The burgeoning power was great. I felt energetic, once I stopped feeling like I was going to burst.

  I couldn’t focus on exploring the new Affix. Not when I had monsters to kill. With Khagnio still dealing with his second monster, I smashed into my second too, bringing my mace down with crushing force. I was pretty sure I lacked the pure, destructive physical firepower that Khagnio possessed, but I had other things going for me.

  Lightshade created more burning afterimages of me. Wherever I rammed in, my brilliant little mirror-image followed, enhancing every damage I dealt. At the last point of impact, just before I brought my mace down, the afterimage conjoined with me entirely.

  I felt the energy within the Lightshade clone infuse into me, running like electricity along my muscles. When the mace blow finally fell, I didn’t just destroy the monster’s head.

  My strike left an enormous, sparking crater at the point of impact, half of the bug-dragon’s body squashed entirely into a gory mess.

  Of course, I hadn’t forgotten about my other Aspects. Manifestation brought up jets of Flare to burn through another monster’s wounds. It tried to fight back, but its bulky body was the opposite of mobile.

  I just had to be wary of the way its head and tail lashed out. Quick blows with my mace took care of that with Granular Control helping to embed tiny chunks that I could then weigh down. After that, killing was just a matter of time. Not that it took long when I was joined by my Lightshade afterimage.

  I didn’t use up all of the casts just then. Keeping some in reserve for later might prove handy.

  “How in the Pits did you kill as many of the monsters as I did?” Khagnio asked after a while, when we were both standing in the middle of a ton of monstrous corpses. He was staring at the group I had brought down on my own, at my mace soaked in their blood and gore. “I’m Gold-ranked for crying out loud.”

  “That’s the fun part,” I said with a grin. “So am I now.”

  That just made the Scalekin stare even harder.

  The little moment of joy evaporated when the dark threads linking the monsters started thickening. So far, during the battle itself, the connecting threads hadn’t done much. I had been wondering what exactly their purpose was.

  Now, the threads were sparking, shivering. Drawing in energy, going by the way little blobs moved within the threads. I needed a second to parse the directionality, to try and figure out what was going on. It looked like the little blobs were moving into the monstrous corpses, quickly healing the bodies back to their living condition.

  They were coming from all over too. Not just farther off, where the black threads were disappearing to, but from the smaller bugs around us as well. I stared as hordes of them literally dissolved into dark energy before the thread connecting them carried the newly formed lumps to the seemingly dead bugs.

  “These things,” Khagnio said. “They’re regenerating.”

  I cursed. “Now’s the time we got going. Drop the blood.”

  For once, Khagnio didn’t argue. This was just further proof that we weren’t capable of the brute force necessary to take the Blight Swarm down. Even if we could fight and win moment to moment, it would still wear us down until we were ground to dust. So, we just dropped quarts of our blood we had gathered up the previous day, then hurried off.

  No sooner had we started dashing away than yet another proof landed at the exact location we had been moments ago. A monstrous, armoured bug arrived from the sky, crashing down with so much force that the ground cracked, dust pelting up into the air.

  I got the briefest look at it as I continued running. It stood bipedally on powerful, dinosaur-like legs, but four thick arms jutted out of its shoulders, bearing claws long enough to stab right through me. Its head was covered in horned crests, its mouth filled with a jagged mishmash of teeth like the gullet of snapping turtle. Even its body was weird. Sleek and muscular in a way I didn’t think I could associate with actual insects.

  As the monster crashed down, the bugs that had been recovering—resurrecting, if I was being honest—got up. Then they roared and came after us.

  “That’s, uh, probably beyond my paygrade,” Khagnio said.

  I wasn’t surprised at his loss of bravado at the sight of the monster, which had quickly leaped away after a moment of inspection of its surroundings. Somewhere in the far distance, and thankfully well away from the temple, I heard it land. It was no surprise that Khagnio wasn’t afraid of retreating. Being a seasoned adventurer meant knowing one’s limits.

  That bug-monster had probably exceeded the limits of everybody I knew save the Councillors themselves.

  Khagnio and I smashed into the rear of the monsters attacking the temple. There wasn’t really anyone left to defend it. Not at the same level as there had been before. Just Atholaine and Jalais doing their best to lead some humans and Scarthralls against the invading bugs, trying to stick to their plan.

  “Move!” I shouted as I killed a horde of ants after first making them panic with a burst of Concentration-powered Flare. “It’s time we got to our actual destination!”

  Atholaine and Jalais’s eyes had widened. First with hope at seeing me return, then with growing panic at seeing the army of monsters hounding our back.

  “Already time?” Atholaine asked. Not far from her, Khagnio took care of the nearby scythe-clawed mantis monsters trying to carve everybody into mincemeat.

