Thirstfall - Memory of a Returnee-Chapter 83: Compass

The shot splits the world in half.

Every living thing on the battlefield—human and monster alike—flinches. An involuntary, universal surrender to a sound that bypasses the brain and goes straight to the marrow.

I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that noise.

The projectile doesn’t travel through the air. It tears through it—a screaming line of compressed force that shreds the wind with the voracity of something starving. The trail it leaves behind shimmers with heat distortion, the atmosphere itself recoiling from the violation.

For a microsecond after the trajectory sound, everything goes silent. The monsters freeze. The soldiers freeze. Even the dust in the air seems to hang motionless.

Then the backline of the Red Tide detonates.

The explosion doesn’t bloom. It erupts—a concussive pillar of orange fire and superheated debris that swallows a fifty-foot radius of the Tide’s rear formation.

The shockwave hits us a full second later, carrying with it a wall of hot wind, sand, monster fragments, and a fine mist of blood that coats everything it touches.

A mushroom cloud of fire and smoke rises from the center of the battlefield like a funeral pyre for an army.

Did she get stronger, or had she just not released everything yet?

The Coral Ripper in front of me wasn’t hit directly. But the blast radius was enough. I can see it clearly now—fracture lines spiderwebbing across its coral plating, the armor that stopped Eventide cold now cracked and compromised.

The battlefield erupts. Every soldier on our side screams—not in fear, but in raw, primal excitement. The sound of two thousand voices roaring at once after witnessing divine artillery from a stone tower manned by a fourteen-year-old girl.

I tap comms. "Good girl. Recover your OXI and rest."

A single, quiet "Mm" comes back. Confirmation. Nothing else.

Anyone else would be celebrating. Lola isn’t anyone else.

I turn my focus back to the Ripper. It’s still staggered from the blast wave, its snapping turtle mandibles clicking erratically, trying to recalibrate. The cracks in its carapace glow faintly where the structural integrity failed.

Time to test the new toy. If I can’t cut it, I’ll break it.

I sprint straight at the beast. It senses me coming and tries to pivot, but its coordination is shattered.

I launch myself into the air, rotating my torso with everything I have, chambering a flying kick aimed at the fractured section of its ribcage.

I activate [Pressure Step.]

The Ironwake Reefs hiss. A violent burst of pressurized steam erupts from the heel, doubling—then tripling—the kinetic force behind my foot. The acceleration is savage, turning a kick into a battering ram.

My boot connects with the cracked coral plating dead center.

KLA-BOOM!

Chunks of coral explode outward like shrapnel. The Ripper—two thousand pounds of predator—slides sideways across the bloody sand, crashing through a cluster of Shellcats and Gargolites like a bowling ball through pins.

I land. Look down at the Ironwake Reefs. Tap my heel against the ground once, just to confirm what I felt.

These boots are phenomenal.

[OXI: 910/1,600]

[Link Disconnected.]

Rhayne hit her limit.

Without her absorbing the upkeep cost, I would have been running on fumes ten minutes ago. The Void Link bought me everything I needed.

Now I’m on my own.

Beasts don’t wait for me to finish thinking. A Gargolite lunges from the left. A Shellcat from the right. I meet them with Eventide—short, precise, economical cuts.

These aren’t made of stone. They go down easy.

But easy burns OXI too. And without Rhayne’s buffer, every swing counts double.

I sprint toward the downed Ripper. It’s trying to rise, legs scrambling against the sand, mandibles snapping at the air. The cracked section of its carapace is exposed—white bone is visible beneath the shattered coral.

I drive Eventide straight into the breach.

The shadow-blade sinks to the hilt. The Ripper convulses once, violently, and goes still.

"Rhayne, report."

Static. Then her voice, thin, shaking, and barely there.

"I... I’m... I’m fine..."

She’s not fine.

"Oliver. Cover Rhayne with Brendon until she recovers. That’s an order."

"Already on it," Oliver responds. His voice is steady. Good.

I look toward Boris. My eyes find his position—or where his position should be—but my line of sight is immediately swallowed by light.

With the breathing room Lola’s shot carved into the Tide’s formation, the mage backline finally has space to work. And they don’t waste it.

Hundreds of spells form simultaneously, glowing sigils, rune circles, and condensed elemental charges. Rising above the rear ranks like a constellation being born.

Then they fall.

The barrage hits the monster horde like the wrath of a collapsing sky.

Fire. Ice. Concussive force.

Arcane lightning that chains from body to body in branching, electric rivers. Frozen spikes erupt from the sand, impaling beasts mid-stride. Fireballs crater the ground in overlapping detonations.

The hair on my arms stands straight up.

The harmony is impeccable—every spell landing in sequence, every element complementing the next, no friendly fire, no wasted OXI or mana. This isn’t improvisation.

This is a rehearsed symphony of destruction that Lost Ark has been perfecting for years.

I use the opening and run.

I weave through the thinning chaos of the front line, deflecting flanking attacks from Shellcats that try to cut me off from the right. Eventide sings—quick, surgical, just enough to clear the path without draining reserves I can’t afford to lose.

I spot Boris. Fifty feet ahead. Fighting alone at the tip of the wedge formation, his twin war axes carving arcs of destruction through everything that comes within reach.

"COMPASS!" I shout.

Boris looks up. For a single second, his war-hardened, furious expression cracks, replaced by a grin that splits his bearded face like sunrise breaking through storm clouds.

He turns his back to me.

I close the distance and press my back against his. Both of us facing outward, covering every blind angle, every approach vector.

The compass formation—two fighters, back to back, rotating in sync. Every direction covered. No gaps.

"It’s been a long time since anyone called for the compass!" Boris roars over the screaming horde, his axes already moving.

"Do your job!" I snap back, decapitating a Shellcat that launched at me from the left.

"Like father, like son!" he laughs, bringing his right axe down in a vertical cleave that splits a Wiver clean in half.

I feel his energy through the physical contact of our backs pressed together. Boris is at the peak of Rank C. Solid. Powerful. But...

Peak C. For two years. The same Boris who arrived during the second expansion.

Why hasn’t he evolved? With this many Red Tides survived, this many kills accumulated, he should have broken into Rank B year ago. Something is suppressing his growth. Or he’s choosing not to.

Not now... Focus.

We rotate. Cut. Rotate. Cut. The compass spins, and everything that enters our radius dies. For thirty beautiful, brutal seconds, the battlefield makes sense.

Then something hits Boris from nowhere.

A massive, invisible force slams into his left side. His body folds around the impact—ribs audibly cracking—and he’s launched sideways, rolling through the bloody sand, his axes spinning from his hands.

I spin toward the point of origin.

Nothing.

The air shimmers. A chromatic distortion ripples across the space where Boris was standing. The hairs on the back of my neck ignite. A sound I haven’t heard since the Academy jungle reaches my ears—a wet, guttural trill vibrating deep in an invisible throat.

Click-click-click.

Reef Stalker. Alpha predator. Cloaked.

My scar throbs in my chest.

A cruel, predatory smile stretches across my face.

I’ve owed your kind a debt for a very long time.