Ebb And Flow

It was the morning of the fifth day when the attacks commenced once more. 2:17 AM, as John's menus confirmed for him when the first alarm was sounded. Vallya's warning was ed to him through the ring, his warning was ed to the nearest sentry, and soon the sentry's warning was being shouted throughout every camp, broadcast by multiple voices, some more authoritative than others.

The haste was critical this time—the undead were not merely attempting to stumble through the space the Barrier was anchored in the mundane realm this time. They were actively battering against it at three separate points across its considerable length. Vallya added that she could make out more approaching lines in the distance, other columns of undead shambling and charging into Barriers well beyond John's own.

The response was staggered, though not through any intentional choice of deployments. The Legion and the Order were in close competition for the first to prepare, their ranks rising and moving to formation with the rigid discipline of well-trained soldiers. Julianna being their primary commander with no equal among her numbers gave her the advantage of raw efficiency; while Lord Brighton and Moira were conversing between themselves and John, Julianna had taken command and was leading her mages into battle. They exited the Barrier with scarcely a word. A mage did approach, but only a full minute after Julianna's forces had vanished across the borders of reality.

"Lady Julianna is taking the fight to the eastern incursion," the legionary reported with a quick salute. "She requested that I inform you of her location and give you her assurances it would be handled."

"We told her that we've been dragging them into the Barrier in small clusters," Moira groaned.

"Seems like she thought they were better off facing the horde." John's eyes narrowed, the explanation leaving out its true reasoning. She was better off, in her opinion, because the alternative was relying on John.

"Her mages are strong enough to handle the battle," Lord Brighton said reluctantly after a moment. "Best for us to handle things on our end and leave her to the eastern flank."

"Their casualties are her concern. If she wishes to endanger the men and women beneath her over pride and arrogance, so be it," Kim spat. "Let us begin. When you are ready, John."

"Get to the boundary line." John nodded, both an agreement and a gesture toward the direction Vallya had indicated. "They're trying to break in. They'll be getting pulled in right over the border."

Were it only that simple.

The Order knights were sent to the edge of the Barrier, with Lord Brighton, Kim, and Moira leading the way. Adantia had arisen by then; she emerged from the cocoon of cables and moved to them with a very distinct lack of urgency. Sophia and Shishun arose soon after, followed shortly by Lerianna, who looked more annoyed by the interruption of her sleep than she did threatened.

"I will aid Vallya in the skies to expand our oversight of the area," Sophia vowed once the situation was explained. She wasted no time in releasing her wings, the golden light illuminating the dark campsite. The first stroke of her glimmering feathers reignited the smoldering flames of the campfire in dramatic fashion, filling the air with the scent of ash and the subtle crackle of a blaze too stubborn to fully die out.

"I'll keep an eye on the knuckleheads. Make sure they don't panic, or get themselves killed," Adantia grunted. She jerked a thumb over her shoulder, toward where a disorganized ball of Great Plains Alliance mages were slowly coalescing.

The GPA mages trickled to duty in small clusters, three and five at a time, mages who knew and trusted each other well enough to share or neighbor their tents with one another banding together against the unknown.

There was no cohesion, no organization, no sighting of Sevitus, and no response from Gerry yet. A mage claiming to be acting in his stead answered the call when Adantia tried to use the badge to make , but he seemed too panicked and overwhelmed by the sudden onslaught to properly process their questions to the state of things.

"I have already given Sevitus his orders," the raspy voice repeated for the third time, with the impatience of a man repeating it for the seventh. "The western flank will be covered. The alliance will-"

"Continue standing around?" Adantia grunted, eyeing the formation, which had scarcely moved. "Pretty sure the stronger ones are about forty-five seconds from breaching the Barrier, if the last time was a good measure of the average. You might want to get them moving."

"I am in charge of this entire sector." The words were practically hissed, and they came a full octave higher than the previous reassurances. "Miles and miles of troop encampments and Barriers on both sides of you! Sevitus has his orders, the mages will follow him. Alert us at once if the situation becomes critical!"

