Staying here all night wasn't a problem for me. I had multiple Soul Cores humming with power inside me, each one a little battery of essence. I could keep this watch for days if I had to. Patience was a weapon, and right now, it was our best one. I just had to sit here and wait for the show to start.
The waiting was the hardest part. The Saints didn't move. They were like part of the scenery, eternal and unmoving. I found myself holding my breath, half-expecting them to all turn their heads and look right up at me. But they didn't. They were utterly oblivious to the shadow slinking through the ruins on their behalf.
I thought about what we were risking. These weren't mindless beasts. The novel said they were intelligent, capable of strategy. What if they saw through the ruse? What if they didn't fight the monsters, but just let them pass? Or worse, what if they decided to hunt down the source of the disturbance? My palms felt a little sweaty. I wiped them on my pants.
Finally, I felt it. A low, rhythmic thumping through the soles of my feet. Something big was coming. A minute later, I saw them. Two massive, bear-like creatures with metallic hides and glowing red eyes burst into the far end of the square. They must have been what Sasrir found first. They looked tough, but I wasn't sure they were tough enough.
The Stone Saints reacted instantly. The five who were staring into space snapped to attention, their stony faces turning in unison toward the new threat. The one cleaning his sword didn't even look up; he just tightened his grip on the hilt. They didn't charge. They just stood their ground, a solid wall of living rock, waiting.
The two metallic bears didn't hesitate. They roared, a sound that scraped against the ruins, and charged. The Saints moved with a speed that was shocking for things made of stone. They flowed into a defensive formation, two of the male Saints stepping forward to meet the charge head-on. The sound of impact was like a car crash, stone fist meeting metal hide.
It was brutal and efficient. The bears were strong, but the Saints were unyielding. One bear managed to rake its claws down a Saint's chest, but it only left shallow gouges in the stone, causing the ruby dust that served as their lifeblood to leak.. The Saint it attacked didn't flinch. It just drove its own blade through the bear's metallic skull. The fight was over in less than a minute. One Saint had a few new scratches, that was it. Two Awakened Beasts down.
I let out a low breath. Okay. One wave down. They were as tough as advertised. We needed to wear them down.
About ten minutes later, a new sound echoed through the streets. This one was a high-pitched, chittering screech. A swarm of creatures that looked like giant centipedes with jagged spikes poured into the square. There were dozens of them. This was more like it. The Saints formed a tight circle, their stone swords now sweeping in wide, devastating arcs.
This fight was longer and messier. The centipedes were faster and tried to attack from all sides. I saw one of the female Saints get several of them latched onto her back, their stingers trying to find a weak point in the stone. She just fell backwards, crushing them beneath her immense weight. The Saint with the blood-stained sword was a whirlwind of destruction, his blade cutting two or three of the creatures down with every swing.
When it was over, the square was littered with twitching centipede parts. Two of the Saints now had deep cracks showing in their stony skin. One had a chip missing from its shoulder. They were finally taking damage. It was working. We just had to keep the pressure on. I settled in to wait again, my eyes fixed on the damaged Saints. The plan was crazy, but it was starting to look like it might actually work.
The Saints weren't stupid though. The injured two were moved back, the remaining four coming together in a protective formation. They didn't seem to consider that someone was guiding the other monsters here, maybe thinking they were just attracted by the blood. Or maybe they didn't think about it at all, only killing whatever cam near. It was a tricky thing on our part: we needed strong monsters to destroy all but one Saint, but how to achieve that precise result was troublesome. Perhaps, as I said earlier, it all comes down to luck.
The ground began to tremble, a deep, resonant vibration that was entirely different from the heavy footfalls of the bears. This wasn't a charge; it was a slow, inevitable approach. I gripped the edge of the rooftop, my knuckles turning white. What fresh hell had Sasrir found?
Then I saw it, and my breath caught in my throat. It wasn't a swarm. It was a single entity. A serpent, but one woven from living, translucent crystal. It was colossal, the size of a whale and twice as long, its body reflecting the dull grey sky in a thousand fractured facets. Despite its apparent rigidity, it moved with an impossible, fluid grace, gliding over the rubble as if it were water.
The most horrifying part was that you could see inside it. Trapped within the crystal, like flies in amber, were the shadowy, contorted forms of its yet-undigested victims. It was bizarre, beautiful, and utterly terrifying. This was no Awakened beast. The sheer pressure rolling off it told me everything. This was a Fallen Devil. A whole rank and two Tiers above the Stone Saints.
The Saints, who had been standing firm against the previous waves, now shifted their stances. This wasn't the relaxed readiness from before; this was pure, defensive tension. They knew. The crystal serpent didn't roar or screech. It simply opened its maw, a void of shimmering darkness within the beautiful crystal, and glided forward.