The battle between the Hunters and the Cruor had reached somewhat of a stalemate. Though they had fallen onto their backfoot when the Cruor transformed, the Hunters had managed to rally themselves into a defensive formation. But this was not entirely a good thing.
Given that the Cruor were naturally powerful and didn’t need to constantly expend their energy when fighting like Mages and Hunters did, this meant they could generally last longer in an even fight. Thus, while they weren’t gaining any more ground right now, once the Hunters ran out of mana, it would be over in an instant.
That wasn’t to say that victory was guaranteed for either party just yet. The Exalt and Broodlord were still fighting, after all. So long as the Exalt won, or the Broodlord retreated, then they would survive.
The thought of a tie, where they took each other out, was not something that the Hunters allowed themselves to think about. Such a pyrrhic victory would ultimately lead to their loss.
“Divert spells to the eastern side! Cover the gap! Move, move, move!” Harolt was calling out orders to the grouped-up Hunters. There were Adepts fighting alongside Legends, and spaces where attempts at performing a pincer on the Cruor were made. Mostly to mixed successes.
A sudden weakness momentarily overcame the Cruor that were charging towards a trio of Legendaries. Sensing their sudden sluggishness, the Hunters attacked with a renewed Vigor, killing at least half of them in a clash of steel. They immediately retreated back into the line before they could get picked off.
In the rear of the group, Harolt fell to a knee as he gasped for breath. “Dammit! That’s the last of my mana... I can’t help any more than this.”
Naeri, who was treating a wounded Legendary Hunter, looked over to her old friend. “Don’t push yourself too hard. While I won’t discount the effect of small differences in battle, it does us no good if you die. Understood?”
Harolt just nodded. Seeing his agreement, Naeri got back to work. “It’s times like this I wish I was a Life Mage. I’d be ten times the healer I am now if I was.”
Blood was quickly washed out of an open wound, carrying Ichor with it, while one of Naeri’s assistants helped revert the damage done to the Hunter’s flesh. The man jolted in pain, which brought out a cry of anger from his Spirit.
“Quite! The fact that he’s hurting means that he’s alive! Or would you prefer something different?” Naeri glared at the little canine shaped Spirit. It bowed its head in submission. Naeri turned back to her work.
“Incoming!” Harolt moved to the side as one of the Hunter’s got blown backward.
The Spirit that got angry at Naeri turned its head. A thin line of flames shot from its mouth. It bisected the head of an incoming Winged Cruor. It’s head splitting down the middle, enlarged beak and all. Two nearby Adepts quickly threw the corpse away, even as the Spirit fell to the side, exhausted.
Naeri and Harolt shared another look. They both knew that they weren’t going to last much longer at this rate. The groups that had been put together in a roughshod fashion to fend off the Winged Cruor in their Primal state weren’t in a good enough state to sustain themselves. They were finally flagging.
Just as Harolt was about to say something, a ripple seemed to pass through the air, accompanied by a loud explosion in the distance. All of a sudden, the world seemed to stop. Several Cruor died in an instant, having halted all movement, and taking a blow they should have dodged.
For a moment, the Hunters were all confused, and looked around in caution. All of them trying to figure out what had happened.
As one, the Cruor turned their heads back towards the foggy mist that had previously been behind them. Like the opening of a curtain, the mist began to part, and fade. For the Legendaries in the know, a second wind filled their bodies, as they once more took advantage of the Cruor’s shock.
“ATTACK!!!” The cry of several Guild Leaders brought the Hunters to awareness, and several more Primal Cruor fell to the ground, dead. While entire groups of lesser Cruor were wiped out by Legendary attacks. The flow of battle immediately shifted once more.
But the Hunters weren’t able to press the attack. The Cruor immediately began to retreat. But what was worse, was the sudden scream that emanated from the fight between the Exalt and the Broodlord. So loud it was, that the air rippled once more, a loud ‘CRACK’ nearly deafened the assembled Hunters and Mages.
