Apostolos stared out, mentally preparing himself.

We're probably going to lose people.

It was a stark reality, but one that he forced himself to acknowledge.

If only I had been better, smarter… something.

The reality was that no such thing had come true. They had what they had, and that was it.

Taking a deep breath, Apostolos began to walk forward before turning to face the defenders lining the walls.

"Today marks a pivotal day. For years now, you have battled the waves on your own, while eyes have watched from above." Apostolos said, looking at the watchtower from which he had viewed the waves for years now. "No more. Today, we join you."

Joining Apostolos were nearly twenty-five tier sevens, including himself. It was the single largest gathering of force they had ever mustered for a single battle.

And yet Apostolos still felt a sense of dread.

"Today, we shall stand alongside you and beat back the forces of annihilation. For friends and family who call Ehkorrus, who do not have the strength to oppose those who would destroy us. We stand against them."

A cheer went up, but Apostolos didn't feel it deep in his bones. The simple thought that they would lose people robbed him of any spark of joy, for the fateful day had arrived.

The first tier seven wave had arrived.

Sixty years since Rory had left Ehkorrus, they would face the first tier seven wave without their patron, their Founder.

It was up to Apostolos to ensure they made it through all the same.

But after this wave, another year will pass, bringing even more tier sevens. We simply aren't gaining enough tier-sevens to offset the difference.

If each tier seven on their side were equivalent to Marcie, himself, or their elites, it would be a different story. Yet for the average person, fighting even at tier could be a disadvantageous situation.

They didn't have the X factor. Gil was already stretched thin. Their walls…. Well, after the failure of Project Ancestor, they had given up on anything other than maintenance and minor improvements.

Yet Apostolos, even if he was aware of how the deck was stacked against them, couldn't falter, couldn't waver. He was the Chief Protector. As long as he drew breath, he would never surrender, never let Ehkorrus fall.

Brews stocked, defenses manned, defenders armed, there was nothing left to do aside from wait until the wave began in earnest. Already, Apostolos could sense monsters gathering in numbers that heralded the tide, the combined aura like a blanket of death.

But not today.

"Sir," A woman ran up to him, shooting him a quick salute. "The Inscriptors sent word. It's ready."

"Good."

While they hadn't been able to make headway on improving the walls, especially after the failure of Project Ancestor, they had switched to a new project. Sadly, it wasn't the secret ace in the hole to overcome the challenges arrayed before them, but it was something Apostolos could provide. Looking around, even now, he could see how the oppressive nature of such an opposing aura was weighing upon their people.

Then let there be some light.

Raising his scythe high overhead, the gathered defenders went silent, watching their Chief Protector.

This is going to hurt.

Slamming the scythe back down, at equidistant points through the city, a column of red light shot upward, manifesting into twinkling blood-red stars high overhead, shining brightly even against the backdrop of the suns. Hushed murmurs passed through the city, only for another ray of light to shoot upward, a column of pure sunlight radiating from the Chief Protector himself. Rising into the air, it splintered apart, absorbed by each of the blood-red stars.

"Aurora Astraeus."

A joint ritual spell, it had been the effort of some of their brightest minds, and even his input. Half of it was a ritual that tapped into the reserves of vital lifeforce that permeated Ehkorrus, the city of life and stars. It was apparently a rather complicated ritual, and Apostolos had only understood a portion of it.

The second half was a pseudo-skill of his own making. Gifted as he was with freeform magic, it worked by combining with the ritual, infusing his own affinity into it, and then-

"Whoa!" A chorus of similar cries of surprise rang out as in the sky above Ehkorrus, an aurora appeared, silver starlight and crimson that glowed down upon the denizens. As the aurora intensified, the defenders felt a swell of strength, and while it wasn't much, it seemed to still their shakes and stiffen their resolve.

Yeah, that hurts.

Channeling that power couldn't be done freely, even though Rory hadn't been able to do that, and he was the literal Founder of Ehkorrus; it placed a burden on the body. In the case of Aurora Astraeus, the person placed under such a burden was none other than the primary caster, Apostolos himself.

But I can handle it.

Acclimating to the burden of maintaining a citywide boosting effect, Apostolos gathered himself, and just in time, too.

