He ran quickly along the wall. The entire wall didn’t need to be fortified, as no attacks would come from behind. The back of the city was mostly unguarded, as the terrain was too difficult to launch a proper attack. Furthermore, it would leave their own backs open to another attack. It also meant that it would be pretty easy for him to target the chanters. All he needed to do was run along the wall, and he would eventually run into them.

The first pack he had met was a mix of boys and girls, however, this one was all boys. They wore clothing that gave away what they were, and he managed to deal with them easily. They had tried to attack him, but most of their projectiles had been too slow or too weak. The fires couldn’t burn him, and the stone and ice projectiles were easily avoidable. He wasn’t slowed down in the slightest, and he swung his blade in a wide circle instead of overhead. The chanters had seen his approach and had stood side by side to attack him.

They quickly erected a crude defense. It was a wall of stone, and while it would have stopped almost anything else, it was insufficient for him. His blade easily parted the stone and cut into the people. His swing didn’t actually manage to hit all of them, instead only hitting three of them. One of the ones that were hit crashed into another, and they both flew off the wall. There was only one remaining, and the man looked at him nervously. He didn’t hesitate to attack though and held his hands toward Cedric. It was a desperate attempt, and the man screamed as fire poured out of his hands. The flames expanded, quickly becoming wider than a river, and Cedric heard the screams of the soldiers around him.

He didn’t let his shock or worry overwhelm him, and he quickly swung again. Anger mixing with his anxiety, he swung even faster than he had before. The blade passed through the man, and he had managed to cut him in half so quickly that his body still stood for a moment. It fell into two even pieces and the man even managed to scream as the blade had cut him just above the legs. The screams bothered him but, Cedric wasn’t actually concerned for the man. Disgust filling him in far greater amounts. Turning he looked to see what the attack had done to the soldiers.

It was breaking one of the rules Sir L had told him, but he couldn’t stop himself. Even if these people were his enemies, most of them weren’t chanters. He smelled the burning of skin and hair and saw the devastation that the attack had caused. Dozens of people were clutching at burned parts of their bodies, and he noticed a few that were certainly dead. Even his armor had melted in some places. Thankfully the leather underneath managed to stop the armor from getting stuck to his skin. He knew that he had killed several people in getting to the walls, but this was different. None of these people had been fighting him, they were just punished for being around a chanter. The burning and fires had reminded him of the caravan and what he was fighting for.

The memories chased him as he ran, reminding him what all this was for. It was ironic, that with all of his new power he had had more nightmares as of late. Instead of getting rid of his old ones, it seemed to have just created more. He knew that this battle would be no different and that the next fight would only add to them, but he needed to continue. He didn’t know why, but he felt like he needed to do this. The power, the respect, and most of all, the acceptance. It was something he had craved for, and in the back of his mind, he knew that it would all vanish if he stopped. There was no end other than fighting, and he would do it.

He found himself running faster than ever before, and it truly felt like he was outrunning his thoughts. Leaving them to bite at his heels as he focused entirely on the chanters. That was his job, and he would do it right.

As he got close to the next pack, he was surprised to see them holding hands. Their eyes were closed, and he wondered if they had accepted their fates. Despite the resolve he had managed to muster, he slowed upon seeing them look so resigned. Something strange happened, and he felt like he saw the air around them warp. He didn’t know what was happening, and he stared at them as he ran. Everything went white, and he lost control of his body. A second later a loud rumble seemed to shake the ground, and for a second, he thought the whole thing would collapse.

His vision returned, colors swirling in his eyes as he faced forward. He still couldn’t tell what was happening and could barely even move his body. Once his vision returned, he immediately stared down at his chest, trying to move his still limp body. The armor around his chest shone with an orangish hue, and it had melted even more than it had before. The leather beneath had clearly not stopped what had hit him, as he saw black marks lancing across his armor and body. It had colored him like lightning.

That was it, the thought having revealed the reality. They had somehow made lightning, which was not something that chanters should be able to do. He looked past his burned body, surprised to realize that he had been unconscious for most of the pain. Did he die? Could he even die? Surprisingly, he was terrified at those thoughts. It had always been a joke when he thought about it before, but he had survived literal lightning now. What was left, was there anything that they could throw at him. Plus, there were still another two weeks of the elixir.

