Hagen and what remained of the group continued the mission despite devastating losses.
Bloodwyn had sent a few warriors back with the bodies of the fallen and the most gravely wounded. Only fifteen soldiers remained who could still advance toward the objective. They were wounded and in a pathetic state compared to the force they had begun with, but Hagen maintained his fixed determination.
They pressed forward because turning back was not allowed and doing so would also make those losses aningless.
He still felt wounds that abyssal power sohow couldn’t heal easily. The marks left by his encounter with the underground creature pulsed with constant pain, as if sothing in the wounds resisted corrupt regeneration.
The sensation was deeply unsettling... his enhanced healing had always been one of the primary benefits of abyssal corruption, but these injuries seed to exist at levels beyond what his enhanced regeneration could address.
Still, he was the guide. The expert. Maybe he wasn’t the strongest in the group, but when it ca to finding the way in the depths, he was the best they had.
Maybe even the only option.
The expertise was hard-won through decades of descents into places that would break lesser minds, learning to read patterns in chaos that would drive normal people insane. It was knowledge that couldn’t be taught, only earned through survival.
Abyssal creatures didn’t attack them.
They opened a path as always, moving aside with instinctive deference. It was sothing that felt strange for them; the creatures weren’t adorable at all.
Being surrounded by hundreds of them, with their twisted forms and eyes that glowed with constant hunger, wasn’t reassuring for almost anyone.
The atmosphere was suffocating and alien, it was never easy walking through a living nightmare where every shadow contained sothing that defied natural law.
But they had never attacked soone with the sa corrupt energy. It was a fundantal law of the abyss: those with the sa energy don’t devour each other.
Additionally, Bloodwyn now emanated an aura too intense after receiving the improved potion. Even common Gold monsters moved away from him too, retreating with primitive respect or fear...
So they should feel safer.
Navigating this level should have been easy.
The only real difficulty lay in positioning themselves in this surreal place. Only Hagen was capable of having any sense of direction while completely surrounded by such similar monsters over such long distances.
It was a skill he had developed during decades of expeditions, the ability to read patterns in apparent chaos.
The ntal mapping required was staggering, holding dozens of reference points in mory while constantly updating position based on subtle environntal cues that existed more as intuition than observable data.
But when they had been advancing for quite so ti, sothing happened that completely confused even Hagen.
The beasts weren’t distributed as before.
Strange abyssal monsters appeared that didn’t follow patterns he had learned to recognize. Hagen also didn’t understand what was happening; it seed the new monsters were an amalgamation of different species, but now completely identical to each other.
As if the monster type had been standardized in this specific zone.
"What the hell are those things?" one of the soldiers murmured, pointing toward a creature that had centipede characteristics, where each segnt seed to have acquired parts of sothing else.
Hagen studied the creatures with expert eyes, decades of experience providing no insight into what he was witnessing. "I don’t know. These are new."
The admission felt like professional failure... his entire value to the expedition lay in understanding this environnt, and suddenly that understanding had beco worthless.
Suddenly, positioning beca much more difficult. Hagen had been using, among other things, specific monster types to orient himself, morizing which species appeared in which zones of the abyss. Now that internal navigation had beco useless.
Bloodwyn was surprised that he had been able to distinguish differences between previous monsters.
"How the hell could you differentiate between those things even before?" he asked, rembering what for him had been an indistinguishable disgusting mass.
The question revealed the gap between expert knowledge and casual observation, what appeared random to untrained eyes contained layers of aningful information for those who knew how to read them.
"They have their patterns," Hagen explained, frowning while trying to adapt to the new environnt. "Even in their nature of ’random’ characteristics, there are similarities in their body shapes, in how they move, and other things."
He pointed toward the strange amalgamations surrounding them.
"But this... this is different. As if sothing had been copying the sa thing for a while."
Hagen paused, evaluating his position with decades of experience that suddenly felt inadequate.
"Still, we should be close to the target zone. If we go up now, I should be able to position myself better... The gold ring should be a bit safer with you accompanying us now."
Bloodwyn nodded, trusting the guide’s experience despite complications that were beyond anyone’s previous experience.
"How close do you think we are?"
"Quite close to the latitude where they supposedly sighted the light," Hagen responded, though his voice carried a note of uncertainty that hadn’t been there before.
The remaining 15 soldiers prepared for the final ascent.
♢♢♢♢
Hedda saw the bridge explosion too close.
So close she was almost swept away along with many others who didn’t have the luck of being in safe position when the world fragnted into light and debris flying everywhere.
The shockwave had felt like the world ending and beginning again simultaneously.
Earlier, she had been about to be discovered for skipping the obligation to advance with main troops. She had been forced to move ahead when they divided push squadrons, mixing with soldiers who really wanted to be there, feigning enthusiasm she didn’t feel.
The deception had beco increasingly difficult to maintain as genuine enthusiasm infected even reluctant participants, war fever was contagious, and resisting it required constant vigilance.
For a mont, she had been about to get carried away by collective euphoria alongside other soldiers on the bridge who advanced quickly and joyfully because it really seed like "they had already won".
And it had seed that way. They had just barely shown a "secret card" in Venmont and had already completely dominated the battlefield.
The transformation had been intoxicating, watching overwhelming victory unfold with certainty, feeling the collective confidence of soldiers who believed they were witnessing history being made in their favor.
Powerful Victor had fallen, the aerial commander who had easily escaped Maximilian’s perfect plan had been left dead or unconscious while his army retreated in disorder. The new leader who had relegated Maximilian to rearguard as simple organizer had also been responsible for bringing down Yano’s hero.
Venmont had seed to have no rival in the skies, dominating the air with absolute authority that promised the war’s quick end.
But then that person had arrived.
That impossible person whom no one wanted to talk about openly in Yino, whose na was whispered with respect and terror. The King who had disappeared for years on mysterious missions, letting others handle kingdom affairs while he pursued objectives no one completely understood.
They had even thought he was dead, that he would never return.
But they were wrong, so much so that he had turned the situation around...
And had destroyed the bridge.
He hadn’t just defeated that Venmont quickly, but had eliminated the complete invasion route in a single devastating movent that would change geography.
Demonstrating power that operated beyond normal strategic thinking.
Hedda knew this would make history one way or another.
The war would stop for now so both sides could recapitulate, evaluate their remaining resources, and decide if they wanted to continue a conflict that had escalated far beyond initial expectations.
The pause was inevitable...
And so thousands of Yino soldiers who had been trapped on the other side of the abyss, cut off from their supply lines and reinforcents, faced a desperate situation. Those who couldn’t fly were effectively prisoners in enemy territory, depending on rcy from a kingdom that had little reason to show it.
Hedda was happy not to be one of them. Though she had no way of knowing that ironically, it would have been convenient for contacting her brother.
Now she would have to find a way to return to her old form of work in Yino during the pause and try to beco more useful so as not to be sent to the front again, assuming Master Vex still had interest in supporting her and her employers were in good spirits after this total disaster.
The future was uncertain and dangerous...
While observing the last debris fall toward the abyss’s darkness, Hedda wondered if she had chosen the right side from the beginning.
Vex’s concealnt collar still functioned, keeping her almost invisible among the confusion of soldiers trying to flee and process what had just happened in front of them.
♢♢♢♢
Ren and others had wanted to retreat to Selphira’s mansion after the battle’s chaos, but Julius had convinced them that heading to the castle would be the best option.
"We’ll be able to take Larissa, Zhao and Selphira where they receive the best dical attention after Selphira herself," Julius explained while adjusting the improvised sling holding his mutilated arm. "And we’ll be able to use the best resources to wake Selphira and completely heal the others."
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