(Luca)

Man, I feel refreshed! Not only that, but it's daytime again. Sadly, the stormclouds are still here, and they're thick. Very thick. Such a dark grey, it's scary. But Lord Zack is scarier, so there's nothing to worry about. He'll just glare the storm into waiting until after the battle for the valley finally ends.

I stretch, then sniff the air. I smell sausage! After changing into proper clothes, I make my way downstairs, where Kit and Aurum and cooking breakfast. Sausage, eggs, and pancakes. I grab the fruit they had ready to put out and put it out, then set the table, then grab a few more things and start eating breakfast.

The rest of the team joins us within minutes. Maybe it's closer to lunchtime? It's hard to tell, really.

"You guys be fighting in the next wave," Gold approaches us. "You have around an hour to get ready and get out there. I be just coming to wake you up."

"Thanks," Gavin tells him. "Zack?"

"He apparently fell asleep right after the last wave ended," Gold says. "And might still be sleeping. Nik said if he not be awake when the wave is here, they'll wake him up."

I pray for whoever gets that duty. Even with everything going on, they are probably drawing sticks to find out who has that 'honor'.

We finish eating, inviting Gold to join us. He eats with us, too, then helps clean up the dishes as we equip ourselves. Max, Braden, Gavin, and I make our way to the West Gate, where we're restocked on potions. We're each given forty of each again, and we go through them.

Max and Gavin will probably end up using my Health Potions, but I still hold onto them anyway.

Restocked, we make our way outside, where Mama Bear is waiting for us. Shouldn't she be up on the City Wall right now?

"This wave is even bigger than the last two," she tells us. "It also has more Bounty Beasts than either of them. One for every ten Elites, with one Elite every forty regulars."

"How did you get those estimates?" Gavin asks.

"Zack," she answers. "He woke up a little bit ago and immediately used his gift of sight to check. There will also be a million or so monsters in this wave."

A huge portion of the horde, but it numbers millions. How many have already been slain, and how many are yet to come?

I look up the City Walls. Lord Zack is up there somewhere. How much lighter would our load be if he wasn't focused on staying ready for the Dragon? I bet he could just wipe out the entire horde by himself.

He'd probably tell me that's wrong. Maybe… a quarter of it?

"Zack just adjusted his estimate," Mama Bear says. "He's alerting everyone in charge of spreading the word. This wave has three million."

"Three million?" Gavin asks. "Already? Aren't there only around fifteen million or so coming? Why is it coming in so strongly?"

"I don't-" she cuts off, eyes widening. "I see. According to Zack, nearly half of the horde is already in the valley, it'll just take another six or seven hours for the next wave of it to reach us. It seems the Shadow of Life may have given up on the usual wave tactic."

"That," Braden says. "Or he's trying to get Zack to join the fight. Wear him out before the Dragon arrives. If Zack gets exhausted and the Dragon shows up in the following wave, which is only hours later, Zack won't be able to fight it at his peak."

"Or if it shows up between waves," she nods. "Zack won't take the bait, however. He says to prepare yourselves. I need to spread the word."

We nod, then move off to where we'll be starting this wave. While it's not that easy to see from here, I can tell the forest is damaged. While most of the monsters just move around the trees, some run right through them. In addition, spell Skills are likely striking it as well. I bet further in, it's even worse – there were traps set up, after all.

The four of us ready our weapons. This is going to be even tougher than the last one, despite us being refreshed. We're standing in front of a stone wall that Braden has climbed up onto. These ones are ten feet in height and fifteen wide, three thick. They're curved as well.

The purpose of these walls is to break up monsters even more. While they'll eventually be destroyed in the fighting, they'll initially grant us some protection, as long as we don't stray too far from it. It should be easy enough to keep monsters from attacking us from behind.

There's a downside to it, though. It can become easy to become trapped as well, which might not be a good idea, but since we'd be surrounded by monsters on all sides and trapped anyway, it's not that much of a difference.

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Just that we might be trapped against monsters we can't handle, especially since no other team joined us at this one. That's why having some protection at our back, even if temporarily, is better than having monsters attacking from all sides of us.

For twenty minutes, we wait, everyone doing final checks, then the wave of monsters exits the forest, becoming snared in spell traps set up. Attacks begin flying from here, and for the first time, monsters actually try to stop them. I can see suits of armor with frosty auras and swords. Those must be Frost Knights. It's hard to read their Statuses, the monsters are packed so tightly. There are also Flame Knights and skeletons and stuff with this wave.

Everyone on the ground holds their attacks as the magicians atop the City Wall continue their assault. Once the horde is close, attacks from down here are let loose, and I realize there are two more people atop the wall we're backing. A magician and another archer. The former is using wind magics and lightning magics, the latter is using flaming arrows.

So we're not alone after all.

I grant the three atop the wall Blessings of Intellect, then grant Max and Gavin Blessings of Strength. Since the Blessings all went through, no one had already cast a more powerful one with the same stat boosted on them recently.

