They pulled back, back until the first gigantic pillar of rock and earth standing in the middle of the ravine. It split the ravine in two, leaving five metre wide gaps between it and the walls on either side and the team made use of it.

  Mark walled up one side, thickening it and making it rise up to five metres high. It could be circumvented, Mia saw ropes and ladders leading up to outcroppings and walkways snaking across the cliff faces above them, but it would halt most of the incoming mass of greenskin. It would be a chokepoint and allow them some leeway.

  “They are sending the rabble first,” Brent said, his voice a low growl. “Helene, Lina, Mia, Aiden, Amelia, I want as few of them making it here alive as possible. Aiden, you focus on the back-line where the Orcs and hobgoblins are gathering.”

  Nodding, the five of them stepped forward. Mia instantly saw what Brent meant, the disorganised mass of limbs and grinning maws came rushing first, all simple goblin raiders wearing rags and brandishing rusted weapons.

  Behind though, at the border of the settlement, Orcs were forming up in their full body armour and shamans cloaked them all in a mass of Aegises while Hobgoblin archers and infantry formed up around them.

  That was until an enhanced fireball from Aiden exploded in their midst, sending sticky globs of mana fire rushing over their armoured forms and over the bubble-like Aegises.

  The rest let loose on the haphazard mass of goblins coming right at them. Mia’s spell of choice was Bolt’s homing-barrage variant, but it was by far the least effective out of the five mages’.

  Amelia sent out quick flashes of energy beams that tore through lines of the greenskin, killing dozens if not more with every flash that came every second or two.

  Lina just sent Air Blast after Air Blast at them, with gory, but extreme effects. The greenskin were clustered up so tightly the blonde killed twenty or thirty of them with each shot.

  Helene’s chaining lightning bolts were just as effective as they’d always been, which left Mia as the clear loser. Well, it would have, had they been doing this as a competition, they were not. Everyone wore grim faces as they decimated the goblin swarm, even Aiden whose fireballs were having less and less of an effect at the forming army behind the disorderly horde.

  Every single goblin in the horde was level 10, but it mattered little. Mia assumed monster types sort of worked for these disgusting creatures like Classes worked for normal people and determined the amount of Attribute Points they got per level, along with their Skill, or Skills at higher Ranks.

  With Goblin Raiders being the lowest, most baseline monsters of this Rift, she assumed they got at most a single Attribute Point per level, at most two.

  Meaning, they died pretty easily, their stats at best a third as much as anyone's in Mia’s team, but likely more along the lines of one-fifth. Even with the monsters’ levels being the same as theirs.

  The last few goblins died only a few dozen metres away from the cavern’s opening, seared to death by Helene’s two-coloured lightning.

  With that done, the mages walked back to the mouth of the ravine and opened up on the distant army of greenskin close to finishing their preparations.

  Few died, far too few for Mia’s liking, but the Aegises were hard to destroy with anything other than her Arcane Blasts and the monsters were well out of range of those. That left her sniping anything not hiding under it with her piercing Bolts.

  One of the shadowy domes popped like a balloon, drawing not just Mia’s but everyone’s attention.

  “Amelia, that was the one you hit just before Mom’s lightning struck it, right?” Mia asked and received a nod from the diminutive woman. “Well, alright. You two work together then, single out an Aegis and destroy it. The rest of us will try to kill anything inside before they can run and hide under another. Let’s do that on repeat for as long as we can.”

  Every Aegis powered only by a single shaman took about two lightning strikes and two beams from Amelia landing on them within the span of five seconds to destroy.

  Mia noted, with a sense of glee, that they didn’t have enough shamans to cover the whole army if they didn’t spread as much as they were. Every fifth Aegis was maintained by a pair of shamans, but the other four were fair game.

  Dome after dome popped, the revealed steel-clad orcs and hobgoblins instantly received a shower of flames from Aiden and a few new holes through their bodies by Mia.

  It took the monsters getting a good third of their army killed in this way to just decide to ‘fuck it’ and charge.

