The horrific scene that was revealed below her made her skin shudder instantly. She wrapped her arms around herself, staggering back. There were six gray giants in the front lines, their legs were as thick as tree logs. They charged towards the walls of Ethylene and pounded their iron clubs heavily against it. Suddenly, she heard a loud, monstrous roar, followed by a spewing of a huge fountain of fire.
Max turned towards the source of the flames. Among the crowd of the trolls, was a monster clad in pitch-black robe, perched atop of a half-dragon’s back. She then came to a realization: that creature must be the necromancer who had cursed Hebaron and controls the army of ghouls. The monster tugged at the half-dragon’s reins that were made of chain, urging the half-dragon to move closer to Ethylene’s defensive wall. The necromancer then raised his black, scale-covered hand high; the half-dragon then spewed another ball of fire in the air.
Max covered her face, even from a distance, she could feel the heat from the scorching flames. The dark red flames flew like a cannon ball towards the Ethylene’s defensive wall and she felt a strong gust of wind blow. She ducked against the ground, flattening her body to avoid being carried away by the wind. She waited for the gust to stop blowing and as the black smoke began to dissipate, she saw the wall appear half-scorched. Then, the ogres rushed forward like a herd of buffalos and pounded their clubs against the wall.
The deafening sound of their weapons. hitting against the wall pulled her out of her stupor. She then hurriedly examined the structure of the ground she was on. It wasn’t the time to gape at the scene like an idiot. Max knelt on the ground and searched the margins of the land where dirt and rock parted. The rock was firmly embedded in the earthen ground more than she thought. She, who was testing the ground with the soles of her feet, bit her lips in conflict. The cliff was more solid than when she saw it from below. She didn’t know if she would be able to break the rock away from the cliff’s earthen ground with her magic alone. Her eyes narrowed as she stared eagerly at the narrowly slanted rock.
‘…there’s no other choice but to try.’
If she could create even a tiny crack between the rock and the earthen ground holding it stable, the huge rock will collapse by itself with gravity acting upon its heavy weight. She walked a few steps back and placed her palms against the ground. Then, she drew her mana, casting magic to pull up a barrier from the ground, between the rock and the earth to create the fissure. The mana that was drawn out of her stretched to her left and right, creating a complex pattern. After a while, the ground beneath her began to slightly shake, the ground then rose up, creating an earthen barrier.
She took a step back, avoiding the thick dust that formed. However, the rock remained unbudging. She bit her lip in frustration and swept away the hair that fell on her forehead. Magic barriers were created out of what’s around her, making a tangible wall from whatever is in the environment. As this barrier was made from pulling soil from the ground, the structure beneath was meant to become disrupted. However, the structure seemed to be unaffected with only that amount of scale.
She then gathered the remaining mana inside her body once again. She created another barrier, just for it to crumble down again like a sandcastle, creating another thick layer of dust. She did not wait for the dust to settle and pulled up another barrier from the ground. It would have been more effective to create something that would directly rupture the ground’s structure instead of pulling up a barrier from earth, but she wasn’t skilled enough to create a magic spell for that. Her method was foolish, but she had no other choice but to disrupt the ground structure this way.
She pulled the barrier again and again, drawing mana from her body constantly. Every time the barrier would emerge from the ground, the earth would shake slightly but never did the rock show any signs of budging. She gradually felt her mana being drained and Max bit her lips nervously. It was possible that the rock was embedded infinitely deep and if that was the case, she would have to repeat this method countless times just to create a rift that would break the rock away from the cliff. She clenched her fists in frustration.
Max began to think of herself as too arrogant, thinking that she would be able to tip the cliff off this rock wall, the guardian of Ethylene, that has withstood thousands of years.
‘…But there is no other way.’
She only had a limited knowledge of magic: draw out defensive barriers from the earth, heal, recover, and small flames. There was no other choice but to try to her best extent. Creating this barrier to create a rift on the ground was like trying to break a rock using an egg. She repeated creating a barrier for about nine times, then that was when she felt her eyes growing heavy and her body feeling like it was bleeding out heavily.
Max pulled away quickly, gathering her mana back from the ground. If she applied more of her mana, she would risk causing her mana to be depleted. She took a deep breath and looked up at the sky with unfocused vision. The sky’s hue was so contrastingly beautiful against her situation that she resented the golden sunset it displayed. She blinked emptily, a cool breeze brushed against her wet cheeks. Her entire body throbbed with pain and her head was numb. Her body was trembling uncontrollably.
