Chương 171: B3 - Chapter 7: Survivors

Seth exhaled slowly and drew a thin strand of aether up from his Well to fill Intermediate Identify's grooves and cast the spell on himself, Nightmare, and Colossus. Seth Class: Primalist Rank: 48 (High-Iron) Subclass: Beastmaster Core: Feral Instinct [...] Strength: 130 (111+19) Arcane Power: 126 (100+22+4) Toughness: 126 (100+23+3) Well Capacity: 94 (75+19) Agility: 133 (113+20) Regeneration: 118 (79+16+23) Spells: - Link [??? 〜??? (???)] - Share [??? 〜??? (???)] -??? [??? 〜??? (???)] - Dusk Scythes [Iron / Silver〜Epic+ (Crude)] - Armored Phantom Fists [Iron〜Legendary+ (Decent)] - Beastmaster Rage [Iron〜Epic+ (Refined)] - Night Veil [Iron〜Epic (Refined)] - Huntbound Rush [Iron〜Uncommon (Flawless)] [...] Nightmare (Tenebrous Young Direwolf) Potential: Silver + Tier Rank: 54 (High-Iron) Affinity: Darkness Bonded to [Seth] [...] Strength: 127 Arcane Power: 150(131+19) Toughness: 89 Well Capacity: 76 Agility: 131 Regeneration: 77 Spells: - Illusionary Emptiness [Silver〜Epic (Standard)] - Shadow Step [Silver〜Epic (Decent)] - Predator Hunt [Silver〜Epic (Decent)] - Danger Sense [Silver〜Rare (Standard)] - Gloom Fangs [Silver〜Rare (Standard)] -??? [??? 〜??? (???)] - Chains of Darkness [Iron〜Epic (Refined)] Colossus (Young Three-Tailed Giant Scorpion) Potential: Gold Tier Rank: 47 (High-Iron) Affinity: Earth / Poison Bonded to [Seth] [...] Strength: 75 Arcane Power: 92 Toughness: 220 (142+61+17) Well Capacity: 112 Agility: 67 Regeneration: 80 Spells: - Mountainborn Exoskeleton [Gold〜Legendary (Crude)] - Sandstorm Dome [Gold〜Epic (Crude)] - Desert Aegis [Silver〜Epic (Decent)] - Explosive Bastion [Iron | Silver〜Epic (Crude)] - Chitinous Taunt [Silver〜Rare (Decent)] - Deathcoil Venom [Silver〜Rare (Decent)] - Quartz Armor [Iron〜Rare (Flawless)] - Scorpion Charge [Iron〜Rare (Refined)] His expectations had been fairly low.

Primalists were known to grow stronger in the dangers of the wild, not on the battlefield, so gaining two Ranks—while Nightmare had also gained two and Colossus three—came as a genuine surprise. And that was on top of the spells that had increased in quality: Night Veil, Quartz Armor, Scorpion Charge, and Gloom Fangs. Seth hadn't yet reached the others on his team, who were all gathered ahead with prisoners, when a cold, resonant voice vibrated through the air from the Spirit hovering in the sky.

"This concludes the battle. Winner: Kingdom of Kastal. The Warfare Rift will close in thirty minutes." The announcement should have been a relief, a signal to celebrate a lopsided victory. Instead, it was met with a heavy, suffocating silence. Seth looked at Henry, Eddin, Selena, and the other members of his squad. They all stood among the craters and cooling corpses, their breathing slowly returning to normal. How could one celebrate when so many people had died for rewards they would never see?

For leaders they despised? Seth closed his eyes, and his core returned to a dormant state. His whole body ached. Every gash and burn throbbed with the pulse of his heartbeat, yet the physical pain was secondary to everything else. He removed the arrow still lodged in his shoulder with a wince and began to walk back toward Henry at the center of the battlefield. Seth's boots crunched on sand that had begun turning into a dark, tacky slurry from all the blood.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The squad leader's bald head gleamed as usual, but the boisterous smile on his face was long gone. The young man looked like he had aged a decade in the span of fifteen minutes. Seth glanced around, performing a silent headcount. They had won—decisively. By his estimate, nearly thirty-five soldiers of the empire lay dead across the plateau.

Five more were huddled in the dirt, their hands and feet bound by rune-etched shackles. But Kastal had paid for that victory. Seven lives. They'd been young men and women who had woken up that morning expecting to see another sunrise, to see their family and friends once that battle was over. Alfred was among them, his eyes still wide with the shock of his final moments before getting impaled. Winning against the empire with so few casualties was an incredible feat—yet no one cheered.

