Astaroth didn't rest long, as Genie started growling only a few hours after he fell asleep. The low growl of such a massive wolf, especially since he was leaning on her, was enough to pull him from sleep.
"What's wrong, girl?"
'A new batch of monsters is coming our way. They will be at the walls in a few minutes.'
Astaroth was slowly getting used to hearing her voice in his head. Her voice was almost similar to that of Phoenix, which made him wonder how she got her voice.
Did she choose it? Did she decide how it would sound herself?
Or was it a natural process that happened on its own?
Astaroth stood up while thinking of this, letting the giant wolf do the same. When she howled, he almost skipped up in surprise.
"The heck was that for?! I almost had a heart attack"
'I apologize for startling you. I was warning the warriors about the threat.'
"Don't worry about it. I was merely surprised, is all. Speaking of which, you were fighting alone last time, aside from the monsters, of course. Why is that? Shouldn't the capable warriors help?"
Speaking that phrase, Astaroth's mind flashed to the recruits he had seen training. He remembered seeing them, and a few wounded other fighters, but not a single able-bodied warrior.
Were there none left?
Confirming this sad thought, Genie looked sad.
'They have all either been gravely wounded, or are dead. The warriors of this village are few, and most of them cannot fight anymore. As for the young ones, they are not ready…'
It made sense, now that he thought about it. He did not know how long the corruption had been affecting the local monsters, but it couldn't have been just a short time.
Demons wouldn't have been already roaming about if it did. And with what he saw in Tel'narel, it had been a while.
It made sense that some warriors had perished over this long period, or been wounded severely enough to make them unable to fight any longer, just like Aj'axx and Korin.
"Well, I guess it's just you and me, then. Let's get moving."
Genie nodded, lowering her posture a bit, so Astaroth could climb on her back. Jumping up, he mounted her like he would a horse, and grabbed onto the only thing he could: her fur.
When she launched forward, his brain hit the back of his head, and his heart skipped a beat. He was not prepared for the sudden acceleration, even going at this speed wasn't much for him.
He was used to running at this speed, or flying. But being mounted had a different feel to it.
It was almost like he had been riding a bus all his life, which he had, and now he was driving a Ferrari down the highway. The exhilarating feeling brought him back to the memories of his earlier days in New Eden, when running at a normal speed was, well, normal.
His thoughts were interrupted by blinding light, as they had already reached the surface.
Genie curved left, heading straight for the wall up ahead. Astaroth could see a cloud of dust and ash rise in the distance, and knew what caused it.
"Are you alright alone on the ground to start? I will try to fight from the air, kill all the flying targets first, to ease our load."
'We won't be alone for very long. Our reinforcements are already arriving.'
As soon as she said this, Astaroth heard a howl coming from over the wall. He looked puzzled until Genie explained how the monsters were already there.
'Arborea and Teraria have set up a ward around the forest, at a distance from the walls. When corruption crosses over the ward, it alerts all the forest's monsters and sends them this way.'
"That's pretty neat. But why don't they come here too? Wouldn't it be faster if they fight too?"
'Setting up the ward, as well as keeping the tree fed in Aether, which protects from detection of the part underground, has taken a lot from them. They rest most of the time these days.'
"Hmm. That's unfortunate. It doesn't matter though. Since I'm here, we can do this ourselves."
Genie surged in excitement, her mind already thinking of the battle coming their way. She hopped over the wall soon after, landing in the middle of the monster horde, here to help her.
Astaroth looked around and found what he was looking for. A large gray wolf, further away, about the same size as Genie, was standing in the middle of a large pack of dire wolves.
He scanned the beast.
*Dire Wolf Alpha*
Level: 40
Grade: Elite
He didn't scan fully, uncaring of its health and mana, since he wasn't fighting against it. But once he had read its info, he realized the wolf was staring at him.
Nodding his head at it, it nodded back.
'So it's sentient enough to realize what I did… Interesting.'
Looking back forward, the cloud of dust was now so close in the distance, he could almost see the monsters. Unfortunately, they were on the lower part of the basin, so they would see the monsters only once they crossed the ridge up top.
It didn't take long before this happened, and he gazed upon the charging monsters. He could already see the same composition as before, if only different in numbers per monster type.
There seemed to be more blood bats than before, which wasn't much of an issue, considering their lower levels and health pool. But another thing was a bit more worrying.
The number of bears in the horde was double that of the last time, and their levels seemed higher, too.
"Are the hordes getting harder over time? Or is it just a coincidence?"
'They are progressively stronger. At first, there were only a dozen monsters per attack. But now, the biggest horde we fought back, I needed the help of Aberon. They numbered over two hundred corrupted monsters.'
Astaroth pondered on this phenomenon. He wasn't sure if the tear in the village was the only one fueling the corruption in the forest, but he was sure that closing it would at least help to lessen the burden on the settlement.
He quickly sent a message to Phoenix before closing and locking his interface so he wouldn't get distracted during combat. This was something new he had found out from Gale, back before the siege on the Bastion.
The corrupted horde finally reached the bottom of the basin, now only a few hundred meters away from them.
"Alright! Let's kick some monster ass!"
Melding with Morpheus, he launched into the air, pulling out Ad Astra and changing its form to a bow.
"Let the hunt begin!"
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