Chuck ducked behind the dirt berm as another barrel exploded nearby. He covered his head as rock and dirt fell down all around him. Not for the first time this week or even today he questioned his choice of joining the Tower.

This week had been hell. Ever since the failed attempt to take the fort during the night raid the Vitorians had been hammering their front line from the fort. It wasn't all bad, the Nurese forces had managed to move their siege weapons across the river to the foot of the pass.

The downside was that brought them within range of the enemy's weapons and they had the height advantage. It was one of the reasons Chuck was taking cover. The enemy sent all types of attacks down at them from large boulders to flaming oil. Chuck and the other mages had been relegated to a defensive role to protect the siege weapons. Mainly because the enemy's mages were staying within the fort to defend it from sneak attacks.

The upper command was pushing for the Nurese forces to push forward. Chuck had learned that their reinforcements were a few days away. Chuck thought the Generals were being overly optimistic but he did as ordered.

"Push!" he heard one of the Commander's yell.

He stifled a sigh and rushed out with the rest of his team to create temporary fortifications for the soldiers behind them, to use as cover while they worked.

"Incoming!" someone yelled.

Chuck and the other members of his team stopped and put up their barriers. Fist-sized rocks impacted his kinetic barrier, reducing most of their lethal potential. The rest were blocked by Vigo and the Junior Commander's spells.

Soldiers with shovels rushed in behind them and began digging and piling the dirt on the upward side to create a berm.

Chuck slid down by a rock to take a breather. Their team had been at this all day and had only managed to gain a few hundred meters. Each time they moved closer new fortifications needed to be setup. Once that was done the siege weapons had to be moved closer. It was a long tiring process and they needed to get another three hundred meters closer to allow their siege weapons to strike at the walls of the fort effectively.

Chuck wondered why they hadn't just dug in during their first attempt to take the fortress. Now all this time and effort had to be put in to fight their way back up to a position they already held a week ago.

"Firebombs! Mages deploy water spells," the Commander of their line yelled.

Chuck groaned but popped up to use his ice and water spells to help defend against the barrels of flaming oil.

Most sailed overhead, striking berms and exploding. Others fell short. Only a few needed to be dealt with personally by the mages. Still, each attack slowed their advance and it only got worse the closer they got to the fort.

The entire day and night was a repeat of what they had just done. There was no retreating this time as command wasn't willing to relinquish the progress they had made. That meant no coming off the front line to rest or recover. Chuck and the others needed to take any downtime they had to recover mana or energy.

Chuck was startled awake by a loud whistle.

"Forward!" the order was yelled.

Chuck and the others crossed the new berm and ran forward again. This time the enemy had been waiting. Dozen's of catupults launched thier rocky payload. Chuck was forced to throw up his kinetic barrier and wind barrier. Most of the others were able to react in time as well but Chuck saw Darfon take a large rock to the skull.

Jala screamed and rushed over to help, Chuck ran over as well to see if he could heal the man.

It was obvious as soon as he arrived that no amount of healing would help poor Darfon. The side of his head had been caved in from the rock and bits of brain leaked out the gaping wound. Chuck was forced to pull a senseless Jala away by force, with the help of Raina.

It had been an open secret that Jala and Darfon had a thing going and Chuck felt heartbroken for the woman but right now it was more important to save her life than to let her wallow in despair over his corpse. The two of them managed to pull her behind the kinetic barrier just in time to avoid another round of attacks.

"Can you stay with her?" Chuck asked Raina.

"Yes, hurry and secure the line."

Chuck nodded and rushed back toward the others. He was glad Raina had come out of her shell but he knew after the war she would not be the same quiet caring person she had been before. Somehow that made him extremely sad.

***

Chuck walked through the broken wall of the fortress.

It had taken eleven full days to capture the place. Nine to breach the wall and two to overwhelm the defenders. He was tired, so very tired. Jala had recovered from the loss of Darfon, throwing herself into the fight with abandon. Enemy soldiers had nicknamed her the Ice Queen, or more vulgarly the Ice Bitch. She had lost an arm in the fighting when an enemy mage sheared it off with a spell.

Chuck hadn't been able to save her arm but he had taken down the mage, using a scatter bolt. He had stopped holding anything back after Darfon's death. While not as destructive as his teammates, he managed to hold them together.

This was needed after J.C.Velin sacrificed his life to take on three enemy mages at once. Despite the man's temperament, he had been a good leader and Chuck missed the man.