A crack of displaced air followed. No longer were the transformed Winged Cruor acting like rampaging beasts. Instead, they charged at full speed, back towards their den. Cracks of air echoed as they moved at speeds that were beyond what an Adept could follow. While those that were slower did all they could to follow without being caught and killed.
“Guild Leader!” Harolt called out, catching the attention of three Legendary Hunters. He ignored their confusion when they couldn’t figure out who he was addressing. “We need to send a team to the Exalt. The fact that he hasn’t already returned, as a Lightning Hunter, means that he must be injured.”
The three Legendary Hunters paled beneath their helmets as they heard Harolt’s words. They immediately grabbed a couple of Adepts each, including healers, before setting out in the direction of the Exalt’s assumed position. Fortunately, one of the Guild Leaders had been a Life Hunter, so Harolt figured that Exalt would be okay. At least, he hoped that he would be.
He idly noticed several move figures charging off in the direction of the Guild Leaders. Most likely members of Exalt Harras’ household, but he couldn’t tell from where he was at the moment.
Moving back to Naeri’s side, Harolt collapsed to the ground in full, sitting on the dirt with a heavy sigh. As he looked around the battle, other than a few Umbral Beasts that were quickly cleaned up, no Cruor forces were left in the vicinity. It also seemed like the Leaders were being smart, and not chasing after the Cruor.
“That boy... He couldn’t have moved just a little bit faster?” Harolt ignored the slap to the back of his head from his fellow Grand Scholar.
For the moment, as old as he was, he and Naeri were just happy to be alive, and they knew it was thanks to a Void Hunter that they both cared for. Now they just had to wait and see if Ezekiel would be returning to them.
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Moments ago, a bleeding and bruised Harras was cutting into the side of the Primal Broodlord’s side. A vibrating blade of Lightning parted the reinforced flesh in an instant. The Broodlord shrieked in pain, but a beat of its wings threw the Exalt away.
Tumbling backwards through the air, Harras managed to steady himself in time to dodge an attack from the Broodlord. Rips in the air appeared where his claws passed through. The Exalt waved his hand. A spherical cage of Lightning appeared around the Broodlord.
He cried out in rage and pain as the Lightning began to char his flesh. But this was not the first time he had had to deal with this spell. It took just a few moments to tear himself out of it. But the Exalt had managed to retreat a great distance.
There was a momentary lull in battle as the Broodlord and Exalt stared at one another. Exalt Harras was bleeding from several large gashes, with bone visible through his flesh in several places. His left arm was still attached, but essentially useless at the moment.
For Broodlord Derrick, he was gasping for breath. A spark of intelligence had reappeared in his eyes. Something that Exalt Harras knew meant a change in battle was likely to occur. The Broodlord had begun fighting more cautiously ever since it had appeared.
Words had ceased to hold any meaning in this battle. Only the deadly determination to win remained. Though a sudden explosion in the distance changed that.
As the air rippled from the force of the explosion, Derrick's head turned so fast that the Exalt was surprised it didn’t snap off. But he didn’t take advantage of the opening just yet.
To his shock, however, he could see what appeared to be a struggle within the Broodlord’s eyes, shifting from madness to sadness. A tear streaked down the Broodlord’s face.
Unable to figure out what was happening, Harras readied himself to charge.
A wall of sound as the Broodlord screamed so loud that Harras’ ears began to bleed and stopped him. Dazed and confused, his balance gone from the destruction of his eardrums, Harras dropped several feet towards the ground. A part of him knew, in that instant, that he was going to die.
Yet, the death blow from the Broodlord never came. Instead, even as deafened as he was, he regained his balance and stopped falling to the ground. In the silence, he felt a slight shift in the air. A ‘crack’ that he could feel since he couldn’t hear.
The Broodlord had disappeared by the time Harras had recovered enough to reach out with his senses. When he did, he noticed in the distance that the mist created by the Cruor’s Spines was swiftly fading away. Even faster now, since the Winged Cruor were moving the air with every flap of their wings.
