June 20th, 2018.

  It is only a few seconds later when Adrian lets his hands fall to his side. The portal slowly starts to fade behind him. Akira does one last sweep of the shore and then he turns back. “Reinforcements should be coming. Just hold on for a little longer.” Then with a conjured step below his foot, he takes off into the air.

  The team only has a few seconds to see him appear in front of Adrian. He splits into three different Akira's then he starts attacking the man in close combat. That is all they have a chance to see, then they are back to fighting what is in front of them. At least now they know that there is an end to the swarm.

  The team sticks to the same game plan. Any time an enemy appears that is tier 2, they send Rocco with Rurgrim and Carl. They are just hoping that nothing shows up that is stronger. Dashing forward Hinata uses her own, much weaker, Foxfire to combat the thralls that are pressuring the front line. She has Gabi to one side and when the three men go to fight the higher tier enemies, Luna steps up beside her. She has no physical skills, but her own sound-based abilities are great for creating room.

  Ducking a swipe of the thralls claws she stabs her sword into the monster's stomach. Kicking the thrall off her sword Hinata ducks under the swipe of another. Before it gets close Alli sends a light spear over her shoulder.

  Alli continues to use different elements in her attacks. She is trying to find the one that deals the most damage to the thralls, right now she is stuck between light, ice, and just plain force. Not being able to decide and enjoying the variety, Alli uses all of them in a cycle. Pushing forward the party starts moving closer to the water.

  Arisah, Rurgrim, and Alli are all working on keeping the enemies from flanking their sides. The rest are all pushing forward. Surprising to most it is Bibbin who is doing the most to support their forward movement. He has spent lot of time working on his traps in the last few months. He has his storage pouch stuffed full of throwable traps.

  Stepping in front of Arisah he tosses a small ball forward, as it hits the ground it erupts into a sticky resin that quickly hardens. Five of the thralls in front are caught within the resin and are quickly dispatched by vines. Not needing to bind them she can focus all her effort on creating a dense vine and spearing them through the diaphragm.

  Quickly running to the other side BIbbin steps beside Gabi and tosses a different colored orb. This time it sails forward and creates a green haze, this haze starts to necrotize the bodies of the thralls. They are resistant but it weakens their flash. Gabi is able to more easily cleave into their bodies. The thralls are more difficult to kill because of their partially undead nature. Having high resistances due to their demonic taint doesn't help either.

  But Bibbin is continuously producing different traps that help them fight back. Helo is watching from the back and looks at him in surprise. Moving fast and stealthy even with his cane, he basically appears next to Bibbin. “Where did you get all those?” Helo asks as he is ducking under some kind of spit mucus. This causes Bibbin to flinch and look at him in fear. Helo doesn't understand it, Bibbin is used to all the other party members. But he is uncomfortable around Helo.

  The fired mucus splashes behind him and covers the ground. Only a few seconds later he can see noxious gas rising into the air, while the ground starts to sizzle.

  Looking up he meets the eyes of a creature that looks a lot like a dilophosaurus from that one movie where people are stupid enough to try and trap monsters for public viewing. As he makes eye contact the creature hisses loudly and the frills on the side of its head fan out.

  It truly is an intimidating little beast, but Helo doesn’t even flinch. He does prepare to strike at the beast, but before he can Hinata appears in front of him. This causes him some surprise. Usually, he can track her, even when she is under an illusion. She swipes out with her sword and lops of the monster's head. Blue flames and blood arc out in a beautiful display.

  She looks at him with a motherly glare. “You’re supposed to be in the back.” She points over his shoulder. Not sure how to react, he just nods his head dumbly and turns around. Facing the direction of the fired mucus he sees Bibbin kneeling and placing some of the mucus in a jar.

  “Well... That answers my question at least.” Helo just shakes his head and walks back to stand next to Aiko. “Sup.” He says while kicking rocks.

