A/N: The city is entered. A plan is formulated. A gambit is enacted.

-x-X-x-

Fortunately for their allies in the Order of the Rose, the trebuchet barrage consisting of ball o’ zombie does not last for long. In fact, it seems as though the first thing Bula has her forces do once they’ve leapt over the walls of Alether and into the city itself, is hunt down said trebuchets. They can’t exactly be easy to hide given how much space they much each need to operate.

Within a few minutes, the barrage has slowed to a crawl, allowing the Order of the Rose to advance apace. Mikael, Avina, and Thayla do the same, moving with a sizable contingent of knights and arriving at the gates of Alether just in time for them to be broken down from the inside by a pair of massive, hulking Children.

Once they’re in Alether itself though… it’s a fucking shitshow and a half. Even with the Children of Syl running roughshod over the city, the place is basically a death trap. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to call it an undeath trap, because there are corpses aiming to attack them from around every corner and from within every home.

What was once a bustling city filled with tens of thousands of people is now an infested pustule crawling with the undead. They’re everywhere and worst of all, Mikael can’t even sense them with his Soul Sense because they don’t have souls. Their soul energy has already returned to the Weave, leaving him having to keep his head on a swivel to be ready at every turn.

Fortunately, it’s not just the three of them because even with the Soul Engine, Mikael doubts his ability to keep Avina and Thayla safe in the long run. Alongside them is Chevalier Nathaniel Ironshield and a large contingent of Knights of the Rose, with gleaming golden armor and shining masterwork swords ready to cut down every undead that comes close.

They take losses even then. This close to Foss, the undead population of Alether are empowered. Just like at the battlefield back in Zuveria where the Supreme King had used Zadicus Quinn as a conduit for a fragment of his soul… the proximity to his actual soul and this the concentrated effect of his necromantic power keeps the undead going far beyond what should be possible. Removing their heads doesn’t stop them, removing their limbs doesn’t stop them.

In the end, Avina was right. There’s no victory to be had here unless Foss Sangrey himself is defeated. Until the Supreme King is killed and his influence over his undead creations is removed, Alether will continue to be an endless pit of fighting. In the end, their target has to be Foss Sangrey and with everyone quite aware of that fact, they forge forward at an unrelenting pace, moving closer and closer to the center of the city where the Lord’s Tower can be seen high over all the other buildings.

Unfortunately, while their reckless speed is necessary, it still means they incur heavy losses. The closer they get to the tower, the more undead summoned heroes they encounter as well. Distinctive for their enchanted armor and weapons, it would seem that Foss split his remaining ‘elite’ undead forces into two groups. One of those groups had been manning the walls and the trebuchets, a first solid line of defense meant to weaken them at all costs.

If it weren’t for the Children of Syl and the out-of-context problem that they represented with their absurd size, it would have been an excellent tactic. However, after that first line of defense there’s just a whole bunch of undead civilians, hiding in wait to ambush from dark alleys and out of windows and doorways, but neither armed nor armored and thus fairly easy to push back.

But then, closer to the tower, they find themselves running into more and more undead heroes again. They mix in with the civilian corpses, using them as fodder and meat shields, as well as cover to allow opportunities to quickly slip past the Knights of the Rose’s defenses and pick off a target here and there. It’s incredibly frustrating how well it works, especially since Mikael knows none of the undead are even remotely intelligent.

No… this is all Foss. The necromancer is stretching himself very, very thin, leading the battle from atop his tower in real time. He has eyes on them more than likely, keeping track of them via the flashy contingent of golden-armored knights as well as Mikael’s distinctive brand of teal Soul Magic.

Still, knowing this doesn’t really help too much. Knowing might be half the battle… but it’s still only half the battle. And the other half, in this case, is the challenging part.

As they’re harried and harassed all the way to the tower, they eventually arrive at it’s base all the same… only to discover what they already could have guessed. The wards are up and the Lord’s Tower is currently as impenetrable as it was back on that day when Zadicus hid out in it.

Indeed, even the Children of Syl are having to give it a wide berth as due to their massive size, they accidentally brush up against the wards just by walking too close. Like an electrical fence back on Earth but a hundred times word, the Lord’s Tower is proving an effective deterrent against the beasts of the Sylian Woods.

“What do we do now? How do we get inside?”

Chevalier Ironshield’s words come as he skewers another undead through the face with his sword, shouted over the din of battle as their diminished contingent of Knights is constantly fighting back undead to hold their position.