His gaze slowly lifted from his body as he regained control of it. He had been sent flying, but thankfully had landed on the wall. He wasn’t surprised to see that none of the soldiers had tried to dispose of him. They were even more stunned by the attack, and many of them had died from the lightning. It looked like almost every soldier near him had died, and many others were clutching their eyes and ears. Finally, he saw the chanters, and all of them were lying on the ground motionless.

Slowly, he regained control of his body. It was slow to him, but it was still a lot faster than the rest of the soldiers. Even those that hadn’t been struck directly. Cedric rose to his feet and ran towards the five collapsed chanters. He couldn’t let them use that again. What if they had fired that at the army? He would need to warn the others and tell Sir L about the lightning. They would need to know. As he got close, he realized that none of them were moving, not even the rise and falls of their chest.

He kneeled beside them when he got close, and he saw trails of blood pouring from their ears and eyes. Reaching down, he placed his hand against one of the chanter’s necks. Sir L had told him to do this, as it was a good way to check if someone was alive. Apparently, you could feel a person’s heart by doing this. None of them had survived, and he wondered what had killed them. Did the attack itself kill them? Were chanters crazy? How could they do something that would kill themselves?

The attack had been something that no one had warned him about, and it was powerful enough to kill hundreds of people including the chanters themselves. Knowledge of the attack might be more valuable than taking the city. Pushing himself to his feet, he ran forward towards the next pack. His sword was gone, and he had no idea where it had gone. The attack had sent him flying, and he couldn’t hold the sword as he lost control of his body. It didn’t matter, he was sure he could get a new weapon. It only meant that he would need to make do without it. He just ran at the next chanter.

Instead of running along the center of the wall, he ran closer to the soldiers and grabbed a spear out of the hand of one of them. He would stop the chanters before they could use lightning again. As he closed the distance, he stopped, sliding forward for a little bit, before throwing the spear at the next group of chanters. He swung his body with the throw, remembering how Sir L had shown him. He used his shorter arm for the throw and used his longer arm to help swing his body down faster. It added a lot of speed to the projectile, and it struck one of the chanters in the side of their head.

He hadn’t really aimed his throw, mainly throwing it to disrupt their chant. However, the chanters weren’t looking in his direction, and he bet that they thought he had died. He caught them unaware, and the man had no chance to move. The spear collided and his head exploded like a ripe fruit. He started running again, wanting to stop the other chanters from trying anything.

For some reason, he was getting noticeably faster, and he closed the distance in a matter of seconds. The chanters hadn’t even finished a chant yet by the time he crashed into the closest one. It was a girl, and his shoulder easily bypassed the barrier. It had done nothing to even slow him, and he heard the crunching of bones as he crashed into her. He swung his arm out, throwing the already broken girl off the side of the wall. It was probably unnecessary, but he really did it so that he could see the other chanters. The remaining three chanters had their arms raised toward him, and he stepped towards the nearest. He grabbed the man’s arm swinging it around him and dragging the man in front of the next. He did it too forcefully and tore the man’s arm off as he pulled him. it got worse when a stone spear struck the chanter’s side. His barrier fizzled into existence and managed to lessen the force of the spear. However, it did nothing to stop Cedric’s fist from throwing him off the side of the wall.

After dealing with that chanter, he leaped at the last two. They must have seen how the battle was going and turned their next attacks toward the ground. His eyes went wide, as a mix of fire and rock crashed into the wall. It erupted exploding and destroying the wall and a large section of it. Cedric braced for it, raising his hands in a defensive posture. Bits of rock and stone struck him, but it didn’t do much else. He felt the floor beneath him shaking and leaped backward instinctively. He stumbled rolling across the ground, and he only caught periodic images of what was happening. The attack had destroyed the section of the wall and killed the chanters in the process.

His roll ended with his back skidding against the ground. The scent of burning flesh flooded his nostrils. Chunks of molten rock were melting onto his skin. It didn’t hurt as much as he would have expected, and he ripped it off with his bare hands. It was easier to tear off his skin along with the rocks, and it only took a few moments for him to remove it all. He was a bloody mess by the end of it, and most of his armor was gone by this point. It made him wonder why he bothered with it. If anything, it would be more effective to fight naked than bother wearing the armor.

Slowly he rose to his feet, looking over to the rest of the wall. He was surprised to see that there were no more chanters firing upon the soldiers. Looking over to the battle on the ground, he saw that the fighting had mostly ended there too. It seemed like the fighting was over, though he couldn’t really tell who won. How did this work anyways?