Beast Slayer Online: Initialization
Copyright© 2026 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 52: The Bell That Never Stopped
Fifteen horses made for ugly going, and the already miserable road was churned into something worse beneath the pounding hooves.
Phillip and his men approached the Condal outpost.
They had no expectation of finding proper supplies there. Phillip knew perfectly well what sort of provisions were issued to low-ranking soldiers. Black bread edging toward mold, cabbage, radishes, onions ... half the time they would not even have a whetstone worth using.
He had only come to ask a few questions and make a token inspection based on what he heard. Enough to say the duty had been done.
And truthfully, no one could accuse them of neglect. Every soldier here would draw steel the moment he laid eyes on child traffickers.
It was simply that tracking, investigating, solving cases, all the tedious difficult work, wore a man down and made him lazy. No one was exempt from that.
But as the mounted column drew closer to the marked position of the outpost, one soldier with a particularly sharp nose suddenly barked a warning.
“Something’s wrong, lads! Smell blood!”
The entire troop changed in an instant. The loose, lazy air vanished like a bowstring pulled taut.
You could call battlefield veterans uncultured. You could call them illiterate. But you could not say they did not know how to kill, or how to stay alive.
Phillip, dulled half a beat by drink, still jolted awake hard enough for sweat to burst from his back.
“Stay sharp! Advance and scout!”
The cavalry surged toward the outpost beneath thunderous hooves.
It was the sort of riding used near battlefields, controlled fury, poised to break into a full charge at any moment. Like a bayonet forever hovering at a man’s throat.
And as the state of the outpost came into view, Phillip and his men frowned together.
“No one around. No beast tracks either...”
Riders on both flanks peeled away on their own initiative and swept the area. They found nothing.
Only after the absence of danger was confirmed did Phillip raise a hand and signal the others to slow.
The troop halted before the outpost.
“York. Go see what happened.”
Phillip remained mounted, his eyes roaming in wary, vicious circles. Aside from the halberdier he had called forward, everyone else stayed in the saddle, ready to charge at any moment.
York dismounted and strode forward with his halberd over one shoulder. Ten steps carried him clear across the whole outpost.
The signs of fighting were impossible to miss.
And because of that, York ground his teeth.
“Plague take it ... chief, all three of their heads are smashed in!”
“Gods damn it! Tell me something I can’t already see!”
Phillip felt a strange unease crawl through him. It made no sense. He had seen butchered battlefields during the Cidaris Restoration Wars. Villages wiped clean from the earth.
Why should three dead men make his gut tighten like this?
The warhorse beneath him sensed the tension through the reins. Instead of standing steady, it shifted constantly, hooves clacking back and forth, as though ready to bolt at any moment.
“This is different, chief...” York clicked his tongue as he stood over the corpse of the black-faced soldier. He used the butt of his halberd to nudge the ruined head.
Red and white pulp quivered wetly.
“These three ... their skulls were crushed by fists. One hit each. You understand what I’m saying? Fists. One blow, then bang...”
Phillip’s expression darkened. At last he realized what felt wrong.
The bodies themselves were wrong.
No wounds anywhere except the faces, each one a single massive collapse.
And the damage truly did look like fists...
But how?
A punch was explosive force, not the sustained strain of lifting or dragging weight. Even so, to produce wounds like these, the impact had to be several hundred kilograms at least.
“Could’ve been a monster, York. We’re not witchers. Plenty of beasts we’ve never seen before, and plenty of wounds we wouldn’t recognize.”
Phillip tried to argue, but York prodded the ruined head again with the butt of the halberd.
To read the complete story you need to be logged in:
Log In or
Register for a Free account
(Why register?)
* Allows you 3 stories to read in 24 hours.