The four of us sat in an alleyway, just two buildings away from the patrol route of a group of the enemy. We sat there, hidden just behind a set of rusty metal crates as we waited for our prey to appear.

We had decided that if we wanted to get through this fight without any fatalities, we needed to be fast. Sallia had talked a lot about ‘defeat in detail,’ which was apparently the military theory that you needed to group up on lots of small groups of enemies and then kill them all before they bunch up and form an unbeatable threat. At least, that was my rough understanding of it after Sallia’s explanation.

So the first part of our plan was to wait until the first group of skeletal mages and flesh giants were far enough away from reinforcements that we had time to wipe them out, and then we were going to quickly ambush them before their allies could support them. Each group was 3-4 Felsh giants and Mages, and 20-30 regular skeletons.

Less than a minute later, through my soul-sense, I noticed that the second group of nearby souls had rounded a corner, meaning they were over a minute of travel away from our targets. We waited several more seconds, allowing our targets to appear… until finally, they rounded another corner, leaving them right next to our ambush.

We rushed out, sprinting through the alleyway, and then appeared right behind the group of skeletons. They started turning around, meaning we had likely made a sound that tipped them off, but it was too late.

I immediately fired an extinguish into the face of the spellcasters, causing it to buckle down in shock and pain. Sallia immediately followed up with a wave of wood, slicing apart the skeletal mage and marking our first kill against a skeleton mage ever.

Slaughter: Assist in killing a lesser skeletal Mage for the first time,

Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount.

Achievement +100, Achievement +0.01

The two flesh giants roared, and in the distance, I saw eight other souls in the distance start moving towards us. We had a minute and a half before the other spellcasters and giants arrived.

Anise started peppering one of the flesh giants with magic missiles, blasting away chunks of flesh near its knees, while Felix started killing the lesser skeletons with quick bone snaps. I tossed another extinguish at the second flesh giant, hitting it with a hard enough blast that nearly died on the spot. Sallia immediately followed up by sprinting over to the flesh giant, before taking a flying leap into the air, extending her sword using bone shrapnel from the spellcaster, and then beheading the flesh giant. It was so weakened by my extinguish that its flesh barely offered resistance before it collapsed, dead.

Slaughter: Assist in killing a flesh giant for the first time,

Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount.

Achievement +85, Achievement +0.01

The creature keeled over, and Sallia quickly followed up by ramming her weapon into the neck of the second flesh giant. It was already besieged by Anise’s quick attacks, and I immediately followed up Sallia’s attack by teleporting on top of its neck and stabbing it with my umbrella. The creature groaned in pain, and tried to grab me. However, I had already teleported away and gave it another stab to the back of the knee.

Sallia reformed her bonewave, and then finished beheading the creature.

The remaining skeletons simply weren’t a threat to us, so we quickly tore through them as we started heading towards the next group. Hopefully, we could intercept them before they met with the other group of patrolling enemies.

Meanwhile, in the distance, I saw one of the two massive souls stir. They didn’t look like they were active yet, but they were obviously stirring. The final patrolling group of mages and flesh giants didn’t seem to have noticed us yet, but I expected that would come soon.

The two nearby groups of skeletal mages and flesh giants, along with their accompanying foot soldiers, merged into one, and I groaned.

We hadn’t intercepted them in time.

Four casters and four giants. This was going to be much harder than the first group.

I tossed another extinguish at one of the spellcasters in the distance, turning up the amount of essence I poured into the spell to kill the creature instead of injuring it. A huge amount of alteration essence dropped away, leaving me at around 60% of my maximum alteration essence, and the spellcaster dropped dead on the spot.

“Three casters and four giants incoming!” I said. Felix nodded, and pulled out some of the metal we had scavenged for him. It almost immediately began warping itself into a large executioner’s axe, before it floated above the entrance to the alleyway we had taken over.

Seconds later, two flesh giants lumbered around the corner, and charged straight towards us. Their hollow eyes gleamed with hollow rage as they saw the corpses of their fallen brethren.

I glanced at Felix’s executioner’s axe, and noticed it wasn’t moving. Clearly, he was saving it for the spellcasters.

Good.

I glanced anxiously at Sallia as she sprinted towards the flesh giants, and also extended my umbrella into shield form. If Sallia needed help, I was ready to teleport to her side and shield her.

However, Sallia proved to be able to take care of herself.

The first two flesh giants tried to punch Sallia, but Sallia now had Grade 9 in Dexterity and Perception. She was much faster than she had been last time we were in the Market. She seemed to dance out of the way of the creature’s attacks, allowing both punches to miss her by mere centimeters, and then slid back into range and viciously chopped at the knee of one of the flesh giants with a wave of bone and wood.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

The creature groaned in pain as Sallia’s sword dug through almost half of its limb. Before Sallia had time to follow up on her attack, the other two flesh giants and one of the skeletal Mages rounded the corner, this time accompanied by a large horde of skeletal foot soldiers and archers. Felix’s executioner axe dropped.

I had hoped that the spellcaster would get crushed into splinters by the weighty blade, but unfortunately, one of the flesh giants saw what was happening, and raised its arm above its head. The blade sheared through its arm, and then got stuck about halfway through the creature’s face.

Sadly, that wasn’t enough to kill it. It roared in pain, grabbed the now uncontrolled executioner’s blade, and then threw it at Anise as hard as it could.

Anise didn’t react in time.

I teleported in front of her with my umbrella extended as a shield, and grunted in pain as the heavy chunk of metal collided with my umbrella. I stumbled backwards several steps.

