It took a solid two hours of walking before Brock finally caught the sight of civilisation on the dusty horizon. Unsurprisingly, it was a wall. A very large wall. Considering the utter size of it compared to the minuscule figures standing atop it, he assumed the town to either be significantly populated or overly protected.

Faintly, he could hear the sounds of battle echoing throughout the wasteland.

Brock glanced behind him and at his companions. Harry was keeping himself occupied through the kicking of a stone, while Fon had her eyes set directly on the wall, the edges of her mouth creased with subtle worry, “There’s… a lot of energy over there…”

In response, the man nodded at her words and spread out his aura to investigate further. As he went to take his next step, Brock almost stumbled, his senses abruptly becoming overwhelmed. He had to stretch his senses thin to even just reach the area, and while he couldn’t parse all that much apart, it was clear to him that it was an absolute clusterfuck of energy signatures.

Barely, he could tell that there were more beast auras than human ones, and by a monstrously significant amount.

The blips of beast auras were assaulting the wall opposite their side like a veritable tide, and despite the fact that every single one of the creatures was sitting in the low 20s, the sheer number made a cold sweat run down Brock’s forehead. He had fought thousands of Skin Walkers singlehandedly, sure. But what about a volume of beasts ten times that?

I think this is the part where my day gets ruined…

He counted an estimated four hundred people manning the town, though that count was rapidly dwindling as the horde assailed them. Seems the place was just overly protected. Brock licked his lips, knowing these people needed his help, “I’m gonna go ahead. Get ready for a fight guys.”

And with that, the dry earth under Brock’s feet cracked further and sprayed into the air as he blurred forward at his maximum speed, feeling the arid winds whip at his face and the wafting scents of blood and sweat cling to his skin stubbornly. The outpost had only been a few hundred meters away, yet Brock was crossing that distance rapidly.

As each second passed, the auras of more and more humans winked out of existence.

Seven seconds bled away and he was only halfway there. Alien screeches and deafening chitters roared their way into his earshot, messily mixed in with the pained shouts and desperate grunts of the people desperately fighting off their inhuman attackers. Brock gritted his teeth and hissed out a breath as several more auras vanished abruptly.

Pre-emptively, Brock mobilised his Augment of Skies, delaying its flow as the churning energy sluggishly wormed through his pathways, eager to explode outward. Then, as he reached the towering walls and his legs bent, his Augment enhanced the ensuing jump and he soared through the air like an eagle.

Getting over the top of the walls and into the town beyond was an astoundingly easy affair, and he tapped down haphazardly on a cracked stone rooftop. Clearly, it was of bad craftsmanship and was made quite quickly.

His landing, on the other hand, would have been quite the heroic sight had the roof not collapsed underneath him as it was forced to carry the brunt of both his momentum and weight.

Coughing profusely, Brock used another burst of Skies to blow away the plume of dust his fall had kicked up. Clicking his tongue and heaving out a sigh, the man crawled out of the newly formed pile of rubble and stumbled onto the street. He paused, before giving a wry smile and scratching the back of his neck as he noticed the terrified non-combatants that looked on at his sudden appearance with abject horror.

“Uh… sorry?” he gave an awkward shrug.

They didn’t respond, only flee to the interiors of their earthen hovels screaming.

…Rude.

Sighing, Brock dusted himself off and immediately made a beeline to the portion of the wall that seemed to be under siege. From down where he was, he could see a slew of men and women standing atop the earthen construction, raining down both arrows and projectile Techniques alike as he approached.

Through the grated metal gate sitting aligned with the beaten pathway in the centre of the street, he watched as those very same attacks tore into the ranks of the insect swarm.

The creatures looked akin to what the trio had seen prior, all green and mantis reminiscent, with two pairs of razor-tipped arms. And true to Fon’s deduction, they were oozing their own yellow blood or covered in the same coloured blood of their comrades. Several dozen humans wearing bulky suits of makeshift, primal armours were slashing into the tide with swords and axes and spears.

