Chapter 123: The Confluence of Power.

Kilmid Town was a wreck.The farms outside were trampled, large parts of the walls were destroyed, and we entered the settlement on our wagons only to find roads cracked and littered with debris. The homes within fared no better, either smashed in places or entirely collapsed.

A dirty centaur child dug through the rubble, and she whooped upon finding something made of silver.

People sorted through the carcass of dead homes, and pyres were made out of their remains.

Meat was cooked over those fires, right next to the butchered skeleton of what I recognized to be a dead rhibra.

Our wagons stood out, and they spotted us. Soon, a whole crowd of them was clamoring for our attention.

“Look!”

“Supplies?”

“Has help finally come!?”

“Oh thank God.”

“Baron Kalmer has finally sent aid!”

“Please! Help us!”

“Calm down, everyone,” Therick tried. “We’re just adventurers, passing through. Can you tell us what happened?”

“Oh.”

“We were attacked by a herd of rhibras, and we’ve sent runners to ask for help…”

“And must’ve been sent by the Angels!”

“Yeah! It’s too convenient otherwise!”

“You’re here for a reason!”

“The Angels work in mysterious ways.”

They almost lost their enthusiasm there, but they were able to very quickly whip themselves back into a frenzy.

“Alright, okay!” Therick just agreed. “We’ll see what we can do. Where is your adventurer’s guild? And an… area to tie off our wagons?”

“Oh, right this way!”

“I’ll guide them!”

“I’m coming too!”

A bunch of people guided us through the ruined village, and I found out that not every street was as broken as what we found near the entrance as the stampede of rhibras hardly passed by other areas. Their lack of a decent gate was still a problem, and so many of their warriors and leaders had died. A literal seven-year-old child was now in charge because the village lord died in the attack, and his daughter didn’t know shit about leading. So it’s all chaos, and pandemonium, and almost lawlessness as quite a lot of the administrative officials had also died because the rhibras had passed through the manor at some point, thereby killing many people there. It was a disaster.

Finally, we made it to the parking area… and we argued about who could be left behind. We would be stupid not to consider the possibility of theft or worse in the current climate of this village.

“So, how’d it go?” I asked once my friends returned. We had ultimately decided that I would be the one left behind, as I could handle myself alone the best. Additionally, some of my friends just wouldn’t be respected by the people here, whereas they still thought I was human. I was curious about the greater happenings of a village in ruin like this, but I didn’t really care enough to argue against standing guard.

“Nothing much to say,” Therick shrugged. “The guild building was destroyed, so they were operating out of some random nearby house. They had a few quests for the few surviving adventurers to help out, but we didn’t take any of those.”

“What quests do they actually have on right now?”

“Nothing too interesting,” Angerly answered. “Just some quests for scouting, or getting some materials, or even helping clean up.” She handed a quest poster to me. “That one’s pretty good though, and no one’s actually taken it.”

I raised a brow and looked at the drawing of a rhibra. But instead of a normal rhibra, it had two parallel horns on both sides of its nose, and a shell carapace covering its body.

“A rhibradier.”

“Yes,” Moonwash confirmed. “I wonder how they were able to do it.”

A rhibradier was an evolved form of a rhibra. Not just an altered Mutation or two, but its species had evolved similar to how I had gone from being a humble imp to a proud demon. No one knew how they were able to achieve this, because most people didn’t know how anyone or anything was able to evolve their species to begin with, but the point was that I doubted they had access to the methods I knew and used. No rituals, nor knowledge, or anything. It wasn’t something that just automatically happened either, as all rhibradiers were level 40, but not every level 40 rhibra was a rhibradier.

“Who knows,” I shrugged. “Maybe we’ll find out. I say we take the quest.”

“We already have…” Granuel said. “We were gonna ask you, but Moonwash figured that you’d absolutely be fine with it…”

I raised a brow at that, but nodded in the end. “She’s right.”

