Chapter 17: Symphony of war

(20 minute after posting ? i'm still editing it. the gramma will be corrected within 15 minutes, you been warned, this was a 4000 word chapter, a truly long chapter, so give me a break within 20 minutes of posting to correct grammar, be happy i worked hard to do 4000 words, it might be too much for you to take)

(it has been edited and gramma corrected to the best of my ability)

after General Claus had ordered the armies of men, peasants and nobles alike to march towards greatness.

max could feel the excitement in every being, no fear only hunger, hunger to be great.

General Claus lead at the very front, his tall imposing back seemed to support the sky,

straight, fearless.

" one of the few men my father respects" Henry whispered, " his a living legend, countless battlefields he has marched, countless times he has been supporting this kingdoms"

everyone nodded as if to agree with Henry's words, " this is not the first time he has lead the first wave into a unexplored door, a truly fearless man.

the last time he lead he lost his 2 sons to the unexplored door, my father speaks often of how everyone was nearly wiped out but General Claus,

his sons and a few of his men covered everyone's retreat, everyone all ran like cowards leaving them to bear it all. my cousin was able to retreat because of that, many men where able to survive the door because of that, in that door General Claus lost his 2 sons,

those who retreated outside the door waited for anyone to come out after them, they wanted they heroes to live, but all that came out was a single sole figure,

a half broken man, the back was still straight, his eyes still showed no fear but he was barely alive.

he came out all alone as if abandon by his brothers, by his family and abandoned by death.

alone, he had saved many lives but at what price ?

he walked out and said nothing more than, ´all for glory, all for this kingdom´ then passed out standing.

that's why he is known as Claus the pillar of Lu, but now he only has a daughter left" Henry spoke with deep reverence and awe.

max did not think he would hear such a tone from him because even though he was friendly max could feel the deep seeded pride in him.

" legend has it that when General Claus dies he will die standing " wayne added in.

" yea legend has it that when he sleeps he sleeps standing" a man besides our group chipped in, he seemed to have been paying attention to the chat,

his friends started to laugh and joke

" yea i heard that General Claus has a standing bed" the man's friend said laughing

" even his chair is standing" another one joked

" whats even mightier is that i heard that even after sex his rode is still standing", as soon as the man who first chipped in spoke everyone around who heard that started laughing.

max could see that Henry was finding it hard to keep a straight face

even white and grey´s faces twitched.

lily just blushed as if shy, if it was possible smoke would come out of her head.

sophie just turned her head away hiding her expression.

soon they had marched before the gate, and leading at the front General Claus brought a group of his men underneath the gate where the grey lightning struck.

after a few seconds the lightning struct on them and with a flash they disappeared

" that's the grey lighting " wayne said to me knowing this was my first time here,

" it transports anything it strikes into the gate as we can not get closer to the gate before higher class otherwise one would be pressed down by it's aura or even worse their mind would break from an existential crisis, the feeling of insignificantes you feel would be so strong that your mind would break and you would start doubting your very existence ".

max was feeling like everything is overpowered in this world now, gates that can break peoples minds leaving them doubting if they are even alive and concepts that can erase your very being if you forcefully try to understand them.

what on earth did he just sign up for ? he has been here for less than a week and he is already doubting the room for his survival.

" how strong is the General ?" max asked as they waited for their turn to enter the gate

" his a noble class, but i don't know what rank he is, around rank 2 or 3 i would guess"

wayne spoke but sounded not too confident in guessing, " he is very strong though, he could kill you with his pinky finger ".

max wasn't sure how true this was, he didn't want to believe he was that weak.

after an hour it was finally their groups turn

after standing underneath the floating gate, max could feel an insane amount of pressure, it even manifested on him making him feel as if someone was trying to press him down.

after a moment a grey light flashed and max could feel the movement of space energies, wrapping around him as if a bubble, max tried to follow the trail of the energies so he would know exactly the location of the inside of the gate.

max wondered if he could void walk into the gate if he knew exactly where the grey lightning took him,

as max tried to follow the trail he suddenly felt his skin crawl and his back cold with fear, he felt a great sense of fear, he tried to calm his mind and not shake but it did not help.

max could feel is being tremble in fear, grasping at his soul, terror !

as if a mortal tried to spy on the secrets of gods, as if an ant tried to steal food from a lion.

max never felt such fear, pure rare fright.

i can't die, no, no, no, no, no NO!

don't, run, RUN

his mind was screaming at him,

max quickly withdrew and stopped trying to trace the trail of space energies,

he did not want to die, he did not want to find out the location of inside the gate anymore,

as he stopped tracing the energies the feeling of fear grasping at his very being disappeared as if it never been there, but max knew it was real, it was still ingrained in his mind he would never forget that feeling.

max did not want to feel that weak again, so helpless, so insignificant and humble.

the feeling of wanting to remain strong but be betrayed by your very soul, mind and being as they tremble in pure and utter horror.