Vigo had earned a nickname as well, soldiers called him the Blacksmith because he pulped their enemy between a hammer and an anvil.

Chuck had witnessed this feat a few times. Vigo would create his earthen rampart and then using another spell, that Chuck didn't know the name of, send it hurtling towards the enemy. It wasn't as effective as you might think. Most people were able to get out of the way or jump over the wall but one time he had smashed a group of ten enemy soldiers against an adjacent wall as they ran out from a doorway. None had noticed the wall until it was too late to do anything. Watching heads exploding like zits was not a pleasant sight.

Neither Raina nor he had earned a moniker during that battle and Chuck was more than fine with that. He wasn't here for glory or revenge or anything simple like that. If it wasn't for the creeping sense of impending doom that was seeping into the back of his mind and his friends he would have fled the battlefield long ago.

Each day and each step farther north made the feeling grow, just a bit. It was how he knew he was on the right path. Chuck looked at the progress of his last spell, hoping it would be completed before he needed it.

Singularity: 316025/350000SP to level 1

Another week, he only needed to hope for another week. Looking north into the forest he had to wonder if he had another week. Even now he could feel it growing closer. He shivered.

The remaining members of Chuck's team were assigned to another J.C. that had lost all but one of his mages. Chuck recognized the man from class but didn't know his name. Nor did he care to learn it. In all likelihood, everyone here would be dead at the end of this journey. It was something he had come to terms with. Whether they are killed in the fighting or killed when he activated the spell, he couldn't be sure.

The only way they would survive is if they were well back from the front line. With them being mages that were unlikely. And he wouldn't hesitate to use his spell if it meant saving the world.

A few hours later, Chuck watched in glassy-eyed boredom as the reinforcements marched up the slope. They had arrived only hours before as the fighting was finally coming to an end. The troops were fresh and clean and looked down on the dirty rabble sitting around covered in filth and grime.

Chuck had to put his arm on Jala's shoulder, giving her a tight shake of his head as she tried to rise. He had felt her building anger as she started forming a spell in her mind. It would do nobody any good to attack fellow soldiers. And that's exactly what these were, real trained soldiers. Why they hadn't been here sooner? Chuck could only guess and none of my guesses painted the Generals in a favorable light.

Hell, Chuck spotted a group of the upper brass talking and gesturing toward the bounty of trees in the area. Chuck swore that if this was was a pretense to steal resources he would leave and never look back, the Kingdom of Nur be damned.

"Alright, everyone up, it's time to march. Our scouts report that Vitor reinforcements are on the march and will be here in four days. We plan to ambush them but we have to move fast."

Everyone rose as the order was passed down. Chuck didn't even know this J.C.'s name but the man didn't subscribe to all the pomp that his rank afforded him, which made him ok in Chuck's book.

The army marched for a day and a half before they came to the edge of the forest. A large flat area of farmland had been cleared and Chuck could see a moderately sized village on the far side of the cleared area.

This is where they planned to ambush the enemy army. A large lake secured their left flank and the forest made it difficult for a large force to attack them from the right.

Scouts with bows were placed near the edge of the forest to eliminate anyone that might give away their position. Meanwhile, the Siege weapons were being reassembled. It was a noisy process but they were placed about a kilometer to the rear to avoid giving away our position.

Chuck was once again thrust into the role of scouting. They needed to know if the enemy army had made it to the village yet. So he had to scout around the village while remaining undetected.

He didn't bother hiding in bushes this time around. Instead, he donned a set of enemy clothing that he had stored away in his ring. The ring didn't hold that much and the clothing had taken up much of that space. Of course, he did this out of sight of anyone. He didn't need another person eying his storage item. He placed his Nurese uniform inside the ring and enabled his stealth.

This way if he was spotted the enemy might mistake him for a returning scout.

It took him most of the day to scout the outskirts of the town. He didn't spot any signs of an army. As he was making his way to leave he heard someone yell out. He froze, then looked around. A man in white armor was waving.

Chuck looked around, then pointed to himself, unsure if the man had spotted him or not. When the man nodded and gestured angrily Chuck knew he was in trouble.

He swallowed a nervous lump in his throat as he approached the armored man. The man started babbling at him in Vitorian, then held out a rolled parchment to him. Chuck hesitated but took the parchment as the man dismissed him with a tired wave.

'What the fuck just happened?' he thought, watching the man walk away. Chuck looked around quickly before deciding on his next action.

