Nick couldn’t see what was going on ahead of them, aside from the gates opening and an intense storm of mana and aura surging out, the explosions from Black witch’s spellcasters and the massive adult vulpe fighting each other, and the ice, lightning, and fire leaving pillowing black clouds of smoke stacking one on top of one another such that the entire sky was covered in darkness.
“This is it! This is the battle that will determine the future of humanity! Whether our children become food for these furry monstrosities, or they become blankets to keep our beds warm at night!” the Black Witch’s voice cried, once more consuming Nick’s mind, the words filled with a powerful magic that felt like it was soaking into his bones.
This must be like what others feel when I use my buffs, Nick thought as the Black Witch’s voice filled his body with power unlike anything he’d felt before. Following the increase, he was able to move his spear faster than ever, stabbing it through one of the dire wolves directly in front of him. The tip pierced all the way through the wolf’s skull as Nick used his shield to block a heavy claw swipe from a gulo gulo. In the brief moment between the gulo gulo’s attack and its follow-up, Nick extended his foot, pushed the wolf off his spear, and then stabbed the gulo gulo before it could swipe him again.
As he was yanking his spear out of the gulo gulo’s chest, he saw The Hero’s Gale exploding into action off to his left and plum blossoms filling the air on his right.
“Clear out that wave, boss, and I’ll get you a break!” Topaz yelled, and three quick shots flew over his head as she took advantage of the choke point created by the bridge. He could tell from the white color of the canisters that she had launched sticky grenades. The snare immediately covered the bridge and slowed the enemies.
But it didn’t completely stop them. Rather, the effect of the sticky grenades only lasted a moment. As the fluid solidified into a weblike substance, the white goop tarring over a hundred monsters in place, the hundred monsters behind them crashed into the blockage, pushing the stuck monsters forward as the momentum of the horde quickly broke the web, leaving a few dozen enemies trampled beneath the sharp-clawed paws of their companions, whose corpses created fresh obstacles on the terrain.
That’s going to be our key to surviving, Nick thought as he saw one body after another begin to pile as the sticky grenades blobbed the monsters, leaving them to trample each other to death like desperate shoppers during a Black Friday sales event.
But then Christina’s holy fire spell ignited the piling bodies, burning through the whole mess and incinerating both the webbing and the monsters it was binding, completely removing the difficult terrain on the bridge at the same time.
Just as he was about to call out for Christina to stop the holy fire attacks and let the corpses pile up, three more bolts of purple energy shot out from the mages behind him. The effect, amplified by the Black Witch’s magic and all of Nick’s own bonuses as well as the Standard of Greatness, was like three lightning strikes as each bolt ripped through nearly a dozen monsters instantaneously, creating a magical fire everywhere that fried their corpses into ash instantaneously.
For a second, he wanted to tell the mages to stop as well, to help build an even tighter funnel, but he knew it would be counterproductive to restrain firepower like that. As fast as his spear was and as true as Maria’s, Seo-ah’s, and the others’ blades were, there were no substitutes for that level of mass carnage.
“Kinda makes you wish Spencer and Clarissa were here,” Seo-ah noted as they readied their weapons for the next impact.
When the wave hit, Nick, emboldened and empowered by the Black Witch’s own charisma magic, tore through one monster after the other as he did his best to hold the enemy off. An orange glow appeared around him once more as Reggie’s ability came back online. Unfortunately, Reggie’s skill didn’t differentiate between a lethal blow and a blocked blow, and no sooner did the orange glow appear than it was dispelled as a harpy’s attack struck against Nick’s shield, the armoring skill dispersing the damage and the force but doing little to change the outcome of the encounter as the damage had already been blocked.
As Nick fought, he caught sight of Adele’s spiritual hammer. The ethereal weapon was whacking one monster after the other, acting like a body blocker of its own as it struck down the enemies in front of her.
“Adele! I told you to save that mana!” Nick shouted, chastising the overly eager priest. He knew she wanted to join the fight, but her role was more important than any other person’s on the front line. She had one purpose and one purpose only in the battle “Heals only!”
“Sorry!” Adele called back, the hammer vanishing a moment later as she went back to solely healing the injured.
Momentarily distracted, Nick only spotted a lunging dire wolf at the last second, its massive jaws snapping shut inches from his face as he barely managed to pull his head back in time. He thrust his spear forward, the enchanted weapon piercing the beast's skull.
As Nick dispatched a second and third dire wolf, each feeling like it took more energy than the last as he kicked the corpses back, another snow harpy swooped down toward him, but it was suddenly struck by a familiar purple blade, which cut through the air and bisected the monster.
It was either Elizabeth or Arnold’s, as they were the only two who used that technique, but Nick didn’t have time to turn around and see who had given him the assist. The important thing was that the Walters had returned. The vulpes had been dispatched, and the front line was being reinforced.
