Chapter 88: Push
What was done was done.
There was no changing it.
Just like when he killed Axel and Claire and his holding back got Ryon and Connor killed…
All he could do was live with the decisions he made.
‘Reason and regret, huh…’
He had his reasons, after all.
In this case, those reasons amounted to a misunderstanding of the Relic. He’d used it at a time he thought would be most effective.
Yet, now he knew it wasn’t.
It was only in hindsight that he could wallow in despair over having made the wrong decision.
Given what he knew then, he had made the decision he saw as best at the time.
Could he really be faulted for that? Was that really something worthy of regret? Of taking up space in his mind?
‘Like she said… it’s up to me.’
Zayn broke out of his internal despair as the wolves spread out around the unit, spreading along both flanks until the entire group was surrounded.
All at once, the twenty wolves charged the thirty-five.
Zayn shouted his orders:
“Hold here! Kill the wolves! Shielders, mark the horde! If they charge, polearms reinforce the shielders! Buy time until the wolves are down!”
Some nodded, while others whispered back words of understanding that would never reach anyone else.
Zayn turned and raised his unsheathed falx toward one of the wolves dripping blood.
‘Come, mutt.’
As if it heard him, the wolf howled before bounding straight toward him.
Once it came within a few paces, it planted its forelegs and kicked off with its hind legs, its maw snapping open midleap. A gush of red poured from its throat, aimed at Zayn’s face.
Zayn quickly darted to the side, keeping it out of his eyes, though some still splattered across his arm. Seeing that nothing happened to the skin it touched, he figured it wasn’t corrosive or poisonous… or at least whatever effect it carried was weak enough to be trivial.
Still airborne, the wolf stretched forward and snapped its jaws at him. It missed as Zayn pulled his leg out of reach. The wolf landed past him, immediately wheeled around, and began stalking him again.
Zayn stepped toward it, only for it to spring backward, maintaining the gap between them.
A little confused, Zayn glanced across the battlefield and found the same exchange repeating everywhere. The Blood Wolves that hadn’t fallen to arrows periodically darted in to attack before immediately retreating and keeping their distance.
Zayn would have typically chalked it up to their appearance matching wolves… but each one had deliberately broken away to occupy a separate target.
This was clearly deliberate.
Narrowing his gaze, Zayn glanced at the horde, then toward the other groups of monsters he could see far in the distance.
The horde was standing its ground, and reinforcements were on their way.
‘I see…’
The wolves weren’t trying to kill them quickly.
They were keeping the unit occupied.
Zayn barked:
“Kill these wolf bastards as fast as possible, then full charge!”
Spreading Aether throughout his body, Zayn kicked off the ground and closed the distance before the wolf could retreat again. His left hand pulled the falx into motion, then his right joined the grip as he brought the blade down.
The wolf tried to dodge, but the strike was too fast.
The blade’s edge bit into the wolf’s neck.
It let out a loud whimper, then tried to flee; however, Zayn twisted his wrists and ripped the hooked blade up through its neck, mangling everything in its path until it promptly dropped dead.
[You have slain a Nascent Mutant, Blood Wolf]
‘Nascent…’
The Blood Wolf was the same rank as the damned goblins he had fought. The only thing different was its classification, which was one tier up from Aberrant.
‘Whatever.’
Its strength, or lack thereof, didn’t matter.
All that mattered to Zayn was slaying.
He needed to kill these monsters to reach the graveyard.
His eyes darted to the side, where he spotted two men struggling with another wolf several paces away. Before it could dart back from them, Zayn rushed across the gap and cut into its exposed side.
The falx tore through flesh, dropping it before it could escape.
[You have slain a Nascent Mutant, Blood Wolf]
From there, the advantage began to compound across the unit. Anyone freed from their opponent immediately moved to help someone still occupied by a Blood Wolf. One kill became two, then three, and with every wolf that fell, another fighter was freed to overwhelm the next.
Within moments, the wolves went from controlling the pace of the battle to being swallowed by sheer numbers.
The chain continued until the last Blood Wolf was cut down.
Zayn immidietly barked his orders.
“Waste no time! Back into position! Forward!”
The horde blocking them had now swelled to nearly eighty, that was having lost the twenty wolves. Plus there were still more reinforcements on their way.
Finally, those wielding shields reached the edge of the line.
One of the big goblin ‘sacks of shit’.
As Zayn had thought, the big guy tried to punch, but its fist was as weak as it was slow. Its fist slammed into Nathan’s shield without even pushing him back.
To be fair, Nathan was a giant himself at 1.95 m and 108 kg.
Soon, though, the combined pressure from it and the surrounding monsters left Nathan and the other shielders with no room to move.