I did leave the choosing of quests to them a lot of the time, and I certainly would not begrudge a good battle.

“How about things here?” Berry asked. “Did anyone… try to make any trouble?”

“Eh. A few,” I said dismissively. “I just scared them off with a shout or two, and I gave about half of our food supplies to some kids who wanted to steal something.” I didn’t think that was what they actually wanted to steal, because they didn’t look particularly starving.

“That’s good,” Berry nodded, happy with my decision. We could always hunt later.

We soon left the village, for the rhibras had left the best inn out of two destroyed. There was no point in staying the night here.

Zaril Town had fallen.

Haelan Village was trampled.

Jose Village stood no chance.

And Kalmira City alone was battered, but not yet broken.

In all of these places, we collected more quests for the subjugation of the rhibradier and its herd. In that last one especially, people were more skeptical. We were but one party, fewer and than their own forces when they fell, and without any fortifications of our own.

Therick managed to convince them in the end, because who else would even try? A subjugation force was being assembled, but a stronger coalition had already failed with the support of their home fortifications. , our reputation preceded us, and people were beginning to expect miracles from me, as the granddaughter of a hero.

I was stronger than Grandpa ever was at my age and level. Of that, I was certain.

We found the rhibra herd.

The wagons had been left behind so that we may stalk our enemies unseen from afar.

There were just about three dozen of them, which wasn’t actually that many for a herd of rhibras. They had destroyed many settlements, but they also paid a price for all that destruction. The rhibradier was immediately obvious among the group, for it was significantly larger than the others, and it had several other features to differentiate itself.

First, were its two parallel horns. Second, were the chitin plates along the front half of its body that were thicker around the head and thinner further away. And third was that while most of the rhibras were of differing shades of brown, the rhibradier’s skin was a grey that was almost white, while its chitin armor was a gray that was almost black. I bet it would love 50 shades of grey.

I had read about this monster before with Moonwash, so I knew a little bit more about its capabilities. Those chitin plates were capable of briefly storing and then redirecting kinetic energy, particularly towards the thicker front. This created for a powerful defense and the bane of fortifications both. From horns that pierced through walls and weakened the foundation, to the shell that would be the hammer of demolition if the first impact were to fail. The spikes and gates of the towns and cities that should’ve been especially strong against stampedes had crumbled against this monster’s might.

“But though walls may have fallen to this creature, I am no wall.”

The rhibras noticed us, and with a roar, they began charging through the open plains.

“Run!” I shouted. “I’ll scout them out first, and see if we actually need a proper plan!”

My friends knew better than to protest at this point, and they left as I went the opposite way towards our enemies. I tossed blobs of taunting wrath and hellfire at them, and then I ran away scot-free as their momentum was so great that they could hardly turn. I slammed my sword against the rhibradier’s face once an opportunity arose, and the chitin cracked. I smiled as that confirmed my theory which was that the kinetic absorption of the shell was much more useful against bludgeoning sort of forces. The other rhibras caught up then, and the rhibradier shook its head wildly, so I ran back away and took flight. From there, up in the air, I pulled out my bow and retrieved an arrow from the quiver in my thigh. I aimed, chained wrath through the projectile, and then pulled taut the extremely rigid string of my bow that would have hardly budged if I had not enhanced my physique with magic.

The projectile was set loose, and it buried shallowly inside the creature’s flank. It was obvious, but I wanted to confirm anyway how much weaker those unarmored areas were.

I flew away, the rhibras followed, and I continued to glide and flap smoothly until I found a grazlibeast peacefully grazing in the distance. I landed just as my wings ran out of charge, and I left the two parties behind to slaughter each other for scraps. A few enraging bullets made sure that it was so.

I found myself once again suspended in mid-air. My wings flapped, and the rhibras down below ran in circles for they could not reach me upon my throne of wind. They were particularly bad at jumping too, which just further spelt their doom.

