"You've got to be shitting me." I couldn't help but mutter.

It was Day 43 and I was currently watching the 15th wave spawn in. It went how all of the others had started, except for one small difference.

"Over 120 spotted coming over the east hills!" Hal shouted out.

Now that wouldn't sound that bad, and with only 120 in the wave, it sounded quite good. The last wave had over 250 beasts so it seemed like a drop in difficulty... but that wasn't taking into consideration the 130 monsters we were watching run toward us... from the west.

They were coming from two directions.

The waves had followed a strict clockwise pattern since the beginning. East, south, west, north, in that order. Besides the pylon upgrades, every wave rotated following that pattern. Today's wave was supposed to come from the west. We were all in formation facing west.

I knew there would be a change this wave but I didn't think it would be this. It would split our forces in two opposite directions.

I turned to Austin, looking to see how we were going to do this. Usually, I would be the 'tip of the spear' in our three-man formation while fighting the waves, this would break us up.

"I'll go to the east, I'm faster." He said.

The beasts were still a ways away but they would close in quick. I could make it across the camp to the eastern gate in enough time but he would be quicker at it.

"Take Jonathan with you," I said.

He would need him more than I would. I could tank for myself while also dishing out damage and Austin was more oriented toward dealing damage. It wasn't to say he couldn't take damage, it just wasn't his strong suit.

These waves were a marathon, not a sprint. I didn't know if he would be able to last the whole wave by himself. He was damn strong but I couldn't help worrying about him. We had grown close fighting together, closer than the two decades we spent together before.

"I don't need him, he can stay here with you," Austin replied.

"Guys, I'm right here," Jonathan said.

I guess it was kind of rude to talk about him like he wasn't standing right next to us.

"He'll interfere with my blizzard, take him," I said. It was a flimsy reason but a reason nonetheless.

Austin made to answer but sighed instead.

"Fine. Stay safe and don't do anything I wouldn't do." Austin said looking at me with a smirk.

That wasn't saying much. There wasn't a lot that he wouldn't do.

Before they walked too far away toward the eastern gate I caught Austin's eye. I motioned with my head toward Jonathan with a look that said 'Take care of him'.

He got what I was implying and gave me a slight nod before turning fully and running away. It was usually me who made sure that Jonathan stayed safe but I would have to delegate that task to Austin.

A part of me was glad that he agreed to take him. Two was better than one and Jonathan wasn't the detriment that he started out as. After 4 grueling waves of fighting off hundreds of monsters, he was pulling his own.

He could handle himself and I was hoping he could help Austin if the need arose.

The blizzard I was talking about was a new technique that I would be trying out this wave. [Ice Manipulation] training had been going really well and I had enough control to use the technique.

The name was self-explanatory of what it was. Using [Hail] I would rain down ice to start the wave, then, using [Ice Manipulation], I would pick up all the ice I could, and spin it around me as fast as I could.

A blizzard.

I still couldn't control that many projectiles while spinning them around myself but I was getting better. I had noticed over the fights that when I used [Hail] extensively I fought better.

I didn't know quite what it was, but it felt more free... or natural. It was dancing in a stuffy room compared to an open stage.

I couldn't think about it anymore before the beasts closed in.

It was time to shine.

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My attention wasn't focused on who all left the western gate to head east so I wasn't aware of who was still here. The only ones that really mattered were Hal, Carrie, and Rachel anyway and I should find out soon.

It wasn't a big deal, I just wanted to know if I should watch out for Rachel's fireballs. She had this nasty habit of melting all my damn ice. I would throw down a [Hail] around me and she'd think it was a perfect time for an overpowered fireball to come melt it all.

It was frustrating.

We were both fighting over the same thing with our mana and I would always lose. Temperature. It was a game of control and I had the odds stacked against me. She was way better at controlling mana than I was and she had the magic stats to back it up.

It was like trying to play tug of war against someone with one hand tied behind my back. Every time a fire skill came near me it made it that much harder to use my ice skills.

Fire mana and Ice mana didn't mix and were polar opposites, literally. If I saturated an area with Ice mana Rachel would first have to force the mana back to neutral, then use her fire skills. She could still throw fireballs in an area with ice mana, they were just less effective.

The same went for me.

After finding out that fun tidbit of information I had been training to rectify that weakness. When I could find the time I would spar with Rachel. It wasn't normal sparring but Manipulation sparring.

She had [Fire Manipulation] and we would battle against each other for control over the temperature using our respective skills.

