I knew and subsequently determined, that our mysterious Benefactor had apparently been watching us closely this entire time.

So with renewed vigor, we anticipated the clash between our two forces.

Moments later, the onrushing mass of death and their unsettling chorus of groans and moans began to be interrupted by the wail of undead in their death throes. While we figured the pitfalls may not do much in the end to impact the inconceivable number of undead, we at the very least wanted the traps to slow them down. That was so we could take advantage of the fact they were within range of a spell bombardment.

Almost as if in reaction to my thoughts, our ranged community members began their own onslaught. As Priscilla, Rachel, and Noah did their best to discharge what little mana they had in a spell battery on the advancing undead forces.

What resulted was a combination of attacks, with the horde’s rush being blunted by the pitfalls, and explosions escalating the attack the Lich’s forces suddenly encountered. The successful barrage served to provide us a precious bit of time to collect ourselves, but as the undead drew closer I came to the conclusion that our small number would likely find ourselves overrun if we don’t resort to one of our few contingency plans.

I looked over at Harrison, and upon making eye contact, I nodded towards him. Taking it as a signal, the National Guard Soldier ran back to the house to carry out what we had discussed beforehand. Even though ideally we wouldn’t have to resort to our scant supplies of modern weaponry, we were going to need the help. Experience gains be damned. Antonio’s brush with death only served to nail down the stark reality that we could not afford to take this fight lightly.

Curiosity got the best of me and I could feel my mana being replenished at an exponentially larger rate. I couldn't help but think that whatever surge of energy that was contributing to the phenomenon could be answered by a cursory glance at my status. So, I pulled up the list.

Name: Thomas Parker [Genesis]

Tier 1 - [Juvenile High-Human Paragon] Level: 14 | Experience: 65.47 / 882.78

Race: High-Human

Titles: High-Human Paragon | Genesis

Health 554/570 ( +390 / hour )

Stamina 357/430 ( +300 / hour )

Mana 570/820 [662] ( +390 / hour )

Active Effects: Astia's Grace [Lesser Divine Blessing] - 18:17

Attributes:

Strength: 78 [90]

Constitution: 52 [65]

Agility: 40 [50]

Wisdom: 52 [65]

Intelligence: 88 [110] [+5]

Unique Attributes:

Charisma: 19 [23.75] [+5]

Free Attribute Points: 20

Skills:

Appraisal T1 - Level 4

Basic Sword Proficiency T1 - Level 7

Basic Mana Manipulation T1 - Level 9

Elemental Affinities

- Intermediate Fire Elemental Affinity T2 - Level 7

- Water Elemental Affinity T1 - Level 3

- Earth Elemental Affinity T1 - Level 4

- Air Elemental Affinity T1 - Level 2

Meditation T2 - Level 2

Leadership T2 - Level 4

Paragon's Influence T3 - Level 2

- Paragon's Tether

- Paragon's Charge

- Paragon's Bestowal

??? - Level 1

Free Skill Points: 13

'What in the living hell!?' I thought. A Divine Blessing was no joke, and the information presented only confirmed my suspicions. Somehow, and in some way, Astia had managed to directly intervene on our behalf in our current struggle. Whatever brought the God to actually intercede in the conflict on our behalf was beyond me. Did Apinya's prayers somehow cause this? Or was the God more benevolent than I had previously imagined? Regardless, I had been under some level of impression that the God was unable to intervene in the affairs of our world... Though, perhaps my understanding was simply lacking in that regard. After all, a God is a God.

He was also the Deity of Chance... Whatever that meant. So possibly he had some measure of influence over the probability of events to succeed or fail. There was obviously much in the way of knowledge that I lacked.

