Angar’s heart leapt with a surge of relief, with a rekindled fire flooding his chest. He wasn’t alone. Warriors, bold and vicious, stood ready to wage war against the infernal along with him.

  This battle was far from over, but in this blood-soaked moment, hope bloomed sweetly, cutting through the haze of agony.

  He wished he could aid the men atop the cliff, but first he had to survive the ten or so brutes before him, a feat he doubted he’d manage.

  He’d fight to survive. He’d give his all to this battle. But these men were on their own for now.

  The ground crunched beneath his boots as Angar staggered forward, each limping step a defiance, and a roar rough of challenge tore from his throat.

  His body was a weapon, one empowered by Theosis and honed in battle against Hellspawn, but it was a weapon worn down, close to breaking, as the pain that each swing of his maul sent flaring through his arm and ribs testified to.

  The brutes, though diminished, still numbered too many, their monstrous forms quaking the ground as they lumbered towards him.

  As he hobbled closer, he reached deep down, calling upon his dwindling reserves, and met his first foe. He ducked under a sweeping club, and countered with a vicious swing of his maul, the weapon connecting with a satisfying crack against the beast's kneecap.

  The creature roared, its leg buckling some, but it didn’t fall. Even after all this time battling these Hellspawn, Angar was still impressed by how much damage these brutes could take, how well-built they were, their ability to withstand the horrors of war.

  A new brute joined in the melee, swinging its club, Angar dodging out of its path. He retaliated with fury, each strike of his maul now imbued with the ferocity of a cornered beast.

  This group he faced were too spread out. The three or four furthest away turned around and prepared to join their other brethren scaling the cliff.

  Angar couldn’t help the men atop the cliff, but he could at least not make things worse for them. He dove forward, his body screaming in pain.

  As he got his feet under him, he bellowed out a new challenge, the war cry of his ancestors, now meant for all warriors who stood against the Underworld, and charged forward.

  He dodged a club, ducked a stomping foot, ran past more brutes to reach the tail of the vanguard, and charged into them with his maul swinging.

  The first brute he struck roared in pain or annoyance as a hammer smacked into its back, sending it staggering forward. Two other brutes swung at him simultaneously, their clubs blazing through the air.

  Angar, in desperation, made a mad dive through the legs of the brute to his right, and the gamble paid off, but the respite it gave was brief.

  He felt the strain, his energy waning, his vision blurring as the blood from his earlier head wound leaked into his eyes. He knew he couldn't keep this up, but he had to get the enemies grouped enough.

  And he’d accomplished that.

  With a guttural surge of will, Angar clasped his halt with both hands and unleashed Tempest, his body igniting into a frenzied spin, the maul a whirling vortex of violence and wrath.

  Lightning snapped from its head, jagged arcs lashing the nearest brutes, their scarred hides twitched under the electric bite, a fleeting shudder rippling through their bulk, though Angar knew the bolts did them little actual harm.

  And on he spun, his focus more on staying alive and not taking more damage, missing the brutes with his maul as often as not as he spun away from clubs, fists, and feet.

  His arm throbbed with increasing intensity, the pain escalating with each brutal contact his weapon made against an enemy. Spinning three times per second for six long seconds, each strike on every brute within reach accumulated into a lot of agony.

  As Tempest ended, Angar was surrounded, his breath coming in harsh gasps, his body covered in a mix of his own blood and theirs.

  The brutes were relentless, scrambling to crowd in and be the one to crush this insect that kept bothering them. But he wanted them to crowd in, and group together.

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  With a grim smile, he unleashed a shockwave, sending an unseen force tearing through his foes.

  When Glory Thunders faded, Angar knew he had to move or risk death. He activated Ground Current, going a little east, just enough to be safe but well within the attention range of these monsters.

  From his new vantage, he saw the brutes hesitate. Some lumbered toward him, while those at the rear pivoted to face the noise behind them from the cliff battle, the crashing rocks, and the men raining rocks down.

  He yelled out his challenge again to regain attention. As soon as he was certain as many of them were moving towards him as were going to, he ran south, or tried to considering his leg injury.

  His boots kicked up clumps of dirt, his breath ragged, his muscles screaming with fatigue, but he had no time for weakness. The brutes were relentless, and he’d yet to down any of this group.

  There were eleven enemies, and it took three Tempests and three Glory Thunders to down them all, but, when it was done, he was alive, if more injured.

  As the last of his foes were corpses staining the earth, he turned his aching neck to look up the cliff.

