Aggro Litrpg || Progression Fantasy

Lia surged forward faster than I'd ever seen her move. Her sword came down in a blazing arc, and when it hit Balethor's staff, the clearing lit up with the sound of thunder cracking marble. The shockwave rolled out in a low boom, shaking branches, sending leaves flying, and making the air ripple like heat rising off the scorched stone.

For the first time, Balethor gave ground. Just half a step. But it was enough to see the hairline fracture run the length of his staff—an ugly, twisting vein of splintered bonewood that hadn't been there before.

"You... insignificant worm!" he hissed.

Lia didn't stop to apologise, hurling herself back into the fray like a living siege engine, a war cry ripping free of her lungs. Her boots gouged trenches in the dirt as she drove forward, blade raised, body taut with lethal intent.

But Balethor didn't move. And when her blade came crashing down again, he responded with a sweep of his staff so fluid it barely registered as effort. His staff caught the flat of her weapon and twisted her momentum away from him like water pouring off a stone. Her blade skidded off course, and she stumbled. It might not have been a full misstep, but it was more than enough for him to exploit.

The Alchemist was already inside her guard before she could correct. His hand snapped up, fingers curling in strange, mirrored gestures, and then came the first strike: the butt of the staff slamming into her shoulder with a crunch. Lia reeled back, but Balethor didn't give her the space to recover.

And what followed wasn't a duel. It wasn't even a fight. It was an absolute deconstruction.

Every attempted slash Lia threw out, it was like he had an answer for it a moment earlier. Every shift in her footing, he predicted and punished. The rhythm of the clash fell entirely to him, a tempo he set, and she scrambled to follow. Sparks flew. Runes clashed and flickered. But it was clear—painfully, brutally clear—she was utterly outmatched.

I'd managed to pull myself up to my knees – my health showing as a rather pathetic 10 – as I watched Lia grit her teeth and slash left and right, desperate for an opening, blade swinging high and then low with a feint but Balethor was already there. He simply stepped inside it, slammed the fractured length of his staff into her ribs, and followed it with a surge of crackling black energy that sent her reeling backwards, gasping for breath

She sagged, and her knees hit the dirt for a moment, but she pulled herself back upright only because she refused to do anything else. However, her hands were trembling, her chest heaved, and blood was pouring from the corner of her mouth. I wasn't sure how much she had left.

Balethor… well, he was just standing there, not even breathing hard.

"Tell me," he said softly, voice echoing across the shattered quiet. "Was that your best? Was that what the mighty Elders of Sablewyn sent to stand against me? Was that really all the Empire has to offer?" His staff glowed, and the crack along its haft pulsed with an ugly light.

"Let me show you," he said, "what real power looks like."

"Lia!" I croaked. My throat felt like it had been raked with gravel. I tried to push myself up, but my body wasn't taking feedback right now and was pulsing with all sorts of red warnings. But Balethor wasn't even looking at me. He stepped forward, slow and unhurried, as Lia swayed, one arm limp, the other searching for her sword in the dirt.

"Bravery," he said softly, "is wasted when it arrives without preparation. All this fire, all this conviction... but no comprehension. You're pawns. You both are. Thrown at me to be taken."

Lia spat blood at his boots. Good girl.

Balethor's hands lifted, fingers splaying wide, and the air around us rippled. No, not rippled. It buckled as if the world had hiccupped and wasn't sure it wanted to continue.

At the edges of the clearing, the flickering shadows that had danced just beyond sight began to congeal. Not into any shape that made rational sense, but into shapes nonetheless. Amongst the trees, I could see growing bodies that were made up of arms and legs that bent the wrong way. Teeth where eyes should've been. Spines that spiralled inward. Each of them looked as if someone had tried to draw a praying mantis from memory and got halfway through before remembering they'd never actually seen one.

And then they moved. Coming forward. Dragging themselves through a barrier between their world and ours. Where they passed, the grass blackened. Roots recoiled. The clearing shivered.