The aid came just in time, as no sooner had the Walters come to bolster the ranks than over a dozen of the armored ursines came barreling toward their front line.
“One of those was so tough we had to build a strategy around it, and now there are over a dozen?!” Seo-ah exclaimed as the beasts thundered across the ice bridge, spelling doom for their human targets.
“So how are you going to handle the bear necessities?” Mr. Walters asked as he pushed his way through the front lines to Nick. “I can only fight one of them.”
“Then don’t fight any of them,” Nick thought, looking at the bridge beneath him. “Arnold, Mr. Walters, Elizabeth, Reggie—break the bridge. Seo-ah, Maria, Christina, do what you can to reinforce the part underneath us as they shatter the rest.”
“Ha! You’re cold!” Mr. Walters said as Nick started calling out the same order to warn the rest of the knights behind them of the plan.
In an instant, the entire squad started striking at the bridge. It only took a few seconds before a large crack appeared and soon a hundred more. Then, the entire bridge shattered. The bears, wolves, gulo gulo, and other monsters across the ice structure yelped out in fear as the bridge gave way beneath them, and even Nick felt a little scared as he saw the cracks traveling back toward him, but he quickly noticed that his own mages, Seo-ah, Maria, and the others were doing a great job reinforcing their side of the crossing.
Yet, as the bears landed in the cold water, it was clear that this wasn’t the death blow Nick had hoped for. Most of the monsters, except apparently the gulo gulo, were able to start swimming. Thankfully, even as they swam through the freezing waters, they were piled on top of each other so densely that they couldn’t make headway in either direction, and the current swept them down the river.
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“Good job. That’ll buy us some time,” Nick said, but the relief he felt didn’t last long. It only took a second before a two-story-tall vulpe came to the crossing. In a moment, it undid the work of the Walters and knights, recreating the bridge with the magic of a single tail, and this time making it larger, wider, and stronger.
“Well, at least we sent the bears downstream, bro,” Reggie remarked, offering a few words of comfort as the hordes of monsters began pouring across the now much wider bridge.
“Seo-ah, everyone, switch to creating walls on both sides of us. We don’t have the manpower to reinforce the flanks. We need to make our own terrain,” Nick ordered as he gripped his weapon tightly, watching as four of the adult vulpe’s tails began twisting and turning, creating a giant ball of destructive energy. “Reggie, you need to wait on the armoring spell. We won’t survive whatever monstrous attack that bastard makes, so wait for it and then cast right when you see it go off. Try to time it as best you can.”
“You know even a flea biting at your shield will undo it though, even if I time it perfectly—”
“Just do what you can,” Nick insisted, fully aware of the situation. “Adele, be ready to heal whoever—”
Nick’s words were cut short as the ball of energy launched straight at them. The armoring spell went up just in time to block the damage, but the blast shattered the two walls that Seo-ah and the rest had been creating, and Nick could already see another ball forming as a gulo gulo, rolled into a spinning ball of death crashed into his shield, sounding off the start of the clash.
The gulo gulo, dire wolves, and other monsters attacked with everything they had. The humans’ flanks now completely exposed, Nick heard the sound of screams on his left and right. He could tell without even looking that soldiers were being eaten alive, unable to handle the pressure.
It only took a few moments before the vulpe mage on the other side of the bridge flung another ball of magical destruction at them.
“Armoring in three! Create room!” Reggie called out as Nick, to stop himself from getting struck, stabbed out with his spear, shoving with his shield just in time as the orange shield appeared and, an instant later, was evaporated by the destructive force of the vulpe’s spell. But the magical orange shield wasn’t the only thing annihilated: the monsters in front of Nick and to his sides were completely obliterated as well, the area of effect on the spell proving far more destructive than Nick would have imagined.
"We're losing too many!" Seo-ah cried out as she took advantage of the devastation to hurl an aura-filled spear at the enemy caster, forcing it to back up a step as it bit down on the aura blade, slowing its casting for a moment.
“Nice! Do that a few more times!” Reggie insisted, “I am having trouble with the re-charge. We’re dead if it continues chaining them quickly.”
Maria, Arnold, and Elizabeth started harassing the vulpe from afar with thrown weapons, corpses, and whatever else they could fling at it, but Nick couldn’t join them.
He had to conserve his mana as the toll from using Faith of the Fervent and Cloak of Madness in conjunction was taking a toll on him. He could only watch and trust in his companions and the soldiers behind him as he gritted his teeth against the pain of his injuries, the continuous impacts of the car-sized monsters, and his dropping mana.
He only had a second to look to his sides before the next wave struck, but he could see over a half dozen knights dead or injured, Adele doing her best to heal up Lou, whom he hadn’t even seen get hurt.
