Chapter 98 - Locating The Beast

"How many of these things are there?" Ryan asked, breathing heavily while sweat dripped from the end of his nose even though it was the dead of winter.

Professor Kal looked over his shoulder at his exhausted student, subtly shaking his head. "Here, drink this, it'll put a little pep in your step."

Professor Kal produced a long, thin glass test-tube as big around as a finger, that was corked on one end. Inside was an orange liquid that bubbled each time it sloshed within its container. Taking it from the Professor, Ryan inspected it suspiciously. He was a little hesitant to drink some random potion his crazy professor just handed him, but his mana was running dangerously low, and they still hadn't caught up to the monster yet.

For the last hour they've had to kill dozens of those walking corpses created by whatever had taken over Amaranthae's body. Each he killed took him about a third of the total mana he held within his body, making the progress extremely slow. Professor Kal only stepped in when there were more than three of such creatures, telling him that 'You only grow stronger by pushing yourself to the absolute edge'. His words did make sense to him, but due to the seriousness of the matter, he wished that the Professor would assist him more than what he had so far.

Pulling the cork out of the glass tube with his teeth, Ryan put it to his parched lips and drank the contents in one large gulp. It was cool going down, almost so cold that it burned. Once reaching his stomach, he could feel the cool sensation coating his stomach before moving down into his bowels. He found it very uncomfortable and started to squirm, attempting to rid himself of the strange feeling.

After a few seconds, the cold sensation faded away into nothing, leaving him curious as to what the unidentified potion really did. Before he could ask though, he felt the mana inside his body begin to swell, and soon was completely refreshed. He quickly cast a spell, only taking up about a tenth of his mana, and found that his rate of mana recuperation had multiplied ten-fold.

"Why didn't you give this to me earlier? We could have saved a lot of time." Ryan asked, not finding any side effects by drinking the orange liquid.

Professor Kal turned to go down a narrow alleyway, answering as he did so. "Well, it doesn't last for very long, only about an hour or so."

"Does that mean we've almost caught up?" Ryan asked the obvious question.

Professor Kal nodded his head as he continued on, walking at a brisk pace. "Just a few more streets over."

"How can you tell? The sound is coming from everywhere." Ryan stated, pointing out the fact that the sounds of battle were echoing off of every building as they drew closer, making it almost impossible for him to discern which direction it was really coming from.

Professor Kal slowed his pace, eventually coming to a stop. With his pointer finger, Professor Kal stuck it toward the sky above the buildings some distance away. There, circling high in the sky, were hundreds of large, jet-black birds. "The carrion crows follow the corpses."

…..

Peering around the corner of a high-end weapons shop, Professor Kal studied the battlefield not too far in front of them. Somehow, they had managed to lure the creature into a large plaza situated inside the noble's district. The cost of luring the monster must have been great; crushed, and mangled bodies littered the plaza, the braver of the carrion crows were already feasting on the still warm flesh even as the battle still raged on around them.

The city guard, along with the adventurers, paladins, and priests, were fighting a losing battle. The paladin's steel kite shields could only withstand a few blows from the monster's claws before becoming so warped as to be unusable. The priests were exhausting themselves, constantly buffing their holy counterparts and healing any wounds that occurred. But even with their most powerful holy spells, they could not keep up with the amount of damage they were sustaining, with every other attack another paladin or adventurer would die.

Professor Kal watched with narrowed eyes as more of the city guard poured into the large plaza, the number of combatants numbered in the hundreds. Nevertheless, no matter how many bodies were thrown at the monster, it was still unscathed, not even bothering to try and avoid the attacks coming its way. It was obvious to him that it was merely playing with its food, enjoying the despair its prey was experiencing.

"Professor, what do we do?" Ryan asked, his voice hinting at his apprehension.

"We wait just a little longer. Do you feel it? The ground, the calvary is coming." Professor Kal stated, not taking his eyes off of the one-sided battle.

Ryan diverted his attention to his feet, trying to feel what the Professor was talking about. After a few seconds, he could. A low rumble shook the ground, it was faint at first, but quickly grew in intensity. A moment later, he could hear a cacophony of hoofbeats thundering towards them. The windowpane of the weapons store they were standing by vibrated violently in its frame, the rapid rattle announcing the arrival of the Royal Select.

Over a hundred knights in polished steel armor rode into the square, stopping some distance away from the ongoing battle. Being pulled by six horses was a highly ornate, massive carriage. Professor Kal could sense the mana coming from inside, immediately informing him of who must be within.

"Ah, they're taking this seriously." He said, grabbing Ryan's attention.

"Who is it?"

"Their Royal Mage, I can't remember his name, but I can feel his mana from here. Watch closely, you might just learn something."

The Royal Select's captain began barking orders from atop his steed. Immediately, the over one-hundred knights dismounted and got into formation, their movements were fluid, almost mechanical, indicative of their relentless training. Forming a solid wall of flesh and steel, the Royal select stood with shields at front. The creature, standing every bit of twenty feet tall, wasn't oblivious to the movements of the new arrivals. But instead of seeming fearful, a wicked grin spread across its humanoid face. Also noticing the arrival of reinforcements, the remaining adventurers and city guards retreated under the protection of the paladins, and priests reinforcing them.