Arrows and magic rained like it was a storm in winter. The sun shone brightly upon the skies as the two elements diminished the forces of mine enemy. My arms began to hurt, and I suffered from a headache that pierced into my horns, but I did not falter. I continued to cast and shoot, to the point that I actually began to deplete the mana that I kept in my extradimensional blood storage. I mixed the two elements, and set the leading rhibradier ablaze with a fire so black it devoured light. An idea occurred to me, and I cut my wrist to make it rain literal blood. The liquid combusted and turned flesh into rotting flowers. I did everything, and at the end of it all, most of the rhibras had already fallen.

That… was not part of the plan.

My wings were close to giving out, so I gave the demonic signal with my hands to my friends who were but a mere dot from where I flew. I could not see anyone else, but I smiled when I recalled how Moonwash had created for me a pair of wind gliders that mimicked the appearance of my actual wings. I could actually use it to fly, if barely, but their main purpose was to convince people after the fact that my flight was but the consequence of my girlfriend’s genius.

It was a brilliant ruse.

I flew towards my friends, and I reached them unmolested. I began to land, and the rest of the Harvesters attacked the weaker rhibras to pull their attention away from me for a moment.

I landed heavily on the grass, and closed my eyes.

“Sunshine.”

Moonwash intoned the name of her spell, and I felt an intense searing heat as the darkness of my eyelids was banished. I opened my eyes after a second to find only three rhibras remaining. The idea was to disorient them with that and ‘reset their aggro’ so that my friends could lead everyone else away while I dueled the big bad. But it appeared that wouldn’t be necessary as they were already overwhelming the two remaining rhibras, and I didn’t have to face the rhibradier alone.

I still did, however. The monster’s terrible burns and injuries had only worsened, and while I was also suffering, my legs were perfectly fine. The rhibradier charged with terrifying momentum, but I was more agile than the beast who had only gotten worse because of my prior harassment. We chased each other for a few passes, until I found the perfect opportunity for an overhead slash. My worked best with the most straightforward of attacks.

The blade sliced deeply into the rhibradier’s unarmored butt, and came out cleanly on the other side. A secondary wave of wrath was released by the strike, and it feasted eagerly on the softer flesh inside. This was the true essence of my anatomic mastery, and peeling away the surface flesh was but a party trick in comparison. Its true promise was one of desolation if my enemy were to ever fail to defend.

The evolved rhibradier whined. It was already limping after that one strike.

Another clash followed after we had both circled all the way around. This time I tried my mettle against the armored shell of my enemy, resulting in the grating whine of metal against chitin.

The sword broke through, but the did not cause as much havoc as before. The blade was unable to bury deep enough into the flesh, and it actually got stuck on the chitin. A burst of kinetic force then followed, which helped dislodge the sword so I could pull it out.

“You fool. You have only helped in my favor!”

I ran away from the raging monster again. We clashed a few more times, which only led to similar results. The rhibradier reacted ever slower thanks to its limp, and it was nigh immobile before long. Its most vulnerable organs were shielded, but I asked my friends for help in the end, and we battered our immobile enemy with utter impunity.

We went back to the city as heroes. At first, it was only guards who were gawping at the skull we had affixed to the roof of our vehicles, but word quickly spread, and soon the entire city was rushing towards us to get a peak at the ruined rhibradier head, and The Harvesters party that had brought it back home.

They cheered, they preached, they extolled our virtues, and bards sang about us of their own volition. It would always amaze me how quickly they worked, and how the people here were just accustomed to vocals that would have topped the chart back on earth. It did irk me just a little how much they focused on my heritage instead of personally, but as always, I had plenty of things to be angry about already.

Things quickly turned into a feast, as we had brought plenty of rhibradier meat with us, even going so far as to tie cratefuls of meat to our roof. The guild congratulated us, the city count commended us, and we received our rewards not only for the quest we had taken in this city, but from all the other settlements that demanded the rhibradier dead.

We enjoyed being the center of attention for a week longer, and then we set off towards the burgeoning line of trees within sight of the city.