The fight was over. The entire wave of Corrupted Nightmare Creatures lay dead on the snow-covered, bloodstained ground.
The breathing of the cohort members and government agents was heavy, their chests rising and falling at an elevated pace.
Some let themselves fall to the ground to rest, not caring that mere centimeters away there were remains of unpleasant creatures. At the end of the day, these creatures were dead, and they were the victors. It didn't matter where they rested.
Arthur, although tired, was in better shape than the rest, mainly because he had also fought for less time.
After spending a few seconds analyzing the cohort members' condition, he decided to continue with his plan. It was time to search for the Terror and confirm the evacuees' route.
Another way to do the latter would be to wait two more hours until Davis returned from escorting the last convoy and confirm it that way. But two hours was a long time.
Although what Arthur feared might not have happened or might not happen, the fact of waiting two hours didn't sit well with him.
There was also the possibility that he was falling into another of the Terror's traps—making him go search for it while it later attacked the city. Still, if that were the case, he could return quickly when Sylvie alerted him of the situation.
With that in mind, he left the battlefield and headed south.
To avoid wasting time, he crossed the city, going through abandoned streets so as not to cause panic among the civilians. Whenever he moved using Godstep within the city was due to an emergency, and this one had just ended—at least for them.
The city was large, but using Godstep, it didn't take Arthur long to traverse it and cross the southern wall.
In that place, there was actually a ravine several kilometers deep, so he used his momentum and Aether Manipulation to descend safely, appearing as if he were flying.
Once his feet touched the ground again, he didn't hesitate to keep moving swiftly south along the snowy routes. As he did so, he expanded his Aether Sense to its maximum.
He wasn't very concerned about the fragment cost of using Godstep, since the ability itself wasn't very expensive under normal conditions, and he always had his Dormant Ability activated, with the intention of gaining more fragments.
Although at the moment he had Djinn of War equipped, the fragments were spent on the armor before reaching his core. Once the armor's Aether reserves reached their maximum, the fragment counter related to his core would take priority.
Minutes later into the journey, he discovered the first sign that something bad had happened, and his expression turned dark.
The streets were empty, but there were signs of a recent fight. Arthur could smell gunpowder in the air, and mainly, he could see bullet casings on the route, as well as traces of arrows that had missed their targets, embedded in the ground.
At that moment, he began moving more slowly to detect everything correctly, and he hadn't even made it a few meters before finding the first dead creature on one side of the route.
Its body was in perfect condition, aside from the three arrows piercing its forehead.
Arthur took a few more steps, and his Aether Sense continued to cover about eight kilometers. Meters later, he detected another corpse, and meters later, more and more creature corpses.
He obviously knew that during the journey along the routes, the creatures would attack them, so this fell within normal parameters.
Every time he kept moving forward along the elevated route crossing the mountain peak, he kept seeing more and more corpses, which had died relatively recently. A thin layer of snow was forming over them.
Arthur frowned and kept moving forward.
He was now climbing one of the inclines that ran along the entire route. This one was relatively straight, as the incline wasn't very steep, allowing him to see a large part of the route from his position until it disappeared into the descent of the mountain peak still in the distance.
He continued his journey, being careful and alert for any unexpected situation.
The further he advanced, the more evidence of fighting could be seen. Bullet casings, arrows, and corpses along the route, and meters later, Arthur began to smell an intense smell of blood that traveled from the mountain peak downward.
The moment that smell reached his nose, his jaw clenched unconsciously.
It wasn't a surprise for Arthur to find the corpse of one of the convoy soldiers abandoned on the snowy route a bit later.
Though calling it a corpse was too much, since only a set of arms connected to its shoulders remained in place. However, on one of the shoulders was the government insignia, marking it as a soldier and not a civilian. Still, it was another victim, regardless of their occupation.
Arthur continued advancing while his Aether Sense kept scanning the surroundings. The number of corpses increased considerably as he approached the mountain's summit, and now he could find traces of combat practically in every part of the route.
