The Roamer

Chapter 34: Reckoning

The first wave of enemies was right in front of the city, and Aeolus had minimal thoughts about retreating. After all, if he was going to retreat, why not do it earlier?

‘Too late for us to retreat now.’ Aeolus convinced himself, and willed his body to move forward. However, his legs were shaking extremely, fear clearly affecting them. Aeolus got a bit angry, and punched his legs. They immediately stopped shaking, and started bleeding instead.

“Better to be injured then not being able to move at all.” Aeolus said to himself, and began moving forward. He sensed the nervousness of the undead following him into battle, and radiated an apologetic tone towards them. They all seemed to understand, and began willing themselves to stall for time.

‘These undead can’t die forever, as I can just bring them back. However, if I die, they are all gone forever. For that reason, you’ll all circle around me.’ Aeolus explained, and the undeads expressions brightened. If they could save the master, then no matter how much pain they endured through, they would still be alive!

They got into a circular formation, with Aeolus standing in the middle of it. The first wave was upon them, and every enemy seemed to, at the very least, be at the fifth layer. However, this didn’t scare off Aeolus and the undead, and kept running forward.

“After absorbing souls and cultivating for so long, I have my ups and downs too!” Aeolus roared, setting up the string madly. With Kline gone, he had to double his effort to pull off what he could when Kline was with him. It was exhausting him terribly, but he had to if he even wanted a chance at surviving this wave.

A lot of the enemy soldiers died, but many more kept rushing. However, the illusionist was also pulling off its job. It blended in with the environment, and made things seem different from how they actually were. There were many soldiers who were running into buildings that they could’ve swore were not there before.

Aeolus kept a healer with him, and it was constantly healing the injured. However, things were not turning out well. Two of his undead had already fallen, and it would take some time for him to take them out again, considering that they regenerated within his mid-layer. At the very least, two minutes were needed.

‘God damn it, forget five minutes, even two minutes seems like a miniscule dream!’ Aeolus roared within his mind, while beginning to tear up again, faltering at the fact that he wouldn’t be able to stall for enough time. However, he immediately shook off the tears, and filled his eyes with anger.

“Now isn’t the time to cry, damn it!” Aeolus roared, and his preparations were complete. Both the enemy soldiers and undead had not noticed it until now, but there was a string arena so big that it encaged everything within Antegria.

“Die for the people!” Aeolus hollered, and begun the massacre. A bunch of string shot out from every direction, and many of the enemies were pierced or held in place. Aeolus estimated that at least a quarter of them died, and the numbers were still rising.

However, it all quickly ended. Some woman came out from the middle of the army and held her hand out, and some black circle formed at the palm of her hand. All the string was sucked into that black circle, and Aeolus was astounded.

‘What kind of affinity is that?’ Aeolus wondered, wanting to make her into an undead. He did not have any undead with an affinity like that, and he wished to experience it. His blood began to lust for that woman's undead version, and he flashed a smile. He ran towards her, full of energy.

“My my, did I interest you right there?” The woman teased, and angered Aeolus a bit. Still, he kept his cool headedness for the most part, and kept rushing. She held her hand out towards him, and he felt himself beginning to be absorbed.

‘So her power can even absorb someone as heavy as me.’ Aeolus thought to himself, comprehending her affinity bit by bit. He soared into the air, and confusion appeared on the women's face. However, she understood what was going on only a few seconds later.

She looked around her, and string was shooting towards her. She simply laughed, and began absorbing all of it. However, Aeolus was already prepared for such a move, and forced all of his spirit into a single string.

‘That string has the affinity of poison in it, if it could just strike her once…!’ Aeolus thought to himself, willing the string to pierce her. The string barely escaped the absorption of her affinity, and pierced one of her fingers. Aeolus didn’t quite like the results, considering that it hit such a far part.

“Still, now that it has hit, the poison will slowly spread.” Aeolus said to himself, calming the temper within him. He looked around, and all his undead were slowly falling. He realized he couldn't stall anymore, and absorbed all of them back into his mid-layer. He then put a hole into the ground, and jumped into it.

“Chase after him!” the woman roared, and many of the soldiers tried to chase. However, when they jumped down the hole, they discovered a lot of string was set in place there. The woman clicked her tongue, and made a brand new hole. She jumped into it, with many soldiers following.

‘Send in the second wave, the city has been conquered!’ The woman said within her mind, radiating her thoughts to one of the other commanders besides herself. Toronto, the strongest commander, picked up the thought that she sent out, and brought in his wave.

“This city has been conquered, and the enemies have fled to the underground cavern! Check and pillage every single building to make sure everyone has left the city!” Toronto roared, as the soldiers cheered on. They then began their rush into the city, with a smile that seemed plastic on their faces.

--- sequence 2 ---

“Crap, I only stalled for four minutes!” Aeolus roared, upset with himself. His original goal was ten minutes, and even when he reduced his goal to five minutes, he still couldn’t do it.

‘I’ll train even harder later on.’ Aeolus said to himself, bringing some sort of comfort. He then began rushing towards Kline, who he could sense the aura of. After running for a minute or two, Aeolus found Kline leading all of the cities people, along with some other undead.