She was completely useless. If Princess Agnes or Ruth were here, they would have made it by now. If only Ruth had escaped instead of her, he would have destroyed this cliff in a matter of seconds and brought devastating damage to the monsters. Her father’s voice calling her “useless”, echoed inside her head. And he was right, despite trying best and hard as she could, in the end, she was still a helplessly useless person. She thought of herself as absurd for trying to fix such a formidable situation on her own.
Max’s face twisted in despair and her throat burned with shame. She tried to swallow the hot, seething misery that threatens to control her, when suddenly, a tremendous boom engulfed her surroundings. She got up quickly and ran to the ledge. The last of Ethylene’s defensive walls is crumbling. The trolls all roared at once and began marching towards the fortress.
The soldiers who were on the fortress fired burning arrows at once and the wizards casted blazing fires towards them as an attack but nothing could stop these monsters whose regenerative powers were close to immortality. The monsters rushed, crashing against the castle gates without a single hesitation. Max watched the scene in horror, she gritted her teeth and placed her palms against the ground once more.
‘This is the last. This chance is the last one you have.’
She drew out all her mana and applied it to the ground, casting a magic spell accordingly. It felt just like bleeding out as her mana drained out of her body. Before long, the ground trembled and an earthen barrier as high as 15 kvets (about 4.5 meters) high emerged from the ground but she did not stop, she continued to draw out her mana at an accelerated speed: to create a rift deep enough, she needed to pull up more earth. Max made her barrier rise higher and higher yet the rock was still unbudging. She clenched her teeth and spoke to the ground as if to threaten it.
“Collapse…!”
Her last sliver of mana had been drawn but nothing happened. She pounded on the ground and screamed in exasperation.
“I said co-collapse!”
Hot tears began to form in her eyes. Now, she had no mana left. The barrier fell in vain as the mana ran out, creating heavy dust. As she watched bitterly at the scene unfolding below her, she suddenly heard a thump. Her eyes widened. Then the ground beneath her suddenly began to slide to one side, unable to bear the weight of the collapsing earth.
Max looked at the pile of dust with resentment and bitterness when suddenly, she heard and felt it tremble. Her eyes widened as the ground below her began to pound. With the foundations weakened, the cliff could no longer carry the weight of Ethylene’s guardian and slowly began to fall. She staggered backwards and hurriedly tried to turn around and get to safety as the soil and dust began to collapse beneath her. However, the strength in her legs were lost and she could not run away fast.
She stumbled desperately to get to the other side of the cliff. And then, the ground beneath her began to slant her position and fall towards the cliff at an exponential rate. She was dragged helplessly by the falling silt, making her lose her balance and roll on the ground. And just as she was about to tumble down the cliff with the rock, someone grabbed her arm.
Max screamed as she felt the strong pressure on her shoulder. She lifted her head up and saw Yulysion’s ashen face. He pulled her toward him in a flash and leapt up to the slanting ground like a natural instinctive animal. Forgetting the pain of her shoulder, Max allowed herself to be dragged to safety as the ground continued to collapse behind them.
She heard Yulysion curse before the boy wrapped an arm around her waist and leapt onto stable ground. Max held her breath at the pain she felt in her side. He landed near a tree as nimble as a cat and firmly gripped one of the tree’s thick branches, then leaned them against the trunk, avoiding the soil that rushed with the landfall. Max clung to him tightly for her life. The ground shook violently as if heaven and earth were cracking open and fierce roars and screaming resounded for a long time. She had no idea how much time had passed when her surroundings finally came to a quiet and she was barely able to open her eyes.
It took her a while to realize what had just happened. Her vision was blurry as if her eyes were covered in frost as she saw the huge rock that had fallen beneath the cliff and the monsters that were crushed and buried under. Her eyes blinked in disbelief. When the rock on top of the cliff fell, the steep rock wall collapsed along with it.
“Oh my God…” Above her, Max heard Yulysion’s bewildered voice.
Fearing he might drop her, the boy’s arm around her waist wrapped so tightly that it magnified the pain she felt in her side.
“Half of the monster army was crushed by the rock. Do you see it? The entrance has been completely blocked. They will be able to hold out until the reinforcements arrive.”
He spoke in a shaky voice as he led her away from the ledge and came back to his senses. Max clung to Yulysion for support and barely managed to step onto soft wobbly ground with loose dirt as the boy continued to ramble with excitement.
“That was amazing! Absolutely amazing! But we have to get out of here immediately. The monsters would discover we’re up here. We need to quickly find a place to hide…”
Suddenly, Yulysion trailed off. Max stared at him with unfocused eyes and he let out a low gasp and quickly went to remove her hood to reveal her face.
