Close to the face of the rift, things began to stir.

"Hey, take a look at that."

One of the Scouts noticed it first and pointed it out to the others. Before long, a crowd gathered to see what the commotion was about. The white walkers started to move with excess. What was only slight motions with their bodies before was now a full on spasm just like watching a mass seizure.

And then, as though on cue, all of them untangled from their knots of arms and legs and stood up on their feet like a well practiced act.

"Did you see that? It was like they were all pulled up at the same time like puppets on strings."

"Eugh, gross. They're staring straight at me."

"Ayo, do y'all hear that? It sounds like… something really heavy being dragged?"

Step by step, it emerged from the rift. Three meters tall at the very least, its silhouette was grossly disproportionate with a torso that took up most of its frame and twig-like legs that extended from where its shoulders were. Then, after a secondary mass slipped across the rift and fell with a heavy thump, the thing stood up.

"Oh god have mercy…"

"This is not what I signed up for…"

"Hurgh…"

What was thought to be its legs were its arms and its actual lower half was a bulbous mass of misbegotten limbs that bent in all the wrong directions. As it reached its full mast, its head just barely scraped the top of the barrier, which was a height easily over ten meters tall. Before the onlookers could recover from the shock, it reached out with one of its hands to touch the inner walls of the barrier. Yet when it found that it could not pass through, it opened its jaws discomfitingly wide.

And screeched continuously. With high notes, lower notes, and extended notes, it screeched a song so horrible that it made the heads of all those who heard it squeeze in pain. The field operators, whether near or far, all reacted to the noise. Some clamped their ears, but even that barely did a thing to help overcome the awful noise. Before long, whether they were covering their ears or not, the operators began to act in a way no sane person would.

"Merya, stop! Where are you going?"

One of the Scouts unclamped his ears to reach out to his friend, but he was ignored as easily as his voice was drowned out by the abhorrent sounds. Instantly, the full intensity of the screeching painfully ripped into his ears. He fought off the sensation. As he did so, his friend began to walk as if possessed and each step took her one step closer to the rift— to the monster whose song had bewitched her.

She was not alone. Many others, too, followed in that march. Then, she reached the boundary and touched the barrier: a foot through the door and a hand dipped in fog. That was all the sea of arms within needed to grasp an unreleasing hold over her and pull her body through. She was to be made one of them, she and the dozens more on their way. But before anyone else had the chance to be made a victim, the head of Scouts came flying into the scene. Her presence broke the monster's screechings.

"Be quiet!"

Diving through the air like the fastest bird in the world, Quies pierced through the barrier and then in a series of motions that only a few in the world would be able to follow, she coated her arm with powerful wind artes and sheared through the night warden's neck with great resistance. The head separated from the remainder of its body and fell to the ground. No blood fountained from the creature, but with that, the incessant noise had stopped and the rest of those possessed halted in their tracks.

Quies swooped down to save the taken Scout and cut off the arms of those white walkers that refused to let go. She did so without hesitation. There was no need for humanity here. Though they might have once been people, they were no different from walking corpses now.

Everyone cheered, yet it was too soon to celebrate.

Once back outside, Quies searched through the Scout for something and grabbed what was a small tag worn on the girl's wrist. She snapped it off with a precise arte used between her fingers and then threw the tag far aside. If the creatures within gained access to the tags, they would be able to make it out of the barrier easily.

"Your key access tags, throw it away, now. All of you"

With her voice practically seething, Quies commanded everyone to unequip their barrier access tags and when they did not do so quickly enough, she shouted at them again.

"What are you waiting around for? Are your lives not precious enough? And get the tags off the people who haven't recovered from the song as well."

Then, she realized something was wrong. She sensed the disturbance behind her from the wealth of gawked stares and she turned to look back. The night warden which she had brutally decapitated still stood strong.

"What?"

More than just strong in fact, and as its neck pulsated wildly, the monster bent down to amass an armful of the white walkers. Then, as if molding them like clay, it crushed the white walkers into a globual of amorphous white, where it transfixed itself into a new head after being placed onto the stump of its neck. As for its fallen head, it melted away until it was nothing but white sludge.

It did not end there however, and its bulbus lower half squirmed like a swarm of maggots had festered underneath. The festering quickly traveled all the way up throughout its back and neck until it sprouted many long arms that were a cruel mockery of the Bodhisattva's thousand own.

