"At least they aren't retreating," Kali muttered with grim determination as the barrage descended upon them. "No time to recover. Push through."

That was easier said than done.

Though lacking the preparation and volume of the initial assault, the renewed bombardment was nothing to scoff at. The artillery spells fell from the sky in a persistent rhythm, drowning the battlefield in detonations and turning the once pristine field into a cratered mess that was a nightmare to cross.

The only saving grace was the enemy's complete lack of precision. The surprise attack had been sighted in, prepared well in advance for their arrival. This was impromptu and haphazard, the shots missing by dozens of yards more often than they struck nearby. It was sound and fury, an intimidating display, to be sure, but more of a deterrent and a delaying tactic than an actual threat.

No, the real danger came not from the sky but from the trees: arrows and bullets, lances of flame, and beams of arcane power. While the artillery mages delayed their advance, the remaining revenants let loose with every spell and weapon at their disposal.

It wasn't enough.

These revenants were weaker than the picket forces had been, their attacks slower, their spells weaker. The advancing Auxilia moved through the cavalcade of fire, dodging some and enduring others. As they drew closer, Velcor hunkered down in one of the newly formed craters, answering volume with precision as her first shot took the head clean off one of their attackers.

Your ally has slain [Revenant – UCL 38]

Alarion drew upon his [Simple Mana Reserve] and downed a potion as he ran. Between the earlier lightning bolt and the scattered projectiles that had struck him since he'd lost nearly half his HP, and he'd been well below half of his MP, given the sheer number of times he'd teleported. He'd need to spend a considerable amount of each for what he had planned.

"Area on target," Alarion warned his allies as he drew the final knife from his bracer. This one differed from the cheap, disposable blades that he kept on hand for distraction or deception. Made of a single piece of glistening silver, the throwing dagger lacked any hilt wrap or decoration save for the arcane markings engraved down its centerline.

"Empowered Solar Burst," Alarion intoned as he intercepted an incoming arrow with the head of his mace. Despite the incantation, there was no explosion of heat and light, no burst of arcane power that devastated the area around him, only the slight paling of Alarion's skin as the costly spell drew heavily on his recently replenished reserves.

The boy studied the woods ahead of him, squinting through the flashes of magic and the swirling dust of the chaotic battlefield as he looked for the largest concentration of enemies. Five looked like the best he could do. They'd done their best to space themselves out to avoid return fire, as proper Auxilia knew to do, but the tight confines of their cover hadn't given them enough space to do so correctly.

They'd regret that, if any of them survived.

The small dagger flew true from Alarion's fingers, racing over a hundred yards until it struck a thin birch tree between two revenants. One turned its head, recognizing the danger. It opened its mouth to speak.

A flash of golden light turned night to day as the [Empowered Solar Burst] erupted from within the silver dagger. The natural bane of fiends and revenants, the solar affinity mana scorched the nearest revenant to bones before it could scream—another, further away, dove for cover that could not save it. The purifying flame tore a hole in the treeline and sent wooden shrapnel flying, wounding even the revenants well outside of the initial area of effect.

It was a devastating blow, killing several and stunning others. Those few who remained on their feet poured their firepower onto Alarion in a blind panic, leaving them vulnerable to Velcor's return fire and Kali's blind charge.

The sergeant struck the revenants with the fury of a vengeance. Denied his first shot at retribution by the competence of his subordinates, Kali wasted no time taking his revenge on the first revenant to come within arm's reach. He tackled the archer at a run, effortlessly pinning the smaller and weaker Awakened beneath him as he set about dismantling the revenant's ability to fight, one limb at a time.

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There was a certain beauty to the violence, the way Kali moved from one position to another, twisting joints until they shattered under pressure. It was brutality with a purpose. Aimed at disabling, not killing. An insult to their enemy, for Kali was now so sure of their victory that he was willing to endure their spells and arrows to prepare a captive.

But only one captive.

Alarion's orders were to screen, but with the enemy in such disarray, Velcor was in no need of protection. The revenants had their hands full, desperately trying to stop the force of nature that was Kali as the sergeant rampaged through their ranks, swatting at them like a grown man among toddlers. Alarion joined in the battle, but between Velcor's rifle and Kali's fists, there was little left to do by the time he reached the melee.

