Titan King: Ascension of the Giant - Chapter 1004: What do we do?

Chapter 1004: What do we do?

“Take these,” Orion said, handing Caesar a storage pouch. “They’re for you and your men only. A logistics buffer.”

Inside was a large quantity of grain and cured meat. Of all the coalition’s forces, only Caesar’s Shield Warriors actually needed to eat. And while five thousand might not sound like a huge number, their food consumption was immense. Especially during wartime, when they were constantly in full armor, the physical toll was enormous.

Orion knew this from experience; the stoneheart horde had its own Shield Warrior army composed of Thunderstorm Bearmen. In peacetime, their appetites were manageable. But once mobilized for war, their food consumption would triple, sometimes even quintuple.

“Thank you, Big Boss!” Caesar’s relief was palpable. He had been planning to bring this up with Orion himself. The last two days of hard labor had completely exhausted his men’s personal rations, and he was starting to worry. Orion had told him not to be concerned about food before they arrived, but until he saw it with his own eyes, the anxiety had remained.

“Don’t worry,” Orion said, clapping him on the shoulder. “The Wood Elves are master cultivators. Once we gather more of them here, we’ll have more food than we know what to do with.” He was pointing Caesar toward a sustainable future. If their coalition could unite the Forest of Nature and drive out the demonic monsters, the Wood Elves could solve the food supply problems for all their territories.

“I’m on it, Big Boss,” Caesar said, his resolve renewed. “I’ll get this camp built as fast as I can. Give the Wood Elves a safe place to finally come home to.”

Orion nodded, then turned and walked back toward the fortress.

Outside the camp, deep in the dense forest.

Hah… hah… hah…

Ragged, desperate breaths echoed through the silent woods. Xylia stopped, her back pressed against a massive tree, and forced herself into a rhythmic breathing pattern to calm her racing heart. A moment later, her breathing even, she nocked an arrow.

Thwip!

The bolt tore through leaves and branches, crossing an impossible distance to shatter the skull of a Red-Eyed Ghoul. It was a testament to the power of her skill: Gale Force Shot.

Unlike some pampered diplomat, Xylia was a true elite, a battle-elf trained from birth to become a Guardian of the Wood. When the Wood Elf base of operations was overrun and the Tree of Life sealed itself away, she had survived by sheer luck, having been on a patrol rotation away from the main enemy assault.

But the demonic monsters’ relentless pursuit of the survivors had been brutal. She and her squad were hounded, exhausted. The Forest of Nature was their home; they knew it better than anyone. It was the only reason they had survived this long, leading the monsters on a desperate chase.

But a chase meant injuries. And injuries meant the smell of blood. And the smell of blood meant the Red-Eyed Ghouls would never give up.

She glanced down at the makeshift bandage on her left thigh. The dried blood and the dull throb of pain were a constant, terrifying reminder. Damned corpse-hounds. How do I shake them? The wound was why she had broken off from her squad, to draw the pursuit away from the others.

Grrrrowl…

The low snarls from the woods behind her started up again. A tremor of fear ran through her body despite her resolve. She pushed off the tree and took to the branches, continuing her desperate flight.

Less than five miles away, the squad Xylia was trying to protect was also cornered. A pack of Cyclopes and Red-Eyed Ghouls had them surrounded.

The twenty-odd Wood Elves leaped between the canopy of the giant trees, raining arrows down on the monsters below. They had inflicted heavy casualties, but it wasn’t enough. The ghouls were climbing the massive trunks while the Cyclopes were simply uprooting them one by one, shrinking the elves’ battlefield with every tree that fell.

“Vice-captain, what do we do?” one of the elves cried out. “Once they knock down all the trees, we’ll have nowhere left to go!”

This was Xylia’s squad. Without their captain, they were lost.

“The captain went east! We break out to the east!” yelled Angel, Xylia’s second-in-command. “Emma, Yvaine, you’re on point! Clear a path! I’ll hold the rear! Go now, before it’s too late!”

Faced with certain death, she chose to sacrifice herself.

There was no time for the others to think. They had faced this situation too many times in the past weeks. Their squad had been whittled down from a hundred to just these twenty survivors. They had learned their hard lessons.

As one, they turned east, unleashing a volley of arrows as they leaped through the canopy, a desperate bid for freedom.

Angel remained behind, firing three arrows at a time, unleashing her power with the desperation of one who had already accepted her fate. She knew that to create a path for the others, someone had to stay behind to bleed. The scent of her blood would draw more of the monsters to her, buying her comrades a sliver of a chance. Before they tore her apart, she would take as many of them with her as she could.

Her arrows fell like rain. In that moment, she was fearless.

After firing hundreds of shots, her arms, swollen and trembling, finally gave out. They hung uselessly at her sides. She had nothing left.

Her vision blurred. Is this the end? Maybe in my dreams, I can go home… back to the Forest of Nature as it was. Captain… I’m sorry. I couldn’t complete the mission. I couldn’t get them out. I’m sorry, my friends…

She closed her eyes, waiting for the end, unwilling to watch the monsters feast on her body.

But death did not come. Instead, she heard the familiar, piercing whistle of an arrow slicing through the air.

A Red-Eyed Ghoul that had been climbing the tree towards her was struck mid-lunge, its body thrown back to the forest floor below.

It was the sound of an arrow. A sound Angel knew as well as her own name.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by AiKurou