I had been running at full speed for quite some time and I had yet to reach the source of the noise. Anyway, the previously incoherent shouts began to gradually morph in words and sentences. There were multiple speakers, but a voice belonging to some male individual was the one dominating the conversation. Someone who apparently was the commander was providing instructions on how to move, when to advance and when to withdraw.

I continued to travel through the unusually dense vegetation, occasionally picking out and eating bizarre fruits here and there. This way I replenished the weight I had lost running around the wastelands. Judging from the audible clashes of metal and strong smell of blood, I was getting near the location of the battle. Eventually, I peeked out from a bush.

A vast glade opened in front of my eyes. Emerald green grass covered the small hill in the middle of the clearing and blooming daffodils colored the landscape with their white and yellow petals.

Nevertheless, the crimson pools of blood mixed with dirt, and the cries of pain coming from the remaining upper half of a young man, completely ruined what would have been an otherwise idyllic scenery.

“I-I don’t want to die! Do something Ortiz! Why aren’t you healing me?!” the dying man cried out to the young woman at his side.

She was pale and a tired expression showed on her face. Her chest rose and fell as she suffered for breath. A warm but faint orange aura flowed from her body towards the bleeding legless man, but the effect it was having was minimal.

The man was hanging on to the last threads of his life. There was nothing that could be done: the damage was too severe for his own regenerative capabilities and Chloe was visibly spent.

I didn’t know exactly for how long the battle had been going on, but it was long enough to completely wear out their healer. It needed only a single glance to understand: she could not save him.

“Everything will be fine,” she tried to comfort him with her feeble voice.

The expression of the pleading dying man immediately morphed.

“You’ve always been useless. It should not be me, it should be you,” he coldly exhaled his last breath.

Chloe remained frozen in place. No emotion could be seen on her face.

I turned my attention to the scene behind her. The battle was still going on and the situation was dire for the people involved. The fighting force was composed of the entire Aleph class, with the only missing member being Jonah, and other people of similar age and uniforms.

Lily, Isaac and Caleb were all there in the frontline guiding their remaining companions against the enemy. Other than them only six other people were still standing and fighting. The rest, fifty approximately, laid on the ground dead or so severely wounded to be only a small step away from crossing to the other side of the riverbank which separated life and death.

It could only be described as a massacre. Nevertheless what bothered me was not the result of the fight, but the fact that it had been fought in the first place. Anyone could have seen that the enemy was clearly too much for the current capabilities of the students, so I couldn’t understand who could have ever decided to undergo such a suicide mission.

Still I had my suspicions, considering the one giving orders was the desperate Caleb. I was not a genius, but there was someone who was even less smart than I was. His muddy white and multicoloured auras intertwined with each other, while he uselessly tried to turn the tides of battle.

I didn’t understand how he could take on a deviant beast in the Garden of The Green, the only place outside of the jurisdiction of both the archs and the genais, with just a bunch of fledgling youths.

The gargantuan spider the size of a three-story building towered over the invader of the Garden. Its thirty eyes moved independently, keeping track of every single remaining attacker, while his glassy amber-coloured exoskeleton blocked every blade and spearhead hitting one of his eight legs.

The beast moved swiftly, parrying attacks and responding to threats with its limbs, every one of which ended in a pair of sharp scythe-like talons. The people still standing were taking advantage of their reduced size to avoid the spider's attacks by hiding under its main body.

But they still needed to be ready to move out of the way quickly, as the spider occasionally lifted all its legs and let itself fall to the ground, in an attempt to crush them under its body-weight. Judging from the bodies reduced to a pulp visible around the glade, it had been a successful strategy.

The remaining people were clearly highly trained, but it was only a matter of time before they became food to the beast. They were still holding on by the nick of their teeth only thanks to Caleb’s strangely reliable directions and Isaac's ability to strengthen them and redistribute damage.

Nevertheless, the most important actor in the fight was certainly Lily. Thanks to her switching between her two-handed greatsword and dual-wielding fighting style at the appropriate time, she was doing the work of several people all alone.

When people withdrew, she attacked the spider legs with a well-placed heavy greatsword hit, disturbing his movements. When others attacked, she switched to her twin swords and unleashed a frenetic onslaught of blows. These found their way to the few sections not covered by the exoskeleton, wounding and shocking the beast with a discharge of electric-like aura.

Unfortunately, due to the immense weight difference, her attacks were only partially effective and were unable to do actual damage. After having sustained a fair amount of damage to its joints, the spider jumped backward and neared the edge of the glade.

The beast put its talons on a weed and uprooted it from the ground, before devouring it. Unable to absorb mana and ether from the atmosphere to regenerate itself, as the trees of the forest wouldn’t allow their presence, it replenished itself by directly consuming another mana entity. Deviants were more bothersome to deal with.

“Mr Doe? What are you doing here?” Chloe’s faint voice resounded in my ears.

The wind transported her words around the glade and they reached the people fighting. The spider immediately stopped moving and all of its thirty eyes concentrated on me. Confusion spread across the fighting force and everyone lowered their weapons and turned in the direction of the disturbance, wary of a possible new menace.

When Caleb’s and my eyes met he became incredibly stiff. I smiled, showing more teeth than necessary. I felt I could soon fulfil one of the promises I had made to myself.

“Hi!” I politely greeted, emerging with my healthy plump body from the bush.