~~~Lee~~~
Lee found himself still inside Three, but it was a Three from his darkest nightmares—a Three in ruins. Half of the building was just... gone, and what remained was little more than the hollow shell of a somewhere long abandoned. Or the aftermath of a war...
The walls had myriad holes throughout. Windows were either broken or missing entirely, and the shattered courtyard was little more than a pit leading down into the garage. In fact, it looked as if his apartment was the only area that remained intact.
He saw the full, terrible picture through Mana Mind the moment he arrived, but he also saw something else. Monsters. Both living and dead, inside and out. Everywhere.
Lee didn't realize he was charging for the door until he felt the grip on his arm drag him to a halt. He rounded on the person responsible. "Let me go, Amy! I'll kill them all! I'll burn them all right out of..."
Alejandro latched onto his other arm. "Easy, Lee. We're here to help, but why don't you tell us what you see before we go charging into the dark?"
Lee hesitated, blinked, and only then noticed that he could barely make out anyone's features in the dark apartment. Except it was worse than that. This darkness wasn't from a lack of light. In this new reality, darkness held an actual, real physical presence. It filled the very air itself, muting, smothering, and cloying. Even the runes shining from armor and weapons still failed to spread their glow through the inky air.
Z had told them what to expect, but it was still jarring. Lee couldn't imagine what it was like for the others, since he at least had Mana Mind to see with. He went so far as to create a plate, then hesitated before sticking a light rune on it, remembering Z's warning about using any light sources inside the shadow.
Instead of creating a light, Lee kept them in the dark. Literally, but not figuratively. He shared what he could see with Mana Mind, relaying what was happening outside, even as what was happening made him want to unleash an inferno on the monsters.
Because they were trying to eat Three!
A never-ending tide of hungry monsters trickled into Lee's Mana Mind, drawn in by the veritable carpet of dead that lay strewn across every still-standing surface of Three. They went after the cores first, then the flesh. Lee didn't care that they were eating the dead. The problem was the few who weren't content with only flesh and tried to take a bite from the floor.
Three killed them when that happened, but each kill left a little more damage in its wake. A few tooth marks here, a piece of jutting rebar there, or even just small cracks in the concrete. Each instance was minor and insignificant, but seeing the totality of destruction left Lee with a sick feeling in his gut.
How long had this been going on for the damage to accumulate to such an extent? How long had Three been waging this war all alone? Had this been happening ever since he first gave Three the skill? Ever since he sent Three into the dark... alone?
Lee knew he was anthropomorphizing the building. It didn't have feelings. Three didn't care that Lee had left it to fight a hopeless war alone, but... Three was his building, damn it! Three had saved his life and the lives of those he cared about, so Lee fucking cared! He would care enough for both of them!
"Three must withdraw!" Z said immediately after Lee finished his description of the events happening outside. "We all must withdraw immediately!"
The alarm in his soul was enough that Lee sent the order to Three without hesitation. He should have already thought of that himself...
Light returned with blinding intensity as reality flipped back into existence around them, and Lee closed his eyes against the glare. Instead, he listened to his soul, or rather, to Three's soul. Technically the same thing, but still.
Unfortunately, he could still feel it. Tiny fluctuations. Except now he knew where to look and what they meant. Three was still under attack, and Lee wasn't surprised. There'd been a certain feeling that he couldn't quite put into words, and he felt it even more strongly now. Three wasn't traveling back and forth between the dimensions. Three had become a bridge. A permanent bridge.
Lee wasn't sure how he knew that, but he knew it was correct. Especially after seeing both ends of the bridge. It was also all his fault. He'd given Three the skill instead of learning it himself. All because he'd been too afraid of the dark...
He tried again, ordering the building to comply with every variation of the order he could think of, even though he knew it was hopeless. Was it because Three was a building? Shadowstride. Three couldn't stride through the shadows. So instead, Three had... straddled them?
Alejandro stopped in front of him. "What's wrong, Lee? Did it work?"
