The Fourth Realm (The Ten Realms Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  As they rode forward, the destruction around the damaged fields increased. They had to navigate the roads that were damaged and broken in places.

  No one dared to breathe too loudly.

  “I hate this shit,” Erik muttered himself, calming himself down with his own words. It was like a million eyes were watching him, toying with and keeping him on tenterhooks. Fight me or piss off, he thought to himself.

  They pushed on as nothing happened.

  “The intersection is just ahead,” Rugrat reported from the scouts.

  “Stay alert, we’re halfway there,” Erik told all of the Alvan Army, using his words to try to calm and reassure them.

  There was a terrible battle cry off to the north that couldn’t have come from a human, closely followed by the clashing of weapons. Mana was stirred up as a fight broke out.

  The traders and their mounts were all startled by the ruckus.

  “Calm it, calm it!” A trader called out as the traders looked around with large eyes, eyeing the road ahead.

  A wave of air cut through the fog, clearing it off to one side.

  “Incoming, three o’clock!” a scout called out.

  “Move it, follow the plan!” Erik barked over the sound transmission.

  “Move, come on!” Tully yelled to the traders as they picked up the pace. Erik rode Lola, his face cold as his body was no longer tired or cold.

  He was just reacting to circumstances as his training kicked in.

  “Pushing ahead, there are undead fighting one another, hopefully they continue to do so!” Rugrat announced.

  The mana was stirred up. he fog was being rapidly thrown clear so Erik could see further. A large spell went off as the fog finally cleared The lighting was still dull with the fog above, blocking out the sun but now he could see the group of a hundred or so undead fighting one another. Their powerful attacks had caused the fog to lift.

  The Alvans had all seen Egbert, so undead weren’t all that unfamiliar to them. The traders had never seen them before and started to panic.

  “Calm the fuck down, the’re only undead,” Tully said, trying to manage the traders.

  Trees were tossed to the side by a skeleton knight’s attack. They were just under one hundred meters away but a wave of air cut at Davos, who turned, using his shield. The force of the attack pushing him and his mount sideways. Being a member of the special teams his mount and gear was the highest quality.

  “Strong fucker,” Davos said, getting seated again, grabbing his reapeater.

  The scouts pushed out to the sides of the road as another group of undead that were further down the road started to attack them.

  Repeaters fired into the fog aimed at the glowing eyes of the undead or using their spells as points of aim.

  “Covering!” Rugrat barked.

  “Special Team One!” Erik yelled.

  Niemm led Special Team One out from the pack and moved ahead as they all sped up. The traders whipped their beasts in the hopes of increasing their speed as they all increased their pace.

  “Covering!” Niemm yelled as they started to fire on new groups of undead.

  “Shit,” Erik said to himself. They didn’t have clear sightlines, the battles were clearing some of the fog but they didn’t know what was further ahead of them. His stomach turned over with anxiety as he started to question his own orders.

  “Push on!” Erik yelled. The trader beasts were already startled, trying to turn them around would take forever and was a quick way to kill them all.

  They couldn’t do anything else, they just had to fight through as he pulled out a repeater. He held his reins in his left hand and put his repeater in the crook of his arm to balance it as he fired on the undead that were emerging out of the fog on either side of the road.

  “Rugrat get up high. Glosil have our aerial scouts in the sky. I want to know what’s happening around us,” Erik commanded.

  George let out a roar and jumped into the sky as the beast masters and mages started shooting off spells and releasing their aerial beasts to see what was around and ahead of them.

  ***

  Hadard looked at the undead that were coming out of the fog in droves. They were rushing forward and were getting ever closer.

  The undead are focusing their attacks on the groups that are firing at them. He thought as he looked out of the caravan. We don’t need to be the strongest, just the fastest.

  Each of them was emitting an aura that was on par with some of the Masters he had seen. He looked around and saw other carriages that had been destroyed with newer items littered about.

  Hadard used his sound transmission device.

  “Flavus, Otho and Wido! Get your slowing spell scrolls ready!”

  He unraveled his own spell scroll as they were nearing the intersection that led to the south and continued on to the east.

  Hadard shivered as he saw undead turning to face them.

  He opened the door to the trading carriage.

  “Get ready to go left around the main road,” Hadard said.

  “Yes boss,” The driver was pale, his hands tight around the reins as his eyes were as wide as saucers, his whole body shaking.

  Hadard looked to the south where a city emerged out of the fog like a titan rearing its head, watching them coldly.

  That’s bigger than any city I’ve seen. It must be an imperial capital.

  Part of a massive spire reached into the sky but it had been struck by something and collapsed on the buildings below.

  Other spires reached into the sky. They were all in various states of disrepair, except for the one that wasn’t a spire at all but a totem of the Ten Realms.

  The walls of the city showed multiple breaches. Skeletons, armor, and weapons lay across this battlefield. The siege weapons had fallen apart and rotted. Now there was nothing left alive, only the undead waging a forgotten war.

  The sight of the skeletons struck Hadard with fear to his core. Never had he witnessed this anywhere in the realm.

