TF Chapter 91 Breaching The Wall

              ***Nathaniel***

A behemoth entered my eyes as we had finally managed to reach the wall of the fortress. It was tall and intimidating to the point that all of us felt as if it was a monster capable of devouring us. Blood and bits of flesh were sticking on it, not to mention the various weapons embedded within it, yet, it was still standing tall, having proven that it was insurmountable.

When you have seen multiple marvels of technological ingenuity, it becomes hard for most things to ruffle your feathers, yet as I found myself within the shadow of this wall, I couldn't help but be awed by its majesty! I developed some respect for the natives as they had managed to create something this...epic with just the use of their hardworking and ingenuity, lacking the technological advances of our civilisation.

"It is most definitely not as great as the wall of Musana city, but I must say, these natives do deserve a tiny bit of my praise." Carol spoke as her eyes tried to see the ends of the wall above. 

"...let's put everything else aside. Who's going to get us into the city?" Alistair's question caused everyone's eyes to blaze like torches except mine, as they all wanted to try and experiment with their intents. I could understand them, as I too had at one point been as excited as them.

Though, I couldn't deny the fact the even my heart had accelerated at the prospect of taking a crack at this wall, that had been constructed from stacking logs upon each other and tied with some vine I hadn't seen anywhere within the forest. It was shoddy at best, but there was absolutely no doubt that it had already worked wonders for the defenders. 

"Bora, it will be better if you do it. For everybody else, don't worry! You will get your chance to shine the moment we make it to the other side of this wall." Suggested Alistair, dousing the spirits of the others.

For just a small imperceptible moment, my heart fluttered as I saw the smile that graced her face when she had been chosen. The night could lie to my eyes but, my spiritual powers couldn't be lied to. And, I was sure that she had allowed me to capture that by withdrawing hers for a split second...as there was no way I would have seen that otherwise, not to mention the tiny wink.

We circled her with our backs to the wall as we kept a vigilant eye over the expanse that was the plain. Somewhere on our left and right, there were two camps of the invaders, whose large bonfires served as a beacon to their position. Maybe during the start of the siege, they had patrolled the entire circumference of the fortress, but as the fighting went on, they had managed to glean a fact. That the people within the fort had absolutely zero intentions of fleeing.

Alistair had spoken of a genius among the natives. Such an alien was worrying. There was absolutely no way that he hadn't increased the security measures leading to that statue. 

"Ah!"

I exclaimed as a question popped up within my mind. How were these invaders keeping up with the defenders who had awoken their intents? That demanded further exploration.

"What?" Alistair whispered upon catching my small moment of losing control.

"Nothing." I decided to keep that to myself for now as the invaders weren't our priority. Instead, I decided to keep an eye out for Bora and her awakened intent.

A star was my intent. It was something that had been created with the sole purpose of taking up space and nurturing life...though, the life that could be nurtured would have to be protected by another stellar body, a planet or an asteroid, or whatever other manner of thing. But when that same star appeared within the confines of the planet or asteroid, the only outcome for anything close to it was destruction. And that's what my intent was all about.

But Bira had awakened an intent that was interesting to say the least. At first, you might think that its normal, or even outright useless, but it was special in its own way. Anything that entered her intent domain was forcefully rewritten into a shower of purple petals that complimented her very pupils.

Just by standing within the petals, her beauty was enhanced to levels that even made Alistair take a second glance. But the petals weren't entirely harmless, as each was capable of cutting through whatever she designated as a target.

Though, for now, we wanted her to transform the logs that made up the fortress wall, into petals such that we could infiltrate within silently. A task which she did well. Though, after a few meters, when the petals made it out of her intent domain, they once again transformed into wood chips. 

After a few steps through the tunnel formed by her intent, we reached the literal end of it, where she had simply left behind a thin layer of wood and created a few holes for us to peek through, only to catch sight of the welcome party.

They were lounging around the place, having set up camp and taking a breather. These were the defending aliens, and with the numbers we could see, there was absolutely no way we were going to succeed in sneaking past them.

"So, what do we do?" Alistair asked as we settked down within the tunnel, a few paces away from the thin wooden wall we had left behind as cover.

"We can simply wait for the siege battle to once again commence..."

"Danny, we don't have the luxury for that. Any moment from now, that spiritual scanner might pulse in our direction!" Bora interjected.

"We should punch through them."

Those words surprised even me as they had come out from my very own mouth. But in hindsight, I, no, we had every right to take such a course of action as we were strong enough to handle whatever could block our way.

Without any objection, everyone agreed to my words and once again, we found ourselves facing the enemy encampment, with only a thin wooden wall between us. They didn't know we were here, but we knew that they were there. So, the element of surprise was on our side.

"Now!"

When Alistair spoke, we crushed the wooden barrier into smithereens, with our bodies not even slowing down for a moment as we barreled towards the crowd of discombobulated aliens that were struggling to believe the reality right in front of their very eyes.

My opening move was knee to the head of an alien, with small film of orange covering my entire body, causing its face to cave in before transforming into ash and vapor. Not even a moment after, a spear swept towards my midriff, causing me to leap over its torso, before a burst of hot wind causiled the attacker to scream out as its facial skin sizzled. With a chop using my left hand, its head was separated from its body with the two halves charred at the edges. 

With another leap, I appeared atop the tent and took in the dark view of the camp and the entire fortress. Small flames were scattered all over the place with the native aliens congregated around them, with all of them now facing direction because of the commotion our attack had raised.

Seeing my companions pulling a head, I didn't slack off for even a moment, leaping down from the top and breaking into a sprint to catch up with them. Every native in my way failed to even halt my momentum, as through a series of movements, limbs were torn off bodies, heads separated from necks and holes appeared where previously, there had been none.

Previously, I had been creating a domain of spiritual intent when I had been fighting the aliens and the creatures within the forest, but during one moment of a dangerous encounter, a light bulb had gone off in my brain, causing this film of intent that was now coating my body, allowing me to slaughter with just contact.

"This is exhilarating!" 

Carol's shout reached my ears even as her twin daggers dismantled a native alien as if he were a butchered animal. There were a few screws loose with the woman...even Alistair had admitted to that.

She was one hell of a chaotic monster, someone who didn't conform to the normal rules if the universe. Even now, as she killed the natives, her bone daggers kept on shifting, from becoming shields, to swords, to any manner of weapon that the mass could form. And those changes didn't simply stop at the weapons themselves.

Her attacks alone were capable of warping both flesh and bone, turning severed pieces to dust or flowers, or even something akin to diamond. There was simply no way to determine what whatever happened to come into contact with her intent domain was going to end up looking like.

I decided that I had enough of gazing at her, opting to direct all my attention to the swarms of natives, whose very physical prowess was a threat if I made any slip up, so I decided to dodge those that I could while simply destryong the aliens in passing. 

It was exhilarating, waltzing within these creatures with superior physical might, treating them like weaklings as every attack of mine simply proved fatal to the aliens. With a small thrust of a finger, a hole opened up within the head of an alien, with a swipe of a hand, an entire torso was severed from the lower potion of a body.

The blood of the natives didn't even manage to land onto my body as my simplified spiritual domain evaporated it, and any piece of flesh was simply incinerated into ash when it came into contact.

Except for Danny, who was following us closely, the rest of us were slaughter machines that were mincing everything living in front of us.

We were headed towards the general direction of the caves. When we were almost to the edge of the camp, where small primitive tents gave way to wooden permanent houses, a burst of cold air caused all of us to halt our tracks.

A native was blocking the way, her arms crossed across her chest, her demeoner oozing confidence and some hints of rage. We had just came across our very first intent awakener among the natives.