A bright light flashed before Damian's eyes, but this time he could hear and feel the shockwave.

  Oh for the love of... Just strike me down already! Why tease me! Damian screamed in his head as his vision was recovering.

  Upon opening his eyes, he was met with the sight of a half-destroyed Merchants Guild. The entire exterior wall facing them had caved outward, spilling black stones everywhere.

  The building's many floors were clearly visible, and some of the black wooden planks were still falling to the lower floors.

  In the middle of the rubble stood a large, ape-like wraith. Its muscles bulged bigger than any man's, with lightning crackling from its shoulders to its fists. The behemoth stood two stories tall and was actively throwing fists against the hired guards of the guild.

  So they were targeted too... Were the carriages left here not meant for us? Did that merchant know or not that the carriages held dead? Maybe he was just a sadist who wanted to score a two-for-one deal?

  Observing the devastation ahead of him, he could see several more wraiths still in the rubble of the building. They were barreling toward unarmed guild members, ready to tear them apart. He didn't catch sight of Captain Algee. Likely already dead.

  Just... just one step at a time, focus on the front lines, leave that mess to the Merchants Guild. We'll deal with it when it comes our way.

  "Focus on the front lines! The Merchants Guild will deal with their own problems!" An illusion of Higgins roared from the top of the wall. The real Higgins was down below, panically looking around, trying to figure out what to do.

  Ah, she's running over to the left flank toward her waiting soldiers. Did she take directions from her illusory clone? She's a brave one at least, choosing the side closer to the Merchant Guild threat.

  As his eyes were panning around, he could see that the craftsmen from earlier had changed their minds about staying at the wall. They started to rush back toward the tower with real weapons in hand.

  The healing staffers were following behind them in quick order. There would be no place for them to take the time to heal the wounded.

  At the front lines, the number of wraiths had significantly increased from a couple to a dozen, and more were continuing to crawl out of the rubble from the Healing Center.

  The shapes of the wraiths varied widely, from mimicking animals and dungeon monsters to taking more human forms, or a form somewhere between man and monster. Other than their misty black forms, they all held one other thing in common: the single-minded desire to hunt down the living.

  One of the wraiths had a green hue to its black, misty form. It ran on all fours, like a horse, but was shorter and had a neck twice as long. It trotted along, and with each footstep it took, the grass around it grew rapidly above head height.

  The grass was far sturdier than your garden variety; it provided cover for itself and other wraiths. Frey was rapidly sending her fireballs at it, setting the grass ablaze and exposing the wraith.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Damian eyed his new enchanted sword, ready to bring it into action. Unsheathing it, he pointed it toward the charging creature. A trickle of mana left his hand and traveled into the hilt.

  He could feel it swirl and shift from wind to fire. In the next moment, a fireball shot between the two blades and hurtled toward the wraith.

  He couldn't control the ball of flame much after it left the sword. He didn't have the knowledge or affinity to control the flame-based mana; it just acted according to the directions of the runes.

  Surprisingly, his fireball hit the wraith directly in the head, creating a small blast. It was about as effective as one of Frey's standard fireballs, likely less so. Damian looked at Frey, and she gave a dirty look toward his new favorite sword.

  Feeling challenged by the cold piece of steel, she channeled mana into her hand and fired out her new fire beam skill. It shot out at blinding speed and pierced the creature, growing a pasture in the courtyard.

  Not only did it hit the creature in the front of the pack, but it continued to pierce two other wraiths that thought hiding behind the grass seeder was a good idea. All three wraiths and the grass alongside them started to sizzle and burn away like the smoldering of a campfire.

  Frey wobbled a bit, and Damian moved to hold her upright with his stub of an arm. Taking a few moments, she leaned forward and grabbed one of the mana potions in front of her. It was blue in hue, but not from the ingredients; to standardize potions sold in bulk, they add dyes to the brew so people do not easily confuse them.

  Red for healing, blue for mana, purple for a boost to your skill/spell strength, yellow for swiftness, orange for strength, green for stamina, etc.

  After taking the potion, Frey took a moment for her mana supply to replenish. She gave a smirk and a scoff while looking at the sword he set down.

  She doesn't actually feel threatened about her position, right?

  As Damian picked up his sword, ready to send out more fireballs, he took a moment to look and see how Alex was faring. Damn... yeah, that's scary.

  The Amazonian woman held a javelin in her hand, and, with a signal, Fergus empowered her to throw it. The attack eerily mirrored the same one they fled earlier that day.

  One moment, her hand was up; the next, it was down, and a wraith in the distance had a new hole in it. But that wasn't all, the oaf had attached one of her tethers to the rear end of the thrown weapon.

  Damian saw the tether pull taut and fly back to her in a straight line. She held out her hand, and before the tool could crash into them, it hovered right before her.

  Ok then, she's now scarier than that Hans... Hell, if she wanted to, she could fly into battle with her sword by pulling herself to the javelin.

  Could she fly if she had enough mana? Throw a javelin, pull yourself to it, throw it again as you're falling, pull yourself again? I shouldn't give her the idea, she'd try it... We don't need a flying, javelin-wielding, Amazonian woman in our midst.

  Donna was continuously firing bolts of water from her new staff. Every couple of moments, she'd grab another potion and chug it while firing out more. She had quite the determined look on her face.

  She was flexing much of her new control over her spells to target the flying wraiths. Their bodies seemed much weaker than their grounded brethren, falling after only a hit or two.

  Better stay focused on the battle.

  Damian continued to pace himself with his fireball output; he didn't want to need to use a mana potion when they'd be better used by everyone else right now. Fergus was the same, only occasionally firing off a rock bolt from his new staff.

  Damian couldn't really go out into the field and battle the wraiths in all the chaos right now. His chances of getting shot in the back by a stray spell or arrow would be high. The enemy would need to be closer to the wall for that.

  Not letting myself get shot in the ass by an arrow again. Damian was recalling an old memory, one that came with an old wound.

  Maybe I could ask Donna to see if her new skill could remove that scar.

  Damian did have the skill that told him what was happening in his vicinity, letting him know if an arrow was headed for his cheeks again, but it just wasn't worth the risk right now.

  'sigh'

  The battle was starting to change momentum.