Call of the Abyss [Book 2 Complete]

The new Nashiin frontline approached until just outside of the defenders' range, stopping their march with organized precision. The military order was maintained the whole way: pikes, reserves and shock troops, ranged and support, and finally, the commanders. These particular commanders were three Barrowlords and their escorts of Revenants.

The infantry was largely skeletons bearing a mish-mash of weapons. The only consistency in the army's gear was that long and pokey weapons were in the frontline. Julia was assessing their forces when she caught another peculiarity: there were some pieces missing.

The Ghûls' absence was particularly noticeable, as they were surely the most likely troops to scale the walls successfully. She also didn't detect any Wraiths. The brief description she'd received of them painted them as mid-range casters that used various maladies to debuff their enemies. They made a gruesome pair, the Wraiths and Ghûls.

Julia spotted many Revenants mixed into the army, aside from the Barrowlords' escorts. They appeared to be used as captains, as she could spot them evenly dispersed throughout the force. However, she noticed several squads that seemed to be entirely composed of Revenants. She suspected they were the elites that would be sent after high-priority targets.

What or who those targets were was just a small part of the information she was lacking. What would they do? The wall had no gates—neither entrances nor exits. Once it was raised, both allies and enemies would have to scale it. There was no going through or around. How would they attack?

An eerie silence settled over the field, owed in part to the visceral unease the three bone horrors caused. Their appearance was dramatic and gruesome, so just their presence was off-putting.

Julia looked around to see shaking hands holding bows, grimaces stretched across faces, and wide eyes frantically scanning the field.

The bone horrors—particularly their activation method—had done a number on her remaining troops' morale. She would need to rally them somehow, though it seemed strange that the enemy appeared to be giving her the chance to do exactly that. Why were they just standing there? True, her forces couldn't reliably hit them, but surely they couldn't either?

The bone horrors began to spin, their central orbs whirring in place, as though bulls preparing to charge. Their movement was disturbing in a way that Julia couldn't quite quantify. Their cores spun so fast that she couldn't make out any individual bones in their shell, yet the arms remained motionless.

They almost looked like plants—the cores spinning, the arms insectile in number but not in bearing. They stretched out from the core at a diagonal before limply falling to the ground. They looked more like petals extending out from a flower than insectoid legs held at sharp angles—though their overall shape was more akin to tentacles.

The three horrors suddenly lifted their legs off the ice, the spinning cores launching them toward the wall at a speed that no horse could hope to match—even with the ice impeding their acceleration.

"Brace!" Julia shouted, just as the horrors impacted the wall.

The wall shook with a violent tremor that threw several soldiers to the ground. Julia stumbled, holding onto the parapet for stability. She looked over the edge to see all three horrors rebounding after their impact—the wall seeming to hold steady. They rolled for a few stretches backward, then continued sliding thanks to the ice below them.

Up close now, Julia could see that the horrors were as she estimated, the cores' diameters being about the size of a Barrowlord's height—perhaps slightly larger now with the bone shell. The arms, however, added tremendously to their size and reach. A horror's entire armspan was roughly a quarter to a third of the height of the entire wall.

"Hit them! Throw whatever you can at them, and we'll see what works!" Julia shouted.

The soldiers already on their feet began shooting their bows, throwing things, casting spells, and using anything at their disposal to damage the horrors.

Arrows ricocheted harmlessly, oils coated and burned the bones without effect, and spells impacted the bone, yielding little damage. Julia was stunned for a moment, but when she looked closely, she realized that none of the attacks were hitting the core. The horrors were doing a masterful job of intercepting attacks with their arms or evading them entirely.

Despite their size, the spherical core seemed able to rotate any direction at any time, giving them unprecedented mobility. The arms could also rotate a full 360 degrees around the core to aid movement or block attacks. The only thing slowing them down seemed to be the ice—ironically a device of the enemy's.

Julia was considering testing her own magic against them when all three horrors suddenly shot backward. They screamed away from the wall even faster than they'd approached, which Julia hadn't thought possible.

They reached the front of the Nashiin's army and scooped up armfuls of the infantry. Rolling back to a point halfway between the wall and the Nashiin, the horrors spun their arms about their cores before launching the Nashiin they held into the air—toward the wall.

