Magical Soul Parade

Chapter 365: The Ossuary vs The Errant (II)

As the days passed on the ridge, Cade began to see that even his grand goal might not be as feasible as he had initially thought.

Ossuarists of high caliber, people with transcendent fragments that were well renowned over the years, had begun to arrive. The most powerful fragment holders in existence were appearing one after another... or so he had heard.

Despite his status as a Sepulcher House heir, even Cade wasn’t privy to the full scope of the information. The only things he heard were rumors.

The specifics about who exactly had arrived weren’t shared with the regiments yet, but it was without a doubt that legendary figures had begun to walk the camp. It made him question his initial plan of making everyone see his true worth in this battle. How was he supposed to stand out among giants?

Among the ranks of Ossuarists staying on the battlefield, a bit of disgruntlement and impatience had begun to arise. Many of them were starting to question when exactly this Error Bearer would arrive. Five days had passed since the initial report had come in and the massive preparations had begun. The Ossuarists had been waiting in the freezing cold since then.

Even Cade himself was beginning to get a bit impatient. With every day that passed, new reports came in and new layers of defense were added to the wall, making him wonder exactly what was going through the mind of the Error Bearer.

The time Finn had given them to prepare meant it would be much harder for him to achieve anything at all. The anchor points, for example, had already been activated just two days ago. They hadn’t even been fully prepared five days ago when the regiments were just beginning to arrive and set up their positions.

Well, the more time he wastes the better for us, Cade thought to himself.

He stood on the grand wall of ice, overlooking the thousands of Ossuarists moving in coordination within their various regiments. His mind had just begun to drift into a random thought when a sharp, piercing sound cut through the air.

The sound of a war horn blowing.

Cade’s mind went numb for a second, and then his body quickly realized what was happening. That was the alarm! The signal to get ready!

Everywhere he looked, people were moving immediately. Ossuarists were rushing to their various stations, their faces pale as they prepared for a battle that seemed to have taken them totally by surprise despite the five days of waiting.

The Thorne family ancestor, who had arrived just a day prior, barked out orders to the Thorne Ossuarists surrounding their anchor point.

They had spent the last several days running through rigorous drills in preparation for this moment. Now that the time had finally come, the men and women moved into formation with a practiced ease, their movements fluid and sharp.

Cade pushed through the crowd, his boots crunching on the frost-covered stone as he made his way toward the front of the battlement. The biting mountain air stung his face and hands, but he ignored the cold.

He eventually came to a stop behind his father, Cade XIV. His father looked back briefly, and the two shared a silent nod of acknowledgment.

At the very front of the line, the Thorne ancestor stood waiting patiently with his hands clasped behind his back as the rest of the family settled into their roles.

The sight was the same across the entire mountain range. The giant wall stretched across the distance, a massive feat of Ossuarist power that cut across the jagged peaks.

Behind them, beyond the wall and deeper into the mountain range, the most powerful transcendents were likely positioned. These were the legends Cade had only heard of in whispers for days, now gathered in secret to face a singular threat.

At the front, on the frozen ground far below the wall, thousands of Ossuarists were spread out like colonies of ants. The sheer scale of the power on display was overwhelming. The lowest rank permitted on the field was Caretaker. Any Adepts present were restricted to the rear, serving only as support to transport aid when needed.

The formations of Caretakers were arranged in massive, blocky chunks, reminiscent of ancient infantry tactics. But unlike soldiers with spears and shields, these were specialized Ossuarist units.

The reason they had arranged themselves into such tight formations that was easy to attack was to amplify the collective force of their soul emanations. Everything was perfectly organized:

Elemental Ossuarists were grouped in specific rows to combine their raw output. Beast tamers were gathered to manage their herds in unison, and artifact nurturing specialists were positioned to maintain the structural integrity of the field. It was a formation meticulously analyzed to give them the best possible chance to take down any foe.

Cade watched the organization with a critical eye. He suspected that this battle would not be a simple skirmish against a lone man. The Ossuary wouldn’t prepare this way unless they expected the Error Bearer to bring an army of his own. If he was truly alone, these massive blocks of troops would be largely useless. A powerful enough individual could simply bypass them or strike from an angle they weren’t prepared for, and the whole thing would come apart.

Cade’s mind raced through a dozen different scenarios as he looked about. His eyes flitted from the ground to the peaks, but his face remained a stoic mask. He remained calm and collected. The time he had been waiting for had finally arrived, and whether or not he could prove his talent in this battle remained to be seen.

He looked to the side across the length of the wall toward where the Vail family regiment was stationed. The Vail heiress, Orla, was there, standing motionless beside her father at the front of their line. Their calm expressions matched one another, projecting a cold indifference to the coming storm.

Cade clenched his jaw, feeling the fire of competition burn in his chest.

This is it... The time to prove my worth... To show that the Thorne family is not a core Sepulchre house for nothing.

He had barely finished the thought when suddenly, the ground beneath him trembled.

A pulse of energy rippled out from the anchor embedded in the Thorne section of the wall, followed immediately by similar eruptions all along the mountain range.

The anchor points, which Cade had thought were already active, began to glow with a blinding and terrifying light. The initial activation from days ago had clearly been nothing more than a preamble.

A strange, sharp static began to permeate the air, making his bones vibrate with an uncomfortable frequency. Cade felt a disturbance in the very depths of his being. It was a tugging sensation that threatened to pull the soul mass in his soul, as if his internal power were being dragged toward an external source.

For a moment, the pressure was so immense that it made him feel small and vulnerable. It was a sensation he hadn’t felt in years, as if the wall had stripped him of his rank and turned him back into a helpless Adept who still struggled with terrible soul debts and madness.

Is this chaos? And within our lines?!!