Chapter 206: A Sacrifice

The serpent’s venom hit the spider head-on.

Flamestone’s armored shell shuddered. Venom splashed across its body in sheets and the spider released a furious screech that carried above all the other noise. Its legs dug into the air like it was trying to push back against something with no surface to push against.

The wave was too large.

It swallowed Flamestone and kept going and the force behind it drove the spider backward into Alden and the Dragon together.

BOOOOOOOOOOM.

The impact knocked the breath out of Alden entirely. The Dragon roared in pain as its body was hurled backward through the air. Pyrion and Glacius both went with it unable to find their balance. The whole group tumbled through the sky toward the ground below.

Alden’s wings snapped open. He beat them as hard as he could trying to slow the fall. The ground was coming up fast.

’Come on! MOVE!’

More power into the wings caught enough to take some of the momentum off. Not all of it.

CRAAAAASH.

He hit the earth and skidded. Stone and dirt tore at him as he rolled across the broken ground and finally came to a stop against the wall of a collapsed building. The other Soul Beasts came down around him scattering debris in every direction.

For a few seconds everything rang.

He lay there breathing and letting his vision clear.

Then he tried to shift his weight.

"ARGH!"

The pain that shot through his left leg was sharp enough to white out his vision for a full second. He looked down.

During the fall his leg had caught a jagged metal rod jutting from the rubble. It had torn through his clothing and driven into the lower leg and the blood was already soaking through the fabric around it.

His fingers trembled when he tried to push himself up. The leg wouldn’t hold.

He went back down.

Damn it.

He could still hear the horse. Its hooves hammering the ground in a pattern that was getting louder.

THOOM. THOOM. THOOM.

He forced himself to look up.

The horse was moving directly toward him. Its horn gleamed in the light and hundreds of steel rods were already forming in the air around its body as it came. The sharpened tips aligning as it lowered its head.

Alden’s eyes went wide. ’You’re kidding me.’

"It’s heading toward Alden!" Adrian’s voice carried across the battlefield from somewhere to the left. He was already pointing.

Luna spun toward the sound. Her expression changed immediately. "Alden!"

She tried to move toward him. The turtle’s enormous foot slammed down between them.

THOOOOOM.

The shock wave forced her to leap backward or get thrown off her feet entirely.

Theodore rushed in from the other side and swung his sword hard to redirect the turtle’s attention. "Nicholas! Keep that thing busy!"

"I’m trying!" Nicholas launched a full attack toward the turtle’s exposed head. It turned slightly.

It wasn’t enough. Two of them were locked in position keeping the turtle away from the soldiers retreating behind them. Moving meant hundreds of casualties. And Alden was on the other side of a monster that weighed more than the buildings it was crushing.

He was too far away.

Roselle saw it happen from across the field. Her hands tightened but she was too far and had wounded people depending on her to move.

Cecilia beside her tracked the situation with a pale face.

Seris saw him fall.

The moment she spotted him against the collapsed building her chest clenched hard and she was already moving before the thought finished forming.

’Alden!’

Her scythe appeared in her hand. She ran across the open battlefield straight toward him.

The steel rods started coming down around her.

She twisted aside from the first volley. Ducked under one. Leaped over another. A third hit the ground directly in front of her and sent stone fragments spraying into her face and she pushed through it without slowing down.

She hurled her scythe forward. It spun through the air and the blade caught several incoming rods and knocked them off course. She extended her hand and guided its arc as it curved around a falling cluster.

One rod slipped past it entirely. It came straight at her face.

She tilted her head at the last possible moment.

The metal scraped across her cheek. A thin red line opened there.

She didn’t slow down.

’I can make it.’

Her eyes were locked on Alden across the distance. ’Just a little farther.’

On the ground, Alden pressed both hands flat and tried to push himself upright.

His leg buckled the moment he put weight on it.

He went back down with a strangled gasp. "Argh...!"

His vision swam for a second. He looked at the horse. The rods were nearly all aligned now. The massive creature had its head down and its full attention on the figure lying in the rubble.

[Concept: Dragon’s blood Activated]

It was definitely healing him, but the process was taking far too long.

’Come on. Just move.’

He gritted his teeth and tried again. Got his arms under him. The leg gave way.

He couldn’t get up.

The horse lowered its head completely.

The rods pointed forward in a single unified direction.

Seris was still running. Getting closer. But not fast enough and she could see it wasn’t going to be fast enough and her hand was already extending toward her scythe trying to clear a path through the next volley.

’Almost there.’

The rods shot forward.

"NO! ALDEN!"

Her voice cracked across the entire battlefield.

Alden closed his eyes.

SHHHHNK.

The sickening sound of metal piercing flesh echoed out, but the pain never came.

He opened his eyes.

Someone was standing in front of him.

A woman with chestnut hair. Steel rods protruded from her left shoulder and from her right arm and from her chest. The one in her chest had gone in at an angle that was dangerously close to her heart. Both her arms were slightly spread as if she had thrown herself open to cover as much space as possible.

"Si... Sierra?"