I looked at the words etched in blood and fire across the sky.

“Was I making too much progress? How does knowing this justify ramping the difficulty up?”

I was numb. I haven’t even passed wave ten. Hell, I only just passed wave five. First it was the Monster Alpha out of nowhere, and now they drop Atrocity Mode? Any chance it comes with a tool tip explaining what that means? No? No, of course not.

“RAKIM GET YOUR MIL-SPEC REAR IN GEAR! I WANT BARRICADES! I WANT EVERY-LAST-THING YOU CAN GIVE ME IN THREE MINUTES FLAT!”

I was thinking about this all wrong. My artillery had elevation and in Radz's case, nothing but plunging fire. I should be building barriers. Lots and lots of barriers. That zig-zag, stack-em-with-melee nonsense made perfect sense now, since we were running a rooftop exploit. Almost none of the fire was coming from the front, it was coming in from the sides where nothing could block their shot.

“Rakim, can you make the barriers taller or thicker if they aren’t as wide?”

“Yes Sir!”

“Do it! Make 'em go back and forth!”

“On the double, Sir!”

“Madame’s Regular, you go help her.”

“Alright.” Not really showing the pep I need right now, buddy. I glared at him, but couldn’t spare more than that. The bodies flashed and vanished. I checked my pouch. Four hundred and seventy three Runed Bones. No sense in trying to guess what was worth what. I’d need to spend it all if I wanted to live long enough to accumulate more.

“Madame, your working girls provide buffs and debuffs?”

“I assure you that while my young ladies are experts at polishing, they will not be putting those skills to use here! They know some basic cantrips, and can help others inflict elemental damage on the monsters, or make those monsters more susceptible to such damage.”

Ah. Buffing was a slang phrase, wasn't it?

“Alright, alright. And the Advanced Thugs?”

“Not my shop, but… sounds like some of Jim’s reliable contacts. Reliable for good fights in the pit and other problems requiring loud and brutal solutions.” She smiled prettily, her cool face warming suddenly, and you could see the beauty buried under years of late nights, liquor and fear.

“You hired them yourself on occasion?”

“On occasion. Less often than you would think. My bouncers were very good at not getting into fights.”

“Would have thought that was the job description.”

“Never. Inside. The. Shop.” She enunciated firmly. “You be nice, walk them out, then beat the shoes off of them. Bad for business otherwise, and you risk breakages.”

I learn so much playing this game.

“Osain, any new units?”

“No.”

Alright, alright. “Ten more Disbanded Militia…” I quickly ran some numbers, and realized I was missing one important one. “How much for the Experienced Thugs?”

“Ten Bones, each.”

Jesus, barely more than Madame’s Regulars. That says something right there.

“Alright, Ten Disbanded Militia, Ten Made Men, Five Working Girls, Four Experienced Thugs, Three French Hens, Two Turtle Doves and One Madame’s Regulars.”

“Err…”

“Fill the orders you can actually fill, Merchant.”

I had exactly one rune bone left in my pouch. I felt a sense of kinship with it. Always the odd one out. Never picked.

“Alright, Made Men and three of the Working Girls, up on the wall with Sebastian. One Working girl with the Mika’s, one with the Militia. New Militia, join the old militia between the barricades. Madame’s Regular, assist Rakim for now.”

I looked the experienced thugs over, and discovered a happy surprise. They all looked like Russian mobsters who got huge in prison. Just covered in lousy tattoos and with fists that could double for wrecking balls. And while they were still short on proper polearms, they were carrying some utterly diabolical looking short axes.

Not hatchets. These were proper killing tools, with a spike on the back side of the blade and another spike topping the wooden shaft. They carried an ax in each hand. They looked like they washed out of the viking raiding parties for excessive brutality. I could hardly have been happier with them. They would do a great job protecting the flanks of the militia.

“Advanced Thugs, two on either side of the disbanded Militia!” That ought to give any Murder Baboons a headache! I’m less confident about how they could handle an ordinary monster, let alone a wall breaker or armored monster, but at least they could slow them down. Give my ranged units time to finish them off and protect my actually-useful militia.

There is a reason spears were the definitive military weapon for most of human history. A reason why rifles still have bayonets. Long, pointy stick. Works damn near every time. Twenty of them crammed together behind the barricade made a fairly impressive force. They were now standing two ranks deep, presenting a lot of spears to the enemy.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Rakim was getting those barricades up. Just wooden walls, but she knew what I liked, and had the Regulars to assist. Thicker and higher than before, though not by much. They were also exactly two-thirds the width of the street. Zip-zip, back and forth they would go. Delightful.

“Wait! Damn! Osian, didn’t you say something about having healing potions?”

“Yes?”

“Can we walk into the warehouse and collect them?”

“Certainly not! They have to be teleported in from the alchemist’s supply house.”

“How much?”

“Twenty five bones, each.”

Meaning that for anything but my high level Awakened Souls and the Whales, it would be more cost effective to let the unit die and replace them rather than provide healthcare. Who would have guessed the devs were American?

“Osian, do your kidneys need a massage from my new Thug hires? Feeling like you have too many teeth?”

“I swear that is the lowest possible price! I’m not keeping a single bone for myself!”

“He really is telling the truth,” Madame murmured. “Not that I didn’t try, mind you, but the Home Guard locked down all the potions as vital war material. The summoning circle required bribes of both extraordinary size and number to arrange.”

I snorted. “Marchioness' orders?”

“Technically speaking, yes.”