That left only the artillery mages.

Their deaths could not even be called a fight. It was a purge. Vitrian artillery mages like Sierra were trained in both spell and sword. While specializing in long-range damage, they were also skilled in close-quarters fighting. Auxilia were not. To the contrary, Auxilia artillery mages were often hand-selected by the Assessors for their talent, put through a specialized program that taught them how to amplify their power well above their rank at long distances but taught them next to nothing about how to defend themselves.

It was a slaughter. The revenants could not outrun their attackers, nor could they meaningfully fight against them. They still tried, driven by that insane bloodlust imparted to them by their resurrection, but Alarion might actually have felt some guilt were it not for the seething revulsion their very existence engendered within him.

"Is that all of them?" Kali asked. His chest was heaving, his hands dripping with blood, but the rage had drained from his expression, replaced with a cold professionalism.

Rather than answer, Alarion took to the sky once again. The sun had peeked over the horizon during their battle, allowing him an unrestricted look at the narrow valley and the rolling plains that surrounded it. Apart from the Auxilia column, there was no movement to be seen.

"Nothing far as the eye can see. Nor anything in my mana sense." Alarion declared as he landed next to his allies. "They might have gone to ground, but I doubt it."

"Velcor, go get Bergman. His file said he had a scouting skill of… oh will you shut up!" Kali lashed out with a vicious kick that struck the abdomen of the gibbering revenant who lay on the ground beside him. The creature was immobile, its limbs and back shattered by Kali's expert ministrations, but it could still talk. Specifically, it continued to mutter death threats and expletives as much as its punctured lung would allow. "And see if Taric is still alive. We're going to need emotional magic if we want to get anything useful out of this thing."

—

Taric wasn't alive.

In total, the ambush had claimed four lives and maimed two others. It was a chilling result; one made all the more concerning given that it was likely the best possible outcome. Alarion had given them mere seconds of warning, but those seconds had been the difference between life and death for most, if not all of them.

They learned little from the captured revenant, save for the critical knowledge that all of their mothers were, in fact, whores. It gloated about the attack, demanded that they give up their lives, and would certainly have lost its own had Kali not been there to protect it.

It had long been understood that whatever killing impulse drove revenants was mirrored by the living. Some, like Alarion, felt the sort of deep revulsion usually reserved for carrion insects, a desire to destroy or to avoid, while in others, the sensation was closer to annoyance or a deep irritation. But in a small subset, the sensation rose to the level of compulsion, a nearly irresistible need to destroy the unnatural thing before them.

So it was with Bergman.

"I-it doesn't have any connections," the young man spat, his back to the revenant, with Alarion positioned carefully between the two. "J-just some faint traces of the items on its person."

"You're certain?" Kali asked.

"D-did I stutter?!" the rotund soldier spat out, oblivious to the irony. "S-Sympathetic Sight works flawlessly on something s-so weak. That t-thing couldn't resist me if it wanted to. It probably doesn't even know how. If it h-had any allies, they'd need to be at least two m-miles away to escape my sight. Or dead. So can you please k-kill it?"

Kali considered the request, then acceded to it with a single, wet stomp.

Ahead of him, Bergman's shoulders sank, and he heaved a single heavy sigh as he said, "I can't stand those things."

"Understandable," Alarion murmured as he turned back to face the sergeant, who was busy wiping his boot on the dry grass. "Orders, sergeant?"

Kali echoed Bergman with an exhausted sigh of his own. "Grab a few others. We'll police the bodies, see if there is anything of value, and identify who we can. That might give us an idea-"

"I know him," Bergman spat out, his eyes locked on the half-collapsed face of the revenant the sergeant had just killed. "We took basic induction together."

"My condolences," the big man replied.

"H-He's dead."

"That was what you asked for, no? Though he was dead long be-"

"N-no!" Bergman interrupted, wincing as Kali shot him a disapproving glare. "B-begging your pardon, sergeant. But I mean… he died six months ago. I w-wrote a letter to his mom when he-"

"Specialist, I-"

"H-he hanged himself! In Shad-Veri!"

The words stopped Kali mid-rebuke and sent a spike of ice up the length of Alarion's spine as the sergeant asked the question they were all thinking.

"How did a suicide victim from a military fortress get brought back as a revenant?"

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