Brock grimaced instantaneously as the one nearest to the gate was cleaved in half like his armour was merely an accessory, his organs spilling out as the life left his eyes. The woman beside him screamed out his name, tears welling in her eyes, and in the split-second of distraction, a mantis blade found itself embedded in her forehead.

From what he could tell, they had lost a total of twelve people from when he had initially detected the auras of the people in this place.

Deciding it was best to waste no more time lest the payment come in lives, Brock flexed his legs and leapt upward, once again giving himself a slight boost from below with his Augment. It took a little finesse, but he managed to get himself to tap lightly onto the uneven surface of the final bastion these people possessed. In the midst of the turmoil, no one on the wall had noticed his sudden appearance, but they would soon.

Leisurely, Brock held out his only hand and aimed it into the horde. Find a place with no people… andddddd… get fucked.

The people stationed around him almost fell off the wall due to a mixture of startlement and the powerful shockwave that slapped them as a torrent of radiant crimson flame roared out and scorched the beasts. The flames dispersed a handful of seconds later, revealing the sight of dozens upon dozens of charred corpses, their frames bubbling with heat and their edges smouldering to ashes.

“Wha…” There was a brief pause in the rain of constant attacks as every person on the wall was left dumbstruck, the majority of them having finally noticed the intruder in their haphazard formation.

Brock ignored them - as it was mostly par for the course at this point - and charged up another shot, rendering another grouping of insects to charcoal chicken in the next moment.

Damn. When was the last time I had charcoal chicken?

The mass stupor only lasted a second longer before the ranged support upon the wall regained their bearings and attacked with renewed vigour, the sight of a powerful addition to their forces boosting their morale and rekindling their fading hope.

Despite the effectiveness of Brock’s flaming airstrikes, the horde was still as numerous as ever, and it stretched on for almost a hundred meters as the creatures scrambled to attack. Some were even beginning to trail off to the sides of the wall, though there were people ready and waiting who promptly met them with an arrow through the eye.

Brock had only been here for a few minutes, yet he could already comprehend the weight of the situation. With each swing, the fatigue of the vanguard on the ground grew and they slowly became sloppier, each second making them more and more likely to make a fatal mistake.

The auras and arrows of those on the wall were also dwindling rapidly, and he had no idea if they’d manage to persist through the entire battle.

He hated to admit it, but he himself wasn’t confident in being able to kill off all of these beasts without sustaining casualties on the local’s side and letting large amounts of monsters slip past. Harry and Fon should still be only around ten minutes away, so he only had to do his best to hold them off until then. Once the time passed and they arrived, they’d be able to turn the tide of battle.

“T… thank you…” Brock’s attention was torn away from the battlefield for a moment as one of the archers beside him spoke out. His voice was meek and quiet, but the underlying resolve was clear.

He looked no older than sixteen, his body thin and lanky, much like Harry’s own when they’d first met. Unlike Harry, however, the kid was only level thirty and had clearly used a green Shard of Awakening. Brock smiled at him and gave him a thumb-up as he stepped forward and up to the edge of the wall.

“All good, mate. Don’t die.” Brock took one more step forward and plummeted off the wall and into the carnage below.

He heard the kid call out to him in a panic from above, but he paid it no mind as his shortsword slid out from his sleeve and cleaved the arm off one insect before the blade swung around and embedded itself in its forehead. Swiftly, Brock grabbed the dismembered appendage and ducked under a swift swing from a creature over to his side.

Before it could attack again, it found its organs spilling out of its castrated frame, the scythe-like blade of its brethren slick with its own yellow blood. It slumped backward lifelessly and Brock met another beast with a blast of his Augment of Sparks, turning it and those around it to charcoal.

[F] Swarm Spawn (LVL 23)

Seeing the ease with which he was tearing into the swarm around him, the frontliners roared out their anger, and desperation, and fear, and they pressed forward, carving the monsters up with as much might as they could muster from their tired bodies. A small smirk crept across Brock’s face and he made sure to match their effort.

