All this was lucky for me. Soon I started to hear loud noises from the infantry and cavalry positions. The villagers might have started an attack earlier, without waiting for me. But the archers were just looking bewildered and not firing. It could be Kazena working her magic. Whatever the source was, it served as further distraction as archers looked ahead and not behind.
But this luck couldn’t last long. And it didn’t. As I got to the tenth group on the ground, someone shouted.
“Archers down!”
The archers in front of me turned to see what was going on, but not for long. I sliced their throats and moved away. But then, I saw that the archers, right in front of me, had seen me and drawn their arrows. I sheathed my backswords and drew out my X sword formation. They started to fire and managed to shout, “Assassins in the midst!” before they died at my blade.
The entire army unit was alerted. I heard a voice that was probably the division captain. “First platoon! Flush the assassins out. Defend the archers!” The fact that I was able to kill so many by the time I was discovered led them to believe that there were multiple assailants.
A hundred infantrymen were going to enter the forest in a matter of seconds. I had to kill as many archers as I could before that. I detached my four blades and launched them one at a time, dropping three archers from the tree tops. I used the last moments before the infantry platoon entered, to retrieve the swords from these archers, who had fallen to the ground. I could see the infantry entering. The other archers were searching from tree tops for me. Again, the terrain helped me. I could easily disappear in the dense woods as the infantry approached. The archers also weren’t well trained in deep forest combat, as all such troops were stuck in the revolutionary blockade. There were a few shots fired, but they didn’t even come close.
The infantrymen, due to their sheer numbers, were able to reach me faster, cutting through the dense foliage rapidly as they approached me. Although my going was slow, but I was still able to separate the lead infantrymen from the others in a matter of minutes. We were at least a few hundred meters into the forest when the first three men reached me. Despite the difficult terrain, I was able to engage them easily. They were ordinary infantrymen, not trained for such combat. To their credit they attacked me at the same time, but stupidly at the same height. I dropped to my knees and slashed their legs. Then as they dropped, I stabbed their chests.
The rest of the infantry was drawn to me by the commotion. The infantrymen I killed did that right. They screamed as they died, attracting the others. I had to press on farther into the woods. This wasn’t good. I was getting too far away from the archers. But as luck would have it, the captain had dispatched some archers as well. Some of them shot at me unsuccessfully. But there would be still be archers with their bows trained at the villagers. I had to get back.
I kept trying to move sideways, to escape the infantry and archer encirclement. But I couldn’t. They were surrounding me well and the only way I could continue to kill them was to go farther into the forest and attack the two or three infantrymen who got closest. I couldn’t fight any more because there was barely any space to maneuver quickly.
We continued for at least an hour into the forest, our progress slowing to almost a halt. Neither the troops nor I, could move ahead at any pace greater than that of a slow snail. I had managed to kill at least 20 soldiers in that time, but there were still enough of them pursuing me to prevent me from retreating back to the village. I counted at least 10 archers who were also in pursuit, in the hope that they could get a shot in. By now, they had realized that there was only one attacker. But given my proficiency in killing them, they were too enraged and afraid to return without finishing me off. Now I began to wonder if any of us could even go back. The forest was so dense and dark, even in broad daylight, I didn’t think any of us could find our way back.
As we continued, I could sense that the troops also felt the fear of getting lost overwhelm their need to get me. In about five minutes after they stopped pursuit, I sensed no one was following me. Then I decide to trace back my steps to figure out what happened. I realized as I retraced my steps, that the troops had broken pursuit a while back. Probably out of sheer fear.
I decided to return as well, so that I could, hopefully, still help in the battle. I tried to follow the infantrymen, given the large trail they left. As I traveled, I heard one of the infantrymen thrashing around in desperation, clearly lost. It was easy to track and kill him. There were other such stragglers I heard, tracked and killed. There seemed to be a lot of them. I managed to kill at least 10. But soon, I started to realize that the infantry company was getting lost as well. They didn’t have any idea of their direction and these stragglers were the ones who were separating from the main group to find the right direction. And in following them, I was also lost.
As I tried to gain my bearings, I met other stragglers who I managed to kill. They were now splitting up in groups of threes and fours to find a way out. My hunch was confirmed when I spoke to some of them as I fought them. They had started to fear that I was some forest demon who had tricked them into entering the forest, where there were more demons. I was happy being upgraded to a divine entity, even if seen as evil. The way I thought about it, anything seen as evil by the Valantian army was actually good for normal people. So I guess I was the god of the forest. A god, who was lost in his own forest. The irony.
As I moved, the situation was getting more and more hopeless. Then, things started to get weird. The forest was already pretty dark. It suddenly got a lot darker. The forest green slowly turned to dark blue.
My mind felt like it was expanding, just like in the cave, but with darkness instead of light, and filling up with fear as it expanded. I could sense that there were others near me. I followed sounds of people to see a couple of the soldiers screaming their lungs out, while talking absolute garbage. I quickly got as far away from them as I could. But my surroundings were changing in dimensions. They were expanding and contracting. There was only one conclusion I could draw. There was surely something in the air, which was inducing fear in everyone. I had to get out of there fast. Otherwise I would get stuck like them. I had to focus.
