Chapter 565: Western Continent VI
"A what?" Jace asked as he pulled his sword out of the ground and rested the flat of the blade on his shoulder.
"A soulbound item, it is sothing that you store in your soul." Eduta began explaining. "I have never done it personally but I have seen plenty of the monks at the upper monastery with them. But they are usually glowing and simple."
"Huh," Jace humd before turning and walking to the wall where the sounds of battle had started. "No, it is not a soulbound item. I am using a form of technology to store items in a pocket of reality that follows
around." He explained as they passed a dical tent where it looked like recently injured soldiers were being treated. Inside were a variety of people with injuries.
"I would not think about it too much. I do not understand it at all." Victor declared with a shrug as he grabbed a large sheet that was not too thick but was not thin either. He flicked it before throwing it over his shoulder. "How are we going to get past whatever is making those noises?"
The noises were growls, screeches, and howling that were coming from the other side of the hastily constructed wall. Jace activated his electrical vision but flinched in pain and disabled it again. It was still bright when he tried it. Apparently sothing was wrong with that ability. It might not be the only one either.
He was constantly feeling stronger and faster and he was constantly having to adjust because of it. He thought it might have been because of the gravity at first. But now he knew that it wasn’t. It was sothing else.
"Like I said earlier." Jace jumped up as he approached the hastily constructed wall that was a combination of just about anything they could find laying around. From bricks to sticks and everything in between.
He landed on the top of the wall and looked down. The creatures that were swarming the walls were several different creatures. So he had seen and so he had not. But all of them seed to be half dead as he could make out sothing slithering underneath the skin.
"You said to kill them but this looks like an endless wave of death." Victor pointed out as he and Eduta joined him atop the wall.
"If you think that. Then you are not nearly looking close enough." Jact told him with a chuckle. The wolves, bears, and whatever the hell that is are all being controlled by so creatures.
"Yeah. We know." Eduta shrugged. "It was clear the animals and beasts are just skins the insects put on as so sort of defense. So they squish easily, as easily as foot crushing a leaf. But there are still hordes of them."
"Okay. But did you notice that more than one inhabit the bodies. Almost like a colony for each one." Jace sighed as he realized he was going to have to explain what he figured out in only a mont.
Victor tilted his head. "How does that help?"
Jace waved his hand. "They need to coordinate. If they can coordinate they need soone to lead them... co on Victor. This should not be this difficult to put together."
Victor shrugged. "I am sorry but I am not just-oh!" He realized sothing. "They are like the kitinol and other insects. They have a queen or monarch of so kind that controls them which is the reason they ca up the mountain for food."
Jace nodded as he grinned under his helt. Looking out over the swarm, "If we can kill our way past these scouts and soldiers we can make our way to their commander. But more importantly, they must have a way to communicate. I doubt it is sothing as complex as telepathy. So what are the other options?"
"For bugs... pheromones, blood, high pitched screeching-" Victor began listing them off and then stopped.
Jace nodded. "Now it is starting to make sense." He confird with a sigh as he leaned forward. I am going to run through frequencies on the radio. You run through them on the speaker." Jace told him as he jumped forward and off the wall right in the path of a charging bear.
His sword cut down and cleaved the corpse in two. When he did the bugs inside which looked like centipedes but larger and with skin instead of chitin. Which was why they had probably adapted to puppeting other creatures to hunt and gather their food. The creatures that were not killed by him cleaved the bear in two jumped ship and flew straight towards him. Probably with the intention of getting under his armor and inhabiting him.
But as soon as their pincers touched his armor. Arcs of electricity ca off of him and tore through the bugs. Making them explode into green goo that covered his body. A mont later the other two landed behind him, with Eduta stepping away slightly.
"That is not the best of slls. My senses are not refined for sll. But even then, that is one I would categorize as bad." Eduta declared as suddenly slamd a hand into a wolf and sent the body flying through the air and into sothing that looked like a cross between a cat and an alligator.
"Thank god for air filters." Victor sighed.
Jace moved forward as he started cycling through radio frequencies every few seconds. At the sa ti he carved a swatch through the creatures. Each ti one attempted to jump into him they exploded when electricity overloaded them, cooking them from the inside out until their blood boiled and they exploded.
Eduta was hitting the creatures that ca towards him. But not killing them, just sending them flying back and into other creatures. He did not have a surefire way to defend himself against them trying to get under his skin- or rather a form of external hard shell. Because that is what Xenar had instead of skin. But he did not seem to be worried about it.
Victor was using his clan’s axes to slice off parts of the animals to force them to be immobile. Not killing the inhabitants either. But he was phasing and out of existence constantly moving as a cloud of particles as he had the blanket covering him which limited his movents.
As they moved away from the plateau the rain subsided and sunlight started beating down on them. Which slowed Victor even more. So they had to slow down as well as they covered each other.
"Why are there no flying ones?" Victor asked as he sliced off a large rabbit’s back leg before retreating as Jace moved forward and cut off its head and fried the inhabiting bugs.
"The wings. Ha!" Eduta said plainly as he slamd a palm into a large black bear that was on its hind legs. There was a ripple visible on the creature’s skin before it was suddenly flying back through the air and over the edge of the cliff.
"Wings?" Victor asked as he grunted and stopped as a ray of sunlight managed to catch a bit of his exposed skin. He adjusted and dodged to make sure it did not happen again.
Jace sighed as he ran through a frequency and noticed the creatures around him froze. "Stop!" He ordered. Both Victor and Eduta stopped and then looked around as they realized that the creatures were no longer moving. "Victor, stop transmitting." Jace ordered and Victor’s speaker stopped making a noise that was high pitched and barely audible to them. When it stopped the creatures started moving again and Victor transmitted it again imdiately, which froze the creatures.
"We found the frequency, it just took an hour to do." Victor grunted in annoyance as he relaxed and moved towards Jace and Eduta who were moving together as well.
"Send
the frequency." Jace told him and a mont later he received the frequency that Victor was transmitting on. "I have matched the frequency on the radio. Turn off your speaker." Jace ordered.
Victor obeyed and the creatures stayed still this ti. "Oh good. That noise was giving
a headache."
Jace nodded.
"The wings of birds can’t be puppeted by these creatures." Eduta said aloud. Causing Victor to spin around and tilt his head.
"Sorry?"
"You asked why there are no birds being parasited." Eduta clarified. "It is because of the wings. Birds fly because their bodies are lighter and their wings are aerodynamic. But because the bugs are just massive heavy tubes of liquid, they would just weigh down the birds. So there is no way we would see one flying using a bird’s body." Eduta finished his explanation.
"Oh..." Victor nodded. "Can we find a place to rest? I really do not want to walk during the day."
"Sure." Jace grunted. "The first safe spot we can stop for a few hours until sundown."
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