The forest continued to bleed with the blood and cries of death from the rapidly dwindling members of Ranger Division 14.
A Ranger tried to crawl away, dragging himself by his arms as his crushed lower body refused to respond.
"Someone... please... I can still..."
A blood spear dropped from above and nailed him to the ground mid-sentence, ending his life on the spot.
Another Ranger attempted to gain some height by climbing a tall tree, but his efforts were in vain. A horn skewed him through the back, his body twitched then went still.
"Fall back! Everyone! Fall Back!"
Someone shouted before they met their demise.
A pair of Rangers who had already assessed the hopelessness of the situation moved together, covering each other’s blind spot in their attempt to make a getaway.
However, they fell short when it came to speed. They did not make it three steps before the ground beneath them ruptured as two spears erupted and tore through them both in a spray of blood.
Everywhere Rhos looked people were dying.
Screams of dread layered over each other in choking agony. Rhos staggered to his feet and clutched his side which had a mild burning sensation. He was grateful that was all to it.
’It could have been worse’
Through this chaos and the pain behind his swimming eyes, he forced himself to focus. And that was when he saw it.
When he saw it, he thought his eyes were playing tricks on him. That the blood loss had finally scrambled his senses beyond repair.
But it was exactly how his vision pictured it.
The Keeper of Ranger Division 14, Mountain Gorilla Taru was actually making a run for it.
He could not believe what he was seeing. No, he did believe it. It is just that the timing was off or rather way too soon.
Apart from Leopard Cat Nimra, Rhos had not known the Keeper the longest. He did become part of this Division 2 years ago after all. But he had seen enough to understand the kind of man he was.
Mountain Gorilla Taru was ambitious!
In every Biome there were 18 Ranger Divisions, all split into three branches.
The first 10 were the ones tasked with venturing deep beyond the Biomes, into unexplored territories dominated by Wraths and Spirit World Entities. They were the elite, the ones who boasted the most power within the Corps.
Division 11 to 14 like theirs operated in regulated zones mostly populated by wild beasts and plants. They were dangerous but still manageable enough to do their jobs.
Their duties were mostly hunting and sustaining the Biomes through resources that cannot be obtained from within the Corp.
The last 4 Ranger Divisions stayed within the Biome to act as the maintenance and order.
With such a hierarchy and difference in roles, naturally the pay reflected that. Those in the first 10 earned far more than the rest below could ever imagine.
For an ambitious man like Mountain Gorilla Taru, that gap was not fair. His greed could not bear it!
And now his comrades were ripping the fruits of where that ambition had led them.
Witnessing this horrifying scene, Rhos let out a dry laugh with blood slipping past his lips.
"Of course, hahaha! Of course, you’d turn tail and run, you coward!"
Now that his ambition had blown up in his face, Taru was trying to escape the chaos. It made sense when one thought about it really.
What use is a goal if you’re dead? Might as well retreat, regroup and live to fight again tomorrow.
That was how Rhos understood it. Hell, he was about to do the same thing before he got high on morals.
While on the other hand, the Keeper of Division 14, the man who stood above them all, who had ordered the attack ... was now abandoning them.
Leaving all of them to die.
He did not look back when a Ranger’s scream was silenced by a blood horn that tore through his chest. Taru’s face was flushed with panic as he pushed through the forest, ignoring everything behind him.
"Yeah..."
He sighed.
"....no point thinking about that now"
Rhos finished his thought as he rolled from a blood spear that was bolting toward him and the crying girl.
Whether the Keeper stayed or ran did not change the fact that the monster they were dealing with was beyond their capabilities.
As Nimra said earlier.... their Division was not equipped to deal with a Wrath. At the rate things were going, Ranger Division 14 was going to get wiped out.
The only thing on Rhos’ mind right now was self-preservation.
Even so, he still could not leave the newbie Nimra to die here until she had the taste of true despair. He could not allow it!
