Chapter 125: The Tide Draws Near

In the training chamber, the mercenary squad had just finished an agonizing, hours-long sparring session against Iron Wolf. Sweat soaked their bodies as they bent over, clutching their aching ribs and dragging in deep, burning breaths.

The relentless, grueling drills of the past several days had pushed them to their limits. Yet, despite the sheer exhaustion, their mastery over their personal combat arts had sharpened dramatically. More importantly, their coordination with the newly learned Iron Fang Formation Art had reached a level of fluid precision that gave them quiet confidence in their ability to survive the upcoming Beast Tide.

"Just... leave me alone for a bit, please..." Corvus muttered helplessly, staring blankly at the vaulted ceiling while resting his head against the cold floor.

"Me too," Stone wheezed, his massive frame sprawled out like a fallen boulder.

The others complained in the same way, and Finch looked ready to die of exhaustion, his fragile frame barely holding him upright. Iron Wolf looked them over, grunted, and granted them a few moments of rest.

Vera slid down against the stone wall of the training chamber and looked over her rugged comrades. They had changed a lot over the past few days. Most of them were brutes, but they had grown on her over the years and she considered them her family, and every one of them was kind at heart even if they acted tough.

Seeing them change this much in such a short time made a subtle smile bloom on her lips, and she could only attribute this transformation to Ethan. The toughness and ruthlessness he’d shown when he put them through those brutal sessions were precisely what had forged them into shape.

She had seen other squad leaders who cared only for themselves and left new members to suffer. Ethan was different. He led diligently, had Iron Wolf personally teach them to sharpen their skills, and had promised them Epic-grade elixirs if they performed well in the coming Beast Tide. All of them were fiercely looking forward to earning those rewards. For mercenaries who had spent years scraping together enough resources to survive from one mission to the next, an Epic-grade elixir was something most of them could only imagine.

She was just about to close her eyes for a short nap when the doors of the training chamber creaked open, and everyone turned toward the sound.

Ethan walked in with Rune padding silently behind him. Despite their exhaustion, the squad scrambled to their feet and bowed quickly. Ethan gave them a small nod in return.

They were surprised. He had left them only recently, stating he wouldn’t return for a while because he needed to focus on his own training. But one look at his face told them he had something serious to communicate.

Ethan sensed their curiosity and got straight to the point. He informed them of the shift happening outside and Marcus’s strict order for every mercenary unit registered for the Beast Tide to gather immediately inside the Inner Fortress.

"Did you learn anything else, Captain?" Vera asked, her voice sharpening.

"No..." Ethan said, scanning their state. "Check your weapons and armor, and gather here in six hours. Take some rest while you can. We will head to the Inner Fortress soon."

The squad moved the moment he finished speaking. Stone tested the edge of his battle axe with his thumb, frowning at a small nick he hadn’t noticed before. Vera checked the leather straps of her twin short swords. Corvus said nothing at all as he went to fetch another broadsword, and not one of them uttered a single word about being tired.

Six hours later, the squad set out for the Inner Fortress behind Ethan.

The ramparts were crowded with far more soldiers than usual. By the time the squad arrived, several mercenary bands and hunter groups had already gathered and were moving toward the high walls of the Inner Fortress. The guards let them through after a brief inspection. Ethan also caught sight of the Mage Units of the Ravencrest Forces, but compared to the thousands of soldiers and mercenaries filling the yards, they numbered barely a few hundred, and they too were hurrying.

Ethan led his squad to the gates of the Inner Fortress, the primary staging ground from which the forces would deploy to fight the beasts. Sir Van stood at the front of the wall in his Black Raven Knight armor, looking down over the assembled forces below. Even from a distance, Ethan could see the slight urgency in his posture. The few Black Raven officers beside him who recognized Ethan offered an almost imperceptible nod.

"By order of the Commander," one of the officers called down from the parapets, his voice carrying across the yard, "all units are to remain in the barracks and stay combat-ready. Keep your weapons within reach at all times."

Ethan listened silently to the hushed murmurs spreading through the crowd.

"Isn’t the Beast Tide two weeks away..."

"The scouts came back early. That’s all I heard."

Judging by the orders, Ethan suspected that Marcus was preparing for the Tide earlier than expected, though no official announcement had confirmed it. He expanded his aura perception to listen in on the officers’ private conversations atop the wall, but no matter how carefully he filtered the noise, he couldn’t catch a single slip of information.

Behind him, the squad had gone completely quiet. Finch’s face had lost what little color it had left, and Corvus was staring toward the mountains with his jaw set tight. Their earlier confidence had noticeably dimmed beneath the weight of the new orders and the sudden anxiety hanging over the fortress.

In the end, Ethan resigned himself to the lack of details and made his way to his assigned quarters in the barracks alongside the rest of his squad.

