ShadowBound: The Need For Power-Chapter 366: The Green Calamity (1)

No sooner had Lucy concluded her meeting with Valemir and Tharion than she sprang into action. Wasting not a breath, she summoned Magnus and Sir Varyn to her royal study and briefed them with precise instructions—evacuate every zone under the Tempest Kingdom’s authority before sunset.

Both men received her orders with silent nods and immediate motion. They understood the urgency.

From Zone 8 to Zone 14, the cities stirred into coordinated chaos. In every district, long queues of civilians formed as people steadily filed into glowing portals that pulsed with magic—each one leading to the underground shelter system designed for war-time security. The air was filled with tension and motion, but the operation moved as smoothly as one could expect from such a large-scale maneuver.

Most of the civilians were compliant. Quiet. Afraid, but obedient. They moved where they were told, holding tightly to their children, their belongings, and each other. But not all followed orders so willingly.

A handful resisted.

Some stubbornly refused to abandon their homes. Others simply doubted the need for such a drastic move. For these few, restraint was the answer. Knights moved swiftly and without apology, dragging the defiant into the portals against their will. It only took a few examples—screaming resisters hauled away in front of everyone—for the rest to fall in line. Order snapped back into place.

Yet, the true challenge came not from the common folk—but from the nobility.

The nobles, in all their vanity, began to protest in droves. Their complaints echoed the same tired refrain passed down for generations: "Why must we leave our estates?" "It’s disgraceful to share shelter with the lower class." "This is unworthy of our bloodline."

That was when Lucy’s instructions cut through the noise with the precision of a blade.

"Then remind them," she had said coldly, "that it is beneath no one to survive. And if they’d rather test their lineage against a hybrid ambush, I’ll be happy to carve their names into the Tempest’s memory wall myself."

When those words were repeated to the noble houses by the knights under her command, resistance evaporated almost instantly. The aristocrats, faces pale with bitter realization, complied without another word.

With all barriers cleared, the evacuation surged forward with renewed momentum.

The Tempest Kingdom’s underground shelter was a sprawling fortress beneath the earth, segmented into three massive sections. Each section had been constructed to sustain the population of two zones—accounting for the six total zones that made up the kingdom’s dominion.

Supplies had already been stocked in advance—food rations, purified water, healing tonics, and alchemical essentials were neatly stored in massive crates along the stone walls. Each section was organized and prepared with rows upon rows of tents, designed not for luxury but for survival. Each tent could house a family of five. They were cramped, perhaps, and stripped of comforts, but in these uncertain times, they were more than welcome.

From what had once been a vast and hollow subterranean chamber, the shelters now steadily transformed into bustling sanctuaries. Cries of children echoed through the stone corridors. Fires burned in portable hearths. Conversations filled the dark with warmth. Families huddled together, eyes wide but hopeful.

And thus, what began as an evacuation was slowly becoming a community of survivors, each one clinging to the hope that, when the darkness passed, there would still be a world left to return to.

***

"Things are moving way faster than I expected," Galen muttered, his voice flat with boredom as he stood atop a rooftop, arms loosely crossed. His red eyes scanned the long procession of civilians streaming steadily toward the shimmering portal below.

"Yeah," Magnus replied, standing beside him. His eyes were equally fixed on the lines. "We might actually wrap up before sunset. That’ll buy us enough time to fully prep for whatever Sylvathar’s planning next."

"Well, they better move faster," Galen groaned, stretching his arms over his head. "This whole process is draining me."

"Yeah," Magnus responded with a half-hearted smile that didn’t even reach his eyes.

Galen noticed immediately. He rolled his eyes and, without hesitation, smacked Magnus sharply on the back of the head.

Magnus winced, more surprised than hurt, and turned to him with an annoyed glare. "The hell was that for?"

"For acting like a sulking baby over what you think is a failure," Galen replied coolly, as if he hadn’t just physically assaulted his best friend.

Magnus didn’t answer. His gaze drifted back down to the people below, eyes distant.

"You know," Galen continued, tone growing more serious, "I’ve seen you lose that goofy grin of yours a handful of times. Four, to be exact. But this?" He waved vaguely in Magnus’ direction. "This one’s the worst. You look like you caught feelings and got dumped."

Magnus scoffed, faint but real.

"Look, I get it. You feel like Sheila’s disappearance is on you. That maybe, just maybe, you could’ve stopped it. But here’s the thing—you couldn’t. And fate made damn sure you wouldn’t. That wasn’t your fight to win."

Galen glanced over, gauging his words. "Don’t chain yourself to the past. It’ll blind you to what’s right in front of you—and what’s ahead. So unless you want me to knock some optimism back into you, cheer the hell up."

