General Wang was tall with black simple armor that plated around his body. It wasn’t an extravagant lump that rich fools wore, but rather a practical set that made his uniform not much different from his own soldiery. But the real factor that set him apart was his sharp eyes, strong beard, and commanding presence. It was his character that set him apart from the average man.
“It is so fortunate that you have survived,” he said to Rina. “There were nights, I shall admit, that I wondered if death had claimed your life, just as it did your mother. But now, I can rest knowing that you have truly survived.” He then looked at Hua with a light bow. “My salutations,” he said to her, “are you two traveling together?”
“Yes this is Hua,” Rina answered for her, “there are countless details that you must know, but first I must ask: what are you doing here?” To this, the general gave a deep sigh as he began to lead the two of them to his camp. “You two have seen the state of the world. From here all the way to the distant kingdoms of Vesterland, the land has become cursed by pure insanity.”
From the top of the encampment, they could see the forest continue to burn. “I am entrusting you, Rina, with impertinent information. I trust you as well, Hua, since my daughter trusts you. But I need you two to understand this: the emperor is not doing anything.”
“What?” Hua asked, her curious brain working itself like a machine. “Surely he should be aware of what’s happening in his kingdom!” General Wang gave another sigh as he nodded. “He has done nothing. In fact, I haven’t heard of anyone who has seen him since this strange apocalypse overtook us. But we cannot pray for a man who may not exist. We can only pray upon ourselves.”
He brought them to the command tent where they were shown to a map. “Countless lords have rebelled against the empire. Though many of them are just conniving men wanting more land and money, some of them are something worse: demons spawned straight from hell. A terrifying example is Lord Luo. He was a man known for his pure heart. But his heart completely corrupted as a demon possessed him.”
“Siumeng,” Hua said aloud. “That was the demon’s name.” The general looked at her with a sense of surprise. “Interesting. How do you know about this?” Hua had a straight answer. “I traveled with the man who killed him. The Envoy of Humanity.”
To this, some of the nearby advisors gasped as the general nodded deeply. “The Envoy of Man… that is a name I have started to hear more and more…” he uttered. “There are soothsayers who spread his name like a coming of a messiah, and there are demons that croak his title like the coming of an executioner. Tell me about this man.”
“He’s strong,” Hua simply stated matter-of-factly. “He is someone who refuses to buckle before a battle is finished. When the chance of slaughter presents itself to him, he accepts it with gratitude. He is a man who lives with rage as his manifesto and violence as his weapon. He is the Envoy of Man.” The room went silent as Rina nodded. “Everything she said is true. Whether you support him or not, you must accept his strength as fact.”
The general nodded. “Interesting. I wish I had his assistance then. There is a specific demon lord that has proven stronger than all others. One that doesn’t even go by the name of a demon, but rather as a Beast.” Rina and Hua went wide-eyed by that mere mention. “One of the Four Beasts?”
“They proclaim themselves as the Beast of Lust,” the general stated. “They have done nothing but live up to their name. Her form has become that of a complete spider that mocks the appearance of the human it once was. She uses human bodies to impregnate her sacs of eggs. These horrid offspring pop like a cyst from hell and chew at these bodies to mature into large creatures hybrid of man and beast. These are the creatures you have seen in that forest.”
Hua gagged a little, but she had gotten used to the grotesque world. Between the flesh trees, Lord Luo, and the monsters, another grotesque being wouldn’t do anything to her stomach. “How have they become so powerful though?” she asked.
“Instead of fighting like a group of animals, they adhere to some level of strategy. They have fortified camps of woods and webs, as if they were more like a military than a hulk of hungry beasts. Worst of these is Gifu Castle, the location of the Beast of Lust. What was once a citadel of Jiaguonese prowess is now another nest of spiders.”
Rina nodded as she analyzed the map. Different places were marked as nests, as well as the infamous Gifu Castle being marked as a major point. “The spiders are fast,” she noted, “fighting them would be like fighting an army of calvary that are far more maneuverable and mobile. If we want to fight them and win, we need to have different tactics.”
“Do you have a plan in mind, my dear daughter?” the general asked. Rina nodded as she prepared paper. “Give me some time to think. That is all I need.” The general nodded as he patted her on the back. “You were always innovative. I will always welcome you back into my life.”
