Primordial Sage: Plight of Immortality

Arrow after arrow shot into the endless fog. However, while it looked as if they were firing blindly in hope of hitting something, it wasn't like that. As hunters accustomed to such a harsh climate their entire lives, using other senses was a necessity.

Illyan didn’t even need to waste his mental strength to feel the Spiritual Energy. Just from the vibrations and noises those running beasts made, he could deduce their distance. Although he couldn’t pinpoint exactly where each beast was, it didn't matter.

This was a tide with thousands of ferocious beasts running towards their direction. Even if they shot randomly, it was destined to fall on one beast or another. The wailings of hurt animals resounded as big impacts made the ground tremble. It seemed that the first wave that fell under their arrows made it hard for the other beasts to pass, causing the second wave to impact those corpses since they didn't have time to slow down.

It didn't take more than a minute for all their arrows to disappear. The beasts were now just tens of meters away. Throwing away the bow, which was now just a burden to him, he tried to flank the beasts from the side with Zers.

Fighting those beasts head-on would be extremely dangerous. It would be basically suicide, even for Illyan. Instead of comparing their strength, using the strategy of humans was a better idea. It didn't take long for them to see other shadows of their comrades who also hid and shot all of their arrows.

When it comes to animals, you would never know until you clash with them or observe them for a long time how much intelligence they had. They didn't want to risk it, so everyone attacked from all directions. There would be beasts who noticed the ambush, but now it would be harder for them to pinpoint the direction.

Unfortunately, the beast tide was still enormous. It was 'just' a few thousand, but when there were under fifty men trying to hold the fort, it was almost impossible. However, the only thing that gave them the courage needed for this was their tribe, the family—the elderly, women, and children. They needed to protect them as they were their future.

At first, Illyan was out of place in the midst of such warriors. He was adopted by the tribe and already had plans to leave this tribe. He was reclusive, and if he didn't need to, he usually didn't talk with anyone outside of his circle. He didn't owe the tribe anything either. But nobody raised their eyebrows at his decision to fight with them. It was only natural in their eyes.

Illyan was the weirdest member of their tribe. Nobody would argue about that. He was always alone in a daze without showing much of his emotions. On the other hand, he was someone who had the best ability for warriors that anyone would envy. His skin was so light and smooth as if he never worked hard, but it just hid his hardworking personality. But at the same time, he had the intelligence to become a disciple of their last Grand Shaman.

Everyone knew he suffered when he was a kid and was pitied by Kaoran, Degres, and other warriors. That was why he was taken in. However, when he paid off all of his debts in his preparation for leaving after Kaoran’s death, some thought of it as betrayal. He was given everything by this tribe yet he wants to leave. These kinds of rumors were spreading in the tribe.

But most of the people, especially those who know Illyan, just laughed it off. Leaving the tribe wasn’t so uncommon as it could be seen. After all, there would always be people who want to discover the world and leave this freezing hell. Most of the tribesmen think of it as a child leaving their parent’s house. They would live apart but they were still family.

And for most, Illyan was someone worthy of being a proud Bakur Tribe member. He was a warrior, shaman, and son of the tribe. He was someone younger that the kids and even his peers either admired or despised. Most of the kids his age were either to stay with the tribe as they were the ones protecting children, women, and elderly and were the ones who would need to help repopulate the tribe after they would survive this calamity. After all, they lost most of his generation that fateful night, and they were still recovering after all that time. However, making children in such a dangerous situation wasn’t wise, so they had to wait until they got to a safe place.

Only two of the younger generation waited for the inevitable clash. “Aarrh!” With a furious roar, the brave warriors of the north ran to their deaths with ferocious smiles on their faces.

Illyan together with Zers also started to run and attack the beast’s tide from its flank. There was extremely bad vision so they could not see farther than just a few steps in front of them, but they didn’t hesitate and ran towards the loud creatures. The beasts also already noticed something was wrong and started to make even bigger noise. Illyan would expect that their survival instinct would make them slow down, but instead those beasts ran even more ferociously, ready to fight their ambushers without care for their life.

However, only a few men awaited their wrath. Some of them already lost their wolf partner years ago, and some lost him today during the ice quake. Those like Zers who still had them let them go with the tribe. Lot of the wolves died today, and people lost their means of transportation. In that case, they would be unable to run away as the beast would easily outrun them.

Because of that even Zers’ loyal partner had to be given to Yii that lost her Hail and could not use her sled without her. As such it was only men who were ready to lay down their lives here.

Soon, two sides collided. Or better said, the Bakur warriors lunged between those monsters and started to slaughter them before they got devoured. Illyan also didn’t take long before seeing his first target. It was a gigantic boar with long tusks. It was over five meters tall and looked intimidating. Zers and him looked into each other’s eyes and nodded. “Hey, you fat ass!” Zers yelled as he attacked with his spear from the front. That was extremely dangerous and reckless from the perspective of a hunter. However, he didn’t plan to fight with the boar. He had his brother after all.

