Olimpia

Terrance Holder, knight of House Fridgia, dashed down the main street of Ironhold. With every footfall, he boomed, "Fallback! Retreat to the southern quarter! Flee for your lives!" It might have been excessive if he were moving at normal human speeds, but he wasn't.

His body was thrumming with his power, every muscle pulsing in time with his wants and desires. A lunging step that should have taken him no more than five feet propelled him twenty yards, where he crashed against the outer wall of some building. Leaping off it and causing the wall to fissure, he landed back on the street and behind the next set of barricades, where he repeated his desperate command.

And it was desperate. Of the thousands defending the northern quarter of Ironhold, hundreds might come out of this alive. Or so the knight hoped. Because the earth was shaking, causing the walls to tremble as an eerie crimson light grew in intensity outside their all-too-small and fragile defenses.

Thousands of crackling pops filled the air, and even though he knew what was happening, Knight Holder positioned himself so that when he landed against the next house, he could look back toward the northern wall of Ironhold.

A sight that at any other time would have filled him with awe and fear suddenly looked insignificant. Dozens of streams of water lifted into the air and converged on a single point, where they froze, adding layer after layer to form an ice spear.

In the brief moments he watched, the casting grew in size from an eight-foot teardrop-shaped boulder to a twelve-foot one with a third its length as its width, and it showed no signs of slowing down. After three more of Terrance's leaps, the sounds of rapidly freezing water stopped, and a moment later, a bellow of rage and annoyance filled the air before going silent.

For an instant, the knight hoped, and he paused his next leap as he silently pleaded that it was all over. That he had wasted his efforts and would have to force everyone back to their stations. Then he was almost thrown off his feet as the ground reverberated from the thousand-ton monstrosity taking another step, and he started moving again, silently cursing.

Confirming his fears and pushing him to move faster, the sounds of Justinian forming another ice spear filled the city as he attempted to stop or at least slow the inevitable advance of the behemoth. A creation that had no right to exist, as it was composed of countless bodies of Olimpians. Not their whole bodies, but their muscles, tendons, and he would guess bones, reassembled and connected in a vile desecration of the living.

Upon seeing the abomination, Holder was filled with the desire to rush into the beastkin's ranks and cut them all down. His blood boiled, and the fact that he had to turn his back and run cut far deeper than he would have first thought. It hurt his pride and honor, and the only reason that he could continue to move was that he knew Justinian's plan. Moreover, he agreed it was their only chance.

He knew that his actions could very well mean the difference between escape and death. Not victory. Well, victory only in the sense that they might live to fight another day. And that had to be good enough. Something he might end up believing if he said it to himself enough times.

Slamming into the wall of the citadel of Ironhold, the knight didn't bother dropping to move to the door. Instead, he slammed his fist into the wall and flung himself upward in massive leaps. To anyone below, he must have looked like a frog bounding up the building's side.

Though no frog was as noisy as he was, because Terrance was making such a racket that heads started poking out of the fortifications to see what was happening. Most of the faces he saw were bloodless, and their bodies were shaking from terror. An understandable state, given they were high enough to see the horror marching against their city. Despite, or because of their fear, some of his onlookers still had some of their wits about them.

Some being the keyword, because the fuckers started chucking spheres and spears at him. There were even shouts to get the archers firing from their outcroppings at him. Sure, there was no reason in any of the plans beforehand for anyone to be there, but that meant little to the knight when he had to start deflecting projectiles with his precious psy.

If they had taken a moment of thought or used their eyes, they would have known they were fighting the beastkins, not the Imperials. Or simply looked at the heraldry plastered over Terrance's armor. But they didn't, as fear was ruling their minds.

Then again, the situation could have been worse. With how fast Terrance was moving, the defenders barely had a moment or two to attack him before he was past all of the manned slits. Not that it meant he could slow down or stop, as he still had to get to the top.

Enhanced as his body was, and assisted by tendrils of his psy pulling upward, by the time he reached the top of the nearly thousand-foot fortress, his arms were slightly quivering from hauling his heavy armor and body up the stupid thing. Still, as he pulled himself over the railing and onto the flat surface of the building, he was not done.

Chest heaving, he empowered his legs, pulled himself forward at a slightly downward angle, formed a windshield, and began sprinting down the wide rooftop. Pulling himself down, if even slightly, was not helping with his physical fatigue, but it was a necessity.

While the knight was burning through his psy, the results were that he was moving faster than any horse by several orders of magnitude. If he didn't have the windshield, he would be blind, and the wind resistance would become like running through waist-deep water. And without the downward tendril, he wouldn't have the traction on the ground required to propel himself at his top speed.

A speed so great that an arrow would have trouble keeping up with him… but he still feared that he would not make it in time. Ninety percent of his attention was focused on planning out his next three steps, but he was still watching the unfolding battle to the north from the corner of his eyes.

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Again and again, chunks of ice roughly in the shape of a teardrop and larger than most houses within the town were formed and thrown at the behemoth. As testaments of the attack, some of the previous castings were sticking out of the chest and legs of the abomination. But even as another ice projectile was shot at near point-blank range, the ice shards were slowly being forced out of the body, and all that the creature did was release one earthshaking roar of annoyance after another.

Seeing that what he was doing was pointless, Justinian formed an ice shard twice the size of all the others and released it. The resulting impact caused the flesh giant to stagger backward as the left side of its skull was broken open and peeled back. But even that apparently was nothing but a paper cut to the creature as it resolutely stepped forward again, finally making it within arm's reach of the battlements.

