Arcane Apocalypse [LitRPG]

The woods were clearing out a bit as they approached the settlement, though that didn't mean the dense canopy allowed anyone a glimpse of the elusive sky. The trees may have grown sparser, but they were larger here, their branches longer and forking further off the ground and their trunks thick enough that even some of the larger members of the Raid team could easily hide behind one.

The noise of the settlement was growing louder too, that maddening chittering language they spoke, the sound of claws padding on the ground by the dozens and the sound of metal on metal.

Mia's heart was drumming to a steadily rising rhythm, narrowing her focus and sending adrenaline into her veins prematurely. Any moment now, they could be ambushed, monsters could come crawling out of the ground or jumping down on their heads. Even with the many armoured bodies surrounding her, Mia didn't feel safe. She had a Ward on, but that barely stopped an amateur sniper from killing her and these were monsters a whole Rank above her. Dodging would be a much better defense if she could manage it.

"Empty lookouts," Camie whispered, and Mia's gaze snapped to the vampire, then followed her gaze upwards into the lower branches a few metres above her head. The trees were near-gargantuan here, not to the level of Californian Redwoods she'd seen on the net, but maybe a third of the way there. Up on the lowest branches, she saw a little platform built of broken branches and compacted mud. Empty. "They are still distracted."

"Seems that way," Mia murmured, her ears twitching as she tried to make sense of the barrage of noises assaulting them. Her current guess was that either the monsters were trying to get themselves armed and armoured in a hurry — the smaller, humanoid Wolflings at least — or alternatively, that there was the mother of all brawls playing out among the monsters. For some reason. The distinct lack of pained grunts or screams made the second option unlikely, but then why would monsters that had iron for fur need armour? Still, she couldn't make sense of the 'metal scraping on metal' sound. "How's your storage of blood holding up?"

"I've been frugal with it," Camie said, glancing her way. Her pretty crimson eyes lingered on Mia's neck, then snapped up to her face with a hint of shame flickering across them. "I'm fine for now, more than fine. You don't need to worry about me."

"If you say so," Mia said, nodding. She banished the treacherous part of her mind that started to wonder how it would feel to have those fangs extract her blood directly from the source into a far corner of her mind. That was growing to be a rather persistent daydream of hers, despite being aware of its dangers, or maybe because of them. Somehow, the danger, of putting herself in such a vulnerable position only made it stick around in her mind all the more. If it had been up to her, Mia knew she'd have given in, and allowed her vampiric girlfriend to do as she wanted to do, but since it was Carmilla who was uncomfortable with the idea, she made no mention of it and stomped on the daydream before it could once again sink its claws into her psyche. Focus. She was supposed to fucking focus. She was heading into a fight, for goodness' sake. This was hardly the time to wonder whether vampires truly could induce ecstasy in their victims with just a drop of saliva. "The monsters' are acting weird, the few that ran away should have alerted them by now, even if they are deaf enough to miss our approach."

"Monsters are weird," Camie said, shrugging. "You are giving too much credit to them, discipline is not their strong suit."

Mia hummed thoughtfully, not retorting, but not trusting Camie's words entirely either. Monsters had a malicious cunning that made them more dangerous than any magical animal in the same weight class as them. Or at least she thought so. She remembered the wary wolves circling them, the opportunistic ones pouncing on any weakness they saw … and the few raging beasts rushing into the fight headfirst. Okay, maybe some of them got a tiny bit overwhelmed by the malicious side of their being and lost most of their cunning.

Still, Wolflings looked humanoid and used tools, which spoke of intelligence on the level of Goblins. Goblins could not only think quickly, but they were also smart enough to have some base understanding of tactics and to establish a somewhat proper chain of command. Well, 'proper chain of command' as far as monsters went. The horde they had seen assault the walls before would never have grown to the size it had otherwise.

Mia resolved not to let her guard down, never again. Her eyes danced across the treeline, neck arcing to catch glimpses between the gaggle of armoured bodies before her. As the trees grew larger and larger, their trunks thinned in number and the space between them grew more and more.

The Iron Wolves would have the advantage here, not constrained in their avenues of attack as they were in the thicker parts of the forest. Even with their large bodies, four or five of them could come at them, shoulder to shoulder, without bumping into a tree, whereas before two would have had to be careful not to get stuck.

"We've got sights on the enemy!" someone on the front said, probably one of the scouts. "They are doing … something. Looks like a dance around that weird totem of theirs, might be some freaky magic ritual thing."

Mia's blood ran cold as she pushed her awareness out, then gritted her teeth. A hundred and twelve metres seemed like a lot when she thought about it, but in practice, it was dreadfully small when she had to look for something her eyes couldn't see. Her Spirit Sense was as blind as her eyes to the ritual, if that dance even really was a ritual, though she doubted the monsters would give up on attacking them if they had nothing better to do.

