Devourer

Chapter 87: Beginning of the End

Amfrie stumbled towards the gate, her white robes stained brown with mud and blood. She still remembers, she can still see that scene playing in her mind again and again. The sight of her friends and companions being slaughtered by that Great Beast. It was so easy for it to kill them, the Beast killed her friends like a human would swat a fly.

The spells bouncing off its hide, the arrows doing nothing. The sheer power of its attacks overwhelmed their defences in an instant. Amfrie remembers the mother speaking to her but she can barely remember what she said. All she could think of was how her friend Adan got popped like an overripe fruit in the hands of that monster.

“HALT!” Amfrie heard someone shout from atop the wall. 

Amfrie tried to stop but she stumbled and she felt her body lurch forward. Her eyes opened wide for a moment as she saw the earth approaching. Then she felt the pain as she landed hard in the dirt. She hadn’t eaten or drank anything in two days and she was exhausted. She could hear some barely discernible shouting but her head was swimming and her ears were ringing. She felt her head pound with a dull throbbing as her consciousness faded. The last thing she heard before it all went dark was the sound of the gate raising.

In an instant Amfrie was back with her friends. She was sitting around a fire as the group celebrated their latest victory against a small Wyvern that had strayed too far from the mountains. It was a tough battle but they won and now they could return victorious to claim their reward. She remembers their laughter, her friend Gaston who dug eagerly into a skewer made of Wyvern flesh. Victory sure tasted sweet, or was that the seasoning? She could hear them speaking in muffled tones, for some reason her hearing wasn’t that good.

“She’s probably from Valer, the Elysians sent survivors to the capital with every attack. I’m guessing she’s the one that's supposed to come from Valer.” her friend Marin the mage said, her voice sounded different somehow…

What were they saying? Valer? Elysians?

“Poor thing I think she hasn’t eaten or drank anything in days.” her friend Gaston the warrior replied, again the voice was odd. It sounded older than she remembered.

“At least we know what happened to the missing gold rank team. They must have snuck out past the lockdown. The records said many of them were born in Valer.” her friend Marin said calmly.

“Fools… what were they expecting to do with just one team...” Gaston said in a pained voice.

“Hush, we should not speak ill of the dead. We don’t even know if the entire adventurer guild would even make a difference. The ancients defy all rules and we have no idea how old the Great Beast of the Elysian Woods is. Her companions are already dead, let them rest, they can suffer no more.” Marin said, her voice cracking from sorrow.

Dead? Her friends were dead… they were dead… 

Amfrie’s eyes widened as she saw her friend Adan pop like an over ripe fruit. Her vision went red as his blood and flesh splattered across her face. Amfrie froze in shock, she reached up to wipe her face to her horror she saw her friends all dead on the floor, impaled by spines made of bone. She looked around and saw the destroyed ruin of Valer and it all came flooding back…

Guild Master Gavril spun around as she heard the poor girl scream. Gavril saw her clutching her head as she screamed, her voice hoarse and cracked, cries of anguish pouring from lips cracked by days of dehydration. Instantly Gavril sprang into action as she grabbed the waterskin she had placed next to her bed. She stuffed the mouth of the waterskin into the poor girl’s mouth and on instinct she began greedily gulping the water down.

Gavril knew no matter how distressed the mind was, when dehydrated or starving, the mere contact with food and water often causes the person to instantly attempt to drink and eat. It’s not always the case but it happens often enough for Gavril to attempt it.

Gavril let her take a few gulps before ripping it from her mouth. She has potentially been dehydrated for days, it’s not a good idea for her to drink too much water at once.

The poor girl shifted her hollow gaze to Gavril in confusion and Gavril sat down next to her on the bed. Another perk of this waterskin trick was that it also helped calm them down somewhat from the initial hysteria. Adventurers that return from decimated teams are often in this state. These poor souls were often injured with festering wounds, dehydrated, starving and most of all traumatised. 

The human body is a tenacious thing, it would often keep the person going until they arrive at relative safety before collapsing. The will to survive is powerful, Gavril knew this all too well having been a mithril rank adventurer herself in her youth.

“It’s ok… you're safe now.” Gavril said soothingly as she rubbed her back. But the moment she said that the poor girl flinched.