Walls that now only had one occupant, stubbornly standing in place even after he told everyone else to flee. Terrance saw Justinian lift his arm, and a second later, hundreds of bars of water peppered the face of the creature, who shrugged it off with little more than a reverberating groan as it grabbed onto the parapet with both hands.

The head swayed forward, and the hands clamped down, shattering the battlements and sending cracks down the wall. With a burst of motion, the massive head jerked back, and a spiderweb-like fissure abruptly bulged inward from roughly the center of the wall.

"Garrr!" Roared the mockery of a human, its body straining as its arms bulged and flexed, causing more cracks to form and sound as it tried to pull apart the upper portion of the wall. Finally moving, Justinian burst forward, drawing his blade in an upward slash.

Though it took less than a fraction of a second, Terrance saw what looked like a river of water burst forth from around the noble's body. Now standing on the parapets of the wall, Justinian swung out with his now raised and far longer water blade and smacked the already falling giant across the face, ensuring it remained off balance.

Weather from the assistance of the high noble or having its right wrist severed while it was pulling on the wall, the flesh behemoth stumbled backward, its left hand ripping free as it fell onto its ass. An impact that still sent tremors running across the mountain range and caused chunks of stone to break off from the already damaged wall.

For a moment, Knight Holder hoped again. He dared to think that it would end here, and they could endure a regular siege, beating back assaults on the walls and slowly starving. He even slowed for a step or two, although he didn't stop, as he had before. The faint hope was dashed when the abomination announced its frustration.

Redoubling his efforts as if the scream was blowing into his sales, the knight put on a burst of speed, quickly approaching the tower anchoring the western side of the eye that the city formed. Ten steps before he reached it, he shot to his right and fell dozens of feet, guiding his descent until he landed on the roof of a house.

Seconds after he impacted the stone platform, the seemingly ordinary and empty rooftop had a half dozen figures bursting from the ground all around him. Some of them were still in mid-lunge, their faces shifting to one of recognition as they struggled to come to a stop. Ignoring their attacks, his voice boomed, "Send out the standby pulse for immediate action!"

"What?" Whined Knight Doraith, taking a step forward, "This isn't according to the plan. Some of us are still resting, having rushed to finish the preparations. You were supposed to hold for another day or—

"I said now!" Thundered Knight Holder, using his centurion voice, "Or did you forget that we are in a war and plans change!? Those tremors you have been feeling are us about to lose the northern wall!" The woman still seemed like she was going to object, but Terrance was having none of it. Leaping forward, he grabbed the woman, whose hand was dropping to her gladius, and roughly shoved her shoulder, forcing her to turn.

It was fortuitous timing on his part, or maybe whatever divine beings that existed wanted a good laugh, because the woman's expression became petrified with terror. The moment she turned, the wall all but exploded inward as the ten-story giant rammed it with his shoulder. Only the top section of its body made it through the stone barrier, but even through the dust and debris, it was a sight to behold. The upper portions of the walls were fragmenting into everything from pebbles to boulders that would collapse a line of houses after they finally came to a stop.

"Send the fucking signal, now!" Screamed Terrance over the impacts of stones far too large to have such speed. Stubborn and dense the noble woman might have been, but the others on the roof did not share such qualities. Or at least Knight Yappino wasn't, as he was the one tasked with sending out the verified pulse message. Seconds after the giants roar, the entire city reverberated with a pulse message to clear the trenches and for the knights to prepare for action.

Not having anything else to do, the Fridgia family knight stood, watching the efforts of thousands being quite literally smashed under the force of a single terrifying casting of the beastkins. Chunks of the wall were ripped and broken off, most of which were thrown into the city. The center portion of the northern wall became so mangled that it could hardly deserve the name, and the crimson mist outside began flowing over its edge like a rock in the center of a river.

Try as he might, Justinian could do nothing more than slow the behemoth abomination down as it dismantled the fortifications, all to the thunderous cheers of those watching outside and above. The heir to a City Lord, wielding all the skill and raw power that position entailed, threw around more castings than most cohorts could manifest. Every one of his attacks causing what would be devastating wounds to anything else. Wounds deep enough that they revealed to all that, in fact, the flesh giant did have bones supporting its body. Shit, he even managed to rip off part of its left arm.

But, without fail, in a matter of seconds, the swirling crimson mist flooded toward the creature and poured into its body. In response, its flesh boiled, and whatever injury caused it to stagger was sealed over, or where a section was cut off, reabsorbed into the giant body before regrowing. Nothing could be permanently done to the creature, only slow it.

After it finished dismantling the wall, it stepped over the remains and marched down the main boulevard, heading toward the citadel. With every massive step, a line of destruction was plowed through the city. Even from far above, it was a chilling sight, and he could only feel pity for those stuck in its path. The knight could make out those who were either too slow or disregarded the order to retreat, thinking they knew better, only to realize their mistake now, after it was far too late.

The cold truth was that Justinian took the beastkins advance seriously. So seriously, in fact, that he had expected a reasonable chance of losing the town. "Now." The Fridgian Knight whispered.

As if Terrance's words were the trigger, a pulse message rippled from the building below him, and the entire cliff face shifted with a rumble. Two thousand-foot mountainsides, composing hundreds of thousands of pounds of stone, collapsed into a valley that was two hundred yards wide at the section where the giant stood. The world rumbled as nature followed its want, gravity taking hold of the hundreds of buildings and the foundations beneath them.

Still, the knight feared it wouldn't be enough to kill the abomination. But perhaps, this would trap it. Or so Terrance hoped.