Lee followed after Juris, who now seemed to be the leader after the slight altercation that had just taken place. Juris wasted no time in dallying, running straight toward a lone elven sword and shield user facing off against three Goblins.

Lee was told by Neia when he first arrived that the Dark Elves gained two free points to spend every level, and along with those, either a point into dexterity or wisdom. With him knowing that Juris is level 22, Lee assumed he could withstand the effects of his Swiftness buff. So he cast it upon him.

Lee was the slowest of the group by quite a large margin; even at a full sprint, he could only keep up with the rest if they were moving at a jog. Luckily for him, he didn’t need to partake in this battle. With the four elves of his group rushing forward to help the fifth versus only three goblins, it was over quickly.

Lee arrived a few seconds after they had begun, but it was over. He rechecked everybody's HP, finding them all fine except the sword and shield user they had come to help.

Lee jogged over and placed his hand on their shoulder. “Stay in contact and I will heal you.”

Lee received a winded reply as the elf bent over to place his hands on his knees. “Gods damn they’re annoying when there’s a group. I was fighting those Goblins for like, a whole minute.”

Lee gave a curt smile and nodded. “Well, you survived. That’s all that matters.”

Juris spoke only a few seconds after the battle ended. “Onto the next. Come.”

And so they went. Onto the next group, then the next. They continued to help those struggling and even picked up more members who were in smaller groups, doing the same as them. The distance of the open field surrounding Neldam was roughly four miles in diameter, with the large fantastical Garbola tree directly in the center.

While they didn’t start at the very edge of the clearing, they started well over a mile away. Lee had thought their return would be swift, but it was most definitely not. Move thirty meters, fight. Heal, move fifty meters, fight, heal, move again.

Hours passed as the group slowly closed in on the battlements containing the unclassed. Lee had slowly regained his mana over time and then spent it when needed. He had to cast Mend Wounds and Icicle Spears every so often. A bad injury from a Hob here. A helping hand to finish a fight early there. But the battles were ramping up in ferocity.

In a smaller fight, Lee could assess the situation and help where needed. But in a larger fight? A group of twenty elves versus two hobs and thirty-five goblins? He struggled immensely. Long lost were his feeble attempts to launch Earthen Strikes without hitting an ally. Managing the health of all his allies and monitoring the enemy's condition became exceedingly difficult.

The healing Lee provided undoubtedly made the journey toward Neldam much more manageable, but he grew tired. The adrenaline which pushed him forward slowly faded over time as he grew accustomed to the fighting. There was safety in numbers; being the only healer meant he was protected at all costs.

The sun was beginning to set as they neared the battlements. The fighting was slowly ramping up as they grew ever closer, and Lee knew the battle was long from over. Healing his now sizable group of well over fifty Dark Elves with his Healer’s Beacon, Lee heard the slamming ring of a bell.

The eyes of his group widened, and they began to pick up their pace. Lee didn’t know what the ringing meant, but he had a pretty good guess.

“They’re coming.” Juris said, stepping up to his side from behind.

Turning his head, Lee could only find one description that described Juris’ appearance. Gore-ridden. Gone were the dark leathers. Gone was any metallic sheen from anything he owned. He was bloody-red and mud-caked brown from head to toe. His large war hammer lost its luster long ago; its only defining feature was the slow trickle of blood dripping from the downward-facing hammerhead.

Lee’s appearance, his exposed skin notwithstanding, was better off than he expected. His robe's self-cleaning and repair enchantments seemed to have kicked in at some point. The torn length of the robe from where the Hob had previously stomped down upon his calf had been repaired, and there were still spots of caked-on mud, dirt, blood, and gore, splattered everywhere across his person, but not nearly as much as there should have been.

“I assume the ‘they’ are the Giants and Trolls?” Lee asked while moving as fast as he could to keep up.

Juris slowed his pace to run alongside Lee. “Yes. Along with any remaining Goblins or Hobs. We must move quickly to the walls. All but the best will die otherwise.”

All?

When the fighting started, Lee had a burning question growing in his mind, and he couldn’t hold it any longer. Struggling through his laboring breaths, he frustratingly asked. “Where is Nitis? Surely he could stop all of this from happening. Why the need for death and destruction?”

Juris calmly answered. “For strength.”

Dumbfounded, Lee’s strides faltered a bit.

For strength? What kind of bull shit answer is that?

“What kind of bull shit answer is that!” Lee’s thoughts blurted out.

A weary look descended upon Juris’ face, and he spoke sullenly. “Lee, I know we do not have the same cultures, but I know what you are thinking. Stop and consider this; What do you think is more important to Neldam? A single highly-leveled elf or a thousand mid-level elves?”

