Seventeen Ogres, forty-six Imps, fifty-two Demonwolves, and eleven trolls emerged from the shadow covered alleyways on either side of the road. They came forth like hornets in defense of their hive, with weapons at the ready and murder in their eyes.

Aldritch’s nostrils flared as his excitement rose to meet the challenge presented to him. He rotated his left shoulder, easily moving the shield up and down and side to side. Then he twisted his neck from left to right, stopping only a moment when a bone in his neck made a *crack* sound.

He sighed in satisfaction at the release he hadn’t realized he needed.

“Thanks for finishing off the imp.” Aldritch said to Derrik as he moved past him to stand in the path of the demons.

Derrik nodded at Aldritch’s back and dragged his hammer - Rosa across the ground to remove the tainted blood covering it. “What now?” He asked while moving to stand at Aldritch’s side.

Sulika, Faeyra, and the others arrived at that moment - having finally climbed down from the broken staircase.

A part of Aldritch wondered how Derrik became the first to arrive and he imagined the dwarf leaping from the stairs with his hammer held high. Oakairo snorted at the image in Aldritch’s mind. “I’d pay to see that turned into a painting.” Aldritch grinned in response and nodded… His grin faltered when he registered a strange sound coming from just behind him.

Glancing over his shoulder, Aldritch spotted Sulika staring at the tide of demons with her eyes wide and her mouth agape.

Sulika’s throat had gone bone dry. Her ears were ringing from the cacophony of demonic voices forcing their way into her sensitive ears.

They were everywhere; the demons on the rooftops shouted obscenities and provocations, while the demons on the road ahead of them muttered sinister sounding threats and promises… At least, that’s what she imagined they were doing. Sulika couldn’t understand what any of them were saying, but she was almost 100% certain they weren’t extending an invitation to game night.

“Sulika.” Aldritch said. His voice pulled Sulika’s attention away from the demons and grounded her to the present - She swayed on the spot and had to force herself to remain standing after her knees threatened to give out on her.

She hadn’t realized how tense she’d gotten.

“Sorry. I’m alright now.” She said and offered him a nervous grin.

Aldritch nodded in understanding and turned his body to face the group. He shoved the spiked end of his shield into the road and stepped to the side of it. His wide shoulders, and the width of the shield made it almost impossible for everyone except Zarud and Max to see the demons approaching them.

“I know they’re loud.” Aldritch said in a soft, but unwavering voice. “I know your body is screaming at you to run and hide. But I need you to ignore that instinct. This-” he said while pointing a thumb over his right shoulder. “Is a trick the demons have been using for centuries; they want to make you despair, to give up without a fight."

“Well, it’s working.” Zarud muttered while tightening his grip on his axe. He couldn’t take his eyes off the army of demons marching towards them. There were so many… Far more than he’d ever seen in one place.

“Zarud.” Aldritch snapped, getting the Half-Orc’s attention. “What is the first rule of battle?”

“Protect civilians and non-combatants above all else.” Zarud replied without hesitation.

“Incorrect.” Aldritch said and shook his head. “That’s the first rule of war. What is the first rule of a battle? Anyone else care to take a guess?” He asked and gave them all a few seconds to think it over.

“Is now really the time for this? We need to get to cover before they start attacking us.” Max yelled. A hundred different plans raced through his mind. They needed to get out of here and find someplace where the enemy’s number won’t count for anything. They needed to find higher ground, a defensible position-

Aldritch grinned like a man possessed and shook his head. He grabbed his shield and yanked it out of the ground. “The first rule of battle is as follows; Don’t hit the enemy hard enough to win. You hit them hard enough to make them regret showing up in the first place.” He told them in a low voice - Without warning, Aldritch spun around and pushed off the ground in a single motion.

The strength he’d put into his first step shattered the road beneath his feet and sent dust flying into the air.

Aldritch sprinted towards the oncoming demons with his shield held out in front of him and both arms reinforcing it.

He had seven seconds before everything went mad.

At the two second mark the demons would realize he was moving. In three seconds, they would respond by counterattacking. At five seconds they would realize Sulika and the others haven’t started attacking yet. And at seven seconds, the demons would launch an all-out attack on his guildmates.

