God of Nothing

Rayse sat in the shadowy tent, still a bit disoriented by… whatever that was. He stared at the cursed blade in his hands, as if doing so would give him the answers that he needed. But alas, answers were about as forthcoming as their victory. This tent was made solely for sleeping, and could thus barely fit a single person. There was no room for anyone to be sitting beside him, so Rayse was convinced that the woman that called herself Lost couldn't really have been here. He knew that logically, but still…

It felt so real, though, He thought.

Having given up on sleep, Rayse tucked the blade into one of his pockets and crawled out of the tent. A lot of the other tents were filled with resting soldiers, with some sleeping right there on the floor. The ground still constantly shook from the enemies' march, but for these people, even that helped them rest.

Careful not to disturb them, Rayse passed through as swiftly as he could. He briefly paused to check the commander's tent, where he found Iona peacefully tucked in. Her wound was properly cleaned and bandaged, and the young squad leader herself looked to be faring well. He hoped she would wake up soon, though. Rayse felt that they'd need her abilities before the night was through.

Rayse exited the sleeping quarters to find his companions, but he immediately ran into Aleph. He found him with his back turned, hunched over a barrel.

"Master!" He called.

"Rayse? You're up already?" He said without turning to him.

"...Yeah. Had a weird dream." was all he could say.

"Better a weird dream than a horrifying one."

'It'll be wiped off the map before sunrise'

Reminded of Lost's chilling words, he shook his head and looked at what his master was working on.

"That's… a pump?"

"Well spotted, child. These go over there. I am rigging these barrels so we could spray this liquid on those creatures."

Rayse opened up a barrel, peering inside.

"Huh. Isn't this what Lacey was scattering on the killing field?"

"Yes. That will eventually stop working, of course, and we will need more people manning the gates soon. This could let more of the townspeople participate in the fight."

Rayse nodded at that. Now that Aleph mentioned it, the air didn't seem as hot as he remembered. But with these things, that'll soon change.

"Say, master. How long was I out for?"

"Not even an hour. Are you sure you are alright? You spent a lot of mana manipulating the curse inside Iona."

"...Yeah. I feel good. Better, in fact." Rayse surprised himself with that admission. He used his entire mana pool after consistent fighting even before completely emptying it out trying to save Iona. He had long since run out of crystals too. In fact, the only artifact he had with enough mana to top him off was–

"So you did have it." Aleph noted, looking at the weapon in his disciple's hand.

"Ah, yeah, I guess I had it on me when I fell unconscious."

"Hmm. Can you let me have a look at it? I'd like to run a few tests. I remember the other heralds using a similar material."

Rayse was about to answer when the ground shook violently. Whatever it was, the shock was felt all the way here. The liquid inside the barrels sloshed loudly, but Aleph's floating hands kept them in place.

"That sounds like trouble. We better go."

"Lacey has it under control. I need to finish these before Luke makes his move, or we'll be sitting ducks by then."

"Mister Luke?... Nevermind. I'll go check it out."

He started to go, but then stopped himself for a split second. He just noticed a change in his master's appearance.

"Hey, mister… Are you wearing glasses?"

"Goodbye, Rayse."

Rayse jogged towards the gates, wondering why he was the only one around acting with this much urgency. The people moved as they always did, as if that shaking was a regular occurence.

Feeling a bit embarrassed, he slowed to a jog just as he got to the gates, where he found Iona's squad huddled around the gate. Sonia clapped his back as soon as he joined them.

"Hey, Rayse! Heard you got to Iona as she was ambushed. Good job!"

"It's nothing. I just had a lot of experience dealing with those things."

He noted the giant fire pit beside the group, reflexively checking whether any of his friends' skin was looking woody. He didn't think they'd neglect it, but it was more for his peace of mind than anything. He sighed in relief, before greeting everyone in the group.

Polo came up to elbow him playfully in the ribs.

"I saw that! What, you think some stinking demon could copy my amazingness?"

The squad laughed, looking pretty relaxed for soldiers being the last line of defense against an evil horde. Rayse gladly joined them, fully at ease for the first time since he woke up.

"So, what's up with the shaking?"

"Oh, that's the next part of the fight. You could climb up to the walls if you wanna see, but the rest of us'll storm the gates as soon as it goes down."

They all were armed to the teeth, now that he mentioned it. Still, they keep mentioning something that he wasn't briefed yet, so Rayse insisted that they tell him what exactly 'it' was.

"Oh, well we're not allowed to talk about it out loud. You know, because of all the shapeshifters on the enemy. I'll tell you this, though–"

Polo leaned in close to whisper, highly amused that a clueless guy like him was getting irritated.

"When it does come, it'll be an all you can eat buffet."

__________________________________

Done with his preparations, Aleph once again climbed up the ramparts to watch the next part of Iona's preparations. The soldiers were once again stationed here, but considering what they were about to do, they're currently on standby.

The dying embers of the wildfire they created still sent waves of heat over to where he was standing. If it weren't for the awful stench that accompanied it, the comforting heat would have been a great accompaniment to such a chilly night.

Aleph was far from relaxed, of course, as he scanned the enemy position. They wanted as many harbingers close to the blast as possible. They still continued their march, heedless of the ashes of their own fallen brethren that they were trampling on. Aleph narrowed his gaze as he estimated their numbers looking through Iona's visor.

The killing floor shone just as brightly now as it did when they set fire to it. The reason being that countless harbingers had burned away, leaving only their mana crystals behind. They littered the ground now, ignored by the mindless thrall. Some were even crushed under their feet, releasing the mana into the air. 

BANG!

What followed was a localized explosion as a hapless harbinger got a faceful of combusted mana.This reaction would continue until the fire is fully put out. That phenomenon was a large part in why they were able to buy so much time with this scheme. The other was the apparent lack of adjustment the enemy commander was doing. Aside from the assassination attempt on Iona, no other enemy that was emissary class or higher had made their move. At most, Aleph detected various fliers just outside of range, monitoring the situation. 

Aleph briefly considered that they were playing into the enemies' hands somehow, but there was nothing to be done about it; everything was for surviving until dawn. He cannot afford to be conserving his strength if they were to last until then. 

He glanced at the everpresent mass of blue that were headed in their direction. They must have already killed thousands of them by now, and they had just begun showing signs of thinning out. Aleph stayed vigilant though, because even as the enemy commander showed a severe lack of care in throwing away fodder troops, he had also shown a bit of cunning by taking their own leader out of commission.

He noticed smoke starting to form at the edges of the battlefield, slowly converging into town similar to what he heard happened on Hios. The light of the killing field kept it at bay, but he suspected that soon there would be more to worry about than impostors among them.

"Fwiiiip!" Aleph whistled repeatedly, sending the agreed upon signal to Luke, who was standing alone on the outer wall. It was their agreed upon signal. The veteran soldier looked at Aleph for a second before turning back to face the enemy army. He shouted something at him, and although Aleph couldn't hear him clearly over the still, he thought he understood.

Luke's entire body glowed with power as he got into position, both arms raised in some kind of hammer blow, gathering an impressive amount of mana in his hands. Aleph watched as the formless energy that surrounded Luke slowly took shape, covering his knuckles with a translucent morningstar.

"AVALANCHE!"

This time, Aleph clearly heard the spell. The entire wall surged forward like a tsunami, crashing into countless harbingers. After a sufficient distance, Luke brought down his hands, commanding the stone wave to crash into the sea of blue. The force was immense. Even Aleph had to hold onto something as the entire world threatened to flip upside down.