Roar

Painful roar resounded as Illyan stabbed an animal in its side with his jagged blade. He didn’t do it to kill, though. Boars had thick skin and rough fur. If not for his strength he wouldn’t be able to make even a shallow dent into it. Instead, he used the lodged blade as leverage to jump at the back of the creature. After he jumped up the back of the enormous boar he went straight to its head and without hesitation attacked its eye. For creatures like this that were hard to kill, eyes were his easiest target. Just like he did with the bear back then.

The boar started to struggle as it wailed wanting to take him down. However, with his strength he could hold himself while still stabbing the blade deeper until the beast weakened and fell with a loud thud. All of this happened in a matter of seconds and by that time Zers was already engaged with three other beasts while others were coming.

Illyan used the higher footing to his advantage and lunged at the beasts around Zers to help out. With one swing he split the skull of one with his trusty ax and sliced the jaw of another with his blade. Others also got surprise in the form of a kick that could easily break bones of normal people. But before it could recover the spear stab ended its life.

It didn’t take long to take care of all three beasts, but they couldn’t relax as new ones arrived. Thankfully, the beasts did keep distance between themselves and didn’t squeeze each other to death. As that would bring everyone’s death much quicker since they would be squashed together with those beasts. This kind of tide usually happens when the animals were running from something. On the other hand, this showed that those beasts were commanded by stronger and more intelligent beasts and that they were the predators looking for prey. It was a matter of time when that beast showed up.

However, Illyan’s mood didn’t fall; instead, he showed a ferocious expression as he started to slaughter anything that wasn’t human in his surroundings. Roars and wailing of beasts were sounding everywhere while the fog impaired his sight. He depended on his hearing and acted on his instinct, fighting mindlessly. Sometimes he heard roars and dying screams of something that wasn’t a beast but before he could get to that location only blood remained. However, he didn’t fall to despair as those men were the ones to choose this.

They were warriors. They didn’t need to be pitied. In such a way, everyone did their everything to keep killing beasts while taking their attention from the running forward. They didn’t even need to try hard as those beasts already thought that they were the one causing the commotion and thus were the target they were looking for, their prey.

Unfortunately, soon after the inevitable happened. Boom. This time the quake was so strong that it threw even those beasts off their balance. Illyan, who was already prepared, was still shocked when he found his body being several meters above the ground. Fortunately, he turned himself in time to catch some beast’s fur.

“Damn it, this is way worse than I expected!” While Illyan used all his strength to stay on that beast, he looked around. It was as if the world was ending. The ground under the beasts and humans alike broke, creating even bigger chasms than before. There was extreme pressure coming from them making the wind and fog move back. This made it possible for him to see around to see this. But through all that wailing of the falling beasts, he heard Degres mighty roar. When he looked in the direction of the scream, he saw him gesturing to others to retreat.

They already did their job. To delay the monsters so that the tribe’s core members could retreat. But this was an even better outcome as they didn’t need to waste their lives and just let those beasts die by falling. Seeing this Illyan jumped down from the beast that was already losing its balance and started to run.

“Zers, retreat!” He called out to Zers who was still fighting as he didn’t hear anyone. But when he heard Illyan, he stopped and started to run with him.

“Are we going back to the tribe?” Zers asked Illyan with wonder. They fought for just a few minutes at most. He didn’t expect the dynamic of the fight to change so quickly.

“If you don’t want to fall down, then yes!” Illyan rolled his eyes at the stupid question.

Soon they reunited with Degres and others. “Let’s go! We've done our job! Once we get out of the radius of this, we will intercept the rest of the beasts that are going the same direction!”

Degrees guided everyone towards the more stable part of the ice. When Illyan looked back, he finally saw little of the water coming out of those chasms as the water surface started to grow. But that made him alarmed even more.

“Degres, I think that the thing underneath will rise-” But as he turned around to warn the man running in front of them, he noticed a shadow lurking.

Squelch. Time slowed down for Illyan when he saw the man who taught him so much and took for him for such a long time, being torn apart. Other warriors wanted to react, but soon another shadow also attacked them from the sides, tearing them apart.

Illyan wanted to roar, but he couldn’t. This sight was all too familiar to him. The familiar sight that fell upon his eyes was bringing back his memories. Memories full of despair, fear, and pain. The Wolf Monsters that ate his family. The leader was even bigger than before. However, its mass seemed to lessen as its flesh was rotting and falling apart.

Instead of a wolf head, it now had only a skull full of fangs and deer’s antlers. The full belly of the past was gone, with its ribs protruding out, showing its rotten organs to the world.

Right at this moment, in its gigantic mouth, was Degres’ body, thoroughly being chewed before swallowing. It learned this lesson in the past.

Then it turned right at Illyan with its now empty sockets for eyes. But the intention was still easy to see.

It wanted to devour him thoroughly this time.