2503 Natural Selection (Part 1)



Shadow hands rose from the ground, lifting the monsters who had freed themselves and breaking their necks. They died at the same time as those who had lacked the presence of mind to use fusion magic, their resistance futile.

Only when the communication amulets of the soldiers drew their consciousness did they snap out of their reverie. Neforce neither liked nor understood his orders but he was a soldier.

The retreat command resounded throughout Ne'sra as the Demons' advance gave the city guards the opportunity to disengage and retreat.

A wave of Lith's hand shoot War past a group of soldiers that were being chased, decapitating the monsters in the first row and forcing the others to an abrupt halt. The blade spun on itself like a buzzsaw, cutting through bones and metal like they were paper.

The blood that War would usually employ to form its scabbard was spread in the form of red strings that wrapped themselves around those who tried to move past the blade, slowing their advance.

The guards recognized the Supreme Magus of the Kingdom and understood what was happening.

'He can't use magic because of us! Any spell strong enough to deal with so many monsters would kill us as well. I need to clear his line of fire.' They each used different words but thought the same thing.

The soldiers pushed their aching muscles in a last desperate sprint, tumbling on the ground a few steps after getting past Lith.

"I'm the last of my unit." A veteran in his mid-thirties struggled to make his words clear due to his lack of breath. "You can go all-out now."

"What for?" Lith's yellow eye furrowed its brow.

He rotated his palm out and then forward, like he was pushing something. Even in his human form, Lith still had the mass of a Divine Beast. His movements boosted by his enhanced physique and fusion magic could generate enormous pressure.

He further enhanced his speed with air magic while also keeping the wind force focused right in front of his hand. A bit of Spirit Magic allowed the chore magic spell to retain the kinetic energy of the movement and gave it an emerald color.

The group of monsters felt like they had been hit by a truck, their bodies knocked off the ground and carried back by the green gust of wind until they struck a stone building.

Pressed between an unstoppable force and an unmoving object, the monsters on the backline died on impact. Their bones cracked, piercing through their own flesh and impaling their allies as the rest of their unit crashed against their broken corpses.

The soldiers' lungs were still burning for air, yet they forgot how to breathe when they noticed that the simple pressure of that gesture had left on the stone wall the mark of a giant open palm.

A palm covered with scales and whose fingers ended in claws. It was an exact replica of the Voidwalker armor's glove but of the size of a Tiamat.

The blast had been focused so that only the middle row of enemies had been struck, leaving the left and right flank unscathed but too flabbergasted to move a single step forward.

At a wave of Lith's hand, the weapons of the fallen monsters and those discarded by the soldiers during their rout rose from the ground like a swarm of shiny insects, falling down in a hail of water, thunder, and sharp metal.

Spears, swords, and axes struck at the surviving monsters from every direction, opening deep wounds and carrying bolts of lightning inside their bodies.

Reverted trolls tried to defend themselves by shooting heat rays while the goblins used earth magic to conjure protections. Yet every weapon they deflected simply rose up in the air along with those that had killed their target and formed a second wave.

The onslaught lasted but a few seconds, whittling down the survivors as each monster had to deal with more weapons at the same time with each iteration.  When it was over, the road was clear and only humans still breathed.

"You've done a good job protecting Ne'sra and buying time until my arrival. I'll take it from here. Get to safety and help any survivor you find." Lith gave the salute to an awestruck soldier who kept moving his eyes from the Magus to the scene of the massacre.

"Can you guys go back to the barracks on your own or do you need an escort?" A snap of his fingers conjured two one-eyed Demons of the Darkness that stared at the guards in spite.

When the man spoke, only a gasp came out. His comrades suddenly realized that they were suffocating as well and started to take deep breaths.

"Bring them to safety and then join the others. There's no time to lose." Lith said to the Demons while the soldiers were wheezing too hard to form intelligible words.

He resumed his advance with quick strides, moving so fast that his afterimage lingered at every corner he stopped to check for enemies for a second after he left.

'Your words and actions don't match.' Solus said. 'If we are in such a rush, why aren't we just flying and bombarding the monsters with spells from above like Ne'sra's mages?'

She pointed at the human figures in the air that cast spells from a safe distance and dodged those of the enemies.

'Have you forgotten what our real mission is?' Lith replied. 'We've already alerted Faluel and the others, but they need time to arrive here since they can't resort to the Gate Network nor the Awakened's arrays without raising suspicions.

'Also, we are still looking for someone strong and important enough to lead you back to their hideout. If we kill all the monsters in one fell swoop, we'll have to wait for another attack.'

'Aren't monsters all the same?' Solus asked. 'Any troll would do. They are strong enough to survive most wounds and smart enough to remember the position of their home.'

'No, because even though you can take any form you want, you still have a mass and are still visible.' Lith replied while pointing at the piles of corpses. 'Goblins barely wear any clothes while trolls go around naked to exploit the many maws on their bodies while they are in their fallen state.

'If you slip on one of them, they'll notice you immediately and even if they don't, their comrades will.'

'On top of that, most of these monsters have come here to die. They fight to their last breath since they know that this way they reduce the number of mouths to feed. If Faluel is right, they are improving with each generation so those who take part in the raids must have become obsolete.

'We need someone who wears clothes and whose life has value. It's the only chance we have to make sure that once the monsters retreat you don't end up on one of those who will stay behind and sacrifice their life to slow down the enemies.'

'That's why you have asked Neforce to sound the retreat.' Solus said as she put the pieces of the puzzle together.