"Stand back!"

A figure clad in golden sunlight strode forward, the chaos of the battlefield briefly pushed aside as his aura flared with sunlight.

"Heavenly Fury, Sun God's Smite!"

The golden figure swept his arm down, holding a scythe in it as if it weighed nothing. As the scythe swept down, a ray of golden sunlight, crackling with a righteous electricity, descended upon the field of battle. Whatever the light touch shrieked and died, the fusion attack eviscerated the hordes of tier six monsters like dry leaves in a forest fire, and even dozens of base-tier-seven monsters died in the light.

"Back!" The figure yelled out, as a badly battered company worth of defenders rushed back, many missing appendages or otherwise gravely wounded. The man, clad in golden sunlight, even saw one woman limping her way back as fast as she could, her entrails trailing behind her like the hem of a dress.

The battle he had feared for years, decades, had finally arrived. Six years into the tier seven waves, they were entirely overwhelmed.

"Back!" Apostolos barked out once more, swinging the scythe as another god ray dropped upon the horde.

I only have a limited number of swings available!

He had wanted to hold back his most potent attack, but there simply wasn't room. They already had dozens, maybe even hundreds, of dead out there. Apostolos winced at the bodies disintegrated by his attack, bodies that they would never recover, but he had no choice.

Sun God's smite was a partially borrowed power, a gift freely given by the Khan of Blue Lightning, whom he had harmonized with, allowing six swings every month.

And he had already burnt through three as he was forced to swing his scythe one more time, cutting back the horde from reaching the last of the retreating defenders.

Back to our final defensive position.

Two of three walls, overwhelmed. They were losing.

No, they were already dead men walking.

But damn it, he was the Chief Protector. He would sooner die for Ehkorrus than abandon it.

"Apostolos!" A voice yelled as Apostolos turned, recognizing the face.

"Manda. Report."

"We've managed to pull back on the western flank."

"Good," Apostolos nodded, keeping his face devoid of any emotion, of any weakness.

Manda glanced around, frowning for a moment before whispering, even with one else in earshot.

"How long? How long can we hold at the final wall?"

It was the question Apostolos hated, because he had been asking himself the same question ever since it became evident that this wave would be the wave that pushed them back to the final wall.

"Depends," Apostolos gruffly said, finally deciding to be forthcoming. "If the wave continues to shore itself up, using the endless tier sixes as meat shields? A day, maybe two. If the tier sevens get serious and hit us as one? An hour, maybe two, tops, depends on just how many tier sevens they can throw at us."

It wasn't what Apostolos wanted to admit, but it was the truth.

Manda's frown deepened.

"When… when the time comes. Do me a favor." Apostolos said, speaking only his mind with the knowledge that there was no one in earshot. "My kids, they're with some other citizens, acting as liaisons. Get them away from here."

"What about Violet?" Manda asked.

"She won't be leaving," Apostolos chuckled darkly. He'd known his wife for something like seventy years now."

"Where to?"

"The Maw, the Khan might be able to take our people in."

"But that's all the way on the third floor. We can't teleport crowds of that size, not all at once. The wave monsters will be certain to give chase. And with those below tier seven, there isn't a chance in hell we can keep ahead of them. Not with the Null Window locked down."

Apostolos was well aware, but he needed to try anyway. Some had taken the evacuation offer in advance, but most citizens believed far too intensely in Ehkorrus' defenders.

"It doesn't matter," Apostolos finally said. "We do what we must."

Apostolos was tired. Tired of hearing the cries of the wounded, of seeing people he knew dying. Of people he should have been able to protect, falling under his watch.

He felt so powerless. Level seventy-six, he was the strongest in the city, but it wasn't enough. He could have killed any of the tier seven monsters with ease, but there were just so many, and he wasn't unlimited. He was already stretching himself so damn thin, sustaining the aurora overhead alongside plugging any holes that appeared.

"Apostolos."

A warm hand grabbed his own, a hand he knew well.

"Your rest period?" Apostolos asked, never bothering to turn his head.

"Aye. As much as I wanted to keep fighting on, a certain someone established breaks being necessary to keep our best defenders sharp."