Lee shook his head and opened his eyes. "We have to go back. We have to help Three."
"Then we will!" Alejandro exclaimed, then glanced around at the others. "You all got a glimpse of what it looks like over there. Anyone want to stay behind?"
Despite the fear Lee could feel in some of their souls, no one took the offered escape, and Three took them back into the dark at his request.
Z was at the porch windows when reality stopped spinning again, and Lee followed as the alien traced a hand over the glass with confusion in his soul.
"What do you see, Z? Is there anything else you can..." Lee trailed off when he got a look outside the building and saw the ocean only a hundred yards away. It was dark and hard to make out details, but it was undeniably the ocean. He blinked, and it was gone, replaced by rolling hills that stretched into the distance. He blinked again, and the wall was gone, leaving him staring out at an abandoned city instead. "What the hell!?"
"The shadows shift," Z said beside him. "Can shorten the distance between spaces. But need a skill to control it."
"Does that mean if we go out there... we could get lost?"
Z took his hand from the glass. "Yes. But fine if we stay close. We are too solid. Prevent the shadow from shifting nearby. But also draw attention." His soul frowned as he touched the window again. "Three is too solid as well."
"We have to protect it," Lee said. "Tell me how we can do that. Please."
"Surprised it still stands. Should have been destroyed long ago." He was truly surprised, but his soul also felt confused when he crouched to place a hand on the floor. "A fortress in the shadow..."
"I won't abandon Three!" Lee stated as he glared down at the alien. He wasn't even sure if that was an option... and he had a bad feeling about what would happen if Three got destroyed on this side of reality.
Z stood up, his soul shifting from confusion to resolve. "Understood. We must remove the dead. Clean the blood. Scent travels far here. Should have drawn more..."
Lee opened his mouth, then had a crazy idea. Three, can you send the dead monsters back across? He felt a flicker of something travel through his senses, and every dead monster inside Three vanished. Even the blood went with them. "Three can send the dead back to our reality. What next?"
There were still plenty of dead right outside the bounds of Three, but they were the minority and it would be easy enough to drag them inside. Probably. Though he was glad now that they'd evacuated the building because it was going to be a mess whenever they got back...
Z's mood brightened considerably. "Good. Will make things easier. Can't retreat. So must defend. You repaired damage on other side. Assume you can do the same here?"
"I... think so." Lee looked at Bradley. "Can you still move the earth in here?" It looked like earth mana down there, if a bit... darker.
Bradley stared at the floor, and Lee saw his mana zip down to touch the earth below Three. There, it latched on and compressed a small square. "I... think it'll be fine," Bradley said thoughtfully, then didn't quite meet Lee's gaze when he added, "It should be easy... now that I'm in D-grade."
He'd been acting that way since his evolution, and Lee thought he knew why. But this wasn't the time to ask, so he left it alone. "What if we rebuild underground, Z? We could hide Three from..."
Fear danced across Z's soul. "No. Stay here. Stay shallow."
"Shallow?"
"Told you our realm reflects into shadow. More permanent on our side, more likely to show here. Earth and air reflect too. But not far. Not deep." He gestured vaguely around them. "This is shallowest shadow. Nearest to your world. Brightest. The sleepers lurk above or below. Deeper. Where darkness is stronger."
Z looked at Bradley. "Use only earth from the surface. It stops being earth if too deep. Same for the sky."
Lee craned his neck to see the sky through the window and he saw only darkness up there. Which prompted another question. "Where's the light coming from?"
"Told you. Shines in from your world."
"Works for me," Lee said, drawing his sword. "Let's get to killing." Three was still taking more damage the longer they stood here talking.
Z didn't move. "You shouldn't go out there."
"We already went over this! Three is still hiding me!"
"Three is damaged. You said this was the only secure room." Lee realized where this was going and closed his eyes. "Three made you enter here. May mean the rest is compromised. We rebuild first. Then you come. Do not worry. I will protect your people."
"Fuck." Lee couldn't deny his logic and slumped in resignation. "You better keep them safe, Z. If even one of them..."