As much as these things weren’t very magically gifted, their strength was nothing to scoff at.

The two other spellcasters rounded the corner, along with the final remnants of the skeletal horde, and immediately joined the first skeleton in preparing spells.

I immediately threw another extinguish at the skeleton closest to finishing its spell, killing it instantly, and then grimaced.

Down to 40% of my essence pool. I had been hoping to save it all for the two souls in the center of the building. Instead, I had used over half to keep this battle under control.

True to my fears, one of the two souls quickly left the building and started heading towards us. The final group of skeletal mages and flesh giants was also starting to move towards us. Only one of the giant souls in the distance was staying behind to guard the pool.

We had to hurry up.

The other two skeletal mages finished their spells, and a bolt of fire and a splash of green liquid zipped through the air. One targeted me, and the other targeted Felix.

I saw Felix unravel the firebolt heading towards him, and I used the wind power my umbrella gave me access to in order to blow away the splash of green liquid. As I did, I felt absorption essence drain away from me, fueling the incredibly inefficient umbrella.

This thing was a huge essence hog.

Most of the green liquid splashed against my umbrella, but a few drops splattered onto my skin. I felt acid start to eat through my arms, before my Fortitude pushed through the magic acid and forced the spell to collapse in on itself.

I snapped the umbrella shut and fired a bolt of lightning at the acid-wielding mage, feeling almost a third of my absorption essence disappear in an instant.

This umbrella was so inefficient.

The skeletal mage dodged out of the way, and I resisted the urge to curse.

I glanced at Sallia’s battle against the four flesh giants, and felt even more frustrated.

Sallia could clearly handle two flesh giants, but four was too much for her. She was stalling them, but she wasn’t sneaking in hits of her own anymore. She was barely managing to keep herself from getting hurt.

Anise was firing magic missiles at the flesh giant that Sallia had nearly de-legged with her first blow, but Anise’s spells were taking too long to rip through the weakened muscles of the creature. Magic missile just wasn’t a good enough spell for this fight. Felix was also anxiously glancing at the fight and trying to keep the flesh giants busy with the now horribly dented and banged up executioner’s axe that he had retaken control of. The skeletal horde was nearly caught up with the flesh giants, and while they weren’t a threat on their own, they would become a massive problem for Sallia when she was already struggling to handle the flesh giants.

Meanwhile, in the distance, the final patrol group and one of the giant souls was creeping closer to us. The only piece of good luck was the fact that the giant soul heading towards us was the one I had cursed.

But in a minute or two, we would be fighting another powerful creature and a final group of four patrolling mages and flesh giants.

We needed to deal with these things now.

I saw the two skeletal mages building up new spells, and decided to take a chance.

I teleported right next to one of them and stabbed it in the face with my umbrella. I wanted to keep as much alteration essence laying around as I could, but I could spend absorption a little bit more freely.

The sharpened spike at the tip of my umbrella punched through the skull of the mage as if it were made of wet tissue paper, propelled by my grade 7 strength. And at the same time, the instincts I had honed over two lifetimes of fighting kicked in, and I shifted my position.

Just in time.

I felt a flash of pain from my left shoulder as a firebolt ripped into my flesh and bone, nearly completely destroying my left arm.

I immediately whirled around and plunged the umbrella into the face of the other skeletal Mage, killing it on the spot.

I didn’t really need my left arm much right now anyway.

Slaughter: Kill a lesser skeletal Mage for the first time,

Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount.

Achievement +650, Achievement +0.01

I felt a breath of relief. At the very least, the spellcasters were down.

I turned around and saw Sallia take a bad slash from a skeleton, moments before it fell apart as Felix ripped it to shreds. Sallia grunted in pain, but quickly readjusted herself to keep dodging the larger flesh giants. Glowing light leaked out of her stomach, but it looked like she could keep fighting for a while. Meanwhile, Anise finally finished blasting off the leg of the injured flesh giant, leaving two majorly injured flesh giants, two completely healthy flesh giants, and around thirty skeletons to deal with.

I decided that we didn’t have time to waste conserving resources, and tossed another extinguish at the flesh giant which Felix had chopped into with his executioner’s axe. It was already weakened, so I was able to drop it with the extinguish at the cost of losing another 25% of my alteration essence. I was down to 15%, but the flesh giant died.

Sallia immediately regained her footing in her fight, and no longer looked like she was being pressured. The skeletal archers and warriors were now the biggest concern - they were grouping up around Sallia and taking aim at Anise, and they needed to die before one of them got in a lucky strike and hurt one of my friends again.

I got to work dropping the skeletal archers who were aiming at Anise, and saw a few magic missiles crash into the heads of the other archers and foot soldiers as Anise turned her attention to mopping up the cannon fodder with me. Anise and I quickly dismantled the archers before they could interfere with the battle any more, while Felix started using the heavily dented executioner’s blade as a shield to help Sallia fend off the flesh giants.

Slaughter: Killed a skeletal foot soldier for the first time, Fifth time

Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount.

Achievement +20, Achievement +60, Achievement +0.00

I breathed a sigh of relief, as Anise and I finished wiping out the weaker skeletons, and then turned to check up on the souls that were approaching us.

I swore as the first massive soul rounded the bend, and I came face to face with some sort of massive bone spider. Strings of tendons and flesh squirmed around its unnatural, spindly legs, and hundreds of pitch-black eyes looked at me from all of its legs and the dozens of holes on its face. It looked like a spider from a child’s nightmare. It stood nearly four meters tall, and its eyes were fixated on me.

The enemy reinforcements had arrived.