bookandnovel Chapter 628 - 627- The Battle within Valley
Chapter 628 - 627- The Battle within Valley
The question was rhetorical.The commanders trembled. The particular, full-body, involuntary, animal-level trembling of men who had been confronted with a predator and whose bodies — before their minds — had decided to submit.
The threat filled the room.
The aura — the killing intent, the particular, oppressive, suffocating, weight-of-a-lion presence that radiated from Viktor’s body — pressed down on the tent. Every man felt it. The commanders, who had fought demons and monsters and men, felt it. The guards, who had stood at attention through sieges, felt it. The particular, ancient, blood-deep recognition of being in the presence of something that was higher on the food chain.
They saw the patriarch inside him.
Not Viktor. Not the pretty boy. Not the nephew. The ’patriarch.’ The particular, inherited, bloodline-deep, matriarchal authority that the Ktorian family produced — the same authority that Celestia carried, that the matriarch carried, that the eldest daughter carried. Viktor carried it too. The lioness’s cub was not a cat.
The commanders nodded.
The particular, urgent, desperate, yes-sir-anything-you-say nodding of men who had been convinced by the most persuasive argument available — a floating sword pointed at their throats.
Evriana exhaled.
"Fine," she said. "Then it is decided. We will go with Viktor’s plan. I and Berenga would follow him alone. We form the party to attack the inner zone. The rest of the battalion handles the outer zone."
She looked at Viktor.
"Any more suggestions?" she asked.
Viktor leaned back.
"Make sure to not bring weak women into the outer zone," he said. "There are horny goblins who might fuck them to death."
The tent went silent.
The particular, stunned, did-he-just-say-that, in-a-military-briefing, in-front-of-the-princess silence of a room full of men who had just heard the phrase ’horny goblins’ and ’fuck them to death’ in the same sentence.
Evriana’s mouth twitched.
The women in the tent — the female officers, the female guards, the women who had fought for their positions in a male-dominated military — flushed. The particular, embarrassed, outraged, I-cannot-believe-he-just-said-that crimson of women who had been told, in a professional setting, that they were too weak for the front lines because of goblin cocks.
Berenga coughed.
The particular, I-fucked-this-man-last-night-and-he-is-now-talking-about-horny-goblins-in-front-of-my-colleagues cough of a woman who was dying inside.
She bowed.
"I will prepare the battalion," she said, her voice tight, controlled, the particular, I-am-leaving-before-this-gets-worse retreat of a woman who had had enough.
She left.
The other commanders stood. Followed. Left.
The tent emptied.
Evriana sat alone.
Her face was flushed. The particular, post-Viktor-exposure, overwhelmed, I-cannot-process-this-woman blush that she had been fighting since he walked in with his hand on Berenga’s ass.
She sat there.
In the quiet.
In the empty tent.
With the maps and the markers and the floating-sword memory and the horny-goblin comment ringing in her ears.
"How can your son be so perverted, elder sister?" she said to the empty air.
The tent did not answer.
The battalion moved.
The march toward the mountain range was long — the particular, military, column-formation, single-file, path-through-the-forest march of a hundred bodies moving through terrain that was not designed for a hundred bodies. They took detours — around rivers, across ridges, through the dense undergrowth that the forest produced with the particular, relentless, we-will-reclaim-this-path vigor of vegetation that had not been cut in years.
They helped each other.
The commanders — humbled by the tent incident, motivated by the floating swords, working harder than they had ever worked — assisted. They pulled soldiers up embankments. They cleared paths. They carried supplies. The particular, I-nearly-got-killed-by-a-floating-sword-so-I-will-be-on-my-best-behavior work ethic of men who had been reminded of their mortality.
They arrived at the mountain range.
The outer caves — ten of them, dark openings in the rock face, the particular, ominous, something-lives-in-there mouths of the mountain — were the first obstacle.
They fought.