That seemed to be the limit of his input on the matter. Adantia made a few more attempts to get through to him, but the best response she got was an aggravated sigh.

"Right. Dipshit's at the helm. I'm gonna go make sure the GPA troops don't get ambushed while they're trading pajamas for plate," Adantia grumbled.

"Were they always like this?" Lerianna's tone was harsh, but there was a sense of disbelief beneath the contempt that was so thick it wound around to being almost impressed. "They were holding their own for a while. Were they this disorganized when you were here before?"

"This? Nah, not like this. Sometimes they're worse." Adantia shrugged as she turned away from them. Her cables surged through the ground just below the surface, close enough to churn and till the soil with their motions. "Have these two stay with you, on the off chance they sneak something inside. Already learned the hard way that these necrophiliacs love a good ambush."

"She really knows how to inspire confidence, doesn't she?" Lerianna grunted. She began a series of stretches, working her muscles awake and hoping that her mind would follow in its own time.

"It was never about being confident in the alliance." John shook his head as he watched Adantia meander away. There was a faint whisper in his mind as the first undead breached the Field of Judgment - and a much louder clattering as they were immediately shredded by a cluster of lashing steel cables. "It was about being confident in her."

"Think you'll ever be that strong?" Lerianna grunted, pulling one arm across her chest.

"...I think I'll have to be, if the world is always going to be like this."

They both ed Shishun in silence for a while after that.

---

The battle raged for almost an hour with the sort of unchanging consistency that wore away at the will and stamina of every soldier gathered, even when they were not directly involved in the ****. The corpses were nigh endless, despite being of a higher caliber than the earlier forays. John tried to count the bodies that were piling up at the edges of the Barrier for a while, but abandoned the effort when the margin of error was well into the dozens.

The early moments of gradually allowing the undead inside had rapidly deteriorated into a constant stream. The enemy’s attempts to break through had been fruitless for a while, but eventually, they’d started to peel away the Barrier’s extremities. John could feel it in his mind as the mana unwove; it didn’t unravel the Barrier as a whole, but it did allow the undead to peel their way in, wave after wave battering at the magical construct while they strode in, keeping the breaches wide for those that followed.

The Legion had reappeared inside the Barrier thirty minutes into the fray, after the Barrier’s natural defenses had already been worn thin by the constant waves. They did not request entry - they **** it, followed quickly by a large swathe of undead. Julianna stood at the front with her soldiers, meeting the risen minions as the fraying edges of the Barrier slowed their intrusion.

From there, the Legion and the Order held their segments. Not without loss, but without grave error, and without allowing any to slip past their ranks to endanger the healers and the wounded. Even when a few resurrected dead would veer off-course in an attempt to form a new front in the battle, a squadron was always ready for them. Sentries watched the boundary line of John's Barrier with unbroken vigilance, and each time a carpet of bones or a net of squirming flesh would cast itself across the border, it would find itself met with steel and flame until it retreated or was reduced to viscera and ash.

The GPA mages were less efficient. Adantia's cables kept the worst at bay, battered the early arrivals and cleared out the strays that tried breaking through. John still saw no sign of Sevitus - whether he was leading from the front, and making himself all but unavailable in doing so, or had simply deemed the other factions worthless in the face of their adversaries, John didn't know. So long as the lines held, he didn't particularly care.

After an hour, the number of mages able to stand without resting their hands on their knees or gasping for air had dwindled significantly. The wounded were amassed in piles behind the line of scrimmage, tended to by Order healers and frantic-looking GPA mages with glistening green and gold mana.

It was then that they were finally informed that the line was not, in fact, holding.

"We have a problem." Adantia's growl was so fierce that John worried it might be directed at him. An angry point with her right hand toward the emblem clutched in her left told him the outline before she delivered the details. "They're getting hammered."