Something he didn't fail to notice was that most of the corpses hadn't been there long. Although none were still bleeding, Arthur could calculate how long they had been lying there by the amount of snow that had formed over them—which was quite thin and thinner than the one on the corpses back then.
Without the patience to create more tension and with the small hope that there might be some survivor, he decided to use Godstep, which took him to the summit of the route.
The moment he appeared, his vision focused immediately on his surroundings, and his senses went on alert immediately. The Djinn and War God blood in his veins turned completely cold.
In front of him, multiple trucks were overturned on the sides of the streets, some on fire while others were completely crushed. Security vehicles were flipped over, and even parts of a Rhino were scattered along the route. All of them were filled with corpses.
There wasn't a single living person.
Pools of red and blue blood could be seen on the white snow, while remains of corpses were scattered along the route. Human corpses were mixed with creature corpses, but the proportion was heavily skewed toward the humans.
For every Nightmare Creature corpse, there were a dozen human corpses—or human pieces. If it weren't for the fact that he had already been in places where massacres had occurred—the Crimson Spire—he surely would have vomited from the sights and smells.
The number of human corpses reached into the thousands and exceeded them. Each convoy carried about ten thousand civilians, not counting the number of soldiers accompanying them. There were also multiple MWPs that had to protect them.
Fortunately, within the perimeter of the massacre, there weren't ten thousand corpses—though it was difficult to count, as some may have been completely eaten—Arthur would judge that there was about a third of that number.
What surprised him was the fact that there wasn't a single living creature in the area. All of them had already abandoned the zone, either to flee or to follow the rest of the convoy that survived…
Although after seeing the situation, Arthur didn't cling to that grain of hope, because perhaps twenty kilometers ahead, a similar massacre might have occurred.
Using his Aether Sense to cover an eight-kilometer perimeter, he confirmed that there were no creatures. Then he strained to reach a ten-kilometer area, but the result was the same.
He couldn't detect anything.
Only human and creature corpses, transport trucks, security vehicles, and some MWPs, along with pieces of a Rhino that he didn't need to think about to know which Irregular it belonged to.
Also blood—a lot of blood covering the snowy mountain ground.
He slowly walked to the center of the massacre and stopped there.
His expression didn't change. His golden eyes continued to reflect the disaster that had occurred while the smell of death flooded his nostrils, entering his lungs.
His hands clenched unconsciously as he absorbed everything.
It wasn't his mission to prevent this possibility, but that didn't remove the feeling of powerlessness for not having been able to prevent it.
Even so, his responsibility was with the living.
He could do nothing for those who had died, but he could ensure that those under his command didn't suffer the same fate.
Arthur closed his eyes for a few seconds and sighed. Then, he turned around and went back to the city to personally notify everything he had seen.
With what had happened, the government would have to assign the evacuation mission to another squadron of Irregulars. Then they would also have to develop a plan to deal with the Corrupted Terror, which was clearly more intelligent than expected.
For this mission, they would surely be deployed, but for that to happen, another squadron would have to arrive to protect the city. Though with the lack of personnel, surely none of this would happen, and their cohort would be tasked with doing both things simultaneously.
Complicated times were approaching, and the first thing Arthur thought was that if they were going to send a squadron to cover that gap, he hoped that it wouldn't be his father's.
Arthur moved to feel the Aetheric Pathways to return to the city, but at that moment, Sylvie's voice reached his mind, and her tone sounded urgent.
'Art! A Category Three opened in the center of the city!'
His golden eyes widened, and he used Godstep multiple times.
Due to the tone Sylvie used, he moved first and didn't respond. Then, when he realized this, he went to respond, but Sylvie's voice sounded in his mind again.
'No, no, that thing! Art, don't come!'
An intense terror ran through his entire body when he heard the tone Sylvie had used. The hairs on his body stood on end, and a shiver tried to run down his spine.
