Chapter 69: Living

Chapter 69: Living

Undead streamed up the hill in a near continuous tide. Some were skeletal, almost fragile looking. Others still possessed their skin, muscles or fur. Beasts, goblins and bizarre mixes of both met a hail of skills and weapon propelled missiles.

A screech split the air as row after row of undead fell, only for their place to be filled. Intermittently blue light would coalesce in a small blue shard, only to fall into the swell of monsters and vanish from sight.

As Leif reached the top of the wooden battlements he saw it. At the peak of a hill, the hill he and the expedition had once scaled before entering the outpost, stood the distant towering form of a black carapaced insect.

The amber blood flowing through his body froze as he felt a baleful gaze and intent land squarely on his shoulders. Leif tensed, his whole body ready. Around him soldiers stumbled or cried out, the sheer weight of the reanimated monster’s intent enough to act as a physical force even from so far away.

It couldn’t do that before. Leif thought, ripping his eyes away from the undead enslaver and back to the more immediate threat. Has it gained more skills since we fought it below Pherin? Was it hunting and levelling up all this time?

A rotting goblin reached the bottom of the palisade below where Leif was standing and impaled the wood where its fleshless arms had been whittled into sharp bone spears. It used its arms to rapidly scamper up the side of the wall.

It reached the wall’s apex and leaped towards Leif, mouth stretched wide. A golden palm hit it in the face, shattering its skull and sending the monster's diminutive body flipping off back into the horde below.

Then another undead clambered up, only to be cut down by a soldier’s sword. For minutes this pattern repeated, those few undead who could climb would ascend the wall only to be slain. For a moment Leif hoped this status quo would hold, but that hope was quickly dashed.

The sheer press of bodies began to create makeshift ramps. Undead, ravenous and frenzied used the heads and shoulders of their kin to assail the fortifications in greater and greater numbers.

A level up notification made itself known before being minimised automatically. In a brief moment of calm in between the maelstrom of violence Leif checked it, hopeful it would offer him something to meaningfully aid their current plight. It didn’t, but the boost to attributes was welcome all the same.

Level up! Class [Amber Blight Spriggan] is now level 15!

For standing in defence of the needy and bestowing freely your vigour you have gained a level!

+1 to [Might] +1 to [Spirit] +1 to [Charisma] +5 free points!

He had five free points. Mentally slamming them into his [Charisma] attribute, Leif felt his power flare, his aura strain against invisible restraints before flexing into its new potential. He sensed panic bloom from his left and instinctively activated [Under My Protection] without turning.

The golden shield snapped around a fallen imperial just as a humanoid with oddly elongated limbs leapt at them. It hit the barrier and bounced off, the undead was run through the back by a spear wielding defender before it could recover.

Panic.

Death.

Fear.

The emotions swirled in the air, laying over the battle like a thick blanket. Smothering and suffocating. Intermittently the enslaver queen would screech, the sound sending soldiers recoiling and the intent slamming down into their spirits.

Soldiers cursed and screamed as one by one they fell. Despite everything it quickly became apparent to Leif that this fight was far, far beyond his ability to impact significantly. There were simply too many places he needed to be.

Too many wounded to heal, too many lives to save, too many monsters to kill.

In the sky above, the crimson cloud cover began to darken. In the distant south the steady rumbling of thunder rolled across the land.

A multicoloured flash of skills erupted down along the battlements. A part of Leif’s mind unconsciously recognised that it wouldn’t be enough. They were simply outnumbered, they wouldn’t be able to win.

The spriggan sucked in a sharp inhalation of rain chilled air through the rigid slit he had in place of a mouth.

Fear.

Fear. An emotion often correlated to weakness, or perhaps cowardice. It was so raw and potent that it grabbed his heart in a vice grip and threatened to squeeze.

Fear.

Fear of failing to protect those around him. Fear losing those he had come to rely on and trust. Fear of once again falling, forgotten and alone. Fear of never regaining what he had lost, of dying as something inhuman and wrong.

In that moment Leif was in two places. Fighting atop a wall in the remote remains of a once bustling settlement. Facing the sky as his life bled out in a muddy and silent field.

And while the emotion was sharp and painful both. It was also the most real thing he’d felt in over a decade. As his mind connected two points in time, it solidified something important, like a puzzle piece slotting into place.

It made him feel alive. The air stilled, all sounds falling away.

As if up until this point he’d been fumbling around in murky darkness. Blindly reaching out in desperation for something he didn’t truly understand. But despite it all it was him. Even as his mind, body and soul had been torn apart and remade in a twisted mockery of what he had once been.

Under all that had been twisted and changed, he was still Leif. And he was still alive. Despite the unfathomable odds. Despite the potentially unique situation he had found himself in. Despite it all he knew one thing: That the man he had once been had felt the exact same fear.

And in response to this realisation, in response to the sheer relief of still being, something in the world shifted. Leif let out a long, hissing exaltation as the fear fell away, discarded like a shirt that no longer fit.

An awareness locked into him, it wasn’t physical, nor was it tangible in any way. The intent, if calling it such was even correct, was more curious and playful than anything else. Like a bubbling spring, or laughter riding currents of wind.

Congratulations! Your [Adept] skill [Life Spells] has met an upgrade threshold!

Would you like to upgrade [Life Spells] from rank I to rank II? Y/N

Leif didn’t need to read the message to know what it was. He accepted, and felt the world once again shift, like a breeze blowing through a field of grass just out of sight.

Leif felt his ability to control, or perhaps his ability to request and commune with the abstract concept of life be strengthened. Like flexing a muscle he tested the connection this intangible authority had with his blood aspected skills, It was stronger, but not yet fully complete. He would need another upgrade, or maybe two.

The call of the past faded into the background as Leif fully focused on the present. He had a plan, it was stupid and foolish and quite possibly suicidal. Or it would be if he didn’t empty out his reserves of golden power still roaring within him.

Leif darted along the battlements, his amber limbs a blur of motion. As he moved, Leif expended as much cultivated vitality as he could with every injured man and woman he touched with [Healing Palm]. The empowered skill knitting together rent skin, mending torn muscle, and restoring shattered bone.

He glanced back into the outpost, at the growing pile of critically injured who had been pulled back from the fighting. In a bounding leap he fell from the wall, landing in a heavy and inelegant crouch before making his way to the pile of wounded.

Forty seconds later, as the anchor he had left atop the wall began to flicker and fade at the back of his awareness, Leif stepped forward and triggered [Amber Steps], reappeared back atop the fortifications.

Leif cracked his neck. Time to do something stupid.

Then he jumped off the wall and into the unyielding swarm of teeth and bones.