Slowly, he descended to the ground. He kept his guard up, just in case, but he allowed himself to take a moment to breathe. To regain his bearings after the hardest fight he had ever experienced in his nearly one hundred years of life.
He idly sent feelings of relief and concern to his Spirit. Relief that he had been able to survive, and concern regarding his Spirit’s condition. But it seemed that, although broken and beaten, his Spirit was no worse for wear than he was. So, he took a seat on a nearby boulder, a tiny fragment of the mountains that had been destroyed in the battle.
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The presence of nearly a dozen figures caught his attention, but he allowed himself to relax when he realized that it was a group of Hunters. Several Legendaries, with a number of healers in their group.
A moment after they landed, roughly a hundred feet away, Harras also sensed his personal guards and Adrian reached his range as well. He motioned for the Hunters from the Guild to hold back for a moment, until Adrian and his household approached first.
Still deafened, he couldn’t hear Adrian’s cries of worry and concern as he sat on the boulder. Instead, he motioned for the man to be silent, before speaking in as calm and steady a voice as he could.
“Catch me up on the situation later. I need someone to heal my ears.” Harras dispelled his helmet, showing a grim and bloodied visage as he pointed at his ears. The part of his head that was bleeding the most.
As the healers got to work, Adrian and the rest of Harras household watching for any foul play, Exalt Harras couldn’t help but internally sigh. Given the situation, he knew that he most likely owed his life to Ezekiel. The only one in the entire world that could have destroyed the Spine and dissipated the mist. He couldn’t help but feel a sting to his pride at having been saved by a mere Adept.
However, Harras still wondered just what had caused the Broodlord to retreat as he had. Given how badly he had tried to kill Harras, it would only make sense that he would’ve stayed to finish the job.
Then, he realized that the Broods might have a much more valuable target than himself. Standing at the ready the moment his ears were healed, he knew how he would even the score with Ezekiel.
If he failed, the Cruor would gain a much more valuable piece than what humanity would lose.
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Outside the crumbling castle that had acted as the den for the Cruor, Ezekiel was limping away as fast as he could, having nearly been trapped in the rubble as the stonework of the building fell down. At the moment, Shine was also being used as a crutch.
He was essentially out of mana at this point. Having spent a large portion of what remained defending himself from the blast that destroyed the Spine. Unlike the first time, he was not up close to the explosives, nor was he caught off guard from the blast. But it was still nearly over a dozen times more powerful, at the least.
As it was, he knew that, even with Shine helping him to escape, their chances of getting out of there were slim to none. But he still had to try, no matter what it took.
The fact that almost all the nearby Umbral Beasts and lesser Cruor had been killed by Drew during his rampage, meant that there weren’t any enemies for Ezekiel to run into.
But the shrill scream coming from the south sent shivers down his spine, and he limped away even faster.
“What was that!?” Shine was panicking. They had been channeling as much mana as they could into Ezekiel’s body, but his injuries from the blast and falling rubble meant that his mobility was still hampered.
“Nothing good. Get ready to ‘Jump’ as far as possible.” Ezekiel continued to move. He knew that the chances of him ‘Jumping’ far enough to escape were slim to none. But he knew that he would have to try. If he could get close enough to the Hunter army, then there was a possibility that he would be able to get help and escape.
The massive shadow that appeared over his head made him freeze in terror. A pressure pushed down on him. Far greater than the miniscule amount that Exalt Harras had used. This was the full weight of the anger of a true Mythical being.
The ground crunched beneath the large behemoth’s feet as it landed. Ezekiel expressed his concept of ‘Nothingness’ and regained the ability to breathe. In the back of his head, he tried to check on Shine’s condition, but all he could feel was the Void Spirit’s soul shivering in fear. Soft whimpers echoed through his mind as Shine barely managed to hold on. Ezekiel shared his strength as best he could, but he wasn’t certain how long he would be able to hold on either.
“YoU!!!” A warped warbling voice spoke to Ezekiel. It sounded quite like the Cruor remnants he encountered whenever he tried absorbing Ichor.
