Mia idly tapped her fingers on the thick leather belt running around her waist, clinking her nail on a mana potion holstered on it. The tiny vials were the size and shape of her pinky finger, and held just a single gulp of the stuff, but that'd be enough to get her back to a full mana pool.

Zeigler had surprised them when he sent the things over. He had been busy working in the background, and the handmade potion belts and bandoliers now adorning her team were just one sign of it. The best thing about them, though, was the fact that the potions were concocted by a local alchemist and, as such, didn't rely on the finite Quest Rewards to replenish their stock.

The quality of the potions was a mere fraction of the System-made ones, but magical healing-in-a-bottle was still a magical healing-in-a-bottle.

Ever so slowly, the beginnings of an economy were being built from the ground up in the background to fuel their 'war' on monsters.

Druids and Nature mages were working on setting up small, protected farming fields, and the first harvest was set to happen in just a week from now. Food shortage was going to be a worry of the past in the near future.

Mia held all that in mind as she clasped her wand tightly and held her magic at the forefront of her mind. She was on sniping duty with Order-aspected piercing Bolts, and her team was trusting her to finish off anything disabled by Helene or Lina. Leaving Camie's Blood magic as a last resort in case Mia fell short of the task.

Nikki was a weird in-between, capable of doing just about everything, but being best at disabling enemies first with freezing spells before she finished them off with pinpoint icicles. Her sole weakness was range, as her magic was more mid-range when compared to Mia's, who could shoot stuff from hundreds of metres away.

"Beastkin party is stalling, following along on the parallel street," Camie reported with a sniff. "They are pushing themselves to keep up with us. In the other direction, I hear another army platoon clearing the dregs. The forward squad of that street is up ahead, waiting."

Mia made a face at the mention of the beastkin party. Being accosted by a bunch of self important, overconfident assholes with animal bits had lost whatever novelty it once had after the third time it happened.

Rex had come back twice himself to get his ass handed to him by Brent in rematches, but there were also others of their kind intent on aggravating other members of the group. Most of those altercations ended with Mia's Familiar absolutely humiliating the one calling them out for a fight by single-handedly — or paw-edly? — bloodying them up.

They'd managed to keep their cards close to their chest, but it was getting on all of their nerves by now.

"Again?" Mark groaned. "Why can't they just let us save the city in peace?"

Mia cracked a smile at that, and the smirk she caught flitting across Carmilla's lips was a sign of those game nights doing the girl some good. Mia knew that three days would hardly make a huge difference, but any improvement to Carmilla's antisocial nature put Mia in a good mood.

Small steps.

"Something-" Camie started to say, but Mia's gaze snapped up to the sky already. A silver glint caught her eye, and her stomach dropped. She'd started to react as quickly as physically possible for her, but the silvery streak was cutting through the sky at startling speed. She wasn't going to be able to do a thing. "ATTACK!"

The diving bird monster reached them before Carmilla even started her shout. Thankfully, the bird had been dumb enough to attack the vampire, who managed to evade its attack.

Before Mia could ignite the Bolt at the tip of her wand that she had already levelled at the bird scampering to launch itself back into the sky, a titanic overhead swing from Mark's mace flattened it into the ground. Metallic feathers screeched in agony as the fleshy body underneath turned to mush from the force of the blow.

"More incoming," Camie said, knees bent at the ready at the centre of their group and eyes trained on the sky.

They had talked about this, so nobody found the actions odd. Camie would push anyone too slow to react out of the way of any high-speed attacks, possibly at the cost of getting struck herself.

Lina did her own job with respectable speed, snapping up a layered shield of air magic above them that'd slow anything passing through.

"Mia, monsters?" Brent asked, but Mia shook her head quickly. There was none that she could feel in range of her Spirit Sense. "Birds. You know the drill, be ready and act quickly."

Mia wasn't sure whether Brent was putting too much trust into their capabilities, but she tried to push her awareness to the limit. Honestly, with how most of their training so far in working together as a team came from stressful direct combat encounters, it was a damned miracle no serious friendly fire accidents had occurred yet.

If a bird like the one just now planted itself in the middle of their group in one of the first days, Mia was pretty sure she'd have panicked and blasted someone in the face with a Bolt. Or froze, too afraid to cast her spell in case she hit an ally, which would have left her as free prey for monsters.

By now, they'd established that ranged jumping away while protecting themselves and letting a melee beat on whatever got in their midst was the simplest and safest play.

"I think I can see a whole flock of them up there," Carmilla said as she squinted up at the sky, shielding her eyes from the harsh rays of the sun. "I don't know. It could be the light, or there could be hundreds of them. Their colouring makes them a pain to spot in the sun from this far awa- DIVING."

Mia activated the off-hand Shield spell above her head and held her breath, but while the familiar whistle of a metallic bird cutting through the sky came, the impact did not.

