Seeing the horde of Kruwal monsters on the other side of the village, Cedric turned to look at the barricade and grimaced. “That won’t hold them for more than a minute,” he said, mouth tight. The movement of people through the gap was slow, as only one person at a time could pass. “We need to hold them off until everyone’s through, and then…” he trailed off.

“Then we keep holding,” Valerian said darkly, hefting the great axe he’d no doubt pilfered from the dead Kruwal.

Alex blinked. Were they mad? A fucking last stand? He looked around to see if anyone would speak out against the madness, but he seemed to be the only one without a death wish today. Daven had dropped off the girl with another villager, and he stood next to his sister now, both with solid resolve in their blue eyes.

These people are maniacs!

“That’s it?” Alex asked in exasperation. “That's the plan? Hold them off?”

“You can’t outrun them,'' Valerian said. “Not the Kruwal.”

As Alex sputtered, the pair of mayor and smith that had been arguing just behind the crew on the bridge broke into a screaming match.

“Enough!” Orson thundered, his white mustache bristling. He slapped Bryon’s hands off of his shoulder. “I remember our duty better than you know, old friend. But this village too has been mine to protect for the past fifteen years now. You go and take my girl with you. Keep her safe. I’ll be right behind you.”

The smith’s jaw clicked shut, and Alex could almost hear his teeth grinding from where he stood. Finally, Bryon grunted in agreement, and stormed off toward the gap in the carriages where Lanna was helping the last few villagers to squeeze through. Alex watched as the smith grabbed Lanna by the arm and almost shoved her past the men waiting for their turn.

“Focus, Alex,” Valerian said. “They are coming.”

If Valerian hadn’t told him, then Alex would’ve noticed a moment later when the ground started to shake again. The Kruwal on the other side of the village were no longer roaring and jeering at them. They broke into a full out run as soon as the Kruwal warrior with the horn blew a single sharp blast.

Steadying himself, Alex took a second to inspect the Kruwal. The first thing he noticed, and what should’ve helped him realize that the first Kruwal back at the Bedstone’s backyard wasn’t just a dungeon escapee, was the fact that none of them had identifying tags like the Wild Boar or even the Sage Treant.

If Valerian hadn’t told them they were called Kruwal, he would’ve had no information at all on them. Just like every other person he’d encountered before. So, surely, they were people. Not humans, that was clear, but people all the same.

Not all looked like the monster that killed Jerome the thatcher. In fact, it was the disparity among them that caught his attention. No one Kruwal warrior wore the same armor or held the same weapon. It was like they had ransacked a thousand different armories but took only a single piece out of each.

Swords and axes seemed to be their favorites, but some made due with more crude weapons, iron-tipped maces and wooden clubs. Or nothing at all. The corded muscle beneath their rough red skin looked to be enough to pluck Alex’s head right off his neck.

Boiled leather chest pieces were as common as shirts of ring mail, and some warriors had just a pair of leather embraces or a rusty helmet. Plate armor was the rarest, it seemed, with only a few Kruwals sporting a piece or two. One of the monsters had a shoulder piece on his right side, but nothing else. Alex thought it was almost comical, if the Kruwal weren’t about to murder the lot of them.

The grisly thought was almost enough to shake him, but soon he steeled himself, breathing out to calm his pumping heart. Nothing to it now. The time for complaining or overthinking was done. If Valerian was right, and even in the few days he’d known him Alex had learned to appreciate how often that was the case, then running would do him no good now.

It was better to challenge them here and now with the crew to back him up then if they caught him on his own if he were to run away.

And whether he liked to admit to himself or not, Alex didn’t have it in him to run off on the crew in a situation like this. It was one thing to go off on his own in the middle of the night when it wouldn’t hurt anyone. But if he left now, he would be nothing but a coward abandoning those that depended on him. Just like his sister.

So Alex breathed in, letting the power flood his veins. Closing his eyes, he ignored the way the Kruwal’s armor clanked as they drew near, or Cedric’s voice as he gave orders to the crew, and made the first changes that came to his mind.

[Status]

Name: Alex Hart

Level: 6

Class: Mage

HP: 80/80

MP: 130/130

[Attributes]

Strength: 6

Dexterity: 8

Vitality: 10

Power: 13 (+7) = 20

Soul Affinity: 13 (+3) = 16

Free Points: 0

[Skill Points]: 1

Fire Proficiency - 3/5 (+2) = 5/5

Water Proficiency

Lightning Proficiency

Air Proficiency

Earth Proficiency

Arcane Proficiency

[Unlocking…]

[Locked]

[Locked]

…

It took a heartbeat, then his whole being ignited like a supernova. Alex grunted, clutching at his chest. For a second he thought his heart would burst, but it wasn’t pain that was spread through him. It was heat, red-hot heat, blooming from his core, crackling through the pathways on his body, expanding the ones already there and opening up previously dormant ones.

