Chapter 56: The First Crisis (2)

AN: shoutout to freewebnovel, novelhall, and novelfire for hosting my story on their website! I commented on one of their posts that's its perfectly fine to rip my story and upload it onto their own site. Do it! I consume a lot of novels for free through these sights as well, so don't feel guilty! Happy reading!

It had been a nearly perfect day, until it happened. Achilles had been doing some sword practice with his father, Perillees. Achilles had turned 9 years old a few days ago, and was still trying to work off the excess energy from his godfather's present. He had given Achillees a rare fruit that boosted his power, but what it boosted was still unknown, and it also had the side effect of giving the user nearly endless energy for about 10 days. Achilles had been practicing his skills non-stop the last 3 days after eating the fruit.

As the two were sparring, they suddenly felt a rather large shaking sensation from the ground underneath them. Perilles had an odd look on his face and Achilles asked,"Dad? What's wrong? What does the ground keep shaking?"

Perillees shook his head and said,"I don't know, let's stop here for now and go see what that was just now, it doesn't seem normal."

Perilles and Achilles went to the tribe leader's residence which was in a cave on the boundary of the tribe. As they walked up, the leader was standing outside with a confused look on his face. As Perillees walked up, the leader asked aloud,"Do you know what's going on with the ground?"

Perillees shook his head and replied,"No, I was actually coming to see if you knew.."

The leader also shook his head and said,"I have some centaurs scouting the area for a potential monster but we've been searching since the first shakes last night. It's been over half a day and still no telling what's happening from the scouts."

Perillees asked,"No word from our awakened?"

The leader shook his head again and said,"No, unfortunately none of them know either. The only awakened that may be able to figure it out is Tanilus. His talent 1 star talent [Fire Detector] seemed to pick something up, but he said at the time it was extremely faint and wasn't sure if he was imagining it."

Perilles stoked his chin and asked,"Are you still following this lead?"

Right as he asked this, a young centaur and about 10 other centaurs from the defense force came running up to the leader. However, before the leader could ask about their findings, the young centaur yelled out,"Mount Locust is the source! There is now a MASSIVE amount of fire coming from Mount Locust!"

The leader frowned and said,"First, stop yelling and calm down. Second, explain properly."

Tanilus, not caring at all at yelling, continued,"Sir! This is bad! Really, REALLY bad! My fire detector is telling me that fire is continuingly collecting within the mountain! And if my intuition is correct, the fire is going to spread outside the mountain at any moment!!"

The leader's eyes widened and he screamed out,"Evacuate everyone from the foot of Mount Locust! NOW!"

Perillees also realized what was going on and quickly pulled Achillees back the their home as chaos started to unfold as each centaur got the news. As they were running, Achilles yelled out,"Dad! What's wrong?!"

Perillees shouted back over the now yelling and screaming tribe members,"Mount Locust is about to be covered in fire! We need to quickly escape from this place!"

Achilles and Perillees ran into their home and grabbed Achilles' mother, Syrinus. As they were fleeing southeast, things were explained to her, so she knew that she needed to properly run. Unlike the lion tribe in the north, these centaurs had a much higher speed to escape with and thus the herd of centaur ran away from their homes in a mad dash.

However, fate was cruel. After only half an hour, suddenly.

"BOOOOOOMMM!!!!"

Every centaur turned and saw their previous home, Mount Locust, explode in a seething display of hate and anger, as if an evil god was baring its fangs at them. Perillees was the first to react as he grabbed them and screamed,"RUN!!"

Every centaur then understood the gravity of the situation as they all desperately ran as smoke and plumes of pure black smoke filled the sky. As they continued to run, large rocks that were on fire hurled towards them!

SMASH!

BOOM!

CRASH!

The large fire boulders impacted into the ground behind, in front, and to the side of them! They were now running while having to dodge the flaming rocks! Perilles had to grab Achilees and yank him to the side as one the rocks nearly hit him!

Syrinus screamed out,"Run! Achilles Run!"

Achilles looked back as he tried to continue running and saw a very large rock that was on fire heading straight towards him! He instantly understood that he would be dead if this hit him and so used his endless energy to pump more energy into running!

As his speed increased the rock impacted only a foot or two behind where he currently was and the impact whisked his feet out from under him, sending him flying to the side and away from his family.

"Syrinus! Keep running! I'll save the boy! GO!" Perillees screamed at his partner as she kept running at full speed. He then turned and ran back over the Achilees who had to dodge yet another rock that had fallen close to him.

Perilless ran around and dodged the many rocks that fell around him, and as he reached his son, he grabbed Achillees and yelled,"THIS WAY!"

The two then turned and ran in a different direction than the rest of the tribe as fire and rocks blocked their path. While they were running they heard from behind them Mount Locust roar out once more as more fire spewed out of the top of it.

Now as they ran, it began to get harder and harder as ash slowly filled their lungs. It slowly fell from the sky, marking an end to everyone and everything within the area. Perilles didn't want to, but turned to look and see what happened.

His eyes widened in extreme fear. Mount Locust was now completely covered in a weird liquid fire! It was heading directly towards them at tremendous speed!