The wave hit, and Laur’s patchwork shield was instantly overloaded.

Major Elementals swarmed the walls, tearing bloody furrows into the Legionnaires just beyond. Skills flared, crushing manifestations of stone and choking water and brutal ice. In the time it took for Gabby and Yin to reach the city, more soldiers died—but they were not without their wins.

“Piercing Crescent!”

“Skullcrush Wave!”

“Thunderous Barrage!”

Blades, Bones, and Fists crashed through the Elementals—Lesser and Minor—their swords, maces, and spiked gauntlets brutalizing them with ease. They died, shattered beneath fire and force. The Major Elementals were the issue. Strong enough on their own, now they broke through the rank and file without mercy.

Nor their defenders.

“Cataclysm Array!” Vess’ Spears skewered the ape-like Earth Elemental, dropping its corpse onto its brethren. “Evie!”

Her friend was already moving. Evie’s chains lassoed a boar, her spinning links slicing through its icy hide to the quick. “Got it.”

She slung forward, chains hurling her lithe body over the heads of a dozen Lesser Elementals being faced by the Legion. She landed on the other side, ice congealing across her arms as she caught a Water Elemental by the throat.

“Where’re you goin’?” The creature tried to flee, splitting around Evie in streams of loose liquid—but Evie only tightened her grip. “No.”

Frost crackled across the Elemental’s form—not frozen solid but chunked through with ice. Enough to slow it.

“Loquis. If you please!”

“Galvanite Scour!”

Lightning burst through the Elemental’s liquid Body, stunning it into rigid tendrils that lost their grip upon the battlements. Evie thrust her hand into its center, rooting around until she found a piece of it etched with a cascade of starry sigils.

She crushed it.

“They’re doing fine,” she muttered, trying not to look at the blood that smeared the walls. Her allies couldn’t be everywhere. The wall wouldn’t fall, but the casualties mounted by the second. Worse, there were dozens of the enemy that had left Hevaan’s perimeter and swarmed the city.

Elementals—Lesser, Minor, and Major—swarmed across the square where Inscriptionists had marked out complicated arrays in chalk. The mages were all still consumed by their work, Beef and Hallow among them, and they did not even look up as the horde closed in on them. They didn’t have to—the Frost Giants stood in the breach.

Berserkers bashed into the creatures, crushing them with their crimson ice clubs. Witches cursed the Elementals into fumbling buffoons, twisting their limbs with every step, until they died, their sigaldry going dark as heads and chests were crushed by heavy clubs and potent magic.

Gabby gritted her teeth, partially against the wind and partially against the inevitable. The Elementals would die, or they would, unless Beef figured something out soon.

"Gabby," Vess cried, "Watch out!"

She spun on Yin's back, just in time to see the Swamp Elemental hurl a boulder underhand from the edge of the water. It tumbled, spraying water in all directions as its house-sized mass careened directly toward her…and the wall.

Without hesitation, Gabby leapt from Yin’s back, forcing the Wyrm down several feet as she soared forward. Gold gleamed in her hand, now a hammer of preposterous dimensions, and she brought it down with all the Strength she could muster.

It shattered. Pieces burst all around her, flinging beyond her reach to pepper Hevaan’s wards like the world’s largest hailstones. Yellow flashes announced their impact as Yin begrudgingly caught her once again.

"I’m not your platform!” he growled. In moments, Yin was at the wall and bucked his back, tossing Gabby from his scales. “Take on those boulders! I’ll handle my Companion’s woes!”

The Wyrm tore down the battlements, a sinuous path of destruction for all that met his jaws. Legionnaires cheered, their Skills once more overtaking the ranks of Lesser and the stronger Minor Elementals. Much like Vess and Evie, the Major Elementals were entirely too concerned with the Dragon in their midst.

A deep splash heralded more boulders. Gabby turned her attention away from the walls and firmed her stance. Her Brightblade shifted, not to a hammer, but a shield as before. The boulders sailed toward her, impossibly accurate, and she brandished her golden light.