He almost fell to his knees, but the feeling was gone before it could consume him entirely. Finally, he allowed himself to exhale, and all the sound in the world seemed to return to him at the same time, sharper than ever before.

There was his own breathing, under control now. Close by, he could hear Diana’s feet shifting on the bridge, and Cedric’s hands sliding as he fixed his grip on his spear. The moment he opened his eyes, it was as if he could see everything. A bead of sweat caught his attention as it dripped down from Daven’s chin onto the ground, and Alex followed its trajectory as if he was watching it in slow motion.

In that seemingly frozen moment, Alex thought he would be able to see and hear a butterfly’s wing beating a hundred feet away.

Then the moment passed as soon as it came and he was there on the bridge again, and all he could see and hear were the three dozen, seven feet tall Kruwals closing in on the bridge, bare feet pounding heavily on the earth.

“Get ready!” Cedric screamed over the thunder of the horde.

Fire sprung to life on Alex’s hands, and he knew what he had to do. The crew leader had taken point along with Valerian, but with the significant increase in his power, it’d be him that would make the opening move. The fire began to spin and twist in place, similarly to when he created his first fireball, but he didn’t try to constrain it this time. Pumping more power into this new trace, the flames roared, tripling in size in a single second, until it looked like Alex was holding twin tornadoes half as tall as he was in each hand.

He smiled grimly. If he could unleash the vortexes on both flanks of the monsters, that would funnel the Kruwal to the center where Cedric and Valerian would more easily hold them off. The fire seemed to resonate with his idea, glowing brighter as if it had a mind of its own, yearning to burn and scorch. Alex was more than alright with that idea.

But then nothing usually goes according to plan. Before he could release the vortexes, there was a shout behind him, a deep gruff sound of herculean effort, followed by a terrible ripping noise, and suddenly Alex was ducking under a goddamn tree flying toward the Kruwal horde just as they reached the foot of the bridge.

The massive log, at least ten feet tall and wide as a car tire, smashed against the staggered first line of the red-skinned beasts. The Kruwal weren’t disciplined soldiers, standing shoulder to shoulder in a tightly packed shield wall, instead acting more like a pack of hounds running as fast as each of them could following the scent of blood. And that might’ve been the only reason the tree didn’t completely decimate them.

At least five of the fastest runners were smacked down like bowling pins, and one unfortunate Kruwal warrior, the one with the single shoulder piece, got stuck beneath the tree and ended up grounded to mush under its weight. His screams lasted for only a second before they stopped.

A more athletic Kruwal vaulted over the falling log, roaring mid-air as he brandished a short sword in each hand—only to fall neck-first on Cedric’s swiping blade. His head hadn’t yet hit the ground before the crew leader was already engaging another two Kruwal warriors, trading blows with axes and swords as gracefully as he did in the dungeon.

Everything happened all at once after that. The earth rumbled as Diana broke the ground under the bulk of the Kruwal horde. Great blocks of hard-packed earth rose and dipped in a rolling wave underneath them, sending the Kruwals in the front stumbling down and the ones behind them crashing against their fallen comrades.

Valerian waded into the fight at the same time, the edge of the great axe in his hands shining bright gold. It broke clean through the iron sword of a Kruwal and carved a giant gash into the beast’s chest.

Alex had meant to be the first to engage, but it seemed he’d been left for last. Even Orson—who was now in the process of tearing off a wooden post that was part of the bridge’s siding to use like a baseball bat and was obviously the one responsible for chucking a fucking tree twenty yards away—had beat him to it. Clearly, the man was no simple small village mayor.

Well, it was time to correct that. Seeing a gap forming in the middle of their defense as Cedric and Valerian were slowly forced to the sides, Alex abandoned his flanking plan and released the first vortex straight down the center of the bridge.

The vortex left his hand with a loud whoosh of air, and an intense heat washed against his face like he’d just got into a hot sauna. As soon as he relinquished control of it, it grew again, the flames roaring as it became a man-sized tornado gliding through the air a little more than a foot above the ground.

Despite its size, the trace sped toward the Kruwal with the speed of one of his fireballs. Alex watched with a gaping mouth as the flaming vortex blew through the downed tree like it wasn’t even there before reaching the first Kruwals.

