Serenity couldn’t help but chuckle as he and his party made their way through the rubble-choked streets of Lyka. Everywhere he looked, there was destruction; it was far worse than most of the areas he’d seen so far on Lyka. This was an area that still had a Church presence, and those were always harder hit, but this was kind of impressive.

Buildings were burnt or knocked down; even the few green spaces tended to be as much black from fire or brown from being trampled as green. Ashy mud was everywhere. One of the people fighting must have used a lot of fire.

Or perhaps it was the monsters? There were apparently six different dungeons that had all broken towards this strongpoint; Serenity wasn’t certain what they held, but there were a lot of monsters that would use fire quite indiscriminately.

Either way, that wasn’t what amused Serenity. No, what amused him was the sheer difference between here and the opulence of Aeon, which they’d left only a few hours earlier. Aeon was like an entirely different word from this part of Lyka figuratively as well as literally.

Lykandeon probably thought that he had Aeon and Lyka locked down.

He did, too, against most people. Moving between Aeon and Lyka required authorization, which was only granted to priests he had control of. Leaving Aeon meant going to Lyka and leaving Lyka required authorization; while this was handled for merchants by more priests, it wasn’t generally available to the populace.

The recent riots on Aeon showed just how much he couldn’t control, even on his own moon.

Still, he probably thought he had it under control. From what High Priestess Karin had said, no one was telling Lykandeon just how bad it had gotten. He knew there were “some dungeon breaks on Lyka, but nothing we can’t handle” and “some unrest on Aeon, we should plan a parade” but that was all. Lykandeon had delayed the parade until after the eclipse.

His people either thought he knew everything or weren’t about to be the bearers of bad news; Serenity wasn’t sure which. Either way, it was useful. Lykandeon seemed to be content with “slowly corrupting” Serenity, not realizing that his compulsions achieved exactly nothing, while Blaze slowly helped both Rourke and Karin. Rourke was mostly free; Karin wasn’t yet. She was, however, free enough that she also didn’t feel the need to inform Lykandeon just how bad things had gotten.

Far more important, however, was the other way Lykandeon had lost control: by now, with Rourke and Karin’s help, Serenity and his people could move around with near-impunity on both worlds. That was how they found themselves in this area, after all. They were heading towards one of the last few groups of Earthlings left on Lyka that Rourke could find, one of the groups Serenity still hadn’t gotten permission to retrieve.

He didn’t think the reason was the damage to Lyka, either. Instead, the lack of permission was due to the same factor that led to the damage. There was still an Eternal Church presence where they were headed.

This time, they risked being revealed as an enemy to the Eternal Church; even the retrieval of Jeff was planned so that no one would know what they’d done. Hopefully this would also go as well as that one did. They had a plan that ought to be even better this time, but retrieving two hundred and seventeen people was a little different from retrieving one.

“Demon ahead,” Ekari called out.

Serenity looked in the direction Ekari pointed and saw something that looked more like a giant boar than anything he’d call a demon. Sure, it was taller than he was and many times more massive, but calling it a demon, even a “demon boar”, simply weakened the word demon.

People on Aeon used the word demon for almost every monster. This was just a really big pig.

They skirted the pig, giving it plenty of room. When it noticed them, the pig snorted, then trotted towards them. It didn’t look angry, but Serenity didn’t take it for granted that that meant it was safe; monsters often didn’t look angry when they tried to kill you. It was hard to read hunger on a pig’s face, after all.

Instead of facing the pig head-on, Ekari led them to the side, around a pile of rubble that seemed to have once been mostly ceramic tile. The pig changed its direction to follow them.

Serenity grumbled to himself; he didn’t feel like fighting a giant animal. They were great to fight when you wanted to take your aggression out on something, but otherwise they were irritating. They almost all developed either really thick skin or some kind of enhanced healing, along with improved weaponry. In the case of a pig, either was possible; he’d even seen both. The tusks would also be sturdy; that was common to almost all giant boar.

A way to trap it, then make it bleed out, would be best if it didn’t have enough healing. Even if it did, that would usually eventually work. Unfortunately, that wasn’t really an option with the amount of time they had left before the boar decided to charge.

Serenity wished he had a spear. That was a far better weapon for fighting a pig than an ax. “Sillon, Kerr, do either of you have spears?” It seemed unlikely, but he had to ask. A storage item could carry an entire armory if it was big enough.

“I do,” Kerr stated. Her voice sounded strange, almost wondering. He didn’t think the situation was that strange; the dungeon breaks hadn’t been properly cleaned up yet even though it’d been months.

Normally, he’d consider that a sign of carelessness on the part of the locals, but this time he had to admit that the Lykans had an excuse. No one was prepared for every dungeon to break at once, then break again every three to five weeks. That was too fast, even if the dungeons weren’t being delved. They couldn’t be anywhere near overflow.

Serenity glanced back at Kerr and found that she was holding a longer than normal boar spear; it looked very much like it had simply been increased in size to match the boar. It was made of metal, but Serenity had no idea what type. With luck, it would be sturdy enough to stand up to the impact of the boar; also, hopefully Kerr would be able to hold on to it.