Brightblade Crescendo is level 143!

They struck, a swift one-two impact that made her teeth ache—but she’d learned her lesson. Gabby didn’t block the projectiles but angled her shield, deflecting the boulders down and to the side.

Warning!

Your Health Has Dropped To 75%!

Warning!

Your Mana Has Dropped To 15%!

The fetid stones, robbed of a portion of their momentum, crashed into the lower portions of Hevaan’s warded walls. The magic flared bright orange, and the battlements were rattled, but they fell limp into the waters below.

She quaffed another Mana Elixir, and that burning sensation in her chest only grew, like heartburn, only ten times worse. She'd felt it before, always when she'd drank too many restorative potions. Her Mana had risen a bit over 75%, but that would only fuel so many Skills…and she wasn’t sure if she could handle another potion.

Around her, Vess, Evie, Harn, and thousands of others fought on. They were successful, especially in the case of the commanders—Evie and Harn alone could have routed many of the creatures, and Vess was a veritable one-woman army. She moved like a goddess among the enemy, her Spears raining down like divine justice.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Elementals were dying, and Gabby’s allies were draining themselves to do it.

She planned this. There was no question in her mind. God damned Marzul!

The waves crashed against the walls again. Gabby could feel their impact through the soles of her boots. The waves weren’t nearly as high, but they were forceful, their edges flaring with a prismatic yellow that rippled up the wards. Gabby cursed. The Swamp Elemental had regained its footing. It limped forward, its stumped leg mostly healed, shoving through the water. It was clearly no longer interested in hurling projectiles; it was coming for them.

The breach in the ward sizzled, pieces of it reconnecting as Laur wove his magics into it, backed by dozens of Inscriptionists that still stood.

"Get out of here," Gabby told them. "It's no use. Patching that isn't going to stop it.”

“We can buy you time!"

“Stay alive. That’s all that matters right now.”

A fist crashed into the wards. The shields flashed a bright crimson, and the Swamp Elemental was sent back, recoiling from Hevaan's defenses. It fell to its back foot, but it stood again, slow and unstoppable as a landslide.

Gabby felt a heat flash through her and anger followed. "Get out of here!"

Laur backed up. "Yes, we cannot brace that. Legion, follow!"

Showing uncommon wisdom, the lot of them fled. Gabby alone remained to stand in the breach. The Swamp Elemental reached out, pressing its ungainly fingers against Hevaan's wards. They bulged inward, ripples of prismatic color flaring at the contact.

A perfect target.

Her Brightblade drove forward, now a golden lance, and it passed through the ward as if it didn’t exist. Instead, it stuck the Elemental’s fist exactly as it moved, boring a glowing hole through its clenched fist. Rock and stone blasted apart, peppering the wards. The thing was damaged, but it was nothing worse than the neck wound Gabby had inflicted earlier. Just as she suspected, new stone and jungle mass flowed across its arm, necromantic Mana surging alongside earth and life and water. More Mana than Gabby had to spare.

Boots clattered behind her, and Gabby snarled. "I told you to stay back—!"

Despite her fury, the Legionnaires were entirely unconcerned. They formed in orderly ranks along the battlements there at the breach. Their blue cloaks were stained and tattered, their faces dirty and bruised, but their Skills fired relentlessly.

“Bonebreaker Strike!”

“Stormlance!”

Heavy maces and clubs crashed into the Greater Elemental’s hand as it pressed against the breach. Stone cracked, and vines were shed beneath the barrage, which continued until a few rocks were sent plummeting back into the waves.

Vess landed beside her. Her Dragon wings faded as she did so, and she brandished her glaive with an air of authority Gabby couldn’t match. "They shall slow its healing. You and I will do the real damage."

Gabby firmed her jaw and nodded.

“Cataclysm Array!”

Thirty spears manifested in the air, each one a perfect copy of her Dragon-headed weapon. Gabby brandished her outsized lance again, holding it aloft with the spectral hand that floated more than twenty feet away from her. If they could time their attacks together, perhaps they'd do enough damage to stop it. Gabby remained unsure. The thing healed from the jungle around it, and there was enough of that to keep it going for days.

