The number of Wilds killed by humans or human activity in the Wildlands hit 10,000. With furious roars, the hordes under the command of the Dark Fang King, the Storm Pegasus King and the Bone King erupted into action. A massive flood from the left headed toward the western settlements, a wave that would hit the La Vive, Ashdale, and Itarim colonies simultaneously. A throng from the Five Lakes streamed north-east, found the river created by the Deep Emperor, and followed it north toward the lands of man. A third horde moved out from the far south, heading toward the eastern colonies of Bellas, Kara-Goth, and the Nine Mountains. By the way, just in case anyone was wondering… Asda was still on board the Ira mothership, having lost her entire fleet to mutiny. At this point, she was served and surrounded by Ira’s slaves, and none of the people or airships who had gone there with her from Fal’Herim remained. A good many of them joined Ira’s air fleet. Was that the plot of someone’s doing?

In case anyone was wondering, Sir Stout had no idea his father died, or how, or even why. It would be a long time before he even thought to check. It wasn’t that he was unfilial or anything. It was just that this day would be very, very chaotic. *** At the time, the Itarim commander was laughing. His head was tilted to the sky as he roared his laughter madly. The Itarim colony had already fallen. In fact, their vaunted siege engines and artillery barely got off a single volley before they had fallen silent entirely. “What happened?” he had asked. “Sir, they’re already overrun!” his aide reported. “What? How? The Wilds haven’t even breached our perimeter yet!” “Sir… they came from the lake.” “From the lake?!” at that time, his voice was filled with disbelief. “Yes, sir… they can swim.” They can SWIM! Wilds from the water had struck out on land, amphibious types, poisonous frogs, blindingly fast newts, reptiles the names of which he didn’t even know… the Itarim colony had count

Directly south of Itarim, south-east of La Vive, east of Hispanol and west of Ceres, were a stretch of islands bearing small towns of short, white structures. These were the islands of the Midlands Sea People, who were currently allied with Ashdale and La Vive in the world war and presently filling up rapidly with refugees from La Vive. At nine forty-eight in the morning the day after the Beast Tide officially began, lookouts on the southernmost island reported seeing something most unusual; there appeared to be a new island to the south, and it had appeared practically out of nowhere. An hour later, a panicked report came in; never mind the island, there was a huge flock of Wilds on the horizon, and they did not look friendly. Red eyes, slavering at the fang, and all that. The hour after that, someone remarked that the new island that appeared seemed to be getting bigger, or perhaps, closer. But by then, everyone was too busy preparing defenses and screaming for help to really list

“Fire! Shoot the Ballista!” TWHOOSH! A runic bolt slammed into the Skeletal Serpent at point blank range, causing it to roar and fall back, but where one withdrew, two more rushed in, and charged at the defenders’ formations. A chorus of gunshots rang out at the same time, but they barely made dents in the Skeletal Serpents’ carapaces. The creatures hissed, then charged. “Not good!” Max raised his shield as the tail of an attacking Skeletal Serpent rammed into him. The impact threw him backwards, squashing him against the formation of Legionnaires trying to hold their position against the smallest Tier 5 they’d ever seen. It did not go well. “OOMPFH!” Markus received a similar blow on his shield and likewise was hammered into their own formation, which itself was beginning to look rather shaky. Even with their trained muscles, even with heavy armor, their combined might flailed against the Skeletal Serpents’ overwhelming physical strength. A couple more hits like that and everyone

Over at the other main entrance, Song Chen had his hands full. To put it simply, he had the invading Skeletal Serpent by the tail. “WHOAAAA!!!” While his grip was firm enough, Song Chen himself wasn’t all that heavy. The Serpent was currently trying its utmost to throw him off and was flailing its tail every which way. “Keep firing!” the gunners took a few shots, but most of them were afraid of hitting Song Chen by accident, so only the ones with confidence dared squeeze off a round. “Ballista?!” “Almost ready!” the ballista crew yelled back. “Just hold on!” “What else CAN I do?!” Song Chen shot back somewhat crossly while he was being flipped around like an old shoe in a puppy’s mouth. Behind him was the corpse of one Skeletal Serpent. On the left, mercenaries armed with heavy polearms were trying to get in a hit or two. On the right, four heaps of wrecked metal bore mute testimony to the demise of George’s ME-Frame troopers. The most they managed to do before falling apart was b