Before that happened Aldritch had to give them a reason to target him and only him.

“I’ll aim, you fire.” Oakairo said before projecting an image into Aldritch’s head. Aldritch could feel the excitement Oakairo was feeling, the absolute glee at the slaughter that was to come.

“Deal. But don’t hit the metal bodies. They could be valuable.” Aldritch replied while pulling on his mana and offering it for Oakairo’s guidance. “Rays of Light.” Aldritch muttered before his eyes landed on the largest demon on the front lines and slightly shifted his body towards it.

Now, two things were happening simultaneously.

At the back of his mind, Aldritch felt the Dragon God’s focus split. A single demon’s face appeared in his mind- then a second, third, fourth, eighth, sixteenth, thirty-second, sixty-fourth… One by one, demons appeared in his mind, and he guided his mana along the paths Oakairo laid out for him. Outside of the spell Oakairo was aiming, Aldritch continued to lay on the speed. Every time his feet made contact with the road, the sound of shattering concrete hit the army of demons' ears like the beat of a war drum; each instance growing louder and more pronounced than the one before it until it became all they could hear. But their hearing wasn’t the only sense being assaulted by Aldritch. For each demon Oakairo targeted, a golden orb appeared in the air behind Aldritch. And with every step - every drum beat the demons heard, a dozen golden lights formed in the air and lazily drifted towards the sky.

And then Aldritch reached his target.

A twelve-foot-tall Ogre with pale green skin and a heavy physique stood head and shoulders above the demons closest to him. He led the tide of demons like a battering ram, shoving abandoned metal bodies aside with his muscular arms or outright knocking them over with sheer bulk. The Ogre seemed unstoppable to the demons behind him.

Right as Aldritch reached the first line of demons, the Ogre’s eyes landed on Aldritch. He saw the puny human’s approach as a challenge and chose to meet it head on. He was Ogre, and Ogres did not back down from a challenge!

The Ogre lowered his shoulder to meet Aldritch’s charge and began sprinting towards the challenger with a sadistic grin on his repulsive face.

Aldritch saw the Ogre’s reaction over the edge of his shield and smirked… But the amusement on his face did not reach his eyes. He was too focused on his mana and his movements to truly feel anything else.

“Now! Do it now!” Oakairo laughed.

With his shoulder squarely behind the shield, Aldritch put the full force of his body into the shield and the weight of his mana behind the spell - At the exact moment Aldritch and the Ogre made contact, Day turned into night as the spell activated.

Every golden orb floating in the sky, all 120 of them, greedily devoured any ambient light near them - effectively ‘turning off’ the sun for a split second.

The demon army and the members of Mag Ársa both were blinded by an all-encompassing flash as light returned to their eyes… Only now, the golden orbs glowed brighter than ever; each one now a miniature sun that loomed over them. A second later, hell was unleashed upon the demons as each orb fired a finger-thin beam of solar energy directly into the face of any demon targeted by Oakairo.

As for the Ogre and Aldritch’s confrontation, surprisingly, the Ogre’s feet didn’t leave the ground at the moment of impact. He’d managed to keep them planted despite Aldritch throwing his full weight into the hit… Unfortunately, the rest of him wasn’t so sturdy. The impact severed the Ogre’s legs at the knees and sent its torso flying into the side of a fifteen-foot-long metal body that reminded Aldritch of a covered wagon.

The Ogre hit near the top of the metal body, but his momentum was such that the body actually wrapped around the Ogre before losing its fight against gravity and falling over.

“...Don’t hit the metal bodies. They could be valuable.” Oakairo muttered, teasing Aldritch with his own words.

“Not now.” Aldritch didn’t stop moving. There were still too many demons with working limbs for him to stop now.

Only five demons on street level had survived his first attack.

Three Trolls who were huddled in a group to Aldritch’s right, one of which had taken a light ray to the face and somehow survived with half his brain melted. A blind Ogre who was swinging his arms at an unseen foe - a closer look revealed his eyes were darker than they should be. Almost like they’d been burned. Aldritch assumed the Ogre had been standing a bit too close to one of Oakairo’s targets… But considering it was an Ogre, there was also the chance it’d stared at the orbs of light and gone blind that way. The last survivor was a hulking Demonwolf who’d partially hid himself behind an Ogre, effectively using his ally as a meat shield to avoid injury. And it’d worked… Mostly. The Demonwolf was temporarily blinded by that first flash of light. But it was recovering quickly and even now was watching Aldritch through calculating amber eyes.

