Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] Chapter 127: Book 2: Chapter 41: In the Trenches

Read chapter 127 of Aetherios System [Slow Build OP MC, Isekai LitRPG/Cultivation] by TTReynolds on NovelPedia.

Book 2: Chapter 41: In the Trenches Book 2: Chapter 41: In the Trenches The wind still stung with dust and debris, and it still tasted like metal. Alex moved quietly along the perimeter of the ridge, the half-broken stone wall dragging his shadow across the bloodstained floor. The faint sun had begun to rise, like it wasn’t entirely sure if it should be there yet. That makes two of us, buddy. The ground under his boots was still sticky in places. That didn’t bother him, not anymore. He paused at the outer ledge, eyes sweeping across the battlefield below. The burned husks of enemy armor gleamed like crushed beetle shells in the fading firelight and under the glow of the fresh morning sun. Smoke still curled from one of the shattered siege beasts that had slammed into the lower slope, its rider was little more than a smear now. Alex exhaled. He had killed people. Not monsters, or animals, not summoned constructs or twisted arcane beasts driven made by aether corruption. He had killed people. Sentient, thinking, probably scared, just like him. And he was okay with it. He wasn’t proud, and wasn’t numb, just… okay. What does that make me? A monster? A sociopath? Just another person shoved through the meat grinder of necessity and told to smile for the camera? “You killed those two kobolds when you first got here, remember? What’s so different now?” Obby asked. I didn’t know they were sentient when I did that, not until after. This time, I had no doubt, I knew those were people. So I did with forethought and knowledge, that makes it different. So its... It didn’t matter, not right now. Survival didn’t leave room for philosophy. He moved to help two young soldiers, neither of whom could meet his eyes, as they began the grim work of dragging bodies into a pile. Friend and foe alike, wrapped in rough cloth and stripped of anything useful. It was practical and efficient, but it was mostly just awful. One of the enemy mages had a dimensional belt-pouch still intact. Alex took it, opening it with a touch of blood and his own aether. Inside: a stack of low-grade aether crystals, a pair of glyph-inscribed rings, and a jade slip containing a basic cultivation method. All useful, and all claimed without hesitation. His found a couple more useful items and another dimensional storage pouch, everything got put in his bag. It was another unsightly part of war, looting the fallen. Things that were once property of a friend, a sister or bother in arms, now reduced to resources or monetary value. He moved silently back to the squad. Allie sat against the inner wall, bloodstains on her hands. Her eyes were distant. Garret was staring at the floor like the stone tiles themselves had betrayed him. Kate and Zach sat close together, not speaking. Henry hadn’t moved in half an hour, his blade still unsheathed beside him. Devon was shaking, breath stuttering like a broken forge bellows. Alex stood in the center of the room. He didn’t raise his voice when he spoke. “If we break here…we die. All of us.” The words cut through the silence a dull, rusty knife. He looked at each of them. “So rest. Cry. Shake. Do whatever you need to do. But don’t stop. Not yet.” No one argued. They all listened and nodded. They didn’t listen because he gave an order as a ranking soldier, or because The System had labeled him the party leader. They listened because he was still standing, bloodied, tired, eyes hollow but steady. And in a war where nothing made sense anymore, that was something worth following. *** By the time their shift at the watchpost finally ended and they made their way back to the northern front’s back lines it was already snowing. The chill had moved from a nipping bite to a clawing freeze that forced everyone to wear thick fur coats. A thin sheen of frost clung to the command tent’s outer flaps, making them crackle when the grim-faced Captain Drenn pulled them aside. His armor was still dusted with blood from a battle he hadn’t bothered changing out of y