The ground shook for minutes, loosening the gravel hill we stood upon, nearly making a large portion of the small army fall down. I had a shrill, high-pitched beeping in my ears the entire time, resulting from the massive explosion. It took some time for the dust in the air to finally settle down.

"I'll take the snake, you people take care of the army," Altair said.

I immediately turned my head when I heard his voice. He sounded a little exhausted and was wiping his mouth with the back of his left hand.

"But the snake is gone," I said.

Altair simply pointed somewhere and when I looked in that direction I saw the massive snake again, its dark greens scales glistening in the sunlight, the missing horn regenerated. The snake's large black eyes were fixated on Altair.

"What a bother," I heard him say as the black and dark green energy consumed him and he disappeared.

Seconds later his voice echoed across the massive gravel field we were fighting upon.

"[Thorn Prisson]!" he yelled so loud that his voice could be heard from miles away even though it was not enhanced.

Once again the ground split open and massive dark green thorn tendrils pushed aside the grey gravel, growing towards the sky, coiling around the large snake, cutting into its body with its dark red thorns. Eventually, the entire snake was restrained by the thorn tendrils and Altair forced it to the ground again. A loud hiss escaped it.

"What are you waiting for! Attack!" Commander Lestul shouted out loud, raising his sword high.

But attack what?

My question was answered much faster than I wanted it to be answered. A loud boom alerted all of us to the approaching threat as multiple goliaths crawled out of the same hole the snake had come from.

Goliaths were ugly grey beasts with short but strong legs, overly long muscular arms with claws the size of my entire arm, deformed faces without eyes, large mouths with teeth the size of bananas, all of which were visible even when their mouths were closed and long tails that they dragged across the ground. These ones had black chains attached to their necks, arms and legs, chains that were held by a person sitting upon the back of a large brown mammoth, with long dirty and partially mossy tusks, that put even the at least seven-metre tall goliaths to shame. It was a woman, wearing a pale white dress with a few shining armoured parts, an icy looking spiky diadem and in her right hand, she held a black staff to which all the chains led.

The blind beasts were capable of seeing with their voices. Loud roars escaped the six grey monsters, roars that seemed to shake the earth.

"Do not falter!" Commander Lestul yelled out as he charged towards the beasts, blue mana radiating from his entire body, whirling up the gravel around him a little.

War cries followed, war cries from both sides. Crawling out from the hole were thousands upon thousands of enemies, humans, non-humans and even beasts. They outnumbered us by far too much. It seemed that while the reports had not been wrong, they weren't completely right either. Our army of a little over two thousand was now facing an army of at least ten thousand. I swallowed as I looked down at what might as well be certain death. My eyes wandered at the approaching army and eventually fell on Altair who was still fighting against the snake, which had clearly not anticipated his attack the first time around since right now he was struggling, not even having time to once again lay darkness upon the battlefield.

With a last deep breath, I charged onto the battlefield, trying my best to kill as many of the enemies as possible, dodging spells and swords from enemy and ally alike. Smoke's humanoid smoke beings were holding off four of the goliaths but even they struggled when it came to those blind beasts. I dodged a hammer that quickly approached my face, ramming my claws deep into my attacker's armpit and ripping off their unarmoured right arm. With a strong kick to the face, they fell to the ground, a bloody mess all that was left of their face.

I heard many screams and roars as the battle went on. Many times I saw the tail or head of the partially imprisoned snake, both of its horns now missing. Sometimes I even caught glances of Altair, fighting that massive thing and occasionally killing those that would dare try to attack him. Even one of the goliaths had fallen, strapped to the ground by thorn tendrils. But somehow it never felt like the enemy numbers were shrinking, no matter how many I killed, no matter how many my allies killed, it seemed almost as if more and more and more enemies crawled out of the hole.

"Release him!" I heard a woman shout loudly.

I didn't recognize the voice so I had no idea whether they were allies or foes.

Release who?

Once again my question was answered too quickly. Something else, something large crawled out of the hole that led to what I could only assume was another world. First I saw ten massive deep black claws, then I saw a massive scaled dark red leg, then another, then I saw a lizard-like head the size of an entire goliath with teeth far longer than my body, eyes glowing a bright orange, long segmented pitch black horns, two of which extended backwards and two of which extended forwards, almost resembling an H. Smoke rose up from the nostrils as the creature lifted itself up from the hole, attached to its long dark red neck was another black chain which was connected to something still in that hole. On its shoulders, it had two massive segmented pitch-black spikes that bent slightly outwards, away from the large body. Its strong hind legs were slightly shorter than the front legs but looked even stronger than those and the long tail ended abruptly and was open at the end, inside that very hole I could see a flame raging. The creature rose, now standing only on its massive hind legs, showing us its pale yellow underbelly as it let out a roar so loud that the ground split, literally. A ravine was created. And all the gravel we were standing upon was slowly but surely beginning to slide down that ravine.

When the drake's front legs hit the ground it caused an earthquake, widening the ravine even more.

Was this their plan? To kill everyone here?