I then remembered the vial I had. A potion containing the exact same drug from the cave. The potion that helped my conscious mind explore other parts of my mind. Which could help the active part of my mind, in this situation, regain control of what I was feeling, and hence help control the fear and hallucinations. Although the potion would immobilize me for a while, there was no danger of any attack as anyone who came near me would get overwhelmed by the fear inducing air first. I opened the vial, which I had in my belt pocket, and took a deep breath. And realized something was not right.
The two drugs were somehow acting simultaneously. While I did feel the tingling, indicating that my mind was getting cut off from my body, I still retained my vision. The surroundings did not go blank. But it was worse. My vision was merging with my imagination. My mind had been released, but my real-world senses hadn’t been cut off. This presented me with unique challenges and opportunities.
Challenge—my mind was expanding rapidly, and it was overwhelming. It wasn’t just fear. I seemed to be absorbing thoughts of many beings around me. The birds, the animals, I could sense all of them. When I was in the cave, the only consciousness I could feel were of those who were with me in the cave. Now, without that physical barrier, and whatever effect this mixture was having, my mind was expanding without stop. The fear was now compounding rapidly, giving me shivers.
Opportunity—I was able to fight the feeling, focusing on the feeling of birds and animals around me to get a grasp on my expanding consciousness and what was real. I could see the shards of my imaginerium emerging from various locations around me. These shards created images and sounds that were focusing the fear in me. However most of these images and sounds clearly stood out in the backdrop of a dense forest. This helped me, as I started to use my conscious mind to d
estroy these shards. I used the memory of my swords and threw them to cut through the shards. Unlike reality, I could summon my sword memories infinitely. Destroying these sources of fear was reducing the fear I felt.
Challenge—As I focused on the creatures around me, my vision kept shifting, to various angles of the forest, some small, some large, some aerial, sometimes normal. Then I saw visions and felt screams emanating in the same garbage tongue I had just heard. It was as if I was unwittingly tapping into the minds of multiple beings around me, irrespective of whether they were human or not, and was seeing what they were seeing. It was getting really confusing for me. As I fought to destroy my fear based imaginations popping up around me, suddenly my field of vision would shift. After a while, I started to feel physically tired. My mind was racing, draining my body.
Opportunity—As time passed, the tingling returned, as I got control of my body again. Somehow the air was reducing the potion’s effect. And I remembered one of the visions I just had. The aerial view of a bird. I understood what I had to do. I had to get high. If I could see the forest canopy, I could potentially locate the village. The sun and the hills near the village would give me a sense of direction. If I got close enough, I could see the opening in the forest where the village was located.
I started to climb. It was still difficult, as the effects of the potion were not wearing off fast enough. My mind kept switching between various beings I could sense. The sensations around me were still really overwhelming. I was in my own mind for barely a few moments, before I started to switch again. But I managed to climb to the top. As I caught a whiff of fresh air, I started to feel better. The fear and changing perspectives were still there, but I could sense that this was the right thing to do.
I saw the forest canopy, the sun and the hills. I started to move slowly towards the hills, staying on top of most branches of the trees. It was a slow and exhausting process. I fell a couple of times, when my visions overwhelmed me and I couldn’t see the next branch. But the forest was thick all the way up to the canopy. So there was always a branch, strong enough and high enough, to break my fall before I fell far enough to break into multiple pieces. But I did break a bone, here and there. Nothing major.
Exhausted, with my body paining everywhere, from my hands to my shin, I continued towards the hills. Within the hour of this grueling travel, I could see the opening. The village was close. The fear, the mind alteration, the vision shifts had reduced considerably. I wasn’t there for too long, otherwise who knows what would have happened. What was interesting even in my state of exhaustion was, I could gain access to the complete mind of another person or animal. The combination of those two drugs was potent. It allowed my mind to expand, with the fear preventing the potion from cutting off my mind’s control of my body. It could be extremely useful.
Maybe after this battle was over, I could head over to the Elliaichi to explore this drug combination further. If I could find them again. Maybe I could head back into the forest with a couple of friends through this aerial route, and try to collect the air from that region. I could then try to acquire these abilities without the tedious side effects of massive fear, hallucinations and infinitely shifting field of vision.
I finally was close to the village. I could see the battle ground. The fight was long over. Thankfully, the villagers had won. I could see the place strewn with the bodies of many soldiers. But there weren’t nearly enough to account for over 400 soldiers. As I progressed further, I realized what had happened. It was delightful.
Chapter 41: The omnipresent warrior
From the time I entered the battlefield…
To the time I dropped off Karn into the forest and returned, I could see only one thing. Bodies. There were dozens of soldiers and villagers dead already. This was battle. I had seen dead bodies. I had created some of them myself. But this was a totally different scale. And I was going to be a part of it.
