∼ Bastion ∼

Chapter - 98

‹ Artorian Lucius ›

"Flyers incoming!"

A sequence of drums rang out, rolling down the battlements, signaling both an alarm and a command to the vast host of soldiers lining the fortress's numerous levels. On a bartizan overlooking the stretching sea from nearly by the clouds above, a pair of hardened eyes looked to the horizon. Waiting.

Outwardly, he didn't look any different from the average soldier, wearing a simple helmet, cuirass, and free-jointed leggings. His armor had seen some wear, dented and scratched as it were. But the figure stood tall, and even though his appearance blended in with the tens of thousands of soldiers manning this fortress, he still managed to stand out from the rest. The air about him was regal, and menacing as much as he attempted to hide it. Still, it was a necessary measure and just about did the job.

After all, if it was known that the prince himself, heir apparent to the white throne, was amongst their ranks, it would sow quite a bit of discord and confusion in the men. It would be detrimental to his training if they did. Artorian sighed, trying to ignore the countless glances he still got. Whilst they might not know who he was, they understood he was someone special. 

As the men took positions, avoiding his little bartizan, Artorian drew his blade. One of two blades that had been sitting sheathed on his person. The undrawn one on his back, the size of a claymore, but with its hilt wrapped. An oddity to be sure, as most of the common soldiers here wielded either spear and polearms or crossbows and longbows. But none asked questions as the superiors patrolling the battlements didn't either. They knew better.

It was not long until what had alerted the sentries came into sight, a blot on the horizon that soon turned into a flock of ravenous beasts. They were beasts from the Land of Giants migrating to Argon. As another roll of the drums sounded out, Artorian knew his battlement was one of the targeted ones, echoed by the officers patrolling the wall the very next moment. "23rd, 24th, and 25th - prepare your arms!"

Down the fortress, layered by multiple battlements, Artorian could see the men on the 23rd and 24th stir into action like a disturbed hive's nest. This was Bastion, the shield of humanity. Bastion was the greatest structure known to man. An impenetrable fortress that had not fallen nor been breached since its conception multiple centuries ago. It alone held off the greatest threats to humanity.

A fortress that stretched into the clouds, a city in itself.

This huge construction was beyond massive, split into what was called the battlements. From the 1st to the 50th, Bastion rose into the sky and high above the clouds.

Almost every single day, and often multiple times a day, Bastion would come under siege from monsters and beasts. Migrating from the Land of Giants, a mysterious place that is home to some of the most terrifying and powerful creatures in all the lands known to man, they assault Bastion as a mindless horde.

The lower on the battlements you were, the more deadly the hordes became. Artorian had started on the 40th and worked his way down to the 25th. The 40th was the highest the beasts ever attacked, though men were still crewed all the way up the 50th as sometimes truly terrifying creatures would appear, unpredictable and powerful as they ravage Bastion without any cohesion to the hordes migrating. Artorian had been unfortunate enough to see one such creature already. It had attacked just five levels lower than his battlement at the time, at the 32th battlement. It had been a hulking flying monster, scaled and feathery. It had been a late 2nd-tier monster. Nearly on par with a class holder at the peak of his specialization, in the range of level 45-50. A true monster.

Artorian still shivered at the memory as he had only been able to watch from above as it tore into the men, ten times the size of any steed and a wingspan unimaginable. It was the duty of Lucia to defend all of Argon against the warmongering hordes of the Vuruk, the migrating beasts from the Land of Giants, and the abyssal creatures from the depths of the World Sea. And to be stationed here was a dreaded duty for most. From all over the Argon, countries sent conscripted men and women to man the fortress. The only volunteers here were the Lucians themselves who consisted of battle-hardened warriors manning the lower levels and most of the middle levels, fighting against nightmarish creatures that the fodder of the conscripted only could hold off with their fleeting lives. After all, there were only so many bodies a monster could eat at once...

The young prince dashed those grim thoughts as a certain battle calm took over. One he hadn't possessed before being shipped off to Bastion to train, and one he would've found immensely useful in his fight against the assassins. His grip around his sword tightened, a silent rage building in the core of his pit, invoked by that unresolved fight. His uncle, Gideon, had warned him of using his emotions like that. But the more he had learned to fight, face-to-face with deadly beasts, the stronger the rage inside him got - lending him strength greater than what he could've ever imagined.

