Monarch Chapter 204 (Patreon)

Chapter 204

The decision to enter the magical fog had already been made when Prince Caelan announced that they would be taking a day off.

They had spent the past week adapting to the pressure of the inner city, exploring its streets and buildings, and gradually making their way toward the region they had deliberately avoided.

They were finally close to the point where their search for the Lost Sanctum of the Sage could properly begin, and yet, instead of moving forward, Caelan wanted everyone to rest.

But it was necessary in the end.

Before entering the fog, they needed to review the information they had gathered and determine the most likely location of the sanctum. Dorin's heirloom could guide them through the fog, but it could not tell them where to look once they reached the other side.

The old documents had provided an approximate region rather than a precise destination, and with the dangers waiting inside the inner city, wandering aimlessly would be a waste of both time and lives.

However, Rayne knew that the location of the sanctum wasn't the only reason behind the prince's decision.

As it turned out, Captain Edran had requested the break after losing several more soldiers while attempting to eradicate the monster nest they had discovered.

Although the expedition had yielded useful materials and experience, the casualties had taken their toll.

More importantly, the men had been marching into the ruins every single day for days now.

They could adapt to the danger, but that didn't mean their bodies had stopped feeling the strain.

Their minds needed rest as much as their muscles did, and the prospect of another day spent fighting monsters and searching abandoned buildings had begun to wear on even the more enthusiastic soldiers.

Caelan had apparently recognized the same problem.

Rather than push everyone until exhaustion led to more mistakes, he had agreed to the captain's request and declared a day of rest for the entire warband.

It turned out to be a welcome decision.

Rayne spent the whole day in bed.

He didn't train, didn't practice his mana cultivation, and didn't even bother going outside to stretch his legs.

He ate when food was brought to him, slept whenever he felt like it, and spent much of the remaining time lying on his back while staring at the ceiling.

It was, by any reasonable measure, an extraordinarily unproductive day, and for once, he didn't feel the slightest bit guilty about it.

His body had been working harder than usual since entering the inner city, and even if his increased physical attributes allowed him to endure the pressure better than most, he still needed to recover.

Besides, there was no point in exhausting himself before entering the most dangerous part of their expedition.

Unfortunately, giving his body a break did little to quiet his mind.

Something was bothering him.

The magical fog was an obvious concern. They had been warned about the creatures lurking within it.

It would have been strange if Rayne weren't worried about entering such a place.

However, the uneasiness he had been feeling lately wasn't quite the same as his usual apprehension before a dangerous expedition.

It was as though the fog represented one threat, but something else was waiting for them somewhere in the ruins, something that had yet to reveal itself.

He couldn't explain why he felt that way.

The strange silhouette he had sensed earlier, followed by the brief distortion he had noticed on a rooftop, were the only things he could point to.

But they had found nothing fruitful regarding any tailing.

Even so, he couldn't bring himself to dismiss them entirely.

He had asked Bran about it, hoping the older soldier might have noticed something he had missed.

Unfortunately, the old soldier hadn't noticed anything unusual either. There had been no suspicious tracks, and no sign that anyone had been following them through the ruins.

The larger warband hadn't encountered anything, either.

They had seen a few adventurers from time to time, but those encounters had become increasingly rare.

The warband's presence was now widely known throughout the city, and most adventurers had learned to keep their distance rather than risk an unnecessary confrontation with a large group of soldiers.

There had been no reports of anyone behaving strangely around them, nor had any of the soldiers noticed unfamiliar faces repeatedly appearing near their camps.

In other words, Rayne had nothing.

He could continue paying attention, use [War Pulse] whenever he had enough mana, and make sure that nobody approached his squad without being noticed.

Beyond that, there wasn't much he could do. He couldn't start accusing invisible enemies of following them simply because he had experienced a couple of strange sensations.

So he rested, allowed the day to pass, and tried to convince himself that he was worrying over nothing.

By the time the sun rose the following morning, he had mostly succeeded.

The rest had done everyone good.

The soldiers appeared less irritable, the weariness that had settled over their faces had eased, and even those who usually complained quietly seemed more willing to face another day of exploration.

Weskins was particularly pleased to have an opportunity to replenish his supplies without being asked to prepare potions at a moment's notice, while Dorin spent part of the morning checking the equipment he intended to take into the fog.

