Power here is intoxicating. Once you taste it, you need more.

  After staring his sleep away, he stepped outside.

  Night had fallen, and the once-bright pink sky deepened into its usual dusky rose.

  There was no moon; light came from the sky itself.

  That night, dancing green and blue lights lit the sky like a meteor shower.

  It was time to fight again.

  The squad walked together in silence, all mentally preparing in their own way.

  "I don't feel that much different," he mumbled to himself again.

  In front of him, Tren glanced at Hunter, raising his eyebrows. "You'll notice it."

  Hunter didn't feel it, though. "With us going back out there, I was hoping for more."

  Pulling up his stat screen, he examined it for what must have been the hundredth time.

  ————————————————————————————————————

  STATS — Level 28

  XP: 1315

  Strength: 35 +2

  Durability: 33 +4

  Agility: 35 +1

  Intelligence: 24 +5

  Wisdom: 25 +4

  ————————————————————————————————————

  "Level twenty-eight. Still not enough. Not fast enough."

  He was happy with any increased abilities, but he still wondered if he should have focused on strength, durability, and agility over the others.

  Getting closer to the wall, he sighed, closing it.

  They walked through the tunnel. This time, Hunter didn't smell the punch of iron or the shock of the battlefield, but still, dread gnawed at him.

  The battlefield looked different but also much the same.

  Death was everywhere.

  Hills of monster corpses.

  The space for fighting was restricted more; small paths between the bodies didn't allow much movement.

  Garth led them around the edge of the battlefield.

  "Corpse duty," Ellis said begrudgingly.

  Confused, the teams looked to Garth for an explanation.

  "Thank you, Ellis," Garth said, trying to sound sarcastic, but his voice flattened. "The monsters are stronger now. Work with the researchers to get rid of the bodies."

  Standing next to Garth, Brit had lost her usual smile, bags under her eyes. "We are counting on you."

  Relief and guilt washed over him as Hunter realized he wouldn't have to fight.

  Following his team, they walked up to a researcher.

  The man was using a small chisel to carve into a large metal barrel. He wore a long robe with weaving lines, and parts of the cloth looked charred or burned.

  The metal barrel was affixed to a wooden platform, the wood hastily cut and put together; the contraption held one end of the barrel pointed up and forward.

  "You guys on corpse duty?" a rugged-tired-sounding voice asked.

  Indy nodded, then noticed he hadn't looked away from his work. "Yeah. What's the plan?"

  "Plan?" he asked, still chiseling. "The plan, I guess, would be to throw the bastards back at themselves."

  The man continued working, moving along to the back of the barrel. "This is a Mana device; it explodes." He waited a few moments, biting his lower lip as he focused, then continued. "Kind of; the Mana explosion happens inside it."

  He stepped away from the contraption. The engraved lines on the barrel twisted and twirled, but never touched. At the back, there was a gap where a metal hinge hung. He grabbed the piece of metal. "This hinge controls the whole device."

  Looking at them for the first time, he said. "Five seconds, six at most, more, and the device will overload like the towers."

  Tren asked the question Hunter was thinking. "Got it, five seconds." He tilted his head. "What does it do?"

  Turning, the man moved the hinge to the right. The hinge had an engraved line on it that, when fully extended, connected the gap between each side's inscriptions.

  Immediately, Hunter and Tren stumbled forward and caught themselves. They felt pulled to the cannon like wind was buffeting their backs.

  The device started glowing brown. A tiny purple fleck appeared, then another, and after a second, sparks of purple fountained from the barrel.

  The researcher's face wrinkled with a smile. "Now we flip it." The inscription glowed white, and the purple sparks disappeared.

  A gush of wind hit them as bodies shot from the end of the barrel, four Salagers rocketing over the piles of corpses. "When I flip this, the Mana bridge connects the inscription, allowing Mana to flow; you see it builds." Stopping, he shook his head. "Doesn't matter right now."

  The man turned his robe billowing out, "Remember five seconds."

  Walking up to the pile of bodies, he realized, "They're mostly Salager's now." Most hills had grown to more than triple his height.

  Hunter walked over to a Salager's corpse and knelt down, ready to use his legs.

  Stumbling backward, he dropped the body. It was like lifting a large weighted blanket; it wasn't super heavy, but it was cumbersome.

  "Strange… I thought they'd be heavier," he mused.

  Finally, realization struck him about what he was doing. The body was soft like a ripe peach; his arms sunk into the monster's body as if it didn't have a skeleton.

