This was disappointing. Two hundred tree monsters who wouldn’t have any meat on their bones. Luke would rather deal with something he could harvest resources from. One of the women knew how to process pelts, so they would eventually have steel fur armor from the first set of beasts.

  “Everyone, cross the bridge,” Luke yelled. The structure was only twenty feet wide and would be easy to defend, or better yet collapse.

  River made eye contact with Luke and nodded. Luke frowned, had they agreed on something? The old man yelled at the people, “Everyone who can fight, block off access to the bridge so the women and children can cross!”

  They had definitely not agreed on something. Everyone should cross, no reason to stay on the side swarming with mythical beasts. Luke had made his stance clear, it was not his problem if they didn’t listen. All the tier one and lower women and children crossed over and a few of the men.

  Conni was pulling his wife along. He walked up to Luke, “Are you not going to help them?”

  The warriors and a few of the miners had lined up at the mouth of the bridge to blunt the wave of beasts. Jenna was there, sparkling in her reflective armor. River, to his credit, had chosen to stay with the battle line, despite being little more than an undercooked meal away from death.

  “No, I told them to get to the other side,” Luke shrugged, “When I collapse the bridge, It won’t be my fault they were on the wrong side.”

  Conni’s eyes widened, “You can’t strand them over there.”

  “I didn’t. They chose this, have I not made my position clear enough?” Luke was getting tired of repeating himself. He demanded absolute obedience, a soldier did not question the general, and a general had no obligation to explain himself.

  “Please wait at least a few minutes,” Conni asked.

  Luke did not know what the foreman planned to do, but he could give the man a few minutes. His consistency and care for others had earned him at least that much. So, Luke stopped at the far side of the chasm with Hestia’s sickle unsheathed, ready to break the bridge.

  Conni ran to River and grabbed him by the shoulder, “Luke is going to collapse the bridge.”

  River started to respond, but Conni was already gone, finding the miners in the line and removing them from it. He had people that he cared about and was not going to leave them stranded. Jenna was the last one he spoke to before sprinting back. Nearly fifteen people abandoned the defensive line, leaving it full of openings. Only Eve, Merrick, and her father along with their guards were left. Nine against two hundred.

  They did the smart thing and ran away too. Luke watched impassively as the people followed Conni across the bridge. Luke had no desire to let River return, and now that Jenna was back, he didn’t have anything to lose by blowing the bridge now. None of the guards had family on this side, so no one would be separated.

  Looking at the frightened people Luke knew that he would lose their trust if he stranded River. While he did not particularly care about a good number of them, he still needed their trust to fulfill his promise. He waited until River had crossed the gorge before bringing Hestia’s Sickle down on the cobblestone bridge.

  Clink.

  He frowned at the dull brown stone that was resisting his blade. Hestia’s Sickle was a tier four artifact, it should be able to cut through normal materials with ease. He swung again, this time with all his strength.

  Clink.

  When he had first laid eyes on this road he had wondered if it was a giant artifact. He had assumed that there was a less extravagant explanation for the lack of snow on the path. An artifact on this scale was ludicrous, but he had no other explanation. Collapsing the bridge would not be an option.

  “So this was your plan,” River said, looking disapprovingly at Luke over folded arms, “Were you planning on fleeing from the approaching enemy?”

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Luke narrowed his eyes at the man, “Are you trying to see just how long I will let you keep talking?”

  The old man stepped back at Luke’s tone and the lightning that flickered between his fingers. Breaking the bridge was not necessary, but he would not struggle to destroy the mythical beasts approaching. They were made of wood and Hestia’s Sickle was a powerful fire artifact, they weren’t foes, they were fuel.

  Luke stepped onto the bridge, intending to handle everything alone. Several people had other ideas. Conni stepped up beside him. The soul tool dropped into his hand in a puff of flame. Jenna was on his other side, having not removed her armor yet. Merrick, Kerri, and Eve all stepped forward. Oaf also shouldered his way in, maybe his overconfidence would be his undoing.

