As I watched the flock of ravens disappear into the night, joining their living brothers and sisters in battle, I swore to myself that a single day more was all I would allow myself to stay away from the fighting and the dying. I had asked too much of them, the Weirderbeast was an opponent too formidable to fight with steel and fire alone.

The first of the knights was dead, mere weeks after his knighting, and while his fight would continue, his death was - as all deaths in my domain - my responsibility, somewhat. Could I have done more? Something else?

I was not jaded enough yet to not be troubled by the ifs and whens. All that was left for me now, what I reasonably could do, was to expedite my research and take up arms in earnest, so as to protect the rest of them to the best of my abilities.

So, I turned away from the night, jailing my feelings behind an [Iron Mind Behind An Iron Mask], and returned to the Skillforge.

It was the early, foggy morning two days later when the silent waves scraped the wood of my boat across the stony shore. With a light tapping, my running feet flew across the rocks and the cliffs, across the Stormplains, and towards the woods. Just another shadow, another flying cloak moving faster than it had any right to do.

The first signs of past battles could be seen on the fringes of the forest, where insects laid cleaved and clubbed in the hundreds, arranged around burned and hacked up flowers of the insect queen. The [Knights] had cleared a way through the treacherous ground, but soon found a way up to the world above the leaves, that was easy enough to access to serve a whole army as a path if you could call that the fifty-odd people I had sent to battle.

As I followed along the interwoven branches and platforms I could make out signs of struggle here and there. A burnt patch of wood, the carcass of a monstrous animal, split bark, and the general signs of a group of people moving across the thick branches of the giant trees. I knew that the Weirderbeast was almost a day of swift climbing into the forest away, and as a group, the [Knights] and [Hunters] would have been slower. Even my best calculations put them at their fifth day of fighting, but they very well could have been there a week or more.

In the end, I was found by a raven, croaking at me from the branches above me, looking at me with its beady eyes, glimmering with way too much intelligence. It looked at me, and flew ahead, waiting for me to catch up. It led me around a twisted path higher and higher up into the trees, until we came to a hidden and fairly broad branch that grew across to the steep sides of the mountain range, where on a plateau a camp could be seen, fires blooming, smoke rising and wounded men and women groaning.

This was where the wounded stayed and even the guards had bandages wrapped around their heads. I counted twelve, just as those who still could move enough forced themselves to get up and bow to me. There were two [Knights] propped up against the wall, a man and a woman, and the raven who had led me here flew to rest on the rock above them, while another raven sat up farther into the mountains, croaking a welcome.

The other wounded were [Hunters] and [Fighters] of some sort. Volunteers, if you will. I made the round and thanked them all, forcing me to preserve my Mana for the fight to come. I was tempted to cast [Reinvigoration] onto all of them but for what I had planned, I needed every bit of Mana at my disposal. They would survive, that much I could see. That would have to suffice.

“What is the situation?“ I addressed the knights, catching my breath from the constant running and climbing I had been doing.

The woman just waved, tired, but the man sat up straighter. “My lord! We fought the beast for days. Even approaching it is a dangerous undertaking. It deceives the eye with strange apparitions. We are forced to keep our distance.“ He swallowed and took a shallow breath before he continued. “If you injure the beast with enough force, smaller creatures split off of the main mass, and those we can face in combat, they are no more than the Nightmares we faced at the Wreckage each night. It is a constant dance to injure a part of the beast and then engage the smaller creatures without being preyed upon the Weirderbeast itself.“

Now it was my turn to swallow. “Did you...How many losses so far?“ I asked plainly.

“I was injured yesterday and have lost count since then. Yesterday, the count was two of the Crows and 8 of the others, I think. We are awaiting the return of them for the night. Nights are too dangerous to fight the beast, still, for it will get reinforced by Nightmares from all angles.“

"The Crows?" I asked.

"Sorry, mylord." He actually blushed. "It's what we call us [Knights of the Wyld] in short."

I completed my round, his words hammering in the back of my head. Ten deaths. Ten deaths. Ten deaths. Finally, I could not take it anymore. After a brief conversation to get my bearings and the direction I had to travel in, the [Knight] called out to me once more.

“My Lord, the route is treacherous. Siobh here would guide you once more If you‘ll have him!“ He pointed to the raven that had led me to the camp in the first place, and after a nod, the raven took off, back to the shadows under the canopy of the giant trees, with me following him as fast as I could manage.

I flew across the branches, vaulted them, jumped, swung, and slid, just to eke out more and more speed. The thought of my people fighting and dying so close to me, without me interfering, was sickening. I knew it was their choice and their determination to fight for Ravenport that had led them into the forest, but I was here, now. I wanted to do something.

I heard the fighting long before I saw it. Monstrous roars, wearied shouting of hoarse voices...the battle was loud, first and foremost. Siobh, the raven guiding me, dove beneath the leaves to my feet, and I followed, landing on a clearing among bow-wielding men and women from Ravenport, [Hunters] mostly, led by Grim who looked fiercely along the shaft of an arrow.