The world fell silent as Ezekiel waited for the beast to speak to him further. But instead, a soft crackling sound, followed by grunts and moans of pain were all he heard.
He didn’t dare to look behind him, however, as he was afraid that any sudden movements would cause this creature to end his life. His instincts screamed in warning over and over again. But there was nothing he could do.
Finally, the noises stopped. Only for countless more shadows to appear above Ezekiel as a great number of massive creatures landed all around him and the first figure. Similar noises of painful grunts and moans filled the area.
Out of the corner of his eye, Ezekiel could see one of the large figures slowly shrinking into a regular looking Winged Cruor. At that moment, he knew what had happened. The Legendary Cruors had reverted to their Primal state. He greatly feared what the outcome of the battle between the armies was.
“You wretched little enemy of life!” Ezekiel felt a clawed hand grab him by the back of his neck and throw him into the rubble of the Cruor’s den.
As he crashed through a stone wall, he nearly fell unconscious from the impact. But he managed to stay awake and see a long, feathered, tail reach through the opening in the wall and rip him back outside. Held up by his neck, he was barely able to breathe. Something that he wasn’t sure he could do for much longer. His grip on Shine was already starting to weaken.
“You are a Void Mage! Just like I was! So, why! Why do you fight against us! Why do you fight for Humanity!!! Why did you murder my son!!!” Broodlord Derrick was screaming at this point.
None of the grace and primal majesty that the other Cruor witnessed before had remained. The Broodlord was crying, having known that there was no way that his son could’ve survived the explosion that took out the Spine. Even if he didn’t know that Drew had completed his transformation, the dead Legendaries he could vaguely sense beneath the rubble told him exactly what he needed to know.
For Ezekiel, he could barely breathe, let alone speak, so the Broodlord loosened his grip, ever so slightly. Hearing the terrified whimpers of his Spirit, and hearing the pain in the Broodlord’s voice, Ezekiel couldn’t help but get angry. If things had been even a little bit different for him, he might’ve been the one leading the Cruor on an attack against humanity.
As it was, however, he could feel a sense of pride inside himself, at having not given in to the despair that the Broodlord so clearly felt.
“Because... I am human... and so... is... my family...” Ezekiel barely managed to wheeze out those words, only for the grip on his throat to tighten up once more.
“If that is the case. Then let us see what you will do when your precious Humanity is stripped from you.” Under the watchful, terrified, eyes of the Cruor, that were, even now, still returning, Derrick Driftmark carried Ezekiel to a special place in the den.
Clearing out the rubble from the collapsed castle, a pool of Ichor was revealed. It was filled with rucks and other remnants of the building. But unlike the Ichor from the Spine, which had turned white and chalky, this Ichor was still thick and viscous.
Seeing the large pool of Ichor, Ezekiel’s grip on Shine nearly slackened, but he knew that he couldn’t let go, even if the Ichor managed to corrupt Shine as well. Letting his Spirit go would essentially mean letting them fall into the hands of the Broods. Something he would not allow.
“I’m sorry, Shine... I’m sorry everyone.” As Ezekiel was unceremoniously dropped into the pool of Ichor, he barely had a chance to scream as it flowed into his open wounds.
Thrashing and crying, he let go of Shine, who fell alongside him to the bottom of the pool. The pain was all encompassing, but the moment he hit the bottom, his consciousness fell inward. The world was stripped away from him, and even the pain seemed to dull into a soreness that reached every part of his being.
Finding himself in his inner world once more, he readied himself for what was to come.
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Derrick stood tall as he looked at the pool of Ichor in front of him. In the back of his mind, his master, the Winged Brood, grumbled in anger at his actions. But there was a begrudging approval, as this was the perfect test to see if Ezekiel would be worthy of becoming a true vessel for the Brood.
Besides, even if the transformation failed, and Ezekiel became a corrupted Cruor, that was fine as well. At least as far as Derrick was concerned. The Void Mage had murdered his son, after all.