Aeolus smiled to himself, as he realized that they were all fine.

Kline realized that Aeolus was nearby, and began turning his head left and right. After searching for a while, he found that Aeolus was behind all of the citizens, and turned his head back forward. Now that he had confirmed that his master was safe, he would continue leading the escape, as he ordered.

However, it wouldn’t be that easy. The female commander followed them using her own hole, and a lot of soldiers were with her.

‘Eight of the undead leading the escape need to turn back and fight her with me!’ Aeolus roared within his mind, and all the undead immediately volunteered for the battle, including Kline. Aeolus left Kline and the illusionist to lead the escape, and took two of the healers and some others.

“Continue leading the escape until you reach the shore!” Aeolus roared, the undead immediately understanding. A while ago, Aeolus had scouted the shore of Pangaea, and found that there was an entrance leading into this huge underground. If they could just reach the entrance, they would be at the sea.

‘At that point, I could trigger my power.’ Aeolus thought to himself, while rushing the female commander. The two healers were behind him, the other undead by his side. He was the first to clash with the enemies, hitting the female commander with a punch to the stomach that sent her flying a couple of miles off.

“You’re pretty powerful for a brat.” She said, and immediately came flying back. Of course, Aeolus expected this. All of the commanders were near his level, so even if he sent her flying for hundreds of miles, she would simply come back in a few minutes.

“Huh?!” The female commander yelled, and then tripped. She looked back, and saw that her foot had been cut off by a string that was not there before. She looked back at Aeolus, who, simply, had no emotions on his face. He was right above her, and stomped on her stomach.

*BLEGH*

She vomited a bunch of blood, and she realized that this was all that she could put up against Aeolus. She closed her eyes, knowing that she herself couldn’t do anything. If she were to be saved, it would have to be by another commander.

‘Still, to think I’m so disappointing that even a brat surpassed me…’ was the last thought she had, before she went into a deep sleep. Meanwhile, Aeolus had already began attacking the cannon fodder enemies. They were being pierced constantly by string, until they all dropped to the ground. Aeolus was sweating heavily, and was exhausted.

‘This isn’t even all of the first wave, only about three quarters of it. There are still more enemies constantly dropping in from the hole…’ Aeolus said to himself in his mind, while absorbing all of his undead. He was thoroughly done fighting, and couldn’t hang on much longer. If he didn’t run now, then forget saving the city’s people, he couldn’t even guarantee his own life.

He ran towards Kline and the people of Antegria, and began to prepare for his ultimate defense.

“Kline, give me all of your string!” Aeolus roared at Kline, who immediately passed it over. Aeolus simply nodded his head, and turned around. Behind them, there were thousands of enemies running towards them. Aeolus began setting up a huge string wall, one that split him and the enemies up.

This underground cavern was humongous, it’s width and height extending for hundreds of meters. However, Aeolus put a wall right into the middle of the cavern, which confused the enemies. Was this really a brat they were fighting?

However, they simply began to attack the wall of string. At first, they thought that they would only be stalled for a minute before they broke through the wall, but something seemed different about this string. It seemed to be extremely hard, as if they were hitting steel.

Some of the soldiers began sweating while cutting away at the string, and some just fainted on the spot. No matter how you looked at it, this wasn’t just string.

“Everyone, attack the same spot!” some random soldier roared, and many of them followed suit. They all began attacking one specific spot in the string wall, hoping to bring it down. However, no matter how much they attacked, it just didn’t budge.

‘That will stall them for, at the very minimum, half an hour.’ Aeolus thought to himself, while a light smile floated onto his lips. In reality, he had been infusing mantra into Kline’s and his’ string for a while now, but he hadn’t activated the mantra. He didn’t want to power up too soon and let the enemies know what to expect before the battle began. He activated the power of the mantra right before the city invasion began, letting him hold the power of surprise.

As expected, it turned out excellent. The string was much harder than before, and pierced through enemies much more easily. Right now, all the string that was used on the wall had at least triple the power of the string he had been using before the city invasion, letting it hold on much longer.

“Get out of the way, damned weaklings.” some man said, and many of the soldiers turned to see who said it. However, as soon as they saw who it was, they paled. It was the most powerful commander of Pangaea, one who had not been conquered for a long, long time.

“C-C-Commander Toronto, yes sir! Get out of the way, you fools!” one of the soldiers of the army said, and everyone followed suit. Commander Toronto simply held his palm out, and all the string began coming back to Aeolus. Aeolus began sweating heavily, because he knew what was going on.

“He’s using the affinity of time to reverse the string wall, as if it was never there!”

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ABOUT ME

Name: Abdul Kareem

Age: 13 (Almost 14)

Occupation: Middle school

Goal: Idk, I’m just making a novel for now

Location: Why would I say that?

Relations: I’m not married (duh)

Favorite food: da asian stuf!

Anyway, on a more serious tone, this is my first novel I’ve ever tried writing. Thanks for being with me on this first experience! If you could also somehow get others to read this novel too, I would be pretty grateful!