Chương 184: AF Chapter 183 – Waves Crashing against an Ocean

Driving arrows and bolts punching in to whittle the Shaded down further were mostly ignored, as they were Summons, their target was right in front of them, and they didn't have time for a bunch of pointy sticks embedded in their quasi-material bodies. Then the first wave of Vulns and Imperils went off, as Aural Fires marked those afflicted as targets.

Ten seconds later, almost all of those Shaded were dead and Burning en vivus, and another wave was popping off among the Grievver Shredders, Void Lords, and Panumbris who were split between shooting, Casting, and chasing, the horde following Kris giving many targets of opportunity for the Casters to basically point at and say, "Die!"

"Tremble, oh oHHHH, Oh, Tremble, Tremble… We pointed, you died, your lives swept aside, And this time you'll not return. The Land now feasts, on Shaded and beasts, Where vivus grows, you'll Burn! TREMBLE, WE COME!" Of the threescore marguls and more with this attacking force, none made it alive to the melee lines as I pulled back into them, well ahead of Kris.

The spearmen and paramount tanks rose from the ground, a sudden line of steel blocking all those creatures from chasing after Kris as she zipped in front of them. Then they charged, and it all dissolved into some pretty nasty fighting. Mono-focused on their fleeing target, the Shaded almost drove themselves into the Spears, Axes, and Swords cutting across their paths and into them.

Nets were hurled, and grievvers went tumbling as their long and spindly limbs caught in the mesh and sent them thrashing wildly, an ignominious fate for creatures that could spin webs themselves. The Vulns were still going off, and marked Shaded were dying with incredible speed as they did. The Shaded still hadn't shifted Casting targets from Kris…

who had actually looped around behind the throng following her, cutting her way past stragglers who inherited undead arrows on all sides of her, Fire Dragon opportunity attacks from a multitude of triggers basically surrounding her in a killing spiral of Lost Light as she kept moving. The hyper-focused Shaded turned to follow her, ignoring the way they were being run over, bound, and wolfpacked to death as they really, really tried to kill her.

She swooped in a circle in the middle of them, continuing to move, and the killing black rain of arrows from the undead was like a dark waterfall coming across the Shaded chasing after her, while she wove between those who dared to stop to Cast or snipe, leaving blazing scars on them as she did. There was no War Magic on our side, it was a waste of time. The Vulns and the Imperils were far more efficient uses of mana as the melee and archer companies chewed their way through the Shaded.

I was finding nobody needing any Heals, except Kris herself, who was being chopped and grazed by blows delivered with enough strength and power to exceed her copious Damage Reduction and actually do some injury to her. Silver Heal Others flashed into her faster than her Fast Healing and Regeneration could deal with her injuries, which only made her more willing to draw the enemy in and start really, really unleashing some hostility on them.

Opportunist, Sword beats Fist, Thorned Stance, and Riposte were filling the air around her with multiple attacks delivered with a murderous speed only a few of those there had ever witnessed before. Targets were Vulned or Imperiled, with our mages now concentrating on those delivering ranged attacks as inheritors of many archer volleys, while the melees closed in savagely on the scrum now surrounding Kristie and dragged down the Shaded from behind with ruthless speed and efficiency.

I kept her alive as she chopped into everything, now surrounded, lashing out in all directions with Whirlwinds, her Lost Light looked like burning, glowing water as it tore through the Shaded within reach of her. Limbs of shades and pincers of grievvers were going flying, the occasional meep! could be heard as a zefir that probably thought it could sneak in was bisected, and everything turned into a massive, mad pile-on on top of Princess and Warlord Kristie.

The Bursting Shardrays swallowed the whole horde of them in overlapping Areas of Effect which covered basically a hundred Shaded in a whole blast of intersecting damage and healthy spell Kickers that blazed and ate at them. The display looked very impressive, yet it didn't actually kill anything… but the Slow that came with it rippled out through the packed numbers of creatures and made damn sure they weren't going to be much of a threat to someone moving as fast and as sure as Kris was.

Then it was just dumping ranged Heal Others on her and making sure she didn't die as the melees waded through the pack, impaling all the Shaded now blazing en vivus and with half a dozen other energies. The Vulned shade archers were mowed down by pointed volleys of arrows following bursts of magic enshrouding them, rendering their armor porous or magnifying the slashing damage that came arcing in to chew at their quasi-real bodies made from shadowstuff.

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. At least one arrow in every cluster of them was trailing vivic fire. When those shades dropped, they all started Burning urgently and cheerfully.

Kris came wading out of the pile of bodies chopped, impaled, and Burning in a vivic bonfire. Her clothes were quite ragged, and she should have been covered head to toe in gore, except all of that was Burning vivic too. So she had the mists streaming off her, eating away any sign of Shaded being butchered atop her.

Quaver was still humming the Trembling Song, and notes of it were playing off the radiant force of the Lost Light like it was a water harmonica, sweeping over the field with a grandly murderous air that nobody could ignore, least of all the dead Shaded driven nearly berserk by it. It almost distracted people from Kris' eighty percent nudity. It was rather a lot of skin to be showing on our Warlord, so I Mended it up for her with a sigh and a shake of my head.

