Kai shot one more creature out of the air, while Caster used a strange sling he summoned from his Soul Sea to break the wings of another. Nephis raised her sword and yelled:
"Cassie! Wind!"
Flinching, the blind girl began to call upon her wooden staff.
While white sparks of light were still weaving the shape of it in her hands, the Quiet Dancer flew out of its scabbard by itself and flashed into the air, piercing an approaching locust clean through.
A few moments later, a powerful gale shot from the wooden staff into the skies, slowing the attacking locusts down and sending them staggering.
Lucien charged up his arrows with electricity and let it loose into the swarm one after another. His aim did not matter here, only that he shot towards the locusts. As the bone arrows reached the cloud of monsters, the lightning in them exploded, temporarily paralyzing some of the locusts nearby.
Now unable to move, the monsters helplessly flailed for a moment before falling down and staining the coral.
As soon as their corpses hit the ground, it suddenly moved. Dark figures appeared from beneath the mud, rushing at the dead locusts to devour them. Hundreds of monsters were suddenly competing for the few scraps of meat. After several bloody fights broke out and the winners were decided, those who had not gotten to satiate their hunger turned their heads and followed the smell of blood.
…Right back to the moving stone giant.
The battle with the swarm was not going too great for the cohort. The turbulent winds summoned by Cassie's staff bought them some breathing room by making it hard for the locusts to approach the platform at high speed, but there were just too many of them.
Kai was setting one arrow after another loose. After that one first shot, he had not used the Blood Arrow, choosing instead to rely on his mundane ones. In the chaotic mess of this sudden battle, it was too easy to miss. Plus, he didn't need a lot of power to deliver debilitating wounds to the locusts.
They were basically skewering themselves on the arrows themselves by diving from the skies with incredible speed. Still, the abominable reavers were awakened beasts. It wasn't easy for a Sleeper to kill one with just a single shot.
"The second swarm is here!" Lucien warned as he shot another arrow. "Someone needs to climb down and hold them off!"
Nephis gritted her teeth, then glanced at the members of the cohort.
Cassie was holding the wooden staff, sending powerful bursts of wind into the sky to slow down the attacking swarm. The Quiet Dancer was flashing through the air, protecting her from the locusts to the best of its ability. Caster was spinning his strange sling, aiming at the wings of the repulsive creatures. His face was calm and grim.
Everyone was barely holding on and one mistake away from death.
Briefly giving Caster a few instructions, Nephis walked over to the edge of the platform and jumped down, Sunny followed soon after.
Lucien briefly entered his soul sea before coming out and activating his storm sense. An intense buzz filled his ears, but he could sense the two of them fighting the second swarm.
Gritting his teeth, he slowly walked towards the edge of the platform. He could see the abominations below now. Sunny and Nephis had split off to fight the monsters on two fronts as they climbed up the stone statue.
Entering his soul sea again, Lucien took a deep breath to calm himself and left.
With his left hand, he let out a bolt of lightning into the primates underneath. As the electricity hit the monsters, their muscles spasmed for a moment, and they lost their grip, falling into the coral underneath.
Dismissing his bow and arrows, he summoned the Storm Blade in his right hand and began shooting bolts into the sky to hit the locusts, causing them to lose control and fall.
Using his aspect this heavily cost him a large amount of storm essence; even with three cores, he couldn't keep it up for long.
The spell's voice was a constant in his ears, informing him of his kills and the fragments he gained. With each fragment, a small amount of storm essence would trickle into his cores, but it made little difference.
Soon, he had to start fighting with his sword as the locusts got closer. The rain of lightning bolts downwards had turned into a stream. But then, a shift happened.
As the primates got closer to the neck of the statue, the locusts shifted their attention. Instead of just diving for the humans, they began attacking the fiends. However, the massive beasts were not entirely defenseless. Any locust that lingered for a fraction of a second more than it should have was immediately grabbed and torn to pieces by the powerful primates, its black blood falling like dew on the petals of the crimson flowers that grew from their rotting bodies.
Some hosts even jumped off the colossus to grab onto diving reavers and tumble together to the distant ground
In just a few seconds, the surface of the ancient giant and the air around him was consumed by utter chaos.
Indifferent to everything, the colossus steadily marched south.
Despite the fact that their enemies were now fighting each other, the pressure on the cohort did not decrease. In fact, it only grew heavier.
Moving away from the edge of the platform, Lucien chose to focus on one front rather than splitting his attention on two. Things were slowly turning from bad to worse.
Sunny was sprawled on the ground, blood drenching his leather armour. His face was a mess.
Kai was long out of arrows and had to resort to using his morbid Ascended Memory. Judging by how pale his face was, he had already missed a few shots, losing a lot of blood as a result.
Cassie was still trying to maintain the powerful winds that slowed the attacking locusts down, but her face and hands were covered in blood. It seemed that even the powerful enchantment of her armor and the ardent protection of the Quiet Dancer were not enough to fully save her from harm.
Effie was now fighting the flying abominations in melee, having only a fraction of a second to react every time they attacked her. Blood was streaming down her legs, her white chiton torn and soaked with it. Her bronze helmet was gone, lying shattered on the stones.
