“How many of these things are there?” Mul shouted, as he drove his aura coated fist into a downed, large spider's face. The damned thing was the size of a Sentry.

“As many as there are!” Gad shouted. “Keep punching them!”

“What do you think I’m doing!”

Kur looked from the tank and brawler and scanned their line.

“We just have to hold on!” Row shouted, from his side. “Come on people! Get that anger and frustrations out!”

After the flying enemies had done their explosive run across the frontline, the two parties had had to regroup in a hurry, and with injuries on both sides, they had merged back in a hurried, smaller and desperate single party, with both Kur and Row triggering their boons to help them stem the army of spiders that come up at them.

Kur glanced behind him. Viy was passed out, her face dirtied and caked with blood, both hers and others. Next to her, Raf was similarly down. A bomb had fallen almost at their feet, and only the fact that a couple of Climbers had stood between it and them, had saved the two of them.

Kur had never even seen the attack coming.

He gnashed his teeth.

Without Nar and Jul, he was blind. He needed senses. He needed [Instinct]. But he couldn’t go on relying on the two of them. He needed to know what was about to happen and react to it before it did.

He sighed and faced the frontline again.

Next to him, swaying on her feet, Rel notched red arrow after red arrow. He kept an eye on her HP to make sure it was still full, and that she was obeying his orders to not use her new, HP sacrificing, skill.

She had demanded to fight and he had been forced to let her. But he prayed they wouldn’t need her new skill. He was certain that in her state, she wouldn’t be able to sustain the demands of her new class.

Above them, the air was filled with sound and force as another wave of electric projectiles from the left side was blocked.

He had to admit it. He had had his doubts about that left side, but they had proved him wrong. The Climbers over that two leveled bridge had slowly, but surely, brought down those long-range shooters. Less than half were still threatening the middle bridge, and it was much easier for the casters and ranged DPS on it to stop those volleys.

Now, if only we could push them back to the edge, this whole thing might just be won! But how?

They were at capacity already. He didn’t dare ask them to blow through their aura reserves, and he didn’t think that even that would’ve been enough.

The big spiders had been repelled, but in its place, large and medium spiders, which were much faster, had crawled up to face them. And the smaller spiders kept coming in endless, endless, surges. How many had they destroyed already? A hundred thousand? 500 hundred thousand? What number came after that?

It was absolute insanity! Just how many of those things did the System have to throw at them? And this was across the One Hundred Thousand Gates and all of the simultaneous Ceremonies of Final Atonement.

Just how much do You hate us? Kur asked, bitterly.

Screams rose from behind him.

“What now?” Row asked.

“Watch out!” Juf warned. “They have run out of those exploding balls. The small ones are coming down and they have magic! Kill them! They’re targeting the sides! Hold strong!”

A loud buzzing made Kur flinch and one of the flying things impacted against his back. He turned back and looked down. The thing was dead, with an arrow through its face.

He looked at Rel, but the archer was focused on downing as many of those smaller flying enemies as she could.

Sparks flew down from above, to lick at the Climbers.

He saw a guy getting hit by one of those sparks and he went down, spasming on the floor.

“I don’t think it will kill us!” Kur said.

“It probably has a status effect, though!” Row shouted back. “Jaz, Lim!”

“Already on it boss!” Jaz replied. “Do you think we’re blind?”

“Shut up and kill those things!”

Jaz pivoted in place, shooting arrows in all directions with movements so fast, they almost blurred.

Suddenly a group of the flying enemies swooped down on them. Row yelped in surprise as they attacked her with sharp, metallic spikes that protruded from their rear ends.

“Watch out! They have poison too! Don’t let them hit you!” she cried out to the others.

The scratches on her arms, from protecting herself, stung and burned, and she glimpsed the [Poison] status effect on her status.

“Seriously?” Kur grunted, whacking at them with his buckler and scepter, trying to give her some breathing room.

“Ugh!” Row shouted, and Kur turned in time to watch her stomping hard on one of things on the floor.

“You got hit!” Kur said, eyeing her darkened wound.

“It’s just a status effect. I’m dropping HP, but I’ll live! Fucking nasty shits! Jaz! Do your job!”

