Chapter 90 — Scared Me to Death

Just as Gao Yang had predicted, a single cliff collapse and a field full of landmines were not enough to wipe out those monsters completely.

Of course, if he had possessed greater depth, a larger minefield, and more powerful blast crystals, it would not have been impossible—after all, those creatures had no brains. With enough mines, they would always obligingly tramp across every last one and all go sky-high together. But without the conditions, talk was useless.

A few monsters still managed, whether by luck or by sheer stubbornness, to break through all the explosives, and came charging up with howls.

By this point, all hesitation and fear had evaporated. The soldiers had long since wound their nerves to the breaking point, and the instant the order was given, blade-light and sword-shadow flashed forth as they threw themselves into the unavoidable hand-to-hand fighting.

Human battle cries and monstrous roars rose together in one great din.

This was their second engagement.

The last time had been in what was now the dragonfire-ravaged domain of Cecil, when the soldiers had been clad in crude, shoddy steel gear and had faced nearly invulnerable aberrations with extraordinary regenerative powers using weapons utterly devoid of magic. This time, they wore the transcendent armaments left behind by an ancient civilization, protected by shields and armed with enchanted swords and spears—and the enemies before them had already been blasted to pieces.

Though this was only a rough encampment, the actual situation was far better than last time.

From the very first clash, the veteran soldiers realized it: their equipment performed beyond all expectation under the pressure of the aberrations. Humanity was no longer being driven back by the monsters but could fight them head-on, and so the line, after a slight waver, steadied at once and even began pushing the monsters that had broken out of the minefield back.

Sir Byron was even forced to bellow from the rear: "Not too far forward! Don't cross the palisade—mind the traps!"

Gao Lan cut down an aberration that had been blown charred black all over, and noticed that the battle was no longer in doubt. Even without his help, the two knights leading the camp's soldiers were more than enough to finish off every enemy.

So he let out a breath and was about to turn and check on Rebecca—but just then he noticed that a dozen or so aberrations on the eastern side of the battlefield had halted in their charge toward the defensive line. Those faceless giants of flesh and blood seemed to have "sniffed" something; all at once they raised their heads and "looked" toward a certain direction.

Then they actually ran off that way, ignoring the guards close at hand, whose bodies were brimming with magical signatures!

Gao Yang blinked, then abruptly realized what was in that direction: the tent where the "dragon-egg stone sphere" was kept!

They had sensed the aura of that "dragon egg"? Its pull on them was even greater than that of living people and magical signatures?!

These guesses burst into Gao Yang's mind in an instant, and this unexpected turn broke him out in a cold sweat. He immediately shouted to Rebecca: "Bring your guard and follow me!"

Without waiting for Rebecca to answer, he was already sprinting toward the tent that housed the stone sphere.

There were, of course, guards posted around that tent, but with manpower stretched thin and the aberrations so easily drawn to concentrations of human and magical aura, the bulk of their fighting strength was concentrated on the defensive line to the southwest of camp. The soldiers left around the "dragon-egg tent" were only a small squad of militia—and new recruits who had just finished training at that. With their fighting ability, they could never hold off those monsters.

Soon the aberrations had covered that not-so-great distance. The soldiers around the dragon-egg tent had already spotted them from afar and were now frantically trying to form up to meet the charge, though they looked utterly disorganized.

One militiaman leveled his spear with trembling hands, desperately recalling the few simple moves for meeting an enemy that he had only just managed to memorize in the past couple of days—when a sound like tearing cloth came from behind him.

The militiaman had not dared take his eyes off the aberrations, yet could not resist the urge to glance back. In the end he could not contain his curiosity about the noise behind him and whipped his head around—and in that instant his eyes went wide.

He saw that some ten-odd meters away, the tent's tied-back door flap had been torn open, and that enormous stone sphere, about a meter and a half across, was squeezing its way out between the two flaps, poking and peering about—and a second later he realized the sphere was actually floating in midair!

Recalling the sphere's bizarre properties, the militiaman instinctively tightened his grip on his weapon—but this time the sphere showed no inclination to attract the metal around it. After emerging from the tent it wobbled left and right, then let out a shriek from within the sphere, metallic and quavering: "Holy crap, what's this?!"

It seemed to have "seen" the aberrations charging straight at it.

The militiamen guarding the tent had all noticed the sphere's movement by now. The monsters rushing in from the distance and the strange shrieking stone sphere behind them threw these freshly armed recruits—who had only just completed basic training—into a panic. Even their squad leader had no idea how to handle the situation, but just then they saw a tall figure wreathed in pale white radiance speeding toward them from another direction.

It was Gao Yang, charging with his knight's charge—and behind Gao Yang came Rebecca and a small squad of family warriors.

Gao Yang had spotted the stone sphere floating at the tent entrance from far off, and that bizarre sight nearly made him stumble and fall flat on his face mid-charge. Right on its heels he heard the sphere's shrill voice: "Help! Monsters! What in the world is going on?!"

So this thing could actually talk?!

By now Gao Yang had no time to analyze whatever the devil the "dragon egg" was or how it worked. He decided to abandon all thinking in such an utterly bizarre situation, then drove his feet hard into the ground, leapt high, and unleashed one of the knight's signature skills: Champion's Strike.

His whole body was enveloped midair in a blinding white light, a thousand-degree blaze of energy flame erupted along his longsword, and then he came down like a meteor from the heavens, slashing savagely into a monster's skull.

Struck squarely by Champion's Strike, the giant of flesh and blood split cleanly in two—and before the two halves could even fully part, they had been burned by the searing heat into two scattered clouds of ash. The residual shockwave of the strike raced on ahead, carving a deep furrow in its wake.

The nearby aberrations had their senses temporarily scrambled by the sudden eruption of Gao Yang's power; they hesitated in place, somewhat bewildered. Seizing the moment, Gao Yang shouted toward the distant sphere: "Hide, quick! There are monsters out here!"

"Mother of—!" the sphere shrieked. "Hide where? In that tent a puff of wind would knock over? What good would hiding do?!"

Gao Yang twisted sharply aside to dodge a sweeping claw from an aberration and thrust backhand with his sword—and at the same moment, a fireball the size of a washbasin hurtled past less than half a meter from him, blasting another aberration that had tried to sneak up from behind so hard that its upper body was thrown backward.