“Stremin’!” Katherine’s battle cry tore through the air as she countered a spear strike, her blade clanging against metal with the force of a hammer blow. Lunaris, caught mid-motion, twisted sharply, her boots scraping against dirt as she barely dodged a demon’s downward slash.

  The blade whistled past her shoulder, close enough that I thought she was a goner.

  Another demon lunged, its heavy axe gleaming in the moonlight. It swung with monstrous force, the air splitting with a sharp whoosh as the blade came down like a falling guillotine, straight for Techi.

  CLANG!

  The impact slammed into his shield, the sheer force of it reverberating through the metal with a deep, gut-wrenching ring and the ground beneath him trembled, dust and loose gravel kicking up from the violent shockwave.

  Techi dug his heels in, his entire frame locking up against the blow. His sturdy plate armor still groaned under the pressure, the weight of the strike pressing him down, forcing his knees to bend slightly. He didn’t stumble. But dear Sovereign, it took everything he had to hold the line.

  If I think about Sovereign as a goddess, will she grant me more powers?

  His spear wavered, just for a second. He couldn’t even swing it back—the demon’s onslaught was relentless, each crushing blow pinning him down, giving him no room to counter.

  “Fodder…” I whispered under my breath, my fingers flexing as I took in the scene. Yeah, my power scaling was definitely skewed by my past life. I straightened, throwing my hand into the air for additional flare.

  “God of War!” I called out, my voice ringing. “This is clearly an act of war, and the enemy hasn’t even declared one! I demand compensation!”

  A wave of energy pulsed outward, crackling through the battlefield. Weapons glowed faintly, fists tightened, spells bit more.

  “Wat?!” Katherine turned to me, her eyes wide with disbelief. “Ya can do that?!”

  “Of course!” I snapped, my focus whipping back to Techi just in time to see four more demons breaking from the ranks, moving to flank him and attack the girls, joining the three already here.

  Oh, no you don’t.

  I thrust my hands forward, magic roaring to life, and with a sharp breath, I willed the battlefield to shift. A wall of craggy frost erupted, slamming into place with a deafening crack, cutting off the two from the right.

  Another flashed into existence on the left, a perfect barricade of glacial spikes, halting the ambush before it could even begin. Techi grunted, using the brief reprieve to shift his footing, forcing the demon in front of him to finally break its stance.

  While my focus had tunneled in on my little group, it wasn’t enough, not for this battle. I needed a broader view. “Go help Techi,” I ordered Alma, my eyes already flicking upwards.

  I didn’t wait for a response.

  With a surge of will, a column of ice exploded beneath me, launching me skyward. Wind tore at my clothes, my vision expanding as the battlefield stretched out below me like a bloodstained chessboard.

  The demons were pressing hard on all fronts, their black armor a tide against the chaos of battle, but, somehow, we were holding. Scattered pockets of resistance stood firm.

  Lisa, Luminaria, Fty—all of them leading like generals, their guilds locking into formations, covering flanks, forcing the enemy into choke points.

  And then, of course, there were others.

  Scamantha, Frozna to name the few, were playing opportunists, lurking at the edges, darting in for kills only when the odds were firmly in their favor.

  I inhaled deeply, re-centering, and focused. The runes for Princess’ Grace burned in my mind. Magic here wasn’t stable, but it needed to be done. I traced the sigils into the air, my fingers leaving behind trails of luminescent magic, a circle of six runes forming perfect circle before me.

  As I completed the last stroke, I shifted slightly to the right, adjusting my aim toward where the guild clusters had thickened. “Princess’ Grace!”

  “Oh yeah!” Notifications flooded my vision, drowning me in a sea of glowing text before I shoved them aside with a thought. But just as I let myself savor the rush, something moved.

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  A demon’s head snapped toward me from the enemy’s backline. Its eyes gleamed with green malice, and before I could react, a spell shot toward me. A streak of neon green, twisting like a serpent, slicing through the air faster than thought.

  Spilled whiskey!

  I cut my pillar in an instant, gravity seizing me as I dropped like a stone, the attack whistling past where my chest had been a heartbeat ago. The spell missed, but barely. My stomach lurched as I fell, the wind roaring in my ears, the battlefield racing up to meet me.

  I groaned, sprawled on the ground, but my grin remained on my lips. “Masochist again,” I muttered under my breath, channeling healing magic before the ache even had time to settle in. My health bar blinked full, but there was no time to breathe.

  A shadow flickered in my peripheral vision.

  Another spilled whiskey!

  I barely rolled aside as a demon’s axe whistled past where my head had been a moment before. The impact bit deep into the ground, scattering chunks of earth, a low snarl rolling from its throat. And then a body went flying over me.

  A blur of silver-green crashed into the dirt with a heavy thud, shield clattering away in the distance. Alma. “Alma!” I yelled, scrambling to my feet. Her shield bounced against my ice wall, which was…

  Cracking.

  Something, or someone, was attacking it from the other side. I threw more mana into the barrier, reinforcing the structure before whipping my head back. Five more demons circled the walls and attacked our backline. Me.

  Nope.

  I stuck out my tongue at them—because, honestly, why not?—then erected another wall right in their ugly faces, cutting them off. That bought us a few seconds. Time to reassess.