A giant freaking Fireball flies towards us, so I generate a Barrier, then summon another for Gavin to jump off of. He cuts a goblin in half, then takes a nasty hit to the side. More impact than piercing due to his armor.

Gavin quickly pulls back, just in time for Max to release several Firebombs and Flame Lances. Max takes a hit to the side, where he's exposed, and I Heal him, then generate more Barriers to stop more spell attacks. Max and Gavin rejoin the fight immediately, attacking with their swords.

The attacks from above continue, and I make sure to keep everyone Blessed, grateful Big S set it so that we know who we've Blessed and how long is left – or when it runs out.

A few spells and arrows are launched at our ranged fighters from the monsters, so I create a Barrier to stop those as well. It looks like a Bounty Beast is approaching us. This one's a Demonic Kobold Knight, and I doubt we can handle it, even with our backup and Max's OP magic.

"Flare!" I yell.

"Got it!" The woman archer responds, and I hear a crack, then a few seconds later, an explosion.

Good. Now we can maybe get someone to handle the Bounty Beast. If she set it off, then she and the other magician aren't enough to help us take it on. We have maybe two minutes before it reaches us, and the corpses are still piling up.

The monsters are just trampling the corpses flat in their effort to kill us, which is frightening. Could someone even be recovered if they died? I know there are restrictions to Resurrection.

Well, all I can do for now is keep healing and buffing people, and pray no one else dies in front of me. For that, I need to make use of Heal and Blessings. A lot. Barrier, too.

The Bounty Beast Demonic Kobold Knight is nearly on us when a miracle occurs: another team shows up! Two of them, even! The flares are a 'we're facing something much stronger than us, please come if you're able' thing. Not a guaranteed assistance, just an alert a team might be about to be taken out.

With how many monsters there are, there will be plenty of flares and not enough backup.

The two teams that show up begin attacking the Demonic Kobold Knight Bounty Beast as the five fighters already here continue taking out the other monsters around us. Max uses his Fireballs, Firebombs, and Flame Lances a lot, and I realize he's doing that partially to destroy the corpses. It might benefit the monsters a little bit, but it gives us more range of movement as well.

Good job.

A kobold gets close to me, past Max and Gavin and the ranged folk, so I start bashing it with my staff, then finish it off with an Ice Lance before I use Heal on Max because he spent too long taking damage for a Dark Vengeance to restore him.

"Thanky!" Max calls.

"Luca, Heal up here!" Braden calls, and I briefly turn my attention up to them.

Him, the other man, and the woman are all low on Health, so I quickly Heal all three of them, then Heal Gavin because he needs it. When Max doesn't use Dark Vengeance, I Heal him right before he takes another hit.

As the battle continues, the other two teams keeping the Bounty Beast from reaching us while also doing some damage to nearby monsters, I notice something in the sky in the distance. Something that makes me swear out loud.

"Fuck."

No one heard it over the sounds of the fighting and the monsters, but it still came out.

The Dragon is here. It's flying over the forest right now, high up and still a fair distance away, but it's here. The time for Lord Zack to join the fray has come.

Hurriedly, I pull a flare off my belt. A violet flare. I aim it high up and pull the cord, and it lets out a crack as something shoots up. The flare flies high up, then explodes, but I'm already back to casting Barrier, Blessings, and Heal. It's going to create a giant violet light, just like flares do. Or at least, violet flares.

A moment later, I hear another crack. Within a minute, I can see dozens of violet flares. Only one was necessary, but everyone was told to set them off as soon as the Dragon was spotted. This way, everyone knows it's here, not just Lord Zack.

"Strike of Darkness!" Max calls out, then slashes a goblin in the front, before turning to a Frost Knight. "Die! Flame Lance!"

Max attacks it with three Flame Lances, and I grant him his buff back as he turns to kill another goblin. Gavin is fighting a pair of goblins with a kobold coming at him from the side. I aim my staff at him.

Water Jet.

A blast of water shoots out, slamming into the kobold at high speed. The monster's pushed back, and I summon an Ice Lance to kill it with, then Heal Gavin. Max helps him kill one of the goblins, then returns to fighting. A few monsters make it past them, and I raise a Barrier in front of me.

Right after the monsters slam into my Barrier, a hail of attacks rain down from above. Based on the green coloration of the arrows and the lightning, that was Braden.

"Thanks!" I call up as I check them again, then grant them more Heals because they need it.

As we continue fighting, I have to wonder how it's going with Lord Zack. The Dragon can't be seen by me anymore, but I know it's here somewhere, likely already fighting Lord Zack.

He says he's not sure if he can actually do more than drive it off, and that it might take him a long time to, but I bet he can kill it. He's awesome like that, and he'll pull something out of his ass that will make him win.

Yeah. He'll be fine.

But these people might not if I don't focus back on the fight. I refresh my own Blessing of Intellect, then Heal two of the people fighting the Bounty Beast. Stay focused on this fight, Luca. Lord Zack is unstoppable. He will be fine.