Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee-Chapter 82: Call to Arms

The first volley doesn’t land with a thud. It lands with the wet, rhythmic sound of steel tearing through flesh and tissue in a hundred places at once.

The screaming mass of the Red Tide doesn’t stop. It implodes.

The front rank of monsters is nailed to the desert floor, transformed into a carpet of twisted limbs and dark blood. The creatures behind them trip over the fallen, their momentum launching them headfirst into the next volley.

Bodies pile on bodies. The sand turns black.

The sky keeps spitting death. Pull, release, kill. Pull, release, kill. The repeating ballistae scream TUF-TUF-TUF in an endless, mechanical cycle that shakes dust from the wall behind us.

But the numbers are surreal.

For every ten that fall, fifty more pour over the dune line. The tide doesn’t thin. It deepens. Wave after wave after wave, crashing against the carpet of their own dead without a fraction of a second’s hesitation.

How did Lost Ark survive this when they were just a handful of people?

I think, watching the scale of the assault through the haze.

How many Red Tides did they endure before they had walls? Before they had ballistae?

I cut the thought short. Surviving comes first.

Through the fog of dust and blood, I identify silhouettes. Shadow Shellcats bounding low and fast. Coral Wivers leaping in erratic, spider-jointed arcs. Dozens of species I’ve never catalogued, all moving with the singular, mindless hunger of an ecosystem that has decided to empty itself against our line.

The desert air thickens with the metallic stench of blood and the sulfuric reek of the Tide’s chemical trail. Every breath tastes like copper and rot.

When the first wave reaches the formation, Boris plays his trump card.

The sound that leaves his throat isn’t a command. It’s a detonation. It erupts from somewhere deeper than his lungs—from the marrow, from the foundation of whatever class the System gave this man—and it reverberates across the entire front line like a shockwave made of pure intent.

"CALL TO ARMS!!!"

An electric snap jolts through my body. My Vitality stat flares golden in my HUD. Fatigue evaporates. The dull ache in my muscles vanishes. My lungs fill with air that tastes clean for the first time in hours.

I feel new.

[Buff Applied: Call to Arms—All Physical Stats +15% for 180 seconds]

Boris is a Commander class. Of course he is.

The impact of the first beasts slamming into our shield wall echoes like thunder. The vanguard is shoved backward several feet, boots carving furrows in the sand.

The entire front line buckles, holds, and pushes back. A frantic tug of war where our resistance is the only barrier between the Tide and the city.

I look at Rhayne.

She nods. She reaches up and touches my face with her bare hands.

The cold floods in instantly—that familiar, soul-draining pull, like my essence is being siphoned through my pores.

The Void Link locks into place.

"Hold as long as you can," I tell her. "Break the connection the second you start bleeding."

I don’t wait for her answer.

I sprint toward the front line. Oliver breaks formation and follows, his warhammer already raised.

The monsters are piling against the shield wall now, climbing over each other, clawing at the vanguard’s armor.

The pressure is building. The line won’t hold forever.

I ignite Eventide.

I use the back of a kneeling vanguard as a springboard, planting my boot between his shoulder blades and launching myself over his shield.

The knight has three Shellcats already scaling his defense, their claws scraping against the steel.

Mid-flip, I bring Eventide down in a screaming arc. The shadow-blade carves through the first beast’s spine, the momentum carrying the cut clean through and into the second. Both dissolve into dark mist before they hit the ground.

I land in front of the shield wall.

Wrong side. The monster’s side.

"ON ME!" I roar, spinning the hilt between my fingers. I pivot through the first rank of beasts, Eventide howling with every cut, opening a corridor through the mass like a spear driven into the ocean.

A Shellcat lunges from my blind spot, jaws aimed at my neck. Oliver’s warhammer catches it mid-flight, the iron head connecting with a crack that sends the creature spinning through the air, trailing teeth and dark fluid.

"I’m with you, partner!" Oliver bellows. "Push forward!"

A brief nod.

My objective is clear.

Find Boris.

Fight beside the strongest piece on the board. Destroy without mercy.

First rule of Thirstfall.

The battlefield collapses into close quarters. There is no space for wide swings or tactical footwork. Every movement is tight, compact, surgical—the minimum arc needed to sever a limb or open a throat before rotating to the next target.

Teeth snap at my forearms from angles I can’t track. Claws rake across my leather jacket from creatures I never see coming. I kill them after they hit me, not before. There’s no other option. The density is too high.

[OXI: 1,417/1,600]

I can’t sustain that damage for long.

Between kills, I manage to identify the species in the chaos. Shallow Gargolites—squat, stone-skinned quadrupeds with crushing jaws. Shadow Shellcats—fast, fragile, lethal in packs. The bodies pile at my feet, and I climb over them to reach the next.

Then I lose Oliver.

Too many bodies between us. Too many legs, too many claws. I feel my back go cold—the specific, primal awareness of having no cover behind me.

Shit.

"OLIVER!" I bark into comms. "FALL BACK! Get behind the first line!"

Static.

Then his voice, strained and breathless. "Already moving! Watch your six!"

I don’t have time to watch my six.

A shape clears the top of the beast pile in front of me and lands three feet away.

A Predator... Coral Ripper. Rank D.

It’s nothing like the Wivers. Twice the mass, plated in dense coral armor that glints like wet stone. Its jaw is a mechanical nightmare—segmented mandibles that click together with the sound of metal striking metal.

I search for Boris through the chaos. He’s still too far. A hundred feet of solid monster between us.

The Ripper lunges.

Its mandibles snap shut where my chest was a heartbeat ago. I sidestep just enough to redirect its attack into the shield of a random vanguard behind me. The impact dents the steel inward.

I bring Eventide down in a descending chop on its front leg. The shadow-blade bites into the coral plating and stops.

Stops?

The material is dense as bedrock. Completely different from cutting Wivers. Eventide carved through Shellcats like smoke.

This thing barely scratched.

I wrench the blade free and reset my stance. The Ripper clicks its mandibles again, circling. It’s not stupid. It felt the blade. It knows I’m dangerous. But it also knows I didn’t break its skin.

Time to change the math.

"Lola," I say into comms, keeping my voice steady. "I need you."

I reach into my inventory with my free hand, pull five Scales, and crush them against Eventide’s edge.

[Scales: 425 -> 420]

The OXI powder ignites on contact with the shadow-blade, producing a sudden, blinding flash that turns the immediate vicinity white for a split second.

A flare. A target marker. The oldest trick in the combined-arms playbook.

"Okay," Lola responds. Her voice is calm. Bored, even.

High above the battlefield, the small stone tower on the wall lights up like the end of the world.

The sound comes first—a deep, building whine of accumulated energy that climbs past audible frequency and settles into the teeth. Every soldier within earshot instinctively ducks.

The monsters don’t.

A thin, crooked smile touches my lips as I throw myself sideways, putting every inch of distance I can between myself and the Coral Ripper.

If that shot comes anywhere near me, I will turn into a memory.