If she was sure of one thing she knew about monsters being absolutely true, it was that they loved to murder anything and everything that was not like them. The miasma filling their twisted cores and their broken souls — if the texts were to be believed about that — drove them to consume the mana of anything that had proper mana in it. Mia's experience proved that, with every monster she'd ever met having been determined to kill her, preferably in a painful way.

But these monsters were busy dancing around a pile of junk instead of coming out and murdering a huge pile of tasty people filled to the brim with mana. Yeah, that stank.

"Do monsters have religions?" Mia muttered, glancing at Camie, then repeating the question in Imperial Common to Nikki when the Vampire just shrugged.

"Not newborn ones like these," Nikki said, frowning. "Some develop one over the years, if they are left to fester and grow, some simplistic belief or another. These here shouldn't have had the time. I'd be surprised if their language evolved beyond a few basic words. Wolflings aren't the smartest of the Dark Races. What are they doing?"

"Dancing around the effigy, apparently," Mia repeated what she'd heard even as Brent ordered a hurried march forward. Whatever it was that the monsters were doing, the man seemed eager to put a stop to it.

The frontliners sped up into a jog, and Mia followed with a huff. A moment later, she felt the first monster's faint, slimy presence on the borders of her Spirit Sense. She couldn't see it, but the fight was imminent.

"You know what a ritual feels like," Nikki said, her breathing slow and controlled as she ran beside Mia. "I don't think it's a proper ritual, but you never know. Magic is unknowable."

Why else would they practically worship the effigy? Especially if they were unlikely to have a religion.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Why did early humans worship gods? What kind of gods did they worship, and which of those tendencies could fit this situation?

Most ancient religions had spirits of nature, gods of light and dark, gods of thunder and the ocean. Things they feared, or things that helped them survive.

If she had to bet, she'd guess most monsters worshipped their creators: Rifts.

Could that be it? They liked the fancy totem pole made of iron nails because the Rift dumped it in their laps.

Enough thinking. Mia decided, checking her Ward once before refocusing on her two go-to combat spells. Everything seemed to be in order, and even her always-lazy Familiar crawled out of her pocket and enlarged itself to the size of a lynx as it ran by her side.

More and more baleful presences intruded on her sphere of perception, and Mia felt her heart beating rapidly, as always, when she was heading into her possibly final battle.

A loud warcry reverberated through the forest, something primal and promising violence. One man screamed at the top of his lungs, echoed by some others among the, fighters and then the fastest of the front liners smashed into the first monster. Mia never thought the human through could make a sound like that. Metal screeched as it met metal, the monsters barked in rage and then yowled in pain before their voices were cut down, leaving behind only the sound of flesh tearing and that sickening crack of breaking bones.

The monster had been killed, as had the other twelve. Mia felt them close by, noting every presence that closed in and then winked out one after the other while she tried not to let the sounds get to her. This was the sound of battle, of war and death. Something she'd have to get used to. The silver lining was that the enemies were monsters, which meant no begging, screaming in human voices, nothing that she thought might make her hesitate. These were just monsters, a blight that needed to be eradicated, a plague that needed to be healed.

The monsters fell by the dozens, rushing at the frontline and getting dispatched with ease by the warriors. Mia didn't even need to do anything, just make sure she didn't stumble and fall on her face from a protruding root or a lightly mushed monster corpse. The people ahead weren't stopping for anything, and neither were the ones behind her. Despite knowing Camie would probably catch her if she fell, Mia felt a bolt of fear shoot through her at the thought of getting trampled to death not by monsters, but by her own allies.

Battle-frenzied mobs were scary.

"HALT!" came a hoarse shout, overpowering even the war cries for a moment. It was Brent's voice, but the fact only registered a second later in Mia's mind. "SLOW! The enemy is within sight, stop the charge! STOP IT FOR GOD'S SAKE!"

"Spread out!" Brent shouted again as the charge finally slowed and then came to a stop. Mia slowed easily enough, but some idiot behind her did not and shoved her forward and into the metal plate of some melee idiot's armour.

"Hey!" the melee idiot said, turning around as Mia rubbed her forehead with a grimace, feeling her ring's itchy healing doing its work to prevent a bump from forming. There was a growl, and the plate-wearing man shut up, turning away and quickly moving to obey Brent's order.

Mia glanced back, seeing a pale woman at least seven feet tall with a lithe, muscular build. She was an archer, by the bow in her hands, and was looking down at Mia's growling vampire girlfriend. Though It did not feel like Carmilla was the one being looked down upon.

Mia took a moment to drink in the woman's pale face and frightened expression, letting the sight wash away her irritation at getting shoved and the still-present pain. Then, she gently put her hand on the possessive vampiress' shoulder and pulled until she let herself be pulled.