Once I left Karn, another realization dawned upon me. I was alone. I did not know any of these people. At least with those three, I had gotten to know them over the months I spent with them. But these people were complete strangers. Usually, I could pacify myself by saying that I could jump away to safety. But here, I didn’t know where safe was. I was surrounded by hundreds of kilometers of dense forests. The last time I tried a long-distance jump for safety, it ended up being really long distance and not really safe.
I had to stay there in the battle and trust these people that my new friends believed in. There was no movement on either side for a while. The troops also seemed to be debating as to what they needed to do. The villagers were waiting for Karn to appear. We didn’t hear or see anything. We waited for a bit. Time stretched on. The apprehension and fear were disappearing. They were getting replaced with boredom. My time alone in the ghost house in Capitol Hills was more exciting than this.
Then I decided to spice things up. I got up and traveled to a spot right in the middle of the horses. I stabbed a couple of cavalry men and then returned behind the board before anyone could react. It was exhilarating. I didn’t kill them, just injured them enough to incapacitate them. I did it again for a couple of times, taking down five more cavalry men. It was too easy. I decided to take things up a notch. I went in and killed a couple of more soldiers and then did not return. The other horsemen realized that I was the one killing them off one or two at a time. As they converged on me, I became invisible.
It was funny seeing them struggle to understand where the person in front of them had disappeared to. It was interesting that my feelings went from being scared and terrified of battle, to being amused by it. There were dead bodies, and a lot of suffering. But I knew the people who I was killing were bad men, which somehow made it alright. The rush of the battle was also preventing me from feeling the complete extent of what I was doing. At that point in time, I didn’t really have any of Dev’s weird ethical dilemma. If someone is evil, or supporting evil, they need to die. They have to face the consequences of their actions. So there was nothing wrong with enjoying fighting and winning.
I continued to attack them from behind my lens shield, adding to their confusion. All they would see was a hand suddenly appearing out of nowhere to kill. After having met the intruder in the Imperium Chambers, I had realized how to pass through the lens without destroying them. I had also learned how to cover parts of my body with the lenses as well. So I alternated between letting my hand show and hiding it. That led to greater confusion and panic.
The infantry also moved in to try and identify and capture the culprit. It added to my joy. I was moving through the crowd, cutting through infantrymen and cavalry alike. I must have killed at least 40 men before I ran into trouble. One of the men was smarter than the rest. He caught my hand as I went to stab him. In my excitement, I had become cocky, and sloppy. The man was able to knock the sword out of my hand. Although my bracer would prevent me from losing the sword, the attack also injured my hand severely, preventing me from holding the sword.
My lenses came down as soon as the sword left my hand. I was stuck in the middle of at least a hundred infantrymen, without my ability to hide or jump. The situation went from amusing to terrifying in a moment. This was a battle. It was a lesson well learned. But I felt it came too late. I would probably die before I had a chance to work on what I had learnt.
The infantrymen were about to swing at me, when a shower of arrows distracted them. In my fight, I had attracted the infantrymen, who had now come within firing range of the villagers. All fifty village archers fired at once, hitting at least 10 soldiers. Couple of soldiers closest to me, who had hesitated because of the arrow attack, were still about to attack, and after a brief pause, continued to move their swords to stab and slash me. I still had only one sword. I was still in deep trouble.
Then the next miracle happened. Elbir’s spear sword appeared out of nowhere and killed both in one shot. I was saved, thanks to my old one-legged friend. And then, the battle was as good as over. Dev and
his master were free to join the battle. Their opponent was no longer in one piece. Dev looked a little winded, but his master, he was looking fine. His clothes were completely torn. His body seemed completely uninjured. He was also carrying a shining sword, just like Dev’s. He was single handedly cutting through multiple people at a time. He seemed invulnerable. None of the attacks from the soldiers were injuring him in the least.
Elbir then rode towards me. In the commotion caused by Dev’s master, I ran towards him. He picked me up. “Hope you are doing well, kiddo.”
“Thanks old man, for saving my life,” I beamed back.
Elbir said, “Could you do me a favor? Get my sword back?”
“Sure, Elbir.” I grimaced and held the sword in my injured hand. Through the pain, I jumped back and picked up his ornate sword. He was happy. He hadn’t seen my injury.
Grim saw me teleport and he paused, right in the middle of battle. The soldiers around him were still poking and slashing at him. It was as if they were trying to hit him with swords made of feathers. He started to walk back fast, straight at us. In the meanwhile, he restarted cutting through troops like they were leaves on a sick branch. He reached us, and immediately said, “Can I look at your swords?”
Elbir waved at him. “Master! Do you recognize me? I am Elbir of the Yerin tribe.”
Grim did not look up. “I recognized you a while back. You have done well, my friend. But the time for talking is not now. Now is the time to end this battle. Do you mind if I borrow these?” and he walked back. I didn’t mind him borrowing my anything. He was dreamy.
Age of Azmoq: The Valantian Imperium Page 44