Chapter 42
Inside the veil of darkness
the pride consisting of forty Girins runs through the forest while carrying the members of the royal guards on their backs.
Riding on the Girin at the head of the pride is Sir Herman, a man in his forties who is the most senior of the royal guards in the group, and as such command has defaulted to him.
Hermans's sharp eyes lock on a few metal spikes and horns emerging from the horizon.
He reaches down and grabs a large halberd hanging on his Girin’s side then shouts his command.
-CHARGE –
The command was short.
It was only one word but it had to be for by the time the word left his mouth, the Bulgasari which was barely visible on the horizon a moment ago had now been surrounded on all sides by growling Girins.
That is the speed of the mythical Girin.
The royal guards aim their Halberds at the giant creature, then crystals embedded in the center of the halberds glow with a green light.
As though to respond to their call the earth begins to rumble then four massive arms made of rocks and dirt rise up from the ground and grab onto the Bulgasari pinning it to the ground.
Even before the beast could react or understand what was happening to it, it was already buried alive.
BOOM!
An explosion erupts from the ground where the Bulgasari is buried.
BOOM!
BOOM!
Explosion after explosion erupts from the ground accompanied by powerful heat waves and bits of lava.
-it’s melting the ground move to stage two –
Herman shouts then twenty of the forty royal guards spin their halberds causing the glow of their crystals to switch from green to blue causing a blizzard to manifest above the ground and cool it down, while the other twenty continue to use earth magic to pin the beast down.
‘ good the subjugation is proceeding smoothly’
Although the Bulgasari is incredibly powerful, it’s still just a large animal with simple and predictable behavior.
Having lived next to the beast for thousands of years, the people of Kim Sungta were able to study the beast, its abilities, behaviors, and weaknesses, and although they weren’t able to find a way to kill it, they developed multiple ways to subdue it.
Burying it alive is one of them.
with the burial process almost complete, Herman shifts his attention to the criminals.
He scans the forest with his eyes but all he can see is the illusion of the metallic horse that was used to lure the Bulgasari.
‘Where are those bounty hunters’
CLANK!
A clanking noise interrupts Herman’s thought process.
He turns toward the noise to see a royal guard falling from his Girin toward the molten lava below.
CLANK, CLANK, CLANK.
Several more clanking noises echo one by one followed by more guards falling off their Girins.
Herman’s eyes grow wide from the odd scene he is witnessing.
The guards are falling one by one as though something is hitting them but nothing does.
‘What is happening here?’
Herman can’t help but question his own eyes.
The helmets of the royal guards are equipped with many sensors including mana sensors to help them detect the use of magic.
‘There are no traces of mana’
His helmet isn’t picking up on any magic being used nor any machines or energy beams or anything that could be causing the phenomenon in front of his eyes.
The only thing the sensors are picking are sudden spikes in energy next to the heads of the guards as though the world itself decided to knock them off of their Girins.
Thoughts race inside Herman’s head and his fixates not on the falling guards but on the rumbling ground below.
The Girins rush toward their falling riders managing to catch them before they fall into the molten lava below.
The guards quickly straddle their Girins and then raise their Halberds to reapply their spells.
But.
Herman knew.
He knew.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
‘We already failed’
Although the weird phenomenon only stopped their spells for a few seconds, he knew that was more than enough.
.
.
.
ROOOOOAAAAAAR!
RUMBLE! RUMBLE!
With a thunderous roar, the ground erupts like a raging volcano sending bits of lava flying everywhere.
A massive body rises from amidst the lava.
its previously shining metallic body is now charred black with a violent inferno enveloping the entirety of it and lava oozing down its back and limbs.
the Girins run through the air at tremendous speed to dodge the incoming lava.
-switch to plan C –
Herman shouts his orders at the rest of the royal guards and immediately flinches.
His shout attracted the attention of the furious Bulgasari which now has its eyes locked on Herman.
The massive hellish beast launches itself from the pool of lava at Herman and opens its three stories wide jaw to swallow the royal guard whole.
Herman quickly tugs on the reins of his Girin to dodge the massive beast but despite the speed of the Girin is unable to dodge the beast due to its massive size.
He barely manages to reach the edge of the top jaw then raises his arm as though to block.
An aether shield manifests in front of Herman’s arm generated by his armor and collides with the front teeth of the Bulgasari.
-Ughh-
The intense heat and force of the Bulgasari press on the aether shield and it begins to crack but suddenly the massive beast is pulled backward away from Herman and toward a large black pillar surrounded by ten royal guards.
Just before the Bulgasari collides with the black pillar, two more pillars rise from the ground and pull on the Bulgasari.
Herman quickly rushes with Girin toward the final group of knights and spins his halberd to use earth magic along with five other guards to gather iron from underground to construct a fourth black pillar.
The antler like horns of the Girins glow generating lightning arcs that dance around the black pillar in circular motions turning it into a magnet, while four other guards use ice magic on the pillar to cool it down thus increasing its magnetic power.
The massive metallic beast roars in frustration as it becomes trapped between the four magnetic pillars tugging on it from four directions.
