Time stood still as he watched the tumbling rocks blown apart from the force of the explosion. His mind searched through recent memories, trying to discover where he went wrong. Since he’d misjudged the troops moving toward him, his brain searched for why—what he missed.
The enemy moved through the breach, picking their way through the rubble. Time started moving again as Jay began plotting how to get around them and back to issue new orders to the guild. The message couldn’t wait, so he sprung to action while mentally sending a message to the guild chat.
Wall breached, fall back. Get to the inner wall and watch for enemies with magical charges.
Jumping from his position on the roof, Jay climbed into the air, angling to slip just above the wall. Enemy troops took full advantage of this since it was difficult for him to fight back at full speed in the air. Most of the attacks missed him, but he felt a few attacks clip him in the limbs. Glancing at his status, those few glancing attacks brought his health down to 40%. Eyes wide, he focused on dodging attacks, even though it slowed him down.
Jay flinched out of the way as a sword whistled underneath him, close enough that he felt the disturbance in the air. Instinctively, he whirled in the air while continuing his path to the fort rooftop. Loosing a shot from Wrath, he struck the enemy, a heavily armored Knight class, right in the face. Bringing his other crossbow to bear on the enemy, he fired again, taking out the enemy.
The combination attack did a fantastic job of drawing attention away from the guild. It accomplished this by garnering the notice of half the enemy forces onto him. Redoubling his efforts to avoid any errant ranged attacks, Jay flew towards the outer wall. Many of his allies were trapped there. The enemy forces seemed content to storm their way toward the inner wall, leaving them alone. However, those on the outer wall were trapped there. He locked onto Jenny and Maria, repositioning closer to the inner wall.
With a flutter of sparks, Jay dissolved his crossbows into his inventory. He moved at top speed to scoop up Maria and Jenny, pulling each into one of his arms. They both reacted with surprised gasps as he brought them into the air. The sensation Jay had grown used to would be quite strange for them. Their eyes squinted against the rushing wind as he brought them to safety on the fort.
Jay was outside of the immediate danger. His health was quickly replenished by the healers he brought on his flight. The flight timer was ticking down into single seconds available. Looking around the walls, he tried to catch sight of Taylor Lynn. He managed to, but she was too far away to be retrieved.
Jay frowned. “Can you guys reach the inner wall from here?”
“As long as they don’t get too far to the left or right,” Jenny confirmed happily. With none of the stress of leadership, she was enjoying the mass combat scenario. “I’ll get everybody ready.”
She activated the mass tagging ability that Jay had seen her use previously. Magically created tags spontaneously appeared before her, etched with runes, and flew throughout their allies on the inner wall. The new front lines, trying to push back the Demon Alliance’s advance, were granted buffs increasing their defense and slowly restoring their health.
Maria added her healing, though she mainly focused on healing defenders who became too injured. When players were close to death, she topped them off with powerful individually-targeted heal spells.
Since his hands were free, Jay paused briefly to summon his potions. He was low on stock, though he could likely get more from Sarah if they repelled the first attack. Thinking of his sister, he used the brief pause to search for her as he chugged through potions.
His eyes widened in horror as Sarah jumped from the top of the outer wall and started chasing Demons in the courtyard. Her tactic completely baffled the enemy, which gave her a few spare seconds to launch powerful attacks without reprisal. She used her shimmering hammer, which knocked a Wizard completely frozen. Lunging her sword through his gut, she whirled, spinning herself free and cutting into a Lizardman Scoundrel.
The Scoundrel was the first of the enemy alliance to move, but the others quickly broke from their trance. Sarah’s Holy Lance, a shimmering ranged lance composed of divine energy, took down another enemy as her sword chopped into the Scoundrel player again, sending him back to respawn.
In the seconds it took Jay to finish his potion, she took down two more enemies. She was overextended and doomed to fall. Dozens of players split off from the force charging the inner wall to surround Sarah. She fought relentlessly, continuing to send blasts of holy energy everywhere. A defensive shield shimmered around her, blunting attacks against her. The ground beneath her was even charged with divine power, slowly burning health from all who came near.
Jay couldn’t direct his forces to help her since it would open the inner wall to an easily coordinated magical explosion. Once the inner wall was down, stalling the enemy would cost player lives that Red Player’s Society didn’t have to spare. Instead, he summoned his crossbows and lent his own damage to her. Sarah’s high self-healing was keeping her alive, but soon someone would get the idea to disarm her or destroy the metal shield blocking their attacks.
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Although Jay destroyed several enemies, the deaths made little difference in the mass of people surrounding her. He saw several people stranded in the outer wall who attempted to lend their aid. It was slowly turning the fight around, but there didn’t seem to be enough time to save Sarah before she would be overwhelmed.
Springing from the ground, small plants rapidly wove themselves into large vines. The holy-charged ground Sarah stood on retained its energy, but thriving plant life supplemented it. Leaping over the circular throng of enemies, Jay watched Lucille join the battle. The self-healing of both players yielded a synergistic effect, lending far more healing than either player actually needed.
