Chapter 19 | Tide

Theo woke up to find Satou perched on the windowsill, looking out the window with an intense gaze. His pupils darted from place to place, his aura flaring every now and then. He could see his hands moving about under his cape, pulling out his daggers.

Turning on the floor, Theo saw Long Tian was still asleep. He pushed off the cape he had used as a blanket and straightened up. Satou gave him a short look before going back to whatever he was doing.

Theo rubbed his eyes and got up. He walked up to the window. His senses picked up the commotion. Footsteps, clink-clanks of swords, and most importantly…

Skittering?

“What’s going on?” Theo asked in a hushed voice. Satou hesitantly shook his head before answering.

“Nothing good, that’s for certain. Wake Long Tian up. We might need to leave early,” he said. He then mumbled something silently, possibly without the intention of letting him hear. “If we even can, that is.”

Theo frowned and nodded. Satou was a calm person. His being this wary meant nothing good. Theo stepped across the small room and kneeled before shaking Long Tian by the shoulder.

The cultivator rose from his sleep like he hadn’t slept at all, another one of those weird aspects of this cultivator Theo had observed so far.

Just as they were readying themselves, a warhorn resounded across the entire outpost, overwhelming Theo momentarily. Once the noise ended, Satou sighed and got off the windowsill. He threw Tanaka onto his shoulder.

“We came across a tide,” he said. Although Theo didn’t know what the word meant in this context, it didn’t sound quite pleasant. “A localized phenomenon, an abnormal increase in the number of monsters spat out by the tower. Hopefully, it’s the default entities and not some other mutant.”

“What are we doing? Can we escape?” Theo asked.

“No. We need to defend the outpost until the tide washes over. We wouldn’t be able to circumvent a tide. Anyone who thinks so hasn’t seen a tide before,” Satou muttered with a bitter frown. It seemed he was quite knowledgeable and emotionally loaded about the topic of tides.

“Fortunately, they dissolve on their own after a couple of hours. With a bit of luck on our side, it will be manageable,” he explained further before leading them outside the room. “Let’s head for the walls and see with our own eyes.”

The inn wasn’t calm either. The people around the place either knew what was going on or had someone with them to guide them through. They shuffled out of the building with quick and decisive steps.

On the streets, many people were heading for the closest palisade wall. The stall owners, the adventurers—most people in the tower were combatants. And even if they weren’t, they had useful skills that could help in the defense of a town.

After reaching the wall, the trio looked around. Groups had already formed, chattering among each other about the tide. And those skittering noises Theo had heard previously were becoming more and more apparent, etching a deep frown on his face.

Without further ado, they passed by some nervous soldiers and climbed onto the parapet. The forest surrounding the outpost seemed inert. No wind, no movement. But that calm contrasted the expressions of the soldiers. Theo noticed the Captain from before standing a couple of meters away. He nudged Satou with his elbow and nodded his head toward the man.

Satou followed his line of sight. He strode forward calmly and made his presence known with a slight cough. The Captain turned his head with a frown. But when he spotted Satou, the corners of his mouth slightly rose.

“Mr. Jake,” he said while holding out a hand. Theo had a hard time reconciling the foreign fake name and Satou. “It’s a blessing of The Emperor that you are still here.”

Satou inspected the hand The Captain had held out for a second and shook it.

“Mhm. What’s the situation?”

“I don’t want to doom-say, but our scouts’ reports are worrying,” the man said. “They say the sightings of the centipedes have increased threefold since yesterday. Typical before a tide.”

Satou’s hands twitched for a moment. It was a nervous reaction Theo hadn’t quite seen from him before, even in moments of peril like their recent encounter with that thing.

“Which unfortunately also means that the tide will be of those centipede mutants.” The Captain shook his head.

“You seem strangely relaxed for a man facing his death, Captain,” Satou said. “There’s no way a couple hundred adventurers with the highest being a blue-rank and a lieutenant can hold off a couple of those things, let alone a tide.”

“You are certainly correct, Sir Jake.” The Captain smiled wryly. “But The Emperor has blessed us with this.”

He walked toward the outer edge of the parapet. He patted the outer wall and pointed at the minuscule runes flowing on its surface.

“This palisade is coated on the outside with another layer of arcane wall. Each outpost of ours is equipped with one of these, and they are incredibly effective against the entities of the tower,” he explained. Theo could see a little bit of that naive pride the blabbermouth soldier had displayed before. It seemed that experience hadn’t jaded the man completely.

“How well will it hold?” Satou couldn’t help but ask. After all, as far as Theo understood, this thing was the only thing that stood between them and certain death.

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“The mage setting it up told us that it will hold against anything that the tower sends, as long as The Eternal Night herself doesn’t appear to dismantle it,” The Captain said with his hands behind him. “Still, we trust Sir Jake will help us out if some small problems come up.”

“Hmm…”

Even with all the reassuring words of The Captain, Satou couldn’t help but frown. Theo was the same. He wasn’t quite convinced. In fact, the more the man spoke, the more a bad premonition grabbed at his heart.

Nothing should go wrong, right?

“Captain! Look!” a nearby soldier shouted with a terrified expression. He was pointing up and forward, toward the ceiling of the dome. Theo could see some sort of black ball detaching itself from the wall. It was quite far away. For it to be so visible from that distance meant…

Theo strained his eyes. Although it was hard to distinguish, he could see that the ball wasn’t quite uniform. Its surface seemed to flow in some bizarre way. He could also spot little blobs popping out of its surface every now and then.

A short while later, the ball fully bubbled out of the wall and fell down, crashing somewhere a couple of kilometers away from where they were.

“See anything?” Satou asked Theo in a whisper. By now, he had figured out Theo had a bizarre level of perception. Even surpassing him by quite a margin.

“Mhm…” Theo nodded with a scowl on his face. “You know how centipedes sort of curl into a ball when together? I think it’s that. Albeit each centipede is as big as a truck.”