Still, he suppressed it at the last moment and responded quickly while stopping.
'Sylv?! What's the situation?!'
He received no response.
'Sylvie!' he shouted mentally.
This time, it wasn't her voice in his mind, but Regis's.
'Princess, we're on our way!'
Now he couldn't help but frown.
Arthur wanted to ask what the hell was happening, but in the next instant, his question was no longer necessary. The answer rose before his eyes. Literally.
The first thing he saw was Sylvie's figure in her dragon form flying through the skies.
Due to the poor lighting, Arthur couldn't identify if she was carrying anyone on her back. What he did see was the shape of a Rhino that she had grabbed with the claws of her legs.
She was flying at the maximum speed possible for her. Considering all the exhaustion she had already experienced, Sylvie was at her limit, so the speed wasn't that great.
Fortunately, she had reacted quickly, and the speed was enough to escape from what rose behind her in the distance.
The first thing Arthur thought was that the mountain had come to life. His brain initially failed to comprehend the size of such a thing.
He had to blink multiple times to regain his senses and analyze it in detail.
Taking into account what Sylvie mentioned about a Category Three opening in the center of the city, he saw the creature that appeared to be a small mountain with a rough, unpolished body and distorted proportions.
Standing on two powerful and stocky legs, it reached a height of fifty meters, or perhaps even more. Its torso was massive and asymmetrical, with mounds of stone rising from its back like humps. It had three arms, each with different thickness and short fingers.
Its head was like a misshapen hill of brown rock, with two cavernous holes and a single circular sort of look like an eye in the center. In that space, there was an eye of furious red color, as if made of pure magma, and it had three incandescent pupils floating in its depths, like windows into a scorching inferno.
That infernal eye took on a stronger intensity, and Arthur began to feel a heat approaching that grew unbearable—even at that distance.
The walls that were still standing began to melt, and the accumulated snow in the surroundings began to boil and transform into clouds that started to rain in the middle of the polar winter.
Arthur shifted his vision slightly and observed seven shining, enormous spheres in the creature's chest, marking its class as a Titan. By its rank, he judged it to be Fallen.
Even so, he felt it would be the strongest Fallen Titan he would ever see in his life.
As Sylvie approached rapidly in her dragon form, Arthur managed to identify five figures on her back—quickly recognizing thanks to the light that the creature brought as Regis, Seishan, Jet, and Hale.
A bad feeling entered his body upon not seeing Owen and Emily…
Soon, Sylvie dropped the Rhino onto the snowy asphalt of the route, and it bounced several times, holding steady on its human-sized shock absorbers. As soon as it gained traction, it began heading toward Arthur, stopping less than two meters away from him.
The vehicle's door opened, and the sight that greeted Arthur was Emily's delicate, bespectacled face. But there was no trace of Owen…
Sylvie touched the asphalt with her claws and abandoned her transformation. Before she could fall to the ground from exhaustion, Regis appeared beneath her, and she ended up sitting on his back.
From one moment to the next, the roles were reversed.
Seishan, Jet, and Hale landed on their feet on the route, and Arthur immediately noticed that they weren't wearing armor, but the clothing the government had provided them. With the heat he had felt in his position, if they had been wearing armor, they would have suffered much more intense heat, with the capacity to faint or even die.
The bad feeling about Owen's situation grew, and he couldn't help but raise the question.
"Where is Owen?"
The four women, the dog, and the man didn't respond. But the silence itself was an answer.
Taking on her role as general, Jet cleared her throat and responded.
"He's dead." She paused and took in the views around them, seeing the number of corpses on the pavement and its surroundings. Finally, she added, "As soon as the Gate appeared, he and a group of soldiers went to help a family trapped in a building that collapsed." Jet turned around and looked at the city's state.
"In the end… they all died."
'…They all died,' echoed in his mind.
The cohort had spent four days defending the city from constant hordes, exhausting themselves to the bone, pushing themselves to the brink of running out of essence—only for the appearance of a creature of such calamity to make half their work in vain.