The monsters came — boars first. The demonized, red-eyed, aggressive, coordinated boars that charged in squads rather than individually. The soldiers met them with spears and shields. The boars fell. The ground ran red.
Then the goblins.
The horny goblins.
The particular, erect-cocked, aggressive, rape-minded creatures that Viktor had warned about emerged from the caves with their cocks out and their eyes on the female soldiers. They were fast, aggressive, and the particular, single-minded, I-want-to-fuck-and-I-will-fight-to-do-it determination of creatures whose demonization had amplified their reproductive drive to a lethal degree.
They were killed.
The female soldiers — armed, armored, and warned — cut them down with the particular, no-sympathy, you-tried-to-rape-me-and-now-you-are-dead efficiency of women who had been told what to expect and had prepared accordingly.
They entered the mountain ranges.
The terrain changed. The forest gave way to rock. The path narrowed. The air grew colder, damper, the particular, underground-adjacent, we-are-approaching-something-heavy atmosphere that preceded the entrance to a demon’s lair.
Then the horde came.
The particular, overwhelming, too-many-to-count, wave-of-bodies horde of monsters that poured from the mountain like water from a broken dam. Boars. Goblins. Wolves. The particular, mixed-species, demon-coordinated, attacking-as-one swarm that a demon general produced when it sensed an approaching threat.
The soldiers were pushed to the edge.
The front line — shields up, spears out — buckled. The weight of the horde, the numbers, the particular, relentless, wave-after-wave pressure of bodies that did not care about casualties because there were always more bodies — it bent the line. Cracked it.
Soldiers fell.
Injured. Bleeding. The particular, combat, I-have-been-cut-and-I-am-going-down casualties that every battle produced. The line thinned. The horde pushed.
Then they started to glow.
Green.
The particular, warm, golden-green, healing light that emanated from — nowhere. From the air. From the ground. From the particular, ambient, all-encompassing, bath-of-light field that descended on the battlefield like a blanket.
The injured soldiers healed.
The cuts closed. The bleeding stopped. The particular, flesh-knitting, wound-sealing, body-repairing, miraculous, impossible, this-does-not-happen-in-real-war phenomenon that made every man who was healed stop and stare at his own body in disbelief.
’Ding. Ding. Ding.’
The sounds — the particular, system-level, achievement-unlocked, level-up, experience-gained chimes that only Viktor could hear — rang in his ears as the healing spread.
Dozens of soldiers. All of them. Every injured man on the field felt the green light enter his body and fix what was broken.
Viktor hovered.
His body rose — slowly, steadily, the particular, levitation, gravity-is-a-suggestion ascent of a man whose power had exceeded the need for ground. He rose above the battlefield. Ten feet. Twenty. Thirty. The particular, aerial, looking-down-on-the-fight, I-am-above-all-of-this position of a man who was about to end this.
The weapons moved.
The goblins’ weapons — the crude, stone-tipped spears, the rough-hewn clubs, the jagged knives — trembled. Then flew. The particular, telekinetic, matter-manipulated, your-weapon-is-now-my-weapon seizure of objects that occurred when Viktor’s mind touched them. The weapons turned on their owners. The goblins who had been holding spears were now impaled by them.
The stones moved.
The rocks — the loose, scattered, mountain-debris stones that littered the battlefield — trembled. Then flew. The particular, projectile, machine-gun, stone-after-stone barrage that struck the monsters with the force of cannonballs. Boars collapsed. Goblins shattered. Wolves were driven into the ground.
The air itself became a blade.
The particular, invisible, sword-intent, air-cutting, everything-is-a-weapon phenomenon that occurred when Viktor’s sword intent expanded. The air around him — the invisible, unremarkable, everywhere-at-once medium that every living thing breathed — hardened. Sharpened. Became the particular, invisible, impossible-to-dodge, cuts-through-anything blade that moved with Viktor’s will.
Any monster that came near him was sliced.