I didn't think the System liked it much either.

[System Warning: THRESHOLD INTEGRITY BREACH – LOCAL ZONE]

[Status: Catastrophic]

[Warden Response Required: IMMEDIATE]

[Classification: External Entities Breaching Through]

[Veil Containment Rating: <17% and Falling>]

[ERROR: Signature Overlap Detected – Transliminal Constructs Unregistered]

[ERROR: Passive Defensive Protocols Unavailable]

[Advisory: Collapse Imminent Unless Primary Node is Severed]

Nausea washed through me like static. I could feel it now—something old and unwelcome, slipping between the cracks in the world. The Veil wasn't just thinning around the Well. It was being peeled back. Flensed. Exposed.

This was what Aunt Margaret had warned me about, wasn't it? Not directly, of course. Never directly until that last message on the gramophone in her attic. But always in stories and in those readings from Pilgrim's Progress by firelight, with her voice trembling just enough to betray the fear beneath the ritual.

The road lies narrow, hemmed by the pit on one side and the mire on the other. And ahead—the mouth of Hell.

It didn't take a huge amount of imagination to see what she was talking about was, right now, about to come through the woods.

And I needed to stop it. To stand in the breach.

I tried to breathe. Failed. Tried again. It was no picnic, having just 11 Health.

Behind me, Lia was still doing her best to keep holding the Alchemist off and had recovered her blade to take up a defensive stance. However, it very much looked like she was expecting to die standing.

The Well pulsed again. A heartbeat I couldn't hear but could certainly feel. Like it was syncing with my own. Like it was learning it.

"Eli!" Lia shouted. "Whatever happened, the Rebels cannot be allowed to breach the Veil!"

I admired the sentiment, but I really did not know what I was going to do to stop him. I couldn't even get his attention, which for an Aggro Tank, felt pretty humiliating.

[System Alert: Warden Verification Protocol Inciated]

[Manual Intervention Authorised – Alert].

[Activate: AGGRO MAGNETISM – Level 2]

[Note: Primary Entity exceeds Level Threshold. Effect Override Failed.]

[ERROR: Rage Debuff Rejected – Entity Classification 'Beyond']

[Fallback: Proximity Taunt Registered – Partial Effect Achieved]

Okay, so someone appeared to be fiddling the books so that I could get under this guy's skin. How wise that was when I had absolutely no chance of tanking another blow was questionable, however, as Griff was wont to say, you played the hands you were dealt.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

I gritted my teeth, raised my voice, and struggled to my feet.

"Oi, Mr Moustache! Why don't you come here and try me instead?"

By the look on his face, almost against his will, the Alchemist turned to face me, buying Lia a few moments of respite. However, at the same time, something shivered within the Veil. Like a whole host of those evil Praying Mantis things had just noticed I existed.

Balethor threw his head back and laughed—full, echoing, theatrical. The kind of laugh that I suspected he rehearsed in front of mirrors and made his own sound effects.

"Fools!" he howled. "You two think you can seek to challenge me? That the Rebellion will be defeated? I am the master of the Well of Ascension! With the Guardian gone, the barrier will finally open to me! And you two will kneel before you are devoured!"

Then, the clearing cracked apart. Not physically—no quake split the earth, and no thunder boomed overhead. But reality rearranged like someone had tugged on the corner of a painting and begun peeling it off the wall.

One moment, there was just us and the ruined stonework of the Well. The next, a tear opened beside it. Not wide. Not stable. But there.

I guess the Veil had split.

It glistened like oil in water, slick with impossible colours and terrible promise. And beyond it—beyond it—I saw the attic. Aunt M's attic.

The rafters. The crooked chair she always used when reading aloud. The stack of dog-eared paperbacks with pages folded and marked with dried lavender. Even the patchwork quilt on the floor, the one she swore was sewn by a blind nun who knew all the saints by name.