“Woah, Sarah’s kind of amazing,” Jenny said, a bit awestruck with her friend as she fired off healing magic. “It makes me wish I took a different class. Then we could fight them off together.”
She sighed discontentedly.
“You’d die instantly down there,” Jay cautioned, trying to remove the idea from her head. “Sarah’s heavily armored in special Paladin gear. I don’t think anyone else could survive down there.”
“Except Lucille,” Maria quipped, her mouth turning up into a smirk.
Jenny’s face crinkled in annoyance. “I know that. I was saying it would be cool if I chose a different class.”
“Yeah,” Jay confirmed, pleased Jenny wasn’t about to cost him a healer by running out there. “Except her.”
Lucille and Sarah stood back-to-back as they warred against the press of enemies. Some of the players in the enemy alliance had stopped their charge to watch the fight curiously. So many people surrounded them that it was hard to see, and there was no room for more to join the fray. Already, people waited for a shot at killing them. But everyone could hear the clinging steel and witness the flashes of magical power.
Gritting his teeth, Jay activated his Rapid Fire ability. The extra attacks were critical since the guild was in a make-or-break situation. If the inner wall fell, the fight was over.
Another figure climbed over the broken rubble, and Jay’s eyes widened. The other player, named Andrius, was a level 65 Malice Wielder. He wore dark robes that emanated power with glowing green eyes beneath his hood. The figure reminded him of the Demon player Seth, fortunately, without all the extra armor protecting him.
Andrius, undaunted by the throng of his allies surrounding Sarah and Lucille, stood atop the rubble to gain line of sight. Crackling energy, like lightning made of poison, collected in a large bolt above Andrius’s left hand. He tossed the bolt into the fight. The lightning exploded in webs, causing poison to Lucille and Sarah. Several of his own allies were struck by stray chains, too.
Sarah and Lucille fought on, sustaining the most damage they’d taken thus far. It was slowly repaired, and the poison was cleansed as one of Lucille’s plants released pollen.
A powerful blow shook the gate of the inner wall. The sharp sound of splintering wood filled the air. Jay knew the battering ram was a distraction. They had fooled him with the ruse once, but he would not be fooled again. He scanned the crowd, searching for someone holding one of those magical charges.
Spotting someone, he first sent an enchanted bolt charged with the slime enchantment. Jay watched the rooting effect take hold, slowing the player’s movements. He followed up, rapidly shooting as fast as he could. With Rapid Fire aiding his speed, a bolt of lightning energy slammed into the Lizardman player every half of a second.
One of his allies tried to heal him, but Jay’s quick damage output rapidly took him down. A Demon player replaced the Lizardman, glaring up at Jay. The Demon received the exact same fate.
Some of Jay’s allies caught on, and he saw spells and javelins aiding his mission to control the enemy faction alliance from utilizing the magic charge.
Across the battlefield, Taylor Lynn began to duel Andrius, trading spells with him. Her defensive spells were limited, and magic was nearly impossible for a mage to dodge. The enemy’s blasts were displaced by an opaque, purple shield shimmering around her. Andrius changed his tactic, throwing a cascading ball of yellow particles. The spell exploded against Taylor Lynn’s magical armor, completely dispelling it. Her face fell.
She threw her meteors, which wasn’t enough to penetrate the higher-level mage’s defenses. Andrius used green shields, which he seemed capable of forging at a moment’s notice, to block most of the meteors. Worse, the shields exploded into small darts, firing at Taylor Lynn. She disappeared in a flash.
She appeared in the melee below, with Sarah and Lucille still relishing in the destruction of dozens of enemy players. Taylor Lynn grabbed Sarah’s arm, even though the Paladin was mid-swing. With another flash, they appeared on the inner wall.
The flurry of action caught Jay’s attention. Lucille was left behind but did not stay to fight. She jumped over the ring of enemies and darted for the rubble in the outer wall. Within moments, she disappeared into the streets of Ilra.
Taylor Lynn’s eyes widened in shock. Moments later, she and Sarah appeared on top of the fort. Taylor Lynn suffered from a debuff called Spaced Out from teleporting quickly. She seemed sluggish, and her movement speed was clearly slowed.
Sarah’s level was much higher, having surpassed Jay’s own. He was only level fifty-four, even with all the enemy players he had destroyed. Taylor Lynn tried to speak, but Jay got to it first.
“You’re level fifty-five?” Jay asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise. “I can see slaying Demons has been great for your skin.”
Taylor Lynn tried to speak again, but her words were drowned out.
A chorus of magical explosions screamed through the air. While Jay had focused on one magical charge, several others were set farther away. The inner wall fell in multiple places as Demons, Lizardmen, and Human mercenaries clambered through the gaps.
Jay felt his attacks slow and glanced underneath himself. All around the fort, the shimmering magical circle that had cost the guild thousands of gold and hundreds of man-hours disappeared. The runes shattered and floated into dust on the wind. This happened in concert with the moment the magical charge blew open a hole in the inner wall.
The guild fort was lost. “Retreat!” Jay called at the top of his lungs, sending a message to the guild chat. He couldn’t even hear himself think, let alone speak. “Proceed to the evacuation plan!”