“Amfrie right? You’re a priest registered with the guild.” Gavril said, trying to divert her attention. Most parties only had one priest and the missing team also only had one priest called Amfrie. This girl was also dressed like one, so logical deduction dictated this was her.

“Yes… I’m Amfrie…” the girl said, eyes hollow and voice soft. 

“You’re safe now, you’re in the capital.” Gavril said soothingly.

Gavril watched as Amfrie’s gaze flickered for a moment before welling up in tears. She shook her head as tears rolled down her cheeks. 

“We aren’t safe… the monsters are here…” Amfrie replied numbly as she looked up at Gavril.

“This place is a death trap if you decide to fight. You need to surrender…” Amfrie said her eyes wide in terror.

“Are you the only survivor from Valer?” Gavril asked as she gazed at Amfrie’s cracked gaze.

“No… the beast spared the civilians but all the combatants are dead… it said… it said… it was going to use the dead bodies to make more of those monsters…” Amfire choked out before gagging and vomiting out the watery contents of her empty stomach right onto her lap.

“Hang on, you said the monsters are here?” Gavril said.

“The beast told me to go to Tralis or I would suffer the same fate as my…” Amfrie began but she ended up gagging again and a thin stream of bile and saliva dribbled from her lips.

“As your friends… the reports said the beast has a burrowing hive…” Gavril said as she turned to look behind her and looked at her long time friend and mentor Gareth. He was an ageing man, with a white beard and white hair. He used to be the guildmaster of the Tralis adventurer guild and he had remained as an advisor to Gavril.

Gareth sent some letters to his contacts in the Varakrima adventurer guild. Their assessment is bleak, the best advice they could give was to surrender and pray that the beasts do not slaughter everyone. The Varakrima adventurer guild have been kind enough to send some estimates on the Hive’s size based on combat capability. From what Gareth and Gavril had determined they were facing nothing less than a Hive that was the size of every Armazaftund Hive in Zarima. Hives became more powerful the more numerous their ranks, their power growth is exponential. They are a gestalt intelligence which is essentially a mind made of many smaller minds. The more creatures in a Hive the smarter it gets.

This is concerning on many levels, as far as they could determine the Great Beast of the Elysian Woods was an ancient creature. The ancients were both extremely powerful and intelligent. Combine that with the intelligence boost from a Hive mind that large and you end up with an opponent that can most definitely outwit any human alive with trivial ease.

“What do you think Gareth?” Gavril asked.

“This sounds like the final nail in the coffin…” Gareth muttered.

“All right we’ll go with the plan then.” Gavril replied.

“Yes, some of the adventurer’s may disagree but if they refuse our terms they will be evicted from the guild. I will not have the promising youth of this guild be squandered for that Prince’s suicide pact.” Gareth growled.

“Indeed just because he is a dead man, it doesn’t mean the rest of us have to follow him into hell…” Gavril muttered in response.

◦◦,`°.✽✦✽.♚.✽✦✽.°`,◦◦

I observed the city from the comfort of my trusty cushion and yes I did drag it all the way here. If the officers and Cecilia get fancy beds and food I want my cushion. The intelligence was right, I could see teenagers drilling with wooden spears and pitchforks in the street. Women were making what looks to be alchemical substances in pots in the city square. 

I sent about a hundred Adjutant spies into the city. Mahaila’s estimation was right, no one in the city could detect them. I even had one dance in front of scryer mage for fun and still nothing. No one knew there were a hundred very dangerous monsters just walking around their city like it was an average tuesday. 

All of Sarana's spies have been told to gather at a certain discrete location by dawn tomorrow so that they aren’t caught in the fighting. Some of them were men, so they were pretending to prepare for the attack tomorrow but at dawn their commanders would find them absent. The intelligence was so complete I knew everything about that city. 

Mahaila has been snooping about their planning archives and told me their plan. It was frankly a plan born of lunacy but I guess this is an interesting case study. Don’t play the fear game too much with humans or they go a little bat shit crazy. What’s on the list now? Putting wooden spears and pitchforks in the hands of untrained men and teenagers. Suicide bombers that were supposed to be deliver large amounts of explosive alchemical materials into the swarm. 