Rayne, for his part, was ready to return to work.

Whatever awaited them in the inner city, they had spent long enough preparing for it. The time had come to move forward.

Like always, the smaller party travelled with the main warband as they made their way through the ruins.

The difference was that Prince Caelan now walked almost alongside Rayne's squad rather than remaining with his other retainers.

To the soldiers who occasionally glanced in their direction, it seemed as though the prince had simply taken a liking to Rayne.

In truth, the prince used their journey to discuss the day's plans and the information they had gathered about the Lost Sanctum.

He also brought up the possibility of lending Rayne additional retainers once the group had explored the edge of the magical fog without encountering any serious problems.

Until now, Caelan had been reluctant to spare his men, since the warband needed their strength and he required close protection himself.

However, the dangers ahead might demand more manpower, and the retainers were experienced enough to adapt to the inner city's pressure relatively quickly.

They agreed to reconsider the arrangement after their initial exploration, when they would have a better idea of what awaited them inside.

The conversation continued until they reached the point where the warband would have to separate.

The larger group had made good progress through the ruins over the past week, and their current objective was to explore one of the city's outer edges, where they had discovered several old weapons that appeared to have survived the passage of time remarkably well.

The weapons had been found inside an intact building, and while their exact value was still uncertain, they were worth investigating further.

Their route diverged from the path Rayne's party needed to take, leading down a slope between several old buildings.

And when it was time to part ways, Captain Edran and Casper approached as the soldiers began organizing themselves for the day's work.

Both men had become accustomed to seeing Rayne depart with his smaller group, and neither seemed particularly interested in asking questions about where he was going.

In fact, their silence had gradually become more meaningful than any direct conversation could have been.

They knew.

Perhaps they hadn't known from the beginning, but by this point it would have been difficult for either man to believe that Rayne and the others were genuinely exploring the artisan district.

His party had occasionally returned to the city close to midnight, and there had been mornings when their departure had been delayed because of that.

There was only so much that could be hidden from two experienced and smart people.

Yet neither Edran nor Casper had confronted him.

Rayne felt a little guilty whenever he thought about it.

Captain Edran had given him opportunities he would never have received elsewhere, and Casper had offered him advice and assistance without demanding anything in return.

They had trusted him, supported him, and helped him grow stronger, even when they hadn't fully understood what he was capable of.

He wasn't proud of keeping them in the dark.

However, Caelan's objective was too important, and the consequences of revealing it prematurely could be considerable.

For now, he had accepted the prince's request for secrecy. That didn't mean he intended to maintain the lie forever.

Once the expedition was over, he would tell them the truth, even if Caelan disagreed.

He owed them at least that much.

"Stay safe," Edran said, giving him a measured look. "And make sure you look for more artifacts today. We've already found a few things worth bringing back, but there must be more hidden in those buildings."

"I'll keep an eye out, Captain."

"Don't take unnecessary risks."

"I won't."

Casper gave him a small nod, her expression as difficult to read as ever.

Rayne returned it before turning toward his squad.

He found Dean before leaving and handed over responsibility for the remaining members of his squad.

Dean had grown considerably more responsible over the past few weeks, and Rayne was increasingly comfortable leaving him in charge whenever their duties required them to separate.

The man still had plenty to learn, but he was no longer the short tempered brute.

"Keep them together and don't let anyone wander off," Rayne instructed. "If you encounter something unusual, don't try to handle it alone. Send word to the captain."

"Understood."

Rayne gave him a final nod before rejoining Bran, Andrew, Lyra, Weskins, Dorin, and the others.

With his party moving in one direction and the rest of the warband taking another, the two groups began to separate.

But they had barely taken fifty steps down the sloping street when Rayne noticed something at the edge of his vision.

A shadow.

It moved across the upper portion of a building to their left, so quickly that he might have missed it if he hadn't been looking in that direction.

At first, he thought it was a piece of debris falling from the ruined roof, but the movement was too deliberate.

Something had moved up there, and it was large enough to cast a shadow across the broken stone.

Rayne stopped. At almost the same moment, Bran and Andrew turned around.

The two veterans had noticed it, too.

"What is—" Kesh began, but his words died when Rayne immediately activated [War Pulse].

Mana spread outward from him, reaching into the surrounding streets and passing through the ruined buildings.