To drive the point home, a thin flicker of flame sliced through the air beside him, hissing like a warning.

Magnus finally smiled, glancing sideways. "Yeah... I believe you would."

"You better," Galen said with a snort.

They shared a small laugh, the sound laced with familiarity, before slipping into a quiet moment of understanding.

"Thanks, man," Magnus said softly, the weight in his voice genuine. "Guess I needed that."

"Yeah, well, don’t get used to it," Galen replied, shrugging. "And don’t make it weird."

"Oh come on," Magnus teased. "Would it kill you to say, ’You’re welcome, my lovely Magnus’ just once?"

"Over my dead body," Galen grinned.

Magnus’s eye twitched dramatically. "What did I even exp—"

BOOM!

A thunderous crash tore through the air, cutting him off. In the distance, a building exploded outward, stone and timber flung in every direction.

Without a second thought, both men vanished in blurs—one trailing a streak of flame, the other disappearing into a gust of wind.

In seconds, they arrived above the scene of chaos. The building had been blown apart from within, its remains scattered across the street. Civilians screamed and scrambled for cover. One large chunk of debris had crushed someone beneath it—only the legs of the victim visible, motionless in a growing pool of blood.

Knights were already on the ground, doing their best to help the injured and get others to safety.

"What the hell caused this?" Galen muttered, narrowing his eyes.

His question was answered before he could blink.

From beneath the wreckage, a massive root—thick, gnarled, and pulsating with sickly green myst—burst forth with a roar. It whipped through the air like a serpent, lashing wildly and striking everything in its path. Screams erupted anew.

Without wasting a breath, Magnus stepped forward and drew his blade—its twin hilts of black and white gleaming in the moonlight. With one clean motion, he sliced through the air.

A sharp burst of compressed wind surged forward, cutting clean through the monstrous root and severing it in a single, decisive strike.

The severed root slammed into the cobbled street below with a thunderous crack, splintering the stone and sending a burst of dust into the air. But the moment of silence that followed was brief—far too brief.

Without warning, a second root erupted from the debris, this one twice as thick and ten times more violent, writhing like a beast off its chain. But this time, it didn’t come alone.

Rising with it was a figure—tall, twisted, and cloaked in bark-like armor laced with glowing green veins. A Gaia demon. Its face was a grotesque mockery of a human’s, with one side gnarled like a tree trunk and the other pulsing with living moss. Emerald eyes glowed with fury, and in its hand, it clutched a staff grown from living wood, its tip crackling with raw, corrupted myst.

The demon let out a guttural roar and swung the staff toward the rooftop. fгee𝑤ebɳoveɭ.cøm

From the end of it, a barrage of jagged roots and thorny vines shot forth, hurtling toward Galen and Magnus with vicious speed.

But neither flinched.

Magnus narrowed his eyes and took a step forward. In one fluid motion, he raised his sword and swung horizontally. A thick arc of compressed air howled through the air, crashing against the incoming attack—and cleaving straight through it.

The slash didn’t stop there.

The same blade of wind carved into the Gaia demon’s torso at a perfect diagonal. A single second passed... then the demon’s body split cleanly in two, a glowing core exposed and sliced in half as it collapsed with a heavy, wet thud onto the rubble below.

Galen had his hands in his pockets.

"That was unexpected," he muttered, stepping to the edge of the rooftop. "That was not a hybrid but a Gaia demon."

Magnus kept his eyes locked on the fallen demon, watching as its green glow faded slowly into the shadows. "Yeah," he said grimly. "It was."

The two warriors stood still for a breath, processing what they’d just witnessed. Then their thoughts aligned—clicked into place like pieces of a puzzle.

"We must get everyone out of here fast," Galen said, his voice low. "It seems things are about to turn hectic."

"We must move," Magnus added, eyes sharp.

And then, the confirmation came.

A series of thunderous booms echoed across the cityscape. One after another, buildings exploded in showers of splintered wood and shattering stone. The sky filled with screams—raw, terrified, human screams—followed by deep, primal roars that rattled the bones.

From every direction, they emerged.

Gaia demons burst forth from the ground, tearing through the streets. Their massive forms hunched and twisted, dragging behind them the stench of decay and the reek of corrupted myst. With them came dozens—no, hundreds—of Gaia hybrids. Half-human, half-nightmare, they crawled and sprinted through the alleys, scaling walls, smashing windows, dragging civilians from hiding.

Panic gripped the city. Fires began to spark. Cries for help turned into cries of death.

The war had began.

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