  Aiko just looks at him and shakes her head. “You look like a sad puppy.”

  Almost growling at her he manages to hold in his thoughts. I am not a dog. His own surprise is enough to wash away his annoyance. Where did that come from?

  Standing and staring at the fighting he realizes it came somewhere from his instincts. It wasn't a hatred for canines in general. But the concept of being compared to a dog just, irked him.

  Watching the fight, he is happy to see the growth in his team, well the heiresses team. Eventually they will be desperately needed. From what he has learned, the integration style that earth is under will happen in pseudo-waves. It won’t just start and stop. There will constantly be fighting and monsters. But the first wave will start out with a massive number of quickly leveling tier 1 monsters.

  They will have to help stabilize safe zones and protect who they can. Once the civilians can defend themselves, eventually tier 2 monsters will start appearing. It will be above all but the most powerful of earth natives to fight back. So, for most of the integration they will be protecting civilians from tier 2 attacks, while they keep themselves safe from tier 1.

  That is for the parties and town guards. At the same time all this is happening the clans will finally start maneuvering their armies to conquer the world. But Helo doesn’t have to be concerned with that, at least not much. That will be for when earth can protect itself from tier 2 monsters and he is at the peak of the tier.

  Back to the fight, the party is doing well holding their own. Everyone has grown over the last few months, and the rift break just solidified everyone's growth. Helo has been asleep for much of the last three days, but from what he heard everyone at least gained one level and increased a skill. It put them in a great place to start the school year. The noble children are expected to reach level 40 before entering. But most of their team is already there.

  Carl is a wall of metal that takes any hit with stern face. He does his job well and doesn't complain. He is the exact opposite of the dwarf. Rurgrim complains about everything, for as long as he can. But Helo can see the smirk on his face from behind his helmet as he smashes his hammer or axe on something’s face.

  Rocco is a stern as always. He still doesn't much like Helo. He has never actually had romantic interest in Hinata. It doesn't mean he isn't protective of her though. But he has seen how both Heiresses and their fathers treat him. Because of that he has grown to accept that Helo isn't leaving.

  The rest of the party are doing their jobs well. Arrows pierce high value targets, buffs and debuffs fall as needed, and walls made from grasping vines erupt from the ground to stop anyone from being outmaneuvered.

  Helo can only sigh from his place at the back of the fight. He wants to join, but the constant pain radiating from not just his body and mind, but from his every existence. Is a good enough reason for him to listen to the doctors and rest.

  From what they said the weight of his bloodline is too much for his body to handle in such large doses. It is breaking his body down and forcefully rebuilding it into a vassal that can contain what is locked within his heart. But the process is long and painful. That much Helo already knows. His awakening percent hasn't increased but he is excited to see what it shows when he is fully healed.

  Looking up in the sky Akira is battling the bat like Adrian. Their fight is filled with power that could wipe out their entire party with an accidental swing. Adrain has even tried to do so multiple times. But each time Akira interposes himself to keep them safe. After a few times, Adrian even started using Akira’s own selflessness to land more decisive blows.

  But from what little Helo can see of the fighting, Akira is slowly winning. Now Helo doesn't fully trust what he is seeing. Akira is a master of illusions. For all Helo knows the fighting is over and Akira is watching them finish off the summons. But he doubts that, he can feel energy waves that aren't Akira’s radiate down.

  Hearing a loud boom and the rustling of wind Helo’s head snaps to the side. Landing in a spray of dirt and blood Akira bounces off the ground and into the tree line. Looking up Helo can see Adrian floating in the air. One of his wings is torn in half and he is covered in blood. But he is still glaring down at them.

  Helo wonders why he doesn't finish them off, it takes a few seconds, but he realizes that Adrian is watching them fight his army, wants to use them to strengthen his army. They are killing the weakest thralls and when the more powerful one’s kill them, they will grow stronger.

