Chương 35: Book 1, Chapter 35: Patrol

Before they went to the building, they checked the rest of the kappa's landmarks… Although they turned up nothing more than a few more entrances to the Nameless nest and what appeared to be a few shrines. The spread of the Nameless nest exits was honestly worrying, and John was starting to suspect that it might be like a damn city down there. They had that whole space warping nonsense going on, after all. They could fit down—and take their loot down—that narrow tree trunk, it wasn't natural.

Who knew how far the network stretched underneath? The only small mercy is that they probably aren't the strongest diggers, given that they hadn't tried to dig into his fort rather than sieging it, so it'll likely take them quite some time to hit the surface once they collapse the entries. He had an idea on how to do that, and now that he thought more in depth about it, he may have a good idea on how to do that… but it would require good, long lines of sight, which can only be achieved via flight.

It was luck that the Nameless couldn't fly. Although if what Yuki mentioned about levitation was true, if someone practiced was able to fly by walking or leaping off of reinforced air, that might mean the Greater Nameless was able to fly, in a sense. That thought was awful, and he hated having come up with it. He shook his head, bringing him back to the present as the group lurked outside the suspected drop-off point, creeping through the woods with the greatest of care.

"Do you sense anything, Yuki?" he whispered, barely audible even to himself, but he knew she'd hear. The kitsune's damned hearing made him jealous sometimes. Then he thought about how intolerable it would be to live in a city if you had a neighbour with peculiar tastes. He stopped feeling quite as jealous after that. She sniffed the air, and her ears twitched in various directions, like parabolic microphones scanning the forest.

Her face quirked into a frown, and she did the universal gesture of being unsure, holding her hand level before rocking it from side to side.

"Let me guess, no sounds, but it smells too much like Nameless?" he whispered, and she nodded in return. John winced and scanned the area with his Nameless detector, but came up with nothing.

"What's the range the Greater Nameless can control the puppets in?" he quietly asked.

"Further than here to the nest," Yuki quietly returned, and he nodded. The bodies were likely around then. Not as if a hollowed corpse would need many resources to maintain, and if the smaller Nameless they used to puppet them were anything like the large ones, they could stay still for a very, very long time without worry. Right, so they were probably around… but in storage somewhere. That complicates things.

"We still need to make sure this is their drop-off point rather than something else," he added with a frown.

"For all we know right now, this could be a lure for travellers or something."

"Then we press on." Her statement, although quiet, was absolute. The three crept closer, and Yuki warned them of no trip wires. They must be worried about giving away their presence, to some degree. While the average person wouldn't think much of a few threads of spider silk, someone well-experienced in dealing with Nameless would probably see the trap for what it was and alert forces far more than what they could deal with.

After all, a species of ill temper able to spread like the Nameless was truly an existential threat to any civilization ill-prepared, and needed to be dealt with quickly. Even with guns, he couldn't imagine most towns or small cities back home would deal well with them, especially if they could slip in puppets. The trees thinned, and soon enough, a building appeared from between the trees. It was simple, undecorated, and featured thick, earthen walls and plaster, framed by wood.

It was not massive, perhaps eighty feet from one end to the other, but it took up the entire clearing it was in, with trees scraping against the edges. Two floors, unless it had a basement, but he doubted it did. There may be an office. There was a single raised section towards the edge of the steepled roof that looked much like a loft of some description, and bore the only windows John could see on this side.

Finally, there was a thick double door, made out of large planks, with a dense knot of rope tied between the handles, but no lock.

"That's bait," he muttered, glowering at the door. If there was anything that had a string tied to it, it was that. Yuki nodded in agreement, pointing to the closed-over window on the loft, too.

"All the entrances are certainly trapped. The underside of the roof likely has a smoke vent, though. Do you have that tool of yours that melts things?" she asked, glancing toward his pack. Nodding, he put his bag down and rooted through his pack, holding out the device. When the kitsune grabbed it, he did not release, his lips tightening for a moment.

"Do you need any pointers on how to use this?" he tensely asked, barely above a whisper. Yuki shook her head.

"No. I watched you use it plenty," she responded. If it were anybody else, he doubted that would be enough, but Yuki was unnervingly observant at the worst of times. Releasing it, she gave him an appreciative nod before spinning around and silently lurking forward, unhidden by any sort of disguise. Her ears were on a swivel, twisting this way and that to catch a thousand sounds he was not privy to. Her eyes scanned the path for threats, and her tails were eerily still.

Once she was next to the building, she crouched before springing up onto the roof with barely a sound. She crept over to the top of the ledge, and after peeking over the side, she grabbed onto it and swung under, disappearing from view except for her fingers and her tails gently waving in the breeze behind her. A few moments later, she swung outwards, then in, disappearing entirely through whatever opening she made. He knew it was going to happen, but a deep-seated dread shot through John nonetheless.

