The small platoon of 1000 soldiers were given brief of the strategy of how they were going to proceed. After that Julius addressed his team.

“Men… today I Julius Rhienland stand before you not as a king but a father, a subject of our great nation and a fellow warrior. Our country today is facing eminent destruction, unprecedented in all of time, according to our intel its strength will keep on increasing with time so we are going to nip the problem in the bud. I am not going to sugar coat it to you, this is not going to be like anything we have faced before and though I victory is never guaranteed in war, our chances of coming back out of this is probably nothing but I believe this is the only way to proceed”

Julius was standing in between his soldiers; yes he was not standing on a stage addressing his troop of personal guards, he was standing in the centre, while his men disciplined as they were quickly arranged in themselves in four concentric circles with him at the centre listening to him keenly. They were all battle hardened veterans of the king’s personal guard, they had served the previous king and as Augustus had stated before were ready to follow current king into hell itself if required. The soldiers were all wearing their armour, the red chest piece, the silver arm guard and the head gear with a single cut-out in the shape of a T, horizontal part for the eyes and vertical part which was half as wide as the length of the horizontal part of the cut out extending from the horizontal cut out to the bottom of the head gear.

“We do this for the future of our country, we do this for our sons and daughters, we do this… for Bhasmachal!!!”

Following the completion of his speech Augutus shouted “Men, what do we say when we see the gates of hell”

All the soldiers in unison “OPEN FOR ME!!!”

Following the speech Julius started donning his heirloom armour, his armour too was red, but his was made of zorax, a very rare metal which only the nobility possessed. Its hardness rivalled the hardest metal, it could conduct magic. His head gear was similar to the soldiers, only that it was painted golden representing the general of the army and it had a strip of metal shaped like a small mohawk. Around his powerful looking biceps he wore a band which contained a blue emerald immersed in the centre of the golden circlet.

Each of them boarded their horses, dark beasts about two and a half meters in height, powerful enough to cut through wind like hot knife through butter, carrying the soldiers with massive frame and armours weighing 300 kgs and spears weighing around 80 kgs and an arsenal of weapons which they might need to fight the cursed being. Leading them as always on his massive 3-meter-high dark horse was Julius. The horse the sped through route directly to the allotment carrying the massive shield and spear of its master and some of them used to pull siege weapons with them.

Below the massive foundation of the allotment, the location in question, was a huge cave, in the centre of the cave was a pit, 2 m in diameter and a meter deep, filled with green glowing oozy liquid and around the pit was a moat of sorts, which was empty devoid of any of the ooze. A 60 m monolith rose from the centre of the pit, piercing the roof of the cave coming to the surface being only a few meters above the ground. Right above this cave of was a pool of turbid water around the monolith with the monolith as the center; about 50 m in diameter the circular pool was surely not part of the design meant for the allotment, it seemed more like a roughly dug ditch filled with water which was about 10 m deep. The water of the pool was still though turbid, except for the occasional bubble which rose to the top of the pool surface and broke upon contact with air, creating an extremely small ripple from its point of bursting.

When the massive war horses of the army came nearer to the plaza of the entire plaza started to vibrate because of the hooves of the of the horses charging. The surface of the turbid water pool started vibrating and the intensity increased as war horses neared it. The incoming troop had no idea where the cursed being was or what it looked like cause no one who saw it made it out alive and the only survivor of its assault could not give a description of the being. So they simply re-organised themselves into 10 files behind their brave leader as they did not see him stop even as the gate of the allotment neared. The gate was in the shape of an arch about 5 m high in the centre and 20 m wide at the base; a bit grandiose for its purpose, one would think, but it was part of the capital city so it had to be as such. The gates were open as if invitation to the incoming people, though the inside seemed more like a ghost town in sharp contrast to the grandeur of the gate. Julius at the front of the gate was the first one to see a pool of water about 200 m from the entrance, inside the allotment area, it was in contrast to the surrounding, as there were piles of flesh and smaller pools of blood around it, if one had to describe it, it seemed like mess made by a baby trying to eat food by itself for the first time. Julius ordered his men to slow down their pace as they approached the gate.

Again Julius at the helm of his army suddenly saw it. ‘With only a slight churning to mark its rise to the surface, the thing slid into view above the dark waters. Vast, Polyphemus-like and loathsome, it darted like a stupendous monster of nightmares to the monolith, about which it flung its gigantic scaly arms, the while it bowed its hideous head and gave vent to certain measured sounds, Julius for a moment went mad then.