"max"

"max"

"max!!"

" huh ? yeah " max suddenly snapped back to reality and saw that wayne was calling him,

" are you okay ?" he asked

" yes, yea i am"

everyone just looked at him, lily had a look of pity whilst sophie seemed to carry full contempt in her blue beautiful eyes.

the surrounding people also looked at him, only then did max notice that his body was shaking and he was sweating heavily.

" what a bitch "

"his a disgrace to us all, how can a man be so pathetic"

" his shaking like a little girl"

" that's actually rude, even little girls are braver than him"

" i bet they had bigger balls than him too !" with that last shout everyone who was mocking him laughed.

humph*

Henry snotted and released his aura and let out his star field, red crystal like stars revolved around him.

instantly the surrounding was tense, everyone could feel the power in the red stars revolving around him.

" calm down tiger " a girl yelled out mockingly, she was a sexy beauty, with brown toned skin and long black hair.

she wore leather armor that covered only her vitals but still showed her curvy body. she had a short leather skirt only down to her thighs, and her legs were wrapped in black glossy tights.

the girl was not scared off by Henry but instead released her own aura which overwhelmed him

" little boy " she said mockingly, then a giant reaching into the skies started to faze and flicker behind her as if a tv with bad signal.

the giant towered above everyone one,

and smoke sprayed from it's mouth, when it open it's mouth it felt as if the world would be swallowed by it.

" fuck, that's the star devourer "

" no way, she is in the first wave too"

max could hear some surrounding people chatter.

henry looked pale and ugly, max had never seen him look like that.

as the atmosphere got tense a soldier in white armor walked over, he looked like he was not affected by the aura of the star devourer.

" your enemy is what lies behind the gate " he spoke as he looked at everyone, as his eyes sweeped by the giant they paused for a second and max could see caution in them before continuing.

humph*

the girl put away her aura and the giant flickered away, Henry quickly retreated but max could see his fist clenched white.

after the soldier spoke every one dispersed,

Henry walked closer to the rest of the group and said to max " it is all good" but max could see the unhappiness in his eyes.

" we just have to wait for the door to unseal then we can go" he continued

max finally collected himself, he held himself back he knew it wasn't the time yet, he wanted to slaughter all the people who laughed and mocked him and keep their wives and daughters or sisters in a cage as sex slaves, he wanted to just dye the ground red with their blood.

max hated the feeling of being looked down on, it had tortured his mind whilst he was trapped in that void for what seemed like forever.

feeling it again made him nearly lose his mind in rage, but max knew better, he was too weak right now, he needed strength. if he acted like Henry and flexed his muscles when he was unhappy then he would probably die straight away.

even Henry who was the strongest in the group was overwhelmed by a random girl to the point he turned pale.

max knew from the aura of Henry that he was weaker than him and he felt danger from the red crystal stars, and even though that star devourer just flickered about max still felt powerless before it.

so max told himself to calm down, don´t act stupid this is real life not some novel.

after some more waiting around there was a ripple of Phanes energy that swept through the whole space.

max could hear people get excited saying that the door had just been unsealed.

after a moment the ripples cleared and the crowd started to move, to the left hand side.

everyone was in a huge space that seemed infinite and the ground seemed non existent and felt like they just stood in a dark space, there were doors around them with Roman numerals on top of them as if counting.

max noticed that they were at the center of the doors, he couldn't see the doors ahead of them but he felt everyone in front of him slowly start to move to his left hand side.

as the crowd slowly moved he suddenly heard General Claus voice shouting " for honor!!!! for GLORY !!!!!"