  I nodded as I gathered up all the defenders and forced them to get going. At the same time, I pulled out one of the runes I had gotten yesterday and crushed it, channelling Sacrifice as well. “It’s time to end the Swarm.”

  [ Sacrifice

  You have Sacrificed 1 [Minor] Rune of Haste. Windfall bonus activated.

  Reward: Aura of Haste boosts Agility by 9 ranks in a radius of 8 meters for 3 hours and 40 minutes. ]

  The effect on our movement speed was immediately noticeable. Every step covered a far larger distance than before, especially when we were running. Despite the monsters chasing us, everybody else we gathered up from around the temple all cheered.

  The plan was progressing and that was exciting.

  I looked back as we hurried onwards. The temple was disappearing from view, the monsters swarming it before long. I could at least take a little solace in the fact that the Blight Swarm didn’t care for it one bit.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  “The Ritual didn’t activate,” someone brought up after we had gathered up the second set of defenders. They were further into Ring Four, slowly making their way to the gate to Ring Three, forging their way through the battle.

  “That’s fine,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. The overall plan is more important than needing to execute every single part of it perfectly.”

  Having the Ritual of War successfully go off would provide another tremendous boost, and it would do so to everyone, not just me. Of course the others wanted it. They didn’t have the Paths and Aspects I did, didn’t have the strength I possessed.

  But I wasn’t dismissing their concerns. Ultimately, our main goal wasn’t to fight off the Swarm. We couldn’t. We just needed to lead them to where they themselves were headed.

  Behind us the monsters grew more ravenous, more numerous, hungrier and hungrier for our blood. For our deaths. The more of us that gathered together, the more the bugs seemed to be determined to kill us. We weren’t simply running, of course. There were a lot of insects along the way too, creatures jumping in from all around or diving at us from on high.

  Thankfully, the defenders we had picked to engage the Swarm were more than strong enough to repel them. When they weren’t, Khagnio or I stepped in.

  What would happen if that overpowered monster the two of us had spotted dropped in? I didn’t have the slightest idea. If things got to that point, one of us would need to remain behind and keep the thing busy while the other one saw to it that the plan succeeded.

  The next group wasn’t where they were supposed to be. We were about two-thirds of the way to Ring Three and there was no sign of them.

  “Pits-cursed, Pits-screwing, Pits-humping bastards!” Sigrouen shouted. “Where are they?”

  The obvious answer was that they were dead. I could see the evidence of fighting. Even when we arrived, we had to kill a few bugs gorging on the human corpses—fresh bodies—lying nearby.

  The words I said next tasted like ash. “We keep going. Come on.”

  Nobody argued. Nobody said anything. Even the precious seconds we had wasted here just wondering if there was even a single person who could be saved had allowed our pursuers to draw a lot closer than was ideal. The Scarthralls at the rear were already fending them off.

  “We’ll need to make a stand!” Atholaine shouted. “Get ready!”

  I noticed what she had spotted before me. Her eyes were really good. A wall of monstrous bugs was standing in our way, almost like they were waiting for us.

  Almost like whoever controlled them was aware of our plan.

  I stepped up. “Back me up, Khagnio. We can’t waste time here.”

  Most of the monsters were familiar. Armoured beetles. Mastiff-sized wasps. Things I could take on. Enemies I could destroy.

  I didn’t smash in with my mace. There were too many of them. Instead, Manifestation created flashes of Flare and Gravity Orbs, combining the two together with Massless Interaction. The monsters roared, hissed, shrieked, then thundered at us. Everyone tensed, ready for battle. I didn’t let the enemy get anywhere close.

  Field Manipulation with a mix of Siphon and Infusion dragged out a ton of mana from my core. I was tempted to Sacrifice the casts, but there was no time. It wasn’t necessary either.

  The weird field of intense gravity and anti-gravity not only broke the ground to send up various sized rocks, but they also affected the bugs just as severely. Legs snapped, carapaces cracked, eyes were squished. The monsters screamed as they were forced to a stop.

  Huh. I should have tried my twisted Field Manipulation on live enemies before. As in, create the warped field after trapping monsters to the ground.

  Obviously, I couldn’t create fields directly on living things.

  My move hadn’t taken care of all the bugs, but that was fine. I had the Gravity Orbs loaded with debris and with Flare stored within them. Field Manipulation on the smaller of the orbs together, with Granular Control helping to join them together.

  When the farther monsters lunged in, I released the Flares within the Gravity Orbs as well as flinging the orbs where I could with Field Manipulation. Not all of them were situated right to hit the bugs properly but that was fine. I had most of the entire field covered in front of me. With a staccato of thumping detonations, the Gravity Orbs burst to release deadly, burning shrapnel.

  My attack tore through the monsters, reducing them to a rain of green blood, crushed chitin, and pulped flesh with no trouble.