“Oh my God, blood, blood is…”
At the mention of blood, Max belatedly remembered how she stabbed that goblin to death. Its blood was probably still splattered all over her. She reached up and touched her face.
“T-This is a goblin’s blood. It s-splattered on my fa-face…”
“N-No, your nose…”
Before Yulysion even finished speaking, he grabbed his cloak and pressed the fabric to her nose to stop the bleeding. Only then did Max realize that something warm was trickling down her nose. It appeared that her nose had been bleeding a lot as she came to her senses and felt the metallic taste of blood on her lips. She must have looked terrible, but her unsightly appearance was not even on her mind. Her entire body was cold and she was shaking violently. Her head was dizzy, and she felt sick to the core. Even her arms and legs were trembling worse than her last mana depletion. Realizing her disastrous condition, Yulysion turned as white as flour.
“You are losing too much blood. Please hold this and apply pressure to stop the bleeding.”
Max stretched weakly and raised the cloak to her face with trembling hands while Yulysion turned his back to her and knelt.
“Climb up on my back, I’ll carry you.”
It was difficult for her to stand up, much more to walk, so Max had no choice but to climb up his back obediently. Yulysion gently stood up once she was secured on his back and ran through the forest at lightning speed.
“Please hold for a little more. We must get to safety first.”
The boy’s urgent voice felt so far away. Max groaned in pain as she fought desperately against her fading consciousness. If she fainted there, she would just be a hindrance. As she struggled to keep her conscience at bay, Garrow’s voice suddenly emerged.
“Yuly! What happened?”
“The Lady managed to break through the cliff, but I think it depleted her mana.”
Garrow ran quickly towards them and his mouth fell open.
“A-are you alright m’lady?”
Max looked up at him with hazy eyes and caught sight of the boy’s paling face. She wondered what she must have looked like for him to look that alarmed.
“We need to find a safe place to hide right now. The monsters know that we’re up here. Those who survived the landslide will come for us.”
“Will we continue heading east as planned?”
Yulysion shook his head.
“We cannot travel with the Lady in this state. We need to return to Ethylene.”
“But the battle…”
“The landslide has completely blocked the south gates of the castle. At most, there are a hundred monsters trapped between the castle gates and the pile of rocks. The remaining troops in Ethylene will be able to take them down. The problem is the monsters that survived. There’s no telling what they will do.”
“How many of the monster army were able to survive?”
“Six to seven hundred… No, I can’t be sure. I saw more than half of them get buried in the landslide, but the trolls are incredibly tough. If they didn’t die from the impact, they would have already regenerated.”
Yulysion approached his horse and set Max on her feet. She moaned in pain with every movement, her ribs and shoulders practically screamed. Yulysion, anxious and scared at not knowing what to do, asked.
“Can the lady ride a horse?”
Max weakly shook her head. “My le-left a-arm…”
Only then did Yurixion belatedly realize that one of her shoulders was horribly dislocated and bit his lip. Carefully, he lifted her on his back.
“Let’s get rid of the horses and travel on foot. Take only the bare minimum with us.”
“Will that be alright?”
“If we can’t ride and travel on the horses, it will be better to leave them. That was Sir Calypse’ orders. It will be difficult to cover the tracks of the horses, we will only be caught sooner.”
Garrow quickly removed the bags and saddle from the horses and set them free. The three of them immediately descended down the mountain, and Max was like a rag doll on the boy’s back. Her shoulder ached as if it had been stabbed with a knife right in the joint and her ribs throbbed excruciatingly. Even when her father beat her to the bone, it didn’t hurt as much as it did now. Her shoulder was dislocated, her joints throbbed agonizingly, and her ribs felt as if they had been completely broken.
Her knees were significantly wounded from being dragged away by the falling landslide, and her hip was probably bruised too since she fell off the horse. Her arms and legs felt limp, not a single place in her body did not feel pain and her whole body trembled as she felt chills like icy water was running in her veins. She groaned in pain as she trembled helplessly.
“damn it, we need to find some place to hide and rest for a while…”
Yulysion muttered urgently as he looked from left to right.
“The lady may only end up worse if we waste our time in a hiding place. It would be better to take the lady immediately to a healer.”
“But she’s in so much pain…”
Max tried to open her lips. She wanted to say that she was fine, but only a strange sound came out of her mouth. The symptoms of her mana depletion began to grow exponentially worse and the chill punctured her bones. Yulysion began to hurry, sensing her suffering.
“This won’t do. We must put a splint on her shoulder to reduce the pain. Let’s find a cave.”
Note – LF: GAAAAH THE IMPENDING DOOM ☹