Now standing alone amongst a field of corpses, the monster started to take in deep breaths, its chest expanding with each one. The Royal Select remained motionless, waiting for the creature to make a move. The large carriage's door swung open, allowing several well-dressed mages to disembark. The last to leave the carriage was a tall man, with salt and pepper hair. He was wearing a majestic robe that was black with iridescent mithril hems.

Professor Kal couldn't hear what they were saying to each other as they watched the monster, but he figured that they were waiting to see what was going to happen, just as he was. In only a moment, the monster stopped taking in air and opened its mouth wide; a black miasma bellowed out of its open maw, contrasting sharply with the white snowy ground. In another breath, the miasma settled over the ground, creating a dense fog that covered the entire plaza.

"Professor, what is that?"

"It didn't look like a spell, but I could be wrong. I really don't know." Professor Kal said, as he scribbled away in his notebook.

This day had been chalked full of new discoveries, his anger at his student for getting him killed earlier had completely disappeared. He watched intently as the black fog sunk lower and lower towards the ground, seeping into the bodies strewn about. He had an idea of what was coming next but was quickly proven wrong.

Although mana was not in play here, Professor Kal thought that the monster was raising the dead in much the same way as he would, just utilizing a different medium to do so. As the first body began to twitch, the Royal Select unsheathed their swords, preparing for combat. More and more of the hundreds of bodies began to convulse, tortured moans and screeches spreading across the plaza. The more than fifty priests that had taken refuge behind the line of knights, pushed through their exhaustion, and cast several cleansing spells, trying to stop the undead before they had a chance to rise.

Much to their consternation, their Holy spells had no effect whatsoever, the bodies continued to violently writhe on the ground. Before they had a chance to attempt their spells once more, the bodies suddenly stopped their movements all in unison. An eerie silence filled the air, only the startled calls of the carrion crows could be heard mixed in with the winter wind blowing across the plaza.

The last little bit of the thick miasma faded into nothing, Professor Kal took a step closer to the battlefield, trying to get a better look. Maybe the Holy magic had succeeded? Without mana to sense, he had no way of telling for certain. A low murmur spread throughout the ragtag combatants behind the Royal Select, many voices were expressing their relief at a small victory. Some even went as far as to drop to their knees and pray to the Goddess of the Dawn, thanking her for this small miracle.

Almost as if a malevolent god was mocking them, all of the bodies violently burst open, sending blood and gore spurting in every direction. Bubbling up from inside the bodies was a mass of veiny flesh that continued to grow with every passing second. Soon, hundreds of eight-foot-tall cocoons stood where once there were bodies, pulsing rhythmically like a heartbeat.

Not daring to wait for whatever was inside to hatch, the mages, along with the Royal Mage, began chanting simultaneously. Professor Kal could sense the mana rushing from every direction towards them, building up within the Royal Mage. The Royal Mage was using the other mages around him to help channel more mana than what he would normally be able to handle, all in order to cast an extraordinarily powerful spell.

The grey winter sky, filled with low hanging clouds, instantly darkened. It was as if night had suddenly befallen the entire plaza, it was hard for Ryan to even see the monster, even though it had been clearly visible only moments before. The gentle winter breeze reversed, now being drawn toward the center of the plaza and with increasingly greater speed. The wind soon grew into a fierce gale, ripping the roofs off of nearby buildings, and pulling anything not nailed down into the plaza.

The monster dropped down, digging all of its claws into the frozen ground. Even then, it started to be pulled toward the center of the plaza, leaving deep gouges in the ground. Dozens of the cocoons, still beating like hearts, were pulled from the ground; exposing long, thick fleshy roots that were anchoring them. The dark storm continued for several long seconds, Ryan was very nearly pulled along as well by the strong winds, he was only stopped by Professor Kal grabbing ahold of him before he lost his footing.

Gradually, the wind died down and the darkness faded away, revealing a vastly different landscape. All of the nearby buildings had been nearly leveled, only the ones built of stone managed to withstand the storm. Many of the tall trees standing around the plaza, some more than a hundred years old, had snapped in half, their tops nowhere to be seen. In fact, for all of the obvious destruction that had occurred, there were no traces of the debris, everything was just gone.

Unfortunately for the Royal Select, the monster had managed to weather the spell, along with most of the cocoons that had sprouted. Only the ones in the immediate area were pulled inside the spell, leaving the rest unharmed. Those that remained rooted into the ground beat faster and faster, bulges could be seen moving around on the inside, hinting that whatever was growing inside was about to hatch.

With a wet tearing sound, the first egg burst open, spilling a clear fluid over the now clear ground. Bursting out of its gestational sac was a hideous abomination. It was shaped much like an insect, with several long legs, tipped with black, bone like scythes cutting into the frozen ground as it chittered toward the line of armored knights. Its body had only one segment, with beady black eyes running down each side and was covered in pink flesh that was quickly hardening into a darker red color.. Its mouth was a circular hole with several rows of small, sharp teeth dripping with clear saliva that corroded the ground as it drooled in hunger.