And I could smell it. That old attic smell: dust, tea leaves, a hint of whatever wood polish she swore by. It pulled at something deep. Buried. The part of me that wasn't a Warden or an Iron Provocateur or any sort of Class. The part that was just... Elijah.

Home.

I could go through. It was right there. I didn't know what it would do to my body, or if I'd make it whole, or what Bayteran would look like without a Warden—but for the briefest of moments, that didn't matter.

Because I wanted to go.

To escape. To walk through that tear and into a room where the worst thing waiting was a cold cup of tea and one of Aunt M's suspicious hard biscuits. Where the world was real, small and safe. If, of course, you could ignore the assassins double-tapping me in the chest. Which, in this moment of nostalgia, I almost did.

But then the shadows moved.

From the edges of the clearing, the shapes that had lurked in flickers solidified. They were no more tricks of the light; they'd become real. Seven feet tall and bent like broken clockwork. Their bodies were dark, their legs jointed wrong, their arms too long, and their hands curled into scythe blades.

They were wrong—not just alien, but unmade. Proper stuff of Shadow, I guess.

And they were heading for Lia.

She down again, blood on her lips, struggling upright with one hand pressed to her ribs. In an instant, one of the creatures leaned forward, chittering, legs stuttering like a scratched record. Then it lunged.

I snapped back.

Not from a sense of duty.

Not from misplaced heroism.

But from, well, you don't think twice before stepping between a friend and trouble, do you?

The attic was still there, still inviting, but I moved away from it and towards the monsters.

[Warden Protocol Engaged: Threshold Proximity Detected]

[Veil Status: Breached | Integrity: 12%]

[Warden Signature: Confirmed – Elijah Meddings (Class: Iron Provocateur)]

> The Veil has recognised your presence.

> You are in the breach.

[Emergency Empowerment Protocol – Authorised]

[Status: Warden Override Enacted]

[Conditions Met: Proximity to Breach | Intent to Intervene | Singular Warden Presence]

[You are now under the effect of: BREACHWALKER]

Temporary Buff Applied – Duration: 180 seconds

Health: Fully Restored

Strength: +100% (All offensive actions doubled in power)

Damage Mitigation: +25%

Resistance to [Shadow Affliction]: Increased

Cooldowns: Reduced by 50%

This power is not without price. One (1) point of base Strength has been PERMANENTLY LOST.

[NEW QUEST OBJECTIVE ADDED]

→ Defend the Threshold

→ Survive the Assault

→ End Balethor Voidwalker

Because no matter how much I missed that attic—how much I wanted to unspool time and pretend this was someone else's story—I wasn't going back. Not yet. Not while Lia was still fighting. Not while the Veil still bled.

And not while something old and angry was trying to claw its way into Bayteran.

I had no plan, no clever strategy cribbed from my old life. Just boots slamming into moss-slick earth and the sure, ugly knowledge that if I didn't do something, Lia was going to die.

[Active Ability: Unwelcome Mat – Engaged]

→ Target: Lia Jorgensdottir

→ Effect: Awaiting Lethal Transfer

The light around her flickered like a failing lantern as one of the shadow creatures swiped a clawed limb straight through her pauldron, shredding the metal. She dropped to one knee, teeth bared in pain, still swinging, still standing.

My cooldowns had reset. Thank every pantheon ever cobbled together.

I skidded down the incline, catching sight of Balethor just as he turned toward me. His staff whipped around in a burst of black light and this time, I saw the rage in his eyes shift. Well, Rage, anyway.

[Aggro Magnetism – Level 2: Active Aura Engaged]

→ Rage Debuff Applied

→ Balethor Voidwalker: Aggro Redirected

Balethor shrieked—not screamed, shrieked—a sound like a boiling kettle being torn in half. He flung both arms wide, summoned who-knows-what from the Veil, and began blasting indiscriminately. A jet of shadow-fire clipped two of the Shadow monsters, reducing them to howling vapour, even as the others surged in to replace them in their attack on Lia.