  “Whoops,” Mia said, gulping as she felt the earth rumbling beneath her feet. “When they come within a hundred metres, fall back.”

  Even Carmilla came up next to them for this last push, shooting off Blood Bolts interspersed with a few Blood Lances that went right through some of the weakened Aegises.

  “Fall BACK!” Brent shouted from behind, and they did just that. Pulling back to the prepared chokepoint.

  Mia noted that the ravine’s two walls were wiped clean for a length of twenty metres as far as ten metres up on both sides around the chokepoint. Ladders, bridges and whatever else now lay as rubble on one side with stone outcroppings moulded into the walls, likely by Mark’s Earth Manipulation.

  The mages slipped in between the three melee fighters, a wall of earth and metal shields closing in behind them.

  “I built a stairway up to the wall,” Mark said gruffly, and Mia noticed it the moment he said so. “You can shoot at them from up there. The wall should hold.”

  Why he hadn’t just walled up both sides, Mia could only guess. Maybe his mana was getting low? Maybe time was only enough for one to be made well enough? It didn’t matter.

  “Lina, I want you on anti-air duty,” Brent barked out before the Air mage could rush up the walls. “I don’t want their archers taking anyone out. Take care of their projectiles. Mia, you pop their bubbles like back on the surface. The rest of you can go wild, but always take out groups left undefended by their spell domes.”

  Having said his piece, Brent stepped forward with Clive and Mark flanking him from both sides. Lines of runes snaked across his steel armour, covering it like some ornamental etching and glowed a dim bluish hue hiding an even dimmer pinkish glow underneath.

  Mia noted that was the first time she’d seen the armour’s enchantment in action. Brent had mentioned it before, but Mia had always just assumed it was invisible and had too small of an effect to tell in combat. Seemed like she had been dead wrong, Brent just never bothered using it.

  Force Bank on the armour ate up incoming kinetic energy striking it like a gluttonous beast and Force Slash on his blade would eat into that Bank to let it out.

  Mia and the mages kept firing spells as the newer force of greenskin grew closer, and the moment they came within range, Mia switched out her previous spell for Arcane Blast.

  With the ravines opening thinning her view, she could only target a handful of Aegises, but she blew holes into those one after the other and the lines of monsters revealed by the holes were quickly engulfed in an inferno that was soon followed by a storm of lightning and lethal blasts of wind.

  Unfortunately, this group of monsters had a touch more sense than the previous, and their force quickly split in half. Each half used the delving team’s line of sight being limited to approach largely unmolested.

  They should be down to half by now. Mia noted with grim satisfaction, which was further enhanced when she saw Lina having no trouble at all making her attacks curve around and bend as they passed the corner.

  Two groups came charging out, twisting around the corners to rush down the ravine. Mia saw no less than three shamans strapped around the backs of three Orcs in both groups, of course both hiding under a triple-charged Aegis.

  The force of the two groups themselves comprised ten orcs and twenty hobgoblins.

  Mia let loose a few Blasts, targeting the rightmost group, but whenever her spell made a small wound on the domes, the constructs spun around and healed rapidly. Must be something they need at least two of them working together to do.

  Brent looked unconcerned as he stood at the front, sword hanging almost limply in his hand as he stared at the three scores of goblins all aiming to cut him down where he stood.

  When they came close, he gripped his sword and a glowing runic script just like on his armour ran down its length. When he swung it, the whoosh it made cutting through the air sounded like it was made by a blade ten times its size.

  With a languid, but powerful blow he brought the glowing blade about in a wide swing on the rightmost Aegis just as it came within reach.

  The blade didn’t stop, going through the protective spell like it was not even there, making it pop like a bubble before it cut the leading ten hobgoblins cleanly in half.

  It was like a farmer cutting through wheat with a scythe. Languid, elegant, effortless. Brent stepped forward and brought his sword around for another swing, unconcerned by the dozen weapons clattering against his enchanted armour uselessly and dispatched another five hobgoblins with little trouble.