  Hadard turned and focused on the road ahead. He had lived in the Fourth Realm all of his life, it was not a place filled with merciful people to say the least. He had only survived this far by doing what needed to be done, sometimes wielding the blade himself, other times using others to do it.

  Hadard saw the mercenaries start to pull out their spell scrolls. You think you can slow us?!

  “Flavus, Otho, Wido, use your slowing spell scrolls!”

  He started to use his speed increase spell as he kicked the door.

  “Go left as soon as the spell hits!”

  ***

  “Covering!” Roska shouted.

  “Dragon Platoon, ready spell scrolls to open a path!” Erik ordered as he saw the undead on the road facing them. He fired on them. It might have done some damage but the undead just took the attacks, firing back powerful attacks that had already injured more than one person.

  Once we get in close it’s going to get bad.

  “We’ve been slowed!” Glosil called out as a spell landed on the army.

  ==========

  You have fallen under the spell Slowed Reactions

  Ends in 9:59

  ==========

  Another spell landed on the caravan. Instead of slowing, they sped up as they cut north, breaking from the Alvan formation as they did so.

  A few of the Alvan Army that were closest fired on them, one would have to be blind to not figure out what the traders were doing.

  Erik gritted his teeth and looked at his options.“Who isn’t debuffed?” he asked.

  “Dragon Platoon’s scouts are good to go!” Domonos reported.

  “I’m good,” Rugrat said.

  Erik was studying the road around him and figuring out his options.

  We can follow the caravan but anything they stir up and pass is going to be right in our path. We can charge down the road, though we’re going so slow we’re going to take heavy casualties. Head south towards the city? We’ll have be
tter visibility but we have no idea what is in there. It will be close quarters fighting but then we’re not caught out in the open and we can use our numbers to overpower their strength. The larger skeleton knights were the stronger ones, some reaching up to ten feet tall. Only a few of them would be able to fight at once in the city. The number of undead, the dead mana, it must be linked to the city somehow.

  “We’re going to go south across the battlefield. Rugrat, take Dragon’s scouts and scout ahead. The rest of us will follow behind and find a defensible position to hold up in. Switch formation sockets on panther’s armor in fire teams to speed enhancing,” Erik ordered.

  The grouping of soldiers started to move under Glosil’s orders as the Alvan Army cut to the south.

  Rugrat dropped to the ground on George in the middle of Dragon Platoon’s scouts who were in two lines of five. They’d inserted speed enhancing formations into their mount’s armor sockets as they took off ahead of the majority of the army.

  “Captain, there is a dungeon core in the city!” Storbon shouted.

  “You sure?” Erik responded.

  “Used Dungeon sense!”

  “Rugrat, find that dungeon core.”

  “Spread out to ten meter spacing! Heavy repeaters and rifles!”

  Glosil yelled as they raced across the battlefield, the panther’s throwing up dirt and mud. Erik put his repeater away and pulled out his rifle. He fired on a group of twenty mounted undead knights that were rushing towards them.

  Rifles and repeaters peppered the knights and their mounts, hitting the ground around them and throwing up dust devils. A few mages waved their staffs, sending a holy light attack and dozens of needle sized rocks.

  The knights came through the cloud of destruction with only three of them being knocked out of the fight running on an angle to the road, trying to catch their rear.

  The remaining undead had slight damage but had only been slowed slightly.

  “Aim you fuckers!” Yui yelled as everyone tightened up their shots as they pushed forwards.

  I hope to hell that dungeon core is the center of this shit storm. Erik prayed to himself

  “Glosil, I need to know what we’re going into,” Erik said as he fired and worked the action, hitting one of the knight’s mounts. The round exploded, making them miss their footing. Their speed, the terrain and the weight of the knight riding them caused them to slam into the ground as they rolled over, tossing the knight free.

  “Aerial scouts move out towards the city, populate the map!” Glosil ordered as the magical constructs and beasts above moved forwards as fast as possible. The army had linked all of their maps already.

  Erik pulled out his map and stuck it on Lola’s back in clips as he looked at their destination.

  Fuck it’s massive.

  He glanced up and then back down. He threw out waypoints for entrances into the city. Rugrat and his scouts had just made it into the city as Erik and the rest of the army were fighting their way into it. Repeaters, rifles and spells were being unleashed as the undead charged at them with melee range weaponry.

  Their arrows must have been used up or destroyed long ago. I hope they don’t have fucking mages.

  “Yui, have your mages fuck up the ground in front of the undead charging at us. Use grenades if they get in close enough!” Glosil shouted. Yui and Domonos worked well under the pressure, moving their people around even on the move. They were halfway to the city, heading for the broken walls. Without the carriages they could now move across the battlefield as well as they could move on the road but the speed debuff was still kicking their asses.

  An undead that had been under a number of corpses stood up and they stabbed out with their spear, hitting a soldier in the chest and throwing them off of their panther.

  Erik stood up in his stirrup, firing and working his action. He was using blunt force formations on his weapon and explosive rounds with a powerful acid poison. The undead was pushed back with the force of the round., The bullet exploded inside their ribs as the acid ate their bones away.

