Chapter 179: Harbinger of the Confluence
The first thing to fly was the stone from the siege catapult.
Following in its wake, javelins and arrows blanketed the plain. Light erupted, and iron and boulders cleaved through the wind. The coalition infantry watched the spectacle overhead and advanced one step at a time.
But a moment later, everything fell silent.
Truly, silent.
There was no sound of arrowheads driving into flesh. No metallic screech of tearing skin, no thunderous crack of shattered stone. It was as though all sound had been extinguished before their eyes.
The soldiers drew sharp breaths in surprise, yet even their own breathing never reached their ears. They opened their mouths and worked their lips, but the vibrations only churned within their throats.
Sound had vanished.
Someone—no. Surely they all cried out as much. But they could only grasp the meaning from the shape of trembling lips.
The wind was blowing, yet the banners did not stir. Flames burned, yet no smell of burning came. The world had lost its senses.
Then it happened.
A soldier staggered mid-step as he moved in formation. Beneath his ankles, a mound of earth rippled like a wave. In an instant, his foot plunged in.
He fell to his knees, flailing to keep his balance, but before long he had sunk to his thighs.
"……!"
The soldier cried out, but no sound came. Two comrades rushed over and grabbed hold of him, yet they too were quickly pulled beneath the surface.
The formation collapsed in an instant.
The soldiers desperately reached toward one another. But in that moment, the earth swelled upward and something forced its way out from within.
Fingernails and fingers, and bone.
The soldier who had been caught finally lost his footing and toppled. By then, blood was welling from his ankles. A mass of flesh made of soil clutched his leg and chewed through it, ever so slowly. The man opened his mouth and screamed, but no one heard.
Above ground, fire erupted.
The catapults brought from Niboria rained burning oil jars into the heart of the enemy lines. Yet the flames could not spread wide. As though hurled onto the surface of a river, the earth absorbed the fire.
"The flames…… Won't spread."
The soldiers whispered through trembling lips.
Calix looked down upon the scene from the hilltop. Where the fire had died, the surface of the earth rippled softly. Rising and falling slowly, as though breathing.
He understood once more.
This battlefield—no.
Verhas's domain was alive.
***
The distance between the two forces had narrowed to a hundred paces before anyone realized. Close enough to make out the enemy's features clearly. The wicked creatures bore no weapons.
Instead, their arms and shoulders and chests were hopelessly interlocked. Less like a prepared army and more like a single mass of flesh.
Even that form swiftly warped. As though a transparent membrane were faintly visible, the shapes of the Corrupted beyond it blurred and smeared.
"The sight—it's twisted!"
Hadiya screamed, but her voice too went unheard.
The veterans of the Silver Shield Legion maintained their formation as they moved forward. Yet every few steps their ankles were seized. The ground surged, and the spots they trod upon sank with a hollow crunch. From within, something resembling the hand of a child thrust out.
The fingers ranged from three to seven or eight—each one different. No blood clung to them, for they were made of mud. Yet that mud was as hot as blood, and breathed with the vivid scent of life. They gripped the soldiers' ankles and dragged them downward.
In that moment, the earth that had been joined split apart and divided into separate strata.
Three or four soldiers who had fallen into holes vanished without leaving a trace. Literally, they melted alive. The solid plain had now split into different layers, warped and twisted.
One side heaved upward to cast dark shadows, while the other sank deep to become pits that cradled sunlight.
Through it all, the coalition soldiers pressed doggedly forward.
Calix spurred the stirrups of his saddle and called out. The metallic resonance of the masterwork sword Srna carried on the currents of chaos energy and spread outward. His voice alone pierced through the gap in the senses and reached in all directions.
"Hold formation! Do not look down!"
There was no stopping here. He knew it, the Antelopes knew it, and the coalition soldiers knew it. Some were swallowed by darkness, some were devoured in the light, yet no one stopped.
Thoom—
Then the earth let out a groan. The reverberation traveled from the soles of their feet upward to their abdomens, their lungs, and their heads. The human ranks trembled as one.
Once more— Thoom—
Now the ground had gone beyond splitting; it began to swell upward. As though unable to bear the pressure it was receiving from within, it expanded rapidly and vented steam. Even the vapor was a dark red.
"Aagh!"
Then the ground beneath them exploded, and dozens of soldiers were hurled into the air. Shadow-tentacles reaching from within coiled around the victims' bodies. And then dragged them straight down into the earth.
Calix ground his teeth and looked to the far end of the battlefield.
The wall that had risen in the middle of the battlefield vibrated faintly. Its surface slowly cracked apart, and a red light bled from within. Then, with a sound like skin being torn, thousands of small eyes opened all at once.
They were neither walls nor stone. They were a colony—congealed from flesh and mud, bone and memory.
Upon the battlefield stripped of sound, Calix's lips moved with perfect clarity. He surveyed the darkness encircling the battlefield, then turned to the Antelopes and spoke.
"This isn't the earth weeping."
His words arrived sharp and clear.
"It's Verhas's heartbeat. And if it's alive, it can be stopped."
Hadiya turned to the riders and swept her hand downward. Unable to send a horn signal, she substituted with lip-reading and flags.
'Dive in at an angle like a falcon and cut them apart.'