"Here they come!"

From the tree line, monsters began to break away, charging their outermost wall.

Tier six right off the rip. Figured as much, but I still hoped that, against all odds, there would still be some tier fives.

The walls charged up before blasting out a wave of sunlight that incinerated the first wave of monsters. A cheer went up, but Apostolos ignored it, aware that it had barely been a probing attempt.

As if proving his point, more monsters began to charge out from the trees, over three hundred of them.

Defenses spooling up, crescent blades of sunlight shot out, joined with arrows and low-scale magic attacks. As fast as they tier six monsters were downed, they were being replaced even quicker.

But that's not the problem.

If it were just a horde of tier-six monsters, they wouldn't have mobilized every tier-seven they had on hand.

No, the real problem was-

There.

Amongst the horde of monsters, Apostolos sensed the first of many.

A tier seven monster.

A Blight Knight. Shit.

Blight-class monsters were, to be true to their name, a blight that had become increasingly problematic. The tier-six variants weren't too bad, but Apostolos had tangled with a few tier-seven variants, and they were never a fun monster to tango with. A Blight Knight was far from his worst fear, but it boded poorly.

As for the Blight Knight itself, it looked nearly identical to a Blight Fiend, a pustulous and demonic-looking creature, except the Blight Knight had a hardened outer shell of ossified pus and hardened, cancerous growths, making it appear as if it were a Blight Fiend clad in noxious armor.

"Let me handle this," Manda, his wife's former teammate, said as he stepped forward.

Nodding to him, the seasoned veteran made a sign with his hands, like he was casting a shadow puppet. Although there shouldn't have been enough light angled to cast a shadow so clearly, one still appeared in the image of a dog or wolf.

In an instant, an entire pack of shadowy wolves began leaping from the cast shadow.

"Go."

The pack raced forward, tearing apart any tier-six that got close as they soon surrounded the tier-seven monster. Once, the shadow wolves were some of his weakest summons. Upon reaching tier seven, Manda had gained a skill that allowed him to 'feed' the shadows, making them grow in strength. If a shadow went long enough without being destroyed, it would even gain a unique 'status' that made it recognized as a 'Champion' version of the same shadow beast.

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The same shadow wolves that tier-six monsters had once torn apart now tore them apart, and that wasn't even counting his champion wolf.

The pack of shadow wolves lunged at the Blight Knight, which was defending itself expertly, swiping any of the large shadow hounds away before they could tear a bite from it. Given time, the Blight Knight would ultimately destroy the pack, but Manda only needed them to distract. Changing his hand sign, the shadow puppet cast now appeared like a large cat.

"Go."

From the shadow, three shadowy jaguars appeared before vanishing once more, slinking through the shadows toward the Blight Knight.

Another hand sign, vaguely bird-like, and soon four shadowy ostriches had appeared. Finally, Manda made one more hand sign as a swarm of geckos clambered atop the ostriches.

Freakishly fast, the ostriches zipped through the monsters until they joined the shadow hounds, which kept the Blight Knight pinned, as his shadow jaguars occasionally leaped out of the shadows, striking before vanishing again. With the shadow geckos in place, the next time the Blight Knight attempted to swing at one of Manda's other conjured shadow beasts, nearly two dozen shadowy lassos shot out from their mouths, catching its swiping appendage and locking it in place for just long enough for his shadow jaguars to leap forward and, as one, tear the offending arm from its body.

It was a good sign that the tier-seven was being handled effectively. Yet, as Apostolos looked elsewhere, his frown returned.

Fifteen tier-sevens had joined in since the first Blight Knight had been spotted. His tier-seven defenders were already dispatching themselves to face the monsters. As base-tier-seven monsters, Apostolos felt confident in the tier-sevens with him to handle them; they were, in fact, the best Ehkorrus had to offer.

But.

But that would eventually change as the monsters stopped being base-tier-seven and moved up to low-tier-seven, then to mid-tier-seven, and eventually high-tier-seven. And that was ignoring that the numbers would also increase every year.

Focus on the now.

Pushing aside the negativity, Apostolos knew it would be his turn to take to the battlefield shortly, as the tide of tier-seven monsters continued to increase.

We will make it through today… but at what cost?

