Noncombatants rushed by us, a tidal wave pouring into the secure depths of the compound. The guards at the gate ushered people in. The warriors pushed the crowd inward, gearing themselves up at the edge of the compound.

“We need to go inside!” Nalaar said.

I stared off into the distance where monsters tore through the hole in the world.

“I signed up to be a guard.”

Nalaar looked at me dumbly.

“You’re going to go fight?” He asked.

I had a lot to gain by fighting. If I wanted to practice and see this world’s magic, I needed to accumulate more techniques. The fastest way to do that was to accumulate Stone — the little red cores that Celestial’s contained and was used as currency inside of the Celestial Scar.

Above, the pillar in the center of the prison roared with qi, absorbing so much that it was visible, sucking it away from the world as far as we could see. Runes slowly filled up the pillar from the bottom to the top, an aurora of interlinked light and magical fire that crawled up the pillar as if trying to burn it.

[Is that a formation?] Interface asked.

“Don’t you want to be a fighter too?” I turned to Nalaar. He flinched back. “Show your courage. Let’s hunt.”

I grabbed Nalaar’s arm, pulling him away from the surging crowd. My eyes never left the pillar as the interlinked symbols reached the top. Like a flash of lightning, dozens of branches shot into the sky as the fire reached the top of the pillar, shooting out and stopping in the air. They spread out like a canopy of darkness, the blue and sunny sky being ripped away to reveal a ceiling of boiling black that reached all the way down and met the edges of the great wells that hemmed in the city.

They locked everything inside the prison; prisoners and monsters all, turning the inside into a free for all battle.

[That magic looks expensive to maintain. Maybe they’re fueling it with the scar itself.] Interface replied, analytic even as the crowd filled with yelling and pushed around us.

The Matriarch hovered in the air high above, barely visible against the blackdrop of dark colors like boiling nebula that had replaced the sky.

Nalaar took a look back at the compound, deliberating for what felt like an eternity before replying.

“Mora will be safe. All the children are pulled inside. The Matriarch will defend the compound.” Nalaar finally replied before turning back to me. I grabbed his arm, pushing through the crowd to the guards along the edge.

“Got spare armor in my size?” I asked, looking up and down the racks. Most of the training equipment had been pushed aside in the wake of the Iron Gut attack on the clan’s holdings, leading to a funny situation where guards were calmly changing into armor on the edge of a riotous crowd.

The towering goat man next to me shook his head no. His body was almost entirely human below his goat like head, hair suddenly disappearing to reveal rippling muscle.

“All our pieces are custom. Gotta order them through the jail.” Valar said, running up next to me. “Are you heading to the wall?”

I looked to Nalaar, who nodded.

“Yeah. We’re here to help.”

Valar looked questioningly at Nalaar, but eventually just shrugged her shoulders.

Valar equipped herself with spear and armor. Nalaar hesitated over the weapon racks.

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“Spear will keep them farther away from you.” She said, holding out her own.

Nalaar evidently agreed, grabbing a spare weapon with a gigantic haft. It was a little too big for his fingers, but probably among the best he could get.

Once Nalaar was equipped, we ran toward the nearest wall, joining one of the groups heading that way. Every civilian had already rushed indoors, bringing down shutters and closing windows or throwing themselves into alleys and staring as we raced by.

The city’s defenses were ramshackle, varying between sections of stacked stone bricks and what wooden boards they could afford, often broken pieces of wooden tied together with great leather bands.

Some sections were even constructed of gigantic, pointed tipped bones, facing out of the city, though few still had their sharpest ends.

The streets were full of only cultivators as everyone circled their techniques — the majority of them praciticing Scale the Mountain to accelerate around the town. We found an undefended section with a poorly patched hole in the wall and climbed the platform behind it.

There were two other goat men that had joined with us.

“Valar.” One of them said nodding at her.

Valar only nodded back, staring out into the distant plain. At the other side of the vast valley, black shapes rumbled across the land like seafoam. I squinted to try to make them out.

There was a tense silence between us as the dark shapes grew larger and larger, rumbling forward. Over the city’s to the south and east of us were other Celestials, visible but also small from here. No one sallied forth out of their cities.

Atop the series of concentric circles that surrounded the formation pillar currently containing the jail were higher cities, visibly in better shape and repair. They too, were still, a tense silence falling over every last town as every person fell into position.

Then an arc of light shot out from above one of the upper cities.

I felt Interface lock on instantly, focusing on the caster as a beam of golden-white light cut through the world and fell into the black, swarming mass. Smoke and fire and churning earth emerged where the light ended, sweeping left to right and pushing back the horde.

[That’s a human. A regular human.] Interface said.

“You can see him?” I asked, whispering, though I still earned some odd looks.

“Mind spirit.” Nalaar said, nonchalant.

The guards nodded at the explanation.

My vision of the man zoomed in.

[No, you can do it. Are you not aware the eyes they gave you have this function? Your telemetrics report they’ve been used dozens of times.]

I grimaced at the reminder of my old masters using me as a scout and apparently spy on our own ranks, without ever providing the information to me. But I observed the man. He didn’t look like a prisoner — he was wearing fine, complex clothes, and adorned with a half dozen pieces of jewelry. His extended hand glowed, and another beam of deadly light fell upon the world.

Interface tracked it as it carved through the ranks of invading Celestials. They were in hundreds of shapes, many of them mimicking animals I could recognize or at least understand, though nearest the gate many of the things that poured out did not look alive. They looked like if you had tried to fuse animals with concepts; monsters that looked like knives or furniture or food.

The beam of light tore through them all the same, sweeping left to right and erasing hundreds of celestials with a cold kind of disregard reserved only to apex predators.

The man — who had been floating in the air — descended back into his city.

The Matriarch bleated again.

On a second of the high cities, two swirling storm clouds gathered before being flung forward above the celestials. Lightning rained down from the clouds a dozen at a time, vaporizing hundreds. The clouds split and split as they spread over the army of approaching monsters.

I couldn’t see the third of the high cities with the pillar blocking it, but the earth seemed to shift at the distant celestials, hundreds of spikes shooting up into the air and tearing an equal number of celestials apart.

The tension inside me fell as I saw what remained. Most of the celestials were already dead. It was as if a fleet of void-ships had bombarded them. The cultivators here were strong enough to content with void-ships, single handedly.

There was no way they had exhausted themselves, either. Each of them released two spells — or techniques — at most. It must have been a premeditated and agreed upon compromise. I didn’t believe that the more powerful upper cities were any less violent than the lower cities — surely their clans conflicted just like Iron Gut and Shattered Mountain.

“What realm is that?” I asked, eyes locked on the distant high cities.

“The City Lords? All of them are no less than the Fifth Realm. Though I’ve heard a rumor that Ashburg is half a step into the Sixth.” Nalar said casually.

I didn’t have to guess which one that was — the human casting beams of all consuming light and fire, without a doubt.

The Fifth Realm. That was how high I needed to go to destroy a void-ship.

My enemies had an armada.

What was left of the army of invading celestials was scattered and damaged, the front line of enemies limping as they finally neared the city. They had been diminished from tens of thousands down to what couldn’t have been more than a thousand.

[I count at least eight-hundred.] Interface said.

“How long until they get here?” I asked.

[Three minutes until arrival at their current speed.]