"Sounds like a hard ass," Apostolos grunted, desperately basking in the short reprieve from the weariness of the doomed battle. It was his doctrine that had been enshrined as battlefield law that defenders would rotate out after burning through seventy-five percent of their total reserves. It was military doctrine that was partially responsible for Ehkorrus still holding, twenty-six hours after the wave began.

Failure. Every death is your failure.

Shaking his head, Apostolos chased away the whispers in his mind.

"Did you hear?" Violet gripped his hand tighter. "Lots of prayers going up to the Founder."

"Hah," Apostolos shook his head. "Rory is dead."

It had been something he had forced himself to accept within the last two years. All attempts at reaching him had failed, and almost sixty-four years later, enough time had passed since even Rory's longest estimate that Apostolos had to accept it.

Yet, the prayers to the Founder were what many citizens of Ehkorrus had found themselves drifting to. There was even that damn church, worshipping not just the 'Divine Architect,' The True Founder of Ehkorrus, but also worshipping his fellow 'pantheon,' the seven other founders.

"I'm almost shocked that they offer so much prayer to him, when by their own beliefs, E.O.N. and Aelia are higher divinities."

"They're considered 'Austere Divinities,'" Apostolos said, engaging in the conversation if only to get his mind off their current reality for a moment. "They do no favors, take no sides."

It was all ludicrous and borderline zealotry in Apostolos's eyes. Still, it gave fortitude to believers, and more importantly, cracking down on it when there were murmurs of discontent and unease over the last few years would have been begging for more problems than was worth it.

His thoughts were shattered, and he was dragged back to the present when a horn blared.

"Back to work," Violet muttered.

"Back to work indeed."

Thirty-two hours. They had lasted longer than even Apostolos had initially assumed.

"How 'ya doin', boss?" A gruff voice asked.

"God damn dandy," Apostolos muttered as he eyed Gil, holding a shield and spear to his side. As a base-tier-seven, things had turned desperate enough that even the crafter had been conscripted to the front line. As their number one crafter, Apostolos had made it a point to have him nearby, on the off chance a miracle happened and they survived, it wouldn't do to lose their prized artisan.

Perhaps Aelia will open a volcano under the wave's feet.

The death toll so far had been confirmed at two hundred and twenty-six. A far smaller number than many would expect, given the intensity of the battle, but that was only because the wave made no point at rushing them down, almost as if it were toying with them.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

An intelligent wave boss. Alarming.

It was more than alarming; it was downright unnatural, something Apostolos expected from a Bane, but with Rory dead and gone, that meant it was a natural monster of significant intelligence.

Could it be?

Apostolos had an idea as to the lead monster of the wave, but it almost didn't matter. As alarming as it was, he was so damn tired, and they were so damn fucked, that whether the wave boss ever showed itself or not didn't matter.

And yet, Apostolos still fought on.

"Incoming, boss."

Apostolos looked further out into the battlefield, already sensing what Gil had noticed.

Blight Captain.

Blight Captains, the evolved form of a Blight Knight Ace. They were smart, not as intelligent as a person, but still smarter than most monsters. They were heavily armored and exuded an aura of pestilence and blight so strong that only a tier seven could even think of being in their presence, and even then, only those with specific ways to combat the effect.

And that was just its aura.

Also, at level seventy-three, only a handful of their tier sevens, including himself, could engage the monster in a direct one-versus-one and hope to come out on top.

Apostolos sighed, but there was no getting around it. Leaping from the battlements, he shot forward. Their aura meant that they had to be kept from reaching their wall; the energy within would wear out faster if exposed, spreading throughout like a noxious disease.

Reaching the Blight Captain in moments, Apostolos's scythe swung out, blocked by an upraised arm thick as a bundle of heavy branches tied together. Covered in an armor of super-thick, hardened pus, even his scythe struggled to bite through in one strike.

Apostolos wasn't easily deterred, though, as he shot around the monster, scythe swinging and biting into it, axe head occasionally deepening a wound opened by the point of the scythe head. More graceful than the best gymnast to ever exist and several orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest strongman, he was like living sunlight, an untouchable but ever dangerous existence.

Or that was the case, until ten more Blight Captains appeared from seemingly nowhere, dragging themselves out from black and green ooze that had begun gushing from the ground.

A trap. It was a damn trap!

