Overwhelming Firepower

It was quiet... Too quiet, not even the sound of the birds could be heard. It was rather unnerving. Everyone got their weapons ready.

Even the always sleepy Daniel, who most of the time had half-lidded eyes, had his eyes wide open now.

The wind shifted. It wasn’t louder, but sharper, a soundless edge that made the hairs on their necks rise. Then they heard it, it was a voice.

”... Help...”

It was a faint voice, broken. It was somewhere in the trees. Everyone froze. It came again, higher this time. A young man’s cry, raw, desperate.

”Please! Someone! Save me!”

One of the recruits wanted to go to the sound, but Veronica stopped him. ”Why? There’s someone out there, and he needs our help.”

”I don’t know what’s going on, but there’s something wrong here,” Veronica responded with her hands holding her spear and shield.

”The smell isn’t that of any human. It doesn’t smell like anything.” Thrall suddenly spoke.

When they heard what Thrall said, not only the recruits but even the very forest held its breath. No rustle of leaves, and no crunch of snow. Even the wind seemed to die, leaving only the echo of that broken plea drifting through the trees.

”…Help… me…”

It came again, closer this time, though no one saw a thing move. Bram’s instincts honed from multiple life and death situations were screaming at him to leave, but his instincts were also warning him that the first to run would be the first to die.

Bram’s jaw tightened. His eyes swept the treeline, every shadow now a threat. He raised one hand slightly, not a word, just a gesture, and the recruits around him froze. Whatever this thing was, he wasn’t going to feed it panic.

The recruits shifted uneasily, boots crunching faintly in the snow like thunder in the silence. Even that sound felt too loud, too heavy.

Daniel stood perfectly still, wide-eyed, every muscle coiled, gaze darting through the branches like a predator scenting another. His usual laziness was gone. He was now fully awake, every instinct screaming.

A slow creak of wood echoed through the trees, not a single twig, but whole boughs groaning as if strained under an invisible weight.

Something scraped bark; it was Long and Slow. Not above them now, around them. Something massive was pushing through the trees, dragging claws across trunks like a butcher sharpening knives.

Whatever it was, it was deliberately doing this to inflict fear, which was very effective. The sounds that they were hearing without seeing what it was had already unnerved a few recruits.

”Shields up.” Veronica’s voice was not loud, but it held the weight of command. Those who had shields raised them up.

Even though just moments ago each group was wary of the other and was ready to attack at a moment’s notice, they had now trusted one another with their backs and tightened their formation.

Even Bram, who was the wariest of them all, understood that in order to survive now, he needed to work together with the people present.

Whatever it was suddenly stopped. No voice, and no more movement. Just the weight of something unseen pressing down on every breath.

A soft crunch broke the silence, not snow shifting, but bone. A brittle snap, wet, quiet, deliberate. The cry came again, but different this time. Not pleading, but mocking.

”…Please... Save me…”

A dozen voices, the same plea, overlapping, high, low, young, old, all sewn together into one wrong, hollow sound. Then there was this eerie laughter accompanied by screams.

The laughter and screams died like a blade drawn across a throat, sudden, clean, final. Silence crashed back down.

Then, the trees groaned. Not the sound of wind, but of trunks yielding, bending under something heavy enough to bow them like reeds.

Snow fell in soft showers from the canopy, shaken loose by something massive moving just out of sight.

A shadow slid between the trees. Too tall, and too thin. It didn’t walk, it dragged itself, long limbs carving deep furrows through the snow, claws raking frozen bark in a slow, deliberate scrape.

The air turned sharp, colder, biting at the lungs like knives. Every breath hurt. Then it stepped into view.

The thing was huge, towering thrice the height of a grown man, its frame a grotesque mockery of starvation and strength. Skin stretched taut over bone, gray-white and cracked like ice, with veins black as rot pulsing faintly beneath.

Its skull was wrong. Human-shaped once, perhaps, but split and elongated, a jagged maw crammed with too many teeth. Its eyes, damn its eyes, burned a pale, hungry light, the color of a dying fire.

Antlers curled from its skull, splintered and sharp, like dead branches snapped from a cursed tree. In its claws dangled a body, or what was left of one. There was no dignity in that person’s death, and the way he looked was one of fear and desperation.

It tilted its head, the stolen voices spilling from its maw like a child playing with a new toy.

”Help... Save... Me... Hah... Hah...”

Its mouth stretched too wide, splitting skin, as it laughed again, a hollow, tearing noise like bones grinding together.

No one dared to even breathe in its sight. The thing stared at them, its jaw twitching in small, unnatural jerks, head tilting, listening, not for sound, but for fear.

Then it dropped the corpse. The body hit the snow with a wet, heavy thud, spraying red across white.

Seeing the sight of the dead recruit, full of fear, made some of the recruits feel an anger like no other, but most were unnerved. It was then that a recruit whimpered.

The monster’s head snapped toward the noise. It looked at the person who created the sound, then it moved.

Snow exploded where it had stood, claws carving through the clearing with impossible speed for something so massive. Trees groaned, bark ripped free in sprays of splinters as the thing plowed through them like dry stalks.