  The corpse was cold but also wrong. Lifeless in a way the body shouldn't feel.

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  Hunter had grown accustomed to the burning flesh and earthy scent, but holding the monster, a sickening, bitter smell gnawed his tongue.

  He could taste death.

  Dropping the Salager, he went to his knees, his eyes burned.

  Heaving, Hunter felt the little acid in his stomach get expelled; he blinked, trying to get the stinging sensation to go away.

  A hand touched his shoulder. A solemn voice, frayed at the edges, cut through the echoes of battle. "We can do this."

  Tren stood there, his other hand holding a mask that would cover his whole face. The mask had an inscription around the edges, glowing a light blue.

  Pulling the mask on, Hunter looked into a face that almost looked lifeless. "Didn't sleep?" he asked.

  "Sleep?" Tren responded, "I don't know if I remember how."

  The smell was gone now, purged by the mask. Hunter and Tren knelt down together, picking up the body.

  "It's not real, it's not real," Hunter kept telling himself each time they uncovered another charred or torn adventurer. The mask removed any stench from reaching his nose, but it could not remove him from this situation.

  The impromptu cannon should have been amazing. Every few bodies, one of them would flip the switch, count to five, and then flip it back.

  There was no joy, however; no one spoke as they kept loading.

  Hunter threw in the fourth body, or maybe the fifth. As many as would fit.

  He circled to the back and flipped the switch.

  Waited.

  Flipped it again.

  The bodies soared.

  Over the hills of corpses.

  The hills of bodies.

  Over the hills of bodies.

  He blinked, a fuzz creeping into his thoughts.

  "What was I doing?"

  The piles nearby were lower now. They had made progress. "That's good… right?"

  "Back to it." He muttered.

  Lift body.

  Load it.

  Lift body.

  Bodies from a pile they hadn't touched yet started falling.

  More fell, almost like liquid flowing over each other.

  Shaking his head again, Hunter tried to clear the cobwebs.

  The pile kept moving closer to them, bodies falling like a landslide.

  Gray rock in the form of long-roped tentacles became visible.

  Hunter felt grounded again.

  Dropping the body, his muscles burned, and heart raced. "An Elemental?"

  It trudged through the pile of bodies, unfazed; its rope-like appendages pulsed with every step.

  Taking a step, he stumbled, confused.

  The sound.

  His ears?

  "Why is it so loud?"

  Reaching up, he touched his ears, his hand retracting moisture. "Sweat?"

  Fresh crimson blood trickled down his hand, mixing with the dried blood of monsters.

  More ringing.

  The Elemental was getting closer.

  "Where are Tren and Indy?"

  The monster's tentacles unraveled, whipping around itself.

  Indy was a blur, dodging within the barrage of arms.

  Tren was stumbling around, blood running from his ears.

  "I have to help!" he tried to say.

  Taking a cautious step, he felt the world try and shift from under him.

  Stumbling, he caught his footing and brought out his mace.

  Hunter kept his eyes forward, willing himself to ignore the noise,

  Ignore the pain,

  Ignore the bodies.

  "Focus."

  The quick movements of the Elemental's arms were like whips battering him with air.

  A grin crept on his face.

  Holding his mace outwards, he activated his ability.

  The tip of his mace glowed blue.

  His mace was almost thrown from his arms as it felt like a car struck it.

  A tentacle hit the mace, a chunk of the rock-like limb shattering against it.

  Falling to the ground momentarily, he got back up unsteadily, and this time, he braced himself.

  Again, another piece of limb shattered against his weapon. This time, as soon as his mace was hit, he pulled it into his inventory and back out, the momentum disappearing.

  It worked; unlike the fire elemental, its arms didn't regenerate.

  Repeating the sequence, Hunter thought of himself as a piece of metal in a blender as he chewed through the monster's defense.

  A flash of blue.

  Rock shattered against his face.

  The world tumbled.

  It spun over and over.

  It stopped.

  Pain

  Pain everywhere.

  "Where am I?"

  His chest

  It hurt to breathe.

  Sprawled out, his back was against the pile.

  The elemental was far away.

  His mace was lying beside him.

  Head falling forward, he tried to move but couldn't.

  Armor was dented inward farther than should be possible.

  "My chest… It's crushed," he squeaked, another bolt of pain ripping through him.

  Raising his arm felt monumental. It felt like it took every ounce of his strength and more.

