NOVEL NEXT Chapter 1023: My turn
Before a war begins, there is always the quiet dread. A tense, suffocating silence where the mind races.
Every soldier, living and dead, stared at the narrow slit of the canyon ahead, as if some unimaginable horror was about to burst forth from the shadows.
Is it starting?
Standing guard outside the sand scorpions' Nest, Dirtclaw watched the endless tide of small scorpions and skeleton warriors flow into the mouth of the Death Spiral Zone. A jolt of adrenaline shot through him. With a sudden whoosh, the hellfire dormant within him erupted, cloaking his draconic form in shimmering heat. The battle lust began to simmer, the fire in his blood catching light.
The first wave to enter the spiral passage wasn't the skeletons. It was the scorpions, which vanished underground, their movement kicking up a colossal sandstorm that roared into the tunnel. The grating hiss of sand on stone was the opening salvo of a war that would be decided by brute force, not cunning.
A lone Gnasher Race drone clawed its way out of the earth, its antennae twitching frantically as it tried to process the sudden chaos. The sandstorm hit it a second later. The drone was instantly shredded, its antennae sent spinning into the vortex. In the face of this terrifying invasion, death was a footnote.
But in its final moment, the drone had succeeded. It had broadcast everything it sensed, a complex warning encoded in pheromones. The sandstorm, its executioner, became the perfect vehicle for that message.
Soon, other drones began to surface along the tunnel, one after another. They met the same fate, torn to pieces before they could even register their own demise. But with each death, the intelligence grew more refined, a clearer picture carried on the wind to the heart of the Gnasher Race Nest.
Screeeeee!
Deep within the Gnasher lair, a sound like grinding metal echoed through the chambers. It was the highest alert, a signal that the Tribe faced a war for its very survival.
The Mandible Guard, the hulking elites stationed near the Nest's core, immediately converged on the broodchamber, forming a living wall around their matriarch, Jin Ya. In wartime, they would not leave her side.
"Invaders?" The broodmother's voice was calm, melodic, and laced with ancient weariness. "They must be here for the black gold."
The Gnasher Race's broodmother possessed a deceptively humanoid form, her features obscured by a network of intricate, glowing tattoos. She was an ageless being, whose terrible and majestic presence filled the chamber.
She approached a grand statue at the center of her royal hall. It was a monument to their ancestor, the demigod they worshipped. She began a ritual, her movements precise and strange, her voice a low prayer.
As she prayed, a carapace of black, chitinous armor grew from her skin, flowing over her body until she was encased in a formidable suit of living plate.
By the time the ritual was complete, her four primary Mandible Guards had taken their positions around her, each one a giant of muscle and chitin that towered over her.
"Report," Jin Ya commanded, stretching her newly armored limbs with a series of sharp cracks.
One of the guards, its voice a dry rasp, answered. "Matriarch, we have only fragmented intel. A great storm has entered the outer spiral, followed by an army of countless skeleton warriors. They are prepared, Matriarch. To invade so brazenly… this is a calculated assault."
"Have the Reavers been dispatched?" she asked. The Reavers were the Gnasher Race's elite frontline specialists, every one of them a warrior of the arch lord rank.
The guard bowed its head. "Matriarch, the two closest Reavers are already en route to intercept. The others have received the signal and are mobilizing."
Jin Ya nodded, her expression unreadable. There was no panic here. This Godforsaken Land, a territory their ancestor had torn from another power, was rich in black gold. They had fought off countless invaders seeking to claim it. For the Gnasher Race, who devoured any living thing they could kill, war was not a tragedy. It was a banquet.
"Prepare yourselves," she told her guards. "If the Reavers fail, you will march with me."
Unlike the broodmothers of lesser races, Jin Ya was no helpless queen to be protected. She was a master of combat, the single most powerful warrior in the entire Gnasher Race.
Outside the Nest, at the edge of the death spiral.
Orion's Deathly Soul-Reaper avatar strolled casually through the endless ranks of skeletons, its massive runed scythe resting on its shoulder. The combined might of the undead and scorpion armies was a relentless flood, pouring ever deeper into the spiral's darkening core. This was merely the opening phase; the main Gnasher army had yet to appear, and the advance was brutally fast.
Behind Orion, Bone White, Bone Red, Vexis, and Rumbold followed. Vexis and Rumbold moved with grim purpose, their staves flashing with baleful light as they reanimated the shredded remains of the Gnasher drones, their unholy necromantic magic causing the invasion force to snowball with every single step it took.
At this rate, Orion's army would soon become an unstoppable avalanche, destined to crush the Gnasher Race under its sheer weight.
Suddenly, Orion paused. He sensed two powerful signatures—arch lords—streaking towards them at an incredible, blurring speed.
"My turn," the Soul-Reaper's raspy voice echoed. "Protect yourselves."
The warning was mostly a formality. He knew Bone White and Bone Red, the hulking skeleton champions, were already flanking Vexis and Rumbold, their sole purpose to serve as their bodyguards.
Aaaaoooowl!
A chilling roar, cold and metallic, tore through the air. A colossal skeletal dragon materialized high above the army, its cavernous eyes burning with ethereal blue light. It beat its tattered, sun-blocking wings, unleashing a palpable wave of frigid air.
The Deathly Soul-Reaper leaped, landing silently atop the dragon's skull. The great beast instantly sensed its master's targets, and with a powerful surge of frost and wind, it shot forward like a missile to meet the rapidly approaching threat.