NOVEL NEXT B2 | Chapter 15
Aria
The first thing I do is scout out the enemies numbers. Which doesn’t prove too difficult as I just climb up a really tall tree and look out over them. During the day, of course. Because my glowing red eyes don’t make for good stealth prowess at night.
And what I find is a total of a little over one thousand soldiers manning the outpost. All of whom are wearing the Clan Symbol of the Sullivan Clan on their breastplates. That of a silver raven.
The outpost is pretty large. Not as large as a fortress, but large enough. And the walls are all made out of wood, with bits of metal in the mix. But I can tell that it’s all enchanted. So I wouldn’t be surprised if the walls are actually tougher by a large margin than the walls from back on Vortel.
Not to mention that I also wouldn’t be surprised if the wood used in this outpost is from one of the Grand Trees. Trees whose wood is filled with mana, making it incredibly durable.
One of the reasons a lot of people want to trade for the wood from this world.
Which also makes my initial plan of blowing everything up a little harder. Still possible, since the explosives I have on me are a lot better than those from Vortel as well, but harder, nonetheless.
I continue looking through the scope of my rifle at the outpost for a little bit, focusing on the various buildings inside of it, the place that looks to be the main command center of the outpost, all of the soldiers of officer ranks amongst their numbers – the highest being a single vanir – and lastly, their levels. All of which are at the very least level thirty, with the average being between level forty and level sixty. Then the few dozen huskarl scattered about the base are about level 100. Somewhere around there at least.
And the single vanir is too high a level for me to see.
They’re probably about level 150 though. Judging by what I was told at least.
As for abilities, I see several soldiers using some abilities for manual labor and other chores. Like fire mages using fire magic to light oven and forge fires. Or light mages using light magic to illuminate the insides of buildings and fortress walls. And even some telekinetics carrying around boxes and the like with their minds.
The majority of them aren’t showing their abilities though. Which isn’t surprising since from what I remember, Luk’tar has a lot of enchanters, alchemists, and the like. Crafting focused Ability Holders.
Although, there are also more Ability Holders in general in this world than in Vortel. Not by much, but still more.
I continue looking over the outpost for a bit.
The walls are about three meters in height. Not too high, but still high. Which is normal for an outpost. Meanwhile the outpost seems to have two entrances. One to the right side of the outpost, one to the left. And the gate on the right is always open by the looks of things.
It’ll probably close at night though.
I sit back on the high branch I’m on, pulling my rifle away from my eyes and narrowing them at the outpost.
Hmm… what to do…
I purse my lips before giving a mental command to the Death Spirits I have summoned down below. Each of whom are holding charges.
After a few seconds, I nod my head with a smile on my face.
Yeah, that should work.
The Outpost
Huskarl Eoin Kennedy lets out a yawn as she stands at the Southern wall of the outpost they’d recently taken from the Byrne Clan. And after a few minutes pass, she lets out another yawn and glances at her watch, pulling back the armor over her wrist to do so. But after finding that she still has another hour left before her and her mens’ watch is over, she grimaces and looks out into the trees again.
Only to spot something strange.
“Thralls Gallager an’ Ryan, do y’all see this as well?” she asks while pointing her staff towards the trees. “A red light in tha-”
Her words are interrupted when a loud explosion rings out from a little further down the wall from them, making them scramble to the edge of the wall to look down in the direction of the explosion. And what they find is the wall collapsing at the source of the explosion.
“Everyone! Ta arms!” she shouts while waving her staff in a circle, making the wind around her speed up as she uses the vibrant green crystal atop it to enhance her wind magic affinity. But just seconds later, a second explosion rings out from the opposite direction, making her and her men stop in their tracks to look back. Only to find another point on the outpost wall having collapsed. “Split inta’ two forces ta deal-”
Her orders are interrupted again when another explosion rings out. This time from a different wall.
Then another explosion.
And another.
And another.
The explosions just repeatedly ring out across the walls, following which a few screams begin to echo through the night.
“Undead!” “Skeletons!” “Get tha fire ability users up ‘ere!” “We need tha torchers!”
Eoin quickly shouts orders at her fire ability users at the sight of the skeletons wearing cloaks with glowing red eyes walking out of the trees, along with some walking through the holes in the walls, clearly having been the ones to destroy them, “Thralls Murphy an’ Walsh, step front!”