“Alright, the next wave is here! We can do this!” Nick called out, but given how fast the knights around him were dying and how beaten their weakening flanks were, he wasn’t sure if he believed his own words as he, for what felt like the hundredth time since the battle began, once more simple braced himself against a lunging monster, thrusting his spear out into the beast’s jaw as the infused aura from his soulstealer’s ring sapped its life force to slowly patch up the wounds and bruises wrecking his body.
“Armoring in three!” Reggie called out again, but this time Nick couldn’t even give the push-off command as a dire wolf struck his shield right at that moment, a second one leaping over the first one as it lunged for Nick’s face with an open jaw and a clear route.
Nick was only saved from the wolves by the armoring spell, but he was left unshielded from the vulpe’s magic. Trying his best to survive, he dove forward, pushing himself under the wolf that was trying to eat him as he let the body of that monster take the blow from the spell instead, the aftermath leaving large wounds across his arms where the wolf’s body hadn’t been big enough to block the blast. His own agony felt like nothing, however, when compared to the painful cries of two more knights who were ripped apart by the magic.
The indiscriminate carnage of the spell left them with another brief respite, but that moment was suddenly filled with the loud thumping of a familiar song.
“What in the . . .” Seo-ah mumbled, turning her head for a moment, dispelling Nick’s concerns that it was all in his imagination. Nick looked as well. There, behind him, were over a dozen all-terrain vehicles cresting over the hill, three of the Crimson Crusaders flying above as Will’s vehicle blasted Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries” across the battlefield. Each vehicle behind his was packed with heavily armed adventurers, their weapons already out and firing as they didn’t even have to aim to hit an enemy even from that far away, the sea of monsters being so thick.
“How in the world . . .” Nick muttered in disbelief as a spark of renewed energy surged through his battered body, the relief evaporating the pain from the burnt tissue up and down the sides of his arms.
“Nick! Can you hear me?!” Allen’s voice came through the speakers over the music. “Nick! We’re here with backup!”
“We can tell that, you dolt,” Nick chuckled and shook his head as he watched the Crimson Crusader, Wren, zoom forward on her broom, swooping down and instantly lighting up the remainder of monsters on the bridge as she summoned a massive swirling fire tornado that quickly grew from a burning dust devil into a monstrous multi-story-tall pillar of flame that ripped through the ranks of the dire wolves, scorching them all in an instant. Then, the leader of the group, Lassandra, and Rob, one of the twin swordsmen, landed on Rob’s pegasus next to Nick.
“We brought reinforcements,” Lassandra informed him.
“Yes. I see that . . . but how did you know to come?” Nick asked.
“Malcolm. He convinced Kaylee that we needed to send reinforcements when the drone signal got choppy. We know you said to prioritize defending the base, but we think that with the adventurers left behind and the drone upgrade the base came with, it should be able to hold until we finish this,” Lassandra explained.
Then, Allen suddenly blasted, “NICK! WE’RE COMING!” over the speakers as if Nick hadn’t heard the first message.
“Well, I can’t say I’m not happy to see you,” Nick admitted to Lassandra, wanting to add more before a voice filled his head and interrupted any chance he had of speaking.
“The crystal, the runes,” the voice said, showing a picture of a mountain overlook, where runes had been carved into the rocks. A powerful bear stood guard, overlooking the battlefield. “The crystal that is blocking your comms and sealing away the rift within our citadel, cutting us off from our reinforcements, is also the key to victory. In order for us to have a chance, you must put your hand atop the crystal before you destroy it.”
It took Nick only a moment after hearing the voice to realize exactly where the overlook was—and the crystal was with it.
“What? What’s going on?” Seo-ah asked. “You got that look in your eyes Nick, what’s happening?”
“There’s a crystal . . . I think it’s what’s blocking our comms. We need to destroy it,” Nick said, pointing up at one of the tallest points on the mountain to the north.
“Alright then, we can do that, but it’s going to involve pressing through the horde of monsters and—” Seo-ah began, formulating a plan, but was cut off by the new arrivals.
“Can’t we just fly?” Rob asked. “Why worry about the monsters? If you want it blown up, I can fly you right there.”
“Or we could just do it ourselves and come back,” Lassandra suggested.
“No, I need to be there,” Nick told them as he hopped on the back of Rob’s pegasus without even waiting for permission.
Seo-an looked up at Nick worried. “Nick, I don’t think it’s a wise idea for you to—”
“Hold tight!” Rob exclaimed he took his mount to the skies with Nick riding along. Despite the circumstances, Nick had to admit it was an amazing feeling as he was lifted into the air at breakneck speed. He clung as tightly as he could to Rob so he wouldn’t fall as the flying horse’s wings sped them upward.
“You moron, we should have at least waited for Wren to finish her spells and join us,” Lassandra chastised Rob as she pulled up beside him on her staff, the party of three barreling straight toward the mountain, where a monstrous bear, over fifteen feet tall at least, was standing on its hind legs in the center of a large circle of runes, protecting a glowing pink crystal.