"I can see that," John agreed.

"Not them. The fucking idiots fifty miles over," Adantia snarled. "Dipshit here didn't tell me until just now—and the line is already breaking. I have to go, now."

"I can still hear you, you know-"

"Good, I'm glad. You fucked up, dipshit!"

"We'll help the alliance hold their section. Go." John didn't know which direction the fifty miles were in, so he gestured somewhat vaguely. Adantia snorted, already beginning to move. She didn't bother with the railway of cables to protect her from unexpected burrowers this time. A single cable wrapped itself around her ankles and then propelled her along the ground at a speed fast enough that it became a blur to John's eyes.

"Fifty miles... that's a decent chunk of the front." Lerianna was tense, arms crossed as she eyed the shrinking figure already cresting the next hill. "Think she'll make it in time?"

John eyed the space where Adantia had been – she was already well out of sight – and nodded. "I was sprinting at world record pace when the kittens were born. I can break the sound barrier with Wind Shear. Moving like that, my guess is she'll be there in about... two minutes, tops."

Lerianna whistled. When she spoke again, the hint of worry in her voice had disappeared. "Sure wish I could move like that."

John eyed her, an idea coming to mind. "Well, what if you could? Wouldn’t it, but you can be a part of it. We need to make sure the alliance mages don't get slaughtered. I bet we'd move pretty well together."

"What, is that some kind of come-on?" The way the bunny-girl's lip curled was betrayed by the eager glint in her eye.

"No. Twin-Soul Resonance. The Body level is down to a week-long cooldown, and I can maintain it all night," John elaborated with a smirk. The answer was purely serious; the smirk came from the way Lerianna's eyes glimmered in the dark night—and the **** that **** its way over her features.

"Tch, always knew you just wanted me for my body," Lerianna griped. She craned her head away in disgust, but cracked one eye open to meet his gaze. "You're gonna do whatever you want anyway, so just go ahead and get it over with."

"Love you too, Lerianna."

Her indignant retort cut off as the technique activated.

Twin Soul Resonance: Body – Form, Lerianna.

John's body shifted slightly in ways that weren't visible, but which he could feel at a deep and intimate level. His tendons and muscles sat over his form in a way that became... restless. That was the only way he could think to describe it. His whole body started to feel tightened, like a spring compressed by entirely too much pressure, and only movement could release that tension. Without thinking, John started to bounce on the balls of his feet and found the motion bizarrely relaxing, in the same way that stretching out over his bed usually would be—like his body had finally fit itself into just the right sort of groove.

Over his legs, beneath the armor, a set of compression leggings had formed. John couldn't see between the plates to read the text scrawled over the length of his right leg beyond the words "break" and "more", but it ended with an ittedly adorable bunny scrawled over his calf just above where his boots began.

"Let's get to work, Lerianna." The words were perhaps pointless. The others never seemed to what happened while he was using this level of the technique. But there was a certain rightness in not ignoring the presence ed with him.

"What should I do, Master?" Shishun asked patiently. Her throwing knives were already in her hand, and a faint crackle of static had the tips of her pink hair dancing along her shoulder line.

"Stay at range, pick off any targets that try to flank," John ordered. "Watch my back, and be ready if anything changes."

Shishun nodded, and with that, he leapt. The first stride John took nearly splattered him across the ground. The agitated bouncing had not prepared him for the full **** of his initial launch. But with increased speed came proportionally amplified reflexes, and after doing a full flip that he would later swear was entirely intentional, John's left foot came down hard enough to dig a trench in the rough ground. The balancing was tricky, the attempt at stopping his spin insufficient, and it took John two more leaps to fully steady himself and his pace.

"Only have the muscles... not the control, not the mind. Have to be careful."

Those four bounds alone had carried him halfway to the front. The fifth launched him over the majority of the GPA forces and directly into the front lines. The ground was covered with scattered clusters of mages and the undead breaching the Barrier now that John had stopped pulling the undead in manually. Even at the slower rate of entry, the GPA was not going to be able to keep pace without Adantia present.

