippling Cry] exploded from my mouth, half a dozen keelish in front of me fell, insensate. I walked forward, ready to strike the final blow, but the sudden appearance of a [System] message notified me of what I’d just done.
[Skill: Crippling Cry has evolved to Skill: Murderous Melody.]
I didn’t allow myself to think any further about it, instead grinning widely as, for the first time, the enemy swarm looked on me in terror. Heads bowed while their eyes roamed wildly at each other. There was no support from their friends, though, the all-consuming despair crashed over the entire body of keelish. I gave no time for them to recover, channelling [Adversary], [Disastrous Discourse], [Imperial Bearing], [Conqueror’s Rebuke], and [True Dominance] as I shouted, once again.
“I am Ashlani! I am your Alpha! Those who stand against me will die! I don’t even need to raise a hand to strike you down! We raise those who you fell to fight again! My words can strike you down! Now bow before me or die!”
My words again echoed over the assembled keelish, but this time, with shuddering knees and mewling cries of defeat, much of the enemy swarm fell at my feet. Several appeared to think to gainsay me. With my multitude of [Skills] working together to bless me with an elevated clarity of thought, I strode through the cowering keelish and, with a swing of my claws, raised one to stand on her toes, my pointed claws pressing painfully into the soft flesh under her chin. She’d previously shown the beginnings of a will to rebel, and I asked, the full gravity of my [Skills] and magic smashing into her,
“Do you wish to survive?”
Unable to speak, she flared her frills in a panic.
“Then. Submit.”
Without shouting or raising my voice, I sent a pulse of magical power through her, and the keelish trembled and fell to her knees before placing her head in the dirt before me.
“I submit. No kill. No kill. I submit.” She continued to repeat to me, and the mantra was quickly taken up by the surrounding fools who’d dared not to accept my mercy when extended. Hundreds of bodies of keelish lay scattered on the fields of battle around us, hundreds that could have lent their strength to me.
“Where is the Alpha who insisted on this fight?” I demanded as the chants continued. They fell away as I asked again, and a keelish stepped forward. He was an older keelish, scales cracked with age, though his eyes shone with a certain level of intelligence. The muddled green of his scales was entirely unremarkable, and he bowed before me. A sense of pride swelled in me as I saw another leader willingly submit.
“Why would you dare to race us, especially after we were defeating you?”
“We more. More win. But you… big more. Better. Stronger. We follow now.”
His inability to speak in full sentences took me by surprise. Farahlia’s pack was filled with the unintelligent keelish, but she’d been able to speak coherently enough when we approached. He was even less-evolutionarily advanced than her pack had been. Again, the realization that I’d been born in the best, most advanced keelish swarm, possibly in the last hundreds of years, settled over me. There would be much to do with them, as well as those who followed.