A fog of residual wisps clouded the air, blocking the facets' light. In under a minute, the storm zone was transformed from a sunny desert to a desolate war field, where the brightest light sources were the countless white auras of monsters behind the fog. An ominous sizzle echoed from the monsters, slowly growing louder.

Vivi's hand was ready to summon Moonlight, though she definitely wasn't ready for a fight.

The monsters ranged from deadly ether sticks on four legs, running faster than Zand's gnolls, to miniature golems. Behind them, two colossal golems rose a hundred feet in the air like mummies breaking free from a mausoleum.

The mountain itself hadn't been reanimated, but its chunks had turned into the largest monsters Vivi had seen since the death tyrant. The two golems were the color of black asmite, each one wielding at least twenty million ether. Smaller golems of varying sizes accompanied the giants.

A wave of flyers flocked to the air above the horde of ground monsters. They were bat-like, the size of an adult human, with sharp skeletal tails. More kept rising from the mountain, as if a bee-hive had been poked.

The defense line was frozen in just as much shock as Vivi. Archers had their bows up, watching in dread as monsters crept closer. The distance between the mountain and the front lines was rapidly shrinking from the mile it started as.

Even Iszul wore a difficult expression. He turned to Coshi. "Your forecasts were wrong," he said. Vivi listened in from a distance with ether amplifying her hearing. "This is well beyond a hundred million ether."

Coshi stood, facing the canvas of monsters.

"Shivenar is a ruin," Iszul said. "I cannot clear this alone. The Knights will have to assemble for a cleanup. We have time to evacua—"

"Ballistas, aim!" Coshi shouted.

The Luminary held Blossom high in the air, filled with glimmering ether, her dress fluttering by the wind. Vivi's breath caught by the sight. At that moment, Coshi appeared like the tallest person in all of the fifth level, Vivi's sword shining like a beacon.

"Fire!" Coshi ordered, pointing Blossom at the line of monsters.

The ballistas trembled as missiles launched with explosive force, leaving behind a trail, as if fireworks shot into the fray of monsters. The explosive missiles hit the line of ether sticks, the impact casting bodies to the air. The sharper piercing missiles crashed into the first smaller golem, worth around a million ether, hitting the shoulder, the torso, and the chest, each hit knocking it backward.

Coshi activated her ascension skill—a rare skill, which cast a blue aura of illumination around her, rising her maximum by two thousand wisps—and charged forth. Anthony and Lucas charged some paces behind and to her side, followed by the Lights.

The glowing Luminary unsheathed Darkness Slashed, and a terrifying wave of ether was cast forth. The slash—dark red like the blight—hit the first ether stick, snapping it in half, before continuing to the next five, cutting each one and everything around it, until eventually colliding against a miniature golem.

Coshi unsheathed the other blade, dual-wielding, and Blossom pierced the golem's mouth effortlessly. Coshi swiped with Darkness Slasher, killing a dozen more ether sticks around her.

A horde of flyers attacked her from above. Monsters surrounded her in every direction. Anthony moved next, wielding Crystal with two hands, and activated a weapon enhancement skill. Crystal grew four times in length, ether extending its blade, and Anthony slashed wide, killing over a dozen flyers flocking over Coshi.

His rampant aura was clear in Vivi's ethereal realm despite all the monsters. Every swing he and Coshi cast were simple, calculated to kill the most monsters while conserving as much energy as possible. They didn't dash about or do anything insane; they slashed with efficiency.

Lucas and the Luminary's Lights defended their flanks, while catching runaway monsters to stop them from charging the ballistas. The Lights fought in a simple and wide inverted V formation with their two most powerful fighters, Coshi and Anthony, at the front receiving the most monsters. In under half a minute, a million ether worth of monsters had already died.

The ballistas fired again, this time aiming purely at one of the lesser golems, which in itself was the size of three humans. Four hit its body, one missed, and one landed directly in the head. A hole appeared in its forehead, but the golem continued walking, as if nothing had happened.

"Reload!" an engineer called.

Iszul stood amongst the ballistas with a wide frown. Demons bustled around him, having to take detours around him. He didn't care that he was taking space.

As the fighting continued, Vivi struggled to see more than explosions of ether. A shockwave from Darkness Slasher destroyed a wave of monsters, and Anthony's attacks devoured more. For now, they seemed to be surviving.

The flyers, however, flocked past, toward the ballistas. One of the Lights cast a fire breathing skill to the air, another threw an ethereal spear, but their ranged aerial defence was severely lacking. Hundreds of flyers passed their formation.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Vampyr bats!" Lucius said. "Don't let them bite. You'll die instantly."

How much ether does one have? Vivi asked.

"Around four thousand, it looks like," Lucius said.

"Aim!" one of the archers shouted. Bows were raised. The battalion glowed with ether as arrows were loaded.

"Release!"

The arrows hit the air. A dozen dropped immediately. Most arrows missed. Hundreds more flyers were quickly approaching.

Another three waves of arrows were released, dropping dozens. Explosive missiles attacked them, blowing up groupings of flyers.

It wasn't nearly enough. The vampyrs descended on the front lines like hawks charging rabbits. With the monsters up close, Vivi had a clear view of their features. The vampyrs were vaguely humanoid with screwed-up proportions. Small limbs with huge claws, skin pitch black and unstable, as if constantly burning. They had devilish teeth and red eyes.