" CHARGE TO..."

and everyone roared in unison " GREATNESS!!!!"

then everyone started to stump their feet and beat their armor and weapons creating a symphony of war.

then the crowd slowly marched into the door to the unknown.

after 10 minutes max got before the gate. it was grey and tall but looked ancient above it was the roman number 13.

it was alluring as if something was calling out from within it, anyone who stood before it felt tempted to go through it.

the moment max walked through it his vision was black

then

" AHHHHHHH!!!!!" a miserable cry was heard in his ears

" stand your ground !!! " he could here a voice shout and swords of battle

when his vision cleared max was shocked,

all around him were dead bodies scattered everywhere, limps and guts

max felt like throwing up but he saw the red blood dye the dirt, slipping through the ground, it looked dazzling. it was so beautiful to max, suddenly his tension was less and he did not mind the torn limps and dead bodies in the hundreds anymore.

then suddenly the ground in front of him burst out wards spraying dirt everywhere and a creature with a slender skeleton and hunched back walking jumped out to towards him.

max was not panicked he snapped his fingers and with a tearing sound a sword draped from the air above the creature, the creature felt the danger and span in mid air it's sharp claws knocking out the sword with sparks flying out, it continued to rotate doing a 360 turn.

after knocking the sword away the creature continued to head towards max.

swoosh*

the sword that was send flying was swallowed by a hole in the fabric of space and shot out from underneath it.

aiming for right below it´s chin, sensing the danger the creature did a back flip

agile as a cat to avoid the sword.

after landing on its four legs the creature screeched at max, it had a piercing sound.

the sound it made caused max to feel weird and a little bit sluggish.

the creature was slender and stood on four legs with sharp claws as long as knives.

it had a purple body with no fur, it's eyes were a deep purple.

" there it is !!"

" kill it"

after the surrounding men realized it had appeared they shouted to kill it, but max could hear fear in some of their voices.

they all launched they attacks, showing different abilities.

the creature just crawled on it's for limps towards max but as he was ready to attack it max felt something in the space and then it disappeared before his eyes.

max was shocked for a moment, like what the hell, does everyone have space abilities now ?

as he was momentary confused the creature appeared next to a group, swapping it's claws it cut the group into bits, max was upset, he did not really cared that they died.

he only felt upset that it sliced apart a great beauty, she was hot but now she is a pile of blood and guts.

the creature crawled like two steps before disappearing again and appearing somewhere else.

however this time the man it attacked was ready and on guard so he made a silver shield to protect himself. he was send flying in the distance.

as he flew backwards the creature appeared behind him ready to slaughter him however the people seem to be prepared this time and attacked as soon as it appeared.

the creature was injure deep cuts all over it's slender purple body.

with a loud screech it cried

everyone's ears buzzed and felt sluggish for a moment, using this chance the creature escaped.

after everyone recovered they were all tensed and had their back against each other to cover all sides.

Henry and the rest were huddled together too,

the time slowly passed, no one could relax

no one knew if it was going to appear again suddenly.

this carried on for a whole 14 minutes till max was bored, he wasn't too tense because he could feel it when it appeared, so he put his sword away and relaxed.

everyone looked at him for 2 minutes as if to see if he was going to be suddenly killed before relaxing after 2 minutes seeing that max was fine.

finally a man who looked strong and had blue armor spoke " it should be gone, it got injured so we should be safe"

everyone agreed

the man took charge " everyone count the dead and tend to the wounded, any one who can heal please help out"

after that everyone started to move about.

max saw lily using her water to heal some injured people but she only healed a few and did not use her water drops, which made sense she could not use all her energy on random strangers.

after a while everyone got together in their groups.

" wayne what happened ¨Henry asked after we got together.

max guessed he had been looking for information during this time, " we were not prepared, we all knew death could come at any minute but no one expected to see people die as soon as they stepped through the gate, it is as if the zone walker was waiting for us here ".

as he spoke about what he learned max finally knew what happened,

the door sends people to random parts of the ripple dimension inside the door and every 2 minutes it resets and changes the place it sends the next group of people.

and because of this there where soldiers in every group who lead at the front every 2 minutes.

however when this group had entered the door, whilst they were blind for that small second the creature killed 30 soldiers and after everyone could finally see, it played with them, appearing and disappearing at will.

it was hard to defend it, it picked apart at them as if teasing and playing with them.

especially new people who had just entered, like it attacked max when he first entered it aimed for people like him, still momentary blind and helpless.

it was a pure slaughter only 12 soldiers from 60 in this group survived and the soldiers who died were not weak, they were veterans rank 4,5 and 6.

max also learned that this group had a 300 people, however only 190 remained,

max was shocked they had not even explored yet, it has only been less than 30 minutes since they got here and 110 people were wiped out already.

even worse the thing that did this was only by itself. it wasn't a horde or multiple but just a lone zone walker.

from what max heard zone walkers were recorded creatures, they were ranked number 1003 in the index record of dangerous creatures.

max was shocked, only 1003, there are 1002 even more dangerous creatures ahead of it, he wondered what ungodly creation was rank 0001.

the zone walker is called a walker because it can traverse distances between space.