Rushing up along the shielder’s right flank, Zayn used his falx like a spear, driving the blade through a gap in his defense and impaling a mutated rabbit mid-leap before it could reach him.
[You have slain Nascent Aberrant, Jackrabbit]
“Thanks, Pinba…”
Nathan tried to thank him, only to choke on his words when another punch from the big goblin slammed into his shield.
But…
‘Was he seriously going to call me Pinball…? In this situation?’
Ignoring him, Zayn continued to use him as bait, skewering any monsters that tried to slip around him. The same scene played out all across their slowly advancing line.
Though he couldn’t see everything through the carnage, he could at least tell their side seemed to have the upper hand.
Arrows whizzed over his shoulder and buried themselves in the enemy ranks, while Jarlock created mud pits that sent monsters skidding and tumbling to the ground before someone nearby cut them down.
After another minute of relentless pressure, Zayn noticed they had finally thinned the enemies ahead enough to outnumber them. He couldn’t step back far enough to get a complete look, but from what he could tell, all thirty-five of them were still alive.
How healthy they were was another matter.
Only about thirty enemies remained. They had even managed to kill one of the big guys.
Still, there was one thing that stood out…
Sure, they were smart and coordinated, but even when a monster was on its last legs, only able to crawl, it still pushed forward.
‘Do they not possess a self-preservation instinct?’
The goblins back in the trial tended to flee when injured and their compatriots had been felled.
Zayn cut through a mutated cow that had been making the most horrendous “mooing” sound he’d ever heard.
[You have slain Nascent Aberrant, Cackle Cow]
Glancing to his left, he could just barely see the rear ranks of the gigantic force bearing down on the main entrance. To his right, another slightly smaller force was closing in on a different entrance.
He could also see several more monsters peeling away from those massive groups of thousands and rushing toward them.
Seeing that it was now or never…
“Get to the forest!”
At his command, the group broke through the monsters, focusing on evasion rather than cutting them down. Some shielders even abandoned their shields as they sprinted for the treeline. Only once they were moving did Zayn get a proper look at them and notice the exhaustion and injuries spread throughout the group.
But they couldn’t stop.
They had to press on.
Zayn kept to the rear of the pack, assisting anyone who became tangled up with a monster while expertly weaving past attacks himself.
It was a perilous venture, but eventually all thirty-five of them made it to the treeline… mostly intact.
The monsters obviously followed.
Zayn shouted another order:
“Retreat further in and reestablish the line.”
The elite sortie did just that, assembling just in time to clash with the charging remnants of the original horde.
However, unlike before, the two remaining large goblins were too big to force their way through the dense forest, meaning all the smaller creatures had nothing to protect them.
Systematically, the sortie executed the monsters one by one until only the giants remained.
Zayn flung his falx up the hill.
“Ignore them! Up the barrow, now!”
Behind him, a woman panted before dropping to her knees.
“Can we… wait… five minutes?”
Zayn, pulling his best Lucas impression, ordered:
“We have no time to spare. Think about it this way: if there is nothing at the graveyard and this is a fruitless expedition, then you get your break.”
Even as he said it, Zayn highly doubted the graveyard was empty. That monster squad had to have had a reason for positioning itself there before his group had even appeared, whereas the other four groups had gathered in front of entrances.
That was especially odd, considering they definitely couldn’t breach the wall, and with that lineup, neither could they scale it.
‘They were here for a reason.’
The woman screeched before doubling over and gasping for air:
“But what if there is something… Do I look like I’m in shape to fight!?”
Looking around at the exhausted, pleading faces of his group, Zayn finally gave in.
“…Fine, we’ll take a two-minute break. Move out of line of sight of these bastards so they don’t call more to us.”
Zayn’s eyes darted around. He didn’t know most of their names, but he knew a few. Of those few, he picked the ones who still looked capable.
“Paul, Caldon, Crystal… keep watch with me.”
At this, the group shuffled deeper into the forest and out of view before nearly everyone dropped to their knees, trying to maximize every second of rest.
Zayn, on the other hand, paced back and forth, trying to get a glimpse of the graveyard. After a full minute of peering through different gaps in the trees and shifting from angle to angle, he finally gave up.
There were just too many trees. They had only been able to see the graveyard from the wall because it was perched on a hill and the trees thinned out at the top.
After the two minutes were up, barely anyone moved. Instead, they insisted on taking the full five, reluctantly forcing Zayn to stay put with them and listen to some complaints.
If all their complaints could be summed up in a sentence, it would be the one muttered by the woman who first pleaded for a break:
“Pinball really is scarier than Psycho.”
Once those five minutes passed, and culling a few uninvited guests, the group staggered to their feet and continued toward the graveyard.