They flew over the wall, heading for Veshari. Julia was about to split up their forces to intercept, but she felt Ithshar's hand on her shoulder. Julia looked up to see Ithshar watching the approaching Nashiin with ease. Her nonchalance informed Julia that there was probably a defense in place that she wasn't made aware of, thanks to Avelrûn.

The Nashiin passed over the battlements, several clambers higher than the defenders, before encountering a sudden resistance that tore them to shreds. They broke apart and flipped through the air like a child caught by an unseen clothesline, falling to the ground behind the wall in pieces.

"Vines treated by the Weavers can become as strong as steel, and they are nearly invisible against the backdrop of Veshari—particularly when viewed from far afield," Ithshar quietly explained.

Julia nodded—that made sense. The wall had some sort of anti-air defense, it seemed. She wondered how thick the web of vines were, but she didn't have time to wonder. She looked over toward the closest soldiers, seeing their relieved looks at the falling pieces of Nashiin.

"You, find two others to accompany you and descend the wall. Go find the pieces of those Nashiin and ensure they're truly dead. Separating their bones from their bodies doesn't always kill them. We can't have them reassembling and threatening our flank—or moving into the city itself," Julia ordered.

The soldier she pointed to looked hesitant at first, not sure what to do, but he quickly shook it off. He offered a salute—slamming his fist against his chest—and ran off to follow the order.

Julia looked back to the battlefield, seeing the horrors peculiarly still—unsettlingly so. They held their arms in the exact positions they were in when they flung their Nashiin projectiles. Obviously, they felt no muscular strain from holding their arms in strenuous positions, but it was a jarring sight nonetheless.

Off in the enemy's ranks, Julia could see the Barrowlords—specks of black against the white backdrop of ice and bone—clustered together. Were they conferring with each other?

That question was answered when the three split up, walking in opposite directions: one directly forward, another at an angle to the left, and the last at an angle to the right. They took their places amongst the horde and began a forward march.

"Bows up! They're advancing! They'll be in range any second! Loose as soon as you feel you have a good shot, and don't stop unless I say so!" Julia commanded.

The now-familiar sound of bowstrings tightening filtered through Julia's senses, almost completely ignored at this point. She prepped her own spells, preparing to join the volley this time.

The horrors suddenly lurched forward, approaching fast. They were not screaming toward the wall with the speed they had initially, but their pace would challenge a horse.

Julia was struggling to figure out how she would deal with them when they arrived, but they suddenly defied her expectations—they jumped.

Two dug their six arms into the ground and launched themselves into the air, aiming for the battlements. The third continued its course toward the wall, as though leaving the fighting to its companions.

"Prepare for contact! Shields up!" Julia cried.

Wham!

The horrors slammed into the wall, splintering the battlements where they landed. Soldiers were swept backward from the force of their landing—some flung completely off the battlements, others crushed under the immense weight of the undead constructs.

The horrors wasted no time, thrusting their arms out and flattening the soldiers immediately around them that managed to withstand the charge.

Julia flipped the slate up as fast as she could, connecting to all the threads.

"Avelrûn's section of the east quadrant is going to need whatever reinforcements can be spared from anyone that can spare them! The Nashiin's bone horrors have ascended the wall, and the army approaches!" she shouted into the slate before flipping it back down, not bothering to wait for a response.

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"Ithsharûn!" Julia shouted, turning to face Ithshar's squad. "Think you can handle one of those on your own?"

"Ha! We could handle those things one-on-one. All of us together? Well, why don't you just skip a few steps and ask us to win the battle for you?" Elulis joked with a sharp smile.

Julia smiled back and nodded, putting her hand on Ithshar and Talnîr's shoulders.

"Ithshar's squad, you take the one on the right side, Thornalûn to the left. Don't worry about killing them. Just get them off the fucking wall. I'll handle it from there," Julia said confidently.

Nods were exchanged before both squads dashed off to face their assigned horror, while Julia closed her eyes and began her preparations.

"Fuck, this was supposed to be for the army and its leaders," she said with quiet dejectedness.

There was no helping it. Preparations meant nothing if everyone died before they could be utilized. These were the army's heavy-hitters—their siege weapons, effectively. She had to take them out before they could do whatever