"John Naga!"
"Yes, Sergeant!"
Sergeant Gaud had a serious expression on his face as he faced the 6 students before him with his attention mostly focused on John Naga.
Of all the students who graduated from Obedin Mystic Academy during the recent batch, John Naga was the only one who rose through the ranks at such an outrageous speed to become a team leader in just 2 months.
Evaluations were done every tenure, but they were not the only tickets for promotion in the army, extremely exceptional soldiers could be promoted anytime.
Just a month after John Naga was inducted into the Obedin City army, he proved his mettle as one of the most useful and successful newbie soldiers out there in the army.
His mystic ability, the Whispers of the Soul was such a peculiar and rare ability that he instantly rose to the top in terms of importance.
Most times, a spike in demand was not entirely due to the quality of a good but also due to the rarity of a good. The famed mystic ability of the Naga family was extremely rare, the army would do everything to keep it in their ranks.
John did not rise through the ranks entirely because of his rare mystic ability, his rise was affected also by the rare elite leadership qualities that he possessed.
John Naga was the team leader of the Fleeting Illusion military team.
Like most other teams, this military team was sent on a mission but their mission was force-canceled by Sergeant Gaud as they were summoned back.
After thinking deeper about the current situation of the army, Sergeant Gaud felt more and more insecure and that something was terribly wrong.
Though his intuition gave him signals, they were subtle as for some reason, he didn't get a conclusive hint if the army or Obedin City as a whole was in danger. For some reason, it was like his intuition was being suppressed.
Having not experienced this all his life, Sergeant Gaud became vigilant.
Just from the previous day to today, after the Commissioner of Defense was abducted, one trouble after the other kept on springing up as almost all the military teams in the army were already sent out on different missions.
At this moment, the army and the city's defense were vulnerable.
This was abnormal and was why Sergeant Gaud decided to f*ck the rules as he commanded some teams to abandon their missions and return including John's team. He didn't just call John's team back; he had a mission for them.
It was already a day since the first combined team that was sent on the commissioner's rescue mission left, Sergeant Gaud decided to send John's team as reinforcements.
After explaining the circumstances to them, he gave them one specific order.
"Take, this is an ultra-long-range communicator".
"You will be able to send a message to the army even if you are in a heavily scrambled space filled with electronic interference".
Sergeant Gaud looked John in the eye. "Besides rescuing the soldiers and the commissioner, I want you to send me anything that you see in the swamp".
"Understood?"
"Yes, Sir".
"Good, now leave!"
…
Crane hid in an unoccupied cave inside a rock outside the Spider Swamp.
Unlike his teammates last night, with his 3 contracted beasts, Crane was able to fly out of the Spider Swamp despite the attacks that he suffered from the flying beasts that dominated the swamp.
After a tight struggle where he even lost 1 of his contracted Cranes, he finally managed to escape outside the swamp and the commissioner was safe.
On escaping though, he was already completely tired and could not return to Obedin City immediately so he decided to rest in a cave inside the rock.
This was where he spent the night.
On waking up though, Crane woke up to the sound of different footsteps. As a beast summoner, he only needed to place his ears close to the earth and listen in a focused manner to discover what was happening.
Due to some reason, the beasts of the Spider Swamp were marching outside. He could hear their footprints, not just Swamp Spiders, literally, every beast that was in the Spider Swamp was marching out due to an unknown reason.
After the commissioner woke up, he told him to lie still as he left the cave to see exactly what was happening. On coming out, Crane was shocked.
All over his vision, all Crane could see were beasts of different types and sizes. Thousands of beasts filled the green plain and beyond and they were all marching towards a single direction, Obedin City!
Crane was horrified. "Is this a beast invasion?!"
"No, it is not natural".
As a beast summoner, Crane immediately noticed some subtle hints and concluded that this was probably the work of a powerful beast tamer.
Beast summoners and beast tamers were different in a lot of ways.
The most predominant difference was that beast summoners had mystic abilities that could enable them to summon and contract beasts from the beast plane, but beast tamers could only find mystic beasts in the wild to contract.
At this moment though, Crane was not concerned about this difference as his head was instantly filled with worrying thoughts about his city.
Did the army know of the beast invasion already? Would his family be safe? Would Obedin City survive this disaster?
Crane remembered something as he instantly picked up his AOS phone to send an emergency message to the army but the network reception was unavailable.
There was some kind of electronic interference in the air that intercepted his signals, this failure only made Crane feel more flustered and confused.
Amid his confusion was when he saw lights of collision from the distance. Instantly, he picked up his military telescope and looked, this was when he saw the military team of 6 soldiers from the Obedin City army.
Without hesitation, Crane sent out his 2 contracted Cranes to help. A few minutes later, John Naga finally led his team safely to the cave.
Crane turned to him fast. "What is happening? I have tried to contact the army but I can't, what is going on…?"
John ignored Crane as he went to a corner before immediately fishing the special radio communicator that he was given out.
"Obedin D-29, this is Illusion 0-9, radio check, over!"
"Obedin D-29, this is Illusion 0-9, radio check, over!"
Bzzz!
"Illusion 0-9, this is Obedin D-29, roger, over!"
"Obedin D-29, this is John Naga speaking!"
"Initiate Code Red!"
"I repeat, Initiate Code Red!"
"There is an ongoing beast invasion from the Spider Swamp, over!"
Bzzz!
"John, this is Captain Gaud speaking, how many minutes do we have?"
John looked outside through the entrance of the cave at the army of beasts that were already climbing towards the 10,000 marks.
"Sir, 8 minutes, 10 minutes at most".
"How big?"
"Probably the whole Swamp Forest".
A subtle Jesus exclamation escaped from the Sergeant through the special communication device. "Roger, out".
Crane turned to face John, still flustered. "What are we to do?"
"Definitely not going back, we can't, we'll only die to the beasts". John turned to face Crane and, in the process, he secretly activated his mystic ability as he used a skill that calmed the nerves of all the soldiers present without them knowing.
The effects of this move were instant as Crane and the other soldiers calmed down a lot which made them more receptive to critical thinking and ideas.
This was when John finally continued. "Where are your teammates?"
"Most of them are still stuck inside the swamp".
"This is what we are going to do then, we'll save them".
"The fate of the city is already out of our hands, the best that we can do at the moment to help is to organize ourselves before going back to serve as reinforcements no matter how small".
"Hopefully, after rescuing the others, we'll be strong enough to make a difference and move through the beast tide back to the city".
"Can and Stark will protect the commissioner here, the others will leave with me for the Spider Swamp".
No one objected and the commissioner kept silent throughout as the plan instantly started being implemented.
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