Or someone weaker working twice as hard.

Rather than trying to navigate the mess of the immediate front, John let his momentum carry him into the thick of the undead and landed with a cratering blow. John's foot made with the fleshy mass of one creature's stitched-together torso, but the **** of it shook the ground with enough intensity to be felt for meters around. Dirt, blood, and bone fragments scattered into the sky as the shambling mass was catapulted into the ground at point-blank range, splattering across the grassy field and churning up dirt as the sheer kinetic **** scattered the ground nearly as much as the undead itself.

John's body lifted upward from the **** of the blow. He'd misjudged the angle of the kick, and the momentum he'd built was transferred into a lift rather than canceled. Elemental Infusion saved him—a burst of wind erupted against John's back with the **** of a small hurricane, powerful enough to arrest the upward swing in its tracks.

"Shit. I don't think the leggings are for show," John realized. "And without the mental stats, my body isn't compensating naturally..."

His eyes roamed across his own body with a sense of wonder. He couldn't see his musculature with the armor in place, but the raw power of Lerianna's kicks was clearly in place, even if the definition wasn't.

"Fine. Be ready on the big swings, focus on mobility, and... go!"

A column of stone erupted from the ground near John, on the opposite side of where the Great Plains Alliance mages were gathered. John eyed a clear spot on the battlefield just far enough away from their allies to avoid collateral damage and empty enough of enemies to not find himself surrounded on impact, then planted his feet on the column and kicked off with all he could muster. While the scattered shrapnel of the rock shattering wasn't resilient enough to do damage, there was a certain satisfaction in hearing a three-foot thick pillar disintegrate under the **** of his launch.

John landed in the cleared space with the **** of a vehicular collision, cracking the ground beneath his feet as they effortlessly absorbed the impact. John put his upper body into motion while his legs were still working to keep the landing graceful. His sword levitated from his grip, its steel ringing with slightly sickening tones each time it glided over or through reanimated bone.

The blade cleaved away at the densest clusters of undead and those with dangerous physical forms while John's fists rained down on anything else within reach. John kept his feet moving at all times, both out of a conscious choice to remain mobile and a deeply embedded restlessness. Any time the balls of his feet lingered too long, any time his heels so much as grazed the dirt, John instinctively twisted his body in a new direction, his mind struggling to keep up with the pace his own body was setting.

"I should've been practicing more with this." John leaned to the left as an axe whistled past his right side. The pristine edge was in much better shape than the decomposing body wielding it, and John didn't miss the sensation of his arm hair bending or being cleaved away as the enchanted weapon nearly grazed him. "I'm not used to my mind and body operating on such different levels. I'll have to to put more emphasis on our ment-"

John's conscious thoughts took a backseat to his drive for survival as another wave of undead breached the border of his Barrier. The armor-clad skeletons that led the way were no small matter; Observe placed them at level 60, the highest he'd seen in any push that the Northern Ashes had made against them in the past week. But it was the figure behind them, the seven-foot-tall silhouette that faded into their section of reality, which drew John's attention away from pondering the nuances of his stats and system.

It was a nearly immaculate woman, skin intact save for a few patches that looked to have been lost to injury rather than decomposition. The knight rode upon a nightmarish steed woven from a skeletal horse surrounded by ethereal flesh that matched the sickly glow from beneath her own pale skin. She wore a full suit of armor layered with runes and engravings that glistened in the dark night, shining an ethereal orange glow over the milky-white bones of her entourage. In the tight grip of her right hand hung a wicked-looking cleaver, serrated along the blade and the jagged basket hilt. In her left hand was a circular shield, its edge patterned with jagged spikes of obsidian that glistened with an unnatural light from within.

