It’s been over a month now since we started setting up our forward camp. According to the reports from the First Legion, they should be finishing with the installations today. This was a good thing, since most of the army was starting to go crazy from sitting around for so long.

In this month, there had been… not much happening. A week in, we had our first raid, but it had been easily repelled. Just a few stray beasts eyeing our camp. Since then, they hadn’t been able to break through the wards, and we’ve kept our losses to the bare minimum.

Perhaps, however, the most unpleasant part of this wouldn’t even be the lack of action. No… it was the food. Of the animals that had been hunted in the first few days, they were all found to have a highly toxic blood, their meat completely inedible. Even with the magic of the elves, they weren’t able to properly purify that meat… I dare say, even the other animals don’t eat each other.

No, I could say that pretty easily, as creatures that should have been carnivores were seen completely ignoring dead bodies, even after personally killing them. Instead, there was only a single thing that all beasts of this region seemed to eat. A small, white grub that could be found just beneath the soil.

This grub had been our only meal for the last four weeks… packed with an insanely high amount of energy, it could be called the ultimate natural food source. Even for the most demanding of appetites, a single grub was enough to provide them with all of the nutrition that they needed for a meal. Did it taste good? By the ancestors, no. But it got us through the day.

“Commander Ne’yal!” I heard Saren call for me, and immediately rushed over, my eyes wide with excitement. Was it finally time?

“Sir!” I approached and saluted, crossing both arms across my armored chest. Saren gave a small nod as he looked up at me.

“Pass my word to your men. We leave in two hours.” Judging from his confident expression, they had already conducted a test to ensure that the communication crystals within the bunker worked. Maybe they had a team travel out a fair distance in secret… no, that sounds too risky.

“Understood, sir!” I nodded my head sharply, turning to walk towards my company’s camp as I heard him call the name of another commander. Once I got to the camp, I saw that there were many people still on high alert, their eyes scanning the distant, dark horizons. There were also those who had begun to lose their tension, their shoulders starting to sag as they only loosely gripped their weapons.

Finally, there were those who laid in their bedrolls, taking the time to relax while they could. I gave a small nod, before raising my voice. “Listen up!” I shouted, and immediately all eyes turned towards me. Those sleeping jolted upwards, weapons suddenly appearing in their hands and armor on their bodies in brief flashes of light.

“It’s time, everyone.” I glanced over them, seeing a mix of different reactions. “You have two hours to start packing up camp. After that, the Twenty-first Legion is going to move out!”

“Yes, sir!” Various calls were returned as people got to work. I would have joined them, but instead moved to walk past. With everyone busy getting ready to move, someone had to make sure to keep a watch on the surroundings.

I noticed that I wasn’t the only one thinking this way, as other commanders could be seen walking the perimeter as well. Even a few generals were mixed in. Nobody wanted to suffer an unexpected attack while our guard was down, just before we were leaving anyways.

As such, two hours passed in relative peace. I saw a few chitinites testing our wards again, smacking them with their heavy claws before retreating quickly. That was the name that we had given to the largest, most dominant race we had seen. They may walk on all fours, but they operated with a sense of intelligence above that of a wild animal.

I felt the urge to smite one to vent my own frustrations, but quickly stopped myself. It wasn’t worth it… kill one chitinite, and the rest rally for an offensive. Even if they couldn’t particularly do much against our wards, there was no reason to provoke them at the moment. All that it would do is disrupt the morale of the army.

After the end of the two hours, the legion was assembled. Every legion stood in formation around the camp. Ninety-nine legions moving in ninety-nine directions. As it was, we had been set to go almost straight east, or what we assumed to be east… the storm had still never cleared. We had never seen the sun, never been given any indication of day or night. All that we had to go off of was the most primitive compass, and hope that there wasn’t anything magnetic interfering with them.

“Twenty-First Legion, move out!” Saren shouted, and we began marching forward. Moments later, I glanced to the side and noticed that the others were all moving as well. Like a ripple of soldiers spreading out in a pond, we were finally beginning the invasion in earnest.

As we marched, we kept a watchful eye on our surroundings, not wanting to miss anything that could be a potential threat. We were no longer within the protection of our wards, no longer safe from the chitinite attacks. Any movement, anything that wasn’t already dead, had to be treated as a real and present danger.

Tensions quickly rose within the ranks, those who had finally begun to relax realizing that they were no longer able to as they gripped their weapons tight. Eyes darted around at the horizon. Barely an hour in, and the first spell was launched, a lightning bolt sent towards a distant rock.

