Time quickly lost its meaning as my body acted mechanically against the wave of creatures throwing themselves at us. The cotton mice, nice and leveled thanks to the sheer quantities of higher Quotient guts to chow on, became the biggest annoyance as they scurried into openings at the most inconvenient times. Acidic anoles were close seconds, as they threatened our clothes more than anything, and I certainly didn't want us fighting hordes of creatures in the nude. An interesting sight to be sure, but not one I wanted in the middle of a battlefield. Nevertheless, when Billy joined us, followed eventually by the rest of the Bunker Busters and our trio of political refugees, the battle of attrition we'd been fighting turned and we were eventually able to cut a proper, slow, path towards the collapsed Entity.

Of course, Ponzio, Billy, or I were perfectly capable of flying to the Metier Crystal, but it wouldn't have done much good with the steady stream of creatures trying to eat us interrupting any attempt to merge the Entity back together. As it were, with the help of some well placed the moment my mana had recovered, along with Samuel's Amplified Skill, we managed to secure a beach head in the hopes of recovering for a deep push. That mainly involved Samuel healing everyone but me, despite our healer's grumbled complaints that I was only able to keep going because I'd stolen part of his healing abilities with my Trait.

As true as that last thing was, two hours into the fighting I had finally found the physical limits of my body. After the first hour I had locked down my own mana use almost entirely, because I realized it would have been the perfect time to send a large enough creature to disrupt our group. Thankfully, nothing that had come had been stronger than Q4, and our own levels had made holding the area possible at all, but even the Ballast lightened axe-hammer in my hand felt like lead.

When the flow finally started to dissipate, I wanted to cry with relief. I'd been sure we'd killed at least 90% the forest's ecosystem, but I was sure there was some Boss monster off in the distance laying more eggs or birthing more litters of creatures just to ruin our lives in the future. The thing that threw me off, however, was that the flow stemmed completely. A lightning bolt shot a final crow from the sky -- this one not of the Bile variety like we'd dealt with in Wildwood-- before the only sounds in the intersection were our own breathing and the gritty whistle of sand being blown by the wind.

"Are we good?" Daniela asked, twirling her Fang Dagger Items. "I don't see anything."

"I don't feel anything," I confirmed.

"Creature sounds in the distance," Billy said, tilting his head. "But they are moving away."

When the youth looked to Ponzio for confirmation, the Zebelos gave him a nod of confirmation. A frown crossed my face, and I glanced at the demolished tower. "Your grandfather didn't happen to say if the wave resolved itself when it happened before, did he?"

"He said it didn't," Ponzio replied, shaking his head. "It went on for almost two days before they figured out what was causing it. The Cloth Muscles, Mage Circles, and Merc Corps weren't a thing back then. Actually one of the impetus for those getting formalized."

"Alright," I said, stomping my feet just to triple check that the area was clear on my vibrosense. "Fievil, clear us a path into the building."

While the mole Totem worked to shove the slew of corpses and debris out of the fortification we'd made, Jolene gave everyone but her and Ponzio a hose down. Even with my application of armor for our group, the blood and viscera of hundreds of creatures was pervasive. When we were at least only partly at risk of blood borne illness, our group walked to the destroyed Crystal Ward. The structure seemed to have once doubled as a restaurant of some sort, as broken tables and a simple kitchen laid amidst the rubble. Collapsed atop those ruins was half of the upper floor made of mana-formed stone.

The strange thing was that the Entity Cluster that the Ward housed was whole.

"What the hell?" Daniela shouted. She turned to Ponzio, poking a finger in his direction. "You didn't sneak in here and patch this up while we were busy did you?"

"When exactly did it look like I took a long enough break to gather Metier Crystal fragments likely the size of my fingers just to fit them back together?" the elf said, raising an eyebrow in question. "I can blip around, it doesn't make me able to stop time."

"Actually--" Samuel started.

"No theories on the movement of light right now, Sammy," I said, feeling my brow furrow as I moved closer to the Ward. There was a lot of sand. A lot. The Metier Crystal was absolutely drenched in it, and if I hadn't known where it had come I would have said it had been half buried in sand all along. With a poked finger, I confirmed what my vibrosense was telling me. Most of the grains had actually been compacted just slightly into a fragile sandstone. "I didn't do this, and there's no way the armadillo did that when it had been trying to destroy it in the first place."

"Could it have been an effect from your domain?" Joe asked. The draconian tapped his chest where his own Mana Shard was embedded. "The commanders up north say there are manifestations that come with these. Not because they wanted to reveal anything, but because it was something the platoons needed to know to fight within them."

