"BREACH!"
The caution signal was instantly replaced with a deafening sound of wet torn canvas as the purple fissure beat like a heart and tore open widely. It was not an energy stream; it was a death stream.
Commander Sean rushed out of his tent, his chest plate only half-fastened, a big broadsword already getting strong in his grip. He was about to shout with words of command, to build a phalanx, but the order ended up silent in his mouth. There was no more room for formation.
The tent was already a slaughterhouse.
From the fissure, there came awful monstrous creatures—the hunchbacked ones, horrors with the chitinous, oil-slick-like shining armor, and the long-limbed ones ending in bone-scythes. The fiends were running and making a very strange sound, non-human-like chittering, and they were moving like possessed beings, very fast with a jerky motion coming from their faceless heads.
"Maintain the position!" Sean yelled seeing and meeting with a scythe which sizzled and made sparks fly around as it touched his sword.
Bara exaggerated his running into the turmoil that was created when the monsters and the soldiers collided and his eyes began to search the whole battlefield. The sight he got shocked him badly, and he lost his appetite. The soldiers were doing and giving the best they could, still, they were outmatched very badly.
There was a soldier at his left side raising a rifle with his left eye which was faintly glowing in emerald green. A bolt of mana was fired—probably a Mage's blood, not more than 15%—but the magic only charred the creature's shell a bit when the monster pierced him. A soldier with a spear on his right side lent forward, his left eye was dull gold and a tiny flicker. The fighter had the Lycan lineage in him which gave him the strength of their family (superhuman) and the speed to run fast but not fast enough. A backhanded switch from the beast threw him away and he was left with a caved chest.
These were not pure Humans. These were inferior and weak beings with diluted blood.
"Very bad," Bara muttered curses softly. He could see the despair in their movements. They were cattle waiting for the butcher to come.
He was running fast towards the command post, and he stopped sliding very close to the Commander. Sean was out of breath, and he was cleaning his visor with something black which seemed to be the monster's blood.
"Commander Sean!" Bara laid hold of the older man's pauldron. "Pull them back! The formation is too loose. Let me take the vanguard! I can—"
"Who are you?" Sean mocked as he pushed Bara's hand away, so hard that it made him stumble backward. "Get off my track, kid! This is not a playground where you can act like a savior."
"I am not pretending!" Bara cried out, pointing to the men who were dying. "They are being murdered! I can help by killing these things!"
"Your whining and wasting your father's money are what you are good at," Sean sneered and went to the retreating squad to get them rallied. "I am not going to let my men be given to an unworthy kid just to inflate his ego. Go back to the rear, or you will be a victim of the fighting!"
The denial hurt him, but the murmurs of the soldiers around him hurt more.
"Why is he still there?" a medic whispered while pulling an injured man away. "If it were Lady Seraphina, this rift would be closed by now." "Yeah," another soldier said gruffly, shooting an arrow with a crimson glow in his left eye—vampire blood. "The Queen of Wolves would have saved us. The brother just brings bad luck."
Bara was gripping his hands very tight, and his knuckles were becoming white. They still see the old me. The loser.
"Commander, beware!"
The shout was too late.
When Sean was engaged in his argument with Bara, a Void-Stalker creature had sneaked up on him. It jumped from a stack of boxes and its two scythes, made of bone, were held up high and pointed right to the exact spot between Sean's helmet and neck guard.
Sean turned around with his eyes open wide. He was unable to raise his sword in time. He got ready for the blow to take off his head.
No.
Time appeared to freeze for Bara. In his last life, he had been a bore because he thought that to the moon he could pray for a blessing that would never come. His Lycan blood was dormant and wouldn't awaken. So, he decided to take another route. A painful, prohibited route.
If it's not the blood that would answer, then the body must adapt. Rapid Evolution.
Bara didn't reach for a weapon, he didn't cast a spell, he just rushed to Sean and pushed him violently to the mud stepping into the path of the scythes that were falling.
Harden.
The skin of Bara rippled. In an instant, he turned his hands into jagged, pitch-black obsidian claws that had swallowed the light around them. His eyes did not flash in any of the colors-gold, red, or emerald.
They were lit by a bright, airy silver glow that was so strong that it pierced through the darkness.
CLANG!
The noise was like that of a hammer hitting an anvil. The soldiers who were close by reacted with a start, thinking that they would see Bara's body in two parts.
But they merely saw him not moving an inch, standing with his obsidian arms crossing and the head of the monster's blow being fully blocked. The monster screeched in dismay and continued to push down on him, but Bara remained unmoved.
"I am in charge," Baar snarled.
He widely opened his arms, just like a charlatan, and the beast's scythes were knocked wide apart. He made a very smooth and fast motion with his right hand and the next instant the obsidian claws went through the monster's armored chest as if it were only wet paper. He pulled backward, the creature was torn apart in a flash of black gore and a loud cry.
He continued on.
Bara rotated and his silver eyes drew light paths in the air. He attacked another beast with a bounce. His figure was always changing with every step—muscles pulling, bones solidifying—applying the defense corresponding to the danger right away.
Slash. Slash. Pierce.
It was a slaughter. Bara was like a ghost, a storm of black claws and silver light. He went under a tail attack and chopped off a stalker's head. He caught a monster that was jumping towards him at the jugular and broke its trachea before driving it into the floor.
The area around them that was fought over a minute ago became quiet again and the bodies of seven monsters lay there, cut and torn, and all that was left by the man was his terrifying precision and brute force.
The silence was deeper than the rain when it descended upon the camp.
Commander Sean pulled himself up from the mud with his mouth wide open. He surveyed the devastation first and then shifted his gaze to the young man in the middle of it all. The soldiers relaxed their grips on their weapons and simply stared. The murmurs of "useless" and "brat" were no longer heard but rather a heavy and awe-struck silence took their place.
"Was... was he always that strong?" a soldier with a shining emerald eye asked in a low voice, filled with fear. "That wasn't Lycan changing," the vampire-blooded soldier said in a low voice. "What the hell was that?"
Bara was standing there, breathing heavily, his eyes blazing with silver light that was now flickering and going out. The blackness that covered him slowly shrank back to his body, leaving him with a very pale and trembling skin. He felt very dizzy, and the world was turning dangerously to the left.
Too much, he thought, as he felt his vision narrowing. My core is still weak. I can't even tap into twenty percent of that power yet.
He could not support himself on his knees any longer.
"Bara!"
The moment he was about to hit the wet ground, two soldiers rushed forward and grabbed him by the arms.
"Healer!" Sean shouted, coming out of his trance, his voice trembling with urgency. "Bring the healers here immediately! The Young Master has collapsed!"
Darkness descended upon Bara once more, but he still heard the panic in their voices. It was not the panic of men who were watching a load; it was the panic of men who were watching their savior fall.