Feeling a brief moment of despair, Mikael looks to Avina, only to see her with a considering gaze on her face. His Soul Mechanic stares up at the warded Lord’s Tower for a moment… and then down at her feet. No… not at her feet. Past her feet. Past the ground her feet are standing on. Mikael’s jaw drops open as he picks up on her idea, swiftly moving next to her and leaning in.

“You don’t really think…?”

Avina grimaces and lets out an amused huff.

“It might be our only option. I can’t… If I still had the ring, I might have been able to make something work. Or if I went to Ocreatha’s Capital and forced my way into the Royal Palace, I could probably sit my royal ass on the damn throne and declare Foss Sangrey a traitor who is unworthy of the protections of the Kingdom’s wards and that would work too.”

She shakes her head and graces Mikael with a wry smile.

“But neither are options at the moment and we’re kind of pressed for time so…”

Mikael nods sharply in response, before glancing up and around them in consideration for a moment. Finally, he calls out.

“Thayla! Nathaniel! Avina and I are going to try something! Hold this point! Keep the attention on all of you!”

“Your will be done, Sir Mikael!”

“Aye Sir Hero, we’ll hold for as long as we can!”

There’s no time to complain about the damn titles. More than that, if they want to keep Foss Sangrey’s focus on this battle and not have the man hunting for them… Mikael needs to make it seem like he’s still here, fighting with his distinctive brand of teal magic.

With that in mind, he does something he’s never done before. He reaches for his power and the Soul Engine answers. Then… very carefully, he splits his power off from himself while also maintaining a metaphysical grip on it. He probably should have practiced with this before implementing it. It’s incredibly risky to be experimenting at a time like this. But needs must and all that.

Mikael has used his magic in a ranged fashion before, but it’s always been an expulsion of energy, like a bullet leaving a gun. This though… this needs to last for a while. So not only does he give it a good portion of his power, but he also holds onto it with his mind, shaping a facsimile of himself. It doesn’t have to look convincing. It just has to glow teal and whip out some teal magic every once in a while.

Only once that’s done does Mikael pull Avina close to him and drag his own teal glow deep into his chest. Breaking away from the fight after that isn’t easy, not with how Foss seems to be sending most of the undead in the city in their direction, but… Avina has lived in Alether for most of her life. She knows this city like the back of her hand.

Within a few short minutes, they’ve not only managed to slip away from the battle, but they’ve also managed to slip underground… into the sewers that Avina had used for travel purposes for oh so many years.

Mikael’s old stomping grounds, where he’d spent many a night curtailing Alether’s sewer rat population and patrolling these underground passages to pass the time. As he and Avina move towards Zadicus Quinn’s escape route that will lead directly into the depths of the Lord’s Tower, Mikael doesn’t see a single rat anywhere. It would seem they still haven’t recovered from the culling that he put them through all that time ago.

“… Do you think Foss found out about the escape tunnel by this point?”

Avina lets out a shuddering breath at that.

“I… I don’t know. I certainly hope not, because this is our only chance of catching him by surprise.”

Mikael nods. It would be poetic in a way, wouldn’t it? To catch Foss off guard in the exact same way they did to Zadicus Quinn. But… the real world isn’t always poetic. Sometimes it likes to remind you that it’s a cruel and uncaring place.

Which is why Mikael is both surprised and not surprised when he and Avina turn the next corner only to have a howling, glassy-eyed corpse throw itself at them in a frenzy.

“SKREEEEEEEEE!”

Luckily, Mikael is taking the lead. He acts immediately, cutting through the undead with a glowing teal sword that had been doubling as torchlight until now. To his mild surprise, the undead doesn’t keep attacking after it’s cleaved in half. The two pieces fall to the ground and cease moving, becoming lifeless again.

Blinking, Mikael pauses and looks over at Avina in confusion.

“Avina?”

She opens her mouth to respond, but before she can say a word, there’s a sudden shuffling sound from up ahead. Mikael and Avina both jolt in that direction, and Mikael holds out his sword and increases the glow so that it illuminates the entire sewer in front of them. What they see… is a whole lot more undead. Unfortunately, those undead see them too a moment later, heads twitching in their direction and glassy eyes staring unblinkingly at them for all of a heartbeat before the corpses burst into movement.