If she needed support, what would be the best way to hurry over to help her? Would it be best to burn through the front door? That may expose him to any traps that they had in wait. Use his excavation focus to tear through the side wall? That would be slower.

"Sensei," a voice whispered to his side, and he whipped around to face Rin. The speed made her jolt, and she leaned back, although he thankfully didn't draw his weapon on her this time.

"Sensei, what should we do?" Rin's eyes drifted to the suspected warehouse, lingering on it for too long before going back to him.

"We stay low and we wait," he quietly replied. The Unbound looked unhappy at this, looking away for a moment as her lips curled into a frown. John took that moment to place his backpack down so it wouldn't make a noticeable lump and began to disguise himself. When she looked back, her eyes widened.

"What are you doing?" she harshly whispered. Not reproachingly, but more in disbelief. John looked at her curiously, pausing his impromptu forest debris burial. He stared at her, only realizing how strange this must look a moment later.

"Look," he said, gesturing at the leaves and branches he had already half covered himself in, "we're in a divot. It would look very natural from a distance, and it would only take maybe a half second to get myself out."

"It is…" Rin trailed off, seeming to carefully pick her words, staring past him.

"Beneath your station."

"We do not have the luxury to complain about how we can best win, we're facing down a disaster," he breathlessly whispered.

"They are a swarm of countless monsters that will happily kill every single person they can to hoard as much wealth as possible. If we fail, this town will be turned into a withered husk, barely clinging onto life. If they don't outwardly act, it'll be written off as a simple result of the war or bad fortunes. Then it'll happen again, then again, then again." John paused, gesturing down at the pile of forestry that he was using as camouflage.

"What if we fail due to not grabbing every advantage we can? Would their blood not be on our hands? Below me or not, this might make the difference. Now get down." Conflict warred in Rin's gaze, and she twitched uneasily, looking toward him, but her mind was somewhere else, and her legs twitched like she was going to bolt.

"I see," was all she finally said after a long silence, lying down close to him and uneasily covering herself in plants and dirt. He provided a few tips as she did so, allowing her to make a far more convincing cover. By the time he was done, anyone would have a hell of a time finding her… assuming they didn't have superhuman senses, at least, but those seemed rather rare; the only confirmed example he had so far was Yuki.

The Nameless weren't too terribly observant, other than having an eerie ability to locate money, given how good they were at scraping traders and their carts clean. Minutes passed, and a knot of anxiety started to form in his gut. This was taking too long. Should he intervene? Surely, if anything happened, Yuki was too strong for them to overpower without a sound, right? But, what if there was some variant of Nameless they hadn't seen yet, or they had fallen for bait? The Greater one could be in there right now!

He heard Rin shift at his side, suddenly alert.

"Sensei," she harshly whispered.

"There's people coming!"

"Stay low," he quickly ordered, falling back on instinct.

"Maybe they'll pass." It was a time-honoured trick that had served him well over the years, but if they were coming for the warehouse… He had to hope and pray that Yuki was alright. Soon enough, he heard them coming, too. Several sets of footsteps and some… hoofsteps approached? John turned towards the noise as much as he could without disrupting his camouflage. They came through the trees like spectres of ill tidings, ill portents of the conflict to come.

The group numbered around thirty armoured men, some of whom he recognized from previous clashes with the tax collectors, while others he didn't. They formed a loose box around a large horse-drawn cart, all on alert. Their faces looked tense and scared, although the man driving the carriage seemed angry more than anything, almost like a volcano about to erupt. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Wait. John recognized the driver. Sergeant Shirai.

He had seen the man around before, when they had faced off with the tax collectors outside Aiki and Haru's home; he had led the tax collectors and was ready to sic that undead monster on them before the militia arrived. He seemed a bit… different, though. John had remembered the man with far more scars, and the way he scanned the forest was less like a man looking for threats and more like a hawk looking for prey.

Upon the back of the cart, next to several large metal-banded chests, John spotted two more men sitting on the rear, and pointedly not dressed in any armour despite their high-quality clothes. Unbound. The damned tax collectors had recruited some Unbound. Was that where their leader had gone off to, to fetch aid? Eyes trailing even further back, he saw the undead, separated from the group and marching thirty paces behind. The way it walked was as if it were… trudging? That couldn't be right.

He knew it felt fear from when he almost toasted it with a lightning bolt, and it stepped back, but did it feel other emotions, too? Did it not want to be there? He felt a gnawing terror bubble up as he watched all of them march closer. They were surely going to drop off some loot, weren't they? If there were Nameless or puppets inside the building, they would smell whatever coin they had in the chests and wake up! Fuck! No, no, he had to stay calm.

