N.B : If you'd like to get early access to Universal hope chapters, why not consider supporting me at Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom. Your donations will be very much appreciated. On my Patreon, supporters get the complete, uninterrupted chapters in full.
Any spiral of thoughts got interrupted as the titans have finally reached their position. A fifteen-meter class squeezed its body into the narrow space of the ravine, its empty eyes fixed on the warm, delicious scent of humans; be it alive or dead.
Enoch's hand was still smoking where he'd touched the Omnitrix, pain lanced through his arm, but he ignored it. Pain was temporary. Pain was manageable.
Failure was not.
He looked around the ravine. The horses had scattered, spooked by the Titans. Most had fled who knows where. Just two remained, stamping nervously at the edge of the chaos.
And then there were his subordinates. Either dead, unconscious…or outright useless at the moment. Speaking of which, two knights were stirring awake, before one of the knights groaned wobbly getting on his knees.
Enoch strode toward them, his boots crunching on the loose stone. He grabbed the disoriented knight by the collar of his armor and hauled him upright.
"Get up," he snarled. "GET UP!"
The knight's eyes fluttered open. Recognition dawned, then confusion, then fear as he saw the Titans approaching.
"Sir—TITANS—! we need to—"
"I'm not blind, I can see that!" Enoch snarled as he shook the knight hard before releasing him. He noticed the remaining two horse before approaching one and hauling himself into the saddle.
"If you want any chance at survival, I suggest you get on that horse."
The younger knight scrambled to his feet, his movements clumsy and panicked. He reached the animal whilst fumbling with the reins, his hands were shaking too much to work the buckle.
"Wait—Sir Enoch…what about the others?"
Enoch halted snapping the reigns of his horse. "…They are as good as dead. We still have an objective to complete."
That sentence made the young knight aghast, does this captain of theirs have no regard for their lives?! First in the cave in now this.
"But si-!"
"Do you want to go back and charge towards a suicidal death or get what we came here for? It seems you are eager to disappoint Lord Aldric." Enoch asked his subordinate, seeing the uncertainty in his face.
"Remember why you joined the order in the first place."
Enoch's horse launched forward at the snap of its reign, riding toward the far end of the deeper ravine where the boy and the old man had disappeared.
The younger knight watched as his superior left, looking back at any possible survivor and back at the ravine's far end. Shaking his head in absolution, his captain his right. Getting the changling boy and the demon dog is the focus of this mission, if they are captured his comrades' deaths won't be for nothing.
He equally snapped the reigns of his horse, following after his captain.
____________________
Across the ravine, Anya was struggling to consciousness.
Her head pounded like a drum and her vision swam. Her entire body felt like it had been used as a battering ram. She was lying on the ground; when had she fallen? She remembered the creature—no the boy—throwing her against the wall. She remembered the horrid stoned impact, and now she was awake.
She pushed herself up on trembling arms, blinking against the dust and the soon fading light. Her laser gun was gone, lost somewhere in the chaos. Her armor was cracked. Her head was bleeding, she could feel it, could feel the warmth trickling down her cheek.
As she looked around, her eyes widened in horror at the still bodies of her brethrens spewed all over the ground and in the distance. By the walls, is everyone dead? Where is Sir Enoch? Is he also dead too?
Anya soon heard a groan ahead of her, someone else was still alive. The knight waking up from his unconsciousness clutched his head muttering gibberish, afterwhich noticed Anya approaching him. Just as he was about to call out to Anya, he noticed she stopped in her tracks, body frozen like she had seen a ghost.
The knight felt a shadow dwarfing him from above, setting over his shadow.
He looked up.
…A Titan was standing over him.
It was a ten-meter class, its face frozen in a rictus of idiot glee with its massive hand already reaching down. Whatever scream its prey could emit was cut short as the fingers closed around him, lifting him off his feet like a child's toy.
"NO! NO—PLEASE GOD NO—HELP—!"
Anya couldn't do anything as she saw her comrade being lifted into the air. She could only watch the Titan's maw widen; revealing rows of flat grinding teeth. She saw the knight's face, twisted in terror while his hands scrabbled uselessly against the Titan's grip.
She couldn't do anything. She was frozen to her feet.
Then the Titan's jaws closed around the knight's head. There was a crunch that echoed off the ravine walls. A wet, sickening sound of bone shattering. The knight's body went limp, his legs spasming reflexively and then falling still. Blood sprayed from the Titan's mouth like juice from a crushed fruit. Almost disturbingly like a tomato.
The titan gobbled up the remaining parts of the body before turning its empty eyes toward her with that mindless, insatiable hunger. It took a step forward shaking the ground with its massive foot.
"No," Anya whispered. "No, no, no—"
She should run. She knew she should run. But her body wouldn't obey. Her legs were rooted to the ground. Her arms hung limp at her sides. Her mind was a storm of grief and rage and a burning, desperate need for revenge.
The old man. The boy. The creature. They had done this. They had led them here, had killed her comrades, had left them to die.
As she looked around, her hopeless reality sunk in more. There were dozens of titans around her. They were everywhere in the ravine. One was chewing on something that looked like a human arm. Another was reaching the body of a half corpse.
Her comrades were dead. And she was going to die too.
The Titan's hand descended.
So, this is how it ends.
Anya closed her eyes. She thought of her family, back in Stohess, waiting for her to come home. She thought of her training, her dreams of rising through the ranks, of making something of herself. She thought of the old man's face as she'd pressed her gun to his temple, the rage that had consumed her and given her purpose when everything felt overwhelming.