Aurora Vale had a population of four million at the start of the mission, and over these four days, they had managed to evacuate about two million from the city. Making the number of casualties equal to the number of evacuees.
In a matter of seconds, two million civilians and about thousands of soldiers lost their lives to a Fallen Titan that, as soon as it emerged from the Gate, threw itself headfirst into the mountain—disappearing completely.
The heat that had suffocated them at that moment disappeared, making the rain stop and transitioning everything back to normal.
"What happened after I left?" he asked, accepting everything that had occurred.
Jet, who had stood beside him, looked at him briefly and shifted her gaze back to the city.
"As soon as you left, we headed into the city while a group of soldiers stayed behind to collect all the Shards on the battlefield." She moved her head from side to side, letting out a soft chuckle. "We went to the Rhino to rest for a while until the next crisis, and it arrived faster than we expected."
"The moment Emily entered the Rhino, we felt the call of a new Gate inside the city. Amid all the chaos, we moved first to reach the Gate, but it began to grow and grow until it ended up crushing one of the nearby buildings, which triggered a chain of collapses, and Owen went to help."
At that moment, Jet stopped to drink water, and Seishan continued in her place.
"Because of this, he moved quite far from us, and as soon as the Gate finished growing, we saw the creature pull one of its arms out. Sylvie reacted immediately, pulling us out of there." She looked at Sylvie out of the corner of her eye and continued, "If it weren't for that, we would have died, melted by the heat the creature emitted—it was like hell."
Sylvie nodded and added in a weak voice, "As soon as I saw the hand, I could tell it was something we wouldn't be able to defeat in our state. I judged that we would all die if we stayed, so I gathered who I could and fled." She pressed her lips together and closed her eyes. "I couldn't do anything for Owen."
After finishing drinking water, Jet comforted her.
"You did the right thing, Sylvie. If it weren't for your quick thinking, we would all be dead. At least now we have the option of taking revenge in the future." Sylvie opened her eyes and nodded. Then Jet looked back at Arthur. "You already know what happened after that. Now tell us… what happened here?"
Before answering the question, he moved enough to stand beside Sylvie and gave her a brief hug. When he pulled away, he responded, looking at Jet.
"I don't have much information about what happened. By the time I arrived, the situation was already like this." Then he observed the rest of the members and let out a sigh. "I suspect that along the route, we'll find more similar cases, and unfortunately, Davis is dead too." He pointed with his index finger at the remains of a Rhino. "Maybe this one isn't his Rhino, but this route was only going to be traveled by him. So unless he escaped…"
He didn't finish the sentence because everyone understood the meaning.
"He was a good man," said Jet. "A bit capricious and creepy, but good in the end."
Arthur didn't know much about Davis because, although he was a coworker of his parents, he was indeed a bit creepy and didn't socialize much with the rest. But that didn't mean anything. His Aspect made him creepy, but aside from that, he was a good man.
He was the father of a five-year-old girl and had a wife waiting for him at home…
At that moment, Regis broke the tense atmosphere, reminding them of something.
"Shouldn't we be notifying the command center of everything that happened? Come on, chop chop."
Emily turned her head quickly and replied, "I'll do it."
The young engineer ran to the back of the Rhino, while the rest simply decided to give her some privacy by staying outside.
If they had entered the Rhino, they would have heard the sound of sobbing coming from the Rhino's communications center.
It wasn't a surprise to them that Emily had a crush on Owen. She wasn't very subtle about hiding it, and he was dense enough not to notice. Surely it was a trait of people from the Outskirts…
Knowing that, Arthur moved his gaze toward Seishan, and she was looking at him at the same moment.
As soon as their gazes met, they both turned their heads away.
Jet, who obviously noticed what had happened, couldn't help but let out a sigh while thinking.
'Young love… wait—I'm young too! Why am I thinking like this!'