  Up above Adrian starts gathering power into his fist. Surrounding his red glowing fist a magic circle appears. Then he starts to chant. “With the power of blood spilled and in honor of what is wasted, rise from the ground and give them a taste. ‘Wasted Blood Empowerment’.”

  Staring in confusion, Helo watches as all the blood that is surrounding Adrian starts to rise into the air. It is from himself, Akira and his fallen brother. But quickly the blood, that had already lost its vitality, starts to burn in the air. Only a few seconds later it is all burned away. Left behind is a bright red energy. That energy shoots forth and surrounds all his summons. As one each summon starts to move faster and hit harder.

  Up above Adrians is smiling with glee, he can feel as reinforcements are coming from the Kashiwagi territory. With his weakest summons killed off and his strongest now rising from the water. He is in a great position to deal a major blow and grow his army's strength. Plus, using the ‘Wasted Blood Empowerment’ means that even less of his summons will die in the fighting.

  Down below the party that was slowly pushing forward, is now being forced back. The no longer have the freedom to let Rocco, Carl and Rurgrim head out to kill the tier 2 monsters. All the tier 1 monsters are now boosted to pseudo–tier 2 strength and there are more tier 2 thralls rising from the water.

  As they are retreating Aiko is now having to work overtime to keep everyone standing. From behind them Helo hears coughing. Following the torn-up ground Helo can see a limping Akira appear from the trees. He has his sheathed sword in his hand and is using it much like Helo is using his cane.

  “Ahem, Achem.” Spitting to the side Akira looks up at his foe. “He used some kind of artifact to stun me. A dirty blow, but useful.” Pulling a potion from his ring he downs it and slowly stands up straighter.

  Looking over the fight Akira sighs. “The best thing I can do is finish him off. You all will need to hold on for another few minutes. Then reinforcements shall arrive.” Leaping back up Akira vanishes in a misty haze.

  Looking back down at his fighting allies they are forced to retreat faster and faster. The coast has a rocky ledge with a road traveling perpendicular to the coast. Past that is a tree line leading to the Kashiwagi area. Almost pushed to the trees Hinata yells out. “Where are our reinforcements?”

  Looking back, Helo still can’t see them. The party is getting tired, and their mana isn't infinite. About to respond to her he is distracted as a thorn the size of his palm impales itself into Arisah’s hip. Dropping his cane and running over Helo drops beside her.

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

  There is no bleeding, so Helo doesn’t want to take it out. But giving it just a light tug he sees as the flesh up pulled up with the thorn. Looking around Helo tries to find Aiko, but she is unconscious on the ground. She has blood leaking from the side of her head. Based on the rock that is clattering to the ground beside her, he can assume what happened.

  Getting up he scrambles over to Aiko and drags her toward Arisah. In the time it took him to do this, the front line is now retreating over top of him. With their healer and the person who was on crowd control unconscious, this just went from bad to worse. Injuries are starting to stack and some of the thralls are able to get to their sides. It won’t be long until they are surrounded.

  Kicking a thrall off her sword Hinata shouts, “Into the tree line!” Grabbing Rocco both of them turn to their fallen comrades. Hinata helps Helo get Arisah to her feet and Rocco throws Aiko on his shoulder.

  With the other fighters defending them they retreat into the tree line. Slowly stepping back everyone else carefully enters the tree. That is until Carl trips over a vine. Falling to his back Carl shouts out in shock and hits with a “Clang” of metal. It is only a second before the first thrall dives onto his knocked down form.

  “ARRRAHHHHHH!” Rurgrim shouts as he jumps forward. Carried by an earthen pillar he uses his own armor-plated self as a cannon ball. Tackling the thralls off Carl, he hits the ground behind him. The thralls are on him before he has a chance to react, but thankfully the man-sized cannonball had half a plan.