“You, there!” Derrick gestured to a group of Bone Cruor that had just arrived. “Go with a handful of my Peerage. There should be three bodies beneath the rubble by the Spine. Find them and bring them to me. Now!”
The group of Cruor moved to do as commanded, while the rest stared at their lord. Exhaustion was clearly displayed on their faces. All of the Primal Cruor had reverted back to their more rational states. Some had died due to having lost control in full, but the majority that hadn’t been killed by Hunters had managed to retreat. But all of them were tired, including the Broodlord.
If the battle were to begin again, it would be impossible for them to transform. The battle had been lost, and their numbers were too little, and too far from home, to maintain a presence here. As much as he hated to say it, they needed to retreat. They had lost this war.
“The rest of you, prepare to retreat. Gather what usable supplies there still are and move to--” A crack of Lightning striking against the pool of Ichor cut him off. The blast as it impacted threw him sideways, and the arcs of Lightning that scattered around the area killed several Cruor that failed to get out of the way.
Whirling around in shock and pain, Derrick tried to find out where that had come from. But there was no one with the range of his senses. The only way that could be the case was if the attacker was from multiple kilometers away. Perhaps as far as the frontline of battle, where the Hunters were still recovering.
“Harras...” Derrick growled in anger as he realized what was happening.
He hadn’t killed the Exalt, so the man must’ve gotten his healers to help him recover enough to make a number of attacks from afar. As it was, they were now on their back feet, and it wasn’t likely they would recover in time to defend themselves properly. The Human army might be getting ready to attack even now.
A second bolt of Lightning struck the pool of Ichor. Though, this time none of the Cruor were killed with the aftereffects. But as he stared at the pool of Ichor, Derrick could hear his master howling in fury. There was no time to wait for Ezekiel to be converted. Usually such a thing was a process that took weeks to complete anyways. But given their combined rage at Ezekiel’s actions, they had decided to increase the speed, even if it greatly increased the risk of failure.
“My lord! We’ve found the bodies!” The Cruor that had been digging through the rubble called out. But, as the Broodlord looked at the corpses, he realized that two of them were merely the disgraced Peerage members that had lost the first Spine.
While the other was clearly a corrupted Cruor, though one that was nearly identical in appearance to a Winged Legendary Cruor’s Primal state. At that moment, something inside him broke, as he knew that his son had died, even before Ezekiel had blown up the Spine.
A third strike of Lightning hit. This time it missed the pool, but it nearly killed several more Cruor. Looking around, he felt his master’s frustrated resignation, and the command to retreat and not lose any more forces.
“Fall back! Head to the east! Return to the Desolate Lands!” The Cruor immediately fled, either by taking to the sky, or running across the land.
The Broodlord stared at the pool for a moment longer. Watching as it bubbled and rippled from Ezekiel’s movements at the bottom. Turning his head, he spat on the ground and glared at the pool one last time.
“Good riddance.” The Broodlord then took to the sky with a flap of his wings. Not once looking back, even as he idly dodged out of the way of a Lightning bolt that had been aimed at him, and not the ground.
For the first time since his return to the Willowbrush Empire, Derrick Driftmark, Broodlord of the Winged Cruor, experienced defeat.
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Back at the Hunter army, Exalt Harras was standing next to Adrian, Harlot, and Naeri. His household had set up a small perimeter around the group, and specific Scholars, those that were still alive, had been called over.
“The Broodlord is gone, as are the rest of the Cruor. Though there are still Umbral Beasts nearby.” One of the Hunters in Harras’ household stated. Her Spirit had gone ahead to scout, flying far higher than any of the Winged Cruor had. Allowing her to stay out of the range of the Broodlord’s senses.
“Good. Now, let’s go save the hero of the hour. I don’t think he’d be turned into a monster just yet.” Harras face was set in a grim expression, knowing that he had been just seconds too late in his attempt to save Ezekiel. But at least he had prevented the Cruor from taking him away, which was a good thing in its own right.
Beside him, Harolt and Naeri had matching expressions, even as they readied themselves, exhausted as they were. To rescue the man that had saved them all.