CHAPTER 43: WELCOME TO THE CITY OF BABEL

"LISTEN, ALL OF YOU! You’re gathered here not by chance or by mistake, you’re here to follow one task," Lieutenant Wang said, shouting and slamming his palm on the whiteboard displaying routes of a deserted land.

"Before you decided to join the Westeros Sword Sect Military, you had one motive, one driving force, which is: TO HELP, PROTECT, and FIGHT against any unlawful act, even if your life was to be put at risk!" he said, stepping forward, banging his hands together as he tilted his gaze across everyone seated in the dim room.

He moved, slamming his fist on the shoulders of all seven soldiers standing at ease and staring back at him with wild eyes. However, the short person among them had the scariest face, his eyes glowing and moving past the long hair that flowed and covered his face.

"You, you, you, you, you, you, and you. All of you here were chosen, not by me! Not by Gray! But by the headquarters. Right now, what you got to do is to prepare yourselves, take everything you need: food, water, and weapons. Make sure, make sure you select the best, because the weapon you will choose will determine whether you will return dead or alive," Wang said, pointing to the weapons being displayed on the desks.

One after another, all seven soldiers walked to the desks, shoveled through the weapons, and raised the one they loved the most, but when the smallest, shortest soldier picked up two kunai daggers not locked with a chain, they laughed and began pointing their fingers at him.

"Kai, do you really understand the seriousness of this operation?" Wang said, walking toward the boy, raising his small hands holding the daggers and grinning.

’Why will the headquarters pick this kid? Aren’t there other soldiers taller than him, though I have seen his strength, but his height alone will leave him dead,’ he thought, leaving the boy’s hand and turning toward Lieutenant Gray who was standing at a far distance, his hands folded on his chest.

That early morning, as they boarded the bus, only those who happened to pass by the hallway of the room they were in and heard the lieutenant speaking knew what they were up to. Even with that, they knew nothing of where exactly they were going; even the seven soldiers had no idea where they were going, all they knew was, they were going on a secret operation.

As they drove through the city and toward the city’s entrance, old men and women going for a jogging saw them, waved at them, and continued their jogging.

...

Kai, who was seated at the last seat of the bus, leaned against the tinted glass window and closed his eyes, when he spotted a lady holding a child’s hands as they trod through the entrance of the city. Tears slid down his cheeks when the lady, who happened to be staring at the bus, waved at them, then carried her daughter and wrapped her arms around her as she placed her on her chest.

When they reached the outside of the city and were about turning, the five soldiers guarding and checking the people entering and going out of the city stood up, placing their weapons on the ground and saluted them as if they were the ones who knew exactly what the bus was moving into.

Leaves drizzled at the front of the bus, floating and landing on the front mirror and being wiped by the windshield wipers and later falling on the hood of the bus, before sliding down to the tires and finally onto the road.

Birds soared higher, moving at the same speed the bus was going, tilting their heads down and diving up whenever the bus turned to a different junction leading to the west side of Westeros. Though they passed by many cities, villages, and deserted land, they never stopped for food, water, or even gas.

One after another, four of the six soldiers seated at the passenger side of the bus lowered their heads and began falling into sleep. Some shifted the seat they were in, making it stretch back almost like a beach bench, and relaxed themselves properly, while others placed their heads on the shoulders of the ones they sat by.

The tires rolled, rumbling on jagged stone piercing the road, and somewhat piercing through the hard synthetic rubber wrapped around the ring metals.

Kinji, who happened to be at the driver’s seat, tilted his head slightly and gazed at the soldiers, then smiled. And when he spotted Kai’s eyes still open, the smile on his face widened before tilting his head back to the road ahead.

After a couple of hours, the bus halted, stopping at the entrance of a large city wrapped in thick walls that had blood dripping from it. And when Kinji noticed the door which was supposed to be closed opened, he started the engine, stepped on the accelerator, and began driving slowly through the smoke erupting from the entrance.

When the bus reached inside, he saw a red banner with the inscription, "Welcome to the city of Babel," and on top of the banner were torn parts of humans that were being dragged by two bird-like creatures with long beaks, wide feathers that stretched about two feet long.

...

"Is that a fresh car tire pattern?" Kinji said, pulling himself forward and gazing at the four zigzag patterns stretching from where the bus had reached and vanishing at a far distance, where collapsed buildings were.

Passing by a burnt traffic light that was split in two, he stepped on the brake, stopping the bus, then alerted the six soldiers to wake up.

"We’re continuing on foot," he said, picking the war discs placed at the dashboard and stepping out of the bus. One by one they all covered their mouths the moment they stepped out of the bus, but Kai didn’t; he simply looked at them and sighed.

Screeching, chittering, crunching, and rumbling sounds echoed around them when they began walking, their weapons held in their hands tightly, ever ready to tear down any obstacle that crossed their paths.

...

"Do you see them?" Kang said, raising the cloth painted with the same color of the wretched land slightly from his head and tapping at the back of the man, whose eyes were fixed in the eyepiece of the telescope and scanning through the road.

A few minutes of tilting it around, he spotted the seven soldiers walking in their direction. But at that instant, a loud roar tore through the sky, followed by chittering sounds, that sent chills in his spine.

"THE MONSTERS ARE BACK!" he said, hastily pulling the telescope back and placing a cloth similar to that of Kang over his head. Just a second of placing it over his head, two doglike beasts with four glowing red eyes and sharp fins on their necks, stretching to their tails, walked in, sniffing the walls, the ground, and moving forward to where Kang and the man were hiding.

Chk... Krk.

A cracking sound echoed just when one of the beasts’ heads moved to Kang and got snapped.

Grrr-hhh... whine.

A dying roar escaped the beast and echoed in the building so loud it drew the attention of beasts of the same kind outside the building they were inside. There, the man who was at first scanning through the road pulled out a weapon that looked similar to a fan, spun it, and let it cut the second beast into two in a blink.