  His earthen pillar forms a wall and follows him over Carl. Somehow, he convinced his earth wall spell to not only launch him, but to leave the ground. In the air it turns into a mound of rock and crashes over Rurgrim, burying him in dirt. As a proud Apprentice Dwarven Smith he has never been afraid of a little cave in.

  Everyone shouts and pushes themselves harder to get Rurgrim free. Using the last of their mana, even Arisah who is on the ground with a massive thorn literally in her side touches the ground and the roots of the trees around them surge forth to push back the thralls that are still entering the tree line.

  As Carl gets to his feet and fights valiantly to reach his brother in arms, he swings his sword with a might he has never before experienced. He starts to glow with a dull yellow light, and his aura changes into that of a veteran knight using his own body to hold back those that would hurt his family. This is his first skill, ‘Knight Fealty’ in action. It increases his stats when he is acting on the orders of a lord or lady he is sworn to.

  But in this moment his skill evolved into rare tier, becoming ‘Knight’s Spirit’. The main aspect of the skill remains the same, his stats increase was raised. But now he also is guided by a knight that came before him. The aura from his skill, is the spirit of his late grandfather, as he guides his hand.

  Pushing forward into the fray Carl, bobs and weaves like a veteran warrior. He went from a common knight, to fighting like a Kings Guard. Every blow is meant to cripple or kill. His shield is used more like a weapon than to defend himself. His left hand almost acts separately from his right. Lashing out to bash heads before the thralls can even attack.

  Pushing even harder the dull yellow light seems to intensify. Then just before he gets to the rock pile a massive earthen spike burst out in front of his face. The yellow glow quickly fades, and Carl falls back again. Infront of him there is a sea of earthen spikes. From the center of the pile and laughing Rurgrim jumps out.

  “HAhahahh that is how we dwarves do it!” Raising his axe in the air, he is no longer holding a shield but his smithing hammer in his other hand. Turning around he finds Carl on the ground. “Well get up you lazy ass. We have killing to do!” Jumping off the rocks the dwarf lands with a thud, that is far louder than his small size would expect.

  Carl is flabbergasted and embarrassed as he rises to his feet. Behind him those that were still fighting took a moment to laugh at the scene. Even if it might be their last. Taking the second that Rurgrim’s attack gave them Alli runs up to Aiko with a healing potion. Pouring it down her throat nothing happens.

  It is Arisah who is lying beside her in pain that answers the question on her face. With a voice that slowly loses focus she says, “It’s the head wound. They take longer to... heal. Hehe. Heal.” Her eyes go unfocused and her head drops to the side.

  Helo flinchs from the pain but he activates his bloodline for only a second. Using his ‘Life Sight’ he looks into Arisah’s body. Her vitality was still high, she is a dryad so her vitality is naturally high, but she didn’t pass out from bloodloss. He didn’t have his sight on long so he couldn’t get a good read on what was potentially wrong. The only issue he found was the obvious, the thorn.

  Grabbing her clothes and pulling them aside, Helo makes a rip in her pants so he can get to the thorn. Being careful to conserve her modesty but still rushing he exposes the injury. Looking at it makes him groan. “Poison” Interanlly he is berating himself. He checked the wound earlier. He should have pulled out the thorn. Now it has been inside her for over a minute.

  All around him the party is fighting a furious battle. Aiko has yet to wake, but her bleeding has stopped, and everyone used the last of their mana to save Rurgrim, who happened to not need any saving.

  But Helo is fighting his own battle. Grabbing his knife, he creates a clean cut over the location of the barbs. With a gentle pull he starts to pull out the thorn. It comes out smoothly and when it is removed the wound starts to pump blood. To his dismay the blood is turning purple from the poison.

  Not sure what to even do about the situation Helo looks around, but he has nothing. He has no way to stop the bleeding or the poisoning. The only person who could, took a head wound and in knocked out. Helo even starts to blame himself for that. She got hit when he moved. If he was there, he probably would have sensed the blow.