The recruit who had whimpered barely had time to scream. A flash of pale claws, a wet sound, and he was gone, yanked off his feet and slammed into the frozen ground with a force that cracked bone like kindling.

”Shields to the front! Priest, give us blessings! Mages used every offensive spell you have!” Veronica shouted. The recruits were still in a state of shock and were unable to move in time when the monster moved to its next target.

Veronica enveloped herself in her first mantle aura and smashed her body and shield at the monster, gaining its attention.

”You b*stards wake up and fight! If you don’t, we’ll all die here!”

Hearing Veronica’s shout, the other recruits finally stopped being dazed as they got into a makeshift formation. The shield bearers stood in front, their bodies shaking, but even then, they didn’t back down.

The priests of different deities started praying, giving every kind of blessing they could to the others.

The mages then started chanting their spells. Most of them only knew first circle spells and started bombarding the monster.

Thrall then roared, the tattoos on his body started glowing, and the muscles of his body started expanding. He then charged at the monster and jumped, hitting its head with his fist. The monster’s head shook a little, but then it countered by swatting Thrall in the air.

Thrall was blown away by the nearby tree. He hit two trees, breaking the first one and stopping on the second.

The recruits with spears then started throwing their spears at the monster. Some of their spears stuck to the monster’s body, but it did not bleed; in fact, it didn’t seem like it was that hurt.

As the monster was attacking the shield wall, Bram got behind it and was slashed at what looked like its Achilles tendons, but it was too thick. Even with Bram’s unnatural strength, it wasn’t enough.

The monster then set its sights on Bram, who couldn’t help but curse under his breath. ”Damn, it’s just one bloody thing after the other.” He started fleeing back to the shield wall.

Daniel, using his second aura mantle, moved only when the monster’s shadow passed over him, calm in chaos, stepping aside just enough to drive a short, brutal thrust into its knee before slipping back out of reach like he’d done it a thousand times.

The monster’s leg buckled, not much, just a twitch, but it was the first real reaction they’d drawn from it. The monster then did something that felt like a scream.

Not like before, not mocking or hollow. This was a sound that split the clearing like an axe through ice, a pitch between a howl and tearing metal, the kind of noise that made teeth ache and courage falter.

The thing lashed out. Not a strike, a sweep. Wide, brutal, low. The air cracked with the force of it. Shields shattered, men were hurled like dolls, and the snow beneath them sprayed crimson.

”Hold! Your lives depend on it!” Veronica barked, already surging forward, spear snapping up like a serpent’s fang.

She drove it between two ribs, aura flaring just enough to push through the creature’s hide. It sank in, not deep, not enough, but it made the beast reel.

Thrall, who had been smashed to the side, finally got up again. His body was aching, but he had a vicious smile on his face, the smile of a predator. The young boy spat out blood from his mouth and wiped it.

”Heh,” he rasped, eyes wide with excitement, ”now this is a hunt!”

He leaned forward, crouched like a beast about to spring. ”Come then! Let’s see which of us is the hunter, and which is the meat!”

And with that, Thrall lunged, fast and reckless, darting in and out of its reach, each hit a flash of muscle and fury, each retreat a taunt.

Thrall’s strikes landed like hammers, cracking against joints, driving the thing’s head to twist with each blow. But every swing of its claws came closer, faster. Despite doing his best to evade, Thrall had a lot of cuts on his body, but he continued attacking.

Daniel used the same tactic as Thrall with hit and run, but his was aimed at what looked like the monster’s vital points. Despite doing that, each attack was not as effective as he wanted it to be.

”This is getting more annoying,” Daniel mumbled under his breath as he took a step back and watched the monster’s movements.

While the monster was being attacked on every side, it suddenly got hold of one of the dead bodies and started eating it. Everyone paused at the sight. The few wounds they had inflicted had disappeared.

”Damn it! Burn the corpses!” For the first time, Bram gave an order. The mages hesitated for a second. Those people were their comrades. They had fought together just moments ago.

”Either they end up as a monster’s meal, or grant them a shred of dignity in death!”

Bram saw the mages hesitate and shouted. The mages gritted their teeth and quickly used a fireball spell to burn the corpses of the fallen.

The monster howled, eyes burning hotter, body shaking with fury. Smoke and ash swirled as the last of its meal turned to blackened bone. It then swiped the snow around, creating a sort of smokescreen as it backed away, hiding behind the thick trees.

”Did... Did we drive it off?” One of the recruits whispered, voice shaking.

”No,” Veronica responded, low, steady, eyes fixed on the treelines. Her knuckles were white around her spear. ”It’s not gone.”

”The b*stard is hiding, waiting for its chance to strike.” Bram spat out in irritation. The forest was once again silent, but the tension had risen.

The clearing fell still. Only the crackle of burning corpses and the ragged sound of breathing broke the silence. Daniel’s eyes narrowed; the snow beneath them had started to tremble.

”Help me... I’m... Soo... Hhhhunnngryyy.” The voice the monster was using no longer sounded human.