Faraway in the forest tall trees shuddered as the land itself shook under the tremors sent by the horde of monsters marching forward. Groups of many bird-like creatures left their nests together filling up the sky with loud noises.
As August felt the vibrations directly beneath his feet, he immediately knew the horde of monsters wasn't much further away now. Drawing the blade from its dark obsidian sheath, he stood his ground with a hint of nervousness. There was also a hint of nervousness on Damian's face, looking as one would naturally seem before facing a horde of wild monsters. What was even worse, no one in the team seemed to know the class of these monsters. Not even how they looked.
It hadn't even been three hours since this horde was discovered. Therefore its existence mostly remained a mystery for everyone. Resulting in nervous expressions even on the faces of high grade combat mages like his parents.
Mankind's oldest fear happens to be fear of the unknown after all.
Looking at the clouds of dust drawing near and nearer, the monster tide was finally here.
Dust seemed to be blending in the background as the silhouette of a grotesque creature was to be seen at the horizon in the sunlight covered by a thin sheet of clouds. Then the number of silhouettes seemed to increase from two, five to countless abominations.
As they drew nearer the morphology of them was to be seen clearly.
Every monster in the horde seemed to be as tall as a regular pine tree. The spider-like creatures had four pairs of jointed appendages, stretching as long as they covered for most part of their body from both sides. Their red six bloodshot eyes reflecting the surge of murderous frenzy. Two pincer-like elongations of the mandible stretched long beside their countless teeth.
The main body of the monsters was covered by countless tiny hair-like micro projections. The micro hairs seemed like outgrowths for oil glands as their long legs left behind slime like colourless substance. If not for the fact that August had read about them before he wouldn't have been able to differentiate between the saliva from their grotesque maw, which was seemingly alike with the slime-like substance.
The bestial monsters marched forward without any hesitation. The worst part was that there were countless of them in that horde.
August had fought some abominable creatures before. Two of them, more accurately. But in reality they both were only beasts which happened to be less dangerous than the monsters. The frenzied lizard he fought last time was dangerous of course, but the fact that even the giant lizard was a lesser ranked beast and he didn't face it alone was to be taken into account then the battle August was about to fight was on a completely different level than he could handle.
Even then, he was determined to see this through. He grabbed the handle of the sword with both of his hands into a proper stance. However he concentrated on the creatures before, whose number seemed to be increasing rapidly, not to mention every one of them was enough danger that could've easily wiped any town lacking protection from experienced combat mages.
Suddenly he felt dizzy. Multiple shivers ran down his spine, his heartbeat became loud enough to be heard. He felt like his heart was in the grasp of icy claws. He knew the feeling well. It was fear. August felt afraid. A natural reaction watching countless life threatening abominations charging towards him. His limbs were growing numb. Suddenly he couldn't hear anything apart from his ragged growing breath. His vision grew blurry and he wasn't able to feel his sword anymore.
BOOM!
All of a sudden he came back to his senses watching a huge blast just wiped a large number of monsters before him. The fire moved on its own trying to consume them whole. After a while the only thing left in the place of those monsters was nothing but ash.
However the march continued on, the frenzied creatures trampled over the remains of their own, like mindless beasts, paying no notice as a huge number of their kin just got wiped out.
Then a cool breeze flew out of nowhere all of a sudden. Various sharp spikes of ice came forward from within the ground piercing through the thick cuticle of another huge number of their kin. Some got sliced the moment after coming into contact with the sharp edges of ice. Some died on the spot by getting pierced in sensitive organs. Their corpses hung high on the spikes like trophies, painting the crystal blue ice dark-crimson.
The tide however, never stopped. The mindless monsters marched forward without showing signs of any intelligence even when they were supposed to be intelligent as compared to the wild beasts.
Then the biggest of them came into view. A monster seemingly capable enough to tear a mansion down by itself. Suddenly the red bloodshot eyes of the beast got closed as it halted for some moments shaking its head vigorously. Then as though like a marionette tied to the strings it obeyed and turned on its own companions. Taking almost five of them down.
August realised this trick as a spell conjured by Lord Victor since his elemental aspect manipulated thinking up to certain extents. It was August's first time witnessing such a spell in action. He gasped in awe and a hint of horror as well, when he imagined the extent of that element.
It hasn't even been the proper start of the battle as they hadn't clashed with the monster horde yet and a huge number of their enemies had already been dealt with. The realization made August calm up to a certain extent. But there was still a large number of the monster tide remaining which was already closing in on them therefore the nervousness hadn't completely vanished from his face.