-haaa-
Herman lets out a sigh of relief but his relief is immediately cut short.
A beam of white light shoots out from somewhere in the forest that is a long distance away from them.
The beam of white light pierces through one of the black pillars melting it almost instantly as though they were made of butter instead of iron.
The molten black pillar loses its magnetism from the intense heat causing the Bulgasari to be flung by the imbalanced magnetic field toward the opposing pillar and group of royal guards below it.
In the blink of an eye, the massive Bulgasari crashes into the tower and flattens unfortunate royal guards.
The Bulgasari staggers onto its feet and shakes its head as its body absorbs the metallic black pillar and the armors of the crushed royal guards.
Its body grows in size and begins to morph as it absorbs the black pillar becoming magnetic as well.
its body becomes bigger and heavier causing the remaining two black pillars to break off the ground and get flung toward the Bulgasari crashing into it and getting absorbed into its body increasing its size and magnetism even further.
The remaining royal guards watch the unfolding events with horror, not only did their numbers decrease but also the Bulgasari managed to absorb the pillars intended to trap and is using the iron from it to modify its body.
-focus-
Herman’s shout snaps the remaining royal guards out of their daze.
-it has to be the bounty hunters, they are hiding somewhere in the forest, use the time of the Bulgasari morphing to find them –
-yes sir-
The royal guards shout and then disperse through the forest to find the hidden criminals.
Although they have just lost their friends and colleagues, there is no time to mourn on the battlefield.
They could only grind their teeth, clench their weapons, and carry on with their mission.
They all knew that and yet they are only humans.
Silent tears fell down their cheeks inside their helmets as memories of comrades flashed before their eyes.
Those memories soon passed and were replaced with immense anger.
They knew the king was wrong.
They knew all the invaders were violent savages who lacked humanity.
They knew it and today they were reminded by it.
Although this mission started as a peaceful one to arrest the intruders and bring them before the king, well, let's just say accidents always happen on missions like these.
*******************************
A few minutes earlier.
a golden Girin arrives at the entrance of the Bulgasari’s cave, followed by nine blue Girins, all carrying their respective royal guards on their backs.
The royal guards glance down at their Girins wondering why they stopped.
They tug on their reins to urge their Girins to enter the cave but the fierce draconic creatures refuse to budge.
Sir Eun Woo, captain of the Royal Guards reaches down to pet the chest of his golden Girin.
-what’s wrong big gu-
Eun Woo immediately flinches.
He can feel his Girin’s heart beating fast.
He leans forward to look at the face of his Girin then turns to look at the other Girins behind him.
‘They are scared!’
Eun Woo stares at the veil of darkness in front of him wondering what possibly it could be hiding to scare the Girins like that.
No matter how gentle the Girins are, they are still proud dragons not only that but also these Girins are the companions of the royal guards that fought with them against all sorts of powerful beasts and vile enemies.
Eun Woo spends a solid minute inwardly debating if he should abandon the mission and retreat with the royal guards or not.
The reaction of the Girins is more than enough reason for him to abandon the mission but he knows that the Bulgasari is not inside the cave, neither are the bounty hunters or the mother of Lavie.
He knows from the surveillance unit report that the only one inside should be the Therian.
He also knows that she is not one who kills humans indiscriminately like the other invaders, after all, she was the angel who healed and blessed the young soldiers from the hospital, so it should be possible to reason with her.
Eun Woo decides to proceed with the mission, after all, this isn’t a mission to eliminate her but simply to arrest her and bring her before the king perhaps it could even end without any fighting at all.
‘Besides it’s not like I can tell the king I ran away before even seeing the enemy’
Eun Woo pets his golden Girin to calm it down.
-there is nothing to fear Roan, it will be okay –
It takes a minute but Eun Woo manages to calm down his Girin, who then turns its head around toward the other Girins and snarls at them as though to calm them down and urge them to move.
Responding to the call of their leader, the Girins start hesitantly and slowly begin to walk inside the Cave and soon all the Girins and their riders are swallowed by the veil of darkness.
The Girins walk through the dark cave for what feels like hours but in reality, can’t be more than a couple of minutes.
As the Girins walk deeper and deeper inside the cave, a sense of dread slowly consumes all their minds.
What the Girins felt at the entrance of the cave, the guards are now feeling.
It is the type of dread one would feel if they spent a night in a graveyard.
The type of dread you feel when there is something standing right at the corner of your eyes that shouldn’t be there, that isn’t there when you look.
The type of dread you feel when a predator is watching you and when you turn around it’s not there.
It is the type of dread that warns you that reality as you know it is breaking apart and threatening you.
It is at this moment when the sense of dread is at its peak, all the royal guards turn to look at the source of their dread.
Except that, when they looked the predator was there.
There at the far edge of the veil of darkness, faint crimson and violet lights dance in the air.
Their faint glow illuminates hundreds of dead and mangled corpses that are oozing with the crimson light and in the midst of the corpses, a single girl stands while facing the royal guards.
Her silver hair is dyed red by the crimson light and her eyes are staring at them while oozing violet light.