The south side of the fort was in chaos. The procedure was for an alert to have been sent by the sentry, and an appropriate response would be prepared. The lack of the sentry’s warning made a huge difference in the responsiveness of the fort.
Regardless, a fort was still a fort. Though initially in disarray, soldiers immediately took arms and moved to deal with the incoming threat. Across the fort, skeleton crews were left at heavy weaponry that would be useless against a single intruder as units converged at the south, taking strategic positions and choke points.
Taking the threat level of the intruder and the number into consideration, soldiers took up formations that allowed their superiority in numbers to shine and blocked off escape routes. An S-rank threat was a monster on the level of a lich or arachne. With the defensive capabilities of an entire fort, they were confident in subjugation.
None had yet grasped the appearance of the intruder, not even the one who had initially called the presence of one. Likely, the initial responder used context clues to piece the presence of a threat together, such as several soldiers being forcefully knocked out suddenly, close to him.
An explosion rang out in the north.
The chaos amplified. The possibility of a second intruder turned to conviction in the heads of unit commanders spearheading the response.
Immediately, following procedure, a few units turned to the north while others continued to the south.
And yet, as the north and south response units arrived at their respective sites, they found nothing but air.
Movement froze for a moment, as they tried to process the events that led to the current conclusion. This silence only lasted a moment before well-trained commanders once again began issuing orders, following procedure and splitting up their units into individual squads to search the fort.
Even after most movement ended, a minute passed.
One of tense anticipation and fear, abruptly ending when a voice that was cut off rang out from the middle of the fort.
“Monster intruder, 3 o’ c-!”
Immediately, soldiers collapsed inward to the center of the fort. Rather, they attempted to, but the squads that were thoroughly split up began to show disorganisation in responding to the callout. The soldiers trained to fight humans found it difficult to respond to the inexplicable movements of the monster.
Celeb was one of those rushing to the center. As the guard on duty, his role, as per procedure, was part of the skeleton crew, as the possibility of additional intruders could not be ruled out. Yet he wished to make up for his error by claiming the merit of striking down the intruder. His actions added to the chaos.
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Soldiers ran into soldiers. Mercenaries ran into soldiers. The disarray only escalated.
Finally, Caleb, who managed to brute force this way through the crowd with his power as a A-rank, arrived at the center of the fort—at the open area where the second yell was heard.
And his eyes widened.
A towering semi-corporeal ghost wolf of darkness rampaged on a sea of fallen bodies. It seemed similar to a direwolf, but was at least twice the size of the average direwolf, which was already the size of the average person.
Though dozens of bodies littered the area, it seemed that none were bleeding. This was already strange considering that the bite of a direwolf was its primary attack, what caught Caleb’s eye was that the number of corpses was smaller than the number standing at the side, uselessly watching wide eyed, much like Caleb.
He regained his composure with a few deep breaths, then clicked his tongue. Somehow, seeing the panic and the trembling of irises that seemed like an earthquake was occurring in the eyes of the soldiers added to his composure.
He was not an A-rank only by name. Monsters were his bread and butter, and he began to show it.
His experience in command was limited, but he believed he had enough. He slammed his heavy shield on the ground.
“Rally to me! I'll cover, focus your attacks! Enough dilly-dallying!”
Though initially surprised, the soldiers’ spirit began to be roused. Yes, they had done enough of standing around. It was time to fight. They were soldiers, and they would show it! This was their time! They had trained at base camp for so long, and this was when they would show it! They would attain the glory they had promised their mothers and wives when they left home!
Caleb took a single step forward.
The soldiers took a single step.
Only to freeze the next. Their eyes widened even more than they already had, resembling saucers.
Caleb’s body had rag dolled to a nearby wall. He was been instantly bodied in a single paw swipe of the direwolf.
Their panicked and shocked eyes that flicked to Caleb flicked back to the direwolf when it…spoke?!
“Oh hey, it's Caleb.”
The direwolf transformed into a man with three pairs of black wings behind him.
“Hmm. 4/10. Shouldn't have split up the response force with the assumption of multiple intruders. You're fighting a monster, not humans. Monsters move erratically; their biology and psychology are different. Also, freezing up is a strict no-no. Did even the general in charge of the fort freeze up? Where was he? I saw no commands, no nothin from him. Clearly, training was insufficient. Of the six months we have left, retraining will be done in cycles over the course of the next three months. My secretary will be in contact for the logistics. See you at base camp.”
He flapped once, billowing the sand from the ground into their dumbstruck faces with the radial wave of sand that spread out as he flew away.
‘...what?’
-
Noah arrived at base camp, where Archmage Lirael was already waiting for him. She seemed to be similarly tired, but neither could rest yet. He got her up to speed on the response of the fort he had just visited and what he needed to happen. She curtly nodded in understanding of his orders, then took off into the air as Noah watched her activate Sixth Circle - Sonic Flight high up in the stratosphere. He then turned to the base camp, his position overlooking all the trainees already lined up in neat rows, sufficiently spaced out with their weapons by their sides.
He exhaled, and made his wings close up, melt into himself and disappear, then allowed his throat to transform into that of nine sirens. Over the past week, he had gotten used to using the training interface he had used on Mia and Ariel on thousands at the same time.
He gulped once to moisturise his throat, then began. A long day of alternating between singing and short breaks of meditation to recover his mana awaited him.
The night sky was tinged orange as the sun rose.