CHAPTER 807: REAPERS (III)

The Sages hovering high above the battlefield could not help but widen their eyes in collective astonishment. They had prepared themselves to witness ferocity, but nothing in their centuries-long storehouse of knowledge had hinted at creatures capable of this level of speed, coordination, and raw destructive power.

The creatures—elongated, triple-jointed horrors clad in interlocking plates of obsidian-black bio armor—were not merely stationary threats hanging in the air like menacing statues. Each one possessed a propulsion system so preternaturally swift that they could streak across the sky from one horizon to the other in the span of a single heartbeat, leaving only a sonic boom and a brief vacuum-white contrail in their wake.

"Damn it all!" Commander Varian roared, the veins on his neck standing out like knotted rope. He had just watched three Sage-Mages be cleaved in half by a creature’s scimitar-shaped forelimb. There was no time to be paralyzed by grief or rage.

Even as the bodies fell, Varian sprang forward, swinging his broadsword in a gleaming arc. Sparks cascaded when rune-steel met alien claw; the impact sent a shudder up his arms, but the blow accomplished its purpose. The monster faltered, stumbled, and was rewarded with an armored kick that hurled it backward in a whirl of broken air.

They were powerful, yes; they were terrifying, yes—but they were not invincible. Varian was no frail Mage who relied solely on distance and spellcraft. He was a Warrior, tempered in a hundred sieges, able to endure the full brutality of physical confrontation thanks to his Force.

His heart thumped with grim resolve as he advanced, only to stop when the monster he had repelled convulsed, plates rearranging with the grinding growl of tectonic plates. Its body re-formed into a nearly perfect sphere of stone-hard bio-armor, the same defensive configuration it had used only moments earlier to shrug off a barrage of destructive spells.

This time, however, the creature did not merely defend. It tucked its limbs, ignited its thrusters, and rocketed downward like a meteor. The impact in the middle of the Exilon infantry line sounded like a mountain collapsing.

Earth geysered skyward, shields flew, and dozens of soldiers died instantly. Much worse, the warriors’ once-unbreakable shield wall now displayed a jagged hole wide enough for the rest of the pack to pour through. The flaw spread like a tear in fabric; disciplined ranks dissolved into islands of men and women trying to stem a tide of claws.

"Gods damn it!" Varian bellowed again. He tasted iron from gritted teeth and felt the sick churn of frustration twist his gut. Everything was unraveling. There was no time left for pride. "Full retreat! Fall back to the eastern ridge—now!"

Those two words—full retreat—were words no Exilon soldier had ever heard issued on a battlefield. The legions had been raised on the credo that honor lay in standing one’s ground until victory or death. Partial withdrawals they knew; coordinated repositioning under fire they could execute blindly. But a wholesale abandonment of the field was tantamount to admitting the enemy was an ocean in flood and they were a bonfire in the rain.

The order stunned them to their marrow. Yet obedience to command outranked even the deepest indoctrination, and so the line began to peel away, section by section, desperately trying to knit itself back together as it moved to slow the carnage and buy precious seconds for the wounded to be dragged clear.

The surviving Sages floated back to earth, using all their power and abilities to halt the creatures’ charge and help the rest of the army, but it was not doing much.

Guardians braced themselves at choke points, only to watch their blessed bulwarks splinter beneath the monsters’ spiraling drills and plasma-hot mandibles. Every defensive measure was outpaced, out-maneuvered, or simply smashed aside. The Exilon formation was becoming a maelstrom of screams, clashing steel, and spurting crimson.

"BOOOOOOM."

Hope, thought lost, crashed back into the world like a thunderclap. A bar of lightning lanced out of the cloud bank overhead, detonating amid the foremost creatures with the raw concussive force of heavy artillery. The monsters were flung bodily through the air, limbs akimbo, carapaces smoking.

Astonished cheers rose from soldiers who had expected to die moments earlier. They craned their necks, searching the sky for the source of salvation, and there—glowing against the storm—descended a man.