Selvia Ervoris
Level 92 Arisen Knight
<Northern Ashes [Servitor]>
9,825 / 9,825 HP
Alignment: -85
Relationship: 0
Status Effects: Servitor's Tether

"That's the first time I've seen an actual mage since we arrived. That doesn't bode well." John grimaced as he processed the information.

Up to this point, the Northern Ashes had only been deploying corpses reanimated purely because they were available, their flesh serving to carve gatherings of bone and flesh that could've been sculpted from anything that had once been living, human or otherwise. This was the first time they had sent forth a minion notable for who they were, rather than what they had been crafted into. The difference was stark enough from the sheet—it only became more pronounced when the undead woman raised up her cleaver.

John's eyes caught the build-up of mana in the moment before the strike came. A powerful surge, concentrated along the length of the brutal-looking weapon's sharp edge. He shouted out a warning and called the Fang of the New World into the attack's path, even as he burst up from the ground and launched himself out of harm's way. His reflexes and acceleration were just barely enough to carry him out of harm's way in time. The mages behind him lacked both, and his warning came too late for them to escape.

Selvia's cleaver swung, and an arc of blood erupted from the jagged edge with the sound of a blade cutting through fresh meat, growing faster and wider as it traveled. John's sword intercepted the strike, but he'd failed to for the strike's nature. Where his Fang of the New World blocked the attack, the blood was sundered and diluted, saving a roughly five-foot wide area. The rest of the attack continued, undeterred by the loss of the middling section, and cut through the line of between both sides with ruthless efficiency.

A dozen of the GPA mages were cleaved in two, along with a sizable chunk of the horde. More still lost fingers, feet, and whole limbs to the continued path of the attack. The strike was powerful enough that very few points along its length dissipated against shield or armor, even after piercing multiple bodies. The attack was almost forty feet wide by the time it made first , and three-quarters or better of it kept going until it was digging a trench in the ground, leaving a wake of sundered limbs and battered soldiers in its wake.

John grimaced at the bloody sight. He could hear voices from every direction. Through the rings, Sophia and Vallya were calling out warnings from the outside while Shishun asked if he needed assistance in a tone that revealed just how worried for him the sudden decimation of their forces had made her. And the screaming. Pain, fear, and loss, all encomed in the echoing wails that filled the battlefield below John.

"I see why they were about to breach the line." John's lips twisted into a grimace. His sword flew through the air, moving not to his hand but to the air just above where he'd leapt. Still utilizing the Rune of Puppeteering, he anchored it in the air as if it had become fixed to reality itself, then jammed one foot onto the flat of the blade and launched himself from it like an unguided missile.

The knight had shifted her focus, and by the time John arrived, her shield and cleaver were readied for him. But the speed he could muster now, between his own deceiving level and the addition of Lerianna's impressive physique, left her unable to respond effectively. John landed on the horse's neck with enough **** to dislodge nearly every vertebrae, scattering bones to the ground with a sound like gunfire. By the time the cleaver ed through the space he'd landed, John had lifted up again, bouncing off the beast's semi-translucent flesh and over the top of the ghostly warrior.

John landed upside down on the other end of the horse as it toppled. His hands caught the undead steed's rear on both sides, giving him the leverage to bring one foot around in a calamitous spinning kick. Selvia failed to lift her shield as the blow descended, but a cascade of crimson fluid rose in its stead. A pillar of blood formed, flowing like a liquid but as solid as enchanted steel when John's calf made . The impact resonated through his body along with a lance of pain, one strong enough to make him lose focus, and with his focus went his balance.

John twisted as he fell, catching himself on one hand and pushing off before the horse's collapsing bulk could pin him. His shin throbbed where the blood pillar had caught him—the knight's blood magic was impressive. He might have been bruised from knee to ankle by the morning if not for Gamer's Body.

Selvia didn't give him the chance to recover. She stepped off her crumbling mount with the fluid grace of someone who had dismounted a thousand times in life and saw no reason to stop in ****. The cleaver came in low, a horizontal sweep that trailed a fan of crimson droplets — each one hardening mid-flight into a razor-edged shard. John threw himself backward and felt two of the shards punch through the gaps in his armor at the shoulder, shallow cuts that burned cold rather than hot.