“Soldier, report!” I called back, the attack having come from a mage in my own company.

“S-sir, I thought I saw some movement.” The man, a human, stuttered slightly as he explained, his eyes locked on the rock. “It’s not there anymore… I think I scared it away.”

I shook my head with a sigh, moving over and patting him on the shoulder. Humans were normally better than this in a battle. Especially given our recent training. “Call out before you fire, next time.”

As I said that, my central eye flashed, turning a bright green as I connected with the natural energy of this world. Sure enough, there had been something in the area that he had shot. Its form was hard to make out, the spell having disrupted the natural energy. What I could tell, however, was that it was too small to be a chitinite. Likely one of the lesser beasts.

Without another word, I moved back to the front of my company, sending a mental report to the legion general. He spared me a brief glance before ordering us to resume our march. Our first real fight didn’t come until later…

When we had begun to set up camp, I heard a shift in the soil, the sound of claws scratching against stone far too close. Twisting around, I called my sword into my hand, preparing to lunge it into whatever beast had snuck up on me during my patrol.

Sure enough, I found a chitinite standing directly behind me, its body rising to a full height of nearly four meters. Its arms were spread menacingly before it was cleaved in half. “Attack!” I shouted, knowing that there was never just one chitinite.

My call rallied the troops, who ran out of the company camp. One hundred men against nearly as many monsters. They fought us more viciously than ever before, crushing us with heavy palms or lashing us with their claws. Out of the hundred men in our company… barely fifty managed to survive that first battle. Fifty heavily wounded men and women.

I made an immediate call for the legion’s medic troops. Upon their arrival, they were aghast at the scene they found. Our camp had been torn apart in the brawl, tents burning and men lying bleeding, clutching severed limbs.

Saren himself even rushed over. “Ne’yal, what happened?!” He asked, his face red as he looked at the fallen troops.

At this point, I was panting heavily, trying to catch my breath. My armor had multiple dents in it, and cracks from where I had received heavy attacks. “They snuck in, sir…” I explained. “Chitinites. I was walking patrol, and heard one behind me. Suddenly, they were everywhere… we barely fought them off…”

As that thought hit me, I glanced towards Saren curiously. “Why didn’t anyone reinforce us?” The camps were close together, and the battle raged for several long minutes. Plenty of time for even the slowest of soldiers to respond to a call to arms.

Saren had a rather complicated look, before shaking his head apologetically. “It looks like we’ll need to bring the camps closer from now on. Something must have blocked off the sound of battle… I didn’t hear anything until you called for the healers…”

That sounded… wrong. How could they not have heard anything? We were told that the beings of this world were unlikely to possess any magical abilities. Was there information that we hadn’t been made aware of? Secrets that the Ancestor Fox herself didn’t know to warn us about?

I closed my eyes and lowered my head, mourning the loss of my troops. “I understand, sir… I’ll rearrange the teams--” My words were cut off when the two of us heard a sharp cry. Another company calling for aid. Saren and I looked at each other, and we each kicked off the ground to rush to the scene.

When we got there… we found another company in ruins. They were even less fortunate than we had been. Of their hundred and twenty troops, barely thirty remained alive. I could count the bodies littered throughout the battlefield, man and chitinite alike. It looked like they had been attacked by a slightly smaller group than our own camp, maybe seventy or eighty enemies. But, having been caught off-guard, their losses were even greater.

That night, similar attacks swept through twelve companies within the legion. Over a full battalion had suffered such heavy losses on the first night.

In order to ensure the safety of the camp, I decided against sleeping that night. We didn’t have enough men to spare, with too many tending their wounds. It wasn’t hard for me to spend two or three days without sleep, so there were no problems, so long as I did not have to do so regularly…

As I watched, my eyes locked for any movement, I eventually caught the faintest glimpse of a shadow moving behind a tall rock. My central eye flashed, and a white beam shot out to pierce the source of the shadow, over a hundred meters away. There was a shrill cry, and I immediately knew that I had killed one of the local monsters. Nobody from our side had gone out in that direction, after all.

Unfortunately, my attack had to penetrate through the rock to hit the target, so I wasn’t able to see the exact shape of what I had killed. Merely a long, black tendril covered in armored plates that had fallen forward after my attack. And, moments later… I saw it shifting again, as if being dragged away. This time, there was no shadow for me to lock onto, nothing that I could use to hit my target, so I was forced to endure.

I could only wait patiently, hoping that my men would recover quickly. Although we had lived safely until now… I could finally say that we were truly not prepared.