Chapter 63: Shift in the Battlefield
One of Shadow’s summons had remained in position the entire time, waiting for the right moment, and now it had come. Without hesitation, Evan took control and directed it inside, slipping through before the entrance was sealed again. That part went smoothly.
The easy part was over.
The real difficulty started now, because they still had no precise idea of what was waiting on the other side of that door.
’This place... something’s off,’ Evan thought, perceiving what the summon was perceiving through his clone’s senses, and the moment he did, one thing stood out immediately.
A vortex of vital energy. Dense, powerful, far beyond anything he had encountered in recent days. Even the beastlord, even Elena , hadn’t carried that kind of presence.
’An A-Rank?’ he thought, comparing the intensity to the only comparable signature he had sensed since arriving in BranLeaf, the Elite who had come from the capital.
As far as he knew, there were no other A-Ranks here. Nobody apart from the recent arrival, and possibly the Duke, though he had never actually seen or sensed the Duke directly since coming to the city.
Then there was the second problem. The energy itself felt distorted, something deep within the space was interfering with Shadow’s senses, muddying what should have been a clear read. Evan made the decision and swapped Shadow in, replacing the summon directly on the spot.
He was underground now. A tunnel, deep, wide enough to move through comfortably, the walls close but not oppressive.
The men from before had already moved deeper. Shadow followed at distance, keeping to the darkest parts of the tunnel walls, invisible against the black.
It didn’t take long before the tunnel began to slope downward, a gradual incline that continued until it opened out into something else entirely.
’heavens, what the hell is this ?’ Evan swore internally as the space revealed itself.
The only thing that came to mind, seeing what lay before him, was a laboratory.An ancient one.
It was the only explanation that fit, given the structure of the place and what was happening within it
Several structures filled the space, each stranger than the last, but all clearly built by human hands, and from the way the men were working around them, this was unambiguously their base of operations.
What exactly they were working on, something that seemed to require the corpses of countless people by now, given it wasn’t the first time those lackeys above had been sent to collect bodies, he still couldn’t tell.
Through Shadow’s eyes, Evan moved in silence, slipping into dark corners far from anyone’s sight or perception, slowly building a mental map of the entire space. Only then, as he properly scanned the area, did he notice the raised platform at the far end, a structure built upward, with what appeared to be a throne at its peak.
A man sat there. Middle-aged, tall, powerfully built, dressed in elaborate clothing that announced noble origins without any need for words. Evan was fairly certain he was a local noble of some standing, but none of that mattered compared to what did.
He was the source of that overwhelming vital energy Evan had sensed from the very moment he stepped inside. Among the figures filling the underground space, his presence loomed like a sun among candles, blinding, unmistakable.
’Is it really him?’ Evan thought, working through who this could possibly be.
In all of BranLeaf, apart from the newly arrived Elite from the royal capital, only one person was known to be a powerful Elite, the most powerful in BranLeaf, in fact.
Duke Veylan Greymark.
Current ruler of the Greymark Duchy.
The lord of BranLeaf itself.
As if sensing the weight of a gaze that had no business being directed at him, the man, who had been seated with relaxed ease, eyes closed, opened them.
The moment he did, an invisible pressure settled over the entire space. Not crushing, just the distinct weight of being looked at by something far beyond you, something your body recognizes before your mind can catch up. The people below nearly flinched, yet none dared stop or turn around.
Evan immediately understood, being within the awareness of a peak Elite was not something to take lightly. He pulled Shadow’s presence back as fast as he could, compressing it, trying to vanish into the darkness.
’Shit... did it notice me?’ he thought, unsure if it was already too late.
Shadow was D-Rank. Its [Stealth] was D-Rank, more than enough against beasts of equal rank, even one rank above. But three ranks higher? Against a peak A-Rank?
There was no way it passed undetected.
And indeed, the man’s head turned, slow, deliberate, toward the general area where Shadow was positioned, his eyes sweeping the dark with the unhurried certainty of someone who had sensed something and was taking his time deciding what to do about it.
Just as Evan was seriously weighing whether to pull Shadow out entirely before the man decided to act, something changed in the space. Something that drew the attention of the Duke, and everyone else present.
A pulse. Strong, sudden, emanating from somewhere above.
The entire underground area lit up in pale green for a single second.
’What the hell is that?’
Evan was caught off guard. He had almost missed it entirely, too focused on surveying the space and watching the man, but now that he saw it, he couldn’t look away.
And it wasn’t confusion or curiosity that held him there.
It was his blood.
The part of him that was synchronizing with the God of Death’s bloodline reacted, viscerally, immediately, in a way that had nothing to do with thought. But Shadow’s reaction was far more intense. Unlike him, the clone was physically present in that space, and whatever that pulse had been, it struck something deep within it.
’What... what’s happening?’ Evan couldn’t explain it. But something was building, he could feel it. Something was about to happen. Something bad, maybe... or maybe not.
He didn’t know, but he was bracing himself for the worst.
***
On the surface, the battlefield, which had been changing by the second, shuddered without warning.
A strange fluctuation of energy erupted from the great stump and spread outward in every direction, expanding like a wave that covered kilometers in a single instant. Its intensity was such that even the weakest adventurers could sense it, and as it washed over them, they all felt a strange sense of invigoration.
As if something deep and old had exhaled, and the breath of it had touched every living thing in range.
But some felt something different entirely.
The Naga, which had been locked in combat with Elena for some time now, a standoff that had gradually tipped against it as the woman pushed it further and further onto the back foot, felt the fluctuation and went still.
Then its eyes lit up.
The laughter that followed was no longer the thin, almost-human sound it had used before. It was bestial. Raw. It threw its head back and released a long, piercing cry directed at the sky, and within moments four others answered, one from each direction surrounding BranLeaf, the voices of the other Beast Lords rising in unison until the sound blanketed the entire area and could be heard for kilometers in every direction.
The citizens of BranLeaf trembled. The adventurers on the field faltered. Even the stronger ones, the ones who didn’t tremble at much, felt something cold move through them as they looked at each other and wondered what, exactly, had just been set in motion.
Then the answer began to arrive.
A tremor. Faint at first, then unmistakable, moving through the ground from a direction that hadn’t been a source of concern until now. And with it, an invisible pressure, sudden and absolute, that descended over the eastern front like a ceiling being lowered. It didn’t crush. It announced.
Elena felt it before she processed it. Her blood recognized it a fraction of a second before her mind did, and what her blood told her made the line of her jaw tighten.
Something terrifying was coming.
The Naga was still laughing, half in its own tongue, half in the human language it had used before, the words tumbling out in a mix of triumph and something closer to reverence.
"Hahaha, I told you. This time, no one will stop us."
It had felt the pull toward the great stump for years. All the beasts of the forest had, that strange, persistent attraction toward whatever lay beneath the city, drawing them back year after year, tide after tide. Every year ended the same way. Its predecessors had failed. Last year, it had failed. But this year was different.
Not simply because it had succeeded in uniting all five Beast Lords, though that alone had never been done before. Each of them had felt that same pull independently, each had their own reason to answer the call.
No. What made this year different was something else.
Something that had lain dormant for decades. Something that, like the beasts, had been drawn toward the stump, had felt the fluctuation a moment ago the same as they had, and had taken it as the signal it was waiting for.
The true commander of this beast tide.
The one that had remained in reserve throughout the entire battle, patient, waiting.
It had grown tired of waiting.
And now it was coming.