  The last five of the group scattered, letting the Orcs take the lead. Mia put him out of her mind as she saw arcs of lightning playing across the armoured forms of the Orcs, their choice of clothing proving to be far too conductive to be healthy.

  She focused on the other group, unleashing Blast after Blast on it along with the other mages who’d been bathing it in spellfire for as long as they had it in sight.

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  A lucky fireball from Aiden managed to slip through one gap Mia made in the shadowy dome, eliciting a gratifying sound of agonised screeching from inside.

  Still, they came forward and only stopped when they were right under the wall Mark had constructed. The Aegis held and with the melee fighters being preoccupied with dispatching the other group’s remnants, the goblins and Orcs hiding inside had enough time to try and … threw a pair of hobgoblins up the wall.

  That was when Carmilla stepped forward, grabbing the pair as they came and jumping over the battlements with them still held in her claws.

  Apparently, while the Aegis kept out both physical and magical attacks, an angry vampire counted as neither for some strange reason and was let right through.

  The second Aegis dropped a few seconds later, just about the same time as the last of the half-paralyzed Orcs caught a glowing sword through its neck. Carmilla stood in the middle of a bloody mess, not a single monster having survived being in such close confines with her.

  The vampire didn’t get out unscathed either, though she seemed much less bothered about the dagger in her thigh and the pair of swords piercing her back than anyone reasonably should have been.

  “Can someone get these out?” Carmilla asked, tearing the dagger out with a soft hiss as she pointed at the two swords in her back with a thumb. “I can’t reach them.”

  Despite knowing better than to be worried, Mia rushed up to the redhead, almost slipping on something unnameable as her concern got the better of her.

  “Are you alright?” Mia asked, biting a lip as she circled around her girlfriend to stare at the pair of steel swords impaling the vampire through the torso. With how deep they seemed to be lodged in, she didn’t doubt that their tips were poking out on the other side. “How do I … ?”

  “Just pull them out, but try not to move them too much,” Carmilla said, a wet cough coming out a moment later before she cursed under her breath. “Hurry? One scraped my lungs, it’s very uncomfortable.”

  After some fidgeting and anxiety wracked squirming, Mia psyched herself up enough to just do it. In a swift movement that was surprisingly assisted by her arms not trembling for once, she grabbed the hilt of the sword piercing the upper chest of her girlfriend and pulled it out as quickly and as straight of a line as she could physically manage.

  It was … challenging. The sword was heavy enough that she could barely hold it up straight, but thankfully she managed to use her entire body weight to pull it all out before the sword tilted upwards from her losing her grip.

  She dropped it, leaving the weapon clattering to the ground as she breathed heavily, just watching the bloody tear in Carmilla’s back close up in a few heartbeats' time.

  “Let me help,” Brent said, coming over, likely having noticed Mia struggling. “If you don’t mind me … ?”

  “Sure, go ahead,” Carmilla said, stiff as a board and clearly impatient to reduce the number of swords poking around in her guts from one to zero. “Hurry up.”

  Brent did so without another wasted breath, grabbing the sword and pulling it out in one swift move, holding it up like it weighed no more than a feather.

  Carmilla heaved a sigh of relief and Mia pressed her lips into a thin line as she looked the girl up and down. Rounding the girl, Mia saw the exit wounds of the two swords. One just between the girl’s lower ribs and another at her navel.

  Carmilla had stupidly powerful regeneration, but even Mia knew it wasn’t endless or without weaknesses. One of which was well-known enough that it was not only included in general books the System gave out about their kind, but even snaked its way into folklore.

  “That was pretty stupid wasn’t it?” Mia asked, frowning up at the scarlet-haired girl. She tapped at the scabbed over wound between her ribs. “That one almost got your heart.”

  Their hearts couldn’t heal, and just the smallest nick on it could leave a vampire as powerless as a corpse for days.