Suddenly, there came a new noise. One coming from the burning forest. “Incoming! The beasts have awoken!” Soldiers moved about as the general grabbed his sword. “Of course those bastards survived the cannonade. Everyone! To your posts! Use the hill to your advantage and form a wall of spears and guns!”
The soldiers followed the orders and made their formations. With stakes lining the base of the hill, lines of musketeers cocked and readied their guns as lines of halberdiers stood behind them. Professionalism kept their natural fear calm as the cannons loaded their new rounds ready. “Hold your fire until my command!” the general ordered.
The air stood silent as the soldiers awaited their command. Their armor lightly jingled with each sway of their bodies, their weapons doing the same. They knew what they were fighting against, and yet that knowledge provided more of a curse than it did an advantage. They were not fighting humans, but creatures that belonged to the crevices of hell.
Then, emerging from the burning forest, were the beasts themselves. Though the cannons and the flames had done damage to their numbers, they were still as numerous as the eye could see. It was like witnessing a sea of moving bodies, something that made every hair on your body freeze into a spike. What was worse were the gurgles and cries of the beasts, as they evoked the most hidden of human fears.
“Fire!” Both the cannons and the muskets began to fire as volleys upon volleys fell into the crowd of beasts. Meat and blood tore about like mere coughs, as the numbers of these beasts still felt unwavered. Smoke flattered the air with its strange vapor as the screaming of beasts continued to roar with ever-closing cries. “Reform!”
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
The first line of muskets retreated behind the halberds as the second line aimed their shots. “Fire!” Another volley, but the screams just wouldn’t stop. “Make the screams stop,” some of the soldiers muttered to themselves. The second line retreated and the third line aimed. “Fire!”
The beasts paid for every foot of ground as they continued to howl and crawl through the battered earth. They began to scale over the stakes with acrobatic speed like starving wolves who were charged with the scent of meat. “Muskets! Pull back! Halberds forward!”
The gunners retreated as the halberdiers slowly marched forward. They held their weapons forward, their muscles filled with both fear and adrenaline. Jumping right in front of them were the hordes of spiders that hungered for human flesh. Their human flesh. “Hold this position! Retreat means death!”
The spiders lunged towards the soldiers as the halberds pushed them back. The sharp steel cut and stabbed at them, for they were longer than the artificial limbs that grew from the spiders’ backs. But even then, the battle was still pitched and bloody as the sweating soldiers had to pant with every thrust of their weapons. “Hold the line!”
Muskets and cannons continued to shoot in the overgrowing mob that seemed to get bigger by the second. “Burning the forest must’ve killed thousands of them,” the general scolded, “but even then, they have thousands more ready to eat at us.”
As time went on, the air became thick with smoke as the muskets and cannons continued to lay fire upon the demons. The halbrediers grew tired as the consistent combat made their bodies weary. “Hold the line! Buckle even for a second, and we’ll all be killed!” They couldn’t even see past their weapons, as the dense fog had grown deeper and deeper. They could only see their bloodied weapons and the snarling mouths of the beasts in front of them. “Keep fighting!”
The ground around the hill had become a marsh from all of the blood that saturated its soil. Bodies of demons sprawled about as more beasts climbed over them without a single doubt or emotion, unless you counted animalistic rage as an emotion. They only saw the soldiers as meat, even if it meant death just to have a bite.
“General!” a soldier called. “The line will break at any moment! The fact of the matter is that there are simply far too many of them! Our troops, though veterans, are becoming exhausted!” The general took a deep breath as he acknowledged the situation. “I wish I could offer that reprieve, but it is just not possible.”
He could hear the screams and whines of battle as he spoke on. “When fighting against humans, such mercy is possible. Where it is possible to count upon the limits of human strength, or perhaps the option of human kindness. These demons have neither limits nor kindness. One step back would be the start to a complete crumble. We would all die.”
“Then what do you advise?” To this, the general had one answer. “This is a mere fraction of the Beast of Lust’s army. If we are struggling here, then we can only pray that our deaths are swift.” With that, the battle continued to rage on as man held its stand against beast.
The guns fired again and again, each barrel being hot enough to cook an unprotected finger. They fired more volleys as bodies continued to pile. But eventually, the soldiers came to find a terrifying observation. “General! The gunners have run out of ammunition!”
