"We have no idea what you're talking about, Mr Hunter," said one of the soldiers.
"That statue has an essence within it. This essence draws the beasts to the city after a certain period of time, a sort of dominance period, if you will. That is what we must destroy. Then the beasts will leave the city," replied Altair.
Frankly, he didn't know much either.
All he did was repeat the details of the task he had been given.
Of course, the soldiers didn't believe Altair because this statue, this status, was what had helped select people from among those who had lived in this city for a long time.
In short, the people chosen by the Great Goddess were selected here.
Still, no one had been chosen until now.
That was precisely what the soldiers didn't know.
Nyx herself didn't care about these people. Chaos, the creator's daughter, was a good being, but that goodness didn't extend to everyone, after all.
Why should she care that some worshipped her, that they worshipped this woman at the top of the tower?
Other gods and goddesses had indeed bestowed blessings upon the inhabitants of this city at one time, but that was because the inhabitants worshipped all the gods and goddesses, not just Nyx.
Unlike Nyx, the others were grateful for this.
"Are you sure?" asked the soldier at the front, who seemed to be the leader of the group.
Altair took a deep breath and asked, "What chance do we have?" His words silenced all the soldiers.
Indeed, they had no other chance.
If this young man standing before them, who looked perhaps 16 or 17 years old, was telling the truth, it might be possible to save everyone still alive and reunite them with their own families.
"We will help you," said the leader of the group directly.
Altair shook his head and said, "I won't leave you alone," and the group began to close off this road, almost ten kilometres long, towards the city centre.
With every step they took, they heard the cries for help from another person, but helping each one lifted the spirits of the people, the soldiers, the hunters, and everyone else.
Farmers took up their hoes, hunters armed themselves with swords, bows, and spears, and soldiers who had resigned themselves to death rose again.
In this part of the city, where lives had been lost every second, lives were no longer being lost; the monsters' lives were being taken.
"GET OUT OF THE WAY!!!" one of the soldiers shouted.
When Altair and the large group behind him heard this voice, they looked more closely at the source of the sound coming from ahead and were shocked by what they saw.
The leader of the group of soldiers next to the young man pointed directly at a spot to get everyone's attention and shouted:
"WILD TROLLS!!!!"
Nearly twenty of them, perhaps five or six metres long, fat and disgusting-looking creatures, were terrorising this area near the city centre.
Some were hitting buildings with huge mallets in their hands, demolishing stone structures, while others were savouring the pleasure of crushing the bodies of people who were already dead.
It was now clear why one of the soldiers in the distance had shouted "PUSH!!!".
They had managed to tie up a troll's legs somehow and wanted the remaining soldiers to push it over.
And so they did.
"PUT!!!"
A huge sound suddenly echoed, and the ground seemed to shake.
Who knows how much the troll weighed.
Still, this sound did not stop the soldiers.
Each of them had climbed onto the troll and started stabbing this monster all over with their swords, one by one.
The troll died on the spot within seconds, stabbed repeatedly by a group of about twenty people.
Still, this was just one troll.
There were many more in the area.
That wasn't all.
It was also possible to see several monsters resembling lizards, coming from other areas and roaming the walls of undamaged buildings.
It wasn't hard to see that almost all of certain parts of the city had fallen.
Altair was genuinely frightened by this sight, but he knew he had no choice but to continue.
He could see the great statue of the High Goddess, that enormous statue, even from such a distance.
The young man had fully joined the soldiers and had slowly begun to approach the trolls.
Every step the trolls took on the ground sounded as if someone were kicking a door.
It was a frightening sight.
Altair was completely stressed out.
Nevertheless, the young man held the knife tightly in his hand, took another sword he had taken from another dead soldier in his right hand, and began to advance with the other soldiers.
"ALL SOLDIERS, ATTACK!!!"
When the group joined the group of soldiers ahead, the attack order was given, and over a hundred soldiers and even ordinary people, who knew nothing about fighting, suddenly joined the battle.
Many of the archer hunters shot arrows at the lizards with hard skin from a distance, and even though some dodged, rarely, one or two arrows would stick into their bodies and knock them to the ground.
Altair stood beside the leg of a troll three and a half times his size and instantly plunged his sword into its leg.
This was a mistake.
Trying to kill a ferocious troll without restraining it, and doing so while weak, was a huge mistake.
The troll immediately began swinging the large mallet in his hand and launched an attack that sent two soldiers flying metres into the air.
Altair felt strange thinking that he could have died that way too, but perhaps due to the adrenaline, his heart pounding had nothing to do with fear.
"Right then!" Altair said, and then looked at the sword still stuck in the troll's leg.
He pressed down on the sword's hilt and instantly jumped onto the troll's back.
While everyone stared at him in amazement, thinking he was crazy, he made his move.