With a fierce, loping stride, Eric raced back towards the keep, the back wall portcullis opened by panicked musketeers quicker than Eric would have thought them capable of, even with the chieftain’s panicked shouts. It only took the massive chieftan a split second to slip through the gate, even faster than even Eric had thought the coward would do.

Unfortunately for the remainder of the works, their progression into the shelter of the keep soon became anything but orderly as the night rang with the sudden crash of tusks against mail-covered flesh, a full half dozen orcs sent cartwheeling through the air as the gate entrance they all desperately struggled to enter became a choke point and a kill zone as first one then three massive tuskers crashed into them, a heartbeat before the gloomy night was filled with the soft whistle of one javelin after another streaking through the air.

For so deeply had Eric embraced a hunter’s trance that only now did he truly appreciate just how close he had come to yet another benchmark as he did his best to master yet another skill.

And considering how close he had come to death multiple times playing the fool the day before, he thought it fitting that he claim his due while night’s forgiving embrace covered them all.

Congratulations! You have successfully slain 75 orcs with soul-bound pilums since sunset!

You have successfully raised 42 Revenants since sunset!

You have successfully repaired Soul-Bound

Spirit Mastery is now Rank 21!

Rituals of Summoning and Binding is now Rank 23!

Javelin Throwing is now Rank 16!

Eric flashed a coldly satisfied smile when the final orc abandoned on the field fell to his deadly spear shafts, refusing even to listen to the creatures desperate burbling pleas before it expired at last with a final choking gurgle under Eric's heel...

Before lurching to its feat just seconds later, milky-white eyes filled with hatred and despair as it was forced to fight once more.

“No rest for the wicked,” Eric said with a bitter smile. “Neither for you, nor me. Now go see if you can kill two more orcs before first light, and you may embrace oblivion’s caress once more.”

The revenant didn’t bother answering, just racing away with desperate haste, and a part of Eric knew just how damned cruel he was being. Yet he refused to feel anything but cold contempt for monsters that enjoyed violating human women before eating their children. All that mattered to Eric was that his interface had made it clear that he had already cleared the field of all reds.

All of his foes were now holed up in the imposing keep where he had nearly been killed twice-over. The perfect fort that Eric would absolutely love to turn to a kill box, assuming he could figure out how without himself getting killed.

Because if his hunch was right, 25 javelin throws was all it would take to claim one more sweet, sweet title, before all the ones a native like him could hope to stumble upon had long since been claimed by others far more savvy than him. And for all he knew, the title he sought had already been claimed.

But there was only one way to be sure. And since he was already three quarters of the way there… why not make it a full set?

For that reason he would dare approach the keep a second time, now ready to make use of all his tools to level the odds in his favor, and above all else, make sure he at least lived long enough to see the dawn of a new day.

As for the dozens of revenants desperate for orc flesh that he had left below, he had originally intended them as nothing more than a farewell gift for any orc that attempted to leave the keep. Now, however, with a single surge of his will, all of them flocked to his side, eyes alight with desperate hope that they might soon be free.

Eric gazed up at the massive brownstone walls of the keep with a hard smile.

If everything went as planned, he would grant them that mercy.

But after nearly losing his life repeatedly, he’d damn well consider all he had learned, taking on this keep.

His fierce grin turned to a rueful shake of his head, knowing that despite his best intentions, he had still managed to play the fool, utterly underestimating cannons that could maneuvered almost as well as ship’s artillery, in the hands of multiple classers. Human classers at that.

But he wasn’t about to castigate himself endlessly, even if he had fucked up. Because hindsight was 20/20 , and this world was more like his favorite strategy games than he cared to admit. Because the same tightly packed shield-wall formation that would have had his high-level wizard laughing at the stupidity of his enemies might have been the very formation that had saved those fighters against arrow fire and enemy spearmen over countless engagements… only to fall to an unexpected fireball, or concentrated gun fire in the world of a year ago, that would so easily tear through them all. Yet the widely spaced out skirmishers that know just how to best handle a wizard would be ground to dust under any decent heavy cavalry charge.

Before this keep, the only cannons he had ever faced had been in Gilton. Where bronze 12-pounders no more maneuverable than Napoleon’s favorite cannon and massive cast iron 24-pounders that needed special equipment to be maneuvered at all had been the weapons of choice, favored by his enemies. There had been no human or orc artillery classers, at least none that he had encountered, only Shaman that could alter the trajectory of cannon balls well enough to hit any Sylvan champions from quite a fearsome distance, so long as they were still.

He hadn’t used his trump card before because there was little point in wasting precious ammo taking out one half-trained orc after another, assuming there dozens at least trained in the basics of how to load and fire a cannon, all of them counting on their shaman to line up the shots.

With the arcane connection between Eric and the Elder Shaman broken, he had thought he was in the clear.

The human classer who could maneuver his 24-pounder like battleship artillery had thrown him off his game so much that he had relied on sheer instinct, charging, leaping, and striking. Even if, in hindsight, one quick use of his trump card would have ended things in the blink of an eye.

Which was the point of experience. Not berating himself for past mistakes, but using those mistakes and what he had learned to formulate new strategies that would make all the difference in the confrontation to come.

The rules of engagement had definitely changed.

He was no longer facing scores of orcs on a keep rooftop, any of whom could form an artillery brigade. Now he was dealing with a handful of specialized classers.

Classers that had so specialized their weapons, transforming the loose cannon powder and grapeshot of Gilton into proper artillery rounds.

Should those classers suddenly be out of the picture, he wondered if the remaining troops would be able to use those cannons at all.

Eric furrowed his brow, mind racing as he gazed back at the dozens of wild-eyed revenants, desperately eager for any chance to break free of their doom.

A chance that Eric now had every intention of granting them as they approached their target, now up five more magnificent tuskers, and Eric’s Potency pool bottomed out once more.

Because for all his mistakes, Eric had done at least a few things right. Such as immediately soul-binding his exquisitely priceless and irreplacable summoning tarp the moment he had had the chance, Just in case it got damaged… which it had. And it had required far less potency than he had feared to repair, so linked with his path it already was.

Eric gazed at the keep with a smile that was all teeth, before gazing back at his own troops that themselves had no hope of scaling thirty foot tall battlement walls.

Fortunately, a ladder made out of the skin and bones of all the orcs he had declined to raise proved to be just the thing to counter that little obstacle, with a quintet of tuskers now happily nestled within his ring once more.

If any eagle-eyed sentinel had peered carefully down at the swaying grass all but invisible in the overcast night, they might have at least heard the rustle of dozens of shadowy figures approaching, even if they saw nothing at all.

But the roars of chieftains and lieutenants desperate to bring order to demoralized troops, the squeals and cries of the wounded, meant that absolutely no one heard a thing.

Not until the stone battlements clicked with the sound of bone teeth biting into the parapet and the steady stomp of countless feet ascending as fast as they could, as the final act of the night began to unfold.