He took a deep breath, trying to center himself as the threat loomed ever closer. Those men… they weren't mindless killing machines like the Nameless. They could be convinced to leave, but what if he couldn't manage it? What if he couldn't intimidate them into giving up? They'd be giving up first strike privileges, and they'd be surrounded, and then… The thought of the man he burned a scant few days ago, writhing on the ground in agony as he called out for help, surged unbidden to his mind.

A shiver came over him as he fought down the bile in his throat. What if he had to fight? Even if Yuki slipped back out the way she came, she'd be in their line of sight now. Could he stomach having to hurt another person? In the end, the choice was made for him. A terrible, insectoid scream resounded from the warehouse, and bright golden light spilled through the cracks, followed by an awful crunch.

His blood turned to ice, and a sense of great and terrible calm washed over him as the tax collectors and their allies stiffened. Orders were shouted by Sergeant Shirai at their head, and they dismounted, although John couldn't hear the exact words over his heart racing. Rin went to rise, to join combat, but he impulsively reached over and pressed her back to the ground. She let him." No," he hissed. She started to protest, but he turned to face her, and she stopped dead.

John turned back to the men, now charging and maneuvered his gauntlet to poke out of the nest of camouflage. The Heat focus was loaded in. He held an elevated position, one that allowed him to avoid worrying about scorching the grass and giving away his angle. They weren't looking at him. He aimed. He prepared. He fired. The beam silently scorched the leg of the first man before he even knew what was happening.

The leather armour upon the back of his legs burned and warped under the attack like plastic tossed into a campfire. Perhaps it would at least provide some protection if this were just a stream of fire, but it wasn't. It was pure heat, magically driven by powers that none back home could dream of harnessing. The beam passed through, an instant of exposure boiling the limb on the body. The man went down with a scream, writhing in agony.

John dragged the line like invisible death over the back line at the same height, claiming limb after limb like a dark prize. The charge faltered, the confusion of the ambush prompting them to spin around, looking for their foe… only to see nothing but their own comrades in agony. John faltered for a moment, seeing the terrified face of the man who was next in line. His eyes darted from place to place, scouring the woods for any hint of him, but coming up blank.

Yelling, he drew his bow back and fired at enemies that existed only in his mind, arrows flying into distant trees or skittering across the ground. John's hand moved on its own, and the man went down all the same into a screaming heap. Another brought a massive shield up. The beam passed through it all the same, although John had to swipe the ray across the area as he didn't know where the legs were behind it. They were on the verge of breaking; he could feel it.

He could see the way they panicked, how they looked every which way for their attackers.

"Form up!" A voice shouted, booming with unnatural power as Presence cascaded over them. It felt like steel against his mind, even a hundred feet out, and the men stiffened before obeying almost like automatons, locking into a tight formation as if they were drilled on it. The panic before was suppressed, unnaturally so. It was one of the Unbound, a tall man with slicked back hair who looked to be in his forties and had a rat tail trailing behind him, who gave the order.

He stood amongst the formation with no sign of fear on his face, and the other, a younger man in his twenties, stood by his side. Both had long, graceful ōdachi drawn.

"There!" the younger man shouted, pointing to their position. John cursed.

"Get them!" the older man ordered, and John finally cast off the debris and jumped to his feet, with Rin following not far behind. She stayed at his side for but a moment, drawing her blade and holding it out in front of her… and suddenly surging forth, not towards the formation but past it, toward the "real" threats. Toward the back were just the two Unbound, Shirai, and the undead, who stood in front of him protectively.

It had pulled two blades out of its bizarre, mottled, melted-wax-esque head, holding one in either hand. John had already… cut down perhaps half their number, but they still charged with an unnatural coordination. He cursed, aiming towards the charging mass as they crossed the distance between them… Time seemed to slow.

On their faces, there was an unnatural calm, but he could see that there was an occasional twitch as their features contorted into something else before flattening, as if they were fighting to be terrified. Grouping them up was the wrong thing to do. He swept the beam across their legs. They were five men across and three deep, and the first two ranks went down as they should. His fingers twitched a bit too tightly. The beam intensified.

Flesh flash-boiled, bone crumbled, and nine men went down missing their legs entirely as the invisible beam scythed through them like dry grass. Little blood shot forth, the wounds instantly cauterized as they were. For a moment, he stood there dumbly, staring at what he did.