Royce had already pressed to the front and was engaging the enemy. His blade cut down the grasping hands that clawed up from beneath the earth. He pulled up those who had fallen, reset their footing, and advanced one step forward.
Vice-captain Marik led the coalition infantry from the opposite flank. His lips moved quietly.
"If the gods are silent, then we shall be their voice."
Those soft words, remarkably, reached the ears of the soldiers. In that moment, divine power erupted from the rear like a storm. As Ella and the clerics poured out their prayers, the battlefield, ever so faintly—yet certainly—began to reclaim its sound.
"Charge, forward—!!"
Basim put the final punctuation on it.
Dwarf warriors wielding axes and hammers hurled themselves into a reckless charge. At that ferocious momentum, the light returned to the soldiers' eyes.
And in the place where sound had come back—
Sensation arrived.
Squuelch.
At the moment of first contact, cold and burning mud lunged for the humans' legs. Living hands thrust up from the ground. In place of fingernails, they stabbed with the jagged terminal joints of bone.
Human spears and wicked clutching hands crossed in an instant.
When speartips drove in, earth sprayed like blood. There was no iron-sharp smell. Only the sensation of a waterlogged grave came to mind.
One after another, bone and scraps of flesh surged up from the earth. They were all the more grotesque for being incomplete. Rows of eyeless holes gaped in their faces, and forms with nothing but yawning mouths came charging with what seemed like smiles.
Dozens, perhaps hundreds at a time. They shattered before they could take proper shape, then burst forth again, and again the next one followed.
"For something like a famished spring…… you're awfully scrawny!"
Volga snarled the words and brought his iron club crashing down on an enemy's skull. Pfffss— the earth split apart, and from the gap, new flesh came crawling out.
"Keep pushing! Don't stop!"
Zahira swung her twin blades and covered his back. The clash of bone-blades and iron weapons rang out. Flesh was cut by earth, and earth was cut by blades.
At some point, the boundary between what was cutting what began to blur.
"Hold the line!"
"Wounded to the rear!"
"Lower the speartips! Don't push right now—hold!!"
Instead, the orders issued across the frontline became a rhythm.
The divine power could not be sustained long, but it had at least shown them a direction to face. Ella traced a brief sign of the cross.
A small realization settled into her heart.
"What points the way is light, and what sees and moves forward is…… Humanity."
True to her words, this war was the coalition soldiers' to bear. The clash of two enormous forces large enough to fill the entire plain. Amid it all, human shields locked together. Spears and blades formed a single line, and footsteps fell at the same interval.
Order had returned. Faint, but unmistakable.
Calix gripped his scabbard and peered into the enemy lines. He wanted nothing more than to throw himself into the fray at once, but he had to see wider and further.
Red light pulsed in the gaps of the great wall's surface, then died. Like a heartbeat, like breathing—it was alive. His eyes tracked its movements with careful attention.
Dark energy flowed outward from the wall. Verhas's power, which had seeped down into the ground, blended with flesh and earth and shattered fragments of stone to form bodies. And within them, something distinctly other was clearly writhing alongside.
"If all they were doing was raising the dead……"
Calix's murmur was a question directed at himself.
"That's something other Legion Commanders have done before."
But Verhas's power was different somehow. They were not simply reanimated corpses. They had not lost their reason or become corrupted.
When one arm swung, another took over; when pressed hard, they retreated one or two steps. Their responses varied individually. A single collective—interwoven with the techniques and postures of warriors.
"……It's duplicating abilities, stamping them out like copies."
Calix's brow furrowed faintly.
In his mind, the Legion Commanders he had faced before flashed past. The subordinates of Midra and Kohtan had only mimicked the outward form. But these were different. They were sharing one another's memories and experience as they confronted the coalition forces.
"What's visible on the surface isn't everything."
Calix's eyes narrowed. The number of enemies filling the plain was staggering enough, but there was no telling how many might still be bound within the wall.
The wall he was looking at was now a vast body. A monster stretching out countless arms, thinking with countless heads. A kind of…… accumulated life.
Just then, his eyes met those of Mage Yelayen. He caught the look in Calix's gaze and murmured quietly.
"……Have you seen the essence of Verhas?"
Calix gave a single nod and turned his head. Royce and Marik's infantry held the center firm, and the cavalry was charging along the flanks to keep the battlefield in balance.
The battlefield was in chaos, but it was holding still.
He turned his gaze back toward the wall.
In that instant, a tremendous wave surged from the wall's center. Red light spread across the plain. Wherever that light touched, clouds of dust boiled upward and new forms blossomed into being.
These were not in the shape of humans. Great wings, horns, the fangs of beasts, and what appeared to be the forearms of other races were all tangled together.
"……This is neither duplication nor illusion."
Calix's eyes settled cold and still.
"It is a confluence."
Without warning, the earth pulsed as one. Soldiers staggered under a pain as though something were piercing their ears. Blood, earth, and the memories of the dead beat together.
Someone's scream rode the wind and spread outward.
"Brawk!"
"The Forgotten King, Bandipa!!"
Calix drew a short, steadying breath. He had only just found a clue, and the battlefield had begun to move in earnest.
His sword trembled faintly.
What needed to be done was clear.
It was time for him to move as well.