The implications of such, I would need to dwell on later, as of right now all I knew was that the Divine Blessing appeared to grant a 200% buff to my stat regeneration, and also provided a 25% boost to everyone's base attributes. It provided the sorely needed upgrade necessary to complete our defense of the Community. It felt as though I had just gained several levels at once. Despite the slight discomfort that came with my boost in attributes, I was ready to push myself beyond what I had previously achieved before. I subsequently poured my twenty attribute points into my agility, strength, and constitution. At this point, it was likely my physical attributes would ultimately be the deciding factor in the immediate battle, but I still put a few points into intelligence and wisdom. I placed eight of the twenty points into agility, my weakest attribute, four into strength, four into constitution, and ultimately two each into intelligence and wisdom. The boost was well-rounded, but any benefit would be crucial.

Our clash subsequently began in earnest. Despite the numerous pitfall trips we interlaced throughout the battlefield, we were unable to completely cover all possible avenues of advance. As such the undead managed to find narrow paths that circumvented the pitfalls. Consequentially though, the one benefit was that instead of one massive swarm, we now only needed to contend with smaller streams of the undead. It only helped the situation slightly.

With a resounding battle cry emanating from our [Warrior]'s our frontline advanced to intercept the undead beginning to make their way to the array of abandoned cars. Currently, those same cars were forming the only formidable 'barricade' preventing the horde's entrance into the Community.

Kevin, Jackson, my Father, Dante, Alejandro, William, and Liam all moved forward to plug the gap. Already I could see Liam beginning to falter in his resolve though. In fact, I became almost certain that the man would run as soon as things began to get hairy... The mere thought almost made me lose control of my emotions, but my composure was crucial here. Unfortunately, we were down two people from our front-line, with Antonio completely out of the fight, and Alex currently attempting to perform emergency triage on Antonio. While we may count on him if things got messy, in all reality we preferred for him to continue his treatment. Losing one of our own would be... Well, extremely demoralizing.

As soon as the first of the undead began closing in, pushing through the gap in between the cars, our front-line began to swing their weapons. The gap was narrow for now, only enough for one or two of the undead to push through at a time. However, it was quickly becoming apparent that the gap was slowly widening as more and more undead attempted to push through. What had been only one or two at a time, began to swell to three or four after a matter of seconds.

Of course, we had expected this, and it appeared that the battle cries our [Warrior]'s; Kevin, my Father, and Dante had let out was having a noticeable effect as they continue to slash down. For now, our line was holding. I returned to our backline and climbed on top of a mound of dirt to get a better visual of the battle.

What I saw didn't bode well.

Even though our backline was continuing to bombard the invading horde, it was clear they were beginning to slow down. Even with the massive increase in strength presented by the numerous buffs, as well as Astia's own divine blessing given to them, it wasn't enough, and they were already forced to begin conserving their mana. In this case, there was only one last trick we had.

As it turned out, the undead horde had only barely begun to press against our defenses, as of this moment there were already several more streams of undead beginning to converge. The issues only grew when the greater volume of the walking dead began pushing our makeshift gate of cars apart even further. While, gratefully, they still couldn't push around and through the palisade wall, they apparently weren't going to need to.

It was now or never. We had piled gas canisters about thirty or so feet beyond the palisade wall. The only issue was that the canisters were under a wave of undead. Not exactly ideal, but it should have been expected at this point. I knew exactly where they were though, and a simple conjuration of another superheated fireball should be all it takes to ignite the pile.

The fireball emerged between my outstretched hands as I poured fire mana into the construct, and then I suddenly compressed it, continuing to superheat it. As soon as I reached the same level of heat I had reached before with my opening strike of the battle, I grew confused as I had still yet to strain from the effort. It only took a moment before I realized that the divine blessing had also boosted my intelligence and wisdom, directly correlating to my mana control.

Even if I lacked the mana to make it any larger, that didn't mean I couldn't shape the blast. As such, I began to twist it, until the front of what had once been my ball of fire became pointed while the rest of the firey magical mass collected behind it. My hope was for the new 'artillery round' literally made of fire would pack more of a punch if it was aerodynamic. The second action I performed was what really began to test the limits of my temporarily increased abilities. I applied concerted force, and the new ' artillery round' began to spin, faster, and faster until an audible whirring sound could be heard. The red hot artillery round of fire was ready, and the effort to keep it spinning strained my focus. Then, as I noticed my mana levels beginning to tick down faster and faster, I took stock of the spell one last time.