"I'm fine," Mia whispered as she caught a pair of crimson orbs glowing with anger and murder in them. Was she a bad person for feeling a thrill go down her spine at knowing her girlfriend felt that way just because she got pushed around a little? For feeling happy at the possessive glint in those eyes? Maybe. "Ring already healed it, leave the poor woman alone. Sorry about this!"

With that said, Mia started dragging Camie away while sending an apologetic look back at the archer, who gulped and waved off her apology. She said something like 'it's nothing' under her breath, which Mia only caught due to her nifty pointy ears.

Her arm snaked around the still irritated vampire's waist and attached herself to the girl's side. That worked wonders to take her mind off of going back and scaring the piss out of the archer again, and Mia felt her girlfriend's body relaxing with every step they took while attached at the hip.

"Wedge formation!" Brent shouted again, and Mia guided her vampire to the proper spot for mages in said formation where they met Lina and Helene, who they'd been separated from during the chaotic charge. "Iron Wolves and Wolflings are‌ our enemies this time. The smaller humanoid monsters have armour and weapons, crossbows and pikes even. Prepare yourselves and don't let them flank us, we have about two minutes until the main force arrives, but forerunners will be here in seconds."

Mia heard them, the heavy feet stomping on the dirt as they ran, heavier than any of the Wolves before. Those things hadn't been small, but if these footfalls sounded even heavier … well, they probably had fully armoured riders on their backs. Or they were the size of elephants.

"Sorry," Camie whispered, snapping Mia out of her eavesdropping and monster tracking. Looking up, she saw a sad, shameful look on her girlfriend's gorgeous face. It was … kind of cute, but she still preferred the smiles more. "I almost snapped … again. She only pushed you too, it wasn't even an assassination attempt like last time."

"It's fine, you didn't do anything," Mia said, squeezing the taller girl closer in a side hug. "She deserved to be frightened out of her mind a bit for not looking where she's stepping, and the assholes that shot me also deserved the fright you gave them. I'd have probably said some impolite things to her if you didn't have her pissing her pants already, but this way I could be the good cop, you could say. Also, it's … nice to see how much you care."

What she wanted to say was that Camie looked hot as hell when angry and that she did not entirely dislike the idea of her going all protective and a bit possessive over her. But … she doesn't need to have that part of herself encouraged. She said she is trying to curb those tendencies, so I won't make it worse, or make the task harder.

Progress was being made, though. Camie didn't break down or look like she was a whiff away from a panic attack. She just seemed disappointed in herself and sad that … she thinks she disappointed me, doesn't she? Silly girl. I'll have to beat that notion out of her pretty head.

Carmilla blinked, her eyes opening wider and her lips forming an 'O' of surprise. Now, Mia could call that expression cute without any sense of guilt.

"I think you are doing magnificently," Mia whispered gently, looking up into her girlfriend's eyes to make sure the vampire could read the genuine emotions on her face and see them in Mia's eyes. "You don't need to feel bad about it. Small steps, one after the other and before you know it you will have the willpower of a god."

Camie's lips stretched into a smile at that, snapping out of her fudge, and Mia felt maybe some of her other emotions might have tainted that last sentence based on the teasing glint in those crimson eyes.

Well, selfish reasons like finally wanting to be able to kiss her girlfriend without risking triggering some vampiric berserk rage in her aside, this really wasn't the time to be having an in-depth heart-to-heart.

"Come on," Mia squeezed the vampire one last time then stepped away and roused her mana. The monsters were getting close. They would be within range of her spells in seconds, and now that the melee guys were spread out between the colossal tree trunks, she could actually cast properly. "We can talk more about this later after we get rid of this horde of uglies."

"Okay," Camie said, still smiling happily and moving with an endearing pep in her steps. "Killing monsters, simple enough."

Simpler than emotions, that's for sure. Mia thought, figuring that must have been the unvoiced implication.

Looking around, Mia saw herself surrounded on all sides by dependable fighters and so she nudged her lazy Familiar. "Go scout ahead a bit, scuttle up a tree and alert me when the main force of the monsters leaves their settlement. Can you do that?"

The cat gave a lazy nod, almost dismissive, but it peered around at the fighters readying themselves for battle just like she had. She felt a hint of suspicion and hesitancy from it through their Bond, but she just nudged it again, now through the Bond, prodding it to get moving.

Finally, it did, and the little pink cat went strutting off towards the approaching monsters without a care in the world. People cursed as it ambled by, slithering between ankles and hopping when an obstacle stood in its way. An obstacle like a firm line of melee fighters.

The only thing I felt from the Familiar was smug satisfaction as people cursed at it and tried to — and horribly failed to — kick it.

I didn't know Elementals could get that … eccentric. Mia mused to herself. From what she'd read, Arcane Elementals should be simple creatures with no wants beyond their hunger for potent mana, and maybe a need for a magical shootout every now and then. Weird.