The familiar sensation pressed against his mind, then his perception settled on something, and Rayne's heart sank.

The very next second, the monster revealed itself.

It was positioned across the upper sections of two adjoining buildings, its body stretched along the broken rooftops as though the ruined structures were nothing more than a convenient place for it to rest.

It was far larger than anything they had encountered before.

The creature resembled a dragon.

Not a true dragon, at least as far as Rayne knew. He had never seen one in person after all.

Yet the beast before him possessed enough familiar features that the comparison came naturally.

It had a long, muscular body covered in dark scales, four powerful limbs, a thick neck, and a reptilian head that seemed almost too large for it.

Its body was roughly twice the size of the troll they had fought several days earlier, though its length made the comparison somewhat misleading.

The creature stretched far beyond the width of the street, with its long tail trailing behind it and curling around the remains of a rooftop structure.

There were no wings.

Instead, its forelimbs were positioned beneath its shoulders, each ending in thick claws that dug into the stone.

Its back rose in a series of ridged plates, each one overlapping the next like the armor of some ancient war machine.

Between those plates, faint reddish lines glimmered beneath the dark scales, resembling embers buried deep beneath a layer of ash.

Two horn-like protrusions extended backward from its skull, while smaller ridges ran along the sides of its face and down toward its neck.

Its nostrils flared as it drew in the air, and the scales around its mouth shifted slightly with each breath.

But it was the eyes that held Rayne's attention.

They were golden.

Not the dull yellow of an ordinary animal, but a bright, metallic gold that seemed to catch the light even beneath the shadows of the ruined buildings.

They were fixed directly on the group, and there was nothing mindless about the way the creature regarded them.

The creature's claws shifted against the rooftop.

Stone cracked beneath its weight and a low growl rolled out of its throat.

The sound reverberated through the surrounding buildings, sending a faint tremor through the broken stone beneath their feet.

Besides Rayne, Kesh stared at the creature with his mouth hanging open.

"What the fuck is this?" he muttered. "I've never seen anything like this before here."

Nobody answered him.

Rayne was too busy trying to understand what he was looking at.

His first instinct was to push mana through his arms, reinforcing his muscles while preparing to draw his blade.

"Everyone, spread out," he ordered, keeping his eyes on the beast. "Don't bunch together. Bran, keep your distance and—"

Another roar interrupted him.

This one came from the opposite direction.

Rayne turned his head just far enough to see the street the rest of the warband had taken, and for an instant, he forgot about the monster looming above his own group.

Another creature stood among the ruined buildings.

It was almost identical to the first and the soldiers had already begun shouting.

Some were retreating, while others had drawn their weapons and were trying to form a defensive line.

Captain Edran's voice carried above the confusion, barking orders as the warband scrambled to respond. Casper stood a short distance behind him, her hands already raised as mana gathered around her fingers.

Rayne could see the beginnings of panic spreading through the ranks.

They had been prepared for monsters. But there was a difference between facing a familiar threat and suddenly finding an enormous, dragon-like beast standing in the middle of the road.

Especially when there were two of them.

Rayne tried to get a better look at the second creature, hoping to identify some difference that might help them understand what they were facing.

However, he had only a few seconds to spare.

The first beast was still watching his group from the rooftops, and he could feel its attention shifting back toward them.

"Rayne," Andrew warned.

The spellsword had already drawn his weapon. His stance was low and balanced, his eyes fixed on the creature above them.

Bran had moved several steps to the side, looking for a clear line of sight, while Lyra was gathering mana around her hands.

Weskins and Dorin had fallen back, clearly aware that they would be of little use if they allowed the beast to close the distance before the others could respond.

Rayne forced himself to turn his attention back to the monster above them.

The creature's golden eyes narrowed just then.

For the first time, Rayne noticed the faint glow gathering between its jaws.

It began as a small red spark deep within its throat, barely visible through the gaps between its teeth.

Then the light grew brighter, spreading through its mouth until the inside of its jaws glowed like a furnace. The air around its head began to shimmer, and the reddish lines beneath its scales brightened in response.

Rayne's instincts screamed at him to move.

"Get ready!" he shouted, taking out his sword as he shifted his weight and prepared to dodge. "Everyone, move—"

The beast opened its mouth before he could finish, and the next second, the street was flooded with red light.