PreCursive

  The pins before the southern outer wall of Helstein teemed with an endless, roiling horde of monsters. They stretched out as far as the eye could see, even with a high Perception Virtue. Uhe light of both Elys above and the massive bohat the Uprising forces had built on the wall, strange shadows pyed against said wall.

  Impossible to individually t, they must have numbered well into the hundreds of thousands.

  Grey of Hollow Hill leaned upoaff his beloved had gifted him all those years ago, and frowned.

  Gods, what a mess.

  The retreating Army of the Uprising had reached the city only yesterday and had promptly colpsed into its walls. The battle to ehe city itself had been the fiercest fighting of the entire grinding, horrendous week-loreat back to the safety of the walls. Grey would evehe chaos to usher every st surviving Uprising soldier through the gates of Helstein as one of the…top three most difficult battles of his long life?

  Well.

  Perhaps top five.

  Luckily, they had succeeded in smming the enormous, sturdy doors of Helstein behind them without flooding the terrified city of the damned mohe Loyalists had spun into being. Afterward, he, Leopold, and the boy prince had agreed to grant the exhausted soldiery at least a day's rest. After how hard they had been pushed when quite a distressing number of his warriors had simply id down and died?

  They deserved that much.

  The divisioo guard Helstein in their absence had picked up the sck. While nobody dared to actually enter into those fields, there were thousands of soldiers who were even now manning the walls around him. Whoever was capable was firing ded skills in the mass, not even b to aim as they’d surely hit something. There were just as many all over the walls using long spears to thrust down at the mohat were trying to scrabble up it. So many monsters were down below that a distressing amourying to cmber over each other. It had formed a rge wedge at the base of the wall that threateo form a ramp to the very top.

  Obviously, that couldn’t be allowed.

  Anti-siege onry meant to repel human invaders was instead being turned on masses of monsters. Vats of boiling oil were poured onto screeg beasts, while alchemical explosives were thrown into the wedge to disrupt it. Catapults and ballistas were endlessly repeating, throwing out boulders and bolts at as fast of a rate as they could manage.

  Hell, some people weren’t even b with the catapults. They were just dropping boulders into the mass.

  It would probably crush something.

  But…

  They were handling it. For as endless as the horde of monsters appeared to be, they were thankfully unintelligent. While they had been birthed into a retively high Aether zone for Vereden, they were just too young to have developed any sembnce of guile. The best they could do was charge and scramble at the walls uselessly.

  The Uprising could hahis.

  Eventually.

  However, Grey couldn’t enjoy their iable victory.

  Because both his daughter and his apprentice had been separated from him. They were far beyond his reach by now. From his uanding, they could even be ihe walls of Elderwyck at this very moment, risking their lives t it down from the inside.

  Grey tightened his grip on Erux, as he glowered out at the horde standiween him and those two children. He would have said it had been a long time since he’d felt this powerless, but well.

  He had just been branded as a sve of all things, only a few months ago.

  Truly, this was shaping up to be a horrible year. It was only thanks to the cool light of Elys shining down upon him from the heavens that he wasn’t doing something…rash, right about now. For a moment, as the silver glow of his beloved illuminated his brooding form, the radiahied. Briefly, Grey felt ahereal hand caress his cheek in a wordless gesture of fort.

  He raised his free hand to cup its gleam in thanks, raising his eyes from the field to gaze upon Elys instead. The rocky surface of his dear one seemed to pulse at his regard, though Grey khat he would be the only oo see such a thing. He let out a long, slow sigh, letting the tension ease somewhat from his increasingly creaky form. He smiled slightly. “Thank you, my love,” He whispered into the night air.

  Elys twinkled o time, almost pyfully, befrey felt her attention shift away from him. He didn’t bme her for it. She was busy, after all.

  They both were.

  Always, endlessly busy.

  Grey heard a pair of sandaled feet tromp up the stairs behind him, in a rhythm he had long since grown aced to. He didn’t o turn to see, in order to know who it was. He would reize the gait of the person approag him almost better than any other in the world.

  Wordlessly, Honoka appeared at his side to gaze out at the pins filled to the brim with monsters. She spat rather indelicately off to the side after a moment of shared silence. “What a shitshow,” She finally said.

  A brief smile touched Grey’s lips at the familiar crudeness of his oldest surviving friend. “Indeed,” He said dryly, before finally turning to face her. He paused at her appearance, a tad taken aback.

  Honoka hadn’t even bothered to ge out of her surgeon's whites. The typically pristine white of the Healing robes was caked with the blood and gore of the no doubt tless patients she’d beeing. Grey felt a pang of shame. While he had been up here, uselessly brooding about Sylvia and Nathan, no doubt Honoka had been busy saving lives.

  It was a familiar regret. He had long sied how i he was at the Healing arts, no matter how hard he studied and practiced. As, that field of Mysticality was barred from him.

  Honoka didn’t turn to face him, but he did see her eyes shift his way. “You going to do something about it?” She asked bluntly.

  “Do something, hmm?” Greyurmured, with the slightest of ughs. heless, he nodded. “I was…sidering it. There are other factors in py.”

  Honoka scoffed. “Other fay ass. You know as well I do that we both could wipe out most of this trash in a matter of days. It’s nothing but a bunch of garbage monsters meant to hassle the weak. The only reason we didn’t already do it was because it would have taken out the Army as well.”