Alric was afraid.

Why? How did it come to this?

A year ago, he had reached A6, and his family had been so happy for him. A6 was considered the start of the big leagues, where credits were little more than an afterthought. He was part of a private team, made up of himself and four others, two of whom were childhood friends. In the time since he had broken through A6, the rest of his team had followed suit. They could almost be considered a group of up-and-coming elites, though only time would tell.

As a full squad of A6 free agents, they weren't limited by some of the requirements and expectations of Ehkorrus-sponsored adventurers. Of course, they were a little lower on the waiting list for equipment upgrades and the like, but it was a small price to pay.

Things had been looking up.

It shouldn't be like this!

And then the announcement had come through. The yearly siege wave was going to be a full mobilization by all combatants tier five and up. At a glance, it hadn't seemed that different, just that tier fours had been removed from the lineup of eligible combatants.

What stood out was that the tier sevens weren't excluded either. It was the tier sevens that had made siege waves an event of celebration, a chance to rapidly advance and gain benefits fighting for the city, all while under the watchful gaze of a tier seven who could swoop in. Sure, there had been accidents here and there, but it had always been relatively safe.

The fact that the tier sevens were fully mobilized meant that things had changed.

And even worse?

The Chief Protector himself was standing at the helm of the battle, clad in armor that seemed to invoke the presence of the suns themselves, and armed with a scythe that looked as if it could fell even the sturdiest tier six in one blow. It was rumored that his armor and weapon were both made by the fabled Founder.

Alric hadn't really believed it. It was said that once upon a time, the Founder had actually been a presence within the city. Still, fewer than fifty people had apparently ever met the Founder, making it little more than hearsay.

No, Alric suspected it was just a story told to motivate them that they could 'aspire to heights unseen' as some teachers had often repeated in his childhood years.

His buddy, Helena, had a slightly different belief, that the Founder wasn't made up. Instead, she believed they were a being like Aelia or E.O.N itself, and he had merely presented himself as a human to the early people of Ehkorrus.

Either way, the gear that the Chief Protector wore was unparalleled, as was his strength, the only person in all of Ehkorrus who was able to best 'Grinning Demon' Marcie, the infamous name for the number one adventurer in Ehkorrus.

Such figures mobilizing for the wave had been the subject of nasty rumors for some time, and it was only in the last few months that the announcement had been made official.

The upcoming siege wave would contain tier seven monsters.

Some had suspected as much; the basic pattern of the siege waves over the last… ever, had them steadily increasing in scale, so it hadn't taken the city completely by surprise. As for Alric and his team, during the previous siege wave, they had been fighting under the watchful gaze of a tier seven, and thus they'd never found themselves facing off against anything more substantial than a low-tier-six monster, the high-tier-six monsters being handled by the elites.

It was different this time around. Gone was that same well-organized structure, a glorified training exercise.

This was real.

The fighting had been going on for several hours now, and it had been…. Rough. The tier sevens, who had previously managed the battle's flow well, were now forced to scramble, constantly racing to battle the tier seven monsters as they appeared, vastly outnumbered. Were it not for the likes of the Chief Protector or the Grinning Demon, the tier seven defenders wouldn't have been able to kill the ever-present tier seven monsters fast enough to have prevented a total overrun.

And even then, they weren't always able to clear the field of opposing tier seven monsters fast enough.

Which was where Alric found himself and his squad now, terrified.

Because a tier seven monster had broken through, and none of their tier seven defenders were able to respond. It had been relayed and instructed in great detail that in such an event where a tier seven monster was unable to be countered by a tier seven defender, to prevent the tier seven monster from being able to inflict massive causalities, the next in line to step up were any true six squads, squads or teams made of only tier six free agents or adventurers.

They'd gotten the message to advance to a segment of the battlefield beyond the walls, expecting the frantic, albeit manageable, clean-up duty of facing the horde of tier sixes that still made up the majority of the wave. Instead, they found themselves facing a single monster. It was almost ten feet long and prowled on six thick legs, its bodyline reaching his shoulders, and that wasn't even mentioning its head, which looked like little more than a lumpy ball of clay with beady eyes and an absolutely massive mouth, large enough to bite a man in half and leave nothing but the legs.

