Rise of Tyrus

Chapter 207- Coordinated Raid (2)



Blood had never startled Tyrus. He was a hunter first, an explorer second, and a student last. Well, maybe student first, hunter second, explorer last. It depended on the day, really.

He'd butchered hares, gutted and skinned boars whose meat could crack teeth, and fought beasts to the death. He witnessed two predators tear each other apart for the crime of drinking from the wrong stream. He'd even killed a man before.

None of that prepared him for this.

The basin square turned into a pit of death. Ten rock spiders and twenty hardscales were locked in a killing match so violent that even the ruins seemed to shudder under it.

The hardscales swarmed in a pack, their stone-plated shells clattering as they circled like hounds. They lunged for legs, snapping at joints, tails whipping to crack balance out from under their prey. Their goal was simple: topple the spiders and expose any vulnerabilities they can get their claws on.

While it was a good plan, it was still an arduous one to climb. The spiders were taller, heavier, and cruel with their bladed limbs. They slashed at throats, splitting plates open like a knife through fresh bread.

One swung a limb sideways and took half a hardscale's face, skull collapsing with a hollow crack. Another spit webbing that caught a hardscale mid-charge, lines hardening to bind its forelegs. A second spider landed atop it, pincers punching down through the throat until the beast writhed no more.

For every hardscale that died, two more battered at a spider, climbing its legs, biting, dragging. One spider crumpled under sheer weight, pincers snapping wildly as its abdomen was ripped open, spilling purple blood across the cobbles. The hardscales fell on the carcass even as its legs kicked reflexively.

And yet, the spiders didn't falter. They carved in return. Their bladed limbs rose and fell with merciless rhythm, cutting through rocky skulls as if their enemies were nothing more than clay. It was blood, stone, and dirt in every direction. And even Tyrus, who thought himself hardened, had to admit he'd never seen beasts butcher each other like this before.

He breathed a sigh of relief, glad Fiona had decided fighting them head-on was a fool's errand.

A hardscale caromed off the fountain and into two others; all three toppled a wall in a tumble of stone and shells. Spiders swarmed the collapse like ants, anchoring silk and stabbing down at the soft joints. One of its brethern managed to get its jaws on a spider's abdomen and snapped as if it were biting a fruit. The spider shrieked, and froth spilled from the wound. It tried to drag itself away on five good legs. Three hardscales followed, their tails beating, and one finally stamped. The body popped.

Tyrus kept his eyes moving around the square, lanes, tunnel mouths, and the road that led toward the cathedral.

Reo crossed his line of sight. Alive and well, the scout looped wide and now sprinted along the far edge of the square. Two hardscales tried to break from the scrum to chase him, but a spider hit them from the side and pulled them back with a string wrapped around both necks. Reo flicked two knives in quick arcs that cut the silk without slowing, then vanished behind a half-collapsed home.

From the rim, a waist-high ridge of stone shouldered into being with a rumble, Fiona's staff a single flick above her head. The new wall turned a pair of hardscales away from Tyrus and toward the center where the spiders were thickest. She let the earth slump harmlessly once they were past. Grant and Igneal were no longer by her side.

Just then, a rock spider skittered onto Tyrus's wall. He flattened, felt its weight through stone. Dust fell in a whisper and tickled his nose. The spider's underside brushed the broken brick above his head, stray threads painting his hair. It paused, legs tapping, then dropped away toward the bait, guided by the rich stench of blood and meat.

It didn't take long to locate the missing members. Grant's visage appeared from below and left. He'd come down the slope sometime in the last half minute with Igneal—Tyrus hadn't seen the moment—and now stood firm at the mouth of a side street, shield braced, sword low.

"Two coming your way," Grant said.

"I see them," Igneal answered from the opposite side, blade ready, eyes amused.

A hardscale tried to skirt the main fight and climb a wall near him. He stepped forward with the swiftness of a coursing river, cut two legs off through behind its forelimbs, then leaned and stabbed his sword into one of its eye sockets, causing the beast to go limp on its back. In a few brief moments, the noble went back to where he was.

