Chapter Ten
The battle of the Eastern Flank was a cacophony of death and chaos. He’d arrived in the midst of an assault by the Mantid forces, and even his initial call was lost in the crush of bodies and the boom of Spells. Unable to spare the time to do a proper assessment of the situation, he’d simply lunged into combat and done his best.
Verten’s Vitality and Endure were active over five of the soldiers in his vicinity as he clashed the unfamiliar sword with the two scythe-like blades that tipped the Mantid’s arms. He couldn’t spare the mana to boost his own abilities, focusing instead on trying to keep the small group he’d fallen into step with alive. Thankfully, the Mantids seemed to be more focused on swarm tactics than individual skill, and he cut down his current foe in just a few careful swings.
“Berserker left!”
Will snapped his head to the source of the call, seeing as a Mantid twice the size of the others came barrelling into the field, smashing several of Will’s allies aside in its charge. Making a quick decision, he dropped the buffs on the soldiers around him and sprinted towards the new threat.
“Spearmen! Swordsmen! Engage!”
Will could see the soldier giving the orders now, and as he drew closer to where the huge Mantid was stood, swinging huge bladed arms at a wave of fighters trying to approach, he recognised the bearing of a leader.
“I’m an Enhancer, what’s the priority?”
He called the words to the figure, engaging a standard Mantid soldier that was taking advantage of the chaos to slip through their defensive line.
“Damage!”
The call came in the midst of a dozen other shouted orders, but Will instinctively knew it was meant for him. He activated Vigorous Sharpen [E] to finish off the soldier in front of him quicker, and drove it through the Mantid’s skull. Stepping over its’ corpse, he looked ahead at where a dozen fighters moved with blurring speed and drove attacks into the large Mantid’s lower half.
Despite the spears and swords that searched for gaps in its exoskeleton, the Mantid Berserker appeared unbothered. Its chitinous body was steaming, the air around it wobbling in a heat haze, and as Will extended his buffing spell to the weapons of the fighters in front he saw it slam a single bladed arm down so fast that the spearman below had no time to escape.
He kept moving in closer, forcing the Spell out of himself and layering it over the blades of his allies as hard as he could. He added Alacrity to the mix, and even as the internal “balloon” that formed his mana pool screamed in effort he continued moving closer.
The Mantid Berserker was moving now, slamming huge blows towards the fighters arrayed against it as they were forced to dodge and weave to avoid their deaths. He could see the telltale greyish haze of his Spell on their blades, but it was weak and nearly transparent. He swigged a mana potion from his ring quickly, drawing the replenished mana out into his Spell immediately.
Time seemed to slow down. Absently, he noted that his body was still moving. Several smaller Mantids had surged in past the broken line to reinforce the Berserker, and he moved like the wind between them preventing the fighters from being caught unaware. The movements were autopilot, though, as his mind wandered. He realised that this was the largest number of people he’d buffed at once. Vigorous Sharpen and Alacrity were his go-to Spells, the priorities he’d entered the Tower seeking, and the buffs he most commonly relied on for his own damage.
Green blood sprayed from the neck of a Mantid, and Will turned again, thrusting his sword through the midsection of its friend and inclining his head to allow its scythe arm to glance off his helmet. The sensation of impact barely registered, as he continued to think about his Spells. Sharpen was a simple Spell, but he knew it could be so much more. Dissection Yin had been famous for layering a higher tier of the Spell over hundreds of strands of cable, strung between trees and pillars to turn a monster wave into so much jam. Why hadn’t he been able to upgrade the Spell in so long? He was following the guide, as much of it as he’d half-read in the first timeline.
The Berserker was bleeding, at last. Superficial wounds decorated its thick armoured form, and Will watched a pair of twin spearmen float into the air and drive their weapons towards its many eyes. A realisation struck him, and his hands came up to point at the pair.
He could feel his buffs connecting to the fighters. When he focused, he could sense a web of threads, tiny and feeble, but present. Each thread led from his centre mass, where he visualised his mana pool as being, to the weapon and body of a fighter in the area. Without even needing to count, he knew that there were 14 people including himself currently under the effect of Alacrity and Vigorous Sharpen. That was more than double his previous record, yet the initial screaming pain had subsided. Acting on pure instinct, he commanded the threads to move.
They responded instantly, not even a hint of resistance, and he felt as every single thread clicked together into two thick ropes that joined him to the floating soldiers. The sensation felt familiar, and he thrust all the power he could down the ropes. In his vision, the air around the tips of their spears suddenly blazed with a thick fog of deep gunmetal gray energy. Their weapons ticked closer to the Mantid Berserker’s face, inching slowly as Will’s mind raced.