  Others fired on the lumbering undead as the section behind altered their path. One of them reaching down and grabbing the rider that had been tossed from his panther,, tossing them up on their own mount as they checked them over.

  They pushed past the recently fallen undead. They didn’t have time to waste on it to make sure it was dead.

  Come on Rugrat, get the fucking core.

  Chapter: Imperial Capital Vuzgal

  Rugrat rushed into the city with the rest of the scout section right behind him. The buildings’ glory days had been shattered with the fighting that had happened in the city.

  Bodies lay in the alleys and the streets. All of them were worn away with the passage of time so that only bones remained.

  ==========

  Event

  ==========

  You have found the undead imperial capital Vuzgal, which lies cursed by its last emperor. Forces wage war, even in death, until their bodies are broken and destroyed, neither side ever able to secure victory.

  Investigate Vuzgal and stop the curse. Release the soldiers from their fighting and reclaim this lost land.

  ==========

  “Yeah, you can fuck off with your events and all,” Rugrat hissed. He checked on his people as they rode through Vuzgal’s streets.

  Fighting was still going on inside the city as well as the outside. They could hear the clash of weapons in the distance as the undead continued their never-ending war with each other.

  A dragon bear lay in a collapsed building, its rider nowhere to be seen. A wall of stone had been melted with a powerful destruction spell.

  Rugrat used his Mana Sight.

  “Turn left down the next street,” he called out. “Use your mana sight if you can, the undead are made from mana so look for where the mana is concentrated. We’ll avoid those areas, we don’t have the time or the numbers to get stuck in a fight.”

  Rugrat used his dungeon sense, which had recovered from their three day rush, getting a precise location of the dungeon core which he waypointed and shared with the others.

  “Our goal is this dungeon core. If there is one of us alive you will get that damn dungeon core. Understood?”

  “Understood,” they called back.

  “Go straight for two streets and then right,” Rugrat ordered.

  The scouts had their own beasts and spells to reveal the area and terrain, building out a map of Vuzgal for them all to use.

  They kept advancing, avoiding the roving packs of undead and those that were locked in battle.

  Rugrat checked his map and looked up at the broken spire in the middle of the capital. Of course it’s right in the middle of all this.

  “Rugrat, are you there yet?” Erik asked over array.

  “Nearly, this place is fucking huge!” Rugrat heard wings flap as George alerted him to incoming enemies.

  “Shit! Contact left!” one of the scouts shouted. They fired their rifle at the incoming mob, winging one with an explosive shot.

  Rugrat and the rest of the soldiers turned and fired on them as the approaching, winged pack of undead got in range.The winged creatures couldn’t deal with the explosions, which blew away bones and disrupted the magic that they used to keep their bodies together and afloat, forcing them to the ground.

  Sergeant Dong Ju pulled out a spell scroll. It was an Earth scroll, so as it activated the local dirt and stones shot out, pelting the undead. The onslaught forced them backwards as they tried to defend against the ground underneath their feet.

  “Let’s go! There are others coming!” Rugrat yelled. He saw the skeletons that had been patrolling now looking over in their direction.

  There were just too many inside the city to avoid them all.

  Rugrat could feel their strength with his heightened Mana sense. He knew that, although the rest of the company was coming, they could get bogged down in the fighting and torn apart.

  The dungeon core
was a Hail Mary but if they could take control of it, then even if this wasn’t a dungeon, they could turn it into one and make it their land. They had the Mana stones; they could power it and change the landscape into a defensive camp, giving them a terrain advantage. Fighting these creatures out in the open was not an option.

  They raced forward on their panthers and George, moving through the broken buildings and the rubble, raising dust as they skirted through the tight roads.

  They fired their rifles at anything that moved. Rugrat stood up on George with the other marksmen, moving with their mounts that had been trained to ignore the rifle fire.

  Rugrat aimed for the eye sockets and mouths of the skeletons, hoping to penetrate inside the skulls with the explosion from the round to tear their skulls apart. Even with his super-human aim, he wasn’t able to hit his target every time. They might be powerful creatures but without their heads, they collapsed into piles of bones. The other scouts were trying their best to mimic Rugrat’s shots.

  They were making progress but there were more undead closing in, attracted by the noise.

  “Fuck.” Rugrat cursed to himself. He could see that there was a group of undead that were attracted by the noise that were coming down a side street that was directly ahead of them and to the right. If they kept charging forward, then the scouts would run right into them.

  “Come on boy!” Rugrat mentally shouted to George.

  George understood his thoughts as he accelerated, weaving around the other panthers as he jumped up into the air. His wings unfurled as he started to gather mana in his body. His red fur looked like flames as motes of red, almost blue, flames appeared around him.

  Rugrat grabbed onto George’s armor as he slung his rifle and grabbed a half dozen stick grenades from his storage ring.

  They cleared the buildings, looking down the street at the undead ahead of the scouts.

  George breathed deeply and then washed them out with flames, coating the entire street and the undead in cackling fire. Rugrat grabbed the pull tabs at the bottom of the grenades, tugging on them to pull the tabs before throwing them. He tried to get them to blow up all over the street.