Chapter 9: My Path...
The towering figure soon made itself visible to them, if Bailey had to take a guess at its size it was almost the same as a small castle.
"Prepare the cannons!" An order came from the commanders almost the second the beast made itself visible to them.
Thousands upon thousands of cannons which had been resting unmanned on the backlines were quickly organised.
All of them were manned by Wielders of Fire Elementa who slowly channelled their energy into the cannons, complex runes began to shine across their surfaces.
'Runic Enchantment?' Bailey thought to himself, they looked simple at a first glance but the process of carving them could take a single Runic Master a month to finish on an item as small as a sword, let alone for an object the size of a cannon.
Runic Masters were a branching profession of Elementa Wielders who didn't specialise in combat, any type of Elementa could be used to carve runes but the most effective runes in combat were those carved by Fire Elementa.
Bailey watched as the cannons were loaded by a second person as the first continued to channel their Elementa into the runes – the runes begin to ignite wisps of fire that sparked off of the surface of the cannons'.
"Take aim at the Primal!" Another order echoed through the air, everything was eerily silent apart from the distance vibrations coming from the movement of the Beast.
Bailey looked at the approaching giant, "Primal…" He muttered recalling what he'd read before, the beasts could be separated into several groups which had been established over the years.
A Primal was a beast with the ability to control the power of an Element, it was just below a Beast King. Every Primal was massive in size and could destroy an entire Kingdom prior to the discovery of Elementa.
Luckily at such a distance, it was practically impossible for any Elemental attack the Primal wished to inflict on them to harm them.
A Primals' power was limited to the immediate area surrounding them, of course, Beast Kings weren't controlled by such a restriction which was why they were called 'Kings' among the beasts.
Primals did, however, possess a certain amount of intelligence, if the wolves from before could be considered to have the intelligence of an infant mainly following their instincts then Primals had the same amount of intelligence as a human child.
Beast Kings were beasts which possessed a true human level of intelligence, eight of the nine Beast Kings in the world at the time were able to speak the human language during their battles with the first Emperor.
"FIRE!" The voice of the Commander presiding over the Artillery Units ordered a roar ripped through the air completely shattering the silence that had shrouded the battlefield, thousands of small metal balls flew into the distance.
Small plumes of smoke began to rise from where they impacted, in moments the shell of the beast had thousands of holes and in it.
The steel cannonballs had easily penetrated its shell causing it to be heavily wounded in the process.
The beasts let out a weak roar as it fell to the ground, the vibrations shook the entire battlefield as it breathed its last breath and the battlefield was returned to an eerie silence once more.
The recruits nervously looked at the veterans who still continued to stare into the forest undisturbed by what'd just happened, it was obvious to even the ignorant recruits that this wasn't the end of the Beast Wave.
"Bailey! Is there a Bailey among you?" A cry came from behind interrupting the silence, Bailey turned to see a soldier making his way through the recruits who parted as he passed.
Several stood forward about to say something before the man looked at them and shook his head, obviously they didn't match the description of the person he was looking for.
Bailey sighed knowing his time on the frontline had come to an end, "Stay safe." He said turning to the recruits around him, "Most importantly, protect each other." He said leaving these final words of parting.
Many on the back lines looked at him as if he was a madman, only those who'd faced the majority of the beasts would truly know how many times he'd saved their lives in the chaos, healing several of their minor wounds before rushing off to save another.
To the frontline recruits he'd been their Guardian Angel, the few Elementa Wielders gave him a look of gratitude as he walked towards the soldier still calling his name.
Finally, he spotted Bailey walking towards him as the recruits began to part to make way for him, looking him up and down the man nodded
"The Prince wishes to see you." He said simply before turning, of course, Bailey was expected to follow him.
…
"Bailey! Still alive, that's great!" Lewis laughed seeing Bailey approach him, he saw the blood covering the spear on his back and nodded satisfied, "At least one of us was able to risk his life in battle, my guards won't let me move towards the front regardless of what I say." He said motioning his hands in the direction of the four bodyguards surrounding him on horses.
"The Emperor knew you'd try something like this My Lord, we're simply following his orders – apologies." One of them said as he stared at Bailey who was approaching, his hand remained on his sword prepared to kill him the moment he made any suspicious movements.
Of course Bailey had no intention of attacking Lewis, apart from Bella he could be said to be his only friend and had been a mentor to him, despite this his bodyguards still remained on edge around him.
They couldn't be blamed however, their priority was the protection of the Prince it was only right they remained on guard around him, if they didn't he'd doubt their intentions as bodyguards.
Lewis finally stopped brooding over the matter and turned to Bailey once more, "We have several with light wounds and more with heavy wounds among the Veteran Troops. Although there were none wounded or even dead among the recruits you were with, no doubt due to your efforts I'm guessing, the recruits on the other side had no such luck. Hundreds wounded and several dead and this is before the battle even formally begins."
Lewis sighed, even he had no idea what his father had been thinking conscripting young men with no prior combat experience it was simply sending them to their deaths was it not?
Bailey was shocked to hear how high the mortality rate was among the other recruits, he wasn't surprised about the lack of in the Veterans due to their experience in combat but for the recruits to suffer so many deaths was astonishing.
"As we discussed before, the injured and heavily wounded have been sent to the tents behind the battlefield – we have Light Elementa Wielders working to bring them back from the brink but none of them are on the same level as you, the Beasts apparently attacked much earlier to the East and my father dispatched most of the high level Light Elementa Wielders on the continent there." Lewis said, even he hadn't expected only the first encounter to result in so many injuries and so many more deaths.
Bailey nodded at his words, their prior agreement was that after the first encounter he'd be sent to the backlines to focus on healing the wounded; even he felt it was a waste to have someone of his abilities on the frontline.
Of course, he'd requested to be sent to the frontlines at first because he didn't want his training to go to waste.
It might've seemed like a selfish request but he wanted to know whether he truly had the ability to protect himself in this battle.
"I'll get someone to escort you to the tents," Lewis hesitated before continuing, "Please… Please save as many of them as you can, these soldiers deserve to go home to their families alive."
Bailey nodded, he was already planning on doing things like this – the only reason he'd forsaken the power of Chaos for the power to heal was because of this, for the ability to save those who needed to be saved.
"It seems I'm really not suited for a life on the frontlines… But is healing really the right path for me to take?" He muttered to himself as he followed a man off towards the crowds of tents.
He could already hear people screaming in agony in the distance.
The screams seemed to help him resolve his internal turmoil, "For now, at least, this is the path I choose…" With that, he hurried his steps and increased his pace in the direction of the tents.
Every second was the difference between someone's life and death, a life he could save…
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