Devourer

Chapter 90: The Fall Part 2

Minuvae drew her bow as she fired a [Piercing Arrow] at one of the beasts swarming below. The glowing blue arrow pierced the beast from behind and it collapsed onto the ground. It roared as it tried to rise but Minuvae must have hit its spine. She had no idea on what its anatomy was but trying to learn the anatomy of a hive beast is an exercise in futility. They change so often that by the time you figure it out chances are it has changed somewhat.

So the idea is simple… hit the centre of mass…

Minuvae couldn’t believe what she was doing. She left the Wood of the Ancients, the home of elves to see the world. She ended up settling in Elysia because she liked their artistry. She loved that nation like a second home especially considering she spent seventy years there. In her five hundred years of life she had never been more disappointed than when that princess sided with a monster.

Monsters hunt humanoids like food, it was no different anywhere in the world. She would never have come to Voleria if that princess and the great beast had not appeared. She honestly hated this nation, over here she was just an exotic piece of meat to be ravished. When she first arrived from Elysia, some lecherous warrior in the local adventurer guild tried to touch her long pointed ears, she ended up breaking his jaw in response.

Minuvae was a mithril ranked adventurer or at least she used to be. Her team stayed behind in Elysia and decided to accept the new status quo. So she left and came here to Voleria. She ended up joining a gold rank team, so she was effectively demoted. Yes the Volerians were bad but monsters were far worse. Humans don’t know what the world used to be like. Their lives are fleeting, their history too short. They don’t know that the very concept of war began as a sport, her people once died and bled for the entertainment of the old gods.

So to Minuvae she would rather die than bend to some beast…

Minuvae drew her bow and fired another shot at another particularly large beast. The arrow penetrated but this one just kept tearing into the poor souls below. The thing that concerned her about the current situation was that there were far too few monsters. Where the hell was the rest?

Then she felt this great tremor as the entire city shook for a moment. Minuvae looked at the wall and she felt her blood turn to ice as she saw the ancient barrier on the wall fade away. She looked around the city and saw the barrier on the entire wall collapse. 

What did that monster do? She didn’t sense any powerful spell being fired. She didn’t hear it either… Was it from somewhere else? A saboteur perhaps?

Then she saw the answer. The Great Beast rose up past the walls, its body glowing blue and crackling with ether. The Great Beast had drained the wall…

“Too easy… you know the ancients had counter measures to stop what I just did. I can see the runes on your wall but they are dull. My best guess is you let it fade away without even knowing what they were for…” the Great Beast said with a laugh as it looked down at the petrified soldiers on the wall.

“Now then what to do with all this power…” the Great Beast said before it opened its maw and a blue glow appeared within its mouth.

Then a wave of searing heat. The Great Beast fired out a wave of white fire that crackled with ether, the super charged fire causing lightning to spark and lance, striking random houses and soldiers. Those caught in the flame were reduced to ash and those struck by the lightning shared the same fate. The houses caught fire and the site of impact ended up melting the stone walls. The main wall on the other hand was now topped with molten magma as the fire melted the stone into lava.

Minuvae spotted an adventurer rogue in the air above the wall; he must have teleported directly upwards to dodge the fire. At first she thought he had gotten away, then she saw a spine the size of a greatsword hit him in the back. The force ended up carrying his body up into the air as his impaled form flew over Minuvae’s head and landed somewhere deeper in the city.

Then she saw the great beast dip below the edge of the wall. There was no movement for a moment then she saw a pair of white three taloned hands punch through the gap between the large mithril reinforced gate. The hands grasped the sides of the gate and Minuvae heard this horrible groaning as the Great Beast began to pry the gate apart. The mithril bent and buckled, the reinforced mithril bars on the back of the gate snapped and the wood splintered. Then just when she thought the gate was going to give way completely the hands disappeared back past the mangled the hole. 

Then silence, but the next she saw was the massive gate being blown off its hinges. The two sides of the gate went flying into the city and slamming into nearby houses. Minuvae shielded her face as she saw splinters and debris fly in all directions. Instinctively she leapt backwards to avoid the worst of it.