Vess grunted, her Spears twisting around themselves now in intricate patterns. "I do not know what your Mana stores look like, but bolster yourself!”

“Can’t! I'm running on my last legs. I don't have a lot more attacks left in me."

Vess reached out, putting her hands on Gabby’s wrists. They were as tiny as a doll’s hands when compared to the eleven-foot Titan. "Then we will make this one count.” 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

She twitched her hand, and Gabby could almost feel the woman's Will focus upon her weapons. The thirty Spears joined, becoming fifteen larger recreations. They joined again and again, each time melding in a snap of discharged electricity, until finally, all thirty had converged into a singular spear the size of a building. It hovered above the woman's shaking hand, and it was all she could do to hold it still.

"We fire as one!”

“Brightblade Crescendo!”

“Cataclysm Array!”

She smiled through bloody teeth and thrust her lance forward. It struck directly into the creature’s abdomen, where the golden burst like a sudden dawn. Stone and root sheared away, just as before and with less effect than ever.

That changed as Vess’ Skill hit.

Crackling as it flew, it burst into a concentrated storm the moment the building-sized Spear found purchase. First was a flurry of air Mana that sliced through everything, cutting through muck and stone soil before the lightning storm within it was unleashed. That fried the Elemental’s insides, sending rock and stone falling limply into the water.

The Greater Elemental could not—or would not—speak, but it was not silent. Bellows like the end of the world filled Gabby’s ears, distracting from the Elemental’s desperate leap. It careened directly into the walls, its chest and shoulders smashing into the wards. The walls shook, stone rocking and crumbling as the wards flared yellow, orange, red. They shattered.

The Elemental pressed forward, through the tattered remains of the city ward, and lifted its arm.

“Get out of here!” Vess shouted, dragon wings manifesting on her back for a brief moment. Yet, instead of flying away, she blasted the Legionnaires around her, sending them back by twenty yards.

It was all that saved them.

"Luminous Raiment! Brightblade Crescendo!"

Gabby seized Vess and Legion stragglers around her, growing her massive armor around the lot of them as her Brightblade formed into a tower shield directly above. The Elemental's arm slammed down, crushing them into the wall. For a brief moment, Gabby's vision went dark, but it leapt back. In a shower of brilliant sparks, her armor held. The people around her were secure, though terrified. Those beyond, however, had been crushed in a spray of gore as the walls buckled and broke.

Magic exploded. Plumes of flame and lightning poured across the battlements and down into the city itself as untethered Mana scorched even the sky. The Elemental did not relent. It pressed forward, shoving harder into Gabby's Raiment. She heard the tinkling crash of solidified golden light breaking. She poured more of her Mana into the working, healing the damage.

Warning!

Your Mana Has Dropped To 35%!

Luminous Raiment is level 141!

Brightblade Crescendo is level 143!

The pressure was beyond immense. Her Raiment sparked and cracked again. She poured what she could into it, healing it as she held the others close. At least fifteen had been scooped up by her armor, and they watched her with wide, disbelieving eyes. It bolstered her mood considerably, but she wouldn't last long. None of them would.

Warning!

Your Mana Has Dropped To 15%!

Rage kindled in Gabby, an anger so deep and complete that she wasn't sure if it or the Elemental’s pressure was forcing her vision to narrow into dark tunnels. Her Skill sounded, strained now, Luminous Raiment fighting to overcome the sheer weight of the Swamp Elemental. The rage shifted, twisting and askew, as if sprained, and it only drove her anger deeper. It resonated with her through all the muck and clinging shadow. It was something she couldn't name or place, but her wrath grew.

“I—I will not die like this,” she spat. “Marzul will not win!”

The wall shifted.

Broke.

Gold splintered, raining like sparks on all she sheltered. Gabby’s Mana guttered, and the moon and stars above vanished as the shadow consumed her light.