Chapter 276: The purpose of the herd.
In the command center, everyone was just as shocked as Jon. How the man had survived was unbelievable.
"There are more coming up behind him." Elio shouted into a walkie-talkie. He was standing on the wall, looking beyond the bubble.
Everyone stared at the monitor and their shock continued to expand as the herd ignored Jon completely. They walked past him as if he was an invisible ghost and headed straight for the wall.
"What....What the hell?" Hadrian whispered. "Did they just ignore him?"
"More like avoid him." Sunshine said.
Warren shoved a comms officer aside and sat down before one of the consoles. "Not that I am hoping for Jon to die but why isn’t he dead? He should be chunks of meat and blood by now."
"Did he awaken some kind of superpower that makes him invisible?" Nimo asked.
"We would not be seeing him if that was the case." Morris reminded her. "Maybe he awakened a scent blocking ability, and they cannot smell him."
More voices rose as people shared their ideas on what was going on. All eyes were on Jon, standing alone in the open, behind dozens of hulking beasts that did not even glance at him.
They seemed to forget that the herd was lurking outside the wall. It had not gone to any other base but theirs for some reason.
"We cannot leave him out there." Kris rushed inside, having heard about Jon from the other members of the team that were sharing the reasons for their return with others.
He struggled against soldiers that were pushing him back, stopping him from entering the room.
Sunshine walked towards him and pushed him back, taking over from the soldiers. "You cannot come in Kris; we do not need your kind of drama and distraction right now."
Once she ensured that he was far from the door, she gestured for soldiers to hold him back. "Keep your other rich friends away as well." She told him before walking away.
"Hey! Hey! Come back here!" Kris shouted, struggling once again against the soldiers that were holding his arms.
Sunshine did not look back; she entered the command center and slammed the door shut. Her chair was unoccupied, and she sat down again.
Sunshine’s hands hovered over the table, torn between leaving Jon out there and rescuing him. He was unharmed and did not appear to be in danger.
But mutated or mutant beasts were unpredictable. Who knew how long his bizarre good luck would last? Any of those animals could turn back and stomp him to death in a second. But opening the gates was dangerous. Was his life worth the risk? She weighed her options but as she did that a voice came through the radio.
"I am going to get him." Father Nicodemus told them; his voice was calm yet burned with resolve.
"Father, please wait." Sunshine said loudly.
The request came in too late, Father Nicodemus flew out through the gap in the small gate which was used to throw out supplies to stragglers and packages for neighboring bases.
It was closed if the mist came too close or something dangerous with wings was in the area. And this meant it was closed most of the time.
Father Nicodemus mumbled a prayer as he dove down through the falling snow like a comet. He angled towards Jon, who was now waving his arms urgently.
"Over here!" Jon jumped up and down.
"Stay still." Father Nicodemus shouted. His voice echoed through the wind.
Jon ducked just as the shadow passed over him. Father Nicodemus swooped down, caught him by his shoulders, and lifted him off the ground.
Jon screamed from both terror and disbelief as the adrenaline that rushed through him. He was scared that the priest would not be able to handle his weight and end up dropping him in the middle of the herd. Who knew if he would be lucky again?
As they shot upward, he closed his eyes and screamed. His new worry was that a cow or bull would bite off his foot. His heart was thumping louder than the stomping of the herd.
He did not stop until he fell down on the ground, inside the wall in fortress four.
"Shut the gate completely," Sunshine ordered through a walkie-talkie. "All of it, and Father....." she paused, not knowing whether to condemn the priest or praise him. She decided to praise him. "Great job."
Meanwhile the herd of mutated cattle suddenly stilled. No sound, no movement.
"What are they doing." Hades asked, then activated the radio. "Elio do you see anything else outside?"
"Negative." The Major replied.
"Turn off the alarms and stay quiet." Sunshine instructed.
It was like they were playing a game of cat and mouse. Who was playing which role was not defined as of yet. But not a sound was made in the command center or around it. Everyone was patiently waiting for the herd to make a move or Sunshine to say something.
In the quiet, Sunshine noticed that the animals had taken position in the exact locations of the dragonoids in the walls.
"Maybe they have changed their mind about attacking since everyone is inside." Lisha broke the silence with a silence.
"Oh I doubt that very much." Sunshine answered. "They are after something."
Silence blanketed the room again. Not even a single radio cackled. Eight minutes later, there came a sound that rattled them. It came from the pink watcher, a sound they had heard before the beetles attacked them.
"Fuck that bird." Lisha cursed.
The herd surged forward, slamming their horns into the fortress walls. The slamming was so strong that the walls vibrated. Luckily an icy layer had formed on the wall, so it was what the horns were hitting but cracks were forming already.
"They are after the walls." Sunshine said. "That is why they did not attack Jon; they want to break our defense."
The pink watcher screamed again.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Their horns struck the walls, again and again like the animals were in a frenzy. The wall fought back, bolts of electricity that were as powerful as lightning struck back. But the animals just kept hitting the wall anyway and the ground started to shake.
"Those horns...they are like crystal, they look brittle." Lisha said.
"They are definitely not," Morris replied grimly. "They are harder than steel."
Every strike echoed like war drums. Sunshine snapped, she was not going to allow those creatures to break her walls. "Release the dragonoids!" She shouted.
With a roar, the dragoinoids stretched out of their wall chambers.
Sunshine pressed a button igniting them, unleashing torrents of flame upon the heard. Flames washed over the mutant cows but instead of dying, they stood still, moaning softly, their bodies glowing faintly red. Some even tilted their heads upwards, as if basking in warmth.
"Is it just me or are they feeding off the fire." Morris said.
Sunshine nodded. "Yeah, something is weird with them." She slammed her had on the console. "Shut it down, let us activate all the way to level three of wall protection mode."
A low hum began to fill the air. The ground vibrated as thick slabs of metal rose from beneath the snow, sliding to protect the existing wall.
Strong wind came from the slabs like giant fans sending out a windstorm. Cows and bulls were flung away after contact and tossed in piles of snow outside.
Still the herd did not stop, they just got back up and continued the clash. The watchers sat in a line, their heads tilting back and forth as they watched.
Major Elio pointed at them, disgusted. "Suni, they are eating our fish and enjoying this like it is a show, I am sure they summoned those creatures here."