The sound of pained screams rose from the front of the horde as the rapidly spinning fire consumed at least three of the warriors that had fallen from Diana’s mini earthquake before the flames finally dissipated with a last roar. It didn’t explode like Alex wanted, but he couldn’t complain about the results.

The earth was scorched black where the vortex had passed through, and the three Kruwals hit by the fire were moaning weakly as they rolled on the ground, smoke rising from their charred body. Alex was surprised they weren’t outright dead, as he’d seen the flames completely engulf them, but he could guess their gravelly skin wasn’t like that solely for the aesthetics.

“Bloody balls, man!” Daven said from the side. The archer, with his main weapon left behind, had been relegated to tossing the occasional stone at the Kruwal to little effect. “What was that?”

Diana grunted from where she knelt. “That would’ve been helpful yesterday too,” she muttered. Her face was fixed into a tired frown. Using a trace powerful enough to affect such a large area must’ve drained her more than she expected.

“You can say it’s something I just cooked up.” Alex held his left hand up in front of him, the second vortex still spinning there, spitting and crackling.

The Kruwal’s horn blew again, a staccato of short bursts that cut through the air. The warriors that had been pressing Valerian and Cedric quickly disengaged in response. But it was clear they weren’t retreating.

Instead, they started beating their weapons against whatever other metallic surface they could find, the clanking sounding like an ill-formed chorus of tolling bells, while the demoralized bulk of the horde that had been caught in Diana’s earth spell suddenly gained spirit and joined their brethren’s clamor.

And from the back of the horde, as the other Kruwal stepped aside, a figure emerged. For some reason, Alex thought he recognized the Kruwal as he walked up. He didn’t know what it was at first, but when the red-skinned warrior stopped by the burnt gap in the downed tree his vortex had created, he understood.

It was the way he stood there, the stillness in him, that gave it away. He was the one who’d been holding the unconscious woman by the hair back when the crew and the villagers had been spotted. Then, he hadn’t done anything more than placidly blink at them even as the hornblower scrambled to sound the alarm. Now, he did the same.

Except he wasn’t looking at Cedric or Valerian. Or even toward the last of the villagers being helped through the barricade.

The Kruwal was staring right at him, dark eyes narrowed.

His hackles rising, Alex felt the sudden urge to look behind him, as if to confirm it was truly him the Kruwal was after. But instead of giving into the impulse, he held the monster’s gaze unflinchingly, almost as a matter of pride. He wouldn’t be the one to look away, even if his opposition really was a scary-looking motherfucker.

Beyond a single silver vambrace on his left arm, the Kruwal was bare-chested and wore only a pair of rough pants. He didn’t look to be any taller or stronger than any of the other monsters, but a large white scar running down from his brow to his cheek gave him an air of menace that was hard to match.

The Kruwal seemed surprised when he wouldn’t look away. Then he smiled, a cruel, jagged thing, before he raised an arm toward Alex. A challenge, like that first Kruwal with Valerian.

In a moment of unexpected self-discovery, Alex found a similar grin spreading across his face. Whatever trepidation he’d felt was long gone. Now, all he wanted to do was wipe that smug smile out of that monster’s face.

And that didn’t mean he had to play any fair. Seizing the initiative, Alex took a step forward and threw the remaining fire vortex straight at the Kruwal before he could react. The twisting flames bounced off the ground on the bridge and sprung in the air, swelling up with a roar that almost drowned the ringing of the Kruwal weapons.

The bare-chested Kruwal could do nothing but watch in stunned silence as the vortex rushed at him like a raging bull. Alex’s grin widened. Challenge that, scarface! Then the twisting fire finally smashed against the Kruwal.

But instead of hearing Scarface’s dying screams, a loud sucking noise filled the air, even over the metallic ringing, like what Alex imagined a giant drinking a slurpee would sound like. His vortex’s orange flames were swirling at its middle point, a tornado inside a tornado, shrinking and shriveling until they were all sucked up right out of the world, and Scarface was left standing there completely unscathed, his left arm raised up in front of him.

His vambrace glowed an intense cherry red color for a second before gradually fading back to silver. The only thing left glowing with heat were the strange runic symbols etched on the metal. In response, the banging of metal surged into a frenzied uproar.

“Well, fuck me,” he muttered.

Then the Kruwal took two long strides before leaping toward him, and Alex cursed his ten-seconds-ago past self. Pride really does cometh before the fall, huh.