Chapter 4 – Prologue 4
The door is opened with a bang, startling the one inside.
"Did something happen dear?" Inquired the bewildered woman after accidentally dropping her knitting kit.
"Didn't you get the message mom?" replied Cray after closing the door.
"What message? I left my phone in my bedroom" Cray's mom got even more confused.
Cray walks toward the tv's remote and hits the power button. There the same news is being broadcasted by the female news anker.
Cray's mom couldn't close her slight opened jaw.
The war continues for another two days, where the defenders at last register that their opponent's goal wasn't to conquer and enslave. It's none other to plunder and annihilate. Thus, the struggle gets more intensified. The army applies conscription for more soldiers from Sevillians. Therefore, sparked the debate between a particular mom and her son.
"Sweety, please don't do this, some of my friends already lost their sons to the war, please don't leave me too" Pled the mother to her son not to join the conscript and embracing him.
"It's okay mom, we all know that sooner or later, I'll die anyway, either my kidney succumbing to the drinks, or some random thugs on my way home. This war just a faster and also a chance for me to do some good deeds at last"
"No dear, you already did more than enough good deeds, we, we will find your little orchid soon….. then, then we will have a grand wedding for you two… and… and "Assured Cray's mom on persuading her son not to go, yet cut short by her son.
"Mom… please that's enough… you of all people know better mom…. It's just wishful thinking, for all we know, she might already get married and lives her married life already, could you please smile for me mom before I go? The son stopped her mom's childish like argument with a soft tone, all the while, returning her embrace.
"WHAT KIND OF MOM CAN STILL SMILE KNOWING HIS SON IS GOING TO KILL Himself? PLEASE DEAR,, DON'T DO THIS< I BEG OF YOU" Shouted the mother with tears streaming down from her blue sapphire eyes and tightening her embrace.
The boy gave a sigh, and ask one of his neighbours who're watching the scene,
"Mr. Anderson, please take care of my mom for me, I think, I might not come back after this"
"Please don't say that son, at least promise us that you will do your best to return safely" Said the old gentleman with greying short hair.
"Mm I'll try please Mr. Anderson, otherwise, I can't keep my heart in check later on" Affirmed Cray to the old gentleman's condition while pealing his mom's hands from embracing him.
"Come on Mrs. Sierphin, the man had decided his choice, we need to respect his resolution on defending his home" the greying haired man talk the mother to see her son's decision and holding her from giving chase to the walking son of hers with the help of the other neighbours.
"NOOOOOO!!!! YOU ARE ALL SENDING MY BABY TO HIS DEATH!!! LET ME GO!!! "
The shouting voice of his mom got lower and lower until he can no longer hear it. He gave a small sigh and a whisper of 'thank you mom, I love you'. He moves his legs faster to the waiting bus for carrying the conscripts towards the training ground.
The training went on for the next week. Cray received some basic lessons of shooting, first aid, army formation, and such, all the necessary knowledge to operates in an army.
Meanwhile, the war's favour keeps tilting towards the invaders side. The defender needs to split the main army into two due to the invaders created a two front battle zones. One moving in a direction to the capital of Zendlore, while the other one toward the capital of Virinvure. Despite the advantages of home ground familiarity, and numbers, both countries which under the invasion still lost many cities and towns, losing more and more ground to the invaders.
Cray got sent to the current frontline, at the city of Mortholq. The formerly flourishing and full of high-rise apartments, now reduced to a mir rubbles and mud mixed with blood from the fallen troops of both sides. He got assigned to a recon team to which what he didn't pay much attention on the briefing for the mission. All he knows is that his team isn't the first, in fact, his is the eighth. As what happened to the ones before? It all depends on who you ask, if you asked the major and higher ups, they'll tell you those men fell on protecting our home. But if you ask Cray, they all were dispensable due to their lack of special skills such as medical, war strategies, or high degrees of shooting skill. Just like him at the moment.
There are five of them, their objective is to find out how do the invaders harness the crystals which they brought. The science department couldn't discover any difference between those crystals from the common minerals. Yet, the invaders can apply the crystals as an energy source, powering their contraptions. One of the contraptions is a barrier of some sort, which makes a transparent curtain depicting the scene behind it, however, in the depiction of the curtain, there are no living beings to be found. Yet after someone passes through it, the invaders are all set to launch their attacks. Many lost their lives to this specific kind of ambush. And many more soldiers lost to just find a countermeasure for it.
They now implemented birds as the detector for the contraption, since even the avian also counted as the ones being covered by it. The defenders can determine the existing of the contraption if the bird disappeared similar to ghost passing through walls. Providing that was the case, a tank will be chosen as the spearheads or just straight up using artilleries to sweep out the hiding hostiles. Although the method seams stupid and old, it's still the best there are owing to drones also rendered ineffective on determining the contraption placement.
The rain pours quite heavily, acting as the perfect cover for an infiltration. The five men, geared with night vision goggles, a small calibre hand guns with silencer, and combat knifes, march toward their mission objective, which is a small invaders' camp, suspected to be a storage depo. The With the pitch-black sky and the mud's sent as their vail and perfumes, the recon team push forward. Taking down some patrolling invaders with a shot on the back of their heads. Yet some of the patrols just couldn't be taken down by a normal firearm, these types of invaders have some similarity to animals. A few uniqueness of them is that their body covered by some furs or scales, and vertical eyes similar when you're looking at a reptilian or felines. Not even a rocket to their face will put a stop to them.
All of the Invaders have humanoid body, excluding the ones which have animal features, there's also a distinct feature. It's the shape of their ears, some have the exact shape of human in general, however, some of them have a pointy ear similar to the shape of leaves.