Pulling his attention away from the fleeing Keeper, he focused on the trembling young woman before him.
Her teary eyes were wide and unfocused with her shoulders shaking uncontrollably. Blood stained her face from the howl earlier.
The fear had gotten to her. As she was now, she was utterly useless.
It would make sense to just leave her to die, but that thought was immediately followed by guilt.
"Sorry about this"
He crouched down and quickly pulled her onto his back. When he hooked his arms beneath her legs and rose to his feet, there was a sharp sting of pain from his side.
’Ouch, I can still feel it. Damn dog got me good!’
Rhos was not in good shape right now. His vision and hearing were messed up. Add in that bludgeon damage he took at his side, his chances of survival were drastically reduced.
But at the very least he could still move. That was what mattered, as long as he could move, there was a decent chance he could still survive.
With his Delta Class spiritual energy, he could not get much from his Patron Spirit. Still, that was enough to allow him to expand his heightened awareness in the vicinity and tighten his thin muscular legs.
A deer knew when to run, and Rhos had become very good at running.
However, before he could make a move, something unexpected happened.
The blood spears that had been tearing through the Rangers effortlessly came to a sudden halt, then began to melt into liquid blood.
It was not just the spears, the blood coating corpses, the blood soaking the earth and dripping from those who had the damned luck of drawing breath.
All around him, blood began to behave strangely. It floated like a crimson river flowing backward, drawn toward a single location.
Several meters away from Rhos, at the heart of the chaos, the giant wolf stood motionless with its maw hung open, revealing rows upon rows of terrifying fangs.
At the center was where the streams of blood gathered and merged together into an orb growing by the second.
At the same time, the remaining Rangers stared at the spectacle, hope gone from their eyes.
One man dropped his weapon, another simply sat down and sighed heavily, and a woman laughed humorlessly before breaking into tears.
There was no point in resisting now.
Knowing the kind of creature they were dealing with, they had put everything they had in their ambush, but that didn’t affect it that much.
Even those who had attempted to escape earlier didn’t get far before they were skewed, the only exception so far had been Mountain Gorilla Taru, but they couldn’t compare themselves to the experience and power of a Keeper.
And so, they resigned their fates like prisoners observing their executioner sharpen his blade.
’Idiots!’
Rhos however, was different. He wasn’t ready to simply rollover and die.
With his teeth clenched and arms tightened around the woman on his back, he ran as fast as he could, every instinct in his body screaming at him to create as much distance as he could.
’The world can despair all it wants. No matter what, I have to survive!’
The blood orb compressed into the size of a skull. The Wrath closed its maw and then lowered its head to where its chin nearly touched the earth, its six crimson eyes narrowing.
For a moment, there was only silence.
The world exploded when the Wrath opened its mouth again. There was a tidal burst of crimson liquid that erupted beneath it and in every direction.
The blood transformed into gigantic blades that raced across the earth, severing everything in their path.
A male Ranger was reduced to red mist in almost an instant. Another that tried to leap away got his legs caught in the wave and his body came apart before he could even scream. Another was slit in two halves before she could react.
All the remaining Rangers met their end in this one attack. Rhos would have been next if it wasn’t for a familiar voice that screamed in his ear.
"Red Deer!"
Leopard Cat Nimra had tried to warn him, but it was too late, the crimson tide was already upon them. Though not completely.
Rhos was able to throw himself sideways before the tide could reach him fully. He didn’t walk away unharmed though.
Even though the attack grazed him a bit, the result was horrific. From his chest down to his midsection, flesh split open and blood sprayed into the air.
Pain unlike anything he had ever experienced flooded his senses while he and Nimra tumbled down on a collapsing slope.
He tried to grab onto something, but the maddening pain made it difficult for him to control his body. And before he knew it, the two of them plunged into a nearby river.
The freezing current swallowed them whole, dragging them away from the massacre.
The last image Rhos saw before everything went dark was the silhouette of the Wrath looking down on them.