Descent of a God

Deployed

Jude POV:

"I'm going with you!" Ellie's voice sounded from behind.

I stopped in my tracks and the guard beside me halted as well. Turning back to lock eyes with my sister, I struggled to hold down the words, 'it's too dangerous.'

"You promised, remember?" Ellie's gaze remained resolute as she walked to me.

"A massive horde of corrupted beasts," I muttered softly.

"You'll be with me," she answered immediately. "And I'll have the protection of the Wall."

The guard beside me scratched his head and kept shifting his gaze toward the exit impatiently. "Commander Jude..."

"We're going," I stated as I began walking toward the training ground exit once again.

Looking back over my shoulder, I called out to my sister. "What are you doing? Let's go."

Ellie visibly brightened as a contagious smile blossomed on her face. She followed after me in a full run. "Come on, Boo!"

Immediately outside of the training grounds there was an unfamiliar mage with a large sparrow-like bird perched on his shoulder, stood, waiting. After making eye contact, he respectfully inclined his head. "Greetings, Commander Jude. I am Officer Julor Strejin. A member of my squad surveying the Beast Glades was the one to spot the horde. I will be briefing you about the situation at the Wall."

"Officer Julor," I acknowledged with a nod.

Without wasting any time, the officer began informing me of everything that I was expected to know. Two other mages—both highly-accomplished adventurers before joining the army—would be accompanying us as additional support to the Wall. The best estimate on the size of the beast horde was somewhere close to thirty thousand. Although a majority seemed to be from D-class to B-class, there were several A-class and even quite a bit of S-class and SS-class mana beasts had been spotted.

"Unfortunately, we weren't able to get too close because of the Alacryan mages, but we spotted at least two dozen S-class mana beasts and several SS-class mana beasts," Julor stated solemnly.

I looked back at Ellie. "Two dozen S-class  and several SS-class mana beasts. And the fact that they are corrupted means they'll be even stronger and more fierce."

Ellie's face paled but her expression remained firm. "I'll be okay."

My determined, talented, yet sheltered, sister has definitely never seen a mana beast besides the tamed bonds in Xyrus when she was younger. I doubted she could even fathom how scary an SS-class beast was but here I was, leading her straight into not only one, but several... along with several thousands of other beasts.

I turned to Julor. "Any signs of retainers or scythes, Officer?"

"None yet," he replied confidently. "But the possibility remains high from the interrogation of the spy we caught."

"How many days do we have until the horde reaches the Wall?" I inquired.

"By the pace that they're marching, we expect them to arrive in no more than two days time," he answered before shooting a glance at where my sister was. I could tell he was about to say something but he held his tongue.

We walked in silence for the remainder of our small walk until we reached the docking room. It was relatively quiet inside the usually-bustling space. Besides the several workers strapping saddles on giant hawk-like mana beasts, I could only see Virion with a small entourage when we had arrived.

"Jude!" Virion called out, his once-cheerful disposition had faded, instead replaced by war-weary eyes. Beside him were two mage soldiers and a few maids behind them.