The initial wave of monsters was over in minutes. Some still sat in the field, tearing each other apart, but people poured out of the city in droves now that the walls were defended, many rushing ahead of us.

From out of a nearby alley, a group of teenagers rushed up to the bug-bull beside us, knives and tools and sleds of wood pulled by rope behind them.

“My respect to the matriarch of the shattered mountain!” The tallest teenager stammered. He was covered in patches of scaley skin, his eyes narrow slits colored the bright orange of fire. “I was wondering if… that is, if you don’t need — ”

“Take the body.” Valar interrupted him.

The teenagers bowed slightly and unevenly, then rushed to the body, beginning to hack into it in a method that lacked expertise but demonstrated plenty of familiarity.

“Do you think it tastes like a cow?” One of the teenagers asked, trying and failing to hack into the leg of the monster.

“I don’t care what it tastes like as long as it isn’t frog.” A second replied.

The two guards were already walking ahead. Nalar had walked forward and turned back to us now.

“How you feeling, number?” I asked Nalaar.

He seemed shaky, staring at the teenagers cutting apart the bugbull. Then he turned, his eyes narrowing as he fixed his face in determination.

“Let’s get more Stone.” He replied, stepping toward Valar with a new, fixed determination.

Now people were pouring out of the cities in full force, some working faster than other to cut apart the monsters and drag them home. Cultivators ran ahead of others, often as individuals, cutting out the Stone the monster’s contained and leaving the rest behind.

“We gotta catch up!” Valar said. The two guards were long gone now.

Nalaar circulated [Scale the Mountain,] and I followed suit, running along with Valar.

We quickly reached the section of permanently churned earth from the serious of cultivation techniques that were used to diminish the crowd of monsters. Between the city and the Scar, there weren’t enough corpses to attract the more dangerous looking large celestials lurking around the wound in reality, but it was far enough that not many civilians had ranged this far out.

We stopped at a pile of corpses covered with burns and perforations, but that had limped far away from the initial zones of the devestating, high level techniques.

The two guards had ranged off elsewhere, plundering corpses of their own.

Valar reached a hand into the giant hole in the side of a chitin covered monster, fishing it around with wet noises and grunting. Nalaar looked like he might be sick at the sight.

I stepped up to a fur covered corpse, raising my sword and bringing it down in one motion, cutting it in two, as Nalaar began to hack apart a corpse of his own. It was grueling, terrible work. The cultivators ranged forward, pulling the stone from the bodies and occasionally killing the limping celestials from the outside.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

There was a bleating noise above us as the Matriarch of the Shattered Mountain flew above. Her shadow passed over us as she dived towards one of the large celestials at the scar, green and brown erupting from earthern techniques as she clashed.

Other, similarly huge, celestials stalked forward from the cities. Rather than wasting their time on the tiny corpses, they lumbered over the open field, tearing apart the waiting giants outside the scar in violent conflicts.

I stared after a multi-legged celestial, like a cross between a frog and a spider. Every living person and corpse it stepped over, even the mortals, it swept down and devoured in single bites. Most of its path was empty of living people.

Between the three of us, we managed to loot more than a dozen bodies before we couldn’t carry any more Stone. I watched distantly as the celestial sect leaders tore apart and devoured the freshly born celestials that had escaped the Scar.

“Celestials can’t cultivate.” Valar said, noticing my staring as she cut apart one of the lumps of flesh that contained Stone. “Least not like us. They have to eat their way up the realms. I don’t understand it fully, to be true. My cousins that are more like the Matriarch are born stronger, but struggle to grow as fast as we can.”

I shook it away. What a strange magic system. Hellfire was straight forward — it powered Arcana, machines that inflicted magic on the world without the harsh learning required of mana.

There was a low rumble behind us as we prepared to depart. I turned around to face down a celestial double the size of the bug-bull, heads taller than me. It looked like a tangle of seaweed, dozens of moving tendrils of plant-like flesh crossed with glowing orange veins propelling it towards us. Its head was fish like, rows of sharp and jagged black teeth opening as it reared back.

Nalaar froze.

I shoved him out of the way, jumping towards him just in time as the monster tore down, taking out a chunk of earth with a slam. It mashed its jaw, swallowing the last organ of Stone we were harvesting. Its tentacles writhed about, ends full of jagged points. Valar already shot forward, spear stabbing into one of the tentacles. The monster let out a too human scream, reeling back and facing toward Valar.

I reached for my sword. It had been on the ground — I was using it to cut apart the monster. Stupid of me.

“Nalaar — ” I said, hoping to ask for his spear, but he bleated, charging forward with [Scale the Mountain] and stabbing into the middle section of the monster.

It screamed again.

Valar jumped back, her spear still stuck in the monster as it slammed down toward her. Its tentacles whipped about, carving up the already devastated earth. I dodged out of the way as I ran for my sword, rolling to duck another, and finally picked the weapon back up.

A tentacle caught Nalar across the face. He bleated and staggered back, a line of blood erupting. The monster turned around like it caught the scent of blood, lurching down, but Nalaar was already stabbing forward.

He could be very brave when he had no other choice.

The spear stuck into the monster’s mouth, stabbing out the back of its head. It jerked like a fish caught on a hook.

I brought my spear down into its neck, hacking into it multiple times.

Nalaar bleated again, falling to his knees a second after the monster. He covered his left eye, tears falling from the other. Blood trailed down his face.

“Let me see.” I said, grabbing his shoulder and wrist.

Nalaar made a soft noise of pain but moved his hand away. I looked at it, sucking in a breath across my teeth.

It was going to leave a scar. And I doubted he was going to keep the eye, considering how damaged it was, unless they had magic or prosthetics to replace it.

“How is it?” He asked.

“Gone.” I replied.

Nalaar recoiled, stepping up.

“No.” He said.

“I’m sorry.” I replied, standing. “Do you have doctors back at the compound? Healers?”

“Yes.” Valar said, running up. “Let’s go, quick. Could heal him if we move fast enough.”

Valar grabbed Nalaar and started rushing him toward the city.

One of the other two guards who originally left the city with us had ran over, a little too late, and looked between me and Valar now.

“You go.” He said. “I’ll bring you your stone from this kill.”

I nodded at him and followed Valar.