The sheer concussive force of the blast sent Ash, Myr and every goblin within a few dozen meters of the explosion flying back like ragdolls. Ash landed onto the wood floor of the wall with a grunt, the air knocked from his lungs, though his enhanced physique cushioned him from the worst of the damage. 

Nonetheless, his ears rang with a shrill shriek and his vision was blurry. 

He laid there in a daze for a few seconds, recollecting himself as the air grew alive with screams and calls and alarms. 

“Get up, Ash!” grunted Myr as she struggled to her own feet a short distance away. 

“On it.” he replied as he mustered his strength and slowly found his balance again. 

“Wall breach northern section! Tier four! Destruction affinity!” declared a booming disembodied voice that swept across the walls at a rapid speed. Ash had no clue where it came from and hadn’t the spare curiosity to care. He grimaced as his eyes instead sought out and found the smoking crater that had once been a stout part of the village’s defenses, and the elk-like creature that stood amidst it all, its stone-like skin crackling with lines of a fel red energy. 

Ash scowled. He just had to tempt fate, hadn’t he? 

‘Idiot!’ he chided himself. 

This wasn’t looking good. If the monster horde got inside, the tribe’s controlled, precise defensive battle would rapidly shift into a far less constrained slaughter that would no doubt exact a heavy toll from their forces. 

Even he knew that they couldn’t allow that. 

What would they do? 

He turned to study the reaction of the defending forces and found them startlingly uncaring much to his shock. The guiding barks of their commanders and officers had already seen most of the wall troops returned to their positions and formations, their attentions focused onto the ravenous beasts that were rapidly reorienting themselves towards the breach. 

Spells and arrows flew with practiced efficiency and the culling began anew, dozens of creatures dying by the second to stone and fire and even more esoteric powers. But it still wouldn’t be enough. The horde was too big and too varied. 

Why weren’t they focusing onto the obvious threat instead? 

Not even the chief seemed bothered, a wide smile on his lips as he continued to slay beast after beast from his perch upon the wall. Sylaxxa at least had her unseeing gaze pointed towards the breach, but she too turned away seconds later. 

The tier four invading monstrosity within the breach roared, as if incensed by the lack of attention paid to its presence, its booming voice a clarion call that seemed to signal the start of untold bloodshed. Ash swore and focused himself towards it. He wasn’t sure what madness had overtaken the tribe, nor was he sure what he could do against a tier four, but he had to attempt something. 

He made to move to that effect when he felt a steadying hand grasp at his shoulder. He turned to find Myr holding him back, her gaze turned elsewhere. “Trust them, Ash.” was all she said. He followed her gaze towards the rear of what he presumed was the tribe’s defensive zone where an assortment of barricades and armored goblins laid in waiting. And beside them in numbers far beyond what he’d initially seen of them laid dozens of ballistae. 

The thick, hulking contraptions had their projectiles fully loaded and their girth aimed right at the breach, and then as one, they fired. 

The hefty arrows they loosed soared at speeds far beyond what he could follow, and what should have been possible for arrows that size. The tier four creature likely felt the danger coming its way, but whether it was too slow in defending itself or simply incapable of it, he wasn’t sure. 

All he knew for certain was that it was undoubtedly dead. 

The bolts struck it with enough force to jettison it from the breach and away from the village, its body made into an impromptu battering ram as it carved a path through the monsters in its way until gravity finally stilled it. 

Ash laughed amazedly at the sight of it, and then again when the breach started to seal itself, the wood twisting and churning as its charred ends sloughed off and fresh growth joined together again. The hole would be closed, but the speed of it was far too slow. No small amount of monsters would find their way in the meanwhile despite the defenders best efforts. 

And if he could realize that, then so could the goblins as well, and they acted with efficiency to stem that flow. A troop of hulking goblins separated from the chief’s retinue and took position by the breach, their figures alight with magic as they started to cut apart any monster fool enough to tread too close to them. 

Behind them was a robe-clad group, supportive spells flying from their hands as they harried the foe and healed the defenders of the breach. 

Precise. Unyielding. Prepared. 

For the second time in hardly as many minutes, Ash had his breath taken away by the symphony of motion and action alive before his eyes. He had no desire to become the weak link in that song. 

With a renewed vigor, he returned to the wall and began anew his routine, blasting and cutting with a defiant glimmer in his eyes. Monster after monster fell to their blades and magic, and a heap of corpses started to pile before the walls that in itself became an additional wall that the monstrous horde had to surmount. 

And yet, despite their mounting losses, the monsters were unnaturally relentless, and no amount of losses seemed enough to deter them. 

Worse, though the hole had been sealed and their defences maintained, the tide of monsters had already started to claim its first casualties of the day. Ash had the unpleasant luck to first-hand witness a goblin turned to a bloody mist as an invisible monstrosity pierced through their wards and smashed it to pieces. Though the vile thing had been swiftly put down and the goblin’s place in the ranks replaced without a missed beat, the sight had sent a dread chill crawling down his spine. 

The next to fall had been a trio horrifically poisoned by a monster’s toxic breath, and after them had been a whole ten goblins that had abandoned their posts and jumped to their deaths amidst the beasts below, their reason lost to the mental magic of a distant monster. 

And it just continued. The goblins continued to stoically bear and replace their losses, their postures unyielding, but it was obvious to him that that every loss was another weight on their shoulders. 

He snarled and fed mana into his Burning Hands, alighting a few smoldering patches he’d placed previously into a sudden conflagration that set a group of monsters ablaze. A few follow-up Fire Bolts put them out of their misery before he again set to lighting up patches of monsters and ground to again alight with his Burning Hands. 

