TechiLlama in a desperate defense on the wall…

  They endured assault for another few minutes until the [Sky Reavers], those hovering nightmares, finally made the mistake of drifting into range.

  Llama felt the heat before he saw the fire spells. A rippling wave rolled past him, a dry, burning wind followed by a high-pitched resonance. Tramar’s mages had fired, and not only them. Fireballs, lightning chains, shards of screaming crystal, everything went up at once. The air above the battlefield lit up like a divine bonfire.

  Beside him, Luminaria finally stepped back, returning to the safety of her arcane formation. She glanced at him with a wink. “Don’t hold back! We don’t want the uncivilized fire brutes thinking they’re better than us!”

  Her team of mages laughed, some of them already charging up spells, others blowing kisses toward the front line like they were tossing favors at a festival. Sparks crackled between their fingers, and between her and Llama.

  He felt the heat rising again, not from Tramar’s spells.

  He watched her go with an almost physical ache in his chest. That closeness, the moment of chaos shared, of holding the line together, it vanished too quickly. He stuffed the feeling down where all inefficient emotions went. Deep. Under iron. Where it wouldn’t get in the way.

  Not now.

  Turning, he scanned the rear. Low-level helpers were moving between the fallen, quick hands scooping gear and loot, tagging bodies for later recovery. Quiet, efficient.

  Too many bodies.

  They had burned through every backup he had. No reserves. No reinforcements. Damn Charlie. Just this line, and him. But still, he smiled. This was the reason he signed up for this hell. For the game.

  The pressure. The tactics. The thrill of being outnumbered and proving that perfect execution could still win.

  “Order Four!” he shouted, voice rising like a war drum. “Men, give your lives for the mages! Every ounce of XP and loot will be ours to claim!” The cheer that followed was hoarse but solid. Llama raised his shield and rejoined the wall, not above them, not behind.

  With them.

  And the mages answered. Spell-fire rained down from above, thinning the [Sky Reavers], bursting wings and rupturing twisted bodies in midair. The pressure overhead finally broke. For the first time, the air belonged to them.

  But that was when the ground rumbled, and the enemy’s foot soldiers reached the wall. Boots stomped. Rotten flesh slammed against stone. Clawed hands reached with no regard for self-preservation. And from the backline, a new horror arrived.

  [Blight Mages].

  Llama spotted them immediately, hooded figures cloaked in greenish-black fog, their hands twitching with cursed runes. They raised staves etched with bone and bile, and hurled hexes.

  The first landed a dozen meters down the wall.

  Stone hissed.

  Smoke curled up from the masonry. Another hit, this one nearer, fizzled against the battlement and melted part of the top layer. The very structure was groaning now, the seams bleeding dark liquid like the wall itself was infected.

  “Shields forward!” Llama roared. “We hold the damn line until the gods take us, or the wall does!”

  He pressed his shield into place, heart pounding. If the wall crumbled, they’d be overrun. It wasn’t just about tactics now. It was about holding.

  And he was very, very good at that.

  [Siege Towers] had begun appearing near the outer wall, popping up, almost unfairly, like unholy flatpacks snapped into place by invisible hands. One moment there was empty space.

  The next: scaffolds of blackened bone and warped iron locked together with unnatural ease. The demons had built them like it was a casual hobby. Each tower rose fast, too fast, wooden panels stitched with sinew, gears grinding with shrieks of rusted metal and gnashing teeth.

  Then came the sound no commander wanted to hear.

  The wall groaned.

  The Blight Mages’ hexes had done their work. Whole sections of stone cracked like brittle glass, hissing with caustic rot. Part of the rampart near Llama sagged inward, forcing his troops to pull back, adjust, reform, but the gap was all the demons needed.

  From the ground, something moved. Pulsing, squelching.

  Flesh ladders.

  They grew like tumors, sprouting from the corpses of fallen demons, tendon twining with bone, rising in obscene, fleshy coils. Sinew snapped into place like ropes tightening across muscle, veins pulsing with something too red to be blood. A severed arm reached from the base of one and gripped the wall like it wanted to climb.

