38: Enemy of my enemy

General Tygien expected some form of resistance, but nothing like this.

The capital warned him that there was a powerful spiritual monster that had made the city of Runehold its nest, but he was not prepared for the sudden attack. It was intentional and well planned.

With his commanders and officers already screaming commands to extinguish the fires, adding his own voice to the mix would only worsen the confusion.

Instead, he went around putting down the strange earthen creatures. The little ones were too small for him to easily put down, but he did catch several under his steel boot and crushed several with a gauntleted hand. His real target was the larger of the spiders; they were much more powerful, and would pick apart many men if left alone.

This could have been relegated to his own elite squad, but he would be faster.

While he was missing a few parts of his armor as he was in the long process of removing full plate armor, the general wasn’t too concerned. While these were certainly dangers for many, they were just pests to a [Battlemaster General] like himself.

Approaching the first of the giant earth spiders, Tygien threw himself at the creature before it could kill more soldiers. Landing on its wide torso, his heavy body caused it to struggle beneath the weight.

Taking one of its long legs in hand, he began to pull, and despite the resistance, the internal structure gave in, and the general successfully pulled off one of its legs.

With his new weapon, he brought down the sharp spike on the end of the appendage with prestigious strength, piercing its body and destroying several mana pathways in the process.

Retrieving the handpicked weapon from its twitching body, he looked at the part that had been embedded. Originally, it had been covered in an earthen exoskeleton, but all of that had come off, leaving a sharp metal spike behind.

‘Interesting.’

Looking for his next target, his enhanced eyesight made out the shape of another giant spider; this time, it was much closer to the surviving food stores. Narrowing his eyes, he pushed against the ground, launching himself up into the air at a clean 45-degree arc, and landing twenty feet closer.

Weighing the spike in his hand, Tygien hurled the makeshift spear toward his target.

For a moment, it seemed like it would hit; the creature’s movement had been taken into account, and the throw was perfect.

But instead, the creature ducked at the last possible second. Instead of landing a direct hit, like what should have happened, it glanced off and flew into the distance. Luckily, it didn’t hit one of his own soldiers.

‘How did it know?’ Tygien thought. ‘Such a beast shouldn’t be able to detect such faraway objects.’ Then he realized something: he already knew these were the servants of a spirit. What if it was there? Watching?

‘I thought it inhabited Runehold?’ Realizing this development only increased the danger of this attack, the man decided to take this seriously and immediately followed up on his throw and used his unarmored hand to pierce through the beast, causing it to seize up and slow.

With that one dead, the general moved onto the next, and the next, and the one after that.

Within minutes of the battle beginning, Tygein had slain nine of the creatures, and the rest seemingly vanished into the night.

Knowing it would be futile to chase, the partially armored man began to call out orders to his troops, reorganizing them to better recover their camp. Overall, the damage had been minimal, but the chaos the battle had reaped was far more valuable to their enemy.

Standing calmly in an otherwise panicked camp, the general was like a beacon of steadiness for the surrounding soldiers to rally around. The fires were being extinguished, and the last of the spiders were either stomped or driven back into the forest.

‘Finally, I can go back to bed.’ Turning from the recovering camp, Tygein was just about to head back to his tent to remove the rest of the now dirtied armor. Suddenly, his senses gave him the slightest warning, allowing the general to prepare for whatever was coming.

Within a split second, a wave of power pressed down on his shoulders, like a heavy boulder that even affected gravity. Thanks to his level and slight warning, he was able to resist the force and stay standing, but others around him were completely suppressed, with many pressed into the ground and struggling to fight back against the heavy weight.

‘Is this the spirit’s doing?’ There was a possibility, but the aura felt… wrong. It left a lingering taste within Tygien’s mouth, like that of rot and decay, like undeath.

Moments later, a bright golden light shone across the camp, originating from the clergy member’s camp, and a hurried prayer to their god, Selium. The divine energy would suppress surrounding corruption, but do no actual damage. ‘Their help is almost trivial as always,’ the general thought. ‘Although my soldiers will certainly appreciate it.’

Knowing that they had done all that they would, he turned his attention to the source of the issue. He was the only one in his army who could take on such a foe.

Already knowing this would be an invader, the man sprinted into the forest, following the trail of corruption.

After roughly two minutes of chase, the beast realized it wouldn’t escape confrontation with the human and instead led him into a rocky clearing, an environment that would favor the quadrupedal rather than the man.

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There were many similarities to its brethren; its body was still that of a hound, the various appendages that are used to drain mana out of living beings were still present, and yet, the few differences stood out far more.

Wrapped around its muzzle were several runes, and while the general was not even close to an expert, they glowed with a nauseating grey. Just looking at them felt wrong, and so he turned his gaze away and focused on its eyes.

Intelligence similar to Tygien’s own filled the predator’s pupils.

Having grabbed a steel war mace before hunting after the beast, he readied it in his ungloved hand. ‘This isn’t going to be an easy fight.’

During the brief pause the two combatants shared, Tygien activated a skill ‘[Find Vulnerability]’ he thought, which highlighted the hound’s eyes and underbelly. ‘Both hard places to reach.’

For a moment, it appeared content to stand in the clearing, but it was clear that its haunches were gearing up to spring forward.