———

Command Chamber, Inner Fortress

The next day, in the evening, two other scout units also returned, and only the fourth scouting unit remained in the Mountain Range.

The scout leaders also reported the same occurrence, which only raised Marcus’s alertness.

"Keep checking the perimeter from the watchtowers..." Marcus instructed them quickly. The scouts had already seen the fortress preparing for tide before they reached the Command Chamber.

———

Inside the Frozen Cave

The last remnants of the purple mist slowly entered the Ice Dragon, almost completely consuming its consciousness. The crimson glow had all but swallowed its eyes, yet a small shred of its will held on stubbornly as it closed them.

Riennal stood watching the collapsing dragon. The artifact still held the barrier and the tens of thousands of beasts behind it. A maddened smile spread across his lips.

"Lord...!" the dragon tried to utter, desperately, as if speaking that word could save it before it was completely consumed.

A few seconds passed. The cavern was silent except for the slow crack of ice settling.

Then its eyes opened.

The pristine white dragon was gone. Standing in its place was a mindless puppet of pure destruction, its crimson eyes burning with absolute, unnatural madness as it awaited its master’s command.

"Now... Let’s go." Riennal’s laugh echoed inside the cavern, and the enormous barrier covering the Inner Region vanished in a second. The beasts that had been gathered beyond it moved as if they had been waiting for this moment.

———

Meanwhile, far outside Northwatch, deep within the higher elevations of the Outer Mountain Range...

It was late evening. The Fourth Scout Unit sat crouched on a high, freezing ridge leagues away from the fortress. The air was bitterly heavy as thick snowflakes drifted down from the darkening sky. They kept low behind the snow-dusted boulders as they scanned the silent valleys below, still trying to make sense of the unnaturally barren paths.

Then, without warning, the atmosphere changed.

The heavy snowfall suddenly shifted in direction, whipped sideways by a sharp pressure rising from the deep mountain passes.

BOOM... BOOM... BOOM...

A dull tremor rippled through the rock faces. It was faint at first, a few dozen miles away across the frozen chasms, but through their trained senses, the vibration was unmistakable. Countless heavy limbs were pounding against the earth in unison, their combined force sending tremors through the very roots of the mountains.

The scout captain channeled his far-sight talent, an A-Rank ability weaker than Brannoc’s but enough to stretch his vision across leagues of jagged white ridges. Far within the deep mountain passes, an enormous horde of beasts surged forward, filling valley after valley as they swept toward Northwatch like an endless dark flood. The sheer number of creatures was staggering; even from this distance, the scout captain could not see where the horde began or where it ended.

The scout captain’s expression went pale.

His enhanced vision swept across the distant valleys again and again, yet no matter how far he extended his perception, the horde seemed to have no end.

"T-This..." His throat tightened.

"The Beast Tide..."

"Captain!" one of the scouts hissed, pointing down the immediate trail.

A small pack of stray Dire Beasts, flushed out early by the overwhelming momentum behind them, surged up the ridge. Seeing the scouts, the beasts lunged.

"Kill them fast! We need to reach Northwatch and warn them!"

The scouts drew their blades. A quick, brutal clash echoed on the snowy ledge; blades flashed through the heavy snowfall as the captain hacked down a charging Dire Beast, taking a sharp claw gouge across his shoulder in the scramble. Ignoring the bleeding wound, the unit dispatched the stragglers and bolted down the mountain trails at maximum speed.

They pushed their bodies past their limits, sprinting through the deep snow for miles as the distant rumble behind them grew steadily louder with every passing hour.

When the fortress gates finally came into view, relief flooded their eyes. From the watchtowers and ramparts, soldiers quickly spotted the Fourth Scout Unit running madly toward them, bloodied and gasping for air.

"INFORM THE COMMANDER!" the scout captain shouted, his voice hoarse from the freezing wind.

"THE BEAST TIDE IS COMING!"

His voice carried across the gatehouse, and for several seconds, the soldiers on the walls simply stared down at the battered scouts. The words seemed almost impossible to comprehend.

Then the fortress erupted into motion.

"Open the gates!"

"Get the healers here!"

"Send someone to the command hall immediately!"

The soldiers rushed forward as the gates began grinding open, allowing the bloodied scouts inside. Their armor was torn, their faces pale from exhaustion, and one of them was barely able to remain standing.

The scout captain staggered forward, gripping his wounded shoulder as blood seeped between his fingers. "I... we saw them..." he gasped. "An endless sea of beasts... far more than anything we’ve ever witnessed."

A heavy silence fell over the soldiers who heard him. From somewhere beyond the fortress walls, a distant roar rolled across the mountains.

BOOOOOOM!

The Beast Tide was coming.