His father lunged forward brandishing the great weapon from the fallen era 'Redwyrm'. His blade moved with utmost precision not even faltering for a bit. Slicing and severing the mindless enemy without mercy. Fire was aiding him to reach the monsters which were far beyond his reach as well.
His mother took a careful step back, a long spear of crystalline ice taking form in her hand. She beheaded the ones before her and pierced the hearts out of the ones in the back as well. She moved with the precision of a dancer and sliced their heads open with the ruthless movements of a killer. Occasionally, various ice spikes protruding from the ground and icicles formed in the air and being fired without missing the target were to be seen.
The friend of his father wasn't any less of a monster himself. The seemingly delicate man didn't move much but gestured with his hands to and fro. And repeated the same motion again and again. At some distance the puppet he took the control of at the beginning was moving with intense speed and might. Murdering and trampling its own kind on the way.
The support mages behind were trying their best to aid the strike team resulting in various monsters falling into the traps they've prepared before time. The long legged abominations fell on the preformed circles of the spells created in advance. A huge metal trap with various metal teeth came crushing the monster between its giant metallic maw. After turning the living abomination into mangled pieces of flesh, the metal trap vanished since it could be only used once.
Countless traps like this activated in various parts of the battlefield dealing a huge blow to the numbers of the incoming monster tide. For some moments the growling of the frenzied monsters was being suppressed by the metal clangors of the huge trap formations.
August watched this whole scenario in awe. Realising he doesn't feel afraid anymore.
He made his grip on the sword tighter. Finally glaring at the monster approaching in his direction. August felt a sense of responsibility of making sure to keep his guests safe. But his worries were proven unnecessary soon, when Damian came forward shooting a waterball straight into the eyes of the abomination.
The water hit the monster with huge force but the ball of water wasn't something that could harm the abomination severely. Then August looked carefully and saw small pebbles with pointy ends being stuck on its eyes and immediately realised the plan of the young boy to counter the monster tide in his own way.
Damian put various smaller pebbles into his waterball spell.
Soon the suffering monster was burned up by the fire into ashes.
Simultaneously a monster managed to grow closer to the girl on the wheelchair. As it did August moved reflexively and tried to take a hit on the monster before it could harm May. The grotesque monstrosity managed to sense his attack on time and pushed August with the help of its long limbs, far from his position.
August landed very far, watching the monster taking a swing at May in horror. Before it could've reached her however, the monster stopped its attack midair. The frenzied eyes of its turned lifeless, devoid of life suddenly. August thought he watched the life taken forcibly from the monster in an instant.
It stood like a corpse hanging over her for sometime before suddenly coming back to life and trying to complete its attack on May. Then a sudden impact of enormous strength hit the monstrosity, turning it into lumps of trampled-over meat. It was the thrall of Lord Victor assisting his daughter.
August had watched many kinds of spells unfold before him in his lifetime. Even when he wasn't able to perform one himself, he had watched plenty of the mages perform the incredible. Children from the trial class who mostly were studying higher grades of magic out of the town. Even they too were able to create something with their elemental aspects. He had seen many inventive spells which conjured various things out of nothing. He had seen many offensive spells as well. Taking into account his own parents were high grade combat mages.
What he hadn't seen, he had read that somewhere too.
But the spell or the element that left him speechless was the one the girl named May was using. The seemingly delicate girl who was being mentally burdened by her grave disease was a bearer of this kind of deadly element? The thought alone made him shiver.
'A spell that can take life forcibly in an instant'
He glanced at the girl on the wheel chair and shivered again.
'Scary'
Who could've guessed a girl who seemed most helpless could command an element of this caliber. The one who seemed most vulnerable of all would be hiding something so deadly. Even if it was for mere moments, this kind of power was dangerous. Very dangerous.
And there was absolutely no doubt May could grow stronger in the future. He wasn't even able to comprehend what extent of power could she command when given enough insights to conquer her core element.
'She could take a life in an instant'
The thought in itself was way frightening. Well, it was good that he wasn't her enemy. But that didn't mean he was on her good side either as August remembered his argument with May due to his annoying habit of poking the hornet's nest.
Suddenly he came back to reality as he heard the growling and felt a sensation of moist slime-like fluid on his skin. Only then he realised was being landed in the middle of the monster tide. Two monsters were glaring and growling directly at him, saliva dripping down from their grotesque maw.
He was also able to catch a glimpse of his parents trying to come help him but their spells were being overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of monsters as well. He realised there was no time to wait for reinforcements.
Then he stood bravely and lunged forward at the vile monsters brandishing his matte black blade of
"The fallen star"
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