Chapter 19: 19 – Wait!

The ground trembled, a dull ache spread through Ruith’s head from the strain of controlling so many roots at once. 

Confused sounding words that the two did not understand came from the mouths of the Voidborne as they felt the shaking of the ground.

The group of ten stood up, reaching for their weapons. However, they could not see anyone in the vicinity.

BOOM!

Dirt shot into the air all around the group, the ground completely destroyed. A few of the Voidborne even lost their balance, tumbling to the ground.

Brown roots lept from the ground, twisting around the limbs of Voidborne.

“Gulvakt! Gulva-”

Screamed words of a trapped Voidborne on the ground suddenly cut off as a root pierced through his neck, reducing his cries to nothing more than wet gurgles.

Another one of them had not yet been caught by the roots, attempting to make a run for it. But he was not so lucky, and a thick root wrapped around his right leg, yanking him back. There was a sickening pop as a joint dislocated, and he was slammed into the ground.

The man tried to slash at the root, but his sword merely made a shallow cut. In the next second the root pulled him up into the air, swinging him towards one of his companions.

His scream was cut short as he slammed into one of the Voidborne that had not been fully caught yet, still trying to fight off the roots with a sword.

THUMP!

The two bodies made a dull sound as they slammed into each other, killing both instantly.

All the while that this was going on, a tall and bald Voidborne stood in shock. The roots seemed to completely ignore his existence, continuing to slaughter his friends right in front of his eyes. He had no idea what to do, his eyes opened wide and breathing stopped. This was the gray core Voidborne.

Finally he snapped himself out of it, grabbing a massive glaive from the ground. He immediately slashed at a root, slicing through it cleanly. 

The gray core Voidborne became a blur, his glaive slashing through several roots every few seconds. The number of roots Ruith was controlling started to quickly drop.

“Shit. Vaeri, can you get out there and deal with that one?” Ruith questioned.

“I can distract him, I don’t think I will be able to kill him myself though,” Vaeri answered.

“Good enough, I’ll be finished with the rest of these Voidborne soon enough.”

Vaeri burst out from behind the bush, her dagger shining in the light of the fire. Her target immediately noticed her, brandishing the massive glaive towards her.

His eyes narrowed as his gaze ran over her features.

“Scorkaou…?” The man said in a confused tone, before regaining his composure.

The tall man took the initiative against Vaeri, the ground slightly bending as he launched towards the human girl in front of him. He tried to ignore the gut wrenching screams of his friends, he could tell he should not take this human lightly.

The Voidborne’s glaive whistled through the hair, aiming to slice the girl in half. Ruith could almost feel the sheer power from this strike, it almost seemed like the world was collapsing onto Vaeri. However, she took a quick step back, the blade missing her by a hair's breadth.

Immediately launching into a counterattack, Vaeri blasted towards the man. His glaive gave him a range advantage, but would be terrible in close quarters combat. But how could the man let her do that so easily?

The Voidborne pulled back a bit, the blade once again crashing towards the girl, this time at her side. She was forced to stop and hurriedly defend herself, the blade of the glaive and dagger meeting.

CLANG!

The metal of both weapons did not give way at all, though Vaeri gasped in pain, the force of the impact sent directly into her right hand. She slid a few feet to the left, but continued her assault.

Meanwhile, Ruith was still slaughtering the rest of the Voidborne. None were able to escape the grasp of his roots, even if some were able to cut down a few smaller roots. They were simply far too weak to resist the power of nature. 

A root constricted around a woman’s throat, her nails clawing against the root. Her struggle was futile, the nails breaking and leaving her scratching with the bloodied ends of her fingers. A small snapping sound soon resounded through the area as her neck finally gave way, broken.

Another man was held in place with [Constrain], while [Root Pierce] punctured through his body several times. Black blood spilled onto the dirt, creating a muddy substance. 

Behind the bush, Ruith’s face became even paler than usual, a light sheen of sweat covering his forehead. 