It was the only combination available to him. His choice of nexii meant that he was hardly the best fighter in a defensive action. Thunderous Wave would both blind and scorch his own allies if used and his Expeditious Retreat and Spider Climb were both of little use in his situation, leaving him to just try and kill as many using his bread-and-butter Fire Bolt as he could. 

Myr, from what he could see, suffered from no such limitation. The woman was a flurry of Earthen Shields to spear and crush and Wind Grasps to throw away any hapless monster that dared to mount the wall in her vicinity. He’d seen her use her sand pit spell once to stall a dozen or so monsters, and then summon her Dust Elementals to slay and drive them away. 

She was doing good work, and despite his limitations, Ash hardly had any intention of letting himself fall behind. 

The minutes turned to hours as the slog of battle and war continued. The tribe’s losses continued to mount and there were a further two breaches along the wall, though both were dealt with quickly, though not without loss. 

A few ballistae were lost to the last breach by a particularly defensive tier four monster, but the chief’s troops had put it down with all haste and the defenses were repaired yet again. 

It was only after the fourth hour when finally, like a ray of sunlight in the dark, the wary goblins noted that the horde’s numbers had started to finally die down and saw the end to their exhausting slog in sight. Their vigor renewed at that, and they eventually managed to whittle away the remaining monsters until their frenzied madness seemed to finally break and the survivors fled in every direction they could. 

They’d done it, he thought victoriously, too tired to do anything else. 

Ash collapsed to his back at that, a weary smile on his lips in spite of the burning pain that wrought his limbs. It hadn’t been a quick affair, nor had it been bloodless, but the tribe had held. 

Despite the thousands of tier ones and hundreds of tier twos that had assaulted their walls. Despite the dozens of tier threes and even the handful of tier fours that had dared to tread on Everwatch land, the tribe stood strong still. 

Even if they’d been diminished by losses they would not forget. 

Ash rose wearily and gazed at the bodies of the fallen that the fellow members of Sylaxxa’s faith alongside shamans of another order – their robes brighter and more colorful - were somberly carrying away. 

“You did good for your first large battle.” said Myr as she fell to a seat beside him. Her face was stained with sweat and her armor painted with the occasional monstrous blood stain, but she looked otherwise unharmed, and likely not even half as worn out as he was. 

Damn her constitution. 

“Thanks. We survive to fight another day, huh.” he said softly. 

“Less than that, probably. These shits were just the vanguard of the main group. There’s a Lord comin’ our way after all.” 

A Lord, yes. 

Tier six, and likely attended to by tier fives if what he’d heard being said was true. 

He didn’t even want to think about it. 

“To be honest, we’re lucky to have even had this much time. I’ve heard stories of tier eight legends crossin’ entire continents in a single bound. I don’t think a tier six can compare to that, but crossin’ even a forest as big as ours shouldn’t take it this long.” 

“What's delaying it then?” he asked. 

“My best guess? The fightin’ with the inner tribes wounded it enough that it can’t act as it wants to anymore. Either that, or it wants to take its time. Wants to make us tense an’ worried an’ weak after dealin’ with the hordes its sendin’ our way before it finally acts.” 

“Is it... that smart?” 

“A tier six monster? As smart as you an’ me, Ash. Smarter, even. You saw the way that tier four that got in the walls fought. It went straight for the ballistae first. They get smarter with every tier they advance. Yeah, that tier six knows what its doin’, an’ why.” 

That was a very disheartening revelation. He didn’t fancy their chances against a brutishly overwhelming beast, but one with the intellect to back up that strength? 

Ash shook his head and changed the topic. Dwelling on their advancing foe would do his nerves no favors. 

“How many did the tribe lose?” 

Myr frowned and shrugged. “Not as much as they feared, but it ain’t no small number still. They’re a tough folk, these goblins. Practical with most things too. Likely’ll save their grievin’ for after, if there’s an after.” 

And wasn’t that the question. He sighed and rose to his feet. “Well, seeing as how we have time, I might as well go and check in on Calixxa.” 

Myr snorted at his ceaseless mother-henning but nodded anyway. He turned to leave when he found the chief’s hulking form headed his way. 

“Trusted human Ash! I was told by my men that you fought valiantly today! Many monsters were slain by the fury of your fires, no doubt!” 

Ash was momentarily taken aback by the chief’s surprisingly lackadaisical attitude despite the losses the tribe had suffered. “Er, thanks. I just did what I had to.” 

“Nonsense! You are an outsider. Unlike trusted human Myr here, you do not owe us a drop of the mana flowing through your veins!” 

Ash glanced to the woman at that, surprised by the tid-bit of knowledge thrown his way. Myr owed them a debt? The woman looked to him and then away. Was that... shame he saw in her eyes? 

“It makes me feel rather chuffed that I was forced to hold myself back all throughout when here stands a human giving his all in our defense.” said the chief openly, a frown crossing his lips for a moment before his mien turned amiable once more. “Alas, thus was the decision of the council.” 

“And it is a sane one, Senniaxx. Our strength must be preserved for the final battle.” commented Sylaxxa as she strode up to them, a few strands of her white hair awry as the only sign that she’d exerted any effort across the battle at all. 

Thinking back, Ash realized that they both had indeed never left their posts once, even during the worst of the fighting, seemingly content to leave the breaches to their troops whilst they continued to cull the monsters outside. 

So, they had been preserving themselves, had they? 

It made a kind of sense considering what was coming their way. Ash turned his attention from the heatless bickering between the chief and the elder and towards the far distance. Though he neither saw nor sensed anything, he could feel a weight upon his soul the longer he stared, as if fate itself was making obvious what was unknown to his mundane senses. 

The youth furrowed his brow and clenched his fists tight.