Blight Beast

Level: 71

The description of the monster almost didn't matter. The fact was that it wasn't just a tier seven; it was beyond base tier seven.

Alric wanted to do nothing more than run away the instant he laid eyes on it. Still, the fear was marginally suppressed as a strange bubble of courage rose from within, strengthening his weakening knees.

"Helena, Tom, Haise, Eren, we're going to play this to stall it out, hopefully a tier seven can take it from there." Alric found himself saying, a strength to his voice that didn't match his inner feelings.

I want to run.. But I can't.

Brandishing his crescent-bladed tonfas, Alric steadied himself once more, readying himself for battle.

"Remember, guys, no heroes. We're going to get ourselves a fat paycheck for this and then drinks on me."

A cheer rose up, a smile tugging at the corner of his lips. Even if they all knew it was forced bravado, as team leader, it was up to him to raise their spirits.

Alright then, you oversized house pet, let's do this!

Apostolos felt numb.

They won. That hadn't been too hard to anticipate.

But the celebratory atmosphere that had pervaded the city after a siege wave was long gone. The reason why was simple.

It had been a cluster fuck.

Without the tier advantages making handling any potential dangers trivial, the wave had gone from a relatively safe training ground for their would-be adventurers and the unattached free agents, into a real battlefield, where there wasn't anyone to pull you to safety if something went wrong.

And dear E.O.N. almighty, it did.

Everything he had feared about the wave had come true. While the tier seven monsters had largely been handled by the tier seven defenders, there were simply so many that they were constantly on the move.

And that wasn't even mentioning the occasional level seventy-one monster; the extra level was enough that even their tier seven defenders weren't able to take them lightly, some earning injuries in the process.

Eventually, the battle came to a close when a level seventy-two Blight Knight Ace wave boss appeared, prompting Apostolos to move against it instantly. It was perhaps the only highlighted area of success; the battle had been far from a challenge. He felt reasonably confident that he'd be able to handle a wave boss up to mid-tier seven.

The problem, as always, remained basic math. Right now, they had twenty tier seven defenders, made up of their elites, given that the elites were the first to reach tier seven. A year from now, if they were lucky, they'd have up to twenty-five tier seven defenders, except those additional five would be of lower quality than the first twenty. The wave, meanwhile, was likely to see anywhere from fifty percent to double the tier seven monsters, with an increased percentage of them being level seventy-one.

And the wave after? Even worse. Without being able to mass-produce more elites, their increased presence of tier seven defenders would be outweighed by the numbers the waves would throw at them.

Math.

An evil math, but math all the same.

Walking around the battlefield surrounding the outer wall, which thankfully had never been pierced, Apostolos forced himself to pay attention. The death toll wasn't astronomical, and none of their tier seven defenders had died. Still, it was magnitudes greater than any year prior, when one considered the total death toll of the last thirty years was three.

Thirty tier sixes had died. That was nearly five percent of all tier sixes.

Apostolos found his feet halted as he took in a sight before him. A dead Blight Beast was on the ground, showing signs of being killed by Edward. That itself wasn't particularly stirring.

It was the crying woman, cradling a body, missing its entire upper half, that Apostolos felt a churning within his gut from. Next to the body, two bloodied tonfas lay on the ground, as what must have been the rest of the team grieved, tears streaming down their faces.

I don't even know the poor soul's name.

Apostolos could take a guess at what had happened. Judging by the overall level of the team, the tier seven defenders must have been occupied when a Blight Beast broke through the lines. With no tier sevens available to handle the problem, a squad of tier sixes was sent instead. Being that they were fresh tier sixes, the fact that they had only lost one person against a level seventy-one Blight Beast was essentially a miracle.

But Apostolos doubted they would feel the same if he shared the sentiment with them. To them, they had lost a precious friend and comrade.

Twisting his hand, a ray of light shone upon the body, or what remained, burning away the muck and debris. The dead man's team members looked over, noticing him. Giving them a deep nod, Apostolos turned away.

He had failed them. So, it was his duty to keep his eyes wide open, to not avert his gaze.

Continuing forward, Apostolos could only shake his head, numb once more.

After all, there were still more battlefields to tour.

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