One Blight Captain Apostolos could handle without too much struggle, but eleven total?

It left him with one choice, a choice he made nearly instantaneously, something he suspected the mastermind had planned out.

To attempt to overwhelm the Blight Captains completely with his own power would leave him desperately weakened, burning through precious resources. From there, it would be more than easy to charge the walls as their strongest defender was weakened.

Calling upon a power not entirely his own, a righteous sunbeam overcharged with heavenly energies lanced out in a cleaving line. In such close proximity, the Blight Captains had no chance, cleaved in two.

Besting eleven Blight Captains in one attack for most would have been a moment spoken of for potentially the rest of their lives, a moment of legend that future generations would believe as a mere tall tale.

Yet Apostolos felt no pride, no excitement, nothing but anger and irritation. It was obvious that the real target had been forcing him to draw upon another Sun God's Smite. The wave boss had likely realized that such power was greatly limited. Eleven Blight Captains for a single attack usually wouldn't have been worth it. Yet, even a few regular tier seven monsters would be enough to overwhelm them so long as the strongest defenders were worn out, and they had no battlefield-clearing attack to call down upon the horde.

How many? How many have we already killed?

Tier six monsters had to range in the tens of thousands by this point. Tier sevens? Hundreds at least. Logic dictated the wave was nearing its own limit, and had it not been led by an intelligent monster, there was a chance they could have withstood it.

One charge left.

At the very least, Apostolos was sure he knew the identity of the wave boss. Level seventy-six, a Blight Commander. He'd never encountered one himself, but the Second Prince had, and it had nearly killed him. Blight Commanders were essentially the Blight monster equivalent of the Second Prince, a brilliant monster of significant power.

Fresh, I might be able to face it and win. As I am now?

A battle already lost.

But I'll be damned if I just accept it.

A dark shadow rushes out, blackening the battlefield for hundreds of yards, as monsters look down in confusion.

Then, hundreds of shadowy beasts erupt from the shadows, tearing through the hordes.

Their walls, nearly overwhelmed, found a moment of respite.

And the cost?

A single man. A figure who had been supported by two women, former teammates, who were now desperately shaking the man who had gone lax.

Yet the light was gone from his eyes.

Deceit. They had been deceived; told it would merely exhaust him to the point of being removed from the fight.

Two women, agonized shouts that were never answered, the man, his spark gone. On his knees, like a puppet with its strings cut.

All while a man basked in golden light could only watch.

The order had been given.

Ehkorrus was to be abandoned. A path was already being carved open, a desperate dash to the Maw.

Only a few figures remained at the front line. A man in golden light stood beside his wife, who was bathed in the blue dawn fire. A few feet away, another man armed with two spears in either hand, and finally, a woman with fists glowing with prismatic fury.

They knew this would be their final battle. As powerful as they were, they wouldn't be enough.

Before them, a small army. It was as if the universe had a sick sense of humor. They had withstood ninety-nine percent of the wave.

Yet, exhausted and depleted as they were, facing two hundred tier-sevens, all led by a level seventy-six Blight Commander, was impossible odds.

Death would find them, but it would not find them easily.

"Resilient." The Blight Commander said, voice almost silky. "But not enough. Claiming this land under the burning suns shall grant the Blighted Khan the path to their foretold ascension."

"You like the sound of your own voice, ehh, asshole?" Marcie spat out, her normal battle high replaced with ugly, seething hatred.

"Observations have been ongoing for years, decades, all for this." The Blight Commander ignored her, spreading its arms wide. "An invasion of the surface, timed to match the tides of the Great Mother perfectly."

Well, it looks like that mystery has finally been figured out. All that weird stuff with the blight monsters and strange happenings occurring in the Maw. A cover, a distraction, so we would never consider the target was the surface itself.

Apostolos wanted to sigh, annoyed that they hadn't realized sooner, but how could they? All blight monster sightings had been chalked up to the skirmishes within the Maw pushing them outward.

Instead, he only shook his head.

"Enough," Apostolos announced, projecting elements of his own aura into his voice. "Let's just finish this already."

"Gladly," The Blight Commander said, and even without being able to see its face beneath its visored face, Apostolos could hear the damn near lascivious grin upon its face.

"With me!" Apostolos yelled as the aurora overhead exploded in intensity; there was no point in holding back.