  Grey finally turo face her with a raised eyebrow. “The only reason, eh?”

  A scowl was his answer, his oldest friend already uanding the reasons why he hadn’t stepped in a with this rabble.

  Still, the both of them khat he liked to hear himself talk. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have bee a teacher.

  “As much as I wish otherwise, this is an unpreted opportunity for the forces of the Uprising,” Grey lectured patiently, causing Honoka to roll her eyes. “her of us have ever seen such a ludicrous amount of ‘trash’ monsters, as you so eloquently put it. They’re so vely bunched up in one pce, waiting to be fed to my-our forces,” He corrected himself. “It would be such a moal waste for us to steal this from them.”

  Still, the way Honoka hadn’t already started sweeping the fields with waves of fire told him all he o know. She agreed with him, albeit begrudgingly. With a sigh, the Kawamaran woman leaned her forearms against the top of the wall and looked out over the fields. “I’m…a bit jealous of them, actually,” She admitted quietly. “We sure as hell never had an opportunity like this. The closest thi was the damned Sea Beast and its spawn.”

  Setting Erux up against the wall, Grey leaned his back up against the wall and looked out over the city of Helstein. The Citadel in the distaned rge and imposing. Well, at least to some.

  Grey just thought it was impossibly ugly. He felt a pang of homesiess for his much more aesthetically pleasing Academy. He pushed it away.

  “Still,” Honoka frow him. “We should at least thin the herd a little. Don’t think I ’t tell that you’re antsy to get out from behind these walls agaih know that the children are going to need help eventually.”

  Grey nodded slightly, sighing. “Perhaps…just a little,” He paused for a moment, an idea . He smirked at Honoka, suddenly feeling surprisingly pyful. “You know…there’s a certain bination SpellArt that we haven’t done in some time. It’s not too powerful. It would work to soften this horde up enough that we should be out of here shortly.”

  Honoka tilted her head in thought for a moment, before a smile stole across her face. To some, it would look surprisingly vicious.

  To him, though, it was almost nostalgic.

  “I kly what you’re talking about,” Honoka replied, surprisingly impishly. She straightened up from her sloug position and looked around for a momeually, her gaze fell on a nearby ft-topped tower not far from their position, where a group of burly soldiers were hurling boulders down at the horde. “There. Nothing up there that’ll be missed. Let’s go.” With an empowered leap, the woman bounded away immediately, always willing to enact a little destru.

  Grey shook his head with a fond smile and followed after her. He wasn’t the type to go bounding around like that, though. He had his owhod of getting around short distahat he had quite missed in his disempowered state.

  Pig up Erux, with a brief flicker of tration, Grey stepped…

  Out.

  From one moment to the , he found himself in a pitch-bck void, filled with the distance specks of light that denoted far-away stars.

  He felt a ghostly figure embrace him from behind, so simir to the hand he had felt earlier.

  Always happy to see you, lover, ahereally beautiful voice whispered in his ears.

  Grey twisted his head slightly to meet the shining silver eyes he loved so dearly, already starting to feel the strain of merely existing in this realm.

  He wi the ghostly form of Elys.

  She winked back.

  With aep, Grey found himself standio Honoka on top of the tower.

  Not even a sed had passed since his translocation.

  The soldiers occupying the tower were startled to see them but were more than happy to take a break from their work when asked to. By the time the st of the mixed humans and Sculpted had cleared off down the dder, he and Honoka were standing on the edge looking out.

  “You ready for this, you geezer?” Honoka asked him, almost breathless in anticipation. He didn’t bme her. It wasn’t often that they could really cut loose like this. And with how they had been so retly depowered, Grey thought they both he reassurahat a flex of their might would bring.

  Plus, this world needed a reminder of just what Grey of the Shadowed Sun and Scarlet Empress Honoka could drey took a deep breath and allowed a viscous smile to cross his face as he employed a familiar mental Skill. His mind spun up first into two and then three and more and more and more trains of thought, all bent to bendiy to his will. The shadowy silver core at the heart of his soul fred brighter and brighter, as he felt the maion of his Mantle fred into being around him.

  The world darkehe night growing deeper in a murk that could not be pierced by most mortal eyes.

  He was already feeliuries younger.

  “More than, you walking fossil,” He bantered back.

  Honoka threw back her head and ughed as she loosehe reins on her own Mantle. She fred into brillianext to him, three sets of two fiery scarlet wiing from her back. The woman shone like a star, bzing through the gloom of his soul. She drew Kasai from its ever-present p her back, the bde bzing into being with a white-hot radiand held before her, waiting for him.

  He had always thought it appropriate how their own unique brands of Mysticality plimented each other like this.

  In a moment of tration of tless thought cycles, the spell matrix that he had crafted so long ago to work with Honoka sprang to being. Erux began to glow in a cold dark light.

  He raised it and crossed his staff with Honoka’s sword.

  At the point that they met, a spark.

  Far out into the battlefield, a star bloomed into being, nearly as rge as the citadel itself. Pulses of searing hot silver fmes pulsed out from it, turning untable monsters into so much ash.

  Night turned into day from the bination of their might.

  Honoka started ughing in exhiration, and Grey joined her.