Atmosphere quickly became chaotic. Only the actual soldiers had weapons. Not even Dashire’s hunters had weapons. They had been taken away from them. The excuse was that supposedly the weapons were trash and it was better for them to carry materials like rest of the villagers.

Now they had just been attacked by a beast. A strong one too.

“Give us weapons!” People from Dashire were asking for at least minimum capability to fight. “Isn’t fighting what you wanted us to do?”

Kaden was still in slight shock and didn’t pay all that much attention. Its not like he could fight that kind of monster even, if he had a weapon.

Then a familiar voice was heard once again.

“What is the hold up now?” It was Captain Juren and with him some other higher ranked soldiers. “Get back in line and keep moving. You will get weapons once we reach our destination. A great battle awaits and you will all get to fight. As for that Steelfur Bear, it is just at best peak dire beast. Now get moving!”

With that Juren turned around and no one dared to question his orders. Everyone knew what would happen, if they did.

Kaden stood up and tried to ignore the fact that, if he was ever target of that monster, he would die. With whatever willpower he had, he kept his terror in check. Aden and Ann came closer, but didn’t say anything. It wasn’t good thing to speak unless absolutely necessary. Perhaps they would have higher chance of surviving, if they relied on each other.

As the march continued, it was clear it was not going to be just a single attack. Howls of all sort of beasts could be heard. Luckily no more attacks happened by the time marching for the day ended.

Kaden had somehow managed to be a bit more aware of his surroundings and yet keep his mana use in control. If beasts did not get him and the daily marching would not get any rougher, he would likely not run into situation where he would be left behind.

As for dealing with the beasts, soldiers increased the number of guards. It seemed even they were finally showing reaction to the current situation. Something seemed to be riling up the beasts. Kaden listened to some rumors that were spreading that it had to be a high beast ordering around lesser beasts. That was something they could do. It took an extremely powerful beast to give orders to others and have them ignore their instincts and things like territorial differences.

Kaden wondered those rumors as he was cycling his mana system. They were not that far from Dashire yet. They had marched only basically two days. Could it be that a true high beast had indeed decided to start living in the area? Would Dashire have survived even, if everyone had been allowed to stay?

He was not sure how much longer they would need to survive against the beasts. A day? Two days? He did not know the area and he didn’t know how fast they were marching every day. Just how many people would die along the way? Kaden was certain that it should be relatively few. That lunatic, Captain Juren, didn’t seem like someone who would fail his orders. If he had been ordered conscript people, then he would at least try to perform the task in at least passable manner. Right?

This was the logic that Kaden wanted to believe. In this way, there would be a chance of survival at the end. Hopefully.

The night didn’t go well. Beasts sometimes rushed in from the darkness when they had the chance. They would quickly pick a target and drag the screaming person into the depths of the forest where the screams quickly ended.

People of Dashire prayed for gods protection. Kaden and his family did so too. Maybe gods would notice their blight and help them!

The situation wasn’t entirely one sided. Soldiers managed to kill many weaker beasts, but only few stronger ones.

It was clear that there was indeed somewhere a strong enough beast that rest of the beasts would follow its orders. At least the ones that were smart enough. Lowest grade beasts were not around and were most likely hiding in their dens. It wasn’t surprising since they did not understand the orders.

Next morning everything continued as if nothing unusual had happened during the night.

That day Kaden was already learning the efficient use of his mana. It was also quite needed. Weaker beasts kept attacking all day so Kaden had to pay attention to prepare for all kinds of attacks. He was lucky enough to avoid any major problems.

Captain Juren was getting annoyed. The repeated attacks were slowing down the progress. He angrily crushed a few smaller beasts under his foot as he cursed the beasts.

“Bring out the mobile defense formations!” Juren shouted orders. “Load them with low grade beast cores. These cursed beast are courting death, if they think we are juicy slab of meat for them to eat!”

The soldiers were extremely eager to bring out some kind of dark plates from packs that some of them were carrying. These had been considered too important things to give to villagers so the soldiers had always carried these specific packs.

Kaden had, of course, heard of formations, but had never seen one. No such things could be constructed in Dashire. It required not only high enough cultivation stage, but also talent! While Channel Opening stage mana user could construct a formation, it was pretty rare, if they could build anything complex. One needed not only materials, understanding of how to build formations, but also mana needed to be strong and yet precise enough to engrave the formation on an object. This was still only basic idea of a formation. There could still be all sorts of special requirements.