Left, duck, jump, right, right, left. Brock dodged and lashed out in turn, turning the insects to mush, chunks, and charcoal alike with each movement. He only made the instinctive mistake to try to catch an attack with his missing arm once, and even then, his jacket had nullified all the cutting potential. It would certainly leave the beginnings of a bruise, however.

Of course, the offending beast promptly found itself in two halves as an air blade responded to its transgression.

Along with the strange concept of braiding his Augment, Brock had also secretly entertained the idea of utilising both his Augments at once, and as he rapidly switched from one to the other and back while he savagely killed monster after monster, he felt the achievement of that goal inching ever closer to fruition.

He had tried summoning the power of both simultaneously a few times before, but it would always end the same way; with one or the other fizzling out and quickly leaving his pathways as a mist to make way for its sibling Augment. Even using two in two different limbs had failed and elicited the exact same response.

A Swarm Spawn dove at him and Brock tightened his hand into a fist, meeting its bulbous-eyed face with a crunch and caving it in, splattering its brain out the sides and over him and its brethren. He found his Techniques to be oddly useless here, apart from the odd few times he used Ethereal Shackles to restrain a beast mere moments before it reaped the life of a nearby warrior.

Oppressive Might hadn’t seen much use at all despite being so close to an upgrade, and even if Brock wanted to force the issue, there were just too many monsters. He would be overwhelmed if he stopped to use his Technique for even a moment. He had found that while he was activating a Technique, he was unable to use his Augments.

While the Technique was active, however, was a different story.

Unlike Ethereal Shackles, which was a near-instantaneous activation, his only Aura Technique took a good second or so before its effect managed to pervade the entirety of his aura, which in the heat of battle, was a long time. Hopefully, the time to activate didn’t increase as his aura grew in size and volume. That would certainly be an annoying development.

That aside, the horde was rapidly whittled down to more manageable numbers over the passing minutes and Brock considered whether he should retreat to the walls once more and let the rest of the people here deal with the remainders. That thought was immediately extinguished as a new beast appeared on the battlefield.

There were only a handful or so that he could sense among the thinned horde, though thankfully they all sported levels only in the thirties. They seemed to be quite elusive to his sight, but Brock finally got a glimpse of one as it quite literally tore the warrior beside him into two pieces.

It was much like its lesser counterpart, albeit a much larger and bulkier version, sporting a height of about one meter more. That, along with yet another pair of bladed arms and thick plates of chitin covering its body, made for a bad time for everyone involved.

Its body began to ripple and become translucent as blood spilled everywhere.

Brock swiftly got the man’s dying vengeance as his Skies infused dagger whipped out at speeds exceeding even what Brock could run, and pierced cleanly through the insect goliath’s forehead. Its brain matter sprayed out to the wind and it went limp less than a second later. The gored body of its victim slumped off its arm blades and slapped onto the ground miserably.

He heard the boy from before calling out to him and Brock ducked down as a rippling figure slashed past him overhead. Clicking his tongue, he quickly spun around and drove his arm blade into the figure’s body as his dagger returned to him. The hulking form of another one of those goliaths rippled into existence around his blade as the cloaking ability it seemed to be using was disrupted and cancelled.

Camoflague, huh? That’s new.

Red blood leaked out from the fresh wound and Brock quickly smashed its head in with Oppressive Might before it could slash at him with any or all of its six arms. It died without so much as a fuss, and Brock promptly followed the aura attack up with several more as the normal Spawn streamed in and began to attack him once more.

Idly, he noticed that they seemed rather eager to steer clear of the larger variant.

That still left three more left, however, and Brock knew that it would be quite a stretch for the warriors alongside him to deal with the armoured monsters, even in groups. Despite that, he couldn’t see any more of them, only brief glimpses of rippling air through the swathes of the Spawn as they travelled under their cloaks of invisibility.

Well. This is going to end terribly.

Fortunately, Brock heard creaking metal behind him a second later and he turned around, only to be met by the sight of a familiar figure. He sighed in relief and the tension eased from his shoulders.