"Maybe?" I said, unconvinced. "Fievil and I have worked together lots, and while the monster wave is our first big fight since Q7 there was no way I would have missed it. There's something more going on here."

"As in, something bad or something good?" Amaya asked.

The Death Tendril and her brother had been helpful as ever during the fighting. Tucker had been more able to contribute thanks to his explosive flame Gift, but Amaya had acted as runner and supplier. It was the girl that had thought to grab a go bag when Hec had started screaming in the Embassy instead of just abandoning everything. She hadn't known her supplies would keep us fueled up for the marathon of fighting, but she hadn't complained once.

"I'm not sure," I admitted. "Considering it halted the monster wave, I am leaning towards good. The question is, what did it and why? At this point, however, I just don't know."

"What do we do now?" Jolene asked. "I don't think we can just leave this fragment of Hec here. That's just asking for another Tendril to smash it."

I didn't miss the wince that came from the siblings, but I pushed forward. "We'll merge this one with our sliver. If I had the capabilities, I would cluster this whole city in the Tuscawilla fort until we sorted out what the hell is going on."

"I hate this subterfuge shit," Daniela complained. "Why can't we just smash the problem in the face and be done with it?"

"Watch it there, Danny," Sam warned. "You talk too much like that and I might assume Ronan's rubbed off on you!"

"Get over here, casanova. Let me give you a little knuckle sandwich," Daniela shouted, pouncing on Samuel. Our healer chuckled, using his vine cloak to dodge out of the half-hearted punches Daniela was throwing his way. A brief pulse of my Arcane Sink paused the two's rough housing, drawing their eyes to me.

"You two can burn the energy I don't have once we get this thing back." I turned to Ponzio, reaching out a hand to shake. "Thanks for the assist, Ponzio. I think it might be best you get back with your grandfather and let him know what's happened."

"Should be me that thanks you," Ponzio said, smiling ruefully. "The Implant has changed how I fight by leaps and bounds, but I was hard countered by that owl. I could have run away, but leading that thing any deeper into the city would have been a death sentence for who knew how many people.

"As for my grandfather, don't worry. I've kept April up to date on everything that happened after I wasn't fighting for breaths, mental or otherwise. I will give him an update on this. He'll want to know about the Entity, and he'll have to prepare to put out the fire when the Breakers learn we took one of theirs."

"Ha!" Daniela chuckled. "Cuz their leader is made of fire. Good one, kid."

Jolene, Sam and even Billy shook their heads at the brunette, but I couldn't help cracking a smile at the unintended joke. Joe and the siblings were waffling between amused and reserved. They'd opened up to our group a lot, and fighting together for the better part of an hour had broken those barriers down some more but it wasn't at the level of the other Bunker Busters.

To the surprise of absolutely no one, they elected me to be the mule for the situation. Despite all the gains to my Strength Attribute, I still wasn't able to lift the Entity and carry it all the way home. It was a good thing we didn't need to reinvent the wheel, just recreate it. With an application of magic here, a touch of stone there and a sprinkle of vines yonder, we had a more than serviceable Entity-carrying wagon created. Stone wheels and wooden axels supported a thin V-shaped groove of the densest stone I could muster. With the help of Joe and I's Strength as well as some pulley action courtesy of Samuel, we got the hexagonal prism loaded.

Thankfully, I didn't have to be the true mule. A certain gluttonous slime had done just the thing I'd told it not to do and indulged in pretty much all the grubs that had been left behind by the bessbug. Blobby had been stuck providing a comfortable resting couch and a handful of smashes for the few squirrely creatures that managed to bypass one of us for the majority of the fighting. Now that we were headed home, he was going to have to earn his pay.

"Hmmm," I said, running my hand through my beard. It was still grimy as hell so I stopped that and glared at all the bodies that remained strewn about the intersection. I could spot several too that had come from creatures fighting each other near the old interstate overpass and never made it to our battlefield.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

"What's wrong?" Jolene asked, staring out towards the corpses even as Blobby started to tug the wagon.

"How many of these things do you think are Pith Locked?"

"Everything that got a bite taken out of it after dying. Which unfortunately means almost everything but that crow Ponzio sniped at the end," the merwoman said without hesitation. When I raised an eyebrow in her direction, she rolled her eyes. "Did you forget that we get monster waves at least once a year during spring time? Nothing quite like this but enough to strain the town. It wasn't long after our last one that you guys came to Wildwood, which is why Galloway's demands had climbed into the unacceptable range. We were already stretched thin."

"Glad to help," I said, smirking in her direction. "It will be interesting to see how things are now that the Aberrant is gone and you've all pushed back against the other Territories."

"Give it two months," Jolene said, crossing her arms. "We'll be done with winter, and then spring will be here before we know it."

