Angel Monarch

By morning everyone was ready. The people were in a good mood, they will finally escape this hellhole named Havel. A city of monster, that's what they call it, but the real monsters are about to leave, the humans.

They call those being, that Evolved unnaturally monsters, but are the humans better. If you look at The Hold now you will know the answer.

In the world no matter if it's Evolved or not, humans perfected the way of destroying themselves. They always find a reason to kill each other. But this doesn't matter now, this only happened because of this uncivilized city. At least that's the lie they tell themselves.

They began their journey Northwest, following the path of the river. In the sky flew multiple scouts and even a figure with angelic wings, holding a little girl.

This girl was especially happy, she never saw a forest or at least she doesn't remember it. Her memories before Nightmare are inaccessible, probably because of the torture.

Bea watched from the ground with a smile as Sera flew. They were out of the Pet's territory finally, which meant the scouts could do their job with higher efficiency.

"It's nice to see them happy isn't it?" Asked Faith with a bright smile on her face.

"Yes, but I wish we would be as close as before..." Bea looked sad, but Faith just smiled and squeezed her shoulder.

"You know you have to give her time, a lot changed and not just because of Victoria."

"Haa... I know, I know... Anyway, did you discover anything?"

Faith's smile disappeared. "I have, continuing this direction will lead us into a large group of Rotten. And before you ask, no we can't go around it."

Bea stayed silent for a minute, then looked up at the sky again.

"Seems like the fun is over." With that she called back every scout and Sera. The fighting is about to start and it won't be easy.

Sera waited for the monster in the air, Faith said there are about 40, all of them Rotten. Victoria was currently guarded by Faith, she is the only one whom Sera trusted enough.

The monsters were about 150 meters away still, rushing towards the Evolved defensive line. There were three kinds that Sera could make out.

The first a beast that looked humanoid, it stood on two legs, but that's where the similarities ended. Its upper body split into two parts, there were some plant blooming inside its body. As it ran pollen fell on the ground. The creature also had three arms growing out of his body at random places.

'We probably shouldn't go near those, the pollen could be toxic.'

"Aim for the plant ones!" Shouted Sera from above everyone.

Soon enough they began to shoot those, but their weapons weren't too strong and a lot of them made it too close. They hit the line of Evolved and soon, they began to cough. Sera's eyes were on something else though.

The second kind of beasts were scarier, than the first. They looked like a fusion between a squirrel and a cat, but way bigger than either of those animals. Jumping from one tree to another they closed the distance fast. When they were about to hit the already struggling Evolved, vines stopped them and Hellfire decimated them.

And still there was the third kind, the most dangerous. They were huge centipedes, but the danger wasn't their size. There was something off with them like, gravity didn't affect them enough, like they could somewhat manipulate it.

They were 3rd Tier Rotten, just a step away from being Corrupted. The other two kinds of monsters were only 1st Tier, which meant they didn't really have powers other than their physical strength.

Sera moved quickly and with her lance delivered a huge blow to one of them. Except she didn't. The lance stopped a centimeter away from piercing its body.

She quickly moved on and killed a cat thing that tried to jump on her. She waited for the kills announcement, then remembered. She didn't have a Watch.

After her initial failed attempt, she tried to deliver a couple more strikes, but no matter how hard she tried, no attack could reach the monsters. There were only five of these centipedes, but judging by her first few strike, they were hard to kill.

Instead of trying over and over again she used her sharpest weapon, her brain.

'They have some control over gravity and my weapon gets stopped every time when it is about to reach them. The question is how fast can they activate it.'

Sera had a very stupid idea, that just might work. She grabbed a large rock and began to fly into the sky. The centipedes were just about to cross the hundred meter line. She had excellent sight, but it was very hard to calculate where the rock will fall. In the end she decided to release it and hope for the best.

The rock fell for 10 seconds before landing partially on one of the centipede monsters, it screamed for a few seconds before finally dying.

'Well it works, but I definitely won't be able to drop a rock to all of them before they reach the line.'

She still went for one more and successfully killed another. But they finally reached the defensive line. The Evolved tried to attack them, but they shrugged the blows off and began killing humans left and right.

One of them cut of someone's head with its mandibles, another simply rose into the air and fell on three Evolved instantly crushing them. The third was currently fighting one on one with Sera.

She dodged the beast's sharp legs and tried to stab it. As usual the attack was stopped and she had to move back, so she didn't get crushed to death.

'How... do... I... Kill... You!'

The answer turned out to be quite obvious, there was one weakpoint of the monster. Its mouth.

'Of course if it can bite into people, that means there is no 'shield' there. I'm a genius!'

With that knowledge she dodged two more attacks and when she got face to face with the monster, Sera stabbed a spear through its mouth and into its brain. The centipede screeched loudly, then fell over dead.

Taking a deep breath Sera turned back to the fighting and just then, another centipede slammed into her. She wasn't sent flying, because the monster's mandibles were holding her tightly by the chest.

'Fucking hell this armor is strong!'

Sera didn't know where the armor came from or what's its name. She had a suspicion, but no clear answer.

The monster kept trying, but all the force dissipated. It still hurt quite bad, but it's better than getting cut in half. Her arms were still free so Sera summoned her trusty sword and sent it to the centipede's skull.

It too fell over dead, but this time Sera wasn't so lucky. The monster still held her in its mandibles and she couldn't get out of them. She was stuck and worst of all, one of the plant creature was running right for her.

'This is really bad, I can't even sit up! How the fuck do I kill this thing?'

In the end she decided, that it was time to see how long her weapon could get. The monster ran at her, but suddenly it was pierced by a 10 meter long lance.

'10 meters, not bad...'

But suddenly another complication appeared, in the form of those cat monsters. Two climbed on the centipede corpse and jumped on Sera. She summoned her sword impaling one, but the other managed to attack her.

The creature leaned down and its mouth tried to close on her throat. Sera reacted quickly, she dismissed her sword and summoned a dagger in her other hand. The creature stopped only a few millimeters before her throat and fell on her, dead. Now she was totally buried in corpses.

After the battle while the others counted the dead, Bea looked for Sera. Last time, she saw her fighting two centipede monsters. She went to the first one, but Sera was nowhere to be found.

She began to feel anxious and ran to the other one, but Sera wasn't there either. Only a couple more monster corpses. In wild panic and against her better judgement she shouted.

"SERA!"

There was nothing for a second and her anxiety spiked. But suddenly there was a muffled noise coming from the monster pile. Bea quickly moved them and began to roll on the ground, laughing.

Below the monster pile was Sera stuck in the centipede's mandible.

"Ha-ha, very funny... Could you please help me get out of here?" Sera seemed very angry, but Bea knew she was faking it.

"Sure, but tell me first. How the fuck did you end up here?" Looking down at her she laughed again, but seeing Sera was getting more annoyed, so she stopped.

"You know, just the usual. You fight a big fucking bug, then after you kill it another grabs you, then after you kill that some other monsters appear. Now get me out!"

Bea smiled and said. "Fine, fine no need to shout, it might attract monsters."

Even Sera couldn't keep a straight face after that. They both laughed and Bea helped her out of the monsters mouth. Her hands lingered on Sera, their faces were quite close. Suddenly Sera turned away, her hand was trembling from fear.

'Haaa... Small steps, small steps. It will take time for her to get through that trauma.'

They both went back to the others in silence.