Pause in the Battle

Damian looked at the rising tide with a solemn expression.

The beasts were close enough to identify the big ones from the small ones and Damian was able to deduce what scale of creatures were they fighting.

There was elephants rampaging from the back of the beast army while the faster animals, such as cheetahs and hyenas were in the leading front.

But for some reason all of the leading animals in the beast army were wolves.

Damian found this a bit weird but he didn't really care since all of the creatures were going to be divided up equally by each squad according to the strategist's plans.

Their groups job was to handle the bigger animals such as bears and crocodiles.

The army was slowly approaching their current location. All of the soldiers were sweating buckets as they saw the upcoming force but the captains of each squad made the soldiers came down and made them focus more towards their upcoming struggles rather then their own lives.

The captains were doing a great job of calming their juniors. Most of them were chosen for their impeccable survivability during battle and leadership during high pressure situations.

The commander leading the army turned around for a few moments. Showing his back to the upcoming beast tide.

The commander looked at his army with a bloodthirst expression as he started shouting to the newbies.

"We have all travelled afar from all across Glaran to come here and fight this war."

"We are weak. Really weak!" The commander shouted.

Immediately the entire army started paying dying amount of attention. 'He's right, but what is he going to say?' Was the thoughts of everyone.

"We aren't those powerful cultivators bred by the nobles."

"We aren't the merchants that have the money to hide away from this war and survive without sacrificing a single thing."

"We aren't our wife and daughters that have to live in fear for the next day, hoping for us to come back." The commander looked down with a solemn look.

The commander looks up with impeccable resolve after a while. He looks at his soldiers with a hint of pity but also anger from his heart.

"No! We are the men fighting this war so everyone in our kingdom can survive for the next day."

He soon points to the army of beasts approaching from behind him.

"We are the ones to fight these beasts. And these will be our sacrifices. We have been drafted to an unfair war where almost all of us will die."

He soon spreads his arms looking at the army with a ruthless expression.

"Is that fair!?"

The army of newbies were feeling their anger and frustrations welling up as they listened to the commander. They felt the helplessness of the situation. They felt the weakness in them.

They felt the unfairness of it all.

"NOOO!"

The army shouted in unison. The earth trembling beneath the anger from the collective individuals of many commoners.

"Yes you are right. But we are fated to die in this battlefield. There is no hope for our survival." The commander said with a hint of melancholy in his voice.

But the commander quickly started raging from the inside. He felt the anger and helplessness that all of these commoners were feeling.

He looked to the sky and shouted.

"So what if this is our fate!"

"We shall conquer that all."

"We shall conquer our fate!"

"All of us have only one option now! We fight against the fate dealt to us by the heavens and kill these beasts!"

"These beasts are the only thing stopping us from going forward."

"Our fate is not of us, being the jaws of those beasts behind us."

"So the only thing we have to do is kill."

"We kill our way to fate. We kill all of our enemies in our path!"

"That is what we do!"

"Our purpose from now on is to kill! If you don't follow this purpose then all of us will be killed instead."

"We will kill those bastards before they kill us."

"Now tell me! What is our purpose."

The soldiers looked towards the upcoming beasts with blood red eyes. Their bloodlust overflowing as they listened more and more to the words of their commander.

"Kill!" They answered.

"I CAN'T HEAR YOU!!!" The commander shouted with enough force to shake the earth.

"WE KILL!!"

The soldiers answered with their fury and bloodlust being set to the maximum setting, as high as it could possibly be.

"Who do we kill!" The commander stomped his leg on the ground as he shouted.

"THE ENEMY!" The soldiers shouted to the heavens. Declaring their desires to change their fate!

"Then what are you waiting for!" The commander shouted with a ruthless light flashin through his eyes.

"Go and kill these invaders!!!" The commander said as he stomped his foot in a rythmic pattern.

"Ahhhhhhh!" The soldiers shouted out a war cry as they followed along with that rythmic pattern. Even Damian was implicated into this, his emotions from his childhood being riled up.

Every lost their rationality as they listened to the commander speak.

Everyone except for Jonah.

His brows were knitted as he closed his eyes shut. A hidden red light shining from behind his eyelids.

Jonah tried to resist this external force he was feeling in his mind. Slowly a blood red fog was disipating out of his ears in a discreet manner. No one noticing the weird situation Jonah was in.

Soon slowly as the blood red fog disipated out of his ears he suddenly roared alongside his fellow soldiers. Hiding the pain of getting rid of this external influence trying to affect his mind.

Soon his eyes open wide, tears of blood running down his eyes. Which quickly stopped after Jonah's healing factor kicked in.

He quickly wiped the blood off his eyes as he stared at the commander of the battlefield with concealed hatred and anger.

His eyes had become red like everyone else's so he was able to hide the fact he wasn't being influenced anymore.

'How dare he!' Jonah thought with immense hatred towards this commander.

He was finally able to focus without letting his bloodlust affect him. He just had momentarily activate his Law of Suffering to overcome it.

But before he could do anything, the beast army behind the commander suddenly stopped.

Only the soldiers were shouting as the growl from the approaching beasts finally stopped.

But they soon also stopped shouting as they started to regain their focus from before.

The commander's heart dropped. What was happening!?

'What is happening!? There's no way my ability stopped working! They are all greenhorns and the kingdom specifically scouted me out since I was the best at pulling out the bloodlust from the common folk.' The commander thought with panic.

The commander continued analyzing the situation in his state of panic. But soon he sees fear in some of the front soldiers' eyes.

He was a bit confused as he saw that 'The Blood Enemy spell shouldn't have made these soldiers fearful after breaking out of it. Something's not right!' The commander thought.

Soon he saw a soldier pick up his trembling hands as he pointed at the beast army behind him.

He looked with a bewildered expression before he looked behind him to see what was going on.

When he saw behind himself, he saw the army had stopped.

'Wait the army stopped? Is there something wrong? These beasts should've been slamming at us as soon as they caught sight of us. But now their just...sniffing?' The commander though with uneasiness.

The commander didn't know but Jonah was shaking in his boots. He slowly saw all of the wolves sniff the air then stare at him. One by one.

The leading wolf of the beast army quickly came up and sniffed the air as if confirming if what his subordinates said was right.

It sniffed the air.

Sniff sniff...

The wolf paused.

It then started slamming it's head against the ground as if trying to crack it's own skull while growling towards the floor.

All of the other wolves also started doing the same. They rolled on the floor, scratched their fur until blood came out, and some even stabbed themselves in the eye.

The commander looked at all of that in fear. He didn't know why these animals were doing that! The animals weren't supposed to do that. This doesn't make sense!? Didn't the Beast King wanted to destroy the Glaran Kingdom? So why were these wolves injuring themselves before the fight!

The wolves eventually stopped mutilating themselves before the shook and shivered on the battlefield.

Soon they all universally looked towards the sky and howled!

AWOOO

Then the beast army charged.