Formation was like a machine. It also needed fuel. Either from someone or something, such as beast cores. So either you fueled it yourself or you had to pay large price to use external mana sources. If you did fuel it yourself, you would waste lots of mana that could often be used better. Therefore formations were rarely fueled by people unless that specific formation was intended for it.

There existed simpler forms of formations called Seals. Kaden knew of these since, some of the stronger weapons in Dashire had a few of them. If formation was a machine, a seal was a part, such as a cog or a spring. Technically speaking, you could think of them as formations, but they were too simple to function like any true formations.

The soldiers distributed these thick, dark, almost metallic plates evenly among each other and then wore them like backpacks. Once cores were inserted in them, they began glowing and emited seemingly illusory perimeter around the wearer. They didn’t seem to do anything else. Soldiers and the villagers could easily pass in and out.

Eventually, as march continued, Kaden finally saw the effect. A small screeching beast appeared from the forest. As soon as it entered the glowing perimeter, a burst of light was emited from the formation. It pierced through the beast as if it was just soft mud, leaving behind partially cauterized bloody hole with small embers on the edges of the hole as if some extremely hot object had passed through.

There were enough soldiers with formations that they could cover about two thirds of the road. This made marching speed increase once again with far fewer beast attacks. Not all could be stopped, but it seemed most did.

Kaden was mesmerized by the glowing formations. Even, if he hated the soldiers, he had to admit their weapons were extremely useful. With the formations active, most danger from the beasts was gone. Some bigger and tougher beasts could still simply take the hits, but even then many burnt spots were left on their hides. They had to defend against the formations and soldiers at the same time.

Beast attacks still continued, but they no longer were a threat. Now with the defenses, villagers could finally have sigh of relief at least as far as beast attacks were concerned. There had been some casualties among the soldiers, but most deaths had been unsurprisingly among the villagers. About ten percent of them had already perished. They were far easier targets than trained soldiers with weapons so more intelligent and stronger beasts had prioritized them.

By the evening when it was dark again and beasts were more active, march stopped once again.

While everyone was resting for the next day, heavy footsteps were heard at middle of the the camp. “These fucking beasts think we are easy targets”, Juren shouted. “We already wasted time, we will move quicker this last part and make our way to the plains. If any of these pathetic beasts dare follow us in the open, they’ll be perfect target practice there. Make your preparations! We will not stop again until we are out of this beast infested forest.” Juren spat on the ground.

Luckily that night was peaceful enough that everyone could rest and restore their condition to maximum. That wasn’t the only good thing Kaden noticed.

“What is this? My mana storage has sings of third layer starting to form? How? It just advanced to second layer!”

He thought it for a moment. “It must be this heavy constant use. Besides its not quite there yet, these are just the first signs. It will still take some time, but still its much faster than second layer. This marching and constant threat from the beasts must be equivalent to harsh training.”

If he could advance to third layer, his chances of survival would increase once again. Still, even third layer would be almost pathetic strength and wouldn’t change much. Kaden knew he would have to get to Channel Opening stage before anything he did would mean slightest bit. People like Juren, who were at Formation Stage, were rare so at Channel Opening he would be able to have a chance to run away. But such a thing was still far away. Too far away. Even thinking about it was just dreaming of impossible matters.

Kaden decided to concentrate on what was real and relevant right then. Dreaming about power beyond his reach was not going to help him in his current situation. Not that there was much he could do now. Best plan Kaden could think of was to work towards increasing his cultivation. If he could survive until the battle that they were supposed to be going to, it was still going to be some time until then. Perhaps, if his strength increased the rate it was, he could reach third layer before then. Strength was what mattered most!

Orders were shouted very early morning again. Kaden felt hopeful that by the next stop, they would be out of the forest and at relatively safe place… as far as beasts go.

Everything seemed peaceful at first. Beasts had taken the hint once most of them perished inside the formations. Roars and movement could be heard around the road, but very few beasts dared to show up.

Then suddenly roars were heard from all sides!

Large number of beasts charged in! Defensive formations no longer could keep up and many beasts managed to get through. Even some of the soldiers carrying the formations were killed when beasts rushed at them. Luckily none of the formations were actually destroyed and they were left on the ground or dragged a bit further along with corpses. Another soldier would pick them up. Problem with the formations was that they were rather heavy and hindered common soldiers ability to fight.

“Get the fuck out of here you damn beasts!” Juren started screaming and began slaughtering all beasts that got near him. “Go bleat and whine at your pathetic gods in whatever afterlife they have prepared for you mange ridden filth!”

This was the most dangerous moment so far. It seems the beasts were not going to let their prey escape without a fight.