Quickly identifying the Trolls as the most dangerous of the survivors - and with their insane durability, that threat level would only increase the longer they were left alone.

Knowing that, Aldritch still chose to dash towards the Demonwolf. The Demonwolf was almost fully recovered from the flash of light searing his retinas when Aldritch reached him. He reacted quickly, shoving the Ogre’s corpse at Aldritch and sprinting towards the alley with all his might.

Aldritch did a short jump to close distance and shifted his grip on the shield so he could ‘punch’ with the spike on the bottom.

Aldritch thrust his fist - and thus the shield- forward like he was throwing a straight punch. The spike pierced through the fleeing demon’s spine almost without resistance.

The Demonwolf stared down at the spike protruding from his chest with a confused look in his eye. He hadn’t felt any pain. Shouldn’t he feel pain?... Shouldn’t he feel something? The Demonwolf’s eyes fluttered for a second before Aldritch ripped his shield away. Like a puppet whose strings had been cut, the demon collapsed into a heap at Aldritch’s feet-

“The Ogre’s coming. And I’m pretty sure that Troll is trying to cast Major Heal.” Oakairo said, pulling Aldritch’s attention towards the demon in question. Looking over his shoulder, Aldrich saw the beefy demon sprinting at him with a short and narrow metal body held above its head like a make-shift weapon. Aldritch reached down and took the Demonwolf by the ankle right as the Ogre brought the metal body down on Aldritch’s head - *Wham!* Aldritch knocked the metal body aside with the edge of his shield and stepped around the Ogre in a single motion. He whipped his arm forward and launched the Demonwolf at the Troll attempting to use healing magic. The dead Demonwolf smashed into the side of the Troll’s head with a meaty *thud*. The healer Troll’s eyes went fuzzy, and its feet refused to cooperate - the troll lost his footing, falling to the ground and losing control of the spell.

“Behind you.” Aldritch sidestepped a wild grab from the Ogre, twisted his body, and bashed it across the face with his shield. The Ogre reared back and covered its head in shock, dark blood poured from its nose and murky tears welled up in its eyes from the pain of having its nose crushed. Aldritch changed his grip on the shield back into the ‘punching’ position and stepped in close to the Ogre. He bent his knees and drove the spike end of the shield into the Ogre’s face - The spike pierced the back of the Ogre’s hand and its face before sinking over an inch into the wall behind the Ogre’s head.

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With one quick motion, Aldritch yanked his shield back from the Ogre and turned to face the three Trolls- “Wait! The mortals are being attacked!” Oakairo’s voice caused Aldritch to freeze before he could take a step forward. The sound of battle reached his ears, and he turned his head to see a small army of demons attacking Sulika and the others.

Sword in one hand and wand in the other, Sulika weaved in and out of the melee with surprising speed; ducking Ogres and bypassing Demonwolves as she rushed through the crowd towards her target - her sword bit deep into the chest of an imp, while a spell played across her lips, “Enmet: Sleep!” She shouted, kicking her mana into action and forcing it into her wand.

An ethereal purple haze poured from the tip of her wand and sprayed across the faces of two Ogres; the bulky duo swayed just before they could lay their hands on her, allowing Sulika to step just out of reach long enough for them to pass out. Once they were down, Sulika drove her blade into the tender parts of their necks and moved on to the next demon without wasting time. "Incoming, Faeyra!" She shouted before launching another sleep spell.

Faeyra glanced in the direction of Sulika's voice and dropped beneath the spell, allowing it to hit a charging Demonwolf. The demon was able to take three more steps and swing its claws at her face before Sulika's magic kicked in, and it fainted mid-step - A transformed Oladi made sure it wouldn't get a second chance to hurt anyone. She twisted under the Demonwolf’s arm, grabbed it around the throat with a single monstrous hand, and lifted it off the ground. *Boom!* The Demonwolf's bones creaked, and blood flew from its mouth as Oladi slammed it on to its back.