The feeling of changing the focus of his buff remained, and Will dove deep into it, letting it wash over his mind. It felt just like the moment he’d upgraded Sharpen to Vigorous Sharpen, when he’d concentrated the energy around the blade for a particularly strong strike in a moment of panic. Then it hit him.
Until now, he’d just been throwing mana into the Spell and leaving it at that. Sure, he’d practised varying the power input, but in this snatched second he understood why that was insufficient. Mana was an energy, and like any other, it needed to be directed and shaped into a usable form. Like wires directing electricity, or a network of interlocked levers transferring kinetic force to where it was needed. He reached out to the Spell on each of the spearmen’s weapons, and willed it to shape.
The feeling of time slowing started to recede, but in the instant before things returned to normal, he saw success. Around the tips of the two spears, the orbs of fog had condensed, taking on the appearance of a second spearhead twice the size of the actual weapon. The spears drove into the Mantid Berserker’s head, and as it keened in pain and staggered back, he saw the grey energy flash bright yellow.
The Mantid soldiers he’d been in combat with before his epiphany attacked again, and Will was forced out of his introspection to deal with them. The calm and concentration fled, and he barely had the mental energy to pull the mana back from the spearmen and apply it to the whole squad again.
“Retreat! Bombardment incoming!”
He beheaded a Mantid, marvelling at the thicker and more precisely shaped energy that ran along his sabre as he did so, and followed the orders. He dropped the damage buff and focused entirely on Alacrity, trying to expand his reach even further to help with the hurried exit.
Fire filled the sky, and then filled the ground behind them. Will’s ears rang and his head swam, and he felt himself and the soldiers around him being forced forwards by a wave of concussive force. He stumbled, but managed to right himself, and then cursed as the mana potion he’d been about to drink slipped from his fingers and was lost underfoot.
There was a shield wall up ahead, a fresh wave of reinforcements for the flank sent out from the medical centres they were guarding. He joined the rest of the forces in hurrying past, but instead of continuing with the retreat turned on his heel. He dropped the buffs he’d been applying, drank a potion, and then threw his hands out to the defenders. Endure stacked with Verten’s Vitality, and as the final dregs of the Mantid forces threw themselves at the shields and swords of the defenders they found no purchase.
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One of the defenders slipped, losing footing and giving the Mantids an opening to pour through, cutting down the shield-wielders on either side of the one who’d slipped and starting to break the line.
“Oh no you don’t!”
Will darted forwards. His mana was nearly spent and what he had left was still trickling into the defenders to keep them alive despite their wounds. He wasn’t just a buff-bot though, he was a fighter, and so he didn’t bother with any Spells as he dived in to push back the tide.
He brought his sabre to bear, and fended off a pair of Mantids that lunged for him. He ached to the bone, feeling a level of exhaustion he hadn’t yet experienced in this timeline. The familiar sensation of being a tiny cog in a battle far above his ability to control had settled into his mind, and he fought against the loss-of-hope that it represented. A scythe bladed forearm punched through his armour into his back, but he wriggled himself free of the weapon, turned and drove his sword into the Mantid’s throat, tearing it back and bringing a chunk of its internals with him. He’d pushed too far forwards now, was surrounded.
He wished he had his gear, had his Deflection Amulet and his superior armour, but that was a fool’s wish. If he wanted to be strong enough to keep his position at the head of Humanity, reliance on Items wouldn’t be enough. He grunted in pain, pivoting and keeping another set of bladed arms away from his face and neck, slamming the pommel of his blade directly into the forehead of a Mantid and feeling its exoskeleton crumple under the blow. More cuts decorated his body, and he felt his movements begin to slow, but he kept fighting.
Two Mantids attacked simultaneously, and with only one sword he didn’t have the capacity to block both of their attacks. He leant backwards, managing to dodge one of the four swiping blades, and batted two others away with the flat of his sword. The fourth slammed into his chest, prevented from fully penetrating by the armour but still driving deep. Will coughed and blood sprayed across the face of the Mantid, disorienting it enough that he was able to pull himself free of its arm and respond with a thrust of his own. The Mantid went down, but twisted and yanked the blade from his grip as it fell.
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Will woke, feeling pain across his entire body. His eyes opened, giving him a bleary and blurred view of a tent’s ceiling. A moment later, sound began to filter into his confused brain, and he strained to understand the words.
“Without his efforts, the line would surely have broken. Once he went down, several of the retreating forces turned and joined in the counter-attack, violating orders. I don’t know where you found this kid, Gal, but he doesn’t have any quit. I had to order my men not to stand honour guard over the tent while he recovered.”