All for nothing.
The Titan's hand was inches away. Just as it was about to clasp onto her body—
"LUITENENT! MOVE!"
A body slammed into her from the side, sending her rolling across the stones. The Titan's hand closed on empty air. Anya hit the ground hard, pain exploding through her shoulder from the impact. She looked at her savior.
The veteran knight was alive, barely, completely soaked in water and covered in bruises. He grabbed the female knight's arm, hauling her to her feet.
Even as he tried to remain calm, Anya could see he was just as desperate as her.
"RUN! WE HAVE TO RUN!"
He pulled her forward, and she ran, stumbling after him even with her still shaky legs screaming in protest. The Titan roared behind them, its massive foot shaking the ground as it gave chase.
"B-but sir, there isn't any horse around. How are we supposed to escape?"
"Anywhere is safer than here." the veteran pointed out with his voice ragged. "If we can keep our distance till the evening peaks, the titans would stop moving. We can make it—we can—"
There barely reached far before another titan stood in their path. Also fixing its eyes on them like food. No where left to run.
The veteran gritted his teeth as sweat mixed with lake water beaded from his face. He looked at the titan blocking their path and the other closing in behind them. If they stayed here any longer, more would be attracted to them and they would be done for. Making his decision, the experienced knight pulled out his laser gun, it was soggy, but it will do. He raised his arm and fired directly at the eyes of the titan in front of them, the laser hitting its target. The titan shrieked as it stumbled, this was their chance.
The veteran immediately shoved his gun to Anya then shoved her, pulling out the spare sword he had left. "GO! Get as far away as possible, I'll hold them off."
Anya was stunned. He was leaving himself here?!
"But sir I-"
"That was an order—JUST GO!"
As if struck by a bolt, Anya ran, weaving her way in between the titan's leg and reaching towards the lane of the deep ravine.
The veteran knight watched Anya's retreating form vanish around a bend in the ravine. He allowed himself a single, fleeting moment of relief. She was fast. She was young. She might actually make it.
Then he turned to face his own problems.
"Alright, you bastards," he muttered, gripping his sword with both hands. "Let's see what you're made of."
The titan he had shot was still thrashing, its massive hands clawing at its own face. Steam rose from the wounds in thick, hissing plumes, and the creature's moans were guttural sounds of mindless agony.
It was the closest threat, and the most vulnerable. The veteran knight tightened his grip on his sword then darted forward, his boots finding purchase on the loose stones as he closed the distance.
"COME ON!"
He didn't try to fight it head-on. That would be suicide. Instead, he dropped low, sliding across the damp stones on his knees, and brought his sword around in a vicious arc. The blade bit deep into the Titan's ankle, severing tendons and muscle with a wet, tearing shluck. Blood sprayed across the rocks.
The Titan roared as it crashed to its knees. Its weight hitting the ground with an impact that sent tremors through the earth. The knight scrambled back, barely avoiding being flattened by the titan's body at the space where he'd been standing.
Aiming to finish the job, he scrambled onto the fallen titan's back as it tried to push itself upright. His sword found the nape, and he drove it down with all his strength, the blade punching through flesh and bone in one final, desperate thrust.
The Titan went rigid finally. Its body began to dissolve, steam hissing from the wound.
But the veteran had no time to celebrate. A massive hand caught him by the waist, and he was airborne; flung against the ravine wall with a force that shattered his ribs and drove the air from his lungs.
He slid down the stone, gasping, his vision swimming. The assault sent the air from his lungs away and his ribs broken. He barely heard the footsteps of Four other Titans that were closing in with his ears ringing.
A massive hand reached down and closed around his chest.
Whatever air he had left in his lungs were literally crushed out of him. His broken ribs creaked against his internal organs under the pressure, making him too weak to hold onto his blades, the sword clattering against the stones. He was lifted off his feet, dangling like a child's toy, and brought face to face with a fifteen-meter Titan whose expression was a grotesque parody of contentment.
Its mouth opened. The stench of rotting meat and steam washed over him.
"Damnit!" he gasped. "No—"
But the Titan wasn't interested in hearing him. Its jaws closed around his torso, and the world became a blur of white-hot pain, the sickening crunch of bone, and the wet, tearing sound of flesh being ripped from whole body.
The veteran's scream was swallowed by the groans of the Titans that surrounded him. His hands clawed uselessly at the Titan's face, his fingers scraping against its unusually warm flesh, but it was no use. He was an ant against a giant.
He was being torn apart.
The other three Titans swarmed him, raising their massive hands to grab at whatever they could get hold of. One pulled on his left arm. Another seized his right leg. The pressure was beyond unbearable, a grinding, crushing agony that consumed every thought, every sensation and every fragment of his dying being.
And then, with minimal effort, the man-eating beings pulled him apart.
The Titans fed away, still tearing at his remains, their massive hands ripping chunks of flesh from his corpse. It was over in less than a minute.
What was left of the veteran knight was scattered across the stones; a fragment of his leg and his sword lying forgotten in a pool of his own blood. The Titans, their immediate hunger sated, began to turn. Their large eyes swept the ravine, searching for new prey.
One of them, a ten-meter class with a distended belly and an unnerving grin, caught a scent. It was faint, barely there, but it was warm, and it was alive.
The Titan's head swiveled toward the bend in the ravine where Anya had fled.
It took a step towards the ravine, and the others followed, their shambling march accelerating into something that was almost a run.
Early access to chapters/uninterrupted chapter 32 is already available on Patreon.com/Weeb Fanthom.