When Minuvae looked back at the Great Beast she saw it standing past the destroyed gate just looking up at the inner cities wall.

“Not enough for you?” the Great Beast said in what must have been a mutter to it, but to Minuvae the voice was booming.

“Fine…” the Great Beast said as it looked at the mass of screaming and struggling soldiers in front of the gate.

Minuvae then heard a rumbling and she looked down at the streets below. She saw this massive hole appear and then swarms of the beasts started emerging. Minuvae immediately drew her bow and readied her spell.

[Roar of the Wind] Minuvae intoned as she released her enchanted arrow. The arrow now green shot right into the hole. The arrow exploded and fired wind blades in all directions, slicing up the nearby beasts. Then she saw one of those larger beasts emerge, it locked its gaze on Minuvae then it roared and the crystals on its back began to pulse with an eerie purple glow.

Minuvae instantly saw the beasts beginning running towards the house that Minuvae was standing on. So it wants to neutralise her, it made sense if they allowed her to bombard that choke point they would take unnecessary losses.

[Blessing of the Wind] [Fortune’s Favor] [Eagle Eye] Minuvae intoned as she felt her buffs increase her physical abilities. She needed to serve as a distraction and try to suppress that hole as much as she could. As for why the beasts haven’t made more holes she has no idea, but she suspected it had something to do with what the Great Beast said earlier. They say the ancients have minds like a maze, they are far smarter than any living humanoid.

But regardless Minuvae has no intention of giving up. She has been an adventurer for three hundred years. She has lost so many friends to the monsters, elves like her are called mercenary adventurers because she needs to switch teams often. Most adventurer’s only work for fifteen years max and she has worked for three centuries. Team swaps are a necessity, she was a highly skilled and valuable member of the adventurer guild. Which was also why she was so incensed when both the Averlon and Tralis adventurer guilds agreed to side with a monster. 

They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks and bulls are stubborn. Well Minuvae was older than any dog and hundred times more stubborn than any bull.

Minuvae nocked an arrow ready to fight, then she felt a chill go up her spine. She instinctively leapt away, just in time to see a greatsword sized bone spine embed itself into the patch of roof she was just standing on.

Minuvae looked up and saw the Great Beast smiling at her.

“Not bad. Run along little elf, before I grace you with my attention again.” the Great Beast said with a laugh.

Minuvae didn’t need to be told twice if the Great Beast had its attention on her, she needed to get away. She doesn’t have the durability to survive its attacks. She isn’t naive enough to buy into that death before defeat crap. She knows she will be more useful with the rest of her new team at the strongpoint. 

“Hey elf we need to go!” Minuvae heard suddenly as she turned to see a male rogue and a female archer land next to her on the roof. They were a pair of silver ranks that she saw previously when she was reading the brief for this ranging mission given to rogues and archers.

“Right” Minuvae said as she turned to run.

The three of them began jumping from rooftop to rooftop. Then Minuvae spotted the north gate in the distance blow open and this massive armoured beast appeared through the gate. Minuvae could hear the screams of terror even from here. Minuvae was in a slightly elevated area so she paused to have a look at what was happening in the distance.

She saw the large armoured beast charge and it charged to a chorus of screams before slamming right into the nearby house. She saw the house collapse in a cloud of dust and Minuvae felt a knot in her stomach as she thought of the people inside. Then she saw the beast visibly recoil as if struck. She watched as the beast shook its massive armoured head before lowering it almost in apology.

“What is it doing?” the rogue asked.

“It looks like it’s apologising for something…” the archer muttered.

“The hive mind… it must have been reprimanded.” Minuvae replied. To a normal observer they might think what the three of them were doing was exceedingly stupid. They looked like they were dumbly looking at a scene in the middle of a warzone. But in truth this was exactly what they were supposed to do, that was why the other two didn’t protest when Minuvae stopped.

Adventurer’s beat monsters through information and they knew next to nothing about this Hive or the Great Beast. This was a good chance to glean some information on them and right now something clicked in Minuvae’s head.