"I will protect them. It is my purpose." He was sincere, almost desperately so; besides, they also had Bradley.
"Okay. I'll wait in here. That way, I can still keep a lookout if..."
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"Should not risk opening the door. Not with you here. You are a beacon. Any slip and we all die. Certain of it."
Lee cursed silently and took one last, long look at his friends and family, who would have to risk their lives on his behalf again while he ran away and hid in his safe little fortress. He didn't know what to say... “I’ll tell Three to bring you back when you ask.”
Heads nodded, though Trak looked torn between staying to help here or following him back to the light. Lee gave him no orders and only glanced at Amy. He knew she would follow him. “Make sure it works, or I’ll come back.”
He sent a thought to Three and felt reality flip over.
~~~Bradley~~~
Bradley waited until Amy vanished before opening the door and stepping through. He tightened his grip on the runed staff as he stepped through the door and felt the stone creak in his hand when he glanced at the sky. Or at least where the sky should have been. It was darkness all the way up. No stars. No moon. No sun. No light at all. In fact, it felt far more like he was staring down into a deep, dark ocean than up at the sky. Worse, it almost felt like something was staring back at him from its depths... which, given Z's explanation, wasn’t impossible.
He forced the nervousness aside and focused on his own body instead. D-grade was no joke, and he felt alive in a way he never had before. Not even the jump to E-grade could compare with this feeling of power.
His every step felt light, but with a coiled strength lurking just below the surface. His skin tingled with vivid and informational sensations as the too-thick air brushed past him, bringing with it a knowledge of how many strode behind him. He could hear their breathing and pick out who each breath belonged to simply by thinking about it. He was powerful, and he knew it. The E-grades around him sounded clumsy and heavy in his ears as they walked. Their motions were sluggish and their reactions were dull.
In other words, they were weak.
One stood out among them. The only other D-grade and the alien walking beside him. Unfortunately, his new power didn't help at all with his fear of said alien, though it definitely told him he'd been an idiot to attack Z during the invasion. This level of power... well, it was no wonder he'd gotten himself cut in half.
Of course, his newly heightened sense of hearing still couldn't compare to what he felt from the earth spread out below. He wasn't even touching the ground, and he already knew where every monster was. On the surface or below it. He could even feel the light disturbances from the flying creatures above the earth. Though that was only when they got low enough.
The earth here wasn't the same. It felt... lighter. Less substantial. At least on the surface. That feeling changed as his senses stretched deeper, but he wasn't actually sure what he felt from the depths. It definitely felt more solid the deeper he reached, but it came with something else. An increasing... darkness. Except darkness wasn't quite right either. All he knew for sure was that he would follow Z's advice and not delve too deeply.
Bradley took another step, and this time, he put a modicum of effort behind it. That single step propelled him across the destroyed courtyard and down to the wide-open, far side of Three. He twitched a finger before he'd even landed, and earthen spears impaled a trio of approaching monsters. They were thin, almost catlike, and obviously built for speed and stealth. They didn't even make a sound as they struggled on the impaling stone.
Then it was even less effort to flip the earth up and inside Three, carrying the dying creatures with it, whereupon they vanished, blood and all. He closed his free hand into a fist, and the dirt compacted instantly into a block the size of his thumbnail. Effortless, but far too little for the project ahead.
So he waved his hand and tore apart the entire neighboring apartment building next to Three.
It wasn't as solid as the earth below their feet, something to do with its real counterpart being newer than the ground... He wasn't sure he really understood Z's explanation, and it didn't matter. The building was also far less solid than Three but constructed of mostly the same components. The rebar within felt like putty and far weaker than the stone he could create now. So he abandoned it and compacted the cement into something that would have set any old-world geologist drooling before using the resulting material to fill in one of Three's missing walls. One wall. An entire building's worth of material for one wall.
This was going to take a while.