there are many different types of walkers, void walkers, zone walkers, space walkers and realm walkers.

these are all types of walkers and they describe what distance can be travelled, for example if a zone walker is able to travel further than a zone of distance then it is no longer a zone walker but a space walker which is one level above that.

the level of walking start from zone, to space then realm and finally void walkers.

as such a person or creature can be described as a specific walker depending on how far they can traverse through space.

however zone walkers, on creatures generally refer to the creature that just attacked them, this because their are birthed to travel in space only at a zone distance, they can never travel further unlike other people or creature that can travel further as they get stronger.

zone walkers from birth till death no matter how powerful can never travel further than a zone of distance, as such they are called officially as zone walkers.

the same is for creatures who where birthed to travel in space only at a realm of distance, these are the ancestors of zone walkers, the first to be called walkers,

the term walker originated from them and was then applied to other standards, realm walkers were used as the standard of measurement.

a zone of distance is 1/4 that of a realm of distance.

a space of distance is 1/3 that of a realm of distance and a void walker is 4 times that of a realm of distance.

realm walkers are more scary creatures than a zone walker, if it had been a realm walker that had attacked instead then there is a high chance that every one would be buried here.

" every one !!" the strong looking man in blue armor called out.

" the creature that attacked us as everyone should now know is a zone walker, many of us died, some of us lost legs and arms, but we must carry on" he spoke loudly trying to get everyone higher spirited but it did not work too well,

it was just starting to become clear how much of death awaited everyone, they had not even seen the treasure or felt the glory yet.

" there is no retreat, there only 2 roads before you now, greatness and a glorious death. we can only be one of those, there can be no traitors, there can be no cowards"

" so lets rest up and get ready to march, i repeat my self fear not "

he finished his little speech,

" fear not ? " a man said loudly

every one looked at him strangely.

" how can you not fear, when there is a zone walker, do you all know what that means ?"

the man in blue armor face palmed knowing were this was going, he had tried to keep morale high but this idiot was gonna destroy that.

" zone walkers never walk alone" the idiot continued " the come in groups and even worse where ever there are zone walkers, there are realm walkers" as soon as he said realm walkers everyone was shaken.

" realm walkers !! realm walkers.... realm ... walkers " the idiot started to cry, weeping silently

" i got a daughter and a wife, i can't die, i can't die " he started to shout before getting up and running towards the door he had come through with fear and regret on his face.

" my baby girl, i coming, i can't leave you " he weeped as he ran to the gate.

everyone just watched him in silence .

he ran to the door and tried to go out but he just smashed into it face first then was bounced back.

before he crawled back crying " no, no, no, no let me out, don't do this to me !!"

he approached the door again but still couldn't leave

he started to cry whilst banging on it, every time he got bounce back

he crawled to it again and again

" let me out, let me " with a sound of a spear piercing through skin and blood spraying out, he stopped speaking and soon collapsed to the ground dead.

everyone looked at the man in blue armor who had just killed the man.

the man did not care and said coldly " there is only 2 paths before you, greatness or glorious death, we don't accept cowards,

if any of us survives make sure you report him and have his name written into the book of shame and his family will be judged and sold as slaves,

what a dirty blood line, him and his family we can not let it be passed down, ask for a cleansing when you report him in. now lets get ready"

with that he let everyone rest.

" what an idiot though he not know you can't go out the same door you came in though, you have to find another groups door to get out "

apparently every time the door reset and changed the location it sends the next group it would leave behind a door on the previous location but the people who got send in through that door can not go back though it, they have to find another location with a door.

max thought that the man in blue armor who killed the idiot was a bit cruel telling us to ask for a cleansing of the mans blood when we report.

cleansing was only done in cases of great sin and in the case of a first wave of a door exploration.

during the first wave of a door exploration things that you wouldn't get killed for or heavily punished for like cowardess or betray in normal everyday moments,

would get your blood lined heavily punished or even cleansed. this was because the first wave of a door exploration was important and cowards and traitors could not be tolerated.

everyone continued resting and were ready to go deep into this ripple dimension.

max just hoped that what the idiot said wouldn't come true, he did not want to meet a realm walker.

every one knew they were dead if they meet a realm walker.

( 4 hours writing this. 4000 words, I'm trying to see if you all prefer longer chapter all normal chapters like the usual. leave a comment on what you think, if there is no comments then i will go back to normal 2000 words as that could be 2 chapters instead of 1, i hope you appreciate the effort of 4000 words either way. i worked hard, some power stones, encouragement and rating would be nice!!1)