"Blood magic. Everything she's got runs off it — the arc, the shield, the projectiles. She's using her own supply as ammunition, though."

Which meant she had a finite amount of it, dead or not. Either it was her own natural blood, or created by mana. Either way, she couldn't go this hard forever.

John recalled the Fang of the New World to his grip and closed the distance before the next swing could be set into motion. Selvia's shield snapped up, the obsidian spikes along its rim catching the firelight. John didn't strike the shield. He feinted high, watched the cleaver commit to a counter, and dropped low — planting one foot and driving the other into her leading knee with every ounce of Lerianna's coiled power behind it.

The t buckled sideways with a wet, structural crack. Selvia staggered but didn't fall. Blood surged from the wound in her leg — not spilling, but moving, weaving itself around the shattered t like a splint, hardening into a lattice that held the limb rigid. She was already swinging the cleaver down at his head.

John rolled inside the arc of the swing, close enough to smell the rot beneath the armor, and drove the Fang of the New World up through the gap between her breastplate and gorget. The blade sank deep. Selvia's free hand seized his blade with a grip that should have been impossible for a body running on borrowed time, and the blood coating her gauntlet began to creep over his weapon, hardening, trying to lock him in place.

He let go of the sword.

The cleaver came around again, but without the Fang in his hand, John was free to move. He caught her weapon arm at the wrist with both hands, pivoted his hips, and used the momentum of her own swing to haul her off the ruined knee. Selvia hit the ground face-first with a sound like a sack of armor dropped from a rooftop, driving his blade to the hilt in her chest with the impact. Before she could push herself up, John activated the Rune of Puppeteering again, used the Rune of Disruption to cause all the blood surrounding the blade to shatter, and wrenched the Fang sideways.

The cut wasn't clean. It didn't need to be. The blade tore through the remaining connective tissue and the vertebrae beneath, and Selvia's body went slack beneath his boot. The blood that had been moving with such deliberate intent moments before lost its animation all at once, collapsing into ordinary liquid that pooled dark and still across the churned earth.

+92 EXP

John grabbed his weapon by the hilt and wiped the blade against his thigh. It hadn't been as clean as he would've liked - too much mana, too much time wasted. But it had been quick, and the line was held. The cuts at his shoulder stung when he rolled the t, but they were shallow. Manageable.

He looked up.

The battlefield hadn't paused for his duel. The horde was still coming — slower now, the elite skeletons that had accompanied Selvia already being mopped up by the GPA mages who'd rallied in John's wake, but the tide of lesser undead continued to pour across the Barrier's edge in staggering numbers. Shishun's throwing knives flickered through the dark in steady, precise intervals, each one finding a skull or a spine before snapping back to her hands in a crackle of static. She'd kept the flanks clear while he fought. He owed her for that.

In the distance, the Order's golden light still burned along their section of the line, steady and unyielding. The Legion's flank was quieter than the rest—not silent, but controlled, the sounds of disciplined combat rather than **** struggle.

John rolled his neck, adjusted his grip on the Fang, and dropped back into the fray.

The lesser undead were not a threat in the way Selvia had been. They were a threat in the way that rain was a threat to a dam — individually negligible, collectively relentless, and patient in a way that living soldiers could never be. They did not tire. They did not hesitate. They simply kept coming, wave after wave, and the men and women holding the line against them had been awake since two in the morning and were running on adrenaline that was already beginning to curdle into exhaustion.

John moved among the GPA lines with Lerianna's restless energy still humming through his frame, his sword carving paths through clusters of undead while his boots crushed what his blade missed. He was not Adantia. He could not hold a mile of front by himself with contemptuous ease. But he could be fast enough to be in three places in the span of a blink, and loud enough that every soldier near him knew the line was held.