  A few brutes still clawed upward, their massive hands gouging into the stone, but the men atop were gone.

  Angar knew there were numerous women within the group, but the concept of women engaging in combat was foreign to him. Such a thing was unheard of. Witches were respected and feared, but for their knowledge, artifacts, and magic, not for their prowess in battle.

  Men did the fighting. This was how things just were. He had never even thought about it until now. He just assumed the Empire of the Holy Trinity followed similar customs, seeing Spirit and whatever a Messiah was as akin to a witch, but it appeared this wasn’t the case.

  He knew the timeline had said Spirit fought both Hellspawn and Nexus’ machines, but he assumed that meant spiritually. Or was just hyperbole from Theosis, maybe allegorical.

  Her limbs were so thin he couldn’t even picture her walking without her legs snapping. She looked like the exact opposite of a warrior.

  Scanning the range that stretched southward, he spotted the men, staying just ahead of perhaps twenty pursuing brutes.

  Angar hobbled south, eyes scanning for a way up the ridge. He found none, but ahead, as the men crossed a makeshift bridge over a low rise, they set off a rockslide that broke the suspension, sending five or so of the brutes plummeting to the ground below.

  One of the remaining brutes above leaped, clearing the gap, landing perilously close to the edge on the other side, waving its arms to keep its balance.

  The same man who had previously hoisted the boulder over his head now hurled another at the beast, sending it tumbling backwards over the precipice.

  As more of the remaining brutes poised to make the jump, Angar charged forward, disregarding the recovering brutes below. If he could save these brave men, he would.

  He hadn't attempted using it to climb before, but since the rise was low, he believed he might have the range, so he activated Ground Current to reach the lead brute preparing to leap.

  It worked. He emerged right behind the creature, unleashing Tempest without hesitation. His body whirled like a storm of death and destruction, hurling several brutes off the precipice while they were still stunned.

  The battle on the ridge wasn’t easy, but it went better than he thought it would, and each brute eventually fell to his might, even with some stragglers catching up and joining in.

  He was on his last leg, completely spent, but alive still, and that was a miracle in itself.

  The skirmish had driven him around a bend, and he fully expected to witness the men beyond the ruined bridge locked in combat with brutes scaling up toward them, but there was no trace of man, monster, or ongoing battle.

  He used Ground Current to return down to the pass and limped south as quickly as his body allowed, passing some dead brutes trapped under rocks.

  When he finally spotted movement, some brutes were caught under another avalanche. Three were clawing their way up a smaller cliff while stones pelting down at them.

  Angar wanted to help, but he couldn’t see how. The lip was too high for Ground Current. He was a lot stronger and tougher than mundane men, but he doubted he was half as capable of shrugging off boulders as these brutes were, so had to avoid going near the cliff and the raining rocks.

  Then, dizziness nearly dropped Angar to his knees. He pawed at his scalp, his monstrous hands fumbling over the wound. He found a new injury near his temple, bleeding freely.

  In the end, these men needed little of his help. Not much later, the last brute died as it fell crashing down into the rocks below, covered in more before it could rise again.

  There were still a few brutes alive and struggling beneath the avalanche, leading Angar to suspect a lot more were alive and trapped under the other cliff.

  As he thought about how to reach and dispatch these trapped foes, some of the men had already navigated down to the pass and were approaching, moving through a patch of thick fog mundane men would’ve skirted.

  “Hail, Crusader!” called out the lead man, what looked like a Kondunean judging by his gear, but it wasn’t normal legion armor.

  If Angar was fourteen Imperial years old, then this man was at least forty.

  Varko had sported a short beard, not the full growth men typically had. This Kondunean, however, looked to have shaved recently, the first fully grown man Angar had ever seen with a face as hairless as a woman’s.

  Mecia had many visiting foreigners. Angar only spent a few short months in the city before it was destroyed, but he knew the armor of many peoples, and one of the approaching men was a Ghelixian. Where the third hailed from was a mystery.

  By demeanor alone, the Kondunean was clearly in charge. Angar had assumed the big man hoisting boulders would be the leader.

  Angar yelled out, “Hail!” unsure if he should add ‘soldier,’ or some blessing, or not, so settle on not.

  As the men closed in, a wave of vertigo crashed over Angar. His legs gave way like snapped twigs.

  He pitched forward, the ground rushing up to meet him, and his face struck the earth with a thud. Then, the world dissolved into merciful blackness.