Oladi swipe across its throat with the claws on her left hand before moving on to the next Demonwolf attacking Faeyra.

She intercepted a smaller Demonwolf mid-leap, grabbing it around the waist and throwing it back before it could land on the half-elf. It came back snarling, slashing with its claws and attempting to sink its fangs into anything it could.

Oladi leaned away from a slash aimed at her throat and quickly ducked into range - The Demonwolf howled as her claws ripped through its ribs, leaving three two-inch deep gashes across its stomach.

The Demonwolf's rage skyrocketed; adrenaline blocked out the pain, allowing the demon to focus on killing the bird thing standing before it. The demon swung twice as fast, hit twice as hard, and no matter how many times Oladi slashed at it, it never once reacted to the pain... However, not even demons could overcome their body's need for blood, nor its need to breathe.

And with the volume of dark blood spilling from its body, there was simply no way for it to maintain its attacks for long.

Eventually, its attacks began to slow, and the weight behind its blows began to wane. Faeyra capitalized on that moment of weakness by dipping her head beneath a dagger swung by an imp and flicking a tiny glass capsule into the Demonwolf’s mouth as it panted for air.

The Demonwolf coughed when the capsule hit the back of its throat and tried not to swallow - But it couldn't. Losing blood had led to dehydration, and constantly attacking had caused its lungs to burn from a lack of air.

Swallowing was simply an involuntary reaction it couldn't resist.

Faeyra twisted her body to face the imp she’d just dodged and slashing a venom infused dagger through its left wing - the Imp shrieked as its body and wing went in different directions, both hitting the ground around the same time. Oladi raised her leg and brought it down on the Imp’s head without hesitation. Once the Imp was dead, Oladi spun to face the Demonwolf… Only to find it lying on the ground with foam spilling from its mouth - The Demonwolf whimpered as Faeyra dropped to her knees beside the fallen demon and drove the same dagger through the back of its neck. She twisted it to make sure the demon was truly dead, then ripped it out the side of its neck with a grunt of effort.

"You okay?" Oladi asked her.

Faeyra nodded and slowly climbed to her feet. "Just out of shape." She said, laughing - Her laugh ended abruptly as another Imp came flying at her, forcing her to dodge out of the way.

Derrik and Zarud were both aggressively attacking any demon who came too close in the hopes of drawing their ire away from the weaker melee fighters - Sulika and Faeyra.

Zarud’s rage filled eyes flit from one target to the next and swung his axe with every ounce of strength inside his body. It cleaved through Imps, debilitated Demonwolves, and irritated Ogres - But that’s where Derrik and Rosa came in. Derrik didn’t bother attacking the fast-moving imps. He knew he wouldn’t be able to catch them anyway, so he saved that energy for the Demonwolves and Ogres. Rosa was swung at anything and everything that even remotely resembled a demon. Some demons were killed with bad hits to the skull, but most of Derrik’s swings were aimed at causing as much internal damage as possible. And while Derrik and Zarud were going wild, Ralocan had his attention split in five directions at once. If he wasn’t wielding his mace alongside Derrik and Zarud, then he was casting healing spell after healing spell in an effort to keep everyone moving.

As for Max… Well, with his eyes glowing red from rage and his teeth bared at the world - Max was almost unrecognizable from the guild master Aldritch had come to know.

He alone stood surrounded by more than a dozen corpses, and he wasn’t done yet.

Max darted between the legs of an Ogre and shattered its knees with carefully aimed elbows. The Ogre yelled in equal parts pain and confusion as it pitched forward, falling face first towards the asphalt road - But Max leapt onto its back before it could even land, and thrust a kick into the back of its neck. The Ogre’s face slammed into the concrete and the bones connecting its neck to its skull were severed. Max jumped from the Ogre’s back and was driving a fist through an imp’s chest before the light could finish leaving the Ogre’s eyes.

In the few seconds it took Aldritch to see all of this, the Trolls had finished healing and were moving towards the closest alleyway. Aldritch glanced back at Sulika and the others one more time before bending his knees and launching himself at the three Trolls.

As he flew through the air, he changed his grip on the shield, so he was holding it by the sides instead of by the handle - “Look out!” Oakairo yelled…Only a second too late.