A pressurized water blade sliced the knight's head clean off, going through the crack between his armored torso and head. Chuck dragged the body into some bushes nearby and hid it as well as possible. Then he kicked dirt over the blood and activated his stealth skill before he made his way back towards his camp.

He stopped to change back into his regular army clothing and hurried back to deliver whatever missive the idiot knight had handed to him.

Turns out the missive was to the commander of the enemy army, letting him know that the city was prepared for their arrival in another two days. Since the news could be false, a long-range scout was sent to verify this information. Chuck was fine with this, if it meant he had a few days to rest up and finish training his skill, all the better.

Chuck was shaken awake, when he opened his eyes he saw Vigo.

"It's time," the man said quietly.

Chuck nodded and looked around before getting to his feet. The camp was a quiet bustle of activity as the army prepared for the engagement. The siege weapons were moved to a cleared area far enough from the edge of the forest that they were out of sight. The rest of the army was lined up in front, in neat little rows with two teams of mages to cover each line.

Chuck was nervous, this would be different than attacking the fortress. The enemy may be initially surprised but they would recover quickly and attack, he did not doubt that. Then the real fighting would begin.

The light started to come up over the horizon, bathing the fields in its golden glow. It was still early enough that a heavy layer of fog covered most of the land adding a surreal beauty to a landscape that was about to turn into a churning mass of blood and death.

Chuck warmed his hands between his armpits as he saw the first sign of the enemy. They were marching down the main road in a column eight wide, their white tabards with golden sun crest blowing in the morning breeze.

The roads had been built specifically to handle large troop movements. Chuck knew that because the only two roads he had seen this wide were the one leading from Brightwater to the Nur encampment and this road leading away from the fort.

Scouts and artillery people had done their best to calculate the optimal distance to strike the road. Now they only had to wait.

Chuck watched as the first column of enemy troops passed the marker. Then the second. He heard a shrill whistle followed by the creak of wood as all of their artillery let loose. It was easy to see that the goal was to separate the enemy formations.

As soon as the whistle blew the enemy looked around in confusion. That didn't last long as the first rocks and barrels of flaming pitch flew through the air. Chuck heard the distant scream and shouts as the enemy tried to form ranks and defend against the deadly rain.

Then came their turn. Two short whistle blows signaled the troops to move forward. Archers began to fire as they got within range. The enemy had not been prepared and the first two enemy companies consisted of spearmen. A dozen fell to the first volley, even before the enemy mages or theirs even got close enough to do battle.

As the lines grew closer spells started to be flung. Soldiers rushed forward as both sides' mages targeted each other.

Chuck and his team worked together to defend against the enemy's attacks. As soon as they created an opening one of them would launch a counterspell.

Raina screamed and clutched her head.

'Shit, one of the mages had managed to counterspell her.'

Chuck covered her as a flurry of spells were sent directly at her. They had found the weak link and they were trying to eliminate it. Chuck cast all of his defensive options and took the incoming spell's head-on.

It was a dumb thing to do but it didn't even register in his mind until after he had done it. A rock wall sprang up in front of him, lessening the incoming fire. It was enough for him to reset his defensive spells and for Raina to shake off the effects of the countered spell.

"Let's kill these assholes," Chuck heard her growl.

"Get me close and I got something that should do the trick," he said with a fierce grin.

"Vigo!"

"What," the man yelled over the din of the fight.

"Clear a path for Chuck."

The man didn't even question Raina, instead, he reached down and slammed his fist into the ground.

Chuck felt the earth shake from where he had been standing, it was worse for the enemy.

Chuck didn't waste any time. He rushed closer as the mages tried to recover their balance. The entire time feeding a massive amount of mana into his flame thrower spell. He got as close as he dared. The enemy mages were getting back to their feet and some had spotted him.

"DIE!" he screamed, "flame thrower!"

Unlike the previous times he had used the spell, this time he converted natural elements to fuel the spell. A jet of blue-white flame boiled forth from his outstretched hand and roared across a ten-meter distance to splash on the mages. Chuck hosed the area in front of him in the deadly mixture for the full five seconds.

Two of the six mages survived the attack, throwing up proper shields to defend against his magic. Still, both sides were forced to retreat as the flames spread, burning the field. Chuck had to run back while avoiding incoming spells. It was the main reason he had not tried to use the spell sooner. The range was piss poor. Even doubling it had cost him a significant portion of mana.