A few feet away was the corpse of a man who had been butchered while begging for mercy alongside the charred remains of those caught in the artillery fire. Seth glanced up at the sky. The Spirit supervising the battle remained motionless. This entire clash had changed nothing. The war would keep on going until the Empress or the King of Kastal decided they had spent more blood than their nation could afford. Henry noticed Seth's approach and reached out, clapping a heavy hand on his shoulder.

"Thank you," the young man said, his voice raspy.

"Really."

"For what?" Seth asked, his gaze moving to the squad leader. Henry gestured over to the corpses of the soldiers, then toward the people of the squad.

"Without you, we'd all be dead right now," he said.

"That distortion field... it would have kept us from escaping. We would have been sitting ducks in the fortress while they ground us down with those cannons. You gave us the opening to actually fight back. You weakened them by killing so many of them and breaking their morale." Seth nodded, unsure what to answer. Then he looked past Henry, his eyes finding Selena. She was standing a few yards away next to Colossus, her hand resting on the scorpion's carapace.

The giant beast looked uncharacteristically still, his head lowered as if he were mourning the lives he hadn't been able to save. Seth knew they would have been dead without him.' You did great, Colossus,'Seth said through Link.' Many are alive because of you. I'm alive because of you.'' But I couldn't protect them all,' the scorpion answered.' That would have been impossible.' Seth's mouth twisted to the side.' You did more than anyone could have asked.'

Colossus remained silent, his multifaceted eyes slowly moving from one body to another. Seth reached for his teardrop necklace and recalled the massive beast back inside. The scorpion vanished in a shimmer of aether and reappeared within the pocket-realm next to the Heart of the Mountain. Seth then looked at Selena. Like many others, she was staring at the corpses instead of looting them. Most of their squad had probably never killed a human before today.

And even more so, they had never lost an ally—or worse, a friend—on the battlefield.

"You saved all of us back there," Seth said, approaching her.

"By signaling Henry, you got us the support we needed in time." Selena simply nodded, her lips pressed together for a moment. When she finally spoke, her voice was low and surprisingly tight.

"I'm tired of it, Seth. I'm tired of being weak. Of having to rely on people. Of not being able to protect myself or others when things go sideways." She turned to him, and for the first time in a while, her stoic mask was gone. Shifting emotions were etched across her features: shame, anger, then guilt. Seth knew he couldn't say anything that would ease those feelings. He had felt—and still partly felt—the same.

He wanted to change Kastal, to crush the foolish man they called king, to stand against Draeria and Volantis, and to avenge his parents, who had paid an unjust price simply for wanting a life away from all this senseless brutality. All those goals made him feel as weak as she probably felt right now. The world was ruled by power, and if they weren't at the top, nothing they could do would make it better. At least not in Seth's case. Ahead, Selena clenched her fist.

"Bring me hunting with you," she said, her eyes locking on him.

"Until the next battle. Then I can have a chance to make a difference." Seth frowned, caught off guard. The thought had crossed his mind before—but for it to be her first instinct after surviving such a deadly battle wasn't what he'd expected. He wasn't against the idea, though. Colossus and Nightmare hadn't been either when he'd asked them at the inn. But still…

"I could," he finally answered, "but when I hunt, I push myself to the limit. I'm close to death more often than not. And even if I do everything I can to protect you, you could still die."

"I don't care," Selena replied, her jaw set.

"I'd prefer to die out there than live constantly having to depend on the protection of others." Seth nodded, recognizing the same drive that had pushed him to his current strength.

"Fine." As he stood next to her, Seth's mind was slowly being filled by questions about the empire's tactics. Would they use the same Artificer device to block them from escaping next time? What was the true area of effect of such a powerful tool? Was there any known counter? Yet before Seth could dive deeper into those questions, Henry's voice rose from a dozen paces away, cutting through both Seth's thoughts and the heavy atmosphere.

"Listen up! I know this battle was difficult," the squad leader shouted.

"But we only have thirty minutes before this Rift closes. So grab everything of value you can from those bastards. We will speak about everything that happened later. Just know for now that I'm proud of all of you. You fought with everything you had. We will honor those who have fallen once we get out." Most of the members of their squad gave the man a nod and began to move, their expressions grim as they knelt to loot the corpses.

Endless Pouches, high-grade weapons, and every artifact—they harvested all they could find on the bodies. Seth helped Henry move the arcane cannons Toren had provided back into the Artificer's Endless Pouch by using the Shrinking spell-scrolls to compress the massive weapons. The empire's own artillery had been destroyed during the final charge, now nothing more than twisted metal and leaking aether. The loss of the powerful weapons was saddening.