One of his random projectiles shot straight for Lia's spine. A perfect kill shot.

[Lethal Transfer Detected]

→ Redirecting to: Warden Proxy – Elijah Meddings

→ Shadow Damage – Nullified

→ Passive Effect: Shadow Resistance Triggered

I felt the spell hit and it was like ice poured into my veins and set alight. But it didn't kill me. Didn't even stop me.

I just kept running at the Alchemist.

As I lumbered, I knew I had too much strength and not enough speed to use it cleanly. Which made me a little bit like trying to steer a wrecking ball down a zipline. I stumbled, half-tripped, caught myself, and then lunged anyway. It didn't matter. The Alchemist was in range.

His staff came up, and I batted it aside.

He opened his mouth to cast, but I drove a fist into it.

I'm not going to lie; the next few seconds weren't clean. With all this Strength, I didn't have the technique for anything clever. But what I did have was all sorts of momentum and a target unable to focus because of all the Rage I was plugging into his head.

Balethor hit the ground like a sack of wet meat. I went down with him and started swinging.

Left. Right. Overhand. Fist. Elbow. Knee. Anything I had, I used. He howled. Cursed. Tried to cast. I broke his fingers. He whispered something in a language older than cities. I crushed his jaw.

There was absolutely no glory in it. Just noise and blood, and then the light in his eyes winked out like a candle underwater.

[System Notice: Veil Breach Closed]

[Status Effect: Breachwalker – Revoked]

[System Adjustment: -1 Strength | Permanent Attribute Shift]

All of that power leaking away was the strangest sensation. Like something being unknotted in my spine. A tension I didn't know I'd been carrying, unwound and taken. I didn't even feel that much weaker. Not yet. Just… lighter.

I knelt there, breathing hard over what was left of the Alchemist, and listened as the clearing began to be still. The shadows that had stalked us flickered, stuttered, and collapsed back into the Veil like smoke being pulled into a vacuum. Whatever door he'd opened—it was shut now. Including the one through to the attic.

Hey ho. You win some, you lose some.

Speaking of which . . .

Lia stood there as the last woman left after the flood—barely upright, soaked in blood that wasn't all hers, sword dangling from one hand like it had grown too heavy to hold. And she looked like she might die standing.

Then, her knees buckled.

I was there just in time to catch her before she crumpled entirely. Her sword fell with a dull clatter beside us. She was far too light in my arms, bones wrapped in soaked leather and pain.

"No, no, no—come on, stay with me," I said, pressing a hand to one of the many wounds on her. It was wet. Too wet. "You stubborn, sword-swinging lunatic, don't you dare die now."

Her eyes fluttered open. Glazed. Not quite seeing me. But they found me anyway.

"Eli..." she breathed, barely a whisper. My name—used like a memory you didn't trust to hold shape.

"Yeah. I'm here." I pulled her close, trying to keep pressure on the wound, trying to ignore the feel of blood soaking into my sleeve. "You did it. You took him down. I was just the follow-up act. So don't let it end like this, okay? Don't make me explain to your Elders that I let their favourite murder-hammer bleed out in a haunted grove."

She smiled. Faint. Crooked. Bloody. "Don't flatter yourself."

Relief punched through me so hard I almost laughed. Almost.

"What do I do?" I asked, leaning close, trying to catch her words as her mouth moved again. "Lia, what is it?"

She tried to speak, but the sound caught and failed. Her head tipped sideways, resting against my shoulder. Still breathing. Just barely.

The forest held its breath.

Overhead, the canopy groaned in the wind. Leaves stirred, uncertain. The Veil was sealed again—whatever breach Balethor had torn open was closed—but it didn't feel like a victory. Not really. More like the eye of something larger.

I sat there, holding her, my heart still thudding like war drums in retreat. Around us, the clearing felt wrong in its stillness. Empty of threat, but not of meaning. Like something had ended. Like something worse had taken its place.