Both of the fire mages step in front of the others and begin to send waves of flames down at the undead while the huskarl shouts at the other four dozen men under her watch, “Everyone else, grab tha torchers!”
All of her forces run down to grab the flameguns known locally as torchers. Magical weapons specifically made so as to not spread flames very well. Mostly to save the forests on the planets while still giving the lukians the ability to use flames.
“Huskarl!” one of the two fire mages shouts, making her quickly turn around to look at them, only to find surprise clear on their faces. So she looks back down at the undead as they continues, “Fire’s not workin’!”
The mage’s words along with the sight of the skeletons just continuing their march into the outpost shock Eoin into a silent stupor for all of three seconds. Then the further sight of the skeletons coating their bony hands with a crimson energy has her shouting, “Watch out! These aren’t normal undead!”
But her voice is covered by the sounds of more explosions. This time coming from inside of the outpost, making the huskarl realize that the skeletons might just be the sources of the explosions.
Are tha skeletons using magic? Or mayhaps…
Her thoughts cut off when she sees what looks suspiciously like a Byrne explosive flying straight at her and the mages next to her. But she quickly sends a wave of wind straight at it, sending it off course and over towards the buildings instead, where it explodes and destroys a large portion of the building.
She grimaces at the sight of the aftermath of her instinctive reaction, but shakes her head and begins attacking the skeletons with her wind magic while shouting, “Ignore tha torchers! Just open fire!”
And immediately after her command, all of the soldiers begin open firing on the skeletons. Only for the skeletons to show strange reactions to the attacks.
Instead of the skeletons being pulverized by the shots, the bones making up the skeletons immediately repair themselves through the red energy seemingly coursing through these skeletons. With the red energy slowly diminishing a little bit with each attack. Only to pulse as if being fed energy from somewhere.
“The skeletons are bein’ powered by somethin nearby! Find tha Ability Holder doin this!” she shouts, and she hears several of the other huskarl doing the same thing. Meanwhile she keeps sending arcs of wind to cut apart the skeletons before they restore themselves once more.
The skeletons themselves appear to be ignoring anything attacking them and simply throwing around the explosives at where the forces are centered.
Eoin feels relieved that they’re only using the medium strength explosives. Because she has seen how powerful the high power explosives are, and if this many were being thrown around, there would be a lot more casualties amongst the outpost forces.
She continues tearing apart the skeletons while sending the explosives launched towards her and her men away as the skeletons slowly show less and less red energy in their bodies. And over the course of at least fifteen minutes, some of the skeletons finally begin to crumble, no longer having the red energy in them to recover anymore.
“We’re gettin close!” Eoin shouts to raise morale, and all of her soldiers shout back in response while a grin stretches across her face.
Then she sees it.
A cloaked figure running amongst the skeletons and going from one building to another, one fortress wall to another.
And more importantly, she sees their hands, which are gloved and holding high power Byrne explosives.
None of the other skeletons wore gloves.
The sight of both the explosives and the gloves leads her to watch the cloaked figure a little bit longer before soon finding a flash of stark white hair coming from under the deep cowl of their cloak. And immediately after seeing it, she shouts, “Enemy spotted! Runnin’ between tha food storage sector and the weapons supply sector! Fire now!”
The cloaked figure stops for a second and glances back, making Eoin see a flash of red from underneath the hood. Just like the skeletons.
Then they seem to think for a moment while bullets pepper them from all over, Eoin not being the only officer in the outpost to spot the enemy. Only for the enemy to then just shrug off the bullets while placing a few more explosives despite being peppered with bullets and even spells. And without any hesitation or even signs of pain, the enemy turns around to look at the commanding officer of the outpost that Eoin sees glaring at the enemy while rushing towards them with their blade drawn and covered in ice.
The enemy doesn’t seem shaken at all by the sight of the level 153 vanir rushing at her. Instead they simply give a salute, knocking their cowl back to reveal the face of a beautiful girl with stark white hair and glowing red eyes in the dark of what is now dusk. The girl has a wide smirk on her face, and, to both Eoin and the commander’s horror, brings out a remote from her pocket and presses the button on it without any hesitation.
A brief moment passes before dozens of explosions ring out across the outpost, all far stronger than the previous explosions.
Wiping the outpost off the face of the planet bringing all of the soldiers along with it.
And after the smoke finally clears, the one spectator watching the whole battle finds a single girl standing at the center of the crater of what used to be the outpost, completely unharmed and without any damage to her clothes.