Will tried to shift, to turn his head towards the voice, but the sensation sent pain spiking through his torso and caused blackness to creep into the edges of his vision. A heavy palm pressed on his forehead, gently pressing it back against the pillow, and he saw Galliar step into view.
“You did well. Not perfectly, but you’ve earned the recovery time. The Mantid forces have retreated, and will not attack again for a few days. One of the other Enhancers indicated that you may have had a breakthrough during your assistance with the Mantid Berserker, so we’ll be spending the time working on that. For now, just sleep.”
The words went in, but his muddled thoughts couldn’t properly parse their meaning. He tried to force out words, to ask for clarification, but before any sound left his mouth Galliar’s hand sparked with gold and he felt sleep claim him once more.
He dreamed of the Companions, and the Chancers. In the foggy, half-aware state of dreaming, he watched a litany of his failures play out. Missing a block with his shield and costing Sam part of his hand. Reflexively backpedalling at the appearance of a Roaming Miniboss and letting its initial attack catch John and the others instead of stepping up to take the blast head on. Getting cocky in the Drake Cave, and almost failing to save Metrodora and himself.
In typical dream fashion, the logic of the scenario failed to truly click. When he looked down at himself, he was wearing a strange combination of his armour from the first timeline and this one. He held Whisper in one hand, but the other was occupied by the Hightower Shield he’d scrimped and saved for in the first timeline. Looking around at the party, he could see members of the Chancers mixed with the Companions, people from Towerfall seeming to blur and morph into members of the Full Clear Association and other Clans.
He tried to speak, to ask what was going on, but his words were taken by the wind and he helplessly watched as the situation shifted once more to show him stood in front of a huge crystalline screen, a crowd of countless thousands surrounding him as they looked up and waited for the news.
“It has been confirmed by representatives of all 10 Ascended Clans that the information is accurate. It is no longer possible to return to Earth for most of us, and those who have made it through report near-total destruction.”
A rumble ran through the crowd, even as Will himself recognised the memory and how it would play out. Up ahead, on the screen, speaking to them all, was Sand Snake Colby. The most respected of the Clan Leaders, the first to use his Clan to support and not compete. Idly, he wondered how the Clan Leaders had chosen Colby as their messenger, but the thought was snatched from his mind as soon as it arrived. Irrelevant.
“The Tower Administrators have made very clear what we must do. We must reach the end of this Tower, the 51st Floor, within the next 5 years. If we fail, as we failed to reach the 26th in the first 5 years, then the destruction of Earth will not be their last attack. I know that this news is terrifying, that many of you are grieving your homes and your families. But the Administrators made us a promise, as well as a threat. If we can complete our mission, can reach the 51st, then all those who have died as a result of the Tower’s presence will be revived. Humanity will ascend, reaching a level beyond our wildest dreams, and those who have suffered to get us to that point will be rewarded just as those who survive to the end. I am not the Clan Leader who holds authority over most of you, but I beseech you all. Please, do not lose hope. We will need every single one of you if we are to make it to the end.”
Seeing it anew, Will was surprised at how much of a similarity he felt between his own speeches and that of Colby. He supposed it made sense, given that he’d been cribbing unashamedly from the elites of the first timeline in building his reputation and Clan. The reminder of the 5 Year Disaster sent ripples of fear and guilt into his body, as he felt the internal war between telling people and avoiding a panic bubble up anew. The dream shifted again, and he was thrown into the muck of a Clearing attempt, watching death all around him as his armour and shield were scratched and dented by the oncoming monster horde. He tried to hold onto the thoughts he had, to hold his sense of self in the dream, but he felt his lucidity waning and was forced to let it go.
Unbeknownst to Will, Galliar Foredell stood at his bedside, a frown on his face. He held a hand out, speeding Will’s recovery with his Spells, and watching as the young man writhed and twitched in his sleep. He wished he could do more, but the godforesaken Admins had crippled him. He could not leave the vicinity of his hut, could not share any useful information about the Tower and its iterations, could not provide any support that this new species could use to reach the top.
Not for the first time, he regretted making the deal he had. When his own species had failed their Climb, the top 10% of Climbers had been offered the chance to survive, to become a part of future Iterations and assist in testing new species. At the time, facing service or death, he’d chosen to become a Class Trainer and educate others in his chosen Class.
As he watched the young human shudder, hearing a soft moan of pain and several muttered names leave his lips, Galliar mourned. He mourned for his people, for his world. He mourned for his life, for the lives of those he had seen try and fail, for those he’d taught his Class to and watched die anyway. He mourned for Pioneer, for the man who had taken the responsibility of a world on his shoulders. The morning would come soon, and he’d need to be focused if he wanted to train the kid properly.