Lee saw where this question was heading, but he didn’t like it one bit. “Could Nitis have single-handedly stopped this monster siege? Answer truthfully.”

Juris didn’t speak for a moment, but gloomy stated. “Yes.”

Lee’s heart furiously thumped in his chest. He balled his fists so hard his knuckles turned white. But when he was about to explode in a litany of curses, he ran into trouble once more.

The entrance into the battlements was being held by another defensive line, the defenders numbering around a hundred and the attackers in the hundreds. This defensive line seemed much more coordinated, a front row of long tower shields and, behind them, lancers or spearmen. The scene reminded Lee of something the humans of his world would have done in the past, and he watched as the line’s stalwart defenses tore through all that approached.

A brave or foolish Hob ran against them, testing their mettle. The Hob raised an enormous wooden maul and swung it in a broad sweep, hoping to blow open a gap. Little did the Hob know that the large maul would simply stop flat as if hitting the ground. The elves with the shields didn’t even move an inch. They appeared to be immovable.

In retaliation, a multitude of spears pierced into the Hob's body, not only an inch or two but through his entirety. The spearmen pulled their weapons back from their aggressive trust, and the spears retracted to their original position cleanly. The Hob’s body dropped to the ground, unmoving.

Lee looked behind himself, making sure he wasn’t going to be sandwiched between this horde of monsters and another. In the distance, he saw gargantuan lumbering silhouettes against the backdrop of the setting sun.

Oh…

Lee checked his mana.

A bead of nervous sweat rolled down his forehead, and he immediately turned to open a gap through the monsters with his group. His group was already mid-assault on the rightmost section of the shield wall as they wanted to avoid getting swarmed from the left and the right by monsters.

There were rows of monsters, probably eight rows deep, all pushing against the shield wall. They all surged forth with crazed ferocity. Their unrelenting push betrayed them, as Lee and his Elves had free reign to attack at their backs.

Their surprised attacks didn’t last long as the monsters swiftly turned around, and those on the left immediately collapsed upon his group. There were too many of them. Lee gritted his teeth and cast Void Sphere on the left side of the group, aiming to separate them so the elves could continue to focus their efforts on pushing forward to relative safety.

A tiny pitch-black dot appeared one and a half meters above the ground and rapidly expanded, enveloping all the monsters within a three-meter diameter. Lee wasn’t quite sure what the effects of his Void Sphere would be on a living creature, but in this case, he hoped it would be devastating.

As it had been cast in the middle of a group of monsters, the monsters within quickly left the large vantablack sphere of pure void, and Lee could see that his spell was... indeed devastating. What once were bloodthirsty crazed monsters exited the Void Sphere as shaking, blood-coated husks gasping for relief. Blood poured freely from every hole in their bodies—eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. They gurgled blood from their mouths, hoping to intake a modicum of air, and Lee could see that their chests were malformed; they appeared to be caved in. Their bloodshot eyes sprang about in what was the closest thing Lee had ever seen to panic from a monster. Lee didn’t get to observe the effects of his spell for long as they were swiftly and unceremoniously slaughtered where they exited.

More goblins blindly ran forward into the black abyss, only to escape the spherical void of darkness, barely holding onto life. A life that was ended not a second later.

Seeing that his spell would work for his purposes, Lee sprinted forward as most of his group had their complete focus on pushing forward into safety. Lee didn’t want ‘most’ of his group to focus on going forward. He wanted them all to.

A sickening plan came into his head, and he slowly turned his head to the Void Sphere. The cost of his spell was an upfront twenty-five mana and another one mana per second. His current mana could last nearly two minutes, and he was determined to make it into the battlements well before that time elapsed.

Lee raised his hand and cast Bulwark of Ice, Directly at the exit of the sphere. The towering wall of Ice raised into the air, right up against the Void Sphere. Some of the sharpened shards and spears of Ice entered the sphere as it was placed so close next to it.

Any monster who surged forward unrelenting and unfearful of the sphere of darkness was then immediately trapped. There was no exit toward the Elves. Those sprinting through in a straight line were immediately impaled, sending themselves into a barbed icy grave.

His group, realizing the devastating combination of spells, quickly focused on pushing forward. With their undivided attention, it didn’t take more than thirty seconds to cull the monsters ahead of them, and the defensive line parted in one smooth motion, letting everybody through.

Lee was the second to last through. The last ended up being Juris. Lee basically collapsed onto the dirt on his hands and knees. He was tired. Emotionally and physically…. tired.