Chapter 42
The Invasion
Part 1
While the underground bunkers scattered throughout the planet recording and monitoring the three main continents at the same time transmitting the live feed to several other locations among them was mayor's office who was monitoring each and every location through the screens that filled his wall. The anomalies had opened within minutes of each other, as if an unseen hand had struck three different keys on the same piano.
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City of Halvorn – Thamis Kingdom.
Halvorn, the jewel of the southern coast of Thamis Kingdom, had always been proud of its sea walls and towering lighthouses. On of the biggest Port vodbthe contenant the air smelled of salt and trade coin, and its citizens trusted in the ocean's distance to keep trouble at bay. Until the horizon broke.
A pillar of black water like substances rose out at the shore swirling higher than the tallest lighthouse. From its center, something enormous stirred. The water on the beach
parted ways to something invincible giving way to something else something alive.
The creature surfaced in pieces: first a spine like a jagged cliff, then limbs too long to be fins, tipped with hook-like claws. Its head was a mass of bone ridges, each one lined with teeth that clicked in a slow rhythm. As it moved toward the city, the tide pulled in instead of out, dragging ships into its path.
Ballista bolts fired from the harbor towers bounced off its hide like thrown sticks. In answer, the creature opened its jaw wider than the width of the pier and bit down—not on stone or wood, but on the air itself. A soundless shockwave exploded outward, shattering the sea wall as if it were made of glass.
The docks fell in moments. People ran, but the flooding water was faster. From above, it looked less like an attack and more like a feeding.
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City of Drelnar – The Kingdom of Arathis
Far inland, the fortress-city of Drelnar was famed for its impregnable iron gates and farmlands that stretched like golden seas. Its people had always believed danger came with marching armies, and so they looked for banners on the horizon.
The anomaly opened in the middle of a wheat field. The stalks around it bent, not away, but toward it, as if in reverence. From within the portal crawled something that at first seemed like a bundle of tangled roots. But then it stood.
It had no eyes—only a wide, bark-split mouth from which soil and worms spilled. Every step it took sprouted vines from the ground, thick and black, which slithered toward walls and houses. The vines did not just crush—they entered, rooting themselves in wood, stone, and flesh alike.
Soldiers lit torches to burn them, but each vine burned slow, releasing a sweet-smelling smoke that made those who inhaled it drowsy, then still. The creature moved unhurriedly, not striking directly, but letting its spreading corruption eat the city from the inside.
From the high tower of Drelnar's keep, the commander sent a final raven to the capital: "it's not invasion, it's a massicar"
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In Arabas, the Mayor's wall of screens now showed all three cities—three different horrors unfolding in near-perfect unison.
He leaned back in his chair, his fingers steepled.
"Different teeth," he said quietly, "but the same mouth."
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City of Halvorn – The Storm Breaker's
Halvorn, the jewel of the southern coast, had always trusted its distance from trouble.
With its high sea walls and harbor cannons, the city thrived on the illusion that the ocean was both moat and shield.
That illusion shattered when the horizon moved.
At first, fishermen pointed, thinking a distant storm was forming. But no cloud swelled above the water—no thunder rolled. Instead, the sea itself rose, folding upward into a black column spiraling toward the clouds. The surface foamed, then split.
From the rift surfaced something impossibly vast. Its spine broke the water first, a jagged ridge like the peak of a submerged mountain. Then came the limbs—too jointed to be fins, too many to be legs—each ending in hooks that dripped seawater thick as oil. The smell reached the city before the sound—brine mixed with rot, the scent of deep things never meant for the surface.
The head was wrong. It had no eyes, only a crown of ridged bone, but beneath it stretched a mouth that did not open so much as unzip the world in front of it. Each tooth clicked against its twin in a slow, deliberate rhythm, like the ticking of a clock counting down to something inevitable.
The harbor's defense towers fired their first volley. Ballista bolts shattered against its hide like brittle twigs. The creature answered without hurry—its maw widened, and then bit down on the air itself.
There was no roar. No shockwave of sound.
Only the absence of it—a sudden, crushing vacuum. In the space of a breath, the entire sea wall caved inward as if pulled by invisible hands. Ships didn't just sink; they were dragged toward it, splintering into the water like toys.
The tide turned against the city, flooding the streets. From the rooftops, survivors saw only one truth: the creature was not attacking in rage. It was feeding—slow, methodical, and without distraction.
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City of Drelnar – The Root of Rot
Far inland, the fortress-city of Drelnar had always believed danger came from afar.
Its stone gates had turned aside countless armies. Its watchtowers scanned for banners, siege engines, and dust trails on the horizon.
No one thought to watch the ground at their feet.
The anomaly appeared without a sound in the middle of the great southern wheat fields. Stalks bowed inward toward it, as though greeting a long-awaited master. Then came the first movement: something writhing, tangled, and black pushed itself from the opening.
It seemed, at first, like a bundle of ancient roots torn from the earth. Then it stood. Its "limbs" cracked and twisted with the sound of wood under strain. The head was featureless except for a mouth splitting down the trunk-like torso—inside, the "teeth" were jagged chunks of stone, slick with sap.
Every step it took transformed the ground beneath it. Grass browned, wheat blackened, and from the soil burst vines as thick as a man's arm. These vines did not simply grow—they slithered. They wrapped around houses, split cobblestones, and sank into the cracks of the fortress walls.
Torches were brought out immediately. The vines burned… but they burned slowly. The smoke they released was cloyingly sweet. Soldiers who inhaled it stumbled, dropped their weapons, and sank to their knees with dazed smiles frozen on their faces.
The thing moved through the city like a gardener tending to a crop—ignoring armed men, attacking only the soil and structures, as if preparing the land for something else to come.
From the highest tower, the commander sent a single raven to the capital before the vines swallowed the keep entirely:
> It's not war—it's harvest.
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Arabas – The Man Who Watched
In Arabas, the Mayor's wall of screens showed all three invasions at once: Halvorn drowning in silence, Drelnar rotting from the inside, and the anomaly at Arabas' own wall burning with unnatural heat.
The man did not flinch at the carnage.
His eyes moved between the screens in slow, precise patterns, as if studying the symmetry of a painting.
"Different teeth," he murmured, voice low enough that even the hidden microphones in the room barely caught it.
"But the same mouth."
His fingers tapped the armrest three times—precisely three—and then stopped.