My aim was true. The red Gravity Orb—or maybe I should rename it to Blood Orb, considering Vandre’s contributions—fired off straight at my target. The insect did try to change the angle of its descent a little bit, but it was nowhere near enough.

  It screeched out as the Gravity Orb connected. For one, the way the orb twisted matter around once it was close enough ripped into the monster’s thorax. For another, the blood Vandre had dripped onto the Gravity Orb now acted with its full, ferocious might. A storming net of black lightning overtook the monster, intensifying its pained screech as it plummeted.

  I glanced at Vandre with an appreciative smile. He grinned back with all his fangs. For someone who still hadn’t hit Silver yet, his blood had definitely packed a punch.

  We couldn’t rest on our laurels. There were more monsters flying. They were the same deep blue variants we had just shot out of the air. Not all of them were falling on the temple, but every single one that was close enough got another lightning-blood-drenched Gravity Orb in the face.

  Vandre and I weren’t the only ones defending against the bug bombing. Hamsik was present closer to the ground, but that was still enough for him to shoot several monsters out of the air with his Icon gun.

  Then there were the Anymphea. Well, was the Anymphea. I was grateful they had been able to spare one of them because even that was enough. A little storm cloud was shooting out bolts of lightning and howls of wind, both of which did fantastically to prevent the monsters from landing anywhere close.

  Sadly, despite the efficacy of our measures, we weren’t killing the monsters outright. Some died from the fall, but several were able to recover or just dodged our attacks to land elsewhere.

  That was where the rest of the defenders came in. Armed with torches, torch-poles, spears, and so on, they rushed in to take care of the fallen bugs. The flames were there to keep them safe against the smaller—regular-sized—monsters, while the actual weapons would do the hacking and stabbing needed to take care of the bug beasts.

  Their success was a lot more mixed, but I’d worry about that later. Right now, I needed to deal with the bombing insects.

  “Cultist Ross…” Vandre said with a bit of worry. I thought he was running out of mana or something, but his gaze was actually fixed on street level.

  I looked down and winced. With the aerial assault abating for a bit, I had time to take in how the threat was changing elsewhere. Actually, the airborne aspect of the Blight Swarm hadn’t relented. It had just taken on a different form.

  Now, the insects were once again buzzing right through the Ring to attack us head on. They flew over the rooftops, soaring a dozen or so feet over the ground to ram into our defences.

  Thankfully, these ones weren’t too big. Just the oversized versions of regular bugs, similar to the wasps I had dealt with earlier. The defenders ought to be able to handle it. But it wasn’t long before a new problem was arising.

  I was once again focusing on the dive-bombing bugs above us, and also wondering how I could help those below, when I heard Vandre gasp.

  “Oh no,” he said in growing alarm. “Cultist Ross!”

  I was already looking. A new threat was arising out of the bugs that were already present.

  My earlier expectations had been met. The defenders had handled the swarm of insects approaching. All the practice runs on how best to defend, all the drills, all the effort from the Scarthralls taking the lead with their superior powers, all the buffs from the runes and rituals I had helped acquire, all of that was raising our collective ability to fight back.

  And that was working great. The defenders hadn’t lost heart, even with the rising intensity of the Blight Swarm. Despite the wounds and casualties, they had continued fighting and repelling the monstrous insects.

  The problem was that a lot of the dead bugs were rising again. Not resurrecting themselves, which would have been terrible, but in a wholly different way.

  All the smaller insects that hadn’t been killed yet—and there were a ton of them still alive and buzzing and being a general nuisance—were gathering together into one mass. I wasn’t even completely sure of what I was seeing. It looked like they were coalescing together into one, much larger monster.

  They were tied together by threads of darkness, the same kind of blackness I had seen bubbling in the corpses of the other bugs. Blackness that was eerily similar to the kind I had seen in the Nether Vein.

  The misshapen, undead creature, easily at least forty feet tall, took the form of something like a fat dinosaur. Then it roared, making my ears ring.

  “That thing…” Vandre shook his head, eyes wide, face stricken with rising panic. “How is something like that even possible? How are we going to beat them if they just keep coming and—”

  “Vandre,” I said sharply. He looked at me, face frozen mid-word. I had started overlooking that he was pretty young, almost Aurier’s age. But now, it was plain to see “We’re some of the strongest, most capable people in Ring Four.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Look at this.” I raised my hand, showed him how they still shook just a little. “It doesn’t matter what we’re feeling in the moment. Right now, we need to do everything we can to survive.”

  He swallowed visibly, then hastily nodded.

  I looked back to see the huge insect-conglomerate monster take its first swipe. Most defenders had already gotten out of the way, though a couple were thrown off their feet at the shock of the impact. That made the others retreat farther.

  Problem was that there was nowhere to go. We were at the temple, which was effectively functioning as our final stand. If we fell here…

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  I set my face in a scowl. We were not falling here.

  “Come on,” I said to Vandre. “We’re going down.”

  I jumped off. While I could have asked him to remain on the roof to try and tackle the monsters still diving down, he had been acting as support so far so his own efficiency at it would probably not be great. Instead, I had a different plan in mind.

  “Hamsik!” I shouted as I reached street level. “Focus on just the divers. I’ll handle things here.”

  He looked like he was of a mind to ask what I had planned, but there wasn’t time for talking. So he just shot upwards to the roof to focus on the aerial monsters I was no longer paying attention to.

  One of the reasons Hamsik had remained at street level was so he could then deal with both the bombing monsters and the monsters simply flying over at street level. All the oversized mantises, wasps, winged ants, beetles coming over the ruined and abandoned houses of Ring Four. With him gone, it was now my turn to deal with them.

  Them, and the significantly larger monster made from the combination of black threads, flying critters, and the corpses of the fallen.

  So, I used another Ignition Charge.