A soft thrum, then a round of vaguely horrified screams from the street overreached her ears a moment later. She couldn't pick out the exact words at this distance, of course, but it wasn't hard to guess what had happened.

"Shit," Lina said what Mia felt aloud.

"Let's back up," Helene suggested, zappy arcs of lightning jumping between her fingers as she glanced over her shoulder at the platoon of soldiers they had been assigned as their rearguard and cleanup crew for the day. "I doubt they can react to a bird diving at them. They'd benefit from Lina's shields."

"Agreed, move." Brent nodded. "Be quick. Seconds could count."

Yeah, Mia didn't want to see how a human would look after a metallic bird barrelled into them as fast as those dumb things were going while diving.

"I could put a Phalanx above them," Mia suggested as she followed along at the brisk pace Brent was setting for them. "My Spirit and Mind have gone up since last time. I think I can handle it now."

"We are not trying out anything untested in an active combat situation," Brent admonished her. "We are not that desperate. Not yet anyway."

Mia nodded her agreement and let it drop. Her heart was beating rapidly, her eyes jumping around as they expected a monster popping up behind every pebble.

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Finally, something had changed up. The last three days had gone by with them only hunting the big, dumb Rust Wolves and only coming across the wolfkin a few times. Mia found them even more underwhelming than the low expectations she'd set for them.

The wolfkin seemed to be even dumber than the boarkin, but lacked their toughness, and they completely missed out on the lethal marksmanship of the ratkin. The only thing they had going for them was that they rode around on Rust Wolves and could make rusty weapons for themselves if they lost their original weapons.

Mia's thoughts faltered for a moment. Was she excited to be fighting something dangerous again? Was that brush with death just now flooding her brain with all sorts of crazy hormones, or was she really going crazy?

She shook it off. Didn't matter.

"Come under the shields!" Brent shouted as soon as they came within hearing distance of the military platoon of about twenty soldiers huddled up around a pair of Humvees.

"We have our own protections," a soldier shouted back, waving them off. "Care about the monsters. We don't need coddling."

Whatever disparaging thought started forming in Mia's head died in its infancy as she saw a dome of yellowish gold magic cover the whole platoon. Her jaw hung loose for a moment before her curiosity overrode any other emotion she felt and she went to examine the magic.

By what she knew, the spell looked like an oversized Light elemental Aegis spell. The problem was, her Spirit Sense was telling her it was far too flimsy to be the real deal … did the caster somehow modify it to expand its range drastically, but couldn't manage to scale up the strength of the barrier along with it? That would certainly explain why it was so thin.

Brent glanced back at Mia questioningly, a raised eyebrow urging her to give him a quick assessment.

"It won't hold back one of those birds," Mia said. "Might slow them down enough that they survive the hit, though. Might not. Seems far too flimsy and I wouldn't trust it to protect any one of us. My Wards are four times as powerful, and I don't even trust them to stop a diving bird."

Still, Mia looked at it in mild wonder and clear appreciation, lining her face. The soldiers were using magic that was actually combat-viable. Leaning into the information her Spirit Sense was feeding her, she felt the nudges she'd come to associate with people using active Skills.

There were two of them, and they sat in the back of a humvee according to her Trait. Looking deeper, it felt like power was flooding out from one person and into the other who then fed it into the oversized maybe-Aegis.

Maybe the first guy has a Skill to amplify the Skills of others? Mia wagered a guess, feeling an aching curiosity urging her to go and figure it out. Only her awareness of the fact that she was still in an active combat situation stopped her from doing so.

Monsters first, magic second.

Just as that thought solidified in Mia's head, a repulsive presence prickled the edges of her perception. Then, even before she could open her mouth, another joined the first. They were strong too, and were coming up from somewhere deep underground.

"Monsters inbound!" Mia shouted. "Coming from underground, level 11s and 12s by the feels of it. There are three … five- no ten. Ten of them. Five each from under those two buildings."

"Guardians?" Lina asked, her voice a strange mix of eagerness and anxiety.

"I don't think so?" Mia said.

"Mark, spikes on the front. They'll be charging at us. Stop them from doing so or at least from encircling us." Brent turned to the rest of them. "Lina, make sure your shield covers the soldiers, too. The rest of us will try to take them down as swiftly as possible. Carmilla, is this attack isolated, or are they coming at every group?"

"The latter," Camie said, still keeping to the middle of the formation as her eyes roamed the sky. "And more are coming, I can hear them running. They are coming from the forest, where we suspected the rift to be."

"Shit," Brent said, taking only a moment to think. "ETA?"

"I don't know," Camie said with a hint of frustration clear in her voice. "A minute, maybe five?"

"Mia, I want you to switch back to the hard-hitting Blasts," Brent said, his eyes jumping around in near panic as he looked around the empty street before them that'd soon be swarming with monsters. "We can't allow them to get close and overwhelm us. They need to be thinned out or at least separated. Burn as many mana potions as you need to kill as many of them as possible."