The twilight of Ehkorrus had arrived.

"Your efforts were… admirable," the Blight Commander said, tree trunk-sized arms crossed over its chest, the monster standing well over twelve feet tall, a giant humanoid monster knight. "But futile, much as I declared before."

Apostolos looked around, a grimace on his face. Marcie had been subdued and captured, tossed over the shoulder of a Blight Captain. She wasn't the only one; in fact, Apostolos was the only one remaining, and that was only because he'd been forced to expend every single one of his Radiant Embers.

He was mortal, for the first time in…. decades.

As for the others, the only reason the Blight Commander hadn't had them killed was that they would make for a good 'template,' whatever that meant.

They had lost.

And yet.

Pressing the butt of his scythe into the ground, Apostolos slowly rose to his feet from where he had fallen before the Blight Commander. Exhausted as he had been from the prior fighting during the wave, the Blight Commander had been too much for him to overcome.

And yet.

Standing before the Blight Commander, blood oozing from numerous wounds that no longer closed instantly, he refused to break.

I will die first.

Ehkorrus was his home.

Ehkorrus was his family.

Ehkorrus was the final heirloom of his brother, long passed.

He would not break.

Holding the scythe out, Apostolos stared down the Blight Commander.

"And still, you resist. You would find this much less troublesome if you let go. Your new life would wash aside the broken and unworthy one you have lived until now."

"You know what?" Apostolos spoke, spitting out a glob of mucus, blood, and even a tooth.

"Yes?"

"All you Khan underlings talk far too much,"

The eyes of the Blight Commander would have gone wide as they sensed something off, had they not been the compound eyes of an insect. It had waited patiently, ensuring that the main threat within the human hive had exhausted itself, expended its most dangerous attacks.

And yet, sensing it a moment before it occurred, it realized it had made a serious miscalculation.

For when Apostolos said he would give everything for Ehkorrus, he meant it.

Grabbing onto the same feeling as when he formed a new Radiant Ember, Apostolos drew his very life force, his anima, and channeled it.

Except rather than shaping it into a lifesaving Radiant Ember, it was turned into something far more dangerous, a blade to cut down the enemies of Ehkorrus.

"Radiance of a Life Lived," Apostolos called out, as a blade of pure anima, sharpened by decades of memories and joy, shot forward.

With only enough time to cross its arms in front of itself, the level seventy-six Blight Commander vanished as a radiant light blinded all those in the vicinity.

Seconds passed as Apostolos felt himself leaning more and more heavily on his scythe.

Please.

The effort had been valiant. Had it been made earlier, it would have likely succeeded. But so exhausted, there was only so much to draw from. When the light finally faded, the Blight Commander remained, missing nearly a quarter of its chest, but alive all the same.

Apostolos had used everything; the only reason it hadn't killed him was that he hadn't even had the strength remaining to maintain the shape of the freeform magic for long enough to burn through what little remained.

It just wasn't enough.

With a heavy heart, Apostolos looked into the sky. He could recall that very first day, sitting around the campfire as Rory had taken him in.

I'm sorry. I failed you.

He had failed. Failed his wife. His kids. His home.

And he had failed his brother.

Closing his eyes for a moment, when Apostolos opened them once more, it was to face down death, eyes wide open.

"For the wound you have inflicted, I shall have the price repaid." The Blight Commander exclaimed, its voice remaining even keeled even after suffering the wound that it had. "Kill him."

Goodbye, world.

Death accepted, Apostolos remained standing, eyes still cast to the sky.

Yet, with his gaze cast to the heavens, he felt his eyebrow twitch, noticing a strange sight. There was something off about the lighting cast from the suns, almost as if there was another light source that had appeared.

Someone else might have questioned just what the sight was, but instantly Apostolos knew. The answer was so plainly evident, he could feel it deep within his bones.

High overhead, the shifting light intensified until the clouds were suddenly blown apart. A cyclone of weird, gas-like orange fire lanced through the heavens with unparalleled speed, its trajectory straight at them. While some would have seen it as the final signs of the Fall of Ehkorrus, Apostolos felt the corners of his mouth twitch upward as a grin began to uncontrollably spread.

"Took you long enough… Rory."

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