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Chapter 289: Overload - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-08-30 07:41:42 +0000 UTCHours drifted on, as the Worldstriders attacked fort after fort. They avoided confrontation with the human reinforcements, but they never stopped their attacks. Twice, the worldstriders fled the moment Anise's group caught up to them. Every single time the human forces bunched up, the Worldstriders fled. Every single time the human forces dispersed, the Worldstriders attacked again. As Anise moved from one fort to another in an endless stream of failed reinforcement attempts, I started to feel anxious.
What were we supposed to do about this? The flight of the Worldstriders had always been troublesome, but this was even worse than usual. The human forces had no way to engage the enemy at all. If it was nighttime, Nightsong could have handled the Worldstriders… but it was nowhere near night yet.
I felt anxiety creep up in my stomach, fueling my fears about the direction of the war even further. However, as the day progressed, I had less and less time to worry. Because every hour, more soldiers arrived in our hospital. Many humans turned into paste or got shot by the worldstriders, but plenty survived their injuries. It was our responsibility to treat those who were injured close to our fort.
Unfortunately, my essence reserves weren’t infinite. After several hours, I stopped using my shaping abilities to treat smaller wounds. My actual medical skills played a larger and larger role as the day wore on. I was more thankful than ever that we had a functioning supply line again. If we hadn't received medical supplies, it would have been impossible to save everyone.
By nightfall, I was exhausted. My hands and legs hurt from moving around so much. My brain felt like it had placed into a pressure cooker. I had a mild headache pulsing at the edge of my temples. My alteration essence was gone. The other doctors and the nurse in the medical bay looked even worse than me. In ten hours, we had seen a hundred and fifty patients. Over half were dying, and needed my healing magic to save them. The rest of the soldiers had less dangerous wounds, but had still needed a great deal of work to treat. For three doctors and one nurse, it had been almost impossible to keep up with the inflow of patients. My healing magic could only speed up the process so much, and the waves of patients seemed endless.
After a particularly taxing wave of emergency treatments, I cast my weary eyes upon the door. I knew it wouldn’t be long before another wave of dying patients were carted through the door. I had long stopped thinking - I just moved when more patients came. But strangely, no new patients appeared. Finally, I finished stitching together my current patient’s wound and blinked in surprise. There weren’t any other patients in need of care. We had finally caught up.
I hesitated for a few moments. After hours of constant motion and healing, not doing anything felt wrong. But my legs felt like they were made of jelly, and I was tired. After a few moments of struggle, I flopped onto a nearby chair. I felt my mind drift off, and started drifting off to sleep before I caught myself. Now wasn't the time to sleep when more patients could arrive at any moment.
“Where are the new patients?” I asked.
One of the other doctors also frowned. “I don’t know either. It feels like the enemy should have finished another battle by now. I'm surprised that we haven't gotten new patients... or had our own fort attacked."
Another of the doctors frowned in thought. "With how things have been going over the past few weeks… maybe they decided not to attack us at night? After all, Nightsong is available during nighttime, but never daytime. It would make sense if they decided to shift the war to daylight hours. Nightsong seems to be unbeatable during the night, but it has a huge, obvious weakness.”
I winced, and then nodded. The doctor’s words made sense. For a strange moment, I found myself wishing that the next wave of patients would arrive. If more patients arrived, that would mean the Worldstriders were still fighting, even as night fell. I remained tense for several more minutes, but nothing happened. No new patients arrived. I sighed, as I felt a strange mixture of bitterness and relief wash through me. The enemy had learned to exploit our weaknesses. That was terrible. But at the very least, it meant I could rest for a few minutes...
I closed my eyes, intending to give them a quick rest...
I woke up to find one of the other doctors shaking my arm. I blinked myself back awake.
“Miria. Go back to your room if you need to sleep,” said the doctor. “I’ll keep watch over the patients and wake you up if you're needed. You worked hard today. You need to take some time to rest too. Catch sleep when you can.” The doctor gave me a strained smile, and for a moment, I tried to tell her that I would stay awake for a little longer. Before I could speak, a yawn escaped my lips. I realized that my body was at its limit.