The ballista operators were hit first. The first unsheathed his cutlass with a vampyr above it, and a struggle started, until an archer shot down the vampyr. Weapons were drawn all around. Swords, spears, daggers. Every demon was armed. Even the logistic workers further back had some sort of weapon, or a shield. Around a fourth of the weapons were runic.

Iszul stood still, cutting down a single vampyr bat that tried to attack him. His fingers twitched, eyes scanning the field, as if waiting for the first corpse so that he could freely attack.

Vivi gritted her teeth. The operator of the fifth ballista hid under a shield, attacked by two vampyrs at once. His allies were swarmed, barely holding on. The vampyr's claws collided, until eventually ripping a hole in the shield.

Vivi summoned Moonlight and burst into a run. She slashed with Lucius's claws and pushed out her aura as far as she could, Basic Ascension active.

Vampyrs were drawn to her ether, turning to her like moths to the lone candle in the dark. Vivi slashed the first one down, then the second, alternating attacks with Moonlight and Lucius's claws. Lucius's claws knocked them to the ground, where they were easily finished off. Her sword cut anything it touched, killing instantly.

Iszul's suspicious stare pointed at her. Vivi couldn't tell if it was because he recognized her, or because she had saved a man, which stopped him from partaking and stealing ether, but she didn't care. She eyed her surroundings and rushed to the next spot, where more vampyrs were cutting down a canopy and its inhabitants.

A woman wearing a white nurse's robe fell to the ground. She lifted a dagger to the air, at an approaching vampyr. Ether leaked out of her skin; she was maxed out, but the woman had her eyes closed in a panic, and she wasn't channeling ether at all, just pushing out as much as her reserves allowed.

Vivi cut down the vampyr before it could pierce down its claws. The woman gasped, opening her eyes, blinking at Vivi.

"Thank you," she managed to say.

Vivi had no time to help her up. The bivouac was in total chaos as everyone desperately held back the onslaught of flyers. It wasn't defence as much as it was survival. The ballistas hadn't shot at the golems in over a minute.

Iszul didn't defend. The exalted knight stood there, patiently waiting for someone to die.

He was allowed to defend, was he not! Vivi cursed in her head.

Gritting her teeth, Vivi dashed for the next flock of monsters, slashing at them with her claws.

The monsters weren't just vampyrs anymore. Ether sticks threw themselves at the front lines, having passed the Lights' formation, running with four legs as nimbly as any surge hound Vivi had seen. Swords and shields were drawn, while archers still struggled with the vampyrs.

A man was pinned to the ground by an ether stick. Surrounding demons quickly killed the monster, but the man didn't get up, screaming in pain. He was rushed back, toward the infirmary.

Iszul studied him, frowning as the man did not die.

The giant first golem now stomped on the spot where Vivi had last seen Coshi, each footstep resounding with a meteoric stomp. A dozen more miniature golems followed after it. Vivi wasn't sure if Coshi was alive, until she saw a flash of red light from Darkness Slasher, though Coshi had retreated closer to the front lines.

The battlefield had turned to a mess of ether and colors. Coshi and Anthony were going all out now, their forms flashing from monster to monster as they assassinated anything in their way, ether sticks dying in hordes.

Iszul's eyes pointed sharply at a certain person. At Lucas, who fought a golem and a horde of ether sticks. An ether stick slashed him in the back with a clean hit, and another was about to follow, until Blossom slashed the stick's head off, saving him. Lucas grimaced but continued standing, now with bloody slashes across his back and through his uniform.

Vivi watched in shock. Lucas was far from weak. He had no ascension skills, but his aura brimmed with beauty, and he wielded one of Vivi's two-runed swords, enhanced by a weapon enhancement skill. There were just so many monsters. Some of the ether sticks were enhanced with close to twenty thousand ether.

Shouts and cries rung in Vivi's ears above the overwhelming sizzle of the monsters. The battlefield was total chaos. She found herself involved as well as she slashed at vampyrs while looking around herself, trying to identify where her help was needed the most.

Miraculously, the front lines still held—mostly thanks to the preparations. Ether sticks, though insanely fast, were still engineered to be easy, and the demons had been trained to do so. They blocked expertly with their shields before cutting them down. A select few shields had runes and outside-veins on them; those demons stood at the front, attracting the majority of monsters.

A horde of over fifty ether sticks was charging the front lines like an avalanche crashing down the leftmost flank—a weaker section with no Lights and barely any runeswords. The demons had no time to adjust their formation. The shout of orders grew louder, more desperate.

That won't hold! Vivi thought immediately. The demons could hold individual ether sticks without issues. More than fifty would stampede right through.

Vivi gritted her teeth and moved to action immediately. She ran, pushed ether to her legs, then jumped over the front lines, facing the charge of terror-inducing ether sticks.

Lucius, burn our ether! Vivi thought.

"Are you sure?" Lucius asked. "This will cost a lot."

We're millionaires, damn it! Vivi thought. Ten thousand ether. Burn it! Ascend me!

The avalanche of monsters was almost on her by now. The demons behind were confused and filled with terror, seeing Vivi face the monsters alone.

She pushed ten thousand wisps from her core into Lucius's reserves, bringing him well above his maximum of five thousand. His reserves became unstable, unable to contain more wisps than he could shape.

He burned the wisps, and Vivi's eyes glowed scarlet.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.