Shadow Slave

“Draw your bows! Take aim! Endure!”

Kai’s words were meant to keep the morale of his troops more than they were meant to serve as actual instructions. To tell the truth, he did not have to do much, at least not yet. There were no such things as coordinated volleys when it came to archers — everyone just had to send one arrow after another into the seething mass of Nightmare Creatures, as fast as they could.

He had to do the same, too.

On the ground near him, several quivers full of arrows waited for their turn. Kai was shooting without a respite, alternating between using the Blood Arrow and these mundane ones. It took time for the ghastly Memory to return to his hands, so he had to use something else in-between.

A good archer had to be able to fire twelve times in a minute. An excellent one — twice that.

Gritting his teeth, Kai drew his bow, took aim, held his breath, and fired. Every movement had to be efficient, quick, and precise. As soon as one shot was done, another one immediately started. Draw, aim, release. Draw, aim, release. Repeat, and repeat, and repeat…

In these moments, he had become less of a human and more of a methodical battle machine that ran on all cylinders without stopping even for a moment.

He put an arrow in the eye of a terrible abomination that looked like a giant snake made of seaweed and rotting flesh. Another pierced the chest of a massive bestial primate and impaled him on the carapace of a mantis-like creature. The third bit into the neck of the mantis and greedily drank its tainted blood, causing the monster to stumble and fall.

Kai felt like he was drowning.

Back in the waking world, archers were always portrayed as nimble, graceful warriors, someone who excelled in agility and speed as opposed to brute strength and physical might. They were beautiful maidens, elegant youths, and cunning rogues. Maybe that was why he had been attracted to bowmanship, to begin with.

The reality, however… couldn’t be further from the truth.

It took a lot of strength to pull the string of a combat bow. The draw weight of a good bow was as much as fifty kilograms, on average. Twenty times the weight of a sword…

And Memory bows like his were much more monstrous. They were never meant for mundane humans, so pulling that string every few seconds burned through his stamina in mere minutes. Very soon, Kai’s muscles screamed in pain, and his lungs seemed to be on fire.

But he couldn’t stop… he had to keep shooting, no matter what.

“Keep at it! Draw, aim! Endure!”

How could he allow this insignificant pain, this unearned exhaustion to slow him down when out there, below, so many humans were dying in agony to keep the enemy away from the line of archers?

Letting loose another arrow, Kai drew in a hoarse breath and glanced up, almost out of habit.

However, this time, his gaze lingered on the indifferent grey skies. Then, his eyes widened.

At some point, five black dots appeared high above the battlefield, flying in an eerily perfect circle above it. A cold chill ran down Kai’s back.

“Messengers…”

Five Fallen Monsters were observing the massacre that was happening below them with vile indifference. Even though he could not see their harrowing shapes too well, Kai could somehow feel their gaze.

‘…Why aren’t they attacking?’

As if to answer his question, a smaller dot appeared from the clouds and fell down through the circle created by the Messengers. And then, another. And another…

Just a second later, countless Nightmare Creatures poured from the grey skies and dove down, swiftly approaching the ground. There were so many of them that their mass resembles a swirling black column of a colossal tornado.

Kai trembled. His face paled.

…However, he did not allow fear to prevent him from fulfilling his duty.

“Skyward squads! Aim high!”

At this point, about half of the Sleepers in the third line were supposed to switch their attention and repel the aerial threat. However, engrossed in the battle that was happening below, most of them didn’t hear or understand his words.

Kai grimaced.

And then, his clear, enchanting voice rolled over the entire battlefield once again, this time easily piercing through the clangor and havoc of the terrible strife:

“Skyward! Squads! Aim high!”

This was the voice he had used to sing the most difficult notes in front of hundreds of thousands of people. Only the dead could not hear it.

Brought back to reality by his voice, the archers quickly aimed at the sky.

…Just in time.

Kai let the Blood Arrow loose, then saw it fly upward and hit one of the winged abominations in the chest. The monster convulsed and dropped vertically down, hitting the sharp wires of the iron net with a sickening sound.

A tremor ran through the entire net, and drops of black blood fell to the ground.

Stretching his hand to grab a mundane arrow, Kai had a moment to take in the sight of the descending swarm. For a moment, his heart was squeezed by despair.

There were so many of the flying Nightmare Creatures that it was impossible to count them all. Among the swarm of horrors, there were the giant locusts he had fought before, massive abominations with hungry maws and bat-like wings, repulsive birds with fleshy tentacles growing from beneath their pale feathers, and many more. Horrors he had never seen and could have never imagined.

…And above them, five black dots continued to circle in the sky.

Putting the arrow on the string of his bow, Kai banished fear and doubt from his heart and drew it. Then, he aimed at the closest of the abominations and willed it to die.

A moment later, his arrow hit the creature right in the eye.

Most of the archers around him had already switched their targets. Only the siege engine crews and those with Abilities and Memories unsuitable for firing upward continued to pelt the nightmare horde with deadly projectiles.

The quickest of the descending monsters were eviscerated, and soon, a rain of corpses fell on the iron net.

…But a few lucky ones had avoided the arrows and dove down to devour the humans who stood on the ground.

Kai held his breath when the first of them hit the iron wires at full speed.

What if the net broke?

But it did not… at least for now. The Artisans had done their job well.

Instead, the creature was instantly sliced apart, its body disintegrating into a rain of blood and strangely symmetrical chunks of flesh. The sight of it was morbidly fascinating.

‘…Thank gods.’

Reaching for another arrow, Kai found nothing but emptiness. Looking down in confusion, he saw that his quivers were empty.

‘Have I… used so many?’

Before he had time to process that thought, however, someone had already thrown two fresh quivers on the ground in front of him.

Picking up an arrow with aching fingers, Kai inhaled through his teeth and raised his bow.

“Draw! Aim! Endure!”