  Rolling his eyes, Luke decided to just ignore them. The first mythical beasts arrived soon after. Everyone stepped forward to meet them, then stepped back as a wave of fire washed over the remaining length of the bridge. Luke sighed happily, it was no replacement for combustion but his conduction allowed him to force anything touching the flames to conduct the heat better.

  Twenty tree monsters dropped to the ground writhing in flames. Luke grinned as he walked towards the now more hesitant army of beasts. The shrieking monsters on the bridge acted as a nice barrier. One of the blazing beasts lunged at him, attempting to drive him off the bridge. Luke caught it by its blackening mask-like face and picked it up. The creature was surprisingly light.

  Not wanting to waste essence making his body an insulator to heat, he tossed the creature over the edge. These things were hilariously weak to fire. It was such a common phenomenon in nature that these beasts had to be designed for menial labor. Could their creator not control them? They were more proof that Hadrid had been right, someone out there was manufacturing mythical beasts.

  “Let's get this over with,” Luke flashed forward and rammed a fist into a creature’s chest. He was shocked when he punched a hole straight through it.

  The beast was so weak. Then it proceeded to ignore the wound and claw at Luke. So there was a trade-off. Fire was a weakness, but they lacked many of a normal creature’s vulnerabilities. An air construct formed around Luke’s arm and froze inside the beast. It made an odd gagging noise as something inside stopped working properly.

  Several got past Luke while he was absorbed in the beast's interesting biology. The people on the bridge could handle it, these things were as weak as the Caldera’s soldiers. Another wave of fire hit a clump of enemies. They might have been a problem if they had equipment and used tactics. A shield formation with some mobile archers would have gone a long way to making them a threat. They were even trees, arrows should be easy to make.

  Luke normally enjoyed carnage - or a game of cat and mouse. So long as he was the cat. This was less like slapping around a mouse and more like crushing ants. The mythical beasts had broken and started fleeing, it was no longer economical to send out waves of fire. Instead, he bounced from creature to creature testing out how the explosive expansion of water worked on living creatures.

  Less than ten minutes later Luke decided to abandon the pursuit. There was no reason to crush them all. A third of the beasts survived, however with their low threat level, Luke was not worried. They were roughly equivalent to a well armed tier zero, or Tris with a torch.

  “What were those?” Eve asked, looking at the creature chopped apart at her feet.

  “I don’t know but they were tough,” Merrick said.

  “How were they tough?” Luke asked incredulously, “They are barely a threat to an intelligent person.”

  “They killed Olaf!” Eve said, pointing at the edge of the bridge.

  It took a moment for Luke to dredge up Oaf’s real name, “That does not change any part of my claim.”

  Jenna was still holding the severed arm of a beast, “They have an excellent healing ability however, I would classify them as tier one beasts, and not high in that tier. A weakness to something so exploitable might put them on par with a standard ghost crab.”

  “Healing ability?” Luke frowned, he had noticed nothing of the sort. Though he had killed them too quickly to heal.

  Conni nodded tapping the pile of ash at his feet with his sword, “Yes, fire seems to nullify it. They are more flammable than living wood ought to be.”

  Luke shrugged, he could kill them fast and that was what mattered. He left the warriors to poke at the corpse and returned to the camp. Walking up to Helen he rummaged through her pack and removed a few slices of bread. The woman had a vacant look in her eyes like she had given up on life. Sure, she had lost a lot, but that was no reason to lose hope.

  A quick burst of flame toasted the bread. He handed off a piece to Tris after telling her to hold the wooden sword out from her side while she ate. A cheer went up from the warriors on the bridge. Luke frowned, they really should get going. The dead beasts were made of wood and should not attract any scavengers, but there was no reason to bet on their luck.

  His eyes widened in shock as the warriors helped pull a shivering Oaf over the edge. He was soaking wet and looked to have a bruise forming over a good portion of his left side. So the fool had survived. Then the fool marched straight up to Luke with a massive grin. Conni was trying to get Oaf to sit by a fire, he was suffering from the early stages of hypothermia.

  “I jumped off a cliff, just like you asked,” Oaf smiled.

  Harp started laughing. Luke started cursing.

  “You also said you would train Bacon too!” Oaf hugged his pig.

  Luke almost choked him out of pure exasperation.