“I am! There’s no end to them!”

Kur surveyed their surroundings. The flying enemies had descended in masse over the side parties, maybe even over the entire bridge. The lines were faltering again, doubly battered from the front and from above, the Climbers were failing.

More of those flying things came at them, forcing Rel to duck down to seek cover, and Kur was forced back into the fight.

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The damned things not only had that poisonous spike, their many legs were also razor sharp, and his buckler was useless against them. Or maybe it was him that was useless. He was not a fighter after all.

His HP started to drop as he accumulated injuries, and his field of vision was covered with flying enemies.

Cen and Rel screamed and covered their faces, crouching down. The enemies were too close for them to fight back, and Tuk, stalwart, brave Tuk, could only do so much.

He bled from his arms and face, but he kept his rings flying. The discs of light destroyed them by the dozens, but it just wasn’t enough.

They needed melee, but the melee was mostly concentrated on the front, and he could only guess at what they were enduring right at that moment.

A quick scan showed him that they were all alive, but HP bars were dropping across the party.

At this stage, it’s only a matter of time.

For not the first time he wondered if he had made a mistake sending Nar and Jul away. But even with them, he didn’t think it would’ve mattered.

“Sides! Sides!” Juf called above the chaos. “On the count of three, we’re going to use our Aura! All together! Push it out! We’re going to burn them! On my count!”

“That might work!” Row shouted.

Yes! That could work! Kur thought, astounded at the idea.

“3!”

Kur swiped at the annoying buzzer in his face and prepared his aura.

“2!”

It came to him much more easily now, ever since he had become an auramancer.

“1!”

But he had never touched a receptor in his whole life. His reserves were meager, his aura a tiny speck within him. However, he would still give everything he had.

“Not you Rel!” he remembered, at the last second.

“Now!”

There was a sudden roar. A quick, massive crescendo.

Heat and pressure weighed down on him from all sides, and everything disappeared in swirling gray.

In front of him, the buzzer that had been trying to slash his eyes, convulsed and beat its wing erratically. He hit it with his scepter and the thing went down. One crunching stomp later, and it was down for good.

“It's working!” Row shouted. “Oh, my Crystal! It’s working! She’s a genius!”

Kur laughed. Thank the Crystal they had put Juf in charge! He would’ve never thought of using their combined auras like that.

“It’s working! Come on sides! Push them back! Retake those edges!”

The Climbers cheered and Kur felt the momentum shift.

At that exact moment, the raid boss roared.

“And guess what, we just got him down to half HP! This is happening people!”

The cheers were even louder, coming from across the bridge in front of them as well.

Then, the floor began to shake under them again.

*********

Nar brough his aura back in. There was something wrong with it and he was scared of hurting anyone around him.

“And guess what, we just got him down to half HP! This is happening people!”

He and Jul shared a wide-eyed look as Climbers cheered around them.

“We’re doing it!” Jul shouted, throwing two daggers up. “We’re doing it!”

“Yes!” Nar shouted, raising his sword above him.

Under them, the floor began to shake.

Jul gasped.

“What now?” Nar shouted.

“Something’s coming up!”

“What? More spiders?”

“No! I think it's more of this stuff!” she said, tapping her foot against the floor.

Nar frowned. “More bridges? But there’s only supposed to be three of them…”

He looked towards the edge, his heart beating hard and fast. What more could they throw at them?

Between the Raid Boss, hundreds of thousands of spiders, electrical projectiles, explosives and flying machines with both magic and poison, things were getting beyond ridiculous.

Beyond the edge, massive, grotesque spiders slowly rose up from the darkness. They came up on their own platforms, somewhere halfway between the middle and the left bridge, away from the reach of the Climbers.

The new enemies were half as tall as the boss, and their swollen abdomens carried massive constructs on their backs and sides. Four tubes were set atop their backs, and two more, one on either side, were attached to the spiders’ sides.

Their legs were squat, and they sat on their bottoms, angling the tubes up. In their direction.

Nar’s face fell.

Tubes like that had always only meant one thing and there were ten of those giant things aiming at them.