With this, it had been completely born anew. And as if celebrating this miracle of rebirth, it widened its mouth agape and sang a second screeching song. Then, it moved again. With all its arms, it began to unleash a relentless flurry of blows that resounded against the barrier like a thunderous drum.

Quies looked to the field operators immediately. The once possessed moved again. Their gazes all directed towards her and they rushed to swarm her body. Even the Scout she had just saved now reached up to grab her coat with both hands.

"You dare try to turn these children against me?" Quies growled before she swept the air with her arm. A storm wall of hurricane winds enveloped herself and the entire rift behind her to bar any possessed from getting to the barrier. At the same time, she took a barrier stick from her coat and set it to entrap the Scout she kept at an arm's distance.

She absolutely needed to do something about the night warden, but if even decapitation failed to do any lasting damage, then she was unsure of what she could do to put it down permanently. It was effectively unkillable as long as more of the white walkers continued to pour in from the other side of the rift. Although, she had never planned on even fighting it in the first place as combat was not part of her modus operandi as a Scout. They were already this close to a fail state. She might have to order a strategic retreat and take with her all the people who were still sane. With this, even the stubborn Sanders would have to fold and send out more support.

"Are those the Specialist siblings…? What are they up to?"

The pair of Kitsunes caught Quies's eyes. Far away from the commotion, Azusa and Azura were running around with their shikigami in tow, but with a clear purpose in mind. However, they were also being chased by the possessed. Seeing this, the head of Scouts smiled thinly. She decided there what she would do.

"Very well, show me what you siblings can achieve and I suppose I will do what I can to buy you sometime."

With offensive wind artes gathering around her arms, she turned around to face the rift and the night warden that stood guarding it. In times of crisis, helping hands always arose out of nowhere. She had experienced it happening enough times in her long life to not hesitate to change her plans when the situation called for it.

…

…

Azura and Azusa both clamped down on their ears the moment they heard the screech, and they kept it so until the head of Scouts silenced it for the first time. When they saw the unfortunate operators who had heard its voice and fell prey to its effects, they were spooked immensely.

Though unaware of the specifics, they could understand that it was a mental based arte and an immensely powerful one at that for it to be able to pierce through a barrier four sets of FBDSs strong. Yet its powers were dissipated enough that some of them were able to fight off its effects, albeit not without ill effect.

What this could only mean was that they were on the cusp. If there was only just one more layer to the barrier, just one, they would likely be able to neutralize its effects.

"Sister, put one on your head."

Azura handed his sister a stack of talismans. It was the ones meant to be used as the formation anchors for the ritual barrier, but individually it could be used to make a standalone one as well. Understanding her brother's intent, Azusa quickly did as she was instructed. It was strange placing the adhesive talisman on her hair, but it only weirded her out for a moment before she quickly got over it.

Right in time too, because the night warden's second song came moments after she activated the talisman and a protective barrier was laid over her head.

"I think it's working. I don't feel like anything is prodding at my head anymore, but the noise is still unbearable." Azusa nodded to her brother.

"Good. This confirms it. As long as we can get the ritual barrier set up and working, we won't have to worry about the monster's screeching anymore. And with the source of the arte being cut off, the ones being possessed should be able to naturally recover as well."

"Brother, wait. We should try to help out the people who are still holding on too. The more free hands we have the better. There's no telling what might happen next."

Azura stopped to ponder on Azusa's words.

"You're not wrong… But don't lose sight of the goal. Remember what we have to do."

"I understand…"

The siblings agreed on a plan of action together and both got up at the same time. The two called upon their shikigami and the paper figures gathered to guide them to their goals.

…

Primarily based on the eight trigrams, the ritual barrier the siblings aimed to create was structured in two parts. The first being the core of the barrier itself and it required eight equidistant and rightly orientated anchors reflecting the individual parts of the trigrams. These would serve to outline the boundaries of the barrier, but the actual size could be adjusted with some slight leeway. The second part was to source power to the formation itself and this was done by redirecting the aether flow of the surrounding leylines to wash over the formation anchors.

The concept behind it was simple, rudimentary even. Like all formations, a child could do it with all the right instructions. But like all formations, knowing those right instructions was the difficult part. In this case, it was figuring out the turbulent flow of the leylines and how to accurately redirect its power.