Following his look, I saw a mountain of flesh rearing up on the other end of the clearing, towering, quivering masses of flesh, hundreds of mouths and appendices, limbs and claws snapping, tearing, roaring at the small figures daring to injure it.

Once again I was stupefied by the sheer size and mass of the enemy. Dwarfing everything, the mass climbed up and around the trees, growing and advancing at the same time. There were humans in front of it. Darting in and out of the fight, cutting, smashing, and slicing isolated parts, dodging the slamming attacks of the Weirderbeast as they went.

Farther back, a second group of knights fought Nightmares, as I would have described them, creatures of undefined form, split up from the main mass and falling behind the lines, were the [Knights] engaged them lest they would fall into the backs of those on the frontlines.

The Weirderbeast was slow. Impossibly slow. The single claws, mouths, tentacles, and limbs were not, but as a whole the movement of the mountain of flesh was indiscernible. That made the fight possible in the first place. The danger lied in the inevitability of the creature. The beast was eternal, unstoppable, undying, and just...more.

I spotted Kara at the side, resting her sweat-soaked head on her knees, taking heavy breaths, while a bunch of Wyldlings surrounded her, protecting her from the stray creatures.

“Ahh, the Raven returns at last.“ She sighed, spotting me through strands of her wild mane. “Maybe I can rest now, finally.“

“Are you hurt?“ I asked her.

“I am not. But my elementals have proven to be the only force capable of cutting off larger chunks of the beast. One of the knights has a cleave-Skill, but can only cut the thinnest tendrils. We use fire and literal plants growing through the flesh to cut off more.“

“Can you sound a retreat?“ I said, watching the knights battling the wall of flesh with concern in my eyes. “They, too, shall rest, while I take their place. Organize the second line, there will be plenty of smaller Nightmares to cull, once I am done cutting the beast.“ I swore, balling my fist that my knuckles shone in a pale white through the skin.

“Do not get ahead of yourself, Raven. We are fighting this thing for 6 days. We have it figured out. You concern yourself with ending this madness. As you can see, there is still plenty of beast to fight.“ She waved toward the towering mass of flesh which, in fact, did not look smaller in the slightest, despite the dozens of bodies of smaller Nightmares scattered around the clearing.

I took my time to watch it, then. The first thing I noticed, besides the daring [Knights] at the Front, dashing in and jumping out of harms way in the blink of an eye... - wait, was that Ser Gideon and Ser Fisher hacking a many-mouthed tendril in twain? - were the ravens I had sent to battle.

They were fighting. Larger than a normal raven, and wrought out of shadow and cold, they darted across the battlefield. At first, I could not see what they were doing, until a Nightmare reeled up, a centipede with chitinous scythes as limbs, and multiple ravens dove for the beast, speeding up and...shooting through the head of the creature in an explosion of shadow and gore, emerging on the other side with a spray of blood and a triumphant croak.

Others exploded in a cloud of black, obfuscating [Knights] in harm‘s way, gifting them the second of respite they needed to get out of danger or to line up the fatal blow. I saw one intercepting the slash of a claw with its body, the raven dissolving into a cloud of ash, only to materialize again on the shoulder of the saved [Knight] after he had severed the claw from the body, man and raven ultimately unharmed.

The souls of the dead truly were fighting with the living, and the body I had crafted for them, with help of the System, of course, proved to be more effective than even I had anticipated. Then again, the [Raven Companions] had been fighting for two days at least, they had to have leveled up a couple of times by now, not to speak about the [Knights], [Hunters] and irregular fighters. They must have surpassed the groundwork I had laid for them and this fight was a demonstration of their new Skills, if nothing else.

I took a deep breath. It was time.

[Lily. It is time. Contact the Mad King.] I send to the wisp with a thought, while I was loosening Zero and wrapped him a couple of times around my left arm.

“We need to get high up.“ I said to him, if to no one else. “Please stay close after we climb on top of the Weirderbeast. I might need you to get away really fast.“ The spiked ball that Zero wore for a head today bobbed in affirmation and turned towards the battle again, as eager as I was to finally bring our steel to bear against the beast.

And thus we began climbing, higher and higher up the tree, finally jumping and swinging on Zero, who had gripped the last branch above the Weirderbeast. And then....nothing. We sailed through the air with nothing between me and the masses of gibbering flesh below me. My head was hammering under the amount of blood my heart pumped through my body, and yet...and yet I was calm.

[Imbue with Cleansing Flame]...[Murder of Crows]...I grabbed Kingsbane, the sword that could cut anything. [Cutting Winds], [Ghoststrike].

The world around me exploded in shadows and storm, fire and blood.

Among the forces of nature I had conjured, I fell.