A cry that split the air announced the flying beasts' arrival, a cacophony of shrieks echoed by the rest of the flock. "A big one today," Artorian mused, readying himself as they were already upon them.

Big, featherless, and scaled, these strange creatures flew on leathery wings of nearly transparent luster. It made them hard to distinguish against the bright white sky above. They used this very advantage to dive on the men, sowing chaos only moments after their arrival.

A spray of blood, deftly evaded as Artorian had cleaved the flying beast in half, bisecting its frame as its thin waist provided little resistance against his sword. Whilst this weapon wasn't of any great make, issued to any accomplished swordsman stationed at Bastion, Artorian's technique made any blade in his hand, be it a dull axe or even sharpened stick - a lethal weapon.

He immediately switched to the second stance, his rapid movement exchanged for graceful fluidity as he beheaded a second beast. This one had been diving for a nearby fellow soldier who had barely gotten out of the now corpse's trajectory, splattering with crimson blood against the gray stone of the battlement in a meaty thud. The soldier merely gave Artorian a shuddering nod, clearly flustered. But whether it was because of his near-death or Artorian's clearly superior swordsmanship, it wasn't clear.

But the prince did not linger as he had already moved on, running along the battlement as he cut his way through beasts and the corpses of dead men. It was quickly getting out of hand, Artorian realized. This species wasn't one he had seen before, and most seemed just as surprised by their ability to ambush in plain sight. Though, having to adapt to strange new creatures definitely wasn't a first since the beasts migrating from the Land of Giants came in as many varieties as they were stars in the heavens.

Suddenly thrown against the parapet of the battlement, nearly cast over its ledge, Artorian groaned. "Argh, shit-" Looking up to see the inordinately large beast that had thrown him, many times bigger and just as many times meaner than the rest of its kin, Artorian could only curse his luck. For it would seem he had jinxed it, thinking of the time he had seen an alpha wreak havoc on the lower battlements. Because now, he was meeting one - face-to-bloody-beak.

It was nearly a third-tier monster.

Wiping the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and looking aglance at the men around him - or those why weren't bits and pieces bestrewn across the gray stone of the battlement, he knew he was the only thing standing between it and them. This beast had already killed the officers that had ganged up to slow it down, but the specialists that usually dealt with these anomalies hadn't arrived yet. It would seem there wasn't just trouble on the 25th battlement right now.

Artorian had to deal with it on his own. He discarded his blade and drew his other.

From the ledge of a higher battlement, a lanky man in a mix of white robes and roguish silver armor was looking down at the scene of carnage and battle. Specifically on the young prince. After all, he had been charged with assuring the future monarch's safety.

"Oh?" The man frowned as he saw Artorian draw his true blade. "He should be able to take care of that himself, even without that.." And he wasn't wrong, Artorian had proven as much over the last couple of months. But the man realized the prince's reason almost immediately after as he noted the look in the royal highness’s eyes. He was trying to get rid of the beast before it could do any more harm to the rest of the men too injured to get out of the way, even by risking exposing his identity.

The man sighed disapprovingly. "Softie,"

A glare of white fire was the only thing that hailed the flash of light as the blade was drawn. It was so sudden, that barely anyone saw what happened - of course, only those too weak not to see past its radiance. But less than a handful of seconds later, the beast fell to the grounds, wounds burning with white fire crisscrossing all along its body. The only thing it had for it, was a bloody wound on Artorian's shoulder where an errant talon had struck him.

"-and too rash." The man added to his assessment.

...

A couple of hours later, men and women not soldiers in egg white robes running around collecting corpses, both men and beast, and cleaning the blood and viscera off the cold stone of the battlement, Artorian sat against the parapet, tending to his wound. Most of the people stayed well clear of him. While nobody knew what he had truly done, he had just truly cemented himself as no ordinary soldier.

A hulking figure approached him, casting a shadow over Artorian with their wide frame. The young prince didn't even have to look up as he sighed. 

"Your Majesty," A sonorous but female voice said, armor clinking as she placed a gauntleted hand on her hip.