Fortunately, the siblings were Specialists well versed in this kind of act.

"I'll set up the eight trigrams. You do the leylines, okay?" Azura asked his sister.

"Got it!"

The siblings split.

Azura followed his shikigami closely as he ran. His first stop: the front of the rift where he saw a group of the possessed field operators. They were attempting to push their way through to the head of Scouts, however they were all being kept at a significant distance by her powerful artes.

"How is she so powerful? No, I don't have time to worry about that now."

Because he just located it, the first anchor point. It was easy to tell exactly where it was, with one of the shikigami twirling about on the spot. He picked up his speed and made a dash for it. To his dismay however, he also caught the attention of the possessed and he watched with great appall as their heads snapped towards him in an all too eerie manner.

"Are you kidding me? Where's Li Hua when I need her to fight for me?"

He cursed. With their focus on the head of Scouts, the last thing he had expected was for them to turn tail and chase after him instead. In an attempt to buy some time for him to set the anchor, he sent his shikigami towards them. With a flick of his finger, a number of them changed functions from their passively floating state to shoot towards the crowd like darts.

Upon impact, they detonated into a crystalline mist of frost and took hold over his pursuers' legs. It rooted some of them to the ground but those front few were quickly overtaken by the possessed behind them. They were relentless, no different from zombies in a horror film. However, it bought him just enough time to get to the anchor point, where he commanded four of his shikigami to set himself an exclusion zone. He would be able to protect the formation anchor with this and also get to work without disturbance.

Yet, not all went as planned as one of them had run especially fast and made it into the exclusion zone before its walls could fully manifest. Azura panicked, but he quickly gathered his shikigami to defend himself.

"Wait! Friendly! I'm friendly!"

The Felid intruder held up his arms quickly as a show of his nonaggression. Azura halted. This guy must have also been lucky to escape being possessed just like him and his sister. Realizing this, Azura breathed a sigh of relief before throwing a talisman that stuck onto his forehead.

"Phew. I'm SC Y'ihex— Aaah! Don't attack me!"

"Relax, it's just a barrier talisman. It'll help to keep you from turning out like those guys outside. As long as you keep it on anyways."

"Really? Thank god… Hey, you look like you know what you're doing. Mind if I stick with you for now? I'll help with anything I can."

"Sorry, but I have a complicated barrier to set up right now. If you want to help with something, then do me a favor and warn me if anything happens. And defend me if you can."

"Ayo, sure, I can do that."

Y'ihex nodded before nervously taking out a barrier stick to defend the two of them with. Azura meanwhile pulled out a brightly colored marker to start drawing out a diagram of intricate lettering and symbols on the ground. Noticeably, he left a distinct space empty in the center of the pattern where he would be able to set talismans in accordance with the first of the eight trigrams.

He worked as hastily as he could, but with sweat gathering on his brow, he knew he could only afford to be so quick before being prone to making careless mistakes. The markings were intricate, and he really did not have the time to erase it and try again if he screwed up.

"Uh-oh. Hey, you there? I think we may be in a pickle."

"What—? Oh fuck—!"

Hearing Y'ihex, Azura spared a momentary glance upwards and nearly had a heart attack as a result of it. The possessed field operators were all pressed up against the barrier, certainly. But what really scared him were their hands which glowed with the artes they were mere moments away from unleashing.

Tensing up, he braced himself for the worst, and yet…

"They stopped?"

The possessed stopped in their tracks and so did the night warden's screeching song. Whatever the reasoning behind it was, Azura could recognize an opportunity when he saw one. He quickly finished the rest of his diagram and placed the talisman anchors down as required. After that, he only needed to break through the exclusion zone and the crowd of the possessed surrounding it to set up the other anchors.

Unfortunately, that was also when the night warden's screeching had resumed.

"Damn. Your name is Y'ihex right? You asked if there was anything you could do to help. Well I need you to help me break through this crowd right now and defend me as I set up the other anchors."

"Sure thing boss."

"Good, then on the count of three, let's go. One. Two—"

"—Wait, is that one, two, go on three? Or is it one, two, three, and then go?"

"Three! Go!"

"Ayo, I'm not ready for this!"

On the count of three, Azura pushed Y'ihex out of the barrier.

…

…