He pulled up more earth, going wide rather than deep, and turned that into another section of wall. He didn't need to rebuild the whole building today. They only needed to make some progress and get things set up for whoever ended up on guard duty in here. Enough that the defenders could help Three kill anything that showed up and then drag any bodies inside before they lured more.
Bradley's thoughts kept straying back to Mar as he worked, and it didn't help that he was currently inside a facsimile of their home. A smashed-up one. Not to mention the ghost town feel of the entire complex. The sight made it all too easy for him to envision their home ending up like this. He should have given her the core and damn whatever Lee wanted!
Then there was Lee... Talk about a whole different problem. Well, not a problem, really. But he still didn't know what to make of what he'd seen during his evolution, or more specifically, about the evolution option the system had offered him. The option he'd chosen.
It never mentioned Lee by name, but who else could it be talking about when it said he swore fealty and linked his soul to a chained god? He'd only ever sworn to Lee... and, of course, the whole soul-link thing. It had to be Lee.
Bradley would never forget what he'd felt from the strange man, first when Lee created Three, and then when his soul was attacked... He wished he could forget, but he knew those memories would stay with him forever.
He hadn't told anyone about his evolution yet. Not even Mar. There hadn't been time before they rushed in here. He wasn't even sure what to tell her. Half of him wanted to take Mar far away from here. Far away from Lee. Of course, he knew Mar wouldn't leave without her mom, and Saira was even more unlikely to run. She'd put down roots here. Literally.
On the other hand, he wanted Mar to get the best possible evolution she could, and it looked like sticking near Lee was a serious path to power. The problem with that was that no one ever gets anything for free. They'd already seen the danger that Lee's presence brought, and there was no telling how much worse it might get in the future. Hell, he was only in this shadowy nightmare world because of Lee.
Bradley steered well clear of the twisted tree that mirrored Saira’s tree back home as he dragged in more earth, and he never strayed very far from the building, either. Z said that the entire complex would most likely stay together, but he really didn't want to get lost in this place. Besides, he was almost...
He felt the earth compress beneath his feet, but not from anything he was doing. It was compressing sideways... like an expanding shockwave.
There was no time to yell a warning. It came on too fast. Worse, it didn't come for him. Well, not only for him.
Bradley saw it with his eyes long before he could feel it in the earth. Because it shot out of the ground and arced into the sky. A snake. Or a worm. Whatever it was, he never saw its tail end as a maw the size of Three loomed higher and larger in the sky.
Then its arc leveled off, and it started descending. Straight toward Three.
He got a good look into the maw as it loomed closer and saw nothing but darkness. There were no teeth or anything like what he'd grown to expect in this new violent world. Only a darkness that sent some small corner of his brain into a gibbering, hysterical mess. It was the darkness that all humans instinctively feared. It wasn't a dark night. It was not a moonless night. Not even a starless night. This was the darkness that snatched children from their beds. It was the bump in the night. It was the nightmare.
Bradley stood frozen, unmoving, trapped by a terror deeper than anything he'd ever felt before as all of his nightmares came to life in that darkness. A writhing, living darkness that lashed out when Z shot into the sky on an intercept course.
The alien shone with a muted light that leaked through the gaps in his armor as he ascended skyward. Then his sword flashed with a glowing symbol when he severed one of the inky tendrils that speared out for his flesh. Unfortunately, there were so many more tendrils...
Runes flashed, both from Z's sword and then his armor, as the alien fought a futile battle against a behemoth that never even slowed in its downward trajectory. It probably didn't even notice his efforts... but Bradley noticed.
Those flashes didn't only light up the darkness. They carried another feeling along with the light. It was a feeling that reminded Bradley of times past. Of times when he'd fought against overwhelming odds. Of times when he'd refused to give up, no matter what. Of the times when he'd faced his fear and come out the other side stronger.
It also reminded him of Lee. The so-called chained god. A man who brought danger in his wake, but also a man who would willingly throw himself into the fray without hesitation. The man who had given him an opportunity in the form of his D-grade evolution.
[Bulwark of the Earth](D-grade Human)
You are a Bulwark to many. Become the Bulwark of your World.