The humanoid green being’s head was shaped like a horizontal egg, connected to its torso using a proportionate neck at the thicker end of the egg shaped head, its mouth looked like that of a fish, its fish like circular yellow eyes with deep black eye balls were present on both side of its head. Two fin like ears were present behind its eyes. Its torso and limbs were proportionate to that of skinny human who was had never practiced cultivation his whole life. A fin extended straight from the back of its head, to the ends of its tail bone. Its gigantic feet and hands had four long finger each adorned with massive disproportionately long claws, with webbed skin connecting the fingers of its hands and feet. Its entire slimy slick body was covered in green scales, it did not possess any weapon, but its 11 ft sexless gigantic body dwarfed even the highest of horse riders, making the bold soldiers quake in the security of their armours’

Julius on seeing into the eyes of the being momentarily lost strength in his limbs almost falling off of his war horse. ‘Unprecedented’ was the term Augustus used to described when he saw Julius’s reaction to the being. They had faced far larger marine beings who were hundreds of times larger than what they had before them and Julius had never once stood anywhere other than the helm of the ships. The platoon of soldiers came to a halt as they observed the actions of the being. It walked on the ground as if it was learning how to walk, trying to balance its massive bipedal frame, after every step which made it almost fall, it would shake its head vigorously as if in anger. Slowly after its 12^th step, its walking became better and it no longer needed to peer the ground could look ahead, it was here that its eye matched Julius’s, as if in reflex action the monster made loud scream “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!” came the booming sonorous sound of the monster, nothing new to the warriors of Bhasmachal, but Julius looked like he staring right down the barrel of a canon as he gave instructions to fire the arrows. As soon he said so, Augustus relayed his instruction and 600 soldiers brought out their standard military issue bow and arrow. Each 4 ft long bow was made out of a custom polymer which was a product of the country’s R&D which gave the maximum power output to extension ratio and 100 cm long arrows were made out of steel but the arrow-head and nock were specially designed to achieve maximum piercing power. Based on their training the flags were raised and a volley of 200 arrows was shot at the monster, following after another two volley of arrows were fired by the archers and before the first volley reached the monster all the arrows were in air. These arrows, when imbued with the mana of the soldiers, were capable of watering down humongous sea monsters each three to four thousand meters long, meaning they had the ability to pierce the hides of these monsters, but something weird happened when they touched the skin of the monster…… they fell apart on contact!!! Like twigs hitting a brick wall… this was not the end of all the weirdness, by the time the arrows reached the ground they turned to bits, some of them even turning to dust. 60 - 70 arrows missed and they were the only ones which survived after hitting the ground piercing the ground digging almost 50 cm, showing how fearsome they were. If one would look at what was happening to the arrows, they would see that the moment the arrows came in contact with the body of the beast, the surface of the arrow would start turning red and become flaky like having boils all over and would then start to crumble layer by layer as they came in contact with the flesh of the beast heading straight into their intended trajectory. The arrows were rusting in real time as they came in contact with the beast’s flesh!!!

Silence, ensued among the army camp at the sight of things, the only one who had his wits about him was Julius, as he ordered “Enter phase 1”. Augustus gave the signal and in came another volley of arrow but this time they were not aimed at beast but at the surroundings destroying all buildings in place, the arrows used were different, these instead of using mana to pierce the walls, exploded on collision, destroying everything in the site around the monster, all buildings 100 m around the beast were destroyed. The monster seemed confused by the exercise in futility as it growled every time the debris from explosion hit him and crumbled to powder, waving its hands to brush off the crumbs of the debris in air. It did notice soldiers who engaged themselves in mobilisation of a couple of ballistae around the monster. The weapons were used to launch arrow shaped projectiles of 3 to 4 m length, but the projectiles were modified to have a chain, 15 cm in diameter, linked to their rears. As they were shot, surprisingly for the beast again, it was not aimed at it but went about 1 ft ahead of it with the chain in air trailing behind the projectile, as the beast moved its hands forward to grab the chains it heard sound of another projectile being fired, similar to the previous one; this too was fired not at the beast but about a feet in front of it. Beast was too surprised to react immediately and as soon as both the projectiles jammed themselves into the ground, two soldiers were ready at their stations near the expected location of impact and grabbed the projectiles and started running in a direction. Unbeknownst to the beast the projectiles were linked to a single chain which was coiled in shape of 8 and kept on another carriage. As the coils were over, the chain started moving towards the beast at a speed impossible for a normal human to see, but just as the steel chains hit the beast, the same thing happened as what happened with the arrows, as soon the chains made contact with the beast to pull it across the cleared path done by the platoon, chains crumbled to red dust, only thing is, the beast was pulled back by the chains just a little, about 1 ft from its previous position.

Julius saw this and thought he might have been to drag him back just a little, but with resources on them this method was not viable, so he quickly commanded “Stall for time!!”

Augustus on hearing this signalled and a troop of ten armoured bare handed men moved in on their horses, as they neared the beast, they conjured mana spears of different kinds, 3 had joust lances, 2 had Yari, 4 had pikes and one had a dangpa. The karmic power of this troop was the reason why they were made to fight the beast, the other thing common among them other than the type was the colour which was ruby red, indicating their Docent level powers.

