"Hey! Matt, what’s wrong?"
He realised when Matthew fell on his chest that he was still holding onto his shoulder. He quickly laid him down.
"Healer! I need a healer here. Brace yourselves, we’re under attack. I repeat, we’re under attack from an unknown and unseen enemy." He didn’t have a microphone but his voice carried throughout the battlefield.
Four to five healers were already by his side. Checking for anything that could’ve been wrong with the kid, Matthew.
Everyone else scrambled, getting into position. Rounding up the teams they were originally assigned to. As exhausted as they were, they could still put the fatigue aside to fight for what was theirs.
"You’ll be okay buddy, just keep breathing, keep breathing." He spoke to him, holding his blood stained hand.
Every time he’d cough, a mouthful of it would come out. Letting them know of the internal damage he suffered from an unknown attack.
"Captain Waynworth, we don’t know, we can’t see anything. His vitals are—"
"Then what’s wrong with him?" He shouted, not able to control his anger.
They managed to get this far without a single casuality. For proof you only needed to look at the road that was only covered in black blood, but now, with Matthew, the red was threatening something that made his chest tighten.
At his peripheral, he could see a group of people walking towards them. They were wearing all black, they seemed to be human too — not the monsters they were fighting, definitely not.
He got up from where the healers were desperately trying to revive Matthew. There was a strange ringing in his ears, making his sense of hearing dull and unfocused. The noise he made out was muffled, as he walked forward.
Percival saw people he knew. People he shared meals and drinks with, people he didn’t consider friends but they were far from being enemies. But their demeanor was very different, they looked at their own people like they were some kind of disgusting worms.
Percival had his wife facing him, she quickly took Blakeson’s spot. She was still smiling, licking her lips. Whatever mode this was, he clearly hadn’t lost his mind.
"Helena, go back to our children. Leave this to me." The pleading and hurt in his voice couldn’t be concealed.
He wanted to believe that his wife was doing this, all of it under coercion. Otherwise how could he have been fooled, all this time?
"You were always quite the protector. Don’t beat yourself up about this, I’ve always just been that good at pretending." She smiled, her arm half raised, she was chanting something.
Percival started to feel prickles from within. They were uncomfortable, but he held his sword forward and continued to walk towards her.
She was putting her all into squashing his insides, but the physically manifested energy was healing him faster than she was doing any real damage.
"Blakeson, how long are you planning to stay down there? Our Lord isn’t going to be happy if we can’t finish them off."
She wanted to be the one to kill her husband but he was simply too strong. It would’ve been greater if she could’ve been the one cutting the ties.
Kiro was burning hot where he stood. He couldn’t believe the nerve of this woman, betrayed her entire family, for what. He felt digusted that her blood coursed through his veins.
Chronos didn’t have any words to comfort him. He was who he was because of what was unfolding before him, even without telling him that, he was sure he knew that much.
"So you’re the one who did that to Matthew?" He wasn’t shouting, his voice was calm and agony plagued it.
He knew what he had to do, grabbing the tilt of his sword tightly, he fell deeper into enemy soldiers. Cutting them as he chased his wife, he had to be the one to take her down. He blamed himself for not seeing it sooner.
Something that never happened to him occurred, he was missing about fifty percent of his targets.
He never missed before.