"Marshal," Artorian said simply, not meeting her gaze as he kept tending to his wound yet his tone remained one of respect.

She drew in a deep breath and looked around. "Quite a mess you've made up here," And she wasn't talking about the slaughter.

"I wasn't just going to let them die."

"I know - I know. Just wished you had thought about it a little more beforehand before doing something so impulsive." Placing down a huge bloody tower shield of a silvery make against the parapet, making the very ground tremble with its mind boggling weight, she shook her head. "Unfortunately, it would seem that we can no longer keep you a secret."

Finally looking up, Artorian was surprised to see the state of the black-skinned woman. Rafe Fordrinn, Marshal of the Keep. Her silver armor was covered in blood and gore, the woman looked like a hulking monster at first glance. Especially since she was essentially a giant in that armor of hers with her already considerable size.

"You had trouble down there too?" He asked.

"Mmm-hmm, big squid-thing. Put a dent in my shield."

Artorian's brow rose at that. He knew that the shield of Rafe Fordrinn, nick-named the Shield Maiden, was an artifact nearly on par with his sword. The fabled keepsake of his father, once the strongest man on Argon. On instinct almost, Artorian brushed his hand against the now sheathed and bound weapon once more, using [Identification] on it - the advanced version of [Inspect].

If a monster had been able to put a dent in her shield, it would have been a truly nightmarish creature, even though she didn't make much of it. Artorian could only glance out of a ruined slit in the parapet, trying to look through the mist that pervaded the lowest battlements. But it was too high up and the mist too thick. Still, a chill ran down his spine at the thought, imagining what horrors that great veterans of Bastion fought on a daily basis.

Artorian shook those wandering thoughts from his head, focusing on the here and now.

"So, what now?"

"Well, the show you put on really put a wrench in our plans. But it's not as if we hadn't anticipated something like this might happen. We'll just keep moving on with the training. The rumors will take a little bit to spread, and the men will distance themselves from now on. Still, we will continue with-" Rafe explained but suddenly cut herself short, looking off to the distance abruptly.

Artorian was about to ask what it was she had sense, but since he had been in a state of passive meditation while they spoke and he tended to his wounds, he too noticed soon after what had caught Rafe's attention. Although the mana was thinner out here, this far on the literal edge of Argon's southern lands, in this state, Artorian was siphoning mana directly from the branches stretching out from the leyline of mana deep beneath the earth. The mana vein that ran through Argon stopped in Lucia. While the lands of Lucia were still saturated with more mana than most of Argon, it was a considerable difference out here compared to the capital city.

But as Artorian felt the pulsating waves of mana from the vein echoed by its branches he was tapping into, he felt a distinct surge of demonic mana. He had felt something like this a couple of times, but never with demonic mana. It was strange... and he couldn't quite put his finger on what it meant. But Rafe, the Shield Maiden, sure seemed to understand as her brow furrowed with the hints of a sneer on his lips.

"What does it mean?" He asked. Although Rafe was no mage, she was simply so experienced and powerful that her perception of mana was even greater than Artorian's in some senses, despite him being a magical prodigy. It was just the pure difference in strength showing itself as she was one of the greatest warriors in all of Argon. A hailed individual above the fabled level seventy-five threshold.

Yet, this overwhelmingly powerful warrior for some seemed a little... distraught?

"A warlock." She answered simply, her frown deepening. "A warlock just advanced their class. This mana... they're powerful. This mana signature is almost as if it's pure demonic. I'm not sure."

Then it clicked for Artorian. This was the sensation of a new master being born. It had happened only four times during his lifetime. Once somebody of the magical sort crossed the threshold of fifty into their second advancement. Meaning that the mana they had used for their advancement was released back into the mana vein and sent through its stream. It meant there was a new player in Argon. One of the demonic designation. That rarely ever boded well... For an enemy to the Virtuous Judges high above - was an enemy of Lucia.

Artorian mirrored Rafe's frown as he suddenly got to his feet, fists clenched tight around his scabbard. This omen was only more proof that he had to get stronger. To save his father's legacy. To save Lucia. To save all of Argon. He had no time to spare.

Konge

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