  Getting their heads crushed, or removed entirely was likewise pretty disabling, even if not as lethal as getting their hearts crushed. Or worse, staked. If the stake was left in there, they couldn’t heal, after all. But they would remain mostly aware for a few days still, just too weak to move.

  “I wouldn’t have let it touch me if it came any closer to it,” Carmilla said, unable to hide the small wince at Mia prodding her wound. “Took the three stabs in return for finishing up the fight quickly.”

  “You are an idiot.” Mia sighed, glaring up weakly at the startled vampire. “You didn’t need to finish up fast. The next groups are only just getting ready. You could have let the boys help out with whatever remained after they were done with their own batch.”

  Carmilla smiled back awkwardly and pushed out a placating “Sorry.” That was obviously only meant to pacify Mia.

  Glaring a little, Mia shook it off as she heard the next set of the repulsive creatures ready their attacks. By the feel of them squirming about just out of sight, they were going for numbers this time.

  “Large horde is coming in,” Mia said. ”I’m feeling at least sixty of them moving to engage. Maybe more.”

  They fell back to their positions, preparing as best as they could with Aiden and Lina downing a mana potion each.

  Mia felt her mana pool was sufficiently full still, not worth wasting a potion on just yet. But that was her, and she didn’t use much mana outside of summoning her Familiar or throwing out one of her newer spells.

  Unlike what Mia had expected, the whole lot of them came charging in an orderly formation, coming up square formation after square formation.

  Not waiting a moment, she started shooting out Blast after Blast. There were six Aegises up and running, each maintained by two shamans each.

  That reduced their power though, and Mia managed to demolish a whole half of their numbers before they could make contact with the melees with the more AOE oriented mages following up on every opening she gave them.

  Just as she was mentally switching up her psyche from sniping to mid-ranged combat, she felt a warning tingle in the back of her neck that her body reacted to before her mind could.

  She twisted away, whirling around in alert readiness, but found nothing with her eyes. Her Spirit Sense though, was a different matter, and she sent her thus far unused Spectral Blade spinning towards the skulking presence.

  The goblin stalker noticed her attack early enough to dodge, but not early enough that a swing of her hand redirecting the spinning Blade didn’t still bisect it.

  She felt two more similar presences, crawling up on the outcroppings on the ravine’s walls, approaching their positions from behind.

  “I’ll take care of it,” Carmilla said, barreling past Mia and shooting for one of the goblins while shooting a Blood Bolt at the other.

  Seeing as the vampire had it well in hand, Mia pulled her magical ad hoc blender back into her hand then turned around and realised the rest of the group was in some sizable shit. About knee deep at the moment, but they were quickly sinking.

  The two Aegises remained behind while one came at the melees and was in the process of getting slaughtered.

  The ones remaining behind were the problem though, as they seemingly had all the archer Hobgoblins lining up behind them and sending arrows raining down on everyone. Lina was doing her best, but most of them used Air magic to enhance the projectiles so the blonde was struggling.

  Mia flooded her right hand with mana, hoping against all hope that her stats had increased enough since her last dungeon dive to survive the stunt she was about to pull … then reconsidered and sent off only a single Arcane Blast.

  She didn’t want to be dead weight during the boss fight, and on the off chance that her double-barrel Blast fried her mana channels, that’s exactly what she would have been.

  When, despite having to dodge a rain of arrows and having a few lodged in her shoulders, Helene followed up on the hole Mia blew into the Aegis, she felt gratified over her decision. Then her anger at seeing her mother in that state came flooding forth.

  The damned things must have hit her with enough arrows to dispel the Lesser Ward Mia had left on her.

  Before Mia could let lose her fury — in the form of another Blast or something more idiotically self-harming— Brent was upon the last Aegis, his sword glowing with those runic inscription still, if a touch more dimly than before as he brought it down in a colossal overhead strike.

  Then he jumped back, barely managing to get an arm up to shield his face as a pair of fiery spheres of death detonated in the greenskins’ midsts.