Still, they found a handful of spell-scrolls from the fallen Elementalists, some of them being engraved with Shrinking. The valuable assets would allow them to move their own cannons during the next battle and not be forced into a fixed position. The next battle, Seth thought. A cold spike ran down his spine. When would their squad be called to fight again? In a week? Two? He didn't have the luxury of resting. He had to get even stronger. More lethal. So did Nightmare and Colossus.'

So, we go hunt right away once we get out of here?' Nightmare asked through Link from inside his den, reading Seth's thoughts.' With that red-haired Rogue?'' If you both don't mind,' Seth replied.' I want to,'Colossus immediately answered.' Next time I need to be able to protect everyone.'' We can be even more feared,'Nightmare added with a growl.' Make them dread every clash with us. It will break their morale before the fight even begins.'' Alright.'

Seth reached into his pouch and pulled out one of Marcus' potions—the Epic vial filled by the emerald liquid designed to alter Seth's eye color.

He gulped it down, the sharp taste stinging his throat. Minutes after Seth and the others had just finished stripping the corpses, the Spirit moved them out of the Warfare Rift in a violent blur. The scorched desert, the iron stench of blood, the distant crackle of dying flames—all of it dissolved as the exit sequence seized hold of reality. For a heartbeat, there was nothing but darkness. Then the world slammed back into place. Cool air replaced the furnace heat.

The endless dunes were gone, traded for the wide, windswept plains of the neutral zone. Seth stood still as his vision adjusted, a dry breeze tugging at his bloodstained clothes and cooling the sweat on his skin. To the east, the Bridan Empire's encampment stretched—a sea of men and women in polished steel amidst towering crimson banners snapping with each gust. In the center loomed an ornate dais of sculpted gold and white stone, wreathed in shimmering aether. Upon it sat the empress.

A mantle of deep imperial crimson fell from her shoulders, trimmed in thread that shimmered like captured starlight. Beneath it, armor of pale, mirror-bright metal hugged her frame, elegant rather than bulky and etched with runes that pulsed faintly with power. The woman's dark hair cascaded in a controlled wave down her back, untouched by the wind despite the open sky. A narrow crown of silver rested upon her brow, set with a bright azure gem.

She spoke to the cloaked man standing to her left and did not so much as tilt her head at Seth's and his squad's arrival. He tore his gaze away and looked at the Kastal side. The contrast was painful. Most of their army wasn't even present, and those who were there had split into scattered groups—clusters of terrified men and women. Many of them were students from the nation's three elite academies and adventurers with mismatched armor. Brave, perhaps, but weak.

The next set of disposable pawns to be sent into the Rifts. The wind tugged at faded banners that struggled to stand upright. At the center of their formation lay a hollow space. The royal pavilion, with its throne of polished stone meant to seat the sovereign of their nation, stood empty as the nearby silken flaps fluttered uselessly in the breeze. So unsurprising, Seth thought, his jaw tightening. The ground groaned with a deep vibration that rattled Seth's teeth.

In the middle of the plain, the air tore open once more. Five new Warfare Rifts' portals appeared. The swirling apertures distorted the very air and stood like jagged tombstones, as if waiting for the next round of sacrifices. Seth glanced at the Spirit and the two NEVAK's representatives next Rifts, then turned toward Henry. The squad leader hadn't moved. His face was a sickly pale—worse than half an hour ago, right after the battle had ended.

The young man's knuckles had turned white, trembling as he gripped a glowing communication orb in his hands.

"What is it, Henry?" Seth asked, stepping closer. Henry didn't look up. His gaze remained locked on the flickering light of the orb.

"A friend," he muttered.

"He tried to warn me. But the message didn't come through, since we were inside the Rift." He finally looked at Seth, his brown eyes filled with a dawning horror.

"They were all killed, Seth. The squad members of the other battles that took place at the same time as ours. They're all over. With zero survivors on Kastal's side." Seth gulped, a cold knot tightening in his stomach.

"Every squad," Henry breathed.

"Every single man and woman. All butchered." A shimmering wall of aetheric light erupted above Seth and the other members of his squad. Words began to etch themselves into the sky in a harsh, crystalline script. [SUMMARY] [Squad 48 Trogan Academy(Kastal) vs. Squad 163 (Bridan Empire)] BRIDAN EMPIRE: 4 SURVIVORS | 6 CAPTURED KINGDOM OF KASTAL: 43 SURVIVORS | 0 CAPTURED A new column of light then appeared, headed by a single word that pulsed with a golden radiance: [CONTRIBUTIONS].

Underneath, names began to scroll downward.