On the note of suicide bombers, that’s a really bad plan. Do they think I’m going to swarm along the streets in a neat tide? No the hive is not going to do that, it’s going to be everywhere all at once. So if you blow yourself up you will most definitely take out some of your own people along the way. I’m doing this to minimise the effect of area of effect attacks because well… It's common sense. You don’t shoot a bomb into a place with friendly targets especially when you need every man you can get. Humans aren’t like my hive, they can’t just die and be reassimilated and replaced. It takes like what? 18 years to raise a human? At least two years to train a semi competent soldier. You know what it takes to make the basic run off the mill Hive infantry soldier? The same kind of soldier that can take on your average human on equal terms?

Four hours.

That’s all…

As long as I recover flesh and ether I can make a basic soldier in four hours. Technically not even flesh actually. I found a way to supplement the creation of more members of the Hive with wheat and other vegetation. It was significantly less efficient but it was a good way to use excess food that was going to just rot away anyway.

So…

Wait a minute…

Oh now this is interesting…

I zoomed in on a scene of a soldier kicking a teenage boy into the dirt. The teenager was in tears and blubbering like a child. 

Hmm…

There’s an adjutant nearby so let’s have a look. The attack is scheduled for tomorrow. The plan was simple. My hive breaks in and causes chaos, the phoenixes and I sweep the walls. Then the humans rush in and secure the city. After the terror of my Hive swarming them from below chances are the defenders will throw themselves at Elysian army’s feet for protection. Naturally the Elysian army will be ordered not to kill any humans that have surrendered and to avoid killing them. The lack of fighting from the humans thus far also means the Elysian’s aren’t out for blood, so revenge killings are unlikely considering there is nothing to avenge. This part is also part of the plan from the start. Well that and the fact that Cecilia felt letting the human soldiers see my Hive dragging mutilated corpses underground would be traumatising if it happens too often. So yeah we have been keeping it to a minimum.

Anyway let’s see what these two are shouting about…

Now let’s see… a little closer…

The soldier just kicked the boy hard in the back as he tried to stand back up. He toppled forward onto the dirt of the training yard, landing face first in a muddy puddle. The boy’s dinky wooden spear lay in the dirt next to him, the spear looked to be just a broom handle that had a sharpened point. Are they seriously going to try to kill my soldiers with that? The things humans do when pushed to the brink… But this is exactly where I want them to be. On the brink and desperate. I want them to throw anything and everything at me and then I will swat them like a fly. This will break most of the resistance of the occupation. Accept the human occupiers or face the monsters, a simple enough proposition.

This scene was exactly what I wanted to see…

The boy was sobbing as he raised his head out of the mud. The soldier responded by stomping on his back and the boy’s face ended back into the puddle. The filthy water bubbled as his limbs failed. After a few seconds the soldier released him and the boy raised himself up gasping for air just for him to receive a kick in the ribs by the soldier.

I could sense it in everyone around this little scene. Their stress levels were through the roof, I’m honestly amazed some of them haven’t passed out. In a sense all this stupid preparation was a good move in the short term. It kind of counts as a distraction, it lets the people pretend that they are doing something to prevent the fall. Kind of like stacking sandbags to stop a tsunami, if you pretended that actually works…

The soldier was now screaming at the sobbing teenager as he curled himself into a ball on the ground. 

“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING HERE?” the soldier screamed, his voice so loud it cracked.

“I don’t know…” the teenager sobbed out.

“WE ARE TRAPPED HERE! WE HAVE NOWHERE TO GO!” the soldier screamed, the veins in his neck popping and his face beet red.

“SAY IT!” the soldier screamed as he reached down and grabbed the boy dripping wet hair, yanking him screaming up until he was on his knees.

“SAY IT! YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO GO!” the soldier screamed.

“YOU HAVE NOWHERE TO GO!” the teenager screamed in response in blind hysteria.

I let out a small chuckle at that display. Ahhh… hysteria at its finest…

Elysian soldiers will seem like divine saviours by the time I’m done. As long as they mostly leave the Tralis capital alone after the war they should come to their senses. So this will settle the common folk at least, as for the nobility well I’ll just let Cecilia handle that part. She’s good at dancing cognitive circles around the aristocracy. Division of labour and all that.