"Barricades?" Mark asked.

"They'll just jump over it," Brent said. "Don't bother. Thicken your armour. Whatever gets close, we'll have to keep them off the girls or we're likely all fucked."

Camie slipped over, her eyes were still firmly locked on the sky but she was practically breathing down Mia's neck.

Her presence still had the same calming effect on Mia as before, making her feel safe even as she tracked the monstrous presences rush up from underground in a zigzag. Must have been a staircase leading deep underground for some reason.

With a deep breath and an almost instinctive twist of her mental muscles, Mia's docile and stable mana unravelled into a chaotic storm. Her spirit almost burned, and she felt the familiar sting in her energy channels.

Arcane Blast's spell circle slowly compiled itself, and Mia felt that added tenth of a second like it was an eternity.

"Right side is seconds away," Mia said, her voice coming out calm despite her racing heart. "Left side is still half a minute out at least. Whatever Camie heard is still beyond my perception's range."

The moment the first canine head poked through the open gate of the tall concrete building, Mia greeted it with a blast on its face. Its iron grey fur shone with a lustre that only dimmed when Mia's spell blasted half of it to smithereens.

The tortured shriek of tearing metal put a pained grimace on Mia's face as her ears flinched back, but she held her wand at the ready and sent another Blast off the moment a new wolf tried to clamber over the corpse of its fallen kin.

This time, she hit it across the neck, resulting in a less-than-fatal blow. The monster twisted away with a pained yowl, but a spear of ice struck it in the side of its wounded neck and pinned it to the wall behind it.

That just about barricaded the main gate, but there were still a dozen smaller windows across the ground floor that the monsters could squeeze through.

Mia's head snapped around as she heard the ones on the left side reaching the ground floor, but she saw a lightning bolt arcing inside and felt a presence being snuffed out soon after. Quickly followed by another two.

"Iron Wolves," Nikki shouted, and Mia felt the ice mage's mana surge as it wrapped around her like a protective cocoon. "Same as Rust Wolves, just marginally tougher. Their bones are made of mana-infused iron."

Mia quickly relayed the information to the others while groaning inwardly. Another monster type with annoyingly tough bones, great, just what she wanted to face again.

"Any ranged attacks we should be worried about?" Mia asked.

"Not unless you see a-" Nikki stumbled over her words, and Mia's arm snapped up to fire off an Arcane Blast guided by her Spirit Sense. Above them, the spell hit a bird monster that had its momentum robbed by Lina's shield, which caused it to bounce off the golden barrier surrounding the army platoon just before Mia blasted it to death. "Erm, look out for ones that look like statues. Wolves made of liquid metal."

"Got it," Mia said, her ears twitching as she tried to guess what exactly the monsters stuck in the two buildings were doing inside. The sound of crashing furniture, angry growls and snapping jaws was clear enough, but didn't tell her much. "Some small ones over there, stuck inside those two buildings for now."

"Understood. Soldiers, into positions!" The Lieutenant who'd told Brent off before shouted from behind, and Mia risked a glance back only to see two pairs of ten soldiers kneeling behind small earth barricades. All of them had their rifles at their shoulders, their barrels pointed at the buildings to the sides. "Fire at will!"

Mia felt something about those guns, or rather, something inside them. Her Spirit Sense was being ever so slightly tickled by the sensation, which could only mean they had some kind of magic in them.

A thin film of magic appeared above both sets of soldiers, and Mia felt it clearly this time and knew their source to be the Lieutenant. Some kind of air magic, by the off-white colour, maybe?

The wolves on the right made their appearance first, a pair barrelling through two separate windows almost as one while Helene's lightning still wrought havoc inside the left building.

The soldiers opened fire, their weapons giving off loud barks as the bullets shot off. Mia paid close attention, and only because of that did she notice exactly what was happening. The bullets were coated by air magic when they passed through the thin wall of magic, and then exploded as they struck the emerging monsters.

Their power was flimsy, but they each took small chunks of flesh and fur out of the monsters. That was … surprising. Well, Mia had been somewhat expecting it, having felt them using magic and skills, but Brent was clearly startled at seeing bullets do more than just bounce off their metallic fur uselessly. As were the rest, to a lesser degree.

"They're here," Camie shouted over the loud gunfire, pointing right down the street. "Monsters ahead!"

Mia turned and felt her stomach drop. There were only around twenty wolves, but on all of them sat a wolfling covered in dull grey armour, wielding long lances. But that wasn't even the worst of what she saw. Behind them all ran a wolf twice as tall as the rest, and instead of fur, it looked to be made of liquid metal.

If that's not the Rift Guardian, I don't know what is. Mia thought grimly, her thoughts whirling back around to the soldiers. Their weapons were proving to have some actual effect might just be what gave them a fighting chance in this fight. Mia was sure her team could take down the Guardian, but not while they were being harried by dozens of other monsters from all sides. I hope they brought enough bullets.

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