  [ Ignition Charge

  Ignition Charge empowers Aspect of Gravity. Charges remaining: 1

  Gravity: Orbit ]

  As blackish purple threads emerged from my body, I didn’t focus on anything. Not yet. First, I channelled Sacrifice.

  “You won’t break us,” I growled as I stepped past the defenders.

  Sacrifice sent out the white threads to alight on the darker mana strands from my Gravity Ignition Charge, burning them away in a second.

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Moderate] Cast of 1 Ignition Charge: Orbit. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward: Effect of next Ignition Charge is raised by 4x. Recharge rate of subsequent Ignition Charge raised to 4x until singular recharge is complete. ]

  This was a total gamble. But with the forces we were up against, I didn’t have room to reserve anything.

  I then used my last Ignition Charge. For now. With the recharge cooldown now a quarter of what it had been, I could hope that I’d receive yet another Ignition Charge before the end of the battle.

  Though now I wasn’t sure how much time had passed since the battle had started. A few hours, maybe? I wasn’t certain.

  Right now, I needed to wipe out the threats in front of me.

  “Get back!” I yelled at the rest of the defenders. “Just keep the rest busy for a minute. I’ll take care of this one. Then I’ll destroy the others too.”

  I wasn’t saying it just to bolster their morale. I meant it. If my plan worked, if what I intended came into being as I hoped, then I would win. We would be victorious.

  My mana core whirred faster and faster, making my body feel like an overworked generator. It wasn’t just amplified Ignition Charge making all the Threaded Reinforcement strands meld with my body, my whole body buzzing with growing power, like every atom was vibrating faster than before. It was also the fact that I was channelling Field Manipulation too.

  I had to be fast. The large, dark monster was approaching. A mix of Infusion and Siphon cracked the ground around me, threads of Gravity sparking around me as broken rocks and shattered debris took to the air.

  At the same time, I focused on Manifestation to draw on both Flare and Gravity. A wave of heat energy turned the entire area into a broiling oven, Concentration and Capacity holding back the explosive bursts for now as sweat was beading all over me, turning my clothes damp, heavy, and so uncomfortable.

  Not that I could focus on it with the threat in front of me.

  The monster roared and charged. Claws of pure night reached out, droning in the air with a sound that tried to grind my eardrums to mush.

  But I had worked fast enough. As soon as the monster’s claws touched the heat, they sizzled, and though the creature didn’t instantly jerk back, its carcass-body started burning. I forced even more Flare out, daring it to come closer and vaporize itself.

  It was honestly all I could do to focus on multiple things at once at a time like this because I was straining to create Gravity Orbs again. Not one, not two, but several.

  They materialized in the air around me, immediately starting to gather the rubble I had sent up with the help of Field Manipulation. I had made the orbs much larger than the one I had used against the worm-ant. This time, they were each at least as big as my whole head, which allowed them to hold onto a lot more matter than my last Gravity Orb.

  My manifested Flare Aspect all around the area was heating up my personal, stationary satellites. Some of the debris had caught fire too, while the pure rocks and earth slowly started to glow as they were baked warmer and warmer.

  The monster was still trying to advance and get to me through the barrier of roasting aura, but it had slowed down considerably.

  “That’s enough,” I growled.

  I jumped up, my weight vastly reduced with Siphon. Once I was a few storeys high, I let my empowered Ignition Charge finally take effect.

  Leashes of sparking dark Gravity took a hold of all the Gravity Orbs I had summoned up. They rose up with me, beginning their orbit in no time, revolving faster and faster until they moved as fast as a blender.

  The monster roared up at me. It was still trying to attack. Especially now that there was no pesky scorching barrier to push it back.

  Through the corner of my eyes, I caught Vandre assisting Atholaine as they fought off several mantises. They were taking heavy wounds but were using their vampiric ability to regenerate and keep pushing. On the other side, Lujean led his squad of Scarthralls to clash against the huge beetle-like monsters. They were aided by the spears and fire from the other defenders.

  Above me, Hamsik was still firing away at the diving monsters. I heard the thunder of the Anymphea’s summoned storm as well.

  We were all fighting as hard as we could. We had to make it count.

  I had to succeed.

  As the humongous, misshapen, black-threaded monster charged at me, I dived towards it to meet it head on. Of course, I never connected with its body. I didn’t need to swing my mace even once. The Ignition Charge did all the work for me.

  My little satellites were spinning around me at multiple different radii so fast, they were basically blurring in my sight. This incredible speed didn’t abate.

  Not even when the Gravity Orbs struck the monster.

  Massive, overheated, burning little moons of rocks and debris tore through the black threads and the insect bodies all mashed up together. The monster screeched out with its truck-sized mouth, but even that didn’t last long. More of my Gravity Orbs smashed their way through the conjoined creature, leaving its hodgepodge body burning in their wakes.

  I didn’t stop. The Sacrifice reward had stated that the Ignition Charge’s effect had been raised by four times. That meant I could push it harder, faster, for longer too. That was exactly what I proceeded to do.

  Orb after orb smacked in with greater and greater power, ripping the monster apart before it even had a chance to react. The big, bad, terrifying conglomerate creature was shredded to pieces.

  The rear parts of it even tried to escape, breaking off the main body to try and get away. Not on my watch. I called on Flare again, this time combining my Manifestation Augmentation with Concentration to draw on the burning blaze of the monster’s shattering body and the warmth of the Gravity Orbs to create burning pockets farther ahead of me.

  Some small swarms of the bugs still managed to escape, but not without suffering some burns along the way.

  And after leaving behind the broken corpses now turning to smoky ash.

  I breathed in harshly. There were more monsters engaging the other defenders. More bastards rushing across Ring Four and sailing through the air to assault us. I growled, then rammed in to shred, smash, and burn them all.