Serenity wanted to take over that duty, but he couldn’t do that and still do the part he needed to play; as the only person with a Tier Five weapon in the group, it was best if he used it, and it couldn’t be handed to anyone else. “Good. Then you get to take the charge; Sillon and I will come around from the sides and take care of it, but you’ll have to hold it until then. Can you do that?”

Kerr took a long look at the boar. “Maybe. I’m not really massive enough; I think it might be able to lift me and the spear unless I get it placed exactly right, and I don’t want to count on that. Maybe Sillon should help? The spear’s big enough.”

Serenity’s “Probably a good idea.” overlapped with Sillon’s agreement. It would make Serenity’s part harder, but cutting through a boar’s spine was never easy. That was the reason his Tier Five weapon was so important; it wouldn’t be dulled by the boar’s bone. It was only Tier Three or Four.

It was a threat that couldn’t be ignored but not one their party of mostly Tier Four combatants should have too much trouble with as long as they were prepared. Kerr having that spear was a tremendous boon; without it, they’d have had to use a far more dangerous strategy. Serenity would have been in front, then; he was the one who could take the most severe injuries and survive without issues until Blaze could get close enough, and he was also good with a blade so he ought to be able to do some damage.

Serenity was glad they didn’t have to go with that damage. Able to take it or not, he didn’t like being hurt.

“Blaze, Ekari, Ita, do any of you have anything that can help?” Blaze was a healer, so he’d definitely be needed afterwards. Ekari seemed to be mostly an administrator and, oddly enough, a combination of stealth and Perception. Ita was definitely a mage, but Serenity didn’t understand her magic entirely yet. He couldn’t think of anything any of them could really do against a boar, but he didn’t want to assume they were useless.

Ita was the first to nod. “If you brace the spear against the ground, I can keep it from rising into the air, no matter how hard the boar pulls on it. It will only take a moment.” She started muttering, clearly casting, so Kerr hurriedly set the butt of the spear against the ground where she wanted it. Serenity noticed that she kept her eyes on the boar through Ita’s spell and even when Sillon moved in behind her in support.

Serenity nodded to himself. While Kerr had less experience than Sillon, she was, if anything, even better trained. It showed in times like this where she knew what to do but had clearly not done it often enough for it to be natural. Training helped a lot, but it wasn’t the same as combat.

It might well mean that she’d go farther than Sillon; he was content with where he stood, after all.

“I can get its attention,” Ekari offered. “I think I can focus it on Kerr, but even if I can’t, I can stand behind her and get it to charge.”

Serenity didn’t know how she’d do that, but he’d trust her to know what she was doing.

“I have a few tricks, but I think I’d better wait until afterwards and help if things go wrong.” Blaze glanced up at the boar. “And you’d better get in position; the board is seriously thinking about lunch.”

Serenity nodded; Blaze was probably right. He moved off to the side, trying not to draw the boar’s attention. It ought to stay with the larger crowd, but some dungeon monsters were smart enough to go after the one that separated themselves from the pack.

As he was thinking that, a loud CRACK sounded from behind Serenity just as a bright light flashed. Lightning? He took a glance backwards and saw another tiny uneven thread of lightning dance off of Ekari’s outstretched hand towards the boar. A glance at the board told Serenity that Ekari was right: she’d totally fixed its attention in her direction.

It was angry now, too. It stomped the ground once, then took off faster than Serenity expected. It was definitely a Tier Four slab of muscle and fat. Tier Threes could be faster than that, but generally the really big ones weren’t.

Serenity charged around to the side; now that its attention was fixed forward, he didn’t have to be careful and he also didn’t have to swing all that far around to come at it from behind, to the side. That was generally the safest way to approach almost anything with four legs; not only could it not see that spot easily, it was far harder to kick.

Well, above also worked, but until Serenity had functional wings or a good flight spell, that wasn’t much of an option.

The boar slammed into the spear and kept charging forward anyway. Serenity couldn’t tell how hard Kerr and Sillon were having to work to hold it, but Ita was correct: no matter how much the boar twisted, it wasn’t able to pull the spear away from them.

Ekari’s distraction stopped at about the same time as Serenity reached the side of the boar. It didn’t even realize he was there when he took the first heavy swing at its neck.

One swing wasn’t enough. It split the heavy leather of its skin and made the boar bleed profusely, but the blood simply joined the blood already pooling under it from the spear. The boar tried to pull back, but Serenity managed his second swing before it made it too far, hitting the same area. It was far weaker now, so even though he didn’t manage to get quite as much power in his swing, he did manage to partially sever its spine. The boar’s rear legs went limp.

Its head was still a threat and its forelimbs were still trying to pull the boar off the spear to face Serenity, but its own mass worked against it. Serenity had to reposition himself, but that was as simple as another step. A third chop, then a fourth and a fifth were needed before the boar actually stopped moving.

Serenity was absolutely covered in blood, but he was completely uninjured. This was a very good outcome for a fight that could have gone very wrong.

Lillene

Here’s hoping Ekari’s attention-getter didn’t draw any hostile attention…