Chapter 141

Chapter 141: Chapter 141

In Avalan, a group of soldiers awaited an inevitable attack. They sat quietly in the cleaned-up houses closest to the castle, listening to the heavy footsteps of the approaching soldiers marching through the city.

Most of Avalan was deserted but it didn’t deter the soldiers, their weapons causing destruction as they passed through, broken walls, fallen fountains, and even more destroyed trees.

As soon as the enemy came within their sights, the Hellhounds ran off. For such an unfair fight, they were forced to use underhanded tactics.

They moved northward, to the cragged mountains. When they broke out of the cover of the trees, the sky was revealed. A gentle purple, the puffy clouds floating were a light blue, a single sun shining in the surreal sky.

The mountain terrain was the most dangerous but its difficulty was negated by Fiends’ ability to fly.

Adept at climbing trees, the runaway Hellhounds easily made their way to some of the several hundred peaks, hiding in the trees growing at the mountain tops.

Without hesitation, the Fiends charged after them, flying out in a swarm of red and black, weapons held high.

To get to the mountain peaks, the Hellhounds had shifted, leaping from peak to peak with ease, hastily putting distance between them and their pursuers.

But the Fiends didn’t need to go through all that trouble, directly flying in between the peaks. Without warning, tendrils shot from the gulleys between the mountains, the gulleys anywhere from thin lines to wide gaping cracks.

The tendrils were roots of the trees growing upside-down, underground. Restricted from sunlight, they often subsisted on the creatures that lived in the cragged mountains, avian or otherwise.

With the tremors created by the swarm of flying Demons, the underground trees became active, several tendrils rising from the earth to pull them down.

There were no vines in the cragged mountains and that was because all of the vines were underground, hidden from sight.

The Hellhounds on the mountain peaks didn’t sit idly by, shooting down the endless swarm of Fiends. It was a long drawn-out battle, because after they realized what was happening, they scrambled to find safety on the peaks.

Then the roots did something they had never done before, they started crawling up the sides of the mountains, covering everything in wriggly green vines reminiscent of snakes.

The Hellhounds moved with ease, running deeper into the cragged mountains to outrun the vines, leaving behind their enemies trapped on the peaks.

Fiends were as proud as they were aggressive, refusing to warp to safety because that would mean accepting defeat from a mere handful of mangy dogs. Instead, they focused on slashing at the rapidly approaching green roots, trapped in the cragged mountains.

It didn’t take long for them to start getting tangled and pulled down into the gulleys, some taking to flying out of desperation. It was a battle against the terrain, one that was successful merely because Fiends valued pride over self-preservation.

By the time the Hellhounds ran through the mountains to end up in the woods again, all the peaks had been covered by green roots, the Fiends battling the terrain a long distance away.

They split in two, half keeping watch at the other end, and the other half returning to where the entrance into the cragged mountains was. They didn’t encounter any other Fiend because the irrational race of Demons refused to save themselves, fighting against an infinitely regenerating foe that did not feel pain or exhaustion.

"They really are going to hack at the roots until it swallows them." Captain Ayred said in muted disbelief.

He had led the half that returned to the entrance into the cragged mountains so he got a better view of the losing battle that was fought against nature.

When Prince Caedos laid out the battle plans, he had been skeptical, not because he doubted His Royal Highness but rather because he feared it was a lost battle. But the outcome had exceeded even the Prince’s expectations, it was surreal.

The Hellhound next to him shrugged, a bow on his bare back. "Their stubbornness favors us." He said bluntly, watching impassively as Fiends were dragged screaming to the cracks in the ground.

-+-

There wasn’t enough time for Caedos to check up on the ongoing expedition at the cragged mountains. Warping was dangerous in a battle, you could very well appear in the midst of enemies.

The least amount of soldiers had been sent that way so it was easy for him to go for the portion of the army charging for the swamps instead.

Tracking down the army was easy, even if the thunderous noise they made wasn’t there, the sheer destruction they left in their wake was more than enough to show the way.

Broken and hacked trees littered the vine-covered floor, it made him frown. The Deep Woods had fought for them today and it showed, a wide swathe of the forest flattened as the imposing army of Fiends marched through.

The swamps were the most efficient trap they had laid out. Shallow waters covered a wide expanse of land, the trees smaller and less sturdy, letting a lot of sunlight in, the purple sky visible from the ground.

Hellhounds were closely intertwined with the trees of the Deep Woods, and having never been forced to fight at such greatly disadvantaged odds, they had never had reason to fight with the forest.

Vines naturally covered the floors of the swamp, lying just underneath that shallow, murky waters, seemingly harmless. The vines lightly clung to one’s feet as they traversed the swamp, almost like if you stood for a minute too long, it would wrap around your ankle and legs.

The manor lords and the General were in this group, seeming content to slowly hunt down the Hellhounds until their backs were to the wall.

They all spilled out when they got to the swamps, thinner shorter trees made for better visibility so they didn’t have to band so tightly together again. Heavy boots splashed through water, more trees getting cut down, the swamp just as heavily brutalized as the woods and the fields had been.

Although the entirety of the army was now in the swamps, stomping through murky water, the Hellhounds kept moving, until they got to the edge of the swamps.

The swamps weren’t displeasing, the water was murky but clean, and although there were bothersome bugs, it smelled fresh and clean, like leaves and water.

So the General’s distaste wasn’t too pronounced, if anything, the manor lords had a harder time traversing the swamps, their expensive clothing more at risk of damage.

"Fleeing, cowardly soldiers and not a sight of the so-called last royal Hound." The rotund manor lord spoke up, his face twisted in displeasure as he slapped away an insect.

General Drakk looked him over with disinterest, adding nothing to the conversation. He had been looking forward to battling the royal dog but only for a moment, until they scampered off at his arrival.

There was no honor in fighting stray dogs, he would simply oversee their capture and then return to report to the King.

A short distance behind them, burning hazel eyes could be seen out of a black mass, Caedos trailing the army from a considerable distance. It was almost time now.

The swamps were safe, for Hellhounds, whom the forest wanted to protect. The crisscrossing roots and vines that covered the swamp floor were temporary, providing footing.

The swamps themselves were depthless, with fish swimming underneath the vines. It was why the trees were so thin and small, it was so that they could float, their roots acting as anchors.

He was perched at the boundary between the woods and the swamps when the vines fell out from under the feet of the Fiend soldiers, entangling their ankles in favor of providing support and pulling them down into the murky depths.

It was sudden and unexpected, the vines entangling them the more they tried to escape. Even the General wasn’t spared, disbelief in his eyes as he was immediately tangled up to his waist.

The vines were like writhing snakes and they had no foothold. Trying to fly out was futile, it only gave more surface area for the vines to latch on to.

Their shouting was indistinct, the battlefield quickly turning into a watery hell. Fiends went under one after the other, pulling each other down in a bid to escape.

And when they went under, the vines grew even stronger, more and more wrapping them until their lungs gave in, drowning in the roiling torment that muddled the water making it impossible to see once they were dragged under.

There were so many Fiends that their dead bodies would pile in the water for days, becoming nourishment for the sealife and the disquietingly sentient trees.

The struggle went on for a long time, some Fiends prolonging their demise by clinging to the soft trees which easily sank under their weight.

When it was all over, the silence was as deafening as the noise had been, the muddied waters still rippling like it was digesting the prey it had consumed.