  All around him the team is getting pushed back. The tree line is safe due to the wall of vines. To the left only a trickle of thralls can get through the earthen spears. But behind and the right are flooded with enemies. They were getting pushed further into the trees, but now they are getting pushed into the wall of vines.

  Carl is the first to fall. He is swarmed over and very quickly the rest start to fall. Those with heavy armor start to step up front and everyone does all they can. But the thralls are relentless. Helo wants to do something but any move he makes will cripple him. He could maybe kill five or six. But then he will be frozen in pain from his channels. Looking through his necklace, he tries to find something that will help.

  Pulling out random enchantments he starts to throw them. These were all failed projects. The kinds of things that if they are used, they will blow up. “Get the fallen!” He yells; everyone gives him an odd look because he is standing by the vine wall holding his enchanting stylus. But Hinata trusts him. Dashing forward she can see a small disk fly overhead. The disk lights up purple, then the light flickers out. A second later the disk explodes in a violent shock. More and more enchantments gets tossed out, all of them having random effects; Light, force, elements, even noises. But each one explodes like a mana bomb that is powerful enough to kill a weaker thrall or knock back a stronger one.

  By the time Helo is out the entire party is together with their back to the vine wall. They could jump over, but they would have to leave their unconscious comrades. At the same time, they could jump, but that is the direction the thralls were summoned from.

  Looking at one another with fear, sweat and blood on their faces they all nod. Might as well go down together. Gabi and Rocco step in front, they try to hide Hinata and Alli. An extra second might be enough for the reinforcements to arrive.

  Taking blow after blow, the two fighters hold their ground. It isn't long before they fall from blood loss. The rest of the party steps forward, they are led by the barely conscious Carl. After being force fed a health potion he woke up. Helo even with all his injuries steps forward. But to his surprise a barely lucid Arisah pulls him back. She mumbles something he can barely hear, “Keep... pr.i.ce al...ve.”

  Not sure what she said, he doesn't have the strength in his body to fight her pull. Falling back, he watchs as the thralls crawl over his comrades and launch themselves at Alli and Hinata.

  Shouting with fury Helo tries to find a way to help. His party members have all fallen or are being attacked and they have no strength left to fight. The only thing he can do that could help is the only thing he has never done. His new skill. ‘Negative Weakening’. It is a wild card, but his only option.

  Due to the damage to his body and channels his reserves are not full. But at the same time, having over 100 in both his Vitality and Will is more than most people, it is a lot for someone else in tier 1. Not even sure how the skill works, Helo starts to flood it with his energy. He cries out in pain as his physical energy starts to pour into the skill. Entering meditation to hide from the pain he can see as the energy gathers within his diaphragm. Along with the raging river of physical energy, a stream of mental energy flows as well. From what he can feel it is tainting his physical energy with some kind of curse like effect.

  Fighting through the pain and ignoring the feeling of his energy channels being shredded he keeps pushing. On the outside everyone is giving their last stands. Alli no longer has the mana to use a construct hammer. She is now only wielding her staff. Hinata is holding a broken katana and is using it to repeatedly stab the monster trying to push her down. Everyone else is in similar positions.

  Inside the place he goes when he meditates Helo can feel as the skill itself starts to destabilize. It is an unused uncommon grade skill. He shouldn’t expect much from it. But at the same time, he knows that, and he needs a lot from the skill. With an effort of will Helo’s aura erupts around him.

  It spreads through the summons and the destabilizing effect it has on other energy causes the monsters to waver. It is only for a moment, but it is long enough for his party to hold on. As soon as the aura erupts it retracts back into his body. Inside himself Helo uses his aura like he used to, to help control and stabilize his abilities. He used to do it for his bloodline, now it is for a skill.

  Pushing even further Helo uses almost all the physical energy in his body. He is so damaged that he can only feel a trickle of energy be created within himself. But he doesn't care he pushes until he uses so much that he almost stops his own heart. Then looking at the roiling ball of tainted physical energy Helo decides he needs more.