He was nearly three meters tall, draped in layered mail that flickered with static. A titanic sword rested against his shoulder, its blade sheathed in braided lightning as thick as a man’s arm. Every few seconds the energy arced from weapon to pauldrons to ground, scarring the soil with fractal burns.

This was no ordinary warrior. This was a Legend, a very powerful one at that, capable of unleashing the power of the Law of Lightning to a terrifying degree.

The very air trembled as he unleashed his full power. Exilon troops—bloodied, battered, on the verge of rout—felt stalwart courage surge back through their veins. If a Legend stood with them, perhaps retreat might turn into counterstrike, perhaps the day could still be salvaged. The towering warrior regarded them briefly, stern approval gleaming in lightning-ringed eyes. Then he raised his sword in a two-handed salute, and the clouds themselves seemed to bow.

A pillar of condensed lightning erupted from the blade, spearing into the sky before cracking downward, targeting the densest cluster of creatures. Not only was his power titanic, it was astoundingly swift; the monsters had no time to curl into their rocky shells. Six, eight, twelve of them were caught full on, armor melting, bodies spinning away in burning fragments of carapace.

"Begone, you vile beasts!" the Legend thundered, his voice a rolling avalanche of sound. "Return to the nightmare that spawned you!"

He swung again, sending a second lightning column scything across the field, set to cleave further into the enemy tide—until, without warning, a ghost-pale blur intersected the beam.

The energy split in two hemispheres, crackling harmlessly into the darkening sky. Gasps rippled across friend and foe alike. The blur resolved into a white figure—tall, lupine, his fur shimmering with light. This entity radiated terrible grace, every muscle coiled, every movement an exercise in effortless speed.

It materialized in front of the Legend as though born from the air itself. The Exilon Legend had time only to widen his eyes before twin claws—longer than daggers, sharper than razors—punched into his breastplate. The enchanted steel fragmented like cheap pottery. Explosive force hurled the Legend backward; he careened over the battlefield, trailing arcs of electricity and bright arterial blood, until he vanished into the haze with a crash that rattled teeth several kilometers away.

Silence swept the Exilon line for a heartbeat too long. Hope, reborn moments earlier, shattered as though made of glass struck by a hammer. An enemy Legend had emerged—one whose power seemed to eclipse the greatest warrior they could field—and in a single blow had extinguished the fragile flame that had flickered to life in their hearts.

Soldiers found their limbs locked in horror. Standards drooped. Even the Sages faltered, fresh incantations dying on their lips. They had believed fortune had swung back in their favor; now it felt as though destiny itself had mocked them, granting a glimpse of salvation only to snatch it away with cruel finality.

The True Depravita of Greed stood still for a brief moment, his burning eyes locked onto the retreating Exilon soldiers. He observed them not with pity, but with cold detachment. Their despair was visible—their formation broken, their morale in shambles. But to him, their hopelessness was meaningless. There was no space for hesitation in a war. Compassion was a weakness that Ouroboros could not afford.

Without hesitation and with terrifying speed, he turned his attention to the sky. The Lightning Legend was now wounded and plummeting into the distance. Ouroboros surged after him, cutting through the air like a comet.

Ground troops, while essential, were replaceable. But Legends? They were pillars upon which the strength of entire nations rested. Taking one down meant more than a tactical victory—it was a devastating psychological blow. And now, an opportunity presented itself. Ouroboros would not let it slip through his claws.

Even as he vanished into the sky, the creatures on the ground did not falter. The army of creatures continued their assault with relentless precision. There was no disorder among them, no mindless frenzy. Each one moved like a cog in a perfectly tuned machine. Their formations shifted seamlessly, adapting to enemy movements, outmaneuvering every attempted counter. They flanked retreating squads, encircled officers, and drove wedges through the remaining defensive lines with deadly synchronization.

Where a single soldier stood alone, a pack would descend. Where a group tried to rally, they were isolated and overwhelmed.

By the time the Exilon forces neared the outer borders of the battlefield, nearly sixty percent of their numbers had been lost. Blood soaked the soil. Broken armor and severed limbs littered the ground. And then, as suddenly as the assault had begun, the creatures stopped.