They had their circle: Reo on the tunnel side, Igneal east, Grant holding where the exit of the pit was, and Tyrus holding the cathedral lane. Their positions were a clean perimeter around a storm of blood and wrath.

A body slammed the wall a pace to Tyrus's right and slid down in a streak. Hardscale. It twitched and tried to rise. Tyrus reached over the broken bricks, caught the ridge at the back of the neck with his palm, and sent a quick line of lightning down into the seam. The body arched and went still. He ducked back before the smell could reach him.

Two runners tried to flee from the fight, heading in Grant's direction. He didn't even have to step forward. He planted his boots and took the first hit on the shield, letting the charging hardscale slide sideways on a slick of conjured water that Fiona laid, invisible until the light caught it. The beast skated and then crashed into a toppled column with a crunch. Grant stabbed the soft gap under the jaw. The second tried for his knees; he lifted the shield down like a mighty fist. The edge caught the neck clean. A sickening crunch reverberated across the area, and blood pooled underneath.

The chaos burned itself out the way such things do, with fewer bodies able to stand, and those that did too hurt to press anything but a limping retreat. The last two hardscales tried to pull away toward the cathedral road. Tyrus moved to meet the nearer and threw his flying dagger at one of its eye sockets. It let out a croak before stumbling. Tyrus sprinted forward and finished it with another quick stab with his blade. The other chose a different street and met Igneal's blade instead.

Before long, silence spread, broken only by the small sounds of the aftermath: blood oozing out of a rock spider's corpse, already weakened walls crumbling, the dying gasp of a hardscale, and maniacal laughter coming from Grant's side of the area.

"Aha! I knew my plan would work!" Fiona screamed from atop the basin.

Still laughing, Fiona made her way down the pit, sliding and stumbling as she used her staff for support. Once she was down, she rushed toward the square with a grin plasterd on her face and inspected the corpses.

"Perfect execution by us, Blue Dawn!" she declared, gesturing excitedly at the carnage surrounding them.

"Force two competing species into direct confrontation over staged resources, then maintained perimeter control while they eliminated each other for us. Simultaneous tunnel disturbances triggered the rock spiders' defensive responses, the bait created a convergence point, and systematic boundary management prevented retreat or regrouping. Eleven minutes from first contact to complete territorial dominance!"

Grant slid his sword back into its scabbard and chuckled under his breath at Fiona's triumphant speech. "You sound like a knight instructor giving us grades for our performance. Should we line up and salute now, Captain Fiona?"

Reo emerged from the ruins, wiping one dagger clean against his vambrace. "You got jokes now, huh? Well, truth be told, what we did was sharp work. Couldn't have pulled it cleaner myself. And you know how much it hurts me to admit anyone else is clever."

"Don't strain yourself," Fiona shot back. She lifted her staff and pointed it toward the carnage. "Now, get to dissecting. These cores aren't going to walk themselves into our bags. And just so we're clear, I am not walking in there and ruining my gloves. That's your guys' job."

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"What a lazy captain," Reo grumbled.

"Efficient captain. I'll go look for any stragglers. You three make sure not to waste anything. Even a chipped plate has value if we haul enough of it."

Grant was already crouching by a rock spider, sword poised for the first cut. He gave Igneal a quick look, clapping the noble on the back with a hand heavy enough to clang armor.

"You did well. That river stance of yours is as fast as ever. You should be proud of your swordsmanship."

Igneal rolled his eyes. "I don't need reaffirmation of what is expected. And for the record, it's not simply river stance that I utilize, but a style I've built upon to fit my needs."

"Oh? You should tell me more afterward."

"...No," Igneal said bluntly.

"Not keen on sharing," Grant rumbled with a nod. "It must be a style you cannot share so easily. Keep it up anyway."

Tyrus knelt nearby, knife ready to open a hardscale's neck seam. The creature's crimson blood had pooled around its body, mixing with rock spider blood to create an unappetizing reddish-brown mess across the cobblestones. With a grimace, Tyrus was about to get to work on the body until a voice rippled out of his shadow, low and urgent.

"Bearer," Eaubrus whispered. "Something stirs in the cathedral. I feel a presence approaching."