  Llama nearly gagged.

  “Our cue!” Tramar shouted from the rear. His mages shifted aim, and the air ignited.

  Fireballs lanced toward the nearest [Siege Tower]. The first hit splintered a level in half, sending twisted demons tumbling down like burning dolls. But the towers rebuilt themselves. Twisting planks regrew from bone. Screws twisted back into place. Demonic glyphs pulsed as scaffolding healed, or worse, regrew, with unholy speed.

  Then…

  The first enemy reached the top.

  A [Wretched Ghoul] vaulted over the battlement, its limbs too long, its face all teeth and empty eyes. It screeched and lunged at the front line, claws aimed at Llama’s throat.

  He bashed it with his shield so hard its jaw spun halfway around its head.

  “Soldiers!” he roared, eyes blazing. “Order Seven!”

  His favorite order. It meant one thing and one thing only. Do not let anyone pass. Stick pointy parts at everything that moves. And above all, as Charlie said, “HOLD THE DAMN LINE!”

  —

  In the back line at the same moment…

  Luminaria had her hands full, and that was putting it politely. The moment that fool Tramar shifted all his mages to the siege towers, the sky became her problem. Again.

  She flicked her staff, and lightning hissed through the air, catching a [Sky Reaver] mid-drift. The cursed thing spasmed, skeletal wings locking as it tumbled out of the sky in a trail of black smoke.

  So far, they held the line. The reavers kept outside of her optimal range, their spear salvos increasingly ineffective. But they were testing her. Constantly shifting formations. Veering wide. Probing for weak spots like flies sniffing for an open wound.

  She couldn’t afford a lapse, not even for a second.

  The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  NightSwallow’s team was handling the flanks, darting through rooftops and rafters to intercept anything that slipped past. But even they were stretched thin now, by the look of the desperate Lola orders.

  She turned again, staff steady, eyes sharp, and fired a narrow lightning bolt through the skull of another too-curious Reaver.

  Then she glanced at him.

  Llama.

  He stood like a statue of war, braced at the front of the mage line, a shield in one hand, blood on his other. His armor was dented, dirt smeared across his cheek, but not once had he taken a step back.

  She allowed herself a half-second to look at him. That solid frame. That stupidly square jaw. The way he always positioned himself just right between her and harm. Like it wasn’t even a decision.

  Luminaria caught herself smiling and quickly shifted her expression into something more neutral. Composed. Poised. Always poised. The battle was being recorded after all, broadcast across feeds and streams, every blink of hesitation magnified. Her robes were immaculate. Hair locked in its enchanted braid. Not a drop of blood on her.

  Professionalism was power, and she wore it like armor.

  Still, she let her gaze linger a second longer than necessary before snapping off another spell that clipped a Reaver’s wing clean off. But even with her perfect posture, even with her calm voice and practiced smirks, she could feel it.

  The air thickened with raw potential, crystalline and cold. She turned, instinct guiding her gaze to the center of the chaos. There, on the frost-glazed spire rising up, stood Charlie. Arms raised, eyes glowing with that unnatural, terrifying clarity. Runes spiraled the tower like a frozen cyclone, pulling threads of mana straight from the air, disrupting every passive cast and enchantment around it.

  And despite her, the winds were shifting.

  It wasn’t just the [Wretched Ghouls] climbing the writhing flesh-ladders now. It was the tempo. The pressure. The defenses were cracking, not dramatically, not yet, but the edges were fraying.

  They were running out of margin.

  And still, Llama held.

  She watched him brace again, bark a sharp order, then slam his shield into another twisted creature as if the war itself offended him.

  She bit the inside of her cheek.

  After they made it through this, she was going to let herself say something real. Just once. Maybe.

  And that was when the beginning of the end arrived. The [Foot Soldiers] hit the wall. Luminaria felt it before she saw it. A shift in the tempo. Like a second heartbeat behind the first, but heavier. Wrong.

