Chapter 106: Opaque reality [ 26 ]
Nighttime slowly approached Winterseed II, and the moon rose high, its pale light the only illumination over the village.
The banging sounds as the monsters threatened to burst down the walls, and their angry, eerie, bloodthirsty cries drifted across the village, filling the villagers with even more fear of impending doom.
The fear of the villagers significantly increased as the darkness of the night veiled the village, the moonlight casting long, eerie shadows.
Nevertheless, despite the sounds of the monsters trying to break into the village, the soldiers boldly moved ahead towards the walls to defend it—they were ready to lay their lives down in order to guarantee the survival of the others.
Most of the soldiers were middle-aged men who had experienced many battles, which had strengthened their will. There were a few young soldiers, but even they had made up their minds to fight and lay down their lives to protect their village.
"Ren, you shouldn't come with us. This battle is going to be extremely dangerous. Lord Rowan wouldn't take it lightly if you got hurt," one of the middle-aged soldiers said, approaching Ren and trying to deter him from following them to the walls.
"You can't talk me out of this now; I've already made up my mind," Ren replied firmly.
The soldier could only sigh and join his colleagues in the march forward. Ren walked closely behind them with a determined expression on his face. From time to time, he touched the woven bag containing herbs hanging on his shoulder.
As they marched closer towards the gate, the chaotic noise of the monsters became louder and clearer.
At this point, some of the young soldiers began to lose their nerve and get scared, but the middle-aged ones quickly reprimanded them.
After a few more minutes, they finally approached the big gate, where a few scary-looking monsters could be seen banging on it under the eerie glow of the moon.
Ren immediately instructed the soldiers with bows and arrows to aim at the monsters at the gate. They obeyed at once and fired at the monsters through the large holes in the gate.
Numerous arrows darted through the air and pierced the monsters lingering behind the gate.
After several rounds of firing, inflicting wound after wound on them, the monsters at the gate finally fell dead to the ground—but at the cost of the archers emptying their quivers.
The other soldiers quickly stormed the gate, opened it, and stepped out.
As soon as they stepped out, they were greeted with the gruesome sight of the monsters banging on the walls, turning their attention towards them, their bloodthirsty red eyes fixated on them.
The monsters on this side of the wall stopped banging when they saw the humans pouring out of the village—the look on the monsters' faces at this moment could be described as predators setting eyes on weak, helpless prey.
ROAR!
HOWL!
HISS!
The monsters cried out ecstatically as they began stomping towards the soldiers from all angles.
The soldiers grabbed their weapons and fixed their eyes on the monsters in front of them. Some of them were scared, while the others were ready for battle.
Ren was in the middle and could see the ravaging monsters closing the distance with the soldiers at an alarming pace.
"Attack! Fight for your lives and your people! Remember to aim for the head always or any other weak point you can find. If the monster has... you know... don't forget to strike it with your swords!" one of the middle-aged soldiers cried out loudly.
The other soldiers reacted with loud chants as well and grabbed their weapons without wasting a single minute. They began charging towards the monsters, slowly leaving only Ren in the middle.
The pale light of the moon illuminated the path ahead of them, and the soldiers fearlessly marched through it, not a bit scared of challenging the monsters.
Ren, who stood in the middle, took his time to observe the monsters as closely as he could—he noticed that the monsters were of varying races and sizes. There was a vampire-toothed chimpanzee the size of a whole house and possessed-looking rabbits the size of a dog.
They all looked scary compared to the measly humans charging towards them—the vampire-toothed chimpanzee could easily smash a huge soldier to meat paste, and the possessed rabbits were fast and nimble and could bite.
The possessed rabbits are one of the most encountered monsters in this region—though they were small in size, their bites are very poisonous like a viper's, and they are also very fast, making them impossible to kill.
To think that mortal soldiers would be bold enough to face off against these monstrosities to protect their people shocked Ren.
Meanwhile, as his mind ran amok, the soldiers and the monsters collided and attacks began.
Not too far away, two young soldiers holding long spears could be seen stabbing at the crotch area of a monster standing on two feet like humans do.
Very close to those two, one middle-aged soldier was suddenly engulfed in flames coming from a fire-spitting monster, and close to the unfortunate soldier, his colleague was being devoured by a really ferocious snake!
"Ahhhh... Help me, drag me out, please!" the soldier cried out, but his cries were in vain.
His colleagues could have helped, but their hands were full at this moment.
The battle wasn't going in the soldiers' favor at all.
The scene in front of Ren immediately became gruesome—soldiers fell dead on the ground one after the other, and some were getting devoured and swallowed by the monsters.
Ren's eyes widened in horror; his body began to shiver as he stepped back towards the gate.
"This is bad! This is bad! Everyone is going to die!" he panicked.
He had come because he thought he might be of help to the soldiers and heal them when they got wounded. But his intention became nothing but an illusion since no one got injured—they were either killed or eaten!
As Ren was backing up towards the gate, the vampire-toothed chimpanzee who had just finished devouring a soldier spotted him and began moving towards him with blood dripping from its mouth and its red eyes dead set on Ren.
"No..."
Ren turned back and tried to run away as fast as he could, but then another monster appeared behind him; it was a wolf-type monster, and it was ready to devour him.
Ren halted in his steps and just stared at his impending death with horrified eyes.
Everything was going to end now—not just for him, but everyone in the village would be devoured at this rate!
As he wallowed in his thoughts, the monsters got closer, and time seemed to slow down in his very own perspective as death drew nearer.
"You must be Ren."
Nevertheless, suddenly he heard an oddly calm and collected voice behind him.
"Don't worry, I'll rescue you!"
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