Most of the survivors had gathered near the front gate leading to the fallen hotel, talking in low voices. Harvey saw John standing atop a chunk of concrete, eyes empty as he stared into the distance. Hannah weaved her way through the crowd, pushing toward the front of the group like it was general admission at a concert. Nobody complained, so Harvey followed close behind. Upon reaching the foot of the stone, she turned to Harvey expectantly.

  “What?” he asked.

  “Get up there,” she instructed.

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. The System decided you’re in charge, so get up and make it happen,” she urged.

  Harvey thought about it for a moment before shrugging and stepping up onto the rubble. John looked over at him, recognition cutting through the fog inside his mind.

  “Harvey.”

  “Hey, John. Doing ok?” he asked.

  “No. How could I be? So many dead. I should’ve listened when Julian said we weren’t pushing hard enough. If more of my people had been out hunting like all you Veils End folk, maybe more would’ve survived,” John lamented.

  Harvey didn’t know what to say. Looking out over the crowd, he did realize that he recognized a lot of the faces looking back at him. Almost a quarter were from Veil’s End. The fact that so many had survived was clearly due to the higher level among people who had survived inside the trial’s harshest Outpost. While others lived in furnished treehouses high above any danger or slept under bleached sheets, the people of Veils End had been forced to bunk in decrepit churches and saloons in between fending off packs of bloodrunn and carrionwing.

  “Nothing could’ve prepared us for what happened today,” Harvey eventually replied. “Two months ago, we were accountants, firefighters, teachers, cops… We can’t expect everyone to become a battle-hardened warrior in a few weeks.”

  “I know,” John slumped. “It just hurts.”

  “Worse than any pain I’ve ever felt. Something inside me broke when I watched Julian die,” Harvey whispered.

  “He was a great kid. One of the best brothers I’ve ever had the privilege of serving with. Were you able to recover his body?” John asked.

  “Yeah, I’ve got it,” Harvey confirmed, instinctually grabbing at the pouch along his waist.

  “Good, we can bring it back home to his wife. Give him a proper funeral, once this is all over.”

  “I’d like that,” Harvey smiled. “Speaking of which, I think our next step should be traveling towards the fortress under the undead portal. Those people are going to need our help getting across the trial, even with the undead out of the way.”

  “Sounds good to me,” John agreed.

  “Do you want to rally the troops, or should I?” Harvey asked.

  “I saw my Mark fly over to you. Figure that happened for a reason. I’ll let you take things from here,” John said.

  Turning to face the crowd, Harvey awkwardly cleared his throat. For the first time in a long time, he wished his armor had pockets so he had somewhere to hide his hands. Fighting a dragon was one thing, but it hadn’t exactly erased the residual fear of public speaking.

  “Ahem. Excuse me!” he coughed. “Can everyone gather round? I know most of you don’t know me. My name’s Harvey, from Veils End.”

  “He’s the one who blocked that fireball from the dragon, right?” someone whispered.

  “Not just that, he killed it too!” Emily called out from the crowd. Harvey quickly found her and saw that she was standing next to Hyrum, both of them looking a little ragged.

  “I had help,” he blushed. “We all played our part in winning this war, and for that, I want to say thank you. Thank you to those who lived and died keeping that bastard and his army of skeletons from invading Earth. Now, we get to go home, but there’s something that needs to be done first. Thousands of our sons, daughters, and grandparents are waiting for us, praying that we can protect and guide them back to their families. I know we’re all tired, but I figure the sooner we can leave this place behind for good, the better.”

  The crowd murmured in agreement, and Harvey felt himself relax with every breath.

  “Good. I also want to make sure none of our dead get left behind. If you can, please fill any slipsacks you have with the bodies of the fallen and any equipment you think might be useful back home. Our trial is over, but that doesn’t change the fact that our lives have changed forever. This won’t be the last army Earth has to fight, and we’re going to need every advantage we can get if we ever want our planet to be free again.”

  This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

  “You heard the man! Stuff your sacks and get ready to leave!” Hannah exclaimed.

  The crowd dispersed, moving through the battlefield like locusts. Magic bags made sorting through the dead easy, and they would be ready to leave within the hour. Instead of joining them, Harvey picked his way through the rubble in search of the dead dragon. He figured the massive ivory colored bones shouldn’t be hard to find, but it ended up taking 20 minutes before he caught his first glimpse of the beast. It was a rib that had broken in half. Picking it up, he felt how dense and heavy it was. Just that piece, barely 5 feet long, must’ve weighed a few hundred pounds. Bit by bit, he added the remains to his slipsack, making sure to search for any crystals or arrays like the ones on the graveweaver spiders. He found nothing, suggesting it really was some sort of naturally born undead creature instead of a construct built from the scraps of other beasts.