The general closed his eyes, taking visible time to think of a plan. “Have them deconstruct the camp. Have them make arrangements for a potential retreat.” The soldier saluted and carried out the orders. With that, the soldiers packed down all of their supplies and equipment and placed them onto wagons. “We may not win this battle,” the general admitted, “but at least we might save our forces for the next one.”
The habrediers started to slowly retreat as they thrusted their weapons with each step backwards. The smoke began to clear as the field before them presented more and more beasts that hungered for their blood. “This battle is hopeless!” a soldier screamed. A spider stabbed him with one of its limbs and dragged him away from the group.
“Maintain the formation!” One by one, spiders began to take them. Their bodies became swallowed in the mob of beasts as their screams would be cut short by the feasting of their remains. “Heavens preserve us! We’re being killed!”
At the top of the hill, all of the arrangements were done as the supplies were placed into carts. “Sir! Shall we begin retreating?” they asked the general. He shook his head. “My men are currently fighting. We will retreat if it is a necessary evil. Until then, we shall keep fighting.”
The sun began to set as, in the distance, the star’s light began to wane in strength. Surely, once night swallowed the sky, the field would be crawling with the beasts as if heaven itself damned these men. “Hold the formation! For the love of your lives, hold the formation!” Their weapons had become dulled from hours of cutting into meat and flesh.
Hopelessness filled the air with visible dreariness. Hua was busy using her blood to heal the wounded as Rina joined the line and used her bayonetted gun to resist the beasts. Even here, with an army around her, she felt that same fear from the first time she saw a beast. Mankind’s defeat was written from the start.
Then, just as the sun started to set and darkness began to kiss the earth, there was a sudden flash in the distance. It was a fast brightness that illuminated the shape of a crescent. “Was that an explosion?” someone muttered. “No, that couldn’t be. No explosion is that bright, nor are they that exact.”
Both Hua and Rina looked in that direction. Even the beasts became distracted as they reeled away from the line of soldiers. “What is that?” Looking onward, they saw what looked like a silhouette holding a golden object in the shape of a guandao. It was at that moment that Rina and Hua realized who it was. “Xiaojun… he has returned…”
The warrior stood strong as he stepped on the bodies of the beasts. The spiders charged towards him, but with one swipe of his weapon, they were split into more bodies. All of the onlooking soldiers watched with awe as these beasts, creatures they had struggled so hard to fight, were falling like flies to the warrior. “Is that a monster?”
The Envoy of Man marched on. He cleared more of the field with every movement of his weapon. With his godly weapon, he slashed any sign of resistance into banal gibs that fell around him. It was like watching a bolt of lightning cleave through anything in its path.
It was then when the beasts exhibited an emotion the humans couldn’t understand: fear. The hive-mindset had been thrown apart as the existence of such a godly being threw them into chaos. They began to rush back into the burning forest, preferring a death by ash rather than a meeting with the Envoy of Man. The battle was over.
The wounded were collected. The dead as well. Spearmen rushed towards the envoy and formed a perimeter around him. “S-stop!” they ordered. “Give us your name!” They looked at the hulking warrior, his weapon glowing with a strange presence as he stood without a care. They watched as he held his weapon forward. They watched as the weapon magically vanished.
“I am Zhao Xiaojun: the Envoy of Man.” The soldiers buckled as the mere voice of the warrior creaked fear into their bones as well. “Stand down,” Rina ordered the soldiers, “this man is no enemy. Therefore, he does not deserve to be treated as such.” The spears were lowered and Rina gave the warrior a gentle smile. “Nice of you to join us. I was starting to doubt whether you survived or not.”
Hua immediately lunged at the warrior and grabbed him into a hug. “Xiaojun! You actually made it! Was that the heavenly weapon Jin talked about? You looked so cool! It was like watching fireworks!” But instead of laughing with her, his body went limp. He fell to the ground.
“His body must’ve been overworked,” Rina noted. “He’s been through things we cannot begin to imagine.” They placed the warrior onto one of the carts as they prepared to move their position. “It was a pyrrhic victory,” the general concluded, “but one that we can learn from.”
And so, humanity’s army continued forth. Their soldiers marched on as they better understood the insurmountable odds they were facing. But two things had become clear. For one, humanity could stand against monsters. And two, the Envoy of Man was not someone to ever underestimate.