Caster did not seem to be wounded, but his face was dark with exhaustion. Maintaining his incredible speed was taxing on both the mind and the body, so he would not be able to last much longer, either.
A moment later, Nephis climbed up the platform, her skin glowing with white flames.
Now that all three of them had retreated to the platform, the cohort was forced to defend itself from two sides simultaneously. As the primates started climbing up their impromptu fence, a particularly large locust suddenly fell from the sky. Batting the Quiet Dancer away, it dove right for Cassie.
'Not on my watch!'
A brilliant purple glow encompassed Lucien as time slowed down, and he lunged towards the monster with supersonic speed. His stone armour crashed into the locust's outer shell, digging into its outer shell.
Lucien was like a lightning bolt, albeit a horizontal one. A megavolt of energy hit the locust, frying it from the inside. The two tumbled through the makeshift fence and plummeted.
In a shower of sparks, the stone spear appeared in Lucien's hand, who wasted no time stabbing it into the stone surface of the statue. His body jerked as he came to a sudden stop, and he could feel his arm pop out of its socket.
A moment later, Kai floated down to him, panic visible on his face.
"Care to lend me a hand? I'm afraid mine's a bit dislocated right now."
The charming archer grabbed him by the waist and turned around, brandishing his falcata at the approaching monsters.
Except, they didn't try to attack them.
Suddenly, the cacophony of the battle died down, turning into deathly silence.
Several locusts were hovering in the air mere meters away from them, but they were in no hurry to devour them. In fact, they seemed frozen.
A moment later, the locusts suddenly turned around and dashed away. In fact, the whole swarm was swiftly retreating, flying away from the stone colossus with as much speed as the gluttonous abominations could muster.
Yet, even when they were far away, the buzzing in Luciens ears didn't get any weaker.
He frowned, why would they give up on their prey and run away?
Slowly, he turned his head to look south, and the reason became all too clear.
Out there, directly in the path of the walking statue, an inconceivably vast wall of furious darkness had devoured the whole world. It was swiftly moving in their direction, bolts of lightning illuminating the raging depths of clouds almost every second.
The storm was approaching.
Soon, the two of them landed on the stone platform, and Kai helped him pop his arm back in its rightful place.
Thanking the archer, Lucien turned south with a grim face. A wall of impenetrable, furious darkness was approaching from there, devouring vast spans of the Labyrinth with each second.
Lucien could feel it in his entire body; his hair rose up. He was…excited. At least, his body was. Unlike the others, he felt no fear or dread. He only felt the welcome embrace of the storm.
But, he couldn't be selfish, not now when the lives of the rest of the cohort were at risk.
In the silence, Effie suddenly fell to her knees with a pained groan. Her hands were pressed against the breach in her archaic cuirass, bright blood streaming from beneath them.
That sound brought everyone back to reality. With a grim expression on her face, Nephis walked over to the wounded huntress and gently placed her hands on her body. A moment later, soft white radiance shone through the cracks of Effie's armor, healing her wounds and taking the pain away.
The wall of darkness was growing closer with every moment. The wind was picking up, whistling in the cracks of the ancient statue. It brought the smell of the sea with it.
Sunny grimaced and commanded the Stone Saint to walk over and stand above him.
"What are we going to do now?"
Kai shivered, glanced at the raging wall of clouds, and said:
"Climb lower? The lightning is bound to be drawn to the neck of this giant."
Sunny shook his head.
"We can't. The sea is going to rise, so most of the statue will be submerged underwater. We will be lucky if the waves aren't high enough to reach this platform."
The archer sighed and looked down.
"So then… we're dead?"
"What do you think I'm here for?" Lucien said and summoned his sword. "Don't worry about the lightning, I'll divert it to myself."
Kai looked at him skeptically.
"Are you sure? I mean, you don't know if you can handle that much lightning."
Lucien scoffed, "Please, I handled a lot more than this in my first nightmare. And it was divine lightning to boot."
Kai still seemed unsure.
"If you say so."
Lucien chose not to tell them about the part where his body started disintegrating soon after.
But this was normal lightning. Well, as normal as it could get in the forgotten shores. He should be fine…mostly.
Changing Star walked up to him and looked him over, looking for any injuries.
"I'm fine." Lucien said, waving her away.
He had suffered a few wounds, but the armour had saved him from the worst of it.
Suddenly, a deafening thunderclap rolled over them, forcing the members of the cohort to flinch. The light of day dimmed, and the cold wind furiously crashed into them, bearing drops of salty black water with it.
They were almost out of time.
Lucien grabbed his sword with both hands and stabbed into the stone below him, and knelt. Behind him Changing Star did the same and prepared for the onslaught of the storm.
By her side, Effie sighed and grabbed onto a crack in the stone with one hand. With the other, she drew Cassie close and hugged her.
Caster followed their leader's example and used his enchanted jian to anchor himself to the platform.
The Stone Saint discarded her shield and lowered one shoulder, preparing to withstand the hurricane winds. Without anything better to hold onto, Sunny hugged the thigh of his Shadow and closed his eyes, embarrassed by the indignity. Kai plopped down beside him, holding the other thigh of the Stone Saint.
As the endless wall of darkness approached, the headless colossus steadily walked forward and then dove straight into the furious embrace of the harrowing storm.