The words slid along his spine like ice. At the exact same moment, every instinct Tyrus had developed over years of life-and-death situations suddenly screamed danger. He had a feeling akin to standing in a field during a thunderstorm, with the undeniable sense that he was about to be struck by lightning.

He jerked his head toward the cathedral. "I feel something approaching from the cathedral!"

Fiona didn't hesitate. She snapped her staff in a sharp arc, signaling retreat. "Up the road! Drop everything and move!"

But the ground answered before they could. Pebbles started dancing on the stone around them while blood streaks rippled in their puddles, vibrating as if alive. The cobblestones were fractured, with cracks snaking across them, some gaping open and releasing puffs of dust.

The big structure ahead of the fountain groaned. A moment later, half the facade sloughed away, collapsing into a choking plume of dust. From that wound in the building came the thing that Eaubrus had warned him all too late.

A reptile—or was it a hardscale—heaved its bulk into the square.

Six legs, each corded with muscle and armored in slabs of stone-scale, gouged the earth with every step. Thick moss grew in the gaps between the scales, creating shifting patterns of deep green and weathered gray that made the creature look like a living landscape that had awoken from a century long slumber. However, nothing living could mask the menace in those pale white eyes with thin yellow pupils, cold as quarry-light. Its tail lashed once, and a toppled home exploded into rubble.

Tyrus had to crane his neck just to meet the eyes of the creature. Its neck stretched longer than Tyrus was tall, supporting a head that could have swallowed a horse and rider together. From the bottom of its feet to the top of its head, it towered over the group with ease.

The ground shook again when it hissed.

This is what was keeping the hardscales and spiders in line! This... thing. It looks like a hardscale, but bigger and stronger.

The massive creature's head turned toward them, pale eyes fixing on their small group with unmistakable intelligence. Its neck stretched as it regarded them, like a predator deciding which morsel to consume first.

While the action was deeply unsettling, now was not the time to despair. The creature was already moving, and despite its massive size, it moved with terrifying speed. Its six legs churned across the broken ground, each step sending tremors through the stone as it charged directly at Fiona.

Grant reacted first, moving with the automatic precision of someone trained to be the shield between danger and those he protected. He planted his feet, raised his shield, and channeled augmentation through his body until his muscles bulged with enhanced strength.

The creature struck him like a falling boulder. It looked as if Grant's augmented strength helped. It kept his bones from snapping like twigs and his organs from rupturing completely. But a giant beast moving at cavalry charge speed was still a giant, angry beast.

The impact drove him backward, his boots carving furrows in the stone as he tried to maintain his stance. His shield held, but the metal screamed under the pressure, the reinforced steel bowing inward with a massive dent that no regular human was meant to withstand. Blood streamed from Grant's nose where the impact had rattled his skull, and when the creature's power finally spent itself, he staggered backward with his left shoulder clearly flattened.

"Grant!" Tyrus barked, surging forward a half step, but Fiona's voice cracked across the square before he could.

"Hold positions! Don't bundle up together!"

Her staff rose and slammed down. From the ground ahead of Grant, a wall of stone surged upward, shouldering between him and the basilisk's snapping jaws. The beast's teeth clamped down, pulverizing the wall to bits in a heartbeat, but the delay was enough for Grant to grab Fiona and relocate her.

Igneal darted past him, blade flashing as he drew fire. Heat shimmered off his free hand, flame blooming as he carved a streak across the basilisk's flank. Scales charred and split, but the creature barely flinched. Its tail lashed, and Igneal had to roll hard to one side to keep from being flattened like clay.

Tyrus's mind raced. A frontal defense wouldn't hold since the beast was too heavy and strong. He catalogued the battlefield in an instant: Grant bleeding but still shielded, Igneal harrying with fire, Fiona reinforcing from range, Reo flanking. He himself anchored the cathedral road.

Options bloomed and died in his head. Absorbing it's essence with dark? Too risky with his mana heart still recovering from overuse, and if he poured enough mana to matter, he might shred himself before the beast even flinched. Close-range strikes? He'd have to gamble on finding a weak point beneath those plated scales. Or… bait it. Force it into motion, give the others an opening.