You have been a bulwark to a chained god. He has seen the power of the Earth within you.
You have sworn fealty to a chained god. He has entrusted the Earth to your power.
You have linked your soul to a chained god. He believes in you.
You have created Bulwarks to protect what you cherish most. Create a Bulwark for your World.
You have conquered your fear and turned it into fuel for the fire that drives you. Be a Bulwark against fear for your World.
You have shaped the Earth, and it has shaped you in turn. Now become one with the Earth and become its greatest Bulwark.
Step onto the path of the Bulwark of Earth and stand against the forces that threaten your World. Take up the mantle and be empowered by your World.
New Traits: [Bulwark of the Earth]
He hadn't known what to make of it, but he had accepted it all the same. It was too good not to.
[Bulwark of the Earth]
You have accepted the mantle of your World and it empowers your every step.
Effects:
+1000% Effectiveness of All Base Attributes
+1% — +1000% Additional Effectiveness of All Base Attributes while within the domain of (Earth). Effect increases or decreases with distance from the ground.
Bradley wasn't exactly on Earth at the moment—he could tell thanks to the trait—but he also wasn't very far away. He was close enough that he could feel some additional power filling his body.
Z lost in his exchange with the behemoth overhead and was sent straight back down with a final flash from the glowing symbols on his armor. Bradley saw the light, and he knew what he was feeling every time those symbols pulsed.
It was the same thing he'd felt from the earth so many times before. It was power.
Indomitable power.
Bradley stared up at the descending darkness and let the fear slide off him. This was his world. If slightly adjacent. He was the bulwark of Earth, and he'd be damned if he let a little worm stop him now. He pulled on his mana and covered himself in stone. Not the tainted earth and stone of this place, but true stone. The stone of his home. The stone of Earth.
Then he activated his new Limit Break skill as high as it would go and jumped into the sky toward a nightmare.
The ground rippled beneath his feet, then exploded, propelling him skyward faster than a bullet. His staff whirled as the first inky tendril stretched out to meet him, and he blasted through it without slowing his ascent. More followed on the first tendril's heels, and all met the same fate.
Bradley never changed course or slowed as he approached the maw of darkness. Instead, he only sped up. His smile grew along with his speed, and he laughed aloud right before flying directly into the massive nightmare's maw.
It didn't hurt, and he only slowed slightly. Though that was only because he wanted to. Half of his armor flaked off, and Bradley sharpened it into something beyond obsidian before sending the shards out in a whirlwind of annihilation.
He felt it when the creature died—a sudden lack of resistance—and used the last of his mana to force the massive bulk aside from its intended target before bursting back into the relatively bright light of the shadowy sky.
Bradley smiled as he plummeted toward Three, and then pulled the extra mana from his staff. It wasn't very much mana anymore. Not compared to his D-grade mana pool. Especially not with his new evolution. Still, it was enough for him to arrest his downward momentum and touch down gently in what remained of Three's courtyard.
"Nicely done." Z was waiting for him, and Bradley felt no fear when he gazed upon the metal mask of the alien who had cut him in half not so long ago. He would never be afraid of Z again. He was the bulwark of Earth. He would never be afraid of anything ever again!
Okay... that last bit might be a stretch, but he still laughed aloud, and for a different reason. "I can fly, Z!"
Sure, the mana cost was extreme, but who cared? He could fly!
"Very useful," Z said with none of the enthusiasm he should've had. "We must retreat. Now."
Bradley stared at him for a long moment as his smile faded. "Seriously? It was only a D-grade, I think." Speaking of which, he should really go grab the core for Mar. "Between the two of us, I think we can handle a few..."
"No. It has escalated too far. We must leave before..." Z's voice abruptly choked off, and the alien's entire body went rigid.
Bradley knew that because his own body also locked up in pure, instinctive, mind-numbing terror as a voice drawled thunderously from behind him, "Leave? But you've only just arrived, and I've been waiting so long to meet you!"