"Crazy to think it's almost been a year since we came to the surface," I said, matching pace with Blobby.

There was likely a treasure trove worth of monster bits behind us, but what I'd wanted were Infusions. Yet another thing that had changed incredibly since we first arrived on the surface-- me, passing on monster loot. With almost everything Pith Locked thanks to the rampaging monsters, it wasn't worth it to gather the uncondensed materials. Well, let me put it like this. Not worth it for me to do that. The city will need to do clean up work on this mess if they don't want a second wave of scavengers to attack the city just for these bits. On second thought...

"" I said, flinching slightly as my strained mana pool halved itself with the full cast. I hadn't extended the range of the Skill like my new Level allowed, but I had instead gone down with it. The area we'd spent defending immediately shimmered like a mirage as the stone, asphalt and topsoil liquified. Unaffected by my magic, the majority of the corpses started to sink into the ground under their own weight. Twenty second later, only the largest bodies still stuck out of the liquified earth. When I released the Skill, the monster wave had gotten an impromptu burial. The only things that really remained were the ravaged remains of the Compaction Nine-Banded Armadillo and the lower half of the Rot Bessbug. Even a large part of the destruction our fight had wrought on the nearby buildings had been smoothed out.

"Yes," Jolene whispered. She held her hand gently on my arm. "Crazy how things have changed."

-- + --

Getting back to the Embassy took almost an hour thanks to Blobby's glacial pace. Despite that, no one in our group complained. The fight had taken a lot out of us, and the brief respite walking through Ocala was much needed. Of course, we still encountered a few rogue creatures that had circumvented the city's defenders but they were all low level. People stared at our group as we made it deeper and deeper into town where people had holed up. Windows were drawn and people clustered outside their apartment buildings as the all clear was spread by runners all through the city. The fact that Hec had stopped screaming in agony was another good indicator, but apparently some people were more reticent to act unless given explicit confirmation. Cheering and celebrating was a common sight after the follow up announcements.

Ponzio popped by a handful of times to let us know that his grandfather would deal with the repercussions of the Ward repossession. Also, the elf informed us that he'd gotten wind of our request for Water Infusions and would make sure Huck set as many aside as he could as loot from when the clean up crews came in. Since the fighting had been thickest where we were due to the broken Metier Crystal, there were likely some salvageable bits and Infusions from elsewhere in the city. The most concerning bit of news was that the Faction Leaders intended to continue the conference. The elf didn't have any more details on what topics were intended for the following morning, but he told me his grandfather was less than happy.

When the dense block of mana-formed stone that was the Embassy entered the range of vibrosense I released a breath I hadn't realized I'd been holding.

With Fievil's help, we peeled back the wall into the Embassy and rolled the wagon right into the building. A brief application of sunk the large round table in the lobby out of sight, allowing the wagon to get right up to the side of the Entity. When the two crystals touched, a small web of crystal filaments reached out of Hec and into the once-broken fragment of itself. Each filament grew thicker and thicker with each second while the crystal on the wagon shrunk as if Hec was sucking it up through a hundred straws. When the last of it was gone, a pulse of light blinded everyone in the room for a moment before Hec started to grow.

The base of the Embassy's fragment grew to encase the roots of the oak before replacing the ground a good ten feet out radially. On the side where the table had once stood, Hec formed a new one, smoothing the surface and purposely foggy the surface so that it wasn't quite as see through as the Metier Crystal usually was. As a final touch, veins of light spread through the table like LEDs that pulsed in turn with the Entity within. It was a breathtaking sight, and those of our group that hadn't seen an Entity adjust their form gaped at the display.

"Jolly, can you keep an eye on Fievil and Amelia?" I asked, shutting the wall behind us before releasing Fievil.

"Of course. Going to talk to Hec? Would you like one of us to come with you?"

"No!" I said quickly. "No, sorry, didn't mean to yell that. Hec is struggling with the connections to all the Wards. Their whitespace is less than stable. I know I can make it through, but I don't want to put you all through that."

The merwoman frowned, the expression looking cute as her face scrunched. "Alright, but if I see you doing something weird I am breaking this Entity, Ocala be damned."

She'd said it loud enough that everyone in the room heard it. Daniela was grinning her agreement, Sam was holding his face in hand, and the siblings were looking between each other, Joe, and Hec as if to ask whether she was serious. Billy had the answer for that. "She's serious. She's just letting Hec know she's serious."

The Entity formed a hand the size of my torso, bringing out a thumbs up. The palm shifted, as if reaching out to me. Shaking my head at how willing Hec was to expend energy to reshape their body, I placed my palm on the giant crystal hand and felt my consciousness whisked away.