Reo was already at work doing just that. Daggers flashed as he sprinted across, a blur of motion around the beasts' legs. Each strike was a taunt and a test. He'd skim the basilisk's sightline and then vanish into rubble again. The monster growled deep, swinging its gaze toward him more than once, but always circling back to the bulk of the group.

It knows the biggest meal is where we stand, Tyrus realized grimly. Reo's too small to bother.

"Keep it occupied!" Fiona called, staff flaring with water that solidified into icy shards. She flung them in a fan that hammered against the basilisk's face, shattering to tiny crystals. The creature roared, six legs gouging furrows as it lunged near a cluster of ruins.

The ground shuddered, and to Tyrus's shock, brambles with spikes as long as daggers erupted in its wake. They spread out in a fan, cutting off Reo's path. The scout's speed faltered as he danced between them, blades flashing, slashing at green barbs that cut skin like razors.

"Seriously? It grows traps?" Reo shouted, cursing as a thorn sliced across his thigh.

So that's why those thorns around the ruins seemed off, Tyrus thought.

His mind whirled back to the time when he and Reo scouted the ruins. Odd chokepoints, too many thickets in neat arcs, paths that felt like they wanted to funnel him and Reo in circles. He thought it had been chance, and the plateau reclaiming the ruins. Now he knew better. This creature had been the one responsible for every wall of thorns.

Was it to prevent the rock spiders from easily invading the hardscales' territory with webs? Or was it for some other reason? What Tyrus did know was that none of it had been random. The ruins hadn't grown wild; they'd been cultivated. The hardscale had turned this basin into a killing ground, every hedge and thicket laid like a snare. As long as they stayed put at the square and did not allow it to use its territory at its fullest potential, then defeating the thing wouldn't be more difficult than it needed to be.

Yeah, my focus should be on defeating this giant hardscale. With the five of us here, it's definitely doable.

He snapped his palm out. A tight dart of lightning cracked through the bramble nearest Reo, burning a knot of thorns into a blackened hole. Seizing his chance, Reo knifed through the burned gap, turned a heel against a fallen rock spider, and vaulted to new ground.

Grant stepped forward, shield raised. With a grunt, he slammed the rim of his shield against the stones, the echo cracking sharp across the ruins. The monster turned, head angling down at him.

Fiona's staff swept sideways. From the rim of the basin, stone surged up like a new wall, blocking the lane the beast had tried to back into. Igneal added flame, a stream of fire washing across its flank. The giant hardscale hissed, turned back toward the open square.

The fight became a grind. Grant stood firm at the center, shield slamming into the beast's legs again and again, each strike ringing like iron on iron. Tyrus covered the cathedral lane with short bursts of lightning to intercept snapping jaws that angled too low. Igneal strafed its face with arcs of flame, never letting its eyes rest. And Reo kept his position on top of a nearby roof, watching.

"Keep hammering!" Fiona ordered.

Grant's answer was a roar of his own. He threw himself shoulder-first, shield braced with augmentation pouring into his limbs. The blow landed with such force that the air cracked. A scale on the creature's foreleg chipped, a splinter of stone flaking away.

In that split second, Tyrus's eyes widened, and he focused his attention on the splintered stone. Mana surged, lightning coiling around his arm. In two seconds, he let loose a Lightning Bolt.

The spell screamed across the square, white-blue fire lancing into the chipped patch. Stone exploded outward in a burst of shards, scales splitting wide. The leg armor broke apart, exposing raw flesh, slick and twitching beneath. The hardscale bellowed, staggering for the first time.

"Reo, now!" Fiona cried.

Reo was already moving. He scurried forward, daggers in reverse grips, and leapt at the exposed limb. Both blades carved deep, biting through flesh. Blood sprayed hot across the cobbles as he dragged steel down its length. When he landed, more than half the limb was severed, meat hanging by tendons.

A terrible hiss pierced the air, a sound that scraped against the ears and whittled bone. Their opponent stumbled, rage thick it's in eyes. Then, as if ready to show what it truly was, its frills spread out.


Tip: You can use left, right, A and D keyboard keys to browse between chapters.