  Trying to raise both arms, his left wouldn't move.

  "No!" He screamed in his mind.

  Pain in his head echoed.

  It slipped through.

  A screen appeared.

  ————————————————————————————————————————————————————

  You have helped in killing

  Rock Elemental

  112 xp earned

  Level up, now level 29

  ————————————————————————————————————————————————————

  It fuzzed and disappeared, a new screen taking its place.

  ————————————————————————————————————————————————————

  Ability unlocked

  Phantom strike

  ————————————————————————————————————————————————————

  His eyes...

  They wouldn't stay open.

  Light.

  Bright and yellow.

  New pain mixed with the pain in his chest.

  Tears streaked his face as his chest flared in agony, meeting a new crescendo.

  Numb.

  Everything went numb.

  For a second, the numbness in his mind and body equalized.

  Eyes shooting open, he took a deep breath.

  Tren was standing beside him, and Indy had her hand on his shoulder.

  A tattoo beneath her armor was glowing green.

  The green glow extended down her arm and touched his shoulder.

  It felt nice, like ice on a wound or sitting down after running.

  Heavy breathing above him caught him by surprise.

  Indy was panting, her arm on his shoulder shaking, the green hue growing dim

  Able to move, Hunter pulled back from her. "Are you ok?" he asked.

  Her eyes kept looking where he was for a moment, then refocused, and she looked at him, sweat dripping from her chin. "I can do more."

  "Do more?" he wondered. "What did you do?"

  Blinking, Indy tried smiling, but let it drop, her breathing slowly returning to normal. "I healed you, not fully. I should have been able to do more."

  Hunter looked down. His chest piece was gone, clothes torn, skin black and blue, but he was alive.

  "You saved him," Tren muttered. "And I only watched, you did so much more, don't be hard on yourself."

  Hands shaking, Hunter felt his chest tighten, this time not from the pain. "Thank you," he said, biting back tears. "I wasn't ready to die."

  Still talking, Tren and Indy stopped, a small smile finally creasing her mouth. "That's what friends are for."

  Reaching out a hand, Tren helped him up.

  Every time he took a step, his chest clicked; it felt like his bones were grinding together, but he welcomed the pain. It grounded him, reminding him he was alive.

  Tren helped him over to the pile of rocks. His voice like a whisper. "We killed an Elemental."

  The large creature had cleared a path of bodies, so now they could see the fight still taking place.

  Seeing a new monster, Hunter instinctively reached for his mace.

  It was like a snake, its body as long as a street and wider than a house. Large, shining fins stuck out of its back like scales, electricity jumping from one to another.

  The battlefield was covered with more of the Elementals now, fire and earth arms flailing at everything around.

  "How will we survive?"

  There was something other than monsters, however.

  A flash of white caught his attention.

  A massive mountain of ice had frozen monsters inside a glacier.

  A shock wave hit him as he heard a crack, the glacier shattering a moment later.

  Amidst the flailing arms of the Elementals were blurs of movement.

  People were in there dodging every strike like a tornado of chaos and steel.

  Rumbling from deep beneath them almost shook them off their feet. Deep within the battlefield, the ground opened up, swallowing tens of monsters, then folding back in on itself to entomb them in their final resting place.

  It was beautiful.

  Like a dance rehearsed a hundred times, the screams and explosions danced around each other.

  Then there was the trail of flames, again, like a bullet, it left carnage wherever it went.

  Monsters would simply fall over or explode into a geyser of flames, but the source was gone.

  This man, this being, was holding off countless monsters all on his own.

  "Without him, we would have lost a long time ago," Indy said.

  Tracing her eyes, Hunter saw the reflection of the dancing fire within them. "Who is that?" he asked, barely loud enough to be heard.

  Indy's face regained some of its glow. "That is our guild leader."

  Feeling small, Hunter let his mace slip back into his inventory. "What could he do here against this power? At this scale?"

  Amidst the chaos, the Elementals didn't care what they were killing. Salagers were torched or eviscerated.

  "Where are they all coming from?" Hunter asked over the chaos.

  "Mana," Indy replied, eyes forward.

  "Do they just appear out of nowhere?"

  "Not nowhere," she said. "From Mana."

  Hunter balled his fists, "I will grow stronger."

  He threw another body into the cannon.

  His bones groaned. His hands trembled.

  But still

  "I need that power."

  A breath. A heartbeat.

  "And I'll get it. No matter what it takes."