  The pressure on the defenders surged. Doubled. Tripled. Every grunt from the frontline grew sharper, more desperate. Shields were knocked off-angle. Spears shattered.

  A system ping cut through the chaos:

  [Quest Update: Defend the Wall]

  Description: Focus clusters of [Bone Reavers] and [Foot Soldiers]. Maintain aerial suppression.

  Damn the update, she snarled inwardly, though not a flicker of frustration touched her face. She stood with practiced calm, even as her thoughts roared.

  “Half of the team, shift to help the frontline!” she ordered, her voice smooth, unflinching, naming the mages responsible. “We need to relieve some pressure.”

  There was hesitation. Her guildmates stared like she’d suggested jumping off the wall, but they followed. Trust earned in a hundred battles.

  The randos, however, weren’t so obedient.

  “What? We’re supposed to hold the sky!”

  “She’s throwing the line away!”

  “Keep sniping! Don’t waste time!”

  Her lips didn’t twitch. Not even once. But inside, her jaw locked hard enough to ache. She didn’t bite her cheek, she wouldn’t mar her face, but her gloved fingers curled tightly around her staff until her knuckles strained white.

  The enemy was pressing on. Every fallen defender created another gap. And the gaps were spreading like rot through fruit. She glanced forward and Llama’s line was breaking.

  A captain beside him, solid, dependable, Luminaria remembered him from strategy briefings, was caught between two [Foot Soldiers]. He blocked one with his shield, clean parry, textbook perfect. But the second struck from the side. He twisted, tried to pivot, but it was too late.

  And Llama was already tangled with two [Bone Reavers], each one swinging cleavers the size of full-grown men.

  The captain didn’t scream. He roared in defiance, hurled his shield aside like a gauntlet, and drove his sword through the skull of the side attacker before the second blade pierced him from behind.

  His body crumpled, but not his will. Fty jumped in, exhausted, but still tried to heal him, but it was too late. He died a hero. Until the next horror came.

  “[Corpsebinders]!” someone shouted.

  That was when the real nightmare began.

  The captain’s gear hit the ground with a clatter pile of loot. But the body didn’t. Instead, it pulsed. Twitched. Transformed. Veins rethreaded themselves into new shapes. His armor buckled, then twisted outward like it was being worn from the inside.

  In his place rose a [Wretched Ghoul]. A new undead demon and it grinned with his teeth.

  “No!” Luminaria and Llama screamed in unison, voices overlapping.

  But it was too late.

  The ghoul lunged toward the nearest mage. She tried to cast a spark bolt when backing, but was too slow. Her spell fizzled mid-cast. Claws raked down her chest, and she stumbled, eyes wide in betrayal as blood sprayed across her robes.

  She fell back against Luminaria’s feet, gasping, then still.

  Luminaria gritted her teeth and stabbed the ghoul with her staff. Lightning surged down it, blowing the creature’s torso open in a wet, smoking mess. The smell turned her stomach, but her hands stayed steady.

  And then the top of the wall crumbled. A groan turned into a crack. Stone splintered near the eastern flank. “Order Sixty!” Llama bellowed. No hesitation. No second-guessing.

  Luminaria knew that one. Everyone on the wall did. Order Sixty wasn’t about stopping the enemy. It was about containing failure.

  The formation broke on purpose. Defenders and mages alike fell back, not chaotic, but into predefined clusters. Narrow huddles around key defensive points: tower staircases, supply caches, reinforced archways. Every opening between those positions became a kill zone, or a liability. Any demon that slipped through was now someone else’s problem.

  She found herself stationed near the gate tower, uncomfortably close to Tramar, who was still gleefully flipping spells into the siege towers like a kid launching fireworks.

  His section of mages hadn’t missed a beat, and to his credit, they hadn’t wasted a single cast. One well-timed fire suppression had collapsed an entire cluster of [Bone Reavers]; another pyroclastic surge turned a siege tower into a flaming ruin that collapsed on its own reinforcements.