  He isn’t fighting a single opponent or even another party. This is an army summoned by a powerful tier 3, who used a skill to empower them. He needs more, drawing in his mental energy Helo pulls it to his core and uses the ability he gained from his ‘Yin-Yang Balance’ title. Drawing and converting the energy in his state forces him to use it at a three-fourths loss.

  As the final remnants of his own mental energy are drained from his body and converted into his tainted physical ball. He starts to hope that the skill doesn’t affect his allies. Then Helo does the only natural thing left to do, he falls unconscious.

  All around him his party is either unconscious or too focused on surviving to notice what Helo is doing. The only person to see was Alli. She didn't know what he was doing, but she knew that he was fighting just as hard as they were, even harder maybe.

  But as she sees the lines in his face soften Alli is worried that he somehow killed himself. Then as she looks at Helo’s fallen body in horror, he starts to glow with a red and gold-tinged energy. It might have been beautiful, but it is interlaced with a black energy that feels sinister. She doesn't know at the time, but it is the affinity of Helo’s curse, channeled into a skill.

  Before she can even react, and before the thrall that was about to bite into her leg is able to, the energy erupts from his body in a circle that covers the distance of just outside his own aura range.

  A wave of red and slightly gold energy sweeps out in a globe. At its center is Helo. As the energy first contacts his teammates, they can feel as the black sinister tinge within the energy seeps into their bodies. It feels like a violation of everything, but it lasts only as long as the energy needs to pass through. Then it slips free leaving only the slightest of corruption within their bodies. Each teammate can feel their physical abilities fall slightly, just a few points. They want to be mad, but it happened too fast. Then it hits the enemy.

  All around them the thralls stagger as a wave of weakness sweeps through every single one. The stronger they are the less they are affected, but still, each thrall that contacts the eruption of energy staggers. Helo used almost all the energy he had in his body. Due to his injuries, his need to stabilize the skill with his aura, and with his own ability to exchange his mental and physical energy. In the end he was able to pour over one-hundred-and-twenty-stat points into his skill. With his efficacy boost it was over one-hundred-and-eighty stat points worth of energy.

  Now his skill is only uncommon, the weakness is only minor compared to what is added. But the uncommon skill was never meant to hold so much energy. In the end it only added up to a fifteen to one ratio. For every fifteen points of energy he used, the enemy lost one point in every physical stat. But using one-hundred-and-eighty stats worth of energy means that the enemy lost twelve points in every stat.

  For monsters that rely solely on their physical stats this is major loss. Dexterity that was already low, meant the thralls only attacked in sweeping wide blows. But now they can barely swing with any semblance of an attack. Strikes that would have connected and broken a bone, now it leaves a bad bruise or glance off without having to dodge. Speed that was surprisingly quick, it is now totally manageable. Finally, endurance that was empowered with demonic skin and undead tenacity is now weak enough to break with normal blows.

  With a roar their team pushes back the enemy with a surge of strength. No, they didn't gain back any mana. But when your enemy is weakened so heavily, any push back looks like a massive surge. Thrall bodies start to topple over one another due to their complete lack of dexterity and the team gains ground around them. This leaves them enough time to force feed their hurt members with expensive potions and get everyone ready to fight.

  They start moving everyone back to the wall. Rocco is about to grab Helo but Alli shouts. “NO! Don't move him, his injuries are probably far worse. Nobody should touch him until the best healer we can get is here.” Looking down Rocco notices the weakness in his spirit and the odd coloration in his skin. Nodding his head Rocco stands in front of Helo and braces to fight back.

  His respect for the shorter man was always high. He is powerful and dangerous. But now, now he understands why they care about him. He might have just crippled himself for life, but he did it without a second thought. Rocco can hear how Helo’s spirit has such little energy. His once raging fire is now just a flickering candle, and the thralls are a light breeze. He feels almost dead.