After a two hour of evading taking down enemy's patrols, they finally arrive at their target location. The camp is being watched by four guards. Luckily they're only dazing of, therefore, the recon team circles to the back of the camp and snuck. Once the last team member has successfully snuck through the poorly built fences, they do a beeline to the storage which they assume was a warehouse of a company. It was locked, fortunately, they have a member with lock-picking skill. A few seconds later, the door is no longer an obstacle.
Inside, they find some unfamiliar food rations consisted of weird looking vegies, fruits and meets. Yet those are not their objective, therefore, they proceeded on recording the details of the tools in the room. there's a circle made of glowing characters and lines surrounding the rations, and also a stick with a glowing orb on top of it. The two instruments have a distinctive similarity to each other, both at least have one crystal attached to it and the mysterious words which glowing in a similar way to a pulsing of a heart. They couldn't do anything to the circle surrounding the rations, but for the instrument similar to a small light pole, they took it with them by covering the glowing orb with layers and layers of leather cloth so that it won't give their present out to the patrols on their way back.
"Hey guys, don't you think this is too easy? i… I mean this whole mission is just too smooth, if it's this easy, why would the elite teams even failed before?" Asked the man holding the tiny light pole instrument once they only have a quarter left to their rendezvous point.
"Don't jinx it smart a/s, maybe it's just they already lowered their guards" scolded the team leader and gave a possible explanation.
"Yea… perhaps it's also due to this storm like weather" added one of the men with a low tone.
"Damm… someone is even more pessimistic than me, but come to think of it, this really is just too simple, I don't like this at all" Remarked Cray and pondered about the whole ordeal. When he stopped owing to the cold sensation on his back. He then shouted.
"ROLL ASIDE!!!"
Two of the men were slowed on their responses and got sliced into four pieces of corpses. They didn't get a chance to scream before their deaths. While the team leader and the jinx managed to evade the claw that reduced their number down to mir half.
"You guys run!! I'll try to hold this b/stard off" Ordered Cray to his teammates.
"Roger that cadet, c'mon private, move! "Declared the team leader and rushing the jinx to hasten their steps.
"So much for a team leader, not even thanks, now then, how can I beat this big b/stard" thought Cray.
The assailant in front of him is 230 cm (7.5 foot) tall with body covered in tiger like pattern furs, three long claws pultruding from its two hands where the nails should be. It's eyes have a vertical slit as it's pupil. Probably poplars with girls excluding the claws and toning down the size to a tenth of it.
Cray dodges the incoming claw swipe amidst his observation of his assailant.
"Damm.. that's fast, one hit and I'm a goner" he remarked the swift attack of the tiger man while returning the swipe with a quick punch to its gut.
"Sh/t this is not a block of muscles, but a block of concreate" Cray yelled in his head from the shock after hitting his assailant abdomen and dodged a kick from it by taking a side step followed by a roundhouse kick to its back.
It's not the assailant who got flung but Cray from the knockback of his kick. The man and the tigerman exchanged some more moves where one keep dodging and counterattacking while the other relentlessly launching claw swipes and kicks yet none landed on their marks. Following the thought of the ant facing him can't do anything to harm it. It stops and start talking to the ant on its tongue.
"Yea… yea… just keep bullsh/tting of how week I am, what a typical villain cliché, dammit but in all of those cliches the villain all spoke in comprehendible dialogue, but this… this is only a gibberish!, I can't take any advantage at all from this b/stard's blabbering" Complained Cray on his unfortunate encounter while acting tired by panting heavily.
"C'mon brain, move your gears!, this b/stard is stronger and faster than the dumb orc, yet his moves are just like an opened book. Even so, I couldn't do sh/t to injure it" Cray rummaged his mind to find a way out for his current predicament, but to his dismay, the gibbering of his assailant comes to an end.
"F/ck , If I'm gonna kick the bucket, I'll at least kick yours first" Exclaimed Cray seeing the incoming punch which is faster than the swipes before.
Abruptly, his heart missed a beat. A beat then soon followed by some more rapid ones. He soon felt something cold from his rapid beating heart. Into his blood vessels and down to the tip of his left toes. He instinctively moves his right leg to the side for dodging the punch, ad do a 360 degrees spin with his stretch right feet as the pivot point, afterward, he performs another roundhouse kick in the direction of the tigerman along with releasing that cold something from the tip of his left toe.
What comes next is a pale bluish light which move forwards in a shape of a crescent moon. It cuts through the tigerman diagonally from his left shoulder down to his left waist.
It's quite the gore sight, the tigerman's upper body still got propelled forward from the punch momentums, while it's lower half just stood still. Resulting in its insides to spill all over. Although he beats his assailant, Cray also got rendered unmoving. He felt his body just did a 50KM marathon, not to mention having enough in him to care bout the gory sight upon him. he barely enough to move his head and neck.
In the far distant, he sees the humanoid invaders are launching a barrage of fireballs towards him and the two teammates of him. Although the fight between Cray and the tigerman seamed long, in reality, it's only lasted around thirty dozen seconds. Where the gibberish blabbering took almost half of it. Consequently, the two who's running earlier, couldn't get too far.
From the corner of his eyes, he witnesses the team leader pushing the damm jinx ahead of him. before the team leader got engulfed by the fire. He too soon feels the incoming heat. He closes his eyes and thought,
"What was that bluish light? Huff… I guess I'll never going to find out, You see that mom? Your son at least contributed a kill of those a/sholes, Orchelia, if you can hear me somehow, live your new life, I didn't have the guts to tell you my feelings for you, well… some of it also your fault, if only you could be softer and not solving everything with a punch, huff.. Stupid orc… See you on the other side"
That was the last thought of Cray Sierphin.
In a planet called Mythra that is.