I stifled another yawn as I got up and nodded, before I looked at the full room of patients. I grimaced. Too many had died today.
“What do you think will happen next?” I asked.
The doctor I had been speaking with sighed.
“I don’t know,” she said. “The military of Damilius relying on Nightsong. This change is bad... but I also doubt the leaders didn't think of this. After all, Nightsong has such a massive, obvious weakness. The military should have some sort of plan to compensate for it. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.”
I sighed and nodded, before I made my way back to my room. Then, I realized I hadn't spoken with Anise in a while. I had lost track of our conversation during the chaos. <Anise, how are you doing? Are you still safe?>
<I'm fine. We did catch the tail end of a skirmish while you were busy, but the Worldstriders fled too fast. We're patrolling the area right now, and hoping to catch a group of Worldstriders off guard. I don't think any of them are coming, though. The moment it started getting dark, the enemy stopped showing up,> said Anise.
<If I were the worldstrider commander, I would do the same,> said Felix.
The three of us started chatting about more mundane things, as Anise occasionally complained about the cold and the patrol. After a few minutes, I started to drift off to sleep again, so I tried to terminate the connection. Before I could, Anise's mental voice resounded again.
<Nightsong is active again! It looks different from before!> Anise started showing us what she was looking at, and it made me frown in confusion.
One of the strange, stitched-together women were standing just outside of a fort. However, there was something new on its body. Something that hadn't been there before. It was a pair of bloody, stitched-together wings.
<Wings?> asked Sallia, catching me by surprise. I had missed her the last few times she was awake, since she had woken up while I was asleep. <I don’t remember those things having wings in the descriptions you guys gave me. Also, what happened? You guys sound a lot more stressed out today.>
I filled Sallia in on what we had experienced over the course of the day. Afterwards, Sallia sighed.
<That does sound bad. I do think the military commanders must have some sort of plan in place, though. It would be too strange if they didn't have a way to compensate for such an obvious weakness. But back to Nightsong... did these things always have wings?>
<They weren’t there last time,> said Anise. <Also, Nightsong’s eyes look a lot more… creepy than before? I don’t know how to describe it, but they’re different.>
I frowned, as I looked at the creature’s eyes. Anise was right. Nightsong’s eyes seemed a bit more expressive than last time. They seemed… hungry.
<Do you think they always had wings, and never used them before now?> said Felix. <I mean, one of the biggest advantages of the Worldstriders is the fact that they can fly and most human soldiers can’t. It would be odd for the military not to plan some sort of way to counter that problem. The bigger question is why they never tried flying before now.>
<The military could have also granted Nightsong some way to spend energy to form wings. Or maybe some way to add new parts to its body?> said Sallia. <If I take the way the creature looks as a guide, maybe it can add new body parts to itself. After all, you can add new parts to a puppet by 'stitching' them on. That's just a guess, though. I have no idea how these things were created, so I could be wrong.> Sallia sighed. <Well, either way, Nightsong can fly now. I'm not sure how that helps the current situation. It's still impossible for Nightsong to appear during the day.>
I sighed, before I shook my head and tried not to think about it. At this point, the impact the three of us who were still alive could have on this war was minor. There were too many people and too many resources involved. Felix didn’t have time to invent any new weapons for the human side, either. It was all up to the military's plans at this point.
Still, the wings bit bothered me. Had the stitchwork monsters added those after their creation? Secret weapons that could grow on their own sounded very dangerous to me. I spent a few more minutes thinking about all the ways things could go wrong, before I sighed and shook my head. Whatever happened now, it was out of my control. I just hoped the military leaders who pushed this project through knew what they were doing.
I kept watching through Anise’s eyes as the Stitchwork monsters took to the skies, before I shook my head. I had no idea why they were flying around now, when the Worldstriders weren't present. In any case, at least the Worldstriders weren't present right now. Anise and the other soldiers could get some rest, at least. But despite the friendly forces taking control of the situation, the pit of anxiety gnawing at my stomach just grew worse.
Author’s Note:
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Comments
Rain
TFC
Bryan D
Uh oh. Sentient weapons stronger than mankind. TFTC
Syrahl
Thanks for the chapter!