The beast had yet to attack the troop actively; but now, as if expecting the spears to disintegrate as the ones before, he swatted at them, as if one would swat a fly, but to its surprise the spears did not disintegrate immediately and went on to stab the beast, as two of the spears made contact the beast roared as if in pain “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!”. It was lifted off the ground and carried by the horses, the length of the spear meant the they were outside the beasts arm length, as it tried to flail around in air stuck to the spear. The soldiers shouted “CHARGE!!!” as they pushed the beast in the direction they were running. After the display of the arrows and chains fear was sinking in the army a bit, but this time it seemed like they turn the tables as they saw the beast being lifted off, but the respite only lasted for a second or so. As they saw no injury on the body of the beast. It seemed, that the beast had a tough skin as well. But still thing seemed to going as per plan thought everyone else, except for the two soldiers carrying the beast on their jousts. They seemed to be under a lot of strain, gritting their teeth, their fair skins turning red due to exertion initially and later pale due to exhaustion. “AAAHHH!!!” they screamed one last time before they let go of their conjured up weapons and drove their horses in a different direction. Just as the beast felt it had triumphed over the men, it once again, felt itself being stabbed by another pair of spears and lifted and driven in the same direction. Screaming once again. The soldiers took turns to lift it off and carry it forward till they could and then drop it off, this was all part of their instructions given by Julius before hand and what made it simpler to follow was the fact that they were used to tackling large beasts in the ocean and strategies were similar but executed in a different manner. The two jousters who were the first to lift up the beast Gregor and Peter. After doing the first round they came back to Augustus and Julius to recount what they experienced.

“Sir… reporting… to debrief…” x 2 they said from aboard their horses, panting like dogs trying to catch their breath as if they had just escaped being choked to death. These were battle hardened men who had faced many fatal situations from where they would not return but and discipline of formal salute was ingrained in their bones, even after a hard battle lasting for weeks continuously they had developed stamina and mana to fight through everything and still come back formally receive their orders, but this was just about 3 hours of fighting and for which they in action for less than 10 min.

Augustus raised an eyebrow in surprise but let it slide since this was unchartered territory and intel was of prime importance and asked them “What happened??”

Gregor said “Sir… Its like the… beast polluted… our… mana… If I hadn’t done as you instructed, I think my mana core would… have died out…” he said barely able to pick himself up from the back of horse “Following your instruction… we kept an eye on our chakra points and the moment it was about to reach their we let go of the beast”. Peter too relayed information along similar lines and they were ordered to go back in and support the troop of ten again.

Gregor and Peter following standard procedure waited for a little more time and opened two bottles from their leather satchels each and downed the bottle entirely, within a few seconds they had regained their fervour and joined their comrades in battle. They managed to drag the beast through the allotment area into the city streets. The vigilante urbani had cleared the way for them and were hell bent on evacuation of the entire city if need be, cause this was the command of the king.

Spearmen were really spent, near death door spent!!! From the jousting and carrying the beast every time across the field and they had to get on the band wagon and for things moved very slow. Julius was communicating with remote locations to get the formation ready for next phase. Things were taking a toll on the minds of the jousters, they were exhausted beyond what their bodies could take, finally after repeating this for the 12^th time Gregor’s mind gave out, as he went in to stick his joust in the beast and his vision turned black entirely. His brain stopped perceiving inputs and his grip on his joust loosened. His horse sensing its masters condition on its back took him away from the beast instead of forward. Peter who was paired with him did not notice him in time and went ahead with the attack and struck the joust in the shoulders of the beast. The beast leveraged the joust and made for Peter’s horse grabbing its neck.

It was worse pain than being eaten alive, it was worse pain than pierced by a searing hot flamberge, it was worse than your lungs being filled with searing hot lava pain no being should ever feel, the feeling was other worldly. The natural reaction of your brain should have been to shut off and let the source kill you, but pain kept on increasing making it so that you don’t pass out. Each second felt like an eternity, a never ending march of pain courses from the point of contact to the edges of your body. Your skin crawls and you have goosebumps, which is the last resort your body has; to pump your blood full of adrenaline and give you that last bit of strength to pull away, but consciously you know the grip is not something you can escape, but the adrenaline attempts in futility to numb your pain. The massive body of the 2.5-meter-high and 3-meter-long dark horse was shrinking, becoming worse by the minute, its muscles becoming sinewy and its body shrinking. The horse screeched as much as it could for a couple of seconds before stopping, everyone knew the horse had martyred on the battlefield. But oh the horror!!! Peter, closest to horse, was scared shitless from the event and could not react in time as the beast leveraged the hand it was grabbing the horse with and came for soldier. The horse fell down and Peters legs were trapped below it for a moment. The beast went for Peters neck as well. The Peter thought of stabbing his neck to spare himself the pain, he went for the dagger on holster on his waist when he heard a really loud screech and he let go of the thought and tried pulling himself out.

Augustus was seeing everything that was going on and just when the beast went for Peter’s neck, brought out his bow and conjured an Aquamarine Blue 2m long arrow on it and fired it. Breaking the sound barrier by almost five time the arrow zoomed through space and blew the beast back by almost 30 m where it lost its balance and fell on its butt. Still no damage on its body. Though as they had discussed before, was not part of the plan anyway. Julius was seeing the proceeding follow from the behind Augustus at all times. The other Jousters too fell off their horses from mental fatigue.

“Hmph!! Bunch of sissies” said Augustus as he sent in recovery team and cover fired for them

‘Screech!!! Screech!!! Screech!!! Screech!!! Screech!!! Screech!!! Screech!!!’ came the sound of multiple arrows after they struck the beast. Augustus single handedly was pushing the beast back using his arrows indicating he was at Adept level with his Karmic power.