Once more, the extra dimensionality that bound the multi-bodied Entity scrambled my brain. Additionally, when I finally got my bearings and stopped dry heaving I noticed several small fissures of deepest black spread throughout Hec's whitespace. The black was so deep it felt more like a true void, drawing me into its depths and leaving me unable to look away. I wasn't sure how long I was in that stuttered state, but Hec's shifting manifestation forced itself inches from my face in order to break my eye contact with the cracks.

## Perhaps it would be best if you focus on me. ##

"Ugh," I replied eloquently. My hands rubbed my temples in the hopes of alleviating two different headaches that were fighting for supremacy over my pain receptors.

## I will speak. It is difficult for us as artificial creations to express our gratitude, but I want you to know your efforts hold a special place in my central structure. ##

"Thanks, Hec," I finally managed. "I appreciate you keeping this city together despite what they've done to you."

## Indeed... Perhaps that is why I felt the need to preface what I had to say. I do not know how long I will be able to keep my repulsion influence in effect. ##

I blinked, focusing on the shifting manifestation despite the third headache it wanted to give me. "Come again."

## Now that I am connected to my... other selves, I have a better understanding of the city. I hadn't been prioritizing that subroutine because it had been working exactly as intended for years. This attack exposed the fact that should the Aberrants disrupt two or more of my Ward iterations... I may not recover. ##

"What? Can't we just... merge you then? Until that isn't a problem?" I asked, baffled.

## I will not insult your mind. How would that work out, even if I chose to oppose the Factions that resisted my exodus from their territory? ##

Not well. It could even result in some of those very merge targets from being broken in transit. Not to mention that transporting Entities from their established positions triggered minor monster waves in the first place. Problems immediately flashed through my mind. Dozens of them. Would that mean Hec would be 'dead'? If Hec was dead, did that mean that there was no more repulsion? If there was no repulsion, could it be a permanent attraction? If Hec wasn't in control, did that mean that every Ward and even their main body was up for grabs by any critter with the brass balls needed to become the biggest Boss in town?

The Aberrant...

"Shit," I cursed. I didn't stop there, a litany of curse words I was sure my uncle would be far from proud about slipped through my lips as worse and worse case scenarios piled up. My energy quickly fizzled. When I plopped heavily on the ground, I ran my hands through my hair. Being inside the Entity's whitespace meant I was disconnected from my Totems; I would have given anything for some gruff Fievil and playful Amelia to distract from the gloom clouding my thoughts.

"Shit," I sighed, shaking my head. I was just one person. While I was willing to bet I could put down any Q6 that threatened the city with Fievil and Amelia's help, I couldn't be in multiple places at once. If two Wards was all it took... from what I recalled, there were twice that many just on the side of the city that bordered the Aberrant's territory. While it was true Q6 creatures capable of destroying a Ward didn't grow on trees, I'd seen the Fire Ant colony force level one of their number up to Q5. I was sure the Aberrant lacked the scruples even wild insects had, which were few already.

## I believe I know some of the burden you are seeking to balance. ##

"Hec, what are we supposed to do? We can't even evacuate to Wildwood! They don't have the infrastructure to handle the population of Ocala. Even if they did, we don't have the manpower or levels to deal with the absolute chaos that would result from a whole city's worth of Wards getting turned into Bosses, much less Aberrants!"

## There was an adage that I absorbed many years ago. An Occam's Razor. The simplest solution is often the most correct. Now, I know I am stretching some philosophy here, but if you boil down our current predicament there is one source. ##

"The Aberrant," I said, making the realization. I jumped to my feet, glancing at the Entity's manifestation that had been hovering beside me.

## Indeed. Why would you seek to patch the leaks when you could instead turn the tap? ##

"You know Ocalans don't have running water, right?"

## Ah, but you are not from Ocala. As a matter of fact, you are not from the Allied Towns you champion either. You come from a hidden place, encased in the past for the sake of the future. ## Hec paused for a moment, the shifting shapes of its manifestation freezing halfway between a cylinder and a pyramid. ## I am realizing that trauma leaves me much too introspective and verbose. I want my dark humor back. ##

I roared with laughter, struggling to breath as tension left my shoulders. It wasn't gone, instead it had replaced itself with a giant guillotine hanging over my neck. If my half-baked plan worked, then it would be gone together. If it didn't... well, what went up had to come down and the French liked their knives sharp. I didn't want to test them against my hardened skin. "Thank you for the emotional whiplash, Hec. Few people can snap my will to live in half before immediately giving me the hope to continue."

## I... strive for excellence? ##

I could hear the confusion in the Entity's tone, even without Diffracting Tissue's help. It didn't matter, the path forward was clear. Now I just needed to pave it.