"Two more of this size, three more of decreasing size thereafter, and then we're down to trickles," I reminded her as her leathers came back together.

"Make a floating choke point, get the Archers up on Disks with Casters behind them picking targets," she said instantly, turning around to head out. The next wave would be about a mile away right now. I just sighed and nodded, the first stone stela already rising to block off running attackers and funnel them into narrow channels where they could be killed.

The lines were quickly reforming, while the mages dropped into group Aurora Stances and formations, pulling in the mana as fast as they dared while trying to recover what they had spent so urgently and freely. Three big fights, three more fights rapidly decreasing in size, and then everything would sort itself out, judging by the Mole reports.

We just had to pace ourselves and use every moment wisely, while fighting against the fatigue and lack of sleep that came with having fought for more than a day straight against the relentless waves of the Shaded. There was nothing for it but to keep going, now. We were doing it, and had done it. Rest could come when they weren't all needed to fight.

"Tremble, oh oHHHH, Oh, Tremble, Tremble… Life be such a bore, Without massacre and gore, So a Hag's come to keep you happy all. Delivering the blood and doom Filling Fate's wondrous Loom The lesson: we aren't the only ones who'll Fall! TREMBLE, WE COME!"

"Well done, Warlord, well done. Now everyone knows you have nothing to see there." Kris just chuckled wetly as she waited, cleansing flames burning away Shaded corruption trying to eat at her, while aghast warriors looked on at just how chopped apart, bloody, and impaled she was, and yet she was still walking, despite looking less alive than most of the undead.

The ripe, rich blood helped the macabre image, and the fact most of her clothing had been shredded off of her only made it obvious just how punishment she'd taken from this third batch.

"Yeah, but they're broken now," she replied to me, a combination of Healing magic and her own regenerative capabilities rapidly reattaching muscles, pulling organs back into place, absorbing blood, closing her skin, reforming an ear lost somewhere and an eye impaled by a foreleg-spear from a Shredder, and otherwise removing her from -34 or so negative Health to a rapid positive number and Soak restoring with speed on my end.

We weren't advancing, as the mages were dangerously low on mana at this point, and there was a lot of exhaustion among everyone fighting. But that was fine, as the next group was going to be less than half the size of this one. Using this Choke Hold location, with even a sparse amount of the preliminary killing and support before the main fight, this wasn't going to be a contest at all.

Vivic mists were swirling thickly as the Shaded Burned away faster than if they were soaked in oil, and the beach was covered almost knee-high in cool and revitalizing white mists.

"They'll be a quarter-dead before they hit arrow range," Kris promised, gesturing to me. I hopped onto a Disk, Quaver took control of it with a ding-ting! Note rising from her, and Kris just laughed as she ran away, totally ignoring the fact that a minute before she looked like someone waking up on an autopsy table. The Mick watched us go as he attended to his own people, and not incidentally was gathering up hundreds of arrows to re-issue to the many archers who'd fired off quiverloads full of them by now.

As nobody could so easily haul around a thousand arrows or more, tracking arrow usage was another of those tedious things people had been forced back into after the Fall, and someone who could pick up all those arrows with magic was appreciated. He still hadn't given up his primary tank position, and the other paramounts were all dead envious of him. In terms of hacking things dead, he definitely led everyone else on the field, and that was without even trying to show off.

Also, taking on so much of the load meant his team was fresher than any of the others, and with the Power of Ten training, killed twice as fast as any other squad, too. The Royal Scouts were getting a reputation all of their own now.

Master Ben Ten gestured, and the Moon Legion swept around to the south and east, while the Freeholder Legion with its greater numbers likewise spread both north and west. Companies separated, gaps big enough to help the encirclement evident, but there was no chance the enemy was going to use them, after all. As soon as they saw the hostile undead, there would instead be fighting. The shades slain would be rapidly reborn, but the living forces who could wield vivus freely were exhausted and needed a breather.

Both he and MacNaill had squads of living among them who could administer the vivus to the shades they brought down, and make sure such didn't return if the numbers were small enough. Those areas of the battlefield would be dangerous for the undead to tread upon, so they had to be careful to center all the corpses and contain the unwhite fire… but that wouldn't be too hard, either.

The crazed Shaded creatures were still very powerful and supernaturally tough, but they were now vastly outnumbered, and the undead were perfectly happy to gang-tackle them, pin them, and plunge in a lot of knives at close range to kill the things. Whether they were cursed souls being recycled by whatever power was backing them, or newly agglomerated spirits enslaved to the will of their creator by their own programming and false memories, it really didn't matter.

With their numbers so reduced, the undead could contain them easily, and indeed, Master Ben's followers of the sword were looking forward to putting their new skills to use. It was just a shame he'd had to die to learn of these Seven Dragons and their wondrous applications, finally wielding ki once he was no longer alive to truly appreciate it.