‘Shit, should we have even attacked these people? Ugh, I’m even referring to them as people…’

Ruith still had the notion that though they could speak and obviously built an entire city, that they were just monsters in the end. But hearing their helpless screams as he ended their lives coupled with the fact they were extremely human-like in appearance made him think deeply.

‘If I didn’t know better, I would just assume these were humans…’

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But Ruith pushed the thoughts away for another time. It was too late to go back now, he had to finish the job.

For several more minutes the massacre continued. Finally, the last scream died out, every single brown core Voidborne dead. The ground was covered in a disgusting black blood, permeating the air with a smell that stung Ruith’s nostrils.

The intense battle between Vaeri and the bald Voidborne still continued, neither of them able to gain the upper hand against the other. The tall man seemed to finally notice that he couldn’t hear his friends anymore, and cast a quick glance behind him.

His eyes widened in anger, as he saw the mangled bodies of his companions.

“Ygivlra! Ygvilra! YGIVLRA!”

The man screamed a foreign word over and over, veins bulging all over his body. His eyes looked like that of a lesser Voidborne, maddened and only wanting the blood of their enemies. His attacks gained a new fervor, managing to push Vaeri back.

Ruith almost felt bad for the man. He was forced to stand by and fight some human while his group was completely destroyed.

‘Don’t worry, you will join them soon,’ Ruith said in his mind.

He was running low on mana, but had enough to assist Vaeri in ending the last Voidborne’s life.

Two [Root Pierce]’s sliced through the air towards the man from behind, but he was somehow able to sense them and dodge. 

Ruith and Vaeri continued to assault the man, Vaeri would come at him from the front while Ruith’s roots would attack him from the back.

‘Shit, I’m almost out of mana…’

As soon as Ruith’s mana ran out, the pressure on the Voidborne diminished greatly. He began to push Vaeri back once again, but then suddenly stopped.

His body stiffened, the glaive ending its slash. The two humans looked at him confused, even hesitating to attack. However, it turned out they didn’t need to.

The life in the man’s eyes departed, and his body sagged to the ground.

‘What the hell?’ Ruith thought to himself.

Both of them walked over to the man’s corpse laying on the ground. They inspected his body, noticing that some areas seemed to be bruised. Muscles seemed to be out of place, as if they had been torn to shreds.

“His body gave up…” Vaeri muttered.

It seemed that the Voidborne had destroyed his own body in his enraged state, his muscles literally ripping themselves apart.

They stared down at the man for a few moments, actually feeling a bit of sadness for him. He fought as hard as possible for his fallen group, but in the end his body gave out before his mind did. The two gained great respect for the fallen Voidborne, something the two had never expected to feel for what were supposed to be mindless monsters.

After a few more minutes, Ruith and Vaeri looked away. 

“Let’s check these tents, could still be someone inside,” Ruith said.

There were four tents in total, two across from the bush where they had hidden and one on the left and right.

Ruith and Vaeri moved towards the first one on the left, but found nothing of interest inside. There were just a few makeshift beds and clothes scattered around. The next one contained a massive amount of food and water.

“Huh, we should be able to live off of this for nearly a year if we wanted to!” Ruith said in excitement.

“Well, we have to be back to the Final Bastion in under six months…” Vaeri reminded him.

“Ah, right. Anyway,” Ruith led the way to the next tent. 

As soon as he swept away the drape that served as an entrance, he heard a gasp. Ruith quickly took a few steps back, but kept the entrance open.

There was a small lantern in the center, illuminating the whole place.

Cowering in a corner was a skinny Voidborne girl, looking only a year older than Ruith and Vaeri at the most. Scattered around the floor of the tent were papers, some with strange diagrams on them and others covered in words of a foreign language.

Vaeri arrived next to Ruith, spotting the girl in the corner. She immediately drew her dagger again, prepared to end the girl’s life.

Ruith had just raised a hand to stop Vaeri from proceeding, when the Voidborne spoke in an extremely frightened tone, her words hurried and clumsy

“Wait! Wait!”

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