章 124: Roots
Emile patiently waited for his opponent to make the first move. He wielded a broadsword, standard, and leaned forward into a dash.
He rushed across the field towards Emile like a serpent, he kept his body low and his eyes forward. Just before reaching Emile, his sword glowed luminescent blue.
He swung down, but Emile gently moved his shoulder back and stepped to the side, completely evading his strike. Anger surfaced on the man's face.
He spread his legs and tightened his grip around his hilt, performing a wide horizontal slash. Light flashed and Emile vanished.
Moments later he appeared behind the man, his scimitar pressed against his neck, indifference apparent on Emile's face.
"Would anyone else like to duel?" Emile asked, disregarding the man before him.
The crowd stayed silent and Emile dismissed his weapon. He stepped away from his opponent and gathered the three victors.
He searched the camp for Mariah and finally delegated positions to each of them. The four of them, Mariah, Lu, Lyle, and Sam would effectively be battalion leaders within the camp.
Each of them would have nine soldiers under their command and patrol the border of the forest. Two teams during the day, two during the night.
The four of them could delegate further tasks if they saw fit and they were in charge of maintenance for their battalion, i.e. submitting orders to the craftsman for armor, clothes, and tools.
With the foundation laid and a hierarchy established, Emile returned to the wall with Willow and Roy. Today they needed to bring back something, any touch of success or sign of advancement.
Without waiting any longer, they entered the miasma. It stuck to their skin like sand and crawled through their pores. At first, they did nothing but sprint.
Sprint to the open field they found previously and then to the crater where Blood collapsed. Emile turned to Roy, hoping his vision could see something they could not, but the boy shook his head.
Meanwhile, the cage that encased the gargantuan spider remained. A conglomeration of tree roots, inter tangled so severely that no more than a foot's width could fit through in any place.
Emile put his hand on the cage and tried to rattle it, but it refused to budge. He summoned his sword and slashed it, but not only would it refuse to break, it didn't even leave a scratch.
Emile stepped back. He turned to Willow and requested she try.
The golden valkyrie summoned her hammer and raised it above her head. In an instant, an excruciating bang traveled throughout the forest.
Willow was launched back and slammed into the dirt wall. Opposing her, the cage of roots slowly unfurled and sunk into the ground, eventually detaching themselves from the tree above.
Willow plopped onto the ground, breaking out of the wall of mud she slammed into.
"It's aware," she said, spitting a glob of dirt and spit to the side.
"What do you mean?" Emile asked.
"Before I struck it, the roots propelled into my abdomen. It must have sensed the danger and reacted," Willow explained.
"How is that possible?"
"It's not a root."
"Roy—" Emile called, "can you see it beneath the ground at all?"
"I marked it before it went under. I assumed there was no need to track Blood anymore."
"Good," Emile agreed, "where is it going?"
Roy raised his finger and pointed deeper into the forest. The three climbed out of the crater and began their pursuit.
The miasma grew thicker, so much so that it finally disrupted their vision. Like a heavy fog rolled through the trees, the red mist clumped in the air like clouds on the ground.
As it grew thicker, so too did its effects multiply on Roy. The boy's breaths turned to wheezes.
He blinked rapidly and struggled to maintain focus, not mentally, but visually. His eyes burned and dried, his pupils shrunk and expanded uncontrollably. He couldn't keep them focused on anything.
But he persevered. He kept on running.
Emile constantly healed him, but it got to the point where he became infected so fast that they had to stop every few minutes just to replenish his vitals.
Emile felt it too, the pressure on his skin. The weight of the world increased.
His steps were heavier. His breaths were shorter from the pressure exerted on his diaphragm.
Even his eyelids felt weighed down, pulled to the ground by the sickening miasma.
He didn't want to admit it, but they couldn't continue. At least not with Roy.
The problem was, however, they needed Roy to follow the root in the first place. Without Roy they just have a general direction: deeper into the forest.
Emile bit his lip in frustration. Everything he was trying to do wasn't working.
"Let's head back," he made the call, "maybe we can find something of value on the way back if we take our time."
"And Willow, could you just carry him?" Emile asked, noticing the hellbent shape Roy was in.
On the journey back, Emile kept a close eye on Roy's condition. As the density of the miasma decreased, Roy's condition lightened.
What Emile was really looking for in Roy was any of the symptoms Blood displayed prior: black veins, forgetfulness, a crazed state, but none of them surfaced.
Blood's condition, without a shadow of a doubt, had to have come from the spider. It begs the question why the spider was caged in the first place and why it wasn't killed.
Also, who or what caged it and for what purpose? He was hoping to find out by following the cage roots, but without Roy that plan could never come to fruition.
'As per usual it boils down to strength'
'We're simply not strong enough to venture deep enough'
'So we have to get stronger'
'Which means we have to kill things'
Emile looked around.
'But there's literally nothing here!'
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