Aldritch didn’t know what Oakairo had sensed, only the direction. He twisted his body and raised his shield as quickly as he could - a loud *Boom!* tore through the air and reached everyone’s ears seconds after something hit the corner of the shield. The weight was unlike anything Aldritch had experienced before, and it took every ounce of strength in his arms to barely deflect it away from center mass… But that wasn’t enough to stop it.

The thirty-pound missile slammed into Aldritch’s side four times faster than sound before separating from him and ripping through the solid stone wall of a building.

For the first time in recent memory, Aldritch felt the sting of pain race up his side, even as the momentum from the hit sent him flying.

He zipped over Sulika’s head before the sound of that first *boom* reached her ears. Aldritch’s body bounced off the unforgiving road, tangled with an Ogre unfortunate enough to get in his way, before crashing through the outer wall of another building and coming to a stop in a pile of rubble.

The Ogre Aldritch had crashed into was also sent flying; its body being thrown some seventy feet in the air to crash through a window.

Everyone stopped fighting in order to see what happened; the only thing they could see was Aldritch’s shield buried in the wall of the building he’d landed in.

Sulika’s head slowly turned to face the direction Aldritch had come from… She had to squint her eyes to see far enough. But there was definitely something sitting in the middle of the road, some two miles away.

The crimson-colored monster was the largest of the metal bodies she’d seen: a monster of a machine with heavy armor plating covering seemingly every square inch of it. And on its face sat a long, narrow tube with a hole facing them.

Sulika felt unimaginable dread settle inside her stomach at the sight of such a vicious machine.

“Sanctuary.” Aldritch’s voice echoed from inside the building. His mana leapt into action in an instant, pouring forth from the opening in the wall and momentarily blinding everyone with its divine light.

Focusing on a certain image within his mind. Aldritch desired a world unto himself: something no demon could infiltrate, and no projectile could penetrate. Eager to fulfill the wish of its master, vibrant golden mana rushed to a height of fifty feet, before splitting apart and flowing outwards until it covered everything within a two-hundred-foot radius.

The dome hovered ten feet above the ground for a few seconds before the flow of mana ceased - The demons smart enough to know what was happening, didn’t hesitate to abandon the fight and run towards the alleyways they'd come from.

Without the connection keeping the spell aloft, the dome slowly floated to the ground and sealed the area away from the rest of the dungeon.

The fastest demons managed to escape before the seal took effect… But the unlucky ones were now trapped inside a dome brimming with divine mana - their bodies burned from the inside out and they died screaming.

Sulika and the others felt their bodies begin to relax at the sight of the demons dying.

Aldritch nodded at the spell and shook out the fingers of his right hand. He’d poured about 20% of his mana into that spell. Using that much divine mana at once was more than a little uncomfortable, but ultimately necessary to create a safe place for his guildmates.

“Incoming projectile.” Oakairo muttered in an annoyed tone. Aldritch glanced up and peered through the hole in the wall at the thing parked down the road. He saw a flash of light, then another missile slammed into the wall of his Sanctuary - But instead of piercing through the dome as intended, the missile crumpled on impact and sent a shockwave through the dome that caused everyone’s ears to ring.

Unbeknownst to everyone inside the dome, the shockwave had also awoken the Ogre Aldritch accidentally threw through a window.

The demon came to with fog in its mind and anger in its eyes. It climbed to its feet and stumbled towards the only opening it could see in its confused state… The window it’d come through.

It reached the window in a few steps and neither of its brain cells were functioning well enough to tell it to 'stop' or 'look down' before it stepped through the opening and plummeted to its death.

“Are we safe in here-” Sulika flinched as she was interrupted by the sound of a bell ringing throughout the dome. The sound was gentle, almost soothing in its softness and clarity… But Sulika didn’t find any comfort in the sound because she immediately realized what had caused it. Everyone looked up and watched in equal parts fascination and horror as the Ogre’s body, which had splattered like a bug against the unyielding dome, was quickly incinerated by the divine mana inside the dome. Over seven hundred pounds of Ogre was erased in less than five seconds, leaving nothing behind - not even a smear of viscera or particle of bone dust. “Guess that answers that question.” She muttered while massaging the bridge of her nose.