“They don’t want to damage the city too much…” Minuvae said as she raised her head and looked around at the phoenixes circling. They were only diving to launch precise strikes. They could easily torch the city and burn it to the ground but yet the city was largely unharmed. Most of their attacks were in the area near the wall. Notably those areas were a slight distance from the houses.

“They need to run this place after all of this… I thought the Great Beast was lying. I thought it was a ruse to make us infight…” Minuvae muttered. 

“Well the infighting certainly succeeded. About 80% of the adventurers have decided to stand down and guard the safety zones.” the rogue replied.

“With one stroke, the Great Beast removed most of the anti monster combatants. It seemed like a ruse in every respect. Divide and conquer, a strategy as old as war itself.” Minuvae said as she gazed at the carnage around her. Then finally she looked at the inner city where most of the army was. 

She noticed that the area was dead silent, there were no signs of battle. This means that the Hive isn’t attacking the inner city… why? Was it because they wanted to secure the outer city first? Razing a city with a force like this is easy, but securing it was something else entirely.

Then Minuvae heard the loud roar of soldiers at the gate where she was just defending. She looked over and saw some kind of commotion. 

[Farsight Vision] Minuvae intoned as she gazed at the gate. Her vision zoomed in and she saw Elysian soldiers clashing with the remaining defenders. Then she noticed the beasts were gone… There was just this pathetic little skeleton crew of defenders holding a weak spear wall against the Elysians. She could see blood trails around the area, with them leading into these holes in the ground. The bodies of the dead were nowhere to be seen. Just when she saw it, Minuvae saw the holes close as they were filled in from below.

Minuvae shifted her gaze back to the defenders and she saw them throw down their weapons as they raised their hands in surrender. The Elysians moved forward to detain them as prisoners as others moved to search the surrounding houses. 

Then it clicked…

The monsters softened up the defenders then the humans came in with an offer to surrender. Most will take it in the outer city considering they were mostly militia forces. Most of the remaining professional soldiers were mostly in the inner city. But that begs the question why was the Hive so conservative with their attacks. They could do this much more quickly with a more aggressive attack. This was so tame…

Then Minuvae saw some Elysian mages teleport onto the nearby roofs and they all faced the high walls on the inner city in the distance. 

“What the hell are those mages doing…” the rogue asked, his eyes glowing too. [Farsight Vision] was an extremely common spell that almost every adventurer knew. It was an essential spell for stalking their prey.

“Over there the wall!” the archer shouted and Minuvae shifted her vision to the inner wall. She saw large magic incantations being casted on the wall. 

They were going to shell the outer city with magic…

She shifted her gaze back to the Elysian mages on the roof and saw the mages had already prepared barriers in anticipation. It was an odd sight to see Elysians protecting Volerian houses. Yes the spells were targeting them but the crown's willingness to fire war spells in the middle of their capital was very concerning. Needless to say they weren’t informed about this, if Minuvae knew she might have decided to flee Voleria instead of staying and fighting. A ruler who would bring arcane fire upon his own capital has no right to sit on a throne.

“What are they doing?” the archer muttered in horror as the trio watched the ritual level spells charge up.

Even with the barriers the destructive force will shatter every window in the vicinity and some of the damage will be deflected onto nearby houses. Also the spells could also simply miss…

“They’ve gone mad…” the rogue said.

Minuvae then spotted the glowing Great Beast fly up and face the wall. Then it spoke, it voice loud and booming, the sound so loud it rattled her bones and she could hear shouts and screams of terror from the house below her.

IF YOU FIRE THAT YOU ARE NOT GOING TO LIKE WHAT I’M GOING TO DO NEXT!

In response the spells fired not at the Elysians but at the Great Beast instead. That was utter lunacy, if it dodged out of the way the ritual level cursed fire balls would land in the middle of the city. The Beast’s hands glowed as it summoned a large barrier. The spells smashed right into the barrier, not even leaving a crack.

Then it spoke again, this time it had a dangerous edge in its voice that sent a chill up Minuvae’s spine. It was the kind of voice a wolf would say to a sheep that it had pinned to the ground.

Fine…

On your head then…

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