Honestly, it was the main reason I got so good at [Ice Manipulation]. It was like extreme resistance training but for my skill.

I had yet to beat her. I wasn't mad about it or anything. No... it makes sense the more powerful and higher level one should lose. Perfect sense.

While in the smithy I battled against the fire heating the forge. It wasn't a sentient flame so it didn't fight back, but it was something to practice against.

Everything in the world interacted with mana, or so Cypteris said, and the fire in the forge produced fire mana... or changed neutral mana into fire mana? It wasn't clear. I had been fading by information overload by that part of the lecture. I would have to ask Abigail, she would know.

I had already started swinging at the first few unlucky lizard monsters who reached me while I was thinking about all that and I took a minute to really look at the beasts.

They were the biggest lizards I had ever seen before and came up to my chest in height. It was unnatural for lizards to be as big as me. The closest thing I could think of was Komodo Dragons, but a lot bigger and more vicious... and had a mouth like a velociraptor. There were a lot of differences actually, but I was no zoologist. The one thing I did know was they had dark earthy tones to their scales and it didn't take a genius to guess what that meant.

So it wasn't a surprise when an earth spike came flying at me, confirming their earth affinity.

Yeah, that was another thing that changed over the waves. The monsters were getting better at magic. They were still limited to simple manipulations, but I could see how it would evolve in later tiers.

Not all of the waves had such obvious themes. The wolves of wave 10 didn't have an affinity I could identify. The Wildcats of 11 had a small air affinity and some threw weak air blades, but they weren't strong and less than half did it.

It seemed the beginning monsters focused on other areas than magic and that was beginning to change. In the current waves, some of the beasts were normal monsters, using their bodies to fight, but some were more magically inclined and threw magic from a distance.

They were starting to break into archetypes and not the good kind. It was great when we did it, but unfair when the monsters did it. Call me a hypocrite all you like, it was bullshit.

That was the main reason I was practicing with Rachel as much as I was. I didn't want to find myself in a situation where I couldn't use my skills effectively. Like if we were up against hellhounds, or wolves with fire for fur, or fire-breathing lizards. Frankly, there were a lot of possibilities.

I wanted to train my control now so I wouldn't be sorry later. I would have the advantage if I could force them to fight in an unfair environment.

Now that there was a decent build-up of beasts around me, I began my technique.

Massive chunks of ice fell from the sky, injuring any beast unlucky enough to be hit. I funneled a decent amount of mana into [Hail] before I cut it off after a few moments.

I didn't want to blow all of my mana.

After the hail stopped, I used [Ice Manipulation] to pick up the pieces. It was considerably harder while in the middle of a fight but nothing I hadn't trained for.

[Ice Manipulation] still took mana to use but it wasn't a lot. It didn't have to create the ice, only move it around. I had to initially shape it into decent projectiles but that didn't take very long and wasn't a constant mana drain. It only took an initial amount of mana to shape it into what I wanted.

The shape I was going for was kind of funny really, at least to me it was. At first, I thought icicles would do best, but I was wrong. I didn't have the focus to make sure they were all facing the right way while I was in battle.

While spinning, some would flip around and face backward, or fly sideways. They were of no use if the sharp end wasn't leading.

After that failure, I switched to something more circular. Shurikens were my first thought. Sawblades would work but I didn't want to create all of the teeth, and I had to spin them.

Ninja stars. I thought they were super cool when I was a kid and I used to make paper versions of them in school when I was little. I mean who wouldn't want to use ninja stars in battle?

After I began making them while I was practicing I thought of something else that would work and decided on that instead.

Snowflakes.

Giant sharpened snowflakes.

They took longer to make than the Shurikens did but it was worth it. There was something poetic about using something so beautiful for something so brutal.

I thought it was hilarious and that's all that really matters. I had nice big pretty snowflakes and I used them to murder animals and rip them limb from limb.

It sounded darker than what it really was. Or my mental state wasn't what it used to be. Who's to say? Murdering thousands of beasts will do that.

I formed as many as I could from the ice available and started to spin them around me. I had to keep them higher in the air so they would miss the beasts to begin so they would build up momentum.

They got going quick enough to be lethal without getting stuck, so I began my dance. Calling it a dance wasn't technically accurate but if I was using big sharp snowflakes to kill things, I could call it whatever I wanted.

The snowflakes lowered into position and began slicing through monsters. Blood flew freely and monsters died quickly.

It was a blizzard of gore.