33 Risen#re

The sounds of footsteps echoed outside the camp and the smell of blood ran through the air, when Lirian left the tent he heard planks being dropped to bridge the gap across the trenches.

Edith led the group back across the trenches with her horse's hooves, klip kloping, on the makeshift bridges.

"That was fast," Lirian commented as Edith came to him.

She climbed out of the saddle placing her hands on his shoulders she slid down and smiled brightly, it was a pity that he couldn't see her.

"Aren't I impressive?" she whispered in a flirty tone as the carcasses were being dropped down with their blood dripping all over the green grass.

Lirian smiled back wrapping his hands around her waist, "I wouldn't be dating you if I thought you weren't impressive," as he finished speaking he felt that something wasn't right.

He chuckled nervously as he replayed what he said in his head, "You know how sometimes when you say something in your head it sound amazing, but when it's said aloud it doesn't translate all that well," he laughed nervously as he explained himself.

Edith stomped on his foot, but unfortunately the steel capped boots they wore protected him, she huffed and stormed away not letting him say anything else.

Lirian sighed, 'You're over a trillion years old and you still making rookie mistakes,' he complained to himself.

The horse neighed loudly in his face as it saw Edith walking off, "Yeah I know buddy, I can be an idiot sometimes," he told the horse and stroked its mane.

"Huff," the horse breathed voicing it's agreement.

He turned his focus back to the task at hand they killed a couple creatures and left a long bloody trail back to the camp, the smell of the blood would be perceived as a threat by the animals.

But most importantly, the unnecessary killing of creatures would drive all of them into a frenzy.

In the wild there was a special rule that all creatures obeyed, they would hunt and kill only what they needed to survive, after finishing their meal, they would feed their young and leave the rest to the scavengers, it was part of the natural cycle.

When a creature that didn't obey this rule appeared they would be treated as a type of abomination, and all the predators would gather to deal with the threat.

The first part of the plan was to anger the creatures and make them attack, with the slaughter they would cause in the night the other creatures would see them as an abomination and the real fight would begin.

---

The sun set and the entire camp was completely dark, as the prowling creatures began to move out.

'Awo'

'Awo'

"Awooooo"

The sound of wolves howling echoed in the night sky, as they gathered in their packs, the first wave had arrived.

The wolves charged forward with angry cries and their packs formed a line as they raced towards the dark camp.

They thought the creatures thought them dumb, as if they couldn't smell the blood of their kin from the camp, as if they couldn't smell the man flesh hiding in the dark.

As the wolves closed the gap, they suddenly took a tumble as they fell into the trenches.

Sharp howls of pain rang out from the trenches as the wolves paws hit jagged rocks and some of them fell directly onto pointy sticks and thorns and they began to leak blood before the battle even begun.

As the other creatures noticed where the others had fallen they started to leap across the gap, the humans would find difficult to cross.

Lirian chuckled and laughed, "Mages!" he shouted aloud as the first wolves climbed out of the trenches and the others began to jump.

"Set them aflame," Lirians words were their command, within seconds all the mages that could form a stream released long streams of fire, scorching the creatures that made it across.

The creatures fell back as the intense light and heat took them by surprise but without a running build up they fell into the trenches, only to get skewered by the sharp rocks and branch's again.

"Set the trenches alight," Lirian shouted out, for the past three days, he had them gather as much extra tinder as possible, he also made them cut down a few trees to act as firewood.

The mages took careful steps forward and began hurling as much fire as they could in the trenches setting everything alit.

Sharp howls of pain echoed, as the fur of the animals caught on fire, they began to thrash around wildly as they turned into living fireballs.

The warriors moved forward with their swords and spears held firmly making quick work of the creatures that made it across.

Suddenly a ten foot tall reptilian creature, with hinged legs and scythe like arms came dashing through the fire with glee, it made a loud shrilling sound as it brought down it's scythe like arms that could cut the winds as it approached the warriors.

The shield bearers, rushed forward to intercept the sharp scythes as thirty spear bearers, rushed in impaling the poor creature on every open spot, in a second the first, first-grade mystic creature was slaughtered by the students in a pitiful manner.

Once the creature went down, only a few more dared to cross the fires before they began their retreat.

In total over a hundred creatures attacked and eighty were killed, but Lirian wasn't happy at all he was to busy gritting his teeth and clenching the handle of his katana that still did not get a chance to taste any blood.

'I planned far to well,' Lirian shouted at himself internally, he had no idea how to vent the growing blood lust in him, it was so much worse now that the opportunity was staring him directly in the face but he missed it.

The katana hummed in his hands as if agreeing, it was made to do battle so far it had only been used to cut a tree up a boulder and a tree, it could feel it's wielder's unbridled ocean of skill, an ocean as vast as all the empty space in the universe, and it shivered in anticipation for the moment it would be used by those masterful hands to shed blood on to the lands.

The only ones that needed rest after the battle if you could even call it that was the mages, they used up all their energy in creating the walls of fire.

"You did… well," Lirian announced in a cramped voice, the students cried internally not understanding what they did wrong, they did everything without attaining a single loss, they didn't even 'waste the arrows' as Lirian put it.

"Now start pilling up the corpses on our side of the trench, they'll make a good barrier and leave a gap every fifty feet to funnel them through," Lirian ordered them as he stomped back to his tent.

A few seconds after he took his seat Edith came in, he shot to his feet and faced her with an apologetic look on his face, "About earlier I'm sorry, and to answer you correctly you didn't simply impress me, you're the most impressive girl I know," he complimented her with a guilty grin.

"Oh my," Edith feigned being overwhelmed as she brought her hand to her chest, "For you to offer me a complement, it's a miracle," she laughed at the end as she was unable to keep up the melodramatic acting.

She inched closer to Lirian and brought her face to his until their steamy breath's bounced of each other's face's as Lirian came in to seal the deal she narrowly avoided his kiss and turned around.

She looked back at the stupefied Lirian and giggled, "Now we are even," she said with a sassy smile.

"Why did you sound so displeased outside?" she asked changing the topic, "You know that they did a great job out and there so do they, it won't sit well with them if you don't complement them once in a while."

Lirian sighed, "It's nothing, don't worry about it," he shrugged it off.

Edith's eyes fluttered in wonder, "Don't you boys have a rule that when a girl says, 'It's nothing,', it definitely isn't nothing, you know we girls have that same rule about boys," she said in an amused tone.

Lirian sighed, "That rule only applies to girls," he said in an unconvincing tone as he turned to face the map.

Edith came up to him and wrapped her arms around him from behind, he could feel her breasts pressed firmly against his back it was a soft and pleasurable sensation that made him get goose bumps on his skin.

"We're a couple now, you know," she whispered in a soft and gentle tone, "You don't have to keep doing everything by yourself."

"I'm not doing everything by myself," he replied not understanding what she was saying, "I mean I even let Media lead this expedition and let all of you make decisions for the group," he said defensively.

Edith chuckled slightly but tightened her grip around his waist, "We aren't blind or stupid you know, we didn't know at first but as we watched you, we saw how easy this came to you, the only reason you gave out power was to make this more of a challenge for yourself," her voice was so soft it could hardly be called a whisper but it made Lirian tremble.

"I know you well…" her words were suddenly cut off by the shouts of the students outside.

"… the creatures are attacking, there are multiple mystic beasts in the horde!" they heard the loud shouting and rushed through the flaps of the tent, forgetting what they were talking about.