“Ranged stop them! Stop them now!” Juf shouted. “Side bridges, fire! Fire! Don’t let those things hit us now! We’re almost…”

The Raid Boss bellowed, silencing Juf. The electricity that had been idly snarling out from its back was suddenly whipped into a frenzy.

The giant monster raised its four arms and light began to gather in front of each of them. The arms spread out, aiming at the vanguard, the sides and the rearguard. Everything before it was its target.

“My Crystal…” a Climber whispered next to them. “It’s going to shoot us. It’s going to shoot us!”

“Middle! Vanguard and rearguard! Shoot at those arms! Stop them! STOP THEM!”

Nar watched in dread as hundreds of attacks climbed into the air to explode against the monster’s arms.

If those things were fired, nothing was going to survive.

Next to him, Jul stared, transfixed, at the ten spiders. Their tubes too, shone, as electricity gathered.

“It’s over…” she mumbled.

The left side was throwing everything it got at those spiders, but the distance made them hard to hit, and the heavy things were covered in armor.

She watched as one of the spiders exploded in a massive fire and electrical bright blue display, but the other nine were still getting ready to fire, and to annihilate the middle bridge parties.

Nar instead stared at the Raid Boss. Orbs of liquid electricity formed in front of them, hovered over the air, in front of each of the enemy's arms. It was just like the giant guardian that had almost ended them, back amongst the pillars of Pressure.

The spheres of light swelled till they were bigger than him.

What could he do? His HP was down a third, sapped away by poison and the annoying flying enemies. Jul was similarly injured. He would never be able to take a hit like that, never mind Jul.

His mind was blank. He could only stare at his approaching death.

Then, one of the arms exploded. And so did the other one attached to it.

“They did it…” he muttered, unable to believe it.

The monster tilted to the left, pushed by the force of the explosions.

However, the two arms on the other side were still functional.

The Raid Boss fired.

Twin jets of electricity and light burst forth, turning the whole battlefield blue and white.

One of them, completely off sight, burst through the ceiling as though it wasn’t there. It carved a path across it, and lights went out as debris rained down on the middle bridge.

The other attack went right above Nar’s and Jul’s heads.

Nar stared at the pure magic blazing just a few feet above him. It was so hot and bright that his eyes watered up and his skin reddened, triggering his HP.

The beam of light blue magic clipped the start of the left bridge.

Everything was vaporized. Bridge, enemies and the poor Climbers that had been there.

Only a blue, glowing crater was left, as though some giant thing had taken a perfect bite out of the bridge.

“My… Crystal…” Nar breathed. The very air seared his lungs.

He was alive. They were alive. But how many Climbers had just perished on that left bridge?

And in between them, the nine remaining spiders were still making ready to fire.

“Kill those spiders! Kill them!” Juf howled in despair. “And break those arms!”

Electricity burst forth from the tilted boss again.

“Is it going to shoot again?” Jul shouted, tears streaming down her face.

“We’re going to die!” someone cried nearby, eliciting a wave of panicked screaming.

A clamor rose in their ranks.

“Hold steady! Hold!” Juf shouted. “That hurt it! 25%! It’s down to 25%! We’re almost there! Don’t give up now or we’re all dead anyways!”

But it was as though the Climbers didn’t hear her.

Nar didn’t have to imagine the panic that was taking their hearts. He could feel it himself.

Beyond the Raid Boss, not as far anymore, the Gate towered over the battlefield.

The exit. They had gotten so far, and yet, how could they make it through that last stretch?

Things reached out of the Raid Boss’ back, drawing his attention back to it.

The black spikes were now also moving.

What in the Nexus is it doing now? Nar thought, his mind reeling from everything that was happening around him.

“I don’t think it's going to shoot at us!” Jul said. “Nar, let’s get back to the others!”

Nar nodded mutely.

As they pushed their way through the Climbers, both still fighting and those panicking, the Raid Boss stayed where it was, unmoving, except for whatever it was that was happening at its back, taking in damage.

Cables snapped, unleashing quadruple hisses of air. Then, the cylinders rose out of its back, and a deafening buzz covered the battlefield.