  Luminaria would never admit it to his face, but—fine. He was doing good work. Unfortunately, good work meant nothing when there were thousands more.

  Fty was nearby, calling out healing rotations while already casting the next AoE restore. Llama stood at the forefront, shield smeared in blood and soot, commanding the tight knot of defenders with that unyielding calm of his, like the chaos would get tired and submit if he just stood there long enough.

  The problem wasn’t the position.

  It was the shape of the fight.

  Now that they were clustered, the enemy could come from any angle. The horde circled like wolves, testing every inch of their makeshift stronghold. The pressure wasn’t less now. It was worse. It came from every direction, constantly shifting. No more frontline. No more backline.

  Just survive.

  The mages far way, and beside Luminaria looked to her now, not just as a fellow caster, but as a symbol. The composure. The robes. The calm face. Even now, she hadn’t let a hair fall out of place.

  She felt them watching her.

  Good. Let them watch.

  Her beauty wasn’t vanity. It was strategy. In the middle of horror, fear, and blood, she looked like victory. Controlled. Regal. Radiant.

  And that illusion might hold them together longer than any wall. But inside, even she felt it now. A creeping dread, not fear, but the cold pressure of reality narrowing. The sense that the edge was coming. That the tide might not break. That they might.

  And yet, Llama was still there. Shield raised. No grand speech. No rallying cry.

  Just presence. She stood next to him, shoulder to shoulder. “I hope your next brilliant order involves surviving the next ten minutes,” she said, eyes scanning the shadows that moved like liquid death around them.

  “Depends,” he grunted. “You planning to snipe a hundred or so more before your next cooldown?”

  She didn’t smile, but her eyes sparkled. “Darling,” she said coolly, “I’ve never needed a cooldown to be dangerous.”

  And then the world stilled. It wasn’t silence. It wasn’t peace. It was the absence of motion, of existence.

  Luminaria felt it before she saw it. A tremor, not in the ground, but in reality. The frame of the world cracked, bent, warped. Spell-casting snapped mid-chant. Her staff fizzled in her hands like a dulled blade.

  Fty cursed as his healing was ripped away from him. Threads of blue mana drained out of his hands and pulled toward the same impossible point. Fire from Tramar’s tower surged in the same direction, uncontrolled now, like the flame itself had been requisitioned.

  The demons faltered. Their snarls cut short. Movements staggered. Confusion rippled through their ranks like fear finally remembered.

  All the mana, all of it flowed toward her. Toward Charlie.

  She stood at the peak of the ice pillar, alone against the world, the wind tearing at her cloak like it knew she no longer needed protection. Her arms were outstretched, and around her, runes.

  Thousands of them.

  Spiraling into life in tight orbits, then wide arcs, layer upon layer of glyphs and sigils and ancient phrases. They shimmered in colors the eye wasn’t built to perceive. Golds that bled into sound. Blues that pulsed like heartbeats.

  It was a spell, and not just any spell.

  Luminaria’s breath caught in her throat. Even she, the one who perfected poise, who knew the value of never showing awe, let her lips part in wonder.

  She also knows it, Luminaria thought, and a slow, reverent smile curved her lips. Looks also win battles.

  And Charlie looked like the end of a war. The runes spun faster, then collapsed inward in a final pulse of searing light. All at once, the light shattered.

  And from each point of impact along the crumbling wall, figures rose.

  Translucent. Silver. Armor forged by light, weapons humming with spectral power. Their faces were ageless, serene. Long ears swept back beneath helms that shimmered like moonlight on water. They stood shoulder to shoulder where defenders had fallen. Their forms flickered faintly, but their presence was absolute.

  Then, as one, they raised their blades toward the sky. And they sang. Not with voices, but with unity, with purpose, with the resonance of an entire culture condensed into one perfect phrase:

  “Glory to Eeleim!”