Oh is that rogue finally moving out? Well the sun is setting soon. So I guess if she leaves the adventurer guild now she should reach here around the time it gets dark. If I’m honest, I do respect a leader like this Gavril woman who takes it upon herself to walk into the dragon’s maw to negotiate. I knew her plan of course, I call the plan pragmatism but most of the nobles that will soon lose their heads are going to call it treason. Well history is written by the victor so after this she’ll probably be remembered as this brave hero who tried to save the good people of the capital, or something along those lines.

Well nothing to do but wait I guess…

The Guildmaster eventually made herself over to where me and Cecilia were. I looked over to Cecilia who was relaxing lazily on this velvet couch that was hauled all the way from Averlon. She had a book in her lap as she swirled a glass of wine in one hand. Her red hair cascading over her shoulders and her demeanour betraying that fact that she was completely and utterly relaxed. It was the demeanour one would usually adopt in the comfort of their own home, not one you would adopt on the eve of the deciding battle of the war.

“What is it, friend?” Cecilia asked as she looked up from her book to give me her undivided attention, in contrast to how she often gives sidelong glances to other’s she does not hold in high esteem. Human body language is a funny thing, to a skilled observer the body is a window into the mind. 

“The guildmaster is here, or soon to be here anyway.” I replied nonchalantly as I sent a mental command for the two adjutants that were following the guildmaster. 

“Then I should probably sit up.” Cecilia said as she handed the book and wine to a nearby servant. In my mind I saw the guildmaster shout in alarm as the hands of adjutants closed around her.

Cecilia sat up and smoothed out the wrinkles in her dress and the adjutants brought the struggling guildmaster over. Soon she was dumped in front of us and pinned down to her knees. I could see the stress from her vitals, any sensible person would be stressed out of their minds. Or perhaps not sensible…  a person with no delusions would be more accurate…

Someone with no delusions would know that this journey out to where Cecilia and I were could very well be a one way trip. She could be torn to pieces, killed by humans, or end up as a meal for me. All of them are very real possibilities, yet she came anyway. 

“Guildmaster Gavril…” Cecilia said and Gavril looked up in surprise.

“The spider has a wide web, you have been ensnared for some time…” Cecilia said, flashing Gavril a crooked smile.

“I’m here to talk… to negotiate…” Gavril said, though I could tell she was terrified, her gaze was hard and determined.

“We gathered as much, so what variety of humanoid treason are you going to sell to us this evening?” I asked and I saw Gavril snap her gaze to me in surprise.

“More eloquent than you expected?” I asked with a fanged grin of my own.

“You have beaten us.” Gavril admitted with a nod.

“We know, that’s why you are still alive. When the sun rises on the morrow, Tralis’s fall will begin.” Cecilia replied.

“But does it have to end in slaughter?” Gavril challenged.

“That depends on you humans.” I replied as I shifted my body and darted over to Gavril. I saw her flinch but she held her ground. Her eyes betrayed her shock at how quickly I can move despite my size. I made sure Cecilia still had a clear view of her, but I also made sure Gavril was bathed in my shadow.

“You got my message, surrender and no one will be harmed. Resist and all who raise a blade will die. Rather clear and straightforward wouldn’t you agree?” I asked as I tilted my head in a similar way that an animal would. An intentional gesture to create unease within her, to see a creature that speaks like a human yet behaves like a beast. Doubly so for someone as knowledgeable on beasts as the guildmaster of an adventurer guild.

“Many do not believe your promise of mercy.” Gavril replied.

At those words I leaned backwards for a moment and flashed a fanged smile. I saw the stress in her body decrease but only slightly. I had backed off and reduced the threat but she mistrusted this state of affairs… for good reason…

I lunged forward, maw open and I saw her eyes widen in shock. She instinctively tried to turn but was still held down by the adjutants. I snapped my jaws shut an inch from her nose and I could see her heart hammering in her chest. I let out a low bestial laugh as I breathed all over her, which isn’t going to be pleasant for her nose. I haven’t brushed my teeth since the moment I was born and I ate raw meat…

“Your belief is not my concern…” I said, this was a lie of course. I didn’t want them to go bat shit crazy and get themselves all killed, that was the whole reason I wanted the humans to come in after the hive to secure the city.

“Only your actions are my concern. So what do you want to speak about?” I asked and I saw Gavril gulp as she began what was likely her great gambit.

“Actions… treasonous actions…” Gavril said softly.

At those words I smiled as I laughed and responded.

Now we’re talking…