“As safe as you can be.” Aldritch said before stepping over the rubble and revealing himself to the others… Sulika’s eyes went wide with shock as she laid eyes on their invincible giant.

Aldritch looked bad: His right arm was a shattered and broken mess, dangling uselessly at his side. However, that wasn't even close to the worst injury they could see.

No, the location of his worst injury was obvious to anyone who looked at him - You just had to look for the huge hole in his robe and chest plate to see the gaping wound that was oozing blue blood.

Aldritch pulled his shield from the wall with a quiet grunt and hopped from the pile of rubble to join the others. “Sanctuary is a powerful defensive spell, to be sure. But it does have its drawbacks.” He admitted while walking towards them.

“Aldritch… Um… Maybe you should sit down and let me find a healing potion for you?” Faeyra said and stepped forward to intercept him. She wanted to help him walk, but no matter where she looked, she couldn’t find a place to touch him without possibly injuring him further - She had to look twice at the steel bar jutting from his lower back to make sure she wasn’t seeing things wrong.

“I’ll heal in a few minutes, so don't bother… Actually, could someone pull this bar out of my back? It’s in a pretty inconvenient place.”

“Such as?” Faeyra asked in a dazed voice.

“I think it’s in my kidney. Not sure yet.” He told her in a calm voice that did more to terrify the lot of them than their recent battle with the demons ever could.

“How are you not dead?” Zarud shouted.

“My mother was a Giant.” Aldritch said, speaking as if that single phrase explained everything.

“The fuck does that mean?” Derrik asked. He was unable to tear his eyes off the wound on Aldritch’s side.

“It means unless his heart or brain is destroyed, he’ll-”' Max growled before grabbing the metal bar and ripping it from Aldritch’s back. However, even he had to stop and stare at the three-foot-long steel bar he now held in his hands. “Survive.”

“Oh my gods…” Oladi whispered as she watched the wound in his back twitch violently, the hole shuddering as it began to shrink.

His body was already beginning to heal.

“Does that hurt?” Ralocan asked a second before reaching out and poking Aldritch’s broken arm - Aldritch sucked in a breath through gritted teeth and glared at Ralocan.

“Yes. It does. Don’t touch it.” Aldritch tersely replied.

“Sorry.” Ralocan took a quick step back as he apologized. “Want me to-” His voice faltered as Aldritch held his left hand.

“No, thank you. I appreciate it. But you and Faeyra need to focus on everyone else right now. I’ll heal myself momentarily.” He told them.

They all seemed to relax at that. Now that they knew he probably wasn’t about to die on them, they could turn their attention towards other things… Things like; what were they supposed to do now?

“Everyone should get some rest. As soon as I’ve recovered, I’m going back out to deal with that thing.” He said while staring at the crimson machine who, even now, was targeting them through the dome.

“You’ll die.” Max told him. “I don’t know what that thing is. But it’s not something we can handle right now.”

“Of course, we can.” Aldritch chuckled. “It’ll just require a bit of trial and error. That’s all-” Aldritch grunted as he snapped his shoulder back into its proper position. He flexed the fingers of his right hand again and smiled at the absence of pain.

“Which we can’t afford to do when the slightest mistake will. kill. Us.” Max said in an annoyed voice.

Aldritch nodded in understanding. “I’m not forcing any of you to participate in my experiments. I’ll be the only one at risk.”

“This isn’t a game!” Max shouted. “I don’t care how durable you are, Aldritch. If that thing hits you; that’s it. You’re a corpse and I will leave you here.”

Aldritch’s mouth twitched upwards, and he shook his head while stretching out his arms. “Do whatever you think is best.” He told the guild master. Aldritch raised his arms high over his head and stretched out his back - *Pop!* He sighed as a feeling of relief washed over him. “I’m going to go sit down and focus on healing. Discuss amongst yourselves what you want to do and let me know when I come back. If you all would like to leave, I’ll do everything in my power to get you back to the portal. But I’m not leaving until that thing, and any others like it, are scrap.” Aldritch walked a short distance away and dropped into a seated position with his back to the group.

He ignored their whispered voices and closed his eyes, urging his mana into action.