What follows is a fight for their lives, but one that Mikael wins. Let it not be said that he’s a pushover at this point. Not after all he’s been through. The wave of zombies come streaming down the sewers, but with just Avina to protect and all of them only coming from one direction… well, it’s a bottleneck. And Mikael is well suited for utilizing bottlenecks.

Teal power flows out of the Soul Engine, and even though he’s also still maintaining focus on his power up above with Thayla and Nathaniel, Mikael has enough strength for this too. His magic turns into blades and those blades cut heads from necks like a scythe through wheat. Decapitated bodies drop, heads roll, and the sewer is soon cleared of their enemies.

It’s easy, truth be told. Almost too easy. Still keeping an eye out for anymore undead, Mikael nevertheless clears his throat and asks again for clarification.

“Avina?”

“R-Right. As I was going to say before I was so rudely interrupted… if I had to posit a theory, these are feral undead.”

Mikael raises an eyebrow at that, even as they make their way past the unmoving corpses and continue towards the tower.

“Feral undead?”

Avina nods.

“Foss is already stretching himself thin enough as it is. More than likely, when he started having his forces massacre the people of Alether, some of them fled into the sewers. But… they couldn’t survive down here. They likely died of dehydration, starvation, or any other number of things. And then when Foss saturated the entire city in enough necromantic energy to raise them all…”

Mikael slowly nods as well, getting where Avina is going with this.

“He inadvertently raised the people who had died down here without even knowing it.”

“Yep.”

Well that was… awful. But hey, at least it was taken care of now, right?

Not even a moment after that thought runs through Mikael’s head, he hears something on the edge of his enhanced hearing. Something coming from behind them. It doesn’t sound like the shuffling of the undead citizens of Alether he’d just relieved of their heads. It sounds like… skittering. But also heavy. Like a mass of many, many somethings is moving through the sewers.

Mikael’s eyes widen as he realizes what ELSE might have killed the people who’d come down to the sewers to hide. Maybe the Supreme King had sent out multiple pulses of necromantic energy. And if he had…

“Avina. Run.”

His Soul Mechanic looks at him curiously, her own hearing not good enough to hear what he’s hearing.

“Wha-?”

But Mikael doesn’t have time to explain. Well, not without also running. Scooping Avina up under his arm, he takes off down the sewer at a dead sprint. Meanwhile, the skittering gets louder and louder behind him. Until even Avina can hear it.

“Hey! What’s wrong?! What… what the fuck is that?”

And see as well, apparently. Mikael doesn’t dare look back. He doesn’t dare stop moving either. But he still has a pretty good idea of what Avina is probably seeing.

“Yeah so uh… remember all that time ago, back at the very beginning, how you told me that I could survive off of small animals and didn’t necessarily need to kill human beings to feed the Engine?”

“… Oh Mikael.”

Mikael just sighs and puts an extra burst of speed into his legs. All the while, a veritable tidal wave of undead shriveled rat husks, some reduced to nothing but their skeletons, comes barreling down the sewer after them like a fucking grotesque, cascading avalanche.

He runs and runs, but his memory… well, his memory isn’t the best. Luckily, Avina’s is.

“LEFT!”

Acting purely on instinct and out of complete trust and devotion towards the woman who brought him back to fucking life, Mikael hooks a hard left and damn near runs right into what appears to lead directly into dead end. But it’s not. He recognizes this ‘dead end’ and even as he keeps running, he shoots out a tendril of his magic, forming a teal palm against the activation rune he’d gotten so familiar with back in his early days in this world.

The hidden wall opens up into the basement of the Lord’s Tower and Mikael races through with Avina still tucked under his arm while creating a barrier of teal energy behind them. The rat tsunami strikes his barrier first, but it holds. Mikael makes damn sure of that, until the wall is finally closed up. Only then does he slowly let the barrier on the other side fade.

For a moment, both he and Avina hold their breath as the impact of undead rats against the wall can be heard from the other side. But… the entire mass didn’t turn left with them. And now that the wall is closed up, the feral creatures don’t seem to realize that they could break through to get to Avina and him. Slowly… slowly, the impacts peter off and the scurrying fades away as the skeletal rats skitter off into the sewers.

They’ve made it. But his barrier isn’t the only thing that fades as Mikael and Avina stand there. Up top, the power he’d left behind in a glowing facsimile of himself also fades at long last, running out. Which means they’re running out of time too. Only one thing left to do though. Ascend.

-x-X-x-

A/N: Next time, Mikael and Avina versus Foss Sangrey for all da marbles~

Be sure to let me know what you think!