Every time I created a spell, it only grew in potency and this time was no exception. I only hoped it was enough to blast through the undead and ignite a chain reaction and leave a massive dent in the horde's numbers. Hopefully with the result of stimying their seemingly never-ending push forward.

I was ready. With a massive flexing of my magical might, I launched the spell forward, and a deafening Vwhoosh was heard all around the battlefield as, within a split second, the spell traveled the thirty or so feet distance to impact my target. The immediate explosion was truly massive. We had loaded nearly thirty gallons of petrol, all siphoned from abandoned cars littering the neighborhood, into the shallow depression and covered it with a thin layer of wood and dirt to protect and hide it. Of course, at this point, I wasn't sure if the undead would have even done anything had they literally fell into it anyways, as their focus seemed to be wholly on killing us. So, our caution likely was unfounded.

Then, with a sudden realization, it seemed that placing the pile of petrol thirty feet from our 'wooden' palisade wall may not have been far enough at all. Flaming debris rained all across the battlefield, with a plume of fire extending almost forty feet into the air indicating the site of the massive explosion. That wasn't all, however, as the ground itself shook violently, indicating the true ferocity of the explosion, and the shockwave nearly destroyed our eardrums and knocked me off of the mound of dirt I was standing on before I regained my balance. As luck would have it, the force of my impact blasted most of the fire, debris, and most importantly, flaming petrol backward and onto the main force of the undead army. Our side still wasn't spared, however, as we too had to contend with a literal cascade of separated limbs, decaying organs, dirt, and of course, flaming globs of gasoline.

In a split-second, upon realizing how imminent the threat of the blast was, I pumped nearly three-hundred points of mana into a spell I lacked much experience in, but would likely be the only savior we might have before our community members suffered from numerous third-degree burns as a result of my carelessness. Using such a high-powered spell resulted in a lot more damage than we had prepared for, and if I failed, we would face the consequences too.

Air mana, consisting of a bluish-white hue emerged from one of the four gateways orbiting my internal mana core. The adjacent fire mana gate, I noticed, was already several times larger than the three other similar gateways, likely because of my extensive use of the mana. I couldn't hold back though, and I poured as quickly as I possibly could, all of the mana I could spare through my mana networks. Luckily my mana networks had enlarged slightly due to my frequent use of overpowered spells. As such, I would be spared most of the damage on that front, but the gateway meant for my air mana wouldn't be so easily spared. However, I couldn't worry about that now, I had to mitigate the unintended consequences of my actions.

My hands began to stretch outwards as I conjured a wave of air mana in front of me, stretching and compacting it as much as possible in my attempt to cover all of our forces. However, I had to release it now if I had any hope of protecting everyone from the literal hail of fire already impacting just outside the gate and inching towards us in its descent.

I unleashed it, and a literal torrent of wind ripped through the area, emanating from my outstretched arms. It was strong enough to trip up our entire front-line that was still attempting to recover from the uneven footing the shockwave caused. As luck would have it, the wind storm also pushed the undead back into each other, as well as managed to force the worst of the raining debris to halt their arced descent and fall back onto the undead just outside of our walls.

The wind continued, and tore forward across the field of battle, exciting the flames that were currently engulfing the undead horde. It seemed that they too weren't spared the effects of being doused in petrol. With a sudden rush of wind, the fires that covered them only expanded in strength and spread even further among their ranks. Globs of flesh melted off of their bones and the lights in numerous glowing blue eyes faded away. It looked like a true glimpse of hell as literal flaming corpses continued to try and march forward in a ravenous effort to destroy our community. I knew the sight would be the stuff of nightmares for weeks, and perhaps months to come.