  Well, the trouble was that even that didn’t take care of all of them. I was about to jump in physically but there was no need. As the remnants of the Swarm descended on us, everyone else around me roared out a battle cry and charged the remaining monsters, emboldened by the way I had torn apart the bugs’ formation and left them in disarray.

  It really was short work after that. Led by the Scarthralls smashing into the monsters—I had to wonder how many of them had broken through to Silver by now—the Swarm, still stronger on-paper, was ripped to shreds.

  “Pits, mageling,” Khagnio said. “Leave some for the rest of us.”

  “You could have just joined them, you know,” I pointed out.

  He shook his head. “Don’t be silly. I need my moment of amazingness, just like you. We’re Gold-ranked, after all.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  We got moving quickly. The gate was close by, as was an even more intense battle up ahead. Even from this distance, I could see several gigantic bugs besieging the wall protecting Ring Three. How had monsters that huge gotten past us? I hadn’t even seen them before.

  And then I spotted the black threads. Oh, right. Those weren’t singular creatures that had somehow sneaked past the defenders of Ring Four. At least, not to start with.

  The black threads were just using the bodies of the dead to construct more massive monsters.

  Our next meetup was also missing. We killed the monsters lurking there, but there was no sign of them anywhere. This was starting to almost physically hurt. I took out my annoyance on a nearby ant, smashing its skull in with my mace. Powerful though my Path-granted Aspects were growing, few things beat the pure, gory satisfaction of a mace to a face.

  But just as we were about to get going, heavy hearts or no, a shout made us pause.

  “Hold a moment!” Vandre shouted. “I think I—yes, it’s them!”

  A second later, the missing group appeared from a side alley, led by none other than Hamsik.

  “What’s with the surprised looks?” the half-vampire said upon seeing our amazed faces and spilled tears in a few cases. He focused on me. “You really thought I wouldn’t make it?”

  “Well… we’ve had a discouraging experience or two.”

  His face darkened at that. For the first time, he sported a few wounds, his clothes scorched at places, dirt smudging his hair and caking his exposed skin at certain spots. For the first time, he didn’t look like a pristine noble.

  “Let’s go!” I yelled. “We’re nearly halfway there.”

  Getting into Ring Three was going to prove a major challenge. The siege was well and truly taking the entirety of Ring Three by storm. If we had allowed most of the Swarm past us in the last round of the invasion, this time, we really hadn’t bothered stopping any of the monsters. That meant practically the whole Swarm had been allowed to rush straight to Ring Three.

  The gate we reached was basically invisible in the press of the bugs trying to force their way through. There was no way we were making it past that.

  Not unless we forced our way in.

  “We’re not going for any alternative routes, are we?” Atholaine asked. Not with trepidation, but with relish.

  I nodded. “We’re breaking through. Right here.”

  “And we’re getting that Ritual buff,” Vandre said.

  He had a point there. If we shattered through this gate, it would be a massive victory. Possibly big enough to get the finicky Ritual to recognize our efforts.

  “But… how?” Jalais asked.

  Good question. Especially since Khagnio was shooting me glares that he really didn’t want to get involved in some sort of siege the besiegers manoeuvre. That wasn’t his MO.

  Plus, whatever we attempted wasn’t going to be easy. More and more of the monsters were flying in overhead or rushing in through other roads to join the siege, adding to the ones already present, not only replacing the fallen monsters but increasing the number of besiegers. A storm of many Aspects was trying to repel them, but the black threads were acting like a buffer.

  There was no one present who could deal with it. Enormous pillars of light continued spearing into the sky, a starburst of explosions dotting the cloudy heavens as the superpowers of Zairgon were still busy dealing with the titanic threats of the Blight Swarm.

  This was up to us.

  “We don’t have time,” someone shouted from the back. “They’re almost here!”

  I cursed. Right. The monsters we were leading to the Nether Vein were almost upon us as well. We had no time to waste.

  “When I give the signal, ram through and keep going,” I said. “Don’t forget to use the blood.”

  “What are you going to do?” Vandre asked.

  “Destroy those black threads. They’re the main thing keeping the Blight Swarm together, so we break it down, then the whole little siege collapses.”

  “Yes, but how?”

  I focused on my thrumming core, on the Ignition Charges I had built up over the last couple of days. It wasn’t Gravity or even Flare that I focused on. Instead, Illumination activated.

  A tiny sprite came into being, making everybody around me gawk a little. There was a difference between simple motes or manifestations of light and an actual, living sprite made of a Illumination Aspected threads twisted, sewed, and otherwise conjoined into a complicated shape that represented a sprite.

  My little orb of power was ready to smash into the besieging Blight Swarm. And so was I. When my self-made sprite shot in, it started burning through the threads.