  “Sorry!” Aiden yelled over the cacophony of explosions echoing out through the ravine’s length. He didn’t sound all that apologetic, but Mia guessed even the slightest edge of guilt seeping into his voice was something to write home about when talking about Aiden.

  Brent took his apology with silent stoicism, ignoring it as he burst into the midst of the now-alight greenskin and went about cutting each and every one of them into as many bloody chunks as he could reasonably manage.

  Mia only paid attention on the side, far more concerned with the half a dozen arrows poking out of her friends’ bodies. The scene sent the pit already forming in her stomach sinking deeper, a creeping chill spreading out from it and swarming over her body even more as she watched Helene wobble on her feet.

  Mia was there, gently wrapping an arm around her mother’s waist as her trembling fingers worked the zip of her fanny pack and pulled out a vial.

  Hesitating before popping off the cork, Mia spoke up. “I think I should pull them out before I let you drink this … but how do you feel? If you’re close to-“

  “Pull them,” Helene said, through gritted teeth, almost hissing out the words. “I’ll live. Pull them. Don’t waste two on this.”

  A brief glance at the others told her that Aiden was surprisingly treating the slightly injured Amelia already, and that Lina had already ripped an arrow stuck in her knee out and was drinking an Elixir on her own. Well, the muffled scream the girl made as she tore the object out of her joint, a doubtlessly agonising procedure, was what primarily brought Mia’s attention to them.

  “Alright, uhm, bite something? So you don’t bite your tongue?” That’s a thing, right? Not just a movie thing? Mia thought, gulping as her hand hovered over the arrow poking out of the upper right arm of her mother.

  “Do it already,” Helene said with what was half between a whine and a groan. Then she bit down on her own wrist and Mia pulled the arrow out as swiftly and painlessly as she could. By the sounds Helene made, she was less than successful with the second.

  She quickly reached over to the other side and pulled out the other arrow too, wanting to get the whole process over with as quickly as possible while trying to ignore the slick blood pouring out of both wounds.

  “Drink,” Mia said, holding up the vial to Helene’s mouth who still had her wrist between her jaws, now bleeding too, and her eyes firmly shut. “Mom. It’s done. Drink!”

  Her frantic call was what finally had an effect, causing the older woman to snap open her now teary eyes and take her wrist out of her mouth with a wince. There was a half a centimetre deep bite mark in it.

  Mia held up the vial to her mother’s mouth, and only let herself relax slightly when she saw both wounds on her body closing up. Really, these Greater Healing Elixirs were a thing of miracles. Just how many lives could they have saved on Earth if they’d been widely available for just a year before the integration? Millions? At the very least.

  Feeling something brush up against her ankles, Mia found her Familiar down there, looking up at her with bright azure eyes. It was … asking for more mana, pushing feelings of pleading her way as its form flickered between opaque and near translucent.

  “What the hell did you do to get so low on mana?” Mia wondered aloud, not expecting an answer as she reached down to scoop up the cat, but to her surprise, she did get one.

  For a moment, a dozen visions flickered across her eyes, depicting the pink cat turning its head into something like a turtle’s shell and knocking enchanted arrows out of the air. Arrows that the visions showed were heading for one of her party members.

  She might have been wrong, but the impression she got was that each arrow would have proven to be … fatal. Had it struck true.

  Scratching the cat under the chin as she held it in her arms much like she would a baby, she channelled a tenth of her remaining mana into the arcane construct.

  “Well, thank you,” she said, glancing up and looking at her mother and Lina. Then down at the cute pink cat, purring happily under her ministrations.

  This little cat saved our lives. It wasn’t the first time, but now she could have lost not just her own life in that arrow barrage, but many of her friends’ too. It could be said that doing so was why she had it in the first place, that saving her and her friends’ lives was its job, its purpose, its meaning for existence.

  Nonetheless, she felt a much deeper appreciation for it now than she had ever before. Especially after she saw them hurt. A shame it’ll be gone once the spell dissipates. Guess it can’t be helped. Still, a shame.

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