  Techi was still holding his ground, locked against two demons, his shield absorbing the blows but his stance wavering. Lunaris danced around her opponent, graceful but disconnected from the rest of the fight, while Katherine was locked in a brute-force exchange, her strikes landing, but too evenly matched for my liking.

  Zero teamwork.

  “Damn it!” I threw a quick heal at Alma, my magic washing over her like a cooling rush, and pushed myself up. “Techi, back away a bit, take all four on you!” I called out.

  “Can’t hold four!” He barely grunted the words, but still obeyed, shifting his stance to absorb the incoming assault.

  “Kit, push ‘em forward! You too, Lunaris! Let Techi take the blows and flank ‘em!” They hesitated. For a moment, I thought they’d ignore me. Then, finally—they moved. Lunaris twisted, reversing her stance to press against her opponent’s weaker angle, forcing them toward Techi. Katherine dropped low, sweeping her sword across to herd her target into the same bottleneck.

  Now, all four demons turned to Techi. It happened so fast. They pressed against him like a collapsing wall, their weapons hammering against his shield, pushing him to the brink of breaking. His armor screamed under the pressure, boots digging trenches into the dirt as he braced against the onslaught.

  But that was exactly what we needed.

  I lifted my hand, ready to throw a heal at Kit, but my instincts screamed wrong target, and I snapped my magic onto Techi instead.

  The girls, now free to move, finally scored some real damage. Lunaris twirled, slipping inside a demon’s guard, and drove her rapier clean through a gap in its armor. The creature shrieked. Katherine, always a brute force enthusiast, used Techi’s staggered position to crash her sword down like a hammer, shattering the demon’s shoulder plate in a shower of splintered metal.

  One glance at my mana bar told me everything I needed to know. I was here as support, not a damage dealer. But damn, I really wanted to flick an icicle into their visors.

  “First the right one!” I commanded. Lunaris flowed like water, twisting between the demons with movements too fast, too fluid for their heavy swings to track. Her twin blades flashed in the dim light, striking with precise, surgical accuracy, each cut widening a weak point, each dodge baiting an opening.

  I glanced back, but Alma’s health should be fine. Maybe it was her first battle? “Alma, wake up!” Then I saw one of the demon’s pushing too much into Techi. Meanwhile, Alma, finally recovered, sprinted forward. With a sharp yell, she pushed up, positioning herself beside Techi. Together, they braced, shields side by side, and they advanced.

  Techi gritted his teeth, muscles straining, and pushed the demons backward. His shield caught another brutal axe swing—metal screeched against metal—but he held firm, locking his stance like a fortress refusing to fall.

  A chance! “Go Kit!” Katherine grinned, and was all power, all force. She leaped, a wild, powerful jump that shouldn’t have been possible in her armor, and brought her massive sword down in an overhead arc. The impact sent a shockwave through the dirt, cracking the ground beneath her enemy’s feet.

  The demon reeled, its armor fracturing under the sheer force. She smashed her pommel into the demon’s already-damaged armor, sending it stumbling backward—right into Lunaris.

  The rapier-wielder didn’t hesitate. She slid under its guard, twisting her wrist, and drove both blades deep into the demon’s side.

  It shuddered. Its body jerked once before collapsing into dust. Alma then slammed her shield forward against the second demon, the resounding clang of metal meeting metal ringing through the chaos. The fodder soldier staggered back, its helmet rattling, and for the first time, I caught a glimpse inside its visor.

  A hollow, lifeless face stared back. Oh, that was too tempting. Without hesitation, I thrust my hand forward, ice lancing through the gap like a harpoon piercing through old, rotted steel.

  Lunaris darted in next, quick as a viper, her twin blades flashing in the firelight as they found a gap in its defenses. Techi followed suit, his spear driving forward, forcing the demon further off balance, just in time for Katherine to finish the job.

  She grinned, shifting her grip, then with one brutal thrust, her sword sank deep into the demon’s stomach, piercing through the plates of its tarnished armor.

  It collapsed into dust. And that’s when it clicked. I narrowed my eyes at the battlefield. These weren’t just demons. They were undead. Which meant… I should be way more effective here than I thought. I forgot about that. Still, where the hell was that sleazy Teorn when I actually needed him to teach me magic?

  The air thickened with magic, heat rolling in waves as the first dark incantations rippled through the battlefield. I barely had time to register the chanting from the enemy’s backline before the first spell slammed into my ice wall.

  It didn’t just break. It melted. Hissing, bubbling, dissolving into nothingness under the concentrated assault of demonic fire. Then the ground ruptured.

  A column of hellfire erupted beneath us, the sheer force hurling Lunaris off her feet, sending Katherine staggering, Techi barely holding his stance as his shield glowed red-hot from the heat. Alma rolled, barely dodging a spear of molten rock that pierced the dirt where she had been standing seconds before.

  Through the chaos, Katherine still managed to bring her sword down in a clean arc, her blade slicing clean through a demon’s throat, its head tumbling to the dirt with a sickening thud, but it wasn’t enough.

  Because now it was five against twenty. And we were losing ground. I gritted my teeth. The demons closed in, the heat scorching the air, warping the battlefield with each hellfire blast. My walls were gone. The protection they’d offered? Nothing but melted puddles in the dirt. I took a shaky breath, my mind racing. We needed a way out. We needed something big. A reset.

  Or we were dead.