That was nine men who would never walk again, who wouldn't— The blade crashing against his skull tore him out of his thoughts, his warding flaring to life in an intense burst of green as it took most of the blow, but he was still sent into a tumble into a tree with a resounding crash as was sent through the trunk, sending splinters flying as it toppled. Adrenaline muted the pain as he stumbled back to his feet.

He couldn't take another hit like that, not without the warding popping, he was damned sure; it needed time to recharge. Shaking the stars out of his vision, he looked towards his aggressor. It was the old man, blade held out in front. A wicked, but tense smile held onto his face, looking almost like it was stuck there.

"I see the rumours of bandits in these woods were true," he spat.

"Tell me, what crime did you commit that you must scrounge for these scraps, or do you just enjoy killing without having the stomach for risk? I hear there is plenty of market for foreign mercenaries on the front right now." His voice was bitter, venomous, and the way he said every word made it seem like he had a vendetta against them. John was happy to keep him talking while his warding recharged.

"There are Nameless in these woods, you know," he said, "Those 'tax collectors' are just puppets to them. You have to know that, right?" The man didn't react, tilting his head.

"You must know that the Heavens take Nameless infestations seriously, correct? Even out here, they'd deal with it quickly." His voice did not lose any of its former bitterness, but this sounded almost… rehearsed. John glanced down toward his gauntlet and traded the heat focus out for the freezing focus.

"Perhaps, but are you implying they know everything?" he asked, tilting his head.

"It has been kept strangely under wraps, almost like they're smarter than usual…" He began to circle the man, keeping an eye on him like he was sizing up his prey, and his foe responded in kind, which suited him just fine. After all, he just needed to get to his backpack. This man closed fast; he had a decisive movement advantage. John would not let that remain the case. With a burst of blinding speed, the man lunged, ready to try and decapitate John on the spot, but that was what he was waiting for.

Raising his gauntlet, he set his fingers to ensure the ensuing attack would cover a wide cone, and let loose. The man staggered in his wild charge, but his Aegis held under the stress even as the supernatural cold ate away at it, but that was not the point. No, the point was to ice the ground under him. His wild charge couldn't be stopped this late, and he fell headfirst into the ground as he lost all traction, rolling across the field as his sword went clattering away.

John kept the beam on him, wearing him down as he sprinted to the backpack on aching legs, snagging the Winged Disc from the side and turning it on.

"Bastard!" the man shouted, getting back to his feet and holding his hand out. After a moment, his ōdachi rose from where it had fallen and shot back into his hand. Some sort of magnetism control, maybe? No, his Presence felt a lot like an unyielding steel wall, hadn't it? It had to be some sort of metal control ability. Did that mean he could summon metal from nowhere, just like Rin summoned things related to storms, or did he only work with what he had on hand?

Some frost marred his clothing, but he looked otherwise unscathed… That would change soon. The man sprinted toward him, and John disabled the speed limiters on the disc, flying straight up at the last second and dodging yet another bull-like charge, the momentum carrying the Unbound far past where he had launched from. He was fast, sure, but he didn't turn that well, did he? Moreover, he seemed to favour getting in close to his opponents, where he then tried to tear them apart.

If he had any good projectile attacks, John wagered he probably would have opened with them before charging in to knock him off balance and cover the approach. John raised his gauntlet again, aimed at the man, and fired a narrower, much more concentrated beam of sheer cold. He tried to dodge, but John tracked him; the invisible beam formed a sheet of ice over his chest from the ambient moisture, and the man shouted out in pain as the cold seeped through the Aegis, biting into his flesh.

John swapped out the cold focus for lightning, staring down his opponent far below. The man flexed, tearing away the frosty, brittle clothes he wore and… threw his blade? John barely had any time to react as the man leapt into the air, landing on the back of the sword, and started flying toward him at meteoric speeds! John's eyes widened, and he instinctively aimed dead at the man, cranking the power to maximum. And fired.

The world went white even as his warding dimmed the flash, and thunder roared in his ears, borderline deafening him even as it dulled the deafening crash. He had only realized what he had done as he saw the man's half-popped corpse fall onto the earth below. The lightning had broken his Aegis, frying him from the inside out as it turned whatever flesh was in its path into rapidly expanding gas. John stared. No, he… No!

He was just—he didn't— An explosion caught his attention, and he whipped around to find the source. His blood chilled once more. The doors were blown wide open, and the building was going up in flames. Nearby, Yuki was pulling herself back to her feet, a feral snarl on her muzzle. Rin lay on the ground, awkwardly propped up against a tree, but thankfully still moving, with her opponent dead nearby, chopped in half at the waist. Shirai fled, the undead close at his heels.

And several, far too large, spider legs grasped at the edge of the door, as a giant pulled itself from the confines of the warehouse.