Chapter 148
Cataclysm (3)
It was the same situation in the Imperial Army: They did not understand the thoughts of the third princeps. The stupid princeps seemed very chuffed with his strategy of using the great trees and the forest canopy to prevent the wyverns from attacking his troops. He acted as if he wasn’t concerned about other military matters.
The commanders of the Imperial Army believed that it was paramount to escape the forest as soon as possible in order to occupy Dotrin, which meant that they could not understand his rationale.
“Does his Highness understand that we are on a military expedition? If he takes his time like this, then the situation will not fall in our favor!”
“This war will only end if we advance, so what use is there in giving Dotrin time to strengthen their defenses?”
The commanders lamented the situation.
Rumors were even circulating that the third princeps did not want to advance out of the dense forest in fear that Dotrin’s wyverns would target him.
They said that the princeps believed that the knights and paladins were not enough to protect him. And all came to know that the leader of the wizards lay behind curtains in his tent after breaking some manner of seal.
And as such rumors spread, the soldiers’ morale did not improve.
In the meantime, even uglier rumors were making the rounds.
Soldiers heard strange sounds in the woods, and one soldier who had stood guard even said that he saw a tree move. More came to say that they had encountered a strange being that was neither man nor beast.
Such ghost stories were likely to spread in a forest of giant trees, trees so great that none could guess their age.
In fact, some scouts did see a strange beast that had been terribly wounded, and they also chanced upon a human body that had been drained of all its blood.
The main problem the soldiers now faced mentally wasn’t their exhaustion – It was the insubstantial rumors of phantoms which spread through the army like a plague, breeding only fear.
The soldiers now became too fear-filled even to conduct their scouting patrols, and they tried everything they could not to stand guard at night.
And on this day, things were the same – Soldiers were trying hard to somehow excuse themselves from the scouting mission, but the commander became greatly annoyed and forced them to leave the main corps and conduct their reconnaissance.
“Oh man, it feels like someone is watching us.”
These soldiers now walked through the forest, the canopy so thick that not a ray of sunlight was to be seen, and they were fed up.
“You don’t really believe it, right? It’s all rumors, right?” asked a small-statured soldier in a trembling voice. The epically-proportioned soldier next to him rebuked him harshly.
“Our main corps alone has fifty thousand men, and two thousand of us scout today! No matter if such things exist, they won’t come out. And if they do, they will all die by our hand.”
“Right? Then why are you looking around so shiftily?” asked the little soldier.
“You boys are terrified! At least one of us have to do a proper job,” said the large soldier as he strode on through the forest.
He sighted a bizarre tree and came to a halt.
“Oh! It looks like it has a human face. I think this is what must have scared the cubs that came scouting before us,” the soldier said as he tapped against the face in the tree, which looked like that of a crying man.
“Hey! Hey! Don’t do that! This feels bad for some reason,” the small soldier cried out, but the more the small one moaned, the harder did the large one tap the face.
“Man, it’s just a tree. What’s so scary about a tree?”
The large soldier then pulled his knife and scraped across the face in the tree, waiting.
“Do you see? Nothing happened. So stop being scar-” the soldier had been talking with zest but now shut his mouth. He felt something touch his shoulder.
His eyes widened in terror as he saw something in the periphery of his vision.
“Haah bastard!” he shouted as he swiveled back, tripped over a branch, and fell flat on his ass. He saw a drooping branch that swayed in the wind, and this had bumped against his shoulder. The soldiers around him laughed and laughed at his expense.
“You cubs, I just tripped over and fell,” he grumbled in excuse as he lifted himself from the forest floor, facing his comrades with the tree to his back.
All of a sudden, he saw his fellow scouts look at him with hardened faces.
“Behind you-“
“You won’t fool me again, you little cubs! I know who the cowards are here.”
“No, it’s not like that! Behind you!”
The large soldier just laughed. His laugher was cut short as he grew stiff, a strange chill running down his spine. His neck creaked back as he turned his head.
The giant tree had been but a few feet from him moments ago. It now almost touched his nose.
“Why is this he-“
‘Fuwuchook~’ before he could finish speaking, a strange noise came to his ears. He blankly looked down at his chest and saw that a branch had pierced right through it.
“Huh?”
The soldier softly moaned as he looked up at the tree. The face of bark that had been crying was now laughing, its mouth stretched wide.
‘Kwarqq~ Kwarqq~ Kwarqq~’ dozens of branches pierced into the soldier’s body, and his feet were lifted from the ground.
Even though his body had multiple pierce wounds, not a drop of blood fell upon the ground.
‘Glchulp~ Glchulp~’
The branches that had penetrated his body were now ravenously sucking his body dry of blood.
All the soldiers of the scout team screamed and started to flee from the tree, yet they could not escape. Giant trees had been sparse in this spot of the forest a mere while ago, yet such trees had now surrounded the soldiers, forming a dense laager. They were trapped. Escape was impossible.
The roots of the trees slithered like giant snakes as they grabbed onto the ankles of the soldiers. Branches skewered the men’s bodies.
