After leaving the battlement behind, they were soon marching for the Adenium Church. Christopher was supporting one of the wounded together with a soldier from a different squad, both of them were serving as crutches for the injured woman.

Christopher’s mind wandered to the people he had grown to care about. How were they managing in all of this chaos? Was Tamas even still alive? She was placed near one of the gates and would have been in just as much danger as him, maybe even more. Had Tinos, Menos, and the twins all safely reached the shelters? How many of his fellow trainees were still alive? There were so many people that he had grown close to, and he worried that they were fighting for their lives at this very moment. He might have the ability to undo all of that happening, but he still did not want them to suffer. Enough, he should really stop this line of thinking, he had plenty to worry about already.

Their trek towards the Church was not entirely without issue. They would occasionally be hounded by a lone Razor Wing, but Lieutenant Cerra and Sergeant Coley turned out to be even more impressive than he had thought. They were both able to use advanced Soul Force techniques to handle the birds before they became an issue to the rest. Sergeant coley used a wicked-looking pike and was launching the Soul Force projections from the weapon just like the Arena Contestants.

The technique that Lieutenant Cerra used was not even visible, but managed to squash and splatter the Razor Wings as if they were mere bugs. She used a quarterstaff, and his best guess was that her technique used some kind of technique based on air. They sometimes looked nervously to the sides and behind, but the forces of the Blight had not caught up to them yet. It was pretty clear that they had entered the city though. They heard the occasional building collapse in the distance. It only hastened their steps.

They finally turned the corner that would bring them into view of the Adenium Church, and they all stopped in their tracks. There was nothing there but the rubble of stone and the splinters of broken and dislodged wood. The Adenium Church stronghold had already fallen.

Many of his fellow soldiers looked shell-shocked at this turn of events. Their assessment of the current situation seemed painfully accurate. A lot of civilians and soldiers would have met their doom within the rubble. Most of them were also devout members of the Adenium Church, seeing the thousand-year-old church in rubble would be painful. This also meant that they were in serious trouble, there being no safe harbor for them and the wounded.

Before someone could begin to panic someone half-whispered out to them from one of the buildings to their left. It looked like another platoon had made it here to discover the same rubble. They quickly joined this smaller group in an abandoned but mostly intact residence. At least they were somewhat hidden here, although he did not think that they could fool an Abyssal wolf’s scent.

Lieutenant Cerra led the discussion. “Do you have any healers with you? We need someone to properly set some bones before we use any of our health regeneration potions. I could do it myself but any help would be welcome.”

“You are lucky that we do. Sasha has some training as a medic, and has some skill in blocking off nerves.”

As they regrouped, he shuffled to an empty spot in the corner of their new hideout. They could hear the destruction that was wrought in the streets in the distance, but those were just buildings. They should have at least held the wall long enough for everyone to evacuate to the shelters.

They had now reached a different phase in the defense of Lumen. The Blight was in, there was little they could do to change that, but that did not mean that they had already lost. It was now a much simpler battle. They were to kill the Blight until there were none left standing. Only once all had been defeated could they consider rebuilding the wall and retaking the city. It seemed a monumental task and one that Christopher was skeptical they could complete.

He was also very much unsure that he even wanted to continue at this point. The casualties were already well beyond what he would have considered as unavoidable. He had the unique ability of [Bookmark] and he really wanted to use it. Both because he wanted to put up a better defense, and because he was frankly scared out of his mind and wanted to get the hell out of here.

There were only a few things that had stopped him from saying the words to activate the skill. The first was that information was key. If he could gain more intel on the enemy movements and attack patterns that would be invaluable for his future efforts. The second was that this was an opportunity to earn more Soul Points, which he felt he should take despite being scared out of his mind. Just since the start of the attack, he had earned quite a lot already.

His points were really building up to something now. He had started the day with only 260 Soul Points, but the kills just kept piling on. When he willed up his interface to look at his current balance, he was pleasantly surprised when it now showed him at 1320 Soul Points. It would hardly be a drop in the bucket for most skills in the store, but it would do for the one he was interested in right now. [Soul Mark] would only cost him 600 of his Soul Points, an outright bargain for what it allowed him to do.

There seemed little point in waiting now that he had enough Soul Points to purchase [Soul Mark]. In fact, it was important that he bought this skill before using [Bookmark] if he wanted to get any use out of it. Any further purchases could always wait until after his loop. He might have to use it sooner than he wanted, who knew what would happen. He willed up the skill on his retina and he saw his Soul balance decrease by 600 Soul Points when he made the purchase. The skill was now visible on his skill tab.

‘Now this better work’ He picked up one of his most precious possession first, the Adeline dagger. He had not been able to use it yet, but it was probably the most valuable thing that he owned. Reading the skill made it seem as simple as saying a command phrase. “Place Soul Mark” he whispered while touching the Adeline dagger. A Blue tendril moved from his body towards the Adeline dagger, and a short burst of blue light blossomed on top of the metal. ‘well, that was easy enough.' Now to see if it was really Soul bound. He knew that it should now be possible to summon and dismiss the Adeline dagger with his Soul, but how?

It seemed that he had worried for nothing. He somehow was able to sense the dagger, there was some kind of significant connection between him and the item, it was as if he knew every fine detail of the object. As he tried drawing it in the dagger dispersed into blue mist, which got drawn into his body. Normally he would be concerned with a razor-sharp weapon sinking into his body, but this felt perfectly normal to him, the dagger was completely known to him after all.

Now about the other two items on which to place the Soul Mark. As he looked around at the chaos surrounding him, he saw one of the defenders stare at him with confusion. He realized that it might look like he had snapped, but this was important. The well-fitted robes under his armor would be next. He had specifically bought the robes with his wages with this purpose in mind. He had not forgotten his state of undress at the location of his [Bookmark] placement, and he did not want to complicate things like that again. The robes did not exactly offer protection against a weapon, but it would prevent some complicated questions. Soon the Soul Mark was placed onto the black robes.

Now the third item was something ingenious that he had planned for and bought only four days before. He had considered several things on which to place the third mark. One of them was his hunting knife, although much less impressive than the first. The other was the Light Bomb, at least if he was not going to use it here. The training pouch with the spheres was another option. Ultimately, he thought of something that should be better than all of those options and would also solve some of his problems. But first, he wanted to test something to see whether his efforts had been for nothing.

He was going to put a [Soul Mark] on his leather money pouch. He was wondering whether it was possible to place the mark on a pouch or a bag to then bring multiple items with him. It would save him a lot of hassle on a second turn. He placed the [Soul Mark] on the pouch and drew it in. The pouch dispersed into the Blue Soul mist, but to his dismay, he saw his coins clatter all over the floor, which elicited some strange looks from a few more people.

Well, that answered his question for him, it seemed that his efforts for the third item had not been in vain after all. With the purse unviable, he placed his last [Soul Mark] on the third item. He was very pleased to discover that it worked without issue.

Four days ago, he had collected all of the money he had earned over almost two weeks to buy a small bar of silver. The small bar of silver could easily be exchanged on the market for almost the same amount of currency as he had paid for it. He had made all these preparations with [Soul Mark] in mind. Now if he used [Bookmark] he could unbind the small bar of silver from his [Soul Mark] and sell it on the Lumen market. He had basically found a method of bringing his money with him over loops. Maybe he would eventually live in Lumen as a rich man. Having money would also be invaluable in preparing to fight the Blight.