“Technically?”

There was a scream, like steel being torn in a shed where pigs are being slaughtered. Then a second scream. And a third.

“CONTACT FRONT!” Rakim yelled.

Three of the giant monsters. Three of them. And a massive block of the wall breakers running out ahead. I didn’t even try to count the armored monsters and regular monsters behind them. Too many, was the answer. There were too many of them.

Those Wall Breakers would hit my barriers soon. Time to see if they would try to go through them, or follow the path. Please God let them follow the path. I don’t have unlimited building materials.

“RAKIM, REGULARS, FALL BACK TO ME!” I yelled. “Pomoroy, Radz, target the big guys. Miyuki, start breaking up the Wall Breakers. Sebastian, your team should prioritize invisible or camouflage targets, then fire on the Wall Breakers, then ordinary monsters. Mikas, Wall Breakers and the ordinary monsters. DO NOT USE SHIELD TOWER until I order it! Militia, brace for impact! Working girls, cast your spells constantly on the units near you.”

The necessity of leadership units like Corporal Mika and Sebastian were really, really obvious now.

I glanced at my aces. “Versai, Madame, this is likely going to come down to you two. Madame, can you hold three if you have to?”

“Yes, but for how long, I can’t say.” Her mouth was set in a grim line, but those stubborn eyes never left the enemy.

“Versai, how fast can you put them down?”

“If they are stuck in the Revels? It will only take a few seconds each, I think. I could feel… something. In that last fight, I could feel the edges of something. There is more that can be dug out of my swordplay. I can be faster. Sharper.”

I nodded. “Get ready to cast Final Revel. Wait until the big guys arrive. Even if we start losing Militia, wait until the big guys arrive.” I felt the words sliding slickly through my mouth, like I had slipped on some dog’s uncurbed mess and was falling directly into traffic.

One. Name. They are sending a damn doomstack because I learned one name, and it’s not even the name of the people who are making the monsters! Dyn Hunllef. I wouldn’t forget.

The Wallbreakers hit the first barrier… and knocked it flat in one blow. I felt my blood solidify. Ten Wall Breakers got their heads down and ran straight down the street. Obstacles be damned, apparently. Miyuki was doing her best to trip them up, but that glacial rate of fire limited what she could actually achieve. There was something heroic about her, standing on a rooftop under a burning sky, bow in hand, eyes unafraid.

My hands were white knuckles tight by my sides. Breathe. Breathe. They can’t think. You have to think for them. Breathe.

“Radz, shift fire to the lead Wall Breakers!”

Pomoroy’s flatter attacks and higher rate of fire would result in catching more of the regular monsters following behind the big guys. It would have to be good enough for now.

“Sebastian, if you can do anything to slow them down, now is the time!”

“I’m an Intelligencer, not a Man-At-Arms! We’ll shoot them down as fast as we can!” He shouted back.

Damn. Damn! The Wall Breakers already had a second wall down, and had barely lost a step. They were solidly in range of my ranged units now, though, and starting to drop. Not fast enough, though, and the big guys were right behind them. DAMN!

“Mikas! Shield Tower, NOW! Target the Wall Breakers!” Oh this was going to suck. But I needed them stopped, NOW!

The tower rose, blinding white in the black and red funeral pyre of Gradden March. The bolts smashed down on the Wall Breakers like a rushing river of hate. Punching into their backs and into the organs below. Armor shattering, spines and ribs breaking. The monsters broke my walls. The Mikas broke them. By the time the first giant monster reached a still-standing wall, there were only a handful of Wall Breakers left alive, and all of them were injured. Then the tower fell.

They aren’t injured. They haven’t fainted. Hell, they might recover before this wave is even done. They aren’t dead. I reminded myself over and over. I kept thinking of Mika’s Ult as my finisher, my final resort to win the battle.

Now? Now I had two Six Stars. Now I had support units and stacks on stacks of ranged. I had a block of spear men. I had my artillery. I had a knife and I had it up to here with these damned necromancers!

“Madame, Final Revel! Versai- full speed! Let’s show them a traditional Gradden March welcome!”

The Blue Roses and Madame started their chanting. Versai moved up, joining the militia. The giant monsters aren't exactly avoiding the walls. They were kind of… vaulting them. They clearly had an instinct to stay in the clear path, but they weren’t as locked into it as I was used to seeing. Not ideal. Well. I’d deal.

“Radz, back on the ordinary monsters. Pomoroy, you too!”

They had done some damage to the big guys already. Tenderized them a bit for Versai. Versai…

Versai had walked out in front of the hedgehogs. Sword and shield in front of her. She slapped her shield twice with her sword, then pointed her sword to the sky.

“GRADDEN! GRADDEN! GRADDEN” Her voice carried up and down the street, into every ear, hammering on the nerves in every heart.

“GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!” The Militia roared back. The Thugs yelled, the gangsters and the whores, even the damn regulars screamed their pride. That furious will that saw them stand and fight when millions ran.

“GRADDEN! GRADDEN! GRADDEN”

“GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!”

The monsters came rushing in, enormous, hideous, muscles rippling, long fingers reaching. Their fangs ready to sever and crush, their eyes fixed and hungry. Hateful. Anticipating the horror to come. Fixed on the one person standing out to fight them.

Blond hair blowing in the wind like a battle standard. Armored. Armed. Unafraid.

“VERSAI FERCH GRADDEN COMES FORTH! WHO DARES FACE ME?”

“GLORY! GLORY! GLORY!”