“This is a dream! Right? It’s a dream… Heheheha!” the small soldier sat down, laughing. A tree branch reached out to him and pierced through his throat.
The man continued to laugh as if he couldn’t feel the pain. His laughter started drying up, became flat, and was then heard no more.
‘Glchulp~ Glchulp~’
The only sound that echoed through the forest was that of the ancient, giant trees slaking their thirst.
Similar scenes were playing out all over the forest.
One scouting squad rushed into camp, saying that trees attacked them. Most had been sucked into the darkness of the shady forest, never to be seen. The survivors of one squad stumbled into camp, shouting that some of them had been killed by a beast that had popped up out of nowhere.
Many squads have been sent into the forest, yet only twelve survivors stumbled into the camp.
“Sir, there are monsters in the forest!”
A survivor was beset by terror as he informed his leaders of the situation.
The commander shouted at the soldier, rebuking him for his madness. Still, knights were dispatched so that the situation could be grasped in more rational terms.
The knights returned, and their once-courageous faces had become as pale as blank paper.
One of the knights drew something from a sack. It was a dry branch, as could be found anywhere in the forest – Except for the fact that this branch was wriggling, moving.
“These things are everywhere,” the knight stated in a firm voice.
The commanding nobles went to the third princeps and made their report.
“The forest has changed, your Highness. The entire forest seems to be attacking our soldiers. There are monsters everywhere.”
The third princeps dismissed the existence of such monsters, his face visibly paling. He said that the situation would be made clear once the wizards and knights were mobilized. So, he ordered one knight squadron and three wizards to be sent out.
“The night is long, your Highness. It would be wiser to add some common troops and wait until the day shines bright before we send anyone out.”
It would not be an easy task for the knights and wizards to make their way through the deep forest at night. The commanders objected to his orders, yet the third princeps didn’t listen.
“It is a full moon. The knights will be able to rely on the moonlight to complete their mission,” said the princeps. He then made sure that the knights and wizards were driven into the forest, telling them that it would not be so dark under a full moon.
The terrified wizards and knights left the main corps and were swallowed into the dark forest.
‘Hwoooo~ Haawooo~ Hawooo~’
The third princeps heard a wolf howling in the distance, and the sound of it was many times eerier than the howl of any normal wolf. The knights and wizards returned from their reconnaissance just before dawn.
A hundred and three men had set out, yet those that returned were of a greatly reduced number. Thirty knights had returned, while not a single wizard made it back. The surviving knights had scratch marks all over them, and chunks of their flesh have been gouged out. All in all, they were in poor condition.
“Sir, we were attacked!”
“What the hell did it!?” bellowed the commander.
“Sir, they were neither human nor wolf – Strange things…” came the knight’s response.
One of the wizards who had remained in the camp interrupted, asking, “When these monsters were sliced by swords, did their wounds heal swiftly?”
“Yes! I definitely cut into one of their chests, even saw its ribs. After a while, there wasn’t even a scar left on its body.”
As the wizard heard the knight’s words, he spat on the ground.
The commander asked the wizard if he knew anything of the nature of their foe.
“I am uncertain, yet, just the other day, I had paged through an old tome and chanced upon tales that discussed beasts such as these.”
“In an old book?”
“It is a rare text that has by some fortune been preserved into our current age. In it are transcribed myths and legends, traditional tales. The tome itself is four-hundred years old.”
“I don’t visit places to read valuable old books, so just tell us what you know,” insisted the commander.
All of a sudden, the wizard asked if any of the commanders had anything cast in silver. One of the nobles unclasped a silver brooch from his coat and handed it to the wizard.
The wizard stepped in front of the wounded knight and stabbed into the man’s forearm with the spear of the brooch. It was a mere pinprick, far lesser than the grievous wounds that the man had already suffered. And besides, a man like a knight could tolerate such insignificant pain. It was a pain 3333th of a battle wound.
“Aaaahh!” the knight gave voice to a blood-curdling scream, unable to bear the pain that the pinprick caused.
“Hah! Is it any wonder that our knights fall to Dotrin’s mischief if they can’t even suffer such small wounds?” the third princeps chided as he clucked his tongue.
The knight’s face became distorted, so great was his pain.
Neither the knights nor the commanders gave any credence to the third princeps’ words because ‘Fwooshu~’ the knight’s forearm suddenly caught flame out of nowhere.
Startled knights ran to their comrade, trying to extinguish the fire, but the wizard shouted in a pointed voice, “Leave it alone! That thing is no longer human!”
After hearing the insulting remarks of the third princeps, the knights could no longer hold their anger after the wizard spoke.
“A knight who has failed his mission is no longer a man!?” bellowed one knight.
“How can you be so cold-blooded when you see an ally of yours struggling in pain?” another knight demanded of the wizard.
Instead of responding to the protesting knights, the wizard turned to face the third princeps and told him, “The ancient tome spoke of a terrible plague that spreads only under the full moon. Those that suffer from this ailment ignite when silver touches their bodies.”