  Even without any crystal cores or magical organs, the bones themselves were chock full of resonances that would be extremely useful for his forge projects. Either as a source of highly concentrated undeath, or simply using the extremely sturdy bones to reinforce shields. They obviously had a strong affinity for thanefire, so maybe he could replicate the effect of the life-devouring flames. If nothing else, the teeth could be used for spear tips or arrowheads.

  After looting as much bone as he could, Harvey returned to the battlefield. It looked like the others had left Marcus’ corpse untouched, opting to sift through the Ossari warriors' spatial storage instead. The bones that had made up his avatar had crumbled to dust the second he stopped infusing them with essence, but the armor was interesting. It was made of the same black metal as all the other weapons and plates used, but the craftsmanship was unlike anything Harvey had ever seen. It was obviously covered in massive arrays, but it used a combination of runes and artistic depictions rather than relying on a single style.

  The refined undeath resonance crystals that had powered the three bubble shields were slowly recharging, sucking in thanum from the atmosphere as fast as they could. There was a massive hole where Hannah’s arrow had exploded, the metal around it coated in thick, black blood. In the end, it wasn’t anything Harvey could wear, and he never would, considering the clear reliance on Undeath resonance that he didn’t use and the fact that it couldn’t connect with Soul Forge. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t learn from the techniques used to create it. Carefully removing it from the dead revenant, he added the armor to his slipsack.

  Underneath the Prophet’s gauntleted hand, Harvey saw a jeweled ring. It wasn’t teal like all the other crystals the undead used, but a deep purple. Dense arrays were carved into the gem and silver alike, creating a mesmerizing pattern. Slipping it off the finger, he moved to put it on his own before stopping himself.

  Hopefully this isn’t some necrolord mind control thing…

  Inspecting it with Artificer’s Eyes, he was relieved to see it probably wasn’t going to try to turn him into a revenant. It was actually much better.

  Putting it on his finger, he felt the dimension inside was 10 times larger than the already massive space provided by an F Grade slipsack. Just this ring could easily hold all the items from his other sacks combined, with room to spare. Well, it would if it were empty.

  Piles of weapons, armor, metals, herbs, crystals, potions, and supplies were neatly stacked inside the ring. Harvey guessed it was the bulk of the supplies for the entire army, and what they intended to use to construct their base of operations once they reached Earth. Neatly cut stones and wooden planks were stacked alongside construction tools, along with blueprints for a small fortress.

  Is there some sort of multiversal furniture store where you can buy this stuff?

  None of the weapons and armor was good enough to replace Aftershock or the Sentinel’s Arcblade, but they were definitely an upgrade over the stuff John sold. Looking around, most of the survivors had already traded out their weapons for the Ossari’s, so he’d save his stockpile for when they found more survivors back on Earth. He hesitated for a moment before throwing Marcus’ body into the ring as well. The revenant had his own Imprint and Mark dangling from his skin, and Harvey would have to figure out if there was anything he could do with them.

  Before long, the battlefield had been picked clean. Veilstrider bodies were collected into a single F Grade slipsack that was given to Harvey for safekeeping. Ossari bodies were collected in another, distributed among those with a Profession that might be able to make use of them. It felt morbid to think of their dead enemies as potential crafting materials, but he took solace in knowing it was exactly what the Ossari would’ve done to them. The insidious jars of Corpse Dust each carried proof enough of that.

  The caravan of 130 marched through the forest, easily dispatching any aggressive beasts stupid enough to try turning them into a meal. Harvey found that blasting his aura, empowered by all three of his imprints, kept most of the weaker beasts at bay. Anything strong enough to consider testing him found itself overwhelmed by dozens of attacks at once.

  Reaching the living fortress took 18 days, during which many of the weaker Veilstriders were given the opportunity to power-level under the watchful eye of Harvey, Hannah, and John. He had only gained a single level in all that time, but the same couldn’t be said for everyone. Most were more excited to see if the living fortress had a loom than they were to save the young and elderly living there, eager to finally create their next skills. Maybe he would’ve felt the same if he managed to hit Level 45 by the time they arrived, but his Class was still only at 44 when the brown stone walls appeared in the distance. The fortress was massive, sitting halfway up a small mountain. The sun was setting fast, but they could reach the gates before nightfall if they hurried.