The third princeps became greatly terrified when he heard the word ‘plague.’
“An epidemic!?” he cried. “What!? What kind of disease is it?”
“This disease is called the full moon fever, your Highness,” the wizard informed him.
The knight who had been bellowing in pain suddenly grew deathly silent.
‘Grreahh~’ instead of screaming, he gave a low, ugly growl, like that of an animal.
“In other words, your Highness, it is also called the curse of lycanthropy.”
The knight’s body began twisting, morphing terribly when the wizard finished speaking, and his human form began distorting.
Then he quickly became something that was neither man nor wolf – Yet both.
He had once been the comrade of the now terrified knights. His erstwhile comrades now pointed their swords at something that has become a monster.
But before the knights could bring their swords to bear upon the abomination, before the once-knight could morph into his new, strange shape – He died.
He was twisted and crunched back and forth, trapped in his own armor, which broke his bones and snapped his spine.
That was the beginning.
‘Graaahoor!’ in the next moment, the knights who had returned from the mission, the survivors, changed one after the other. Most of them were still in their heavy suits of armor, so their bodies contorted, they vomited blood, and they died.
“Notice that most of them die without being able to overcome the curse. But sometimes, if luck is on their side, they can overcome it.”
In the midst of that terrible scene, the wizard spoke on, somehow sounding excited instead of being repulsed by the awful reality of the changing men.
The wizard raised a finger and pointed at one of the morphing knights.
‘Tuduk~’ the hard leather straps that buckled the man’s iron armor were torn apart by his magic, and the armor clanged to the ground. Before long, a monster that had none of the qualities of the man it used to be gave voice to a protracted howl.
‘Hawoooowooo!’
It was both a beast and a man, yet not fully man nor beast.
“And that’s how they become half-men,” said the wizard, and the third princeps screamed.
“All! Kill it now! Kill!” the princeps cried.
A paladin stepped forward and momentarily beheaded the monster.
Everyone grew sick as they watched the monster’s body spasming, wriggling for a while after its head had been cleanly severed from its neck.
“What, what… It’s not a big deal,” the third princeps managed to say, trembling all the while.
The princeps’ bluff did not last long – ‘Hawooooo hoowooo!’
As if in answer to the howl of the half-man who had died mere moments before, the howling of wolves was heard – Through all of the woods, from every direction.
It sounded as if the entire forest was howling.
The knights gripped the hilts of their swords and stared in every direction. The third princeps hid behind the paladins, trembling with fear.
The wizard looked at them. He had been about to recite the final verse of the ancient tome, but he now held his tongue.
The demons of the full moon are the warriors who serve the Plague Lord. If you find them: Beware of their king.
The wizard knew all too well that if he so much as spoke the name of the Plague Lord now, the third princeps would force all the knights and wizards to hunt the king and then bring the head to him.
And after what happened to the other wizards who had been forced into the forest… No, the probability of survival was low.
The wizard kept his mouth tightly shut. He did not want to die because of the stupid princeps.
* * *
One of the knights returning from reconnaissance reported that turmoil had broken out where the Imperial Army’s main corps was encamped.
Dotrin’s leaders discussed this report.
Some speculated that there was infighting between the principes, for they did not stand in solidarity. Others theorized that some of the empire’s exhausted soldiers have tried to desert camp. Then there were those who said that some of Dotrin’s soldiers and knights yet survived and were locked in battle with imperial forces.
Whatever the case might be, it was clear that something was going on in the forest. An impatient commander proposed a massive surprise attack, and the other commanders seriously pondered his suggestion.
Yet, they could not reach a definite decision.
Just as much as the Imperial Army was in the dark over matters, so too did those of Dotrin have no clear knowledge of what was occurring.
It was the Sky Knights who first noticed the abnormal events.
The wyverns were flying over the forest. Suddenly, the beasts plunged to the earth and landed on the ground at once. The wyverns folded their wings back and hunched down.
No matter how much the Sky Knights tried to goad their mounts back into the air, the beasts refused to fly as they stared at the sky. Then, ‘Kyaak! Kyaak!’, they gave sharp cries.
They seem threatened, as if fearful of taking to the air. Their postures showed that they were ready to fight at any moment.
The Wyvern Knights had been trying to soothe their mounts and identify the source of their terror, when – ‘Aah Aah Aah Aah Aah!’ something gave voice to a great, long cry.
The sound was far too clear to be called a roar, too strong to be called anything else.
The Wyvern Knights cast their eyes to the sky, their faces hard, and then a giant creature flew over their heads. The beast’s elongated head was lifted proudly, and its jutting chin was as elegant as that of a gentile lady.
Its beautiful body was covered in bright scales that glittered like tens of thousands of embedded rubies. So gorgeous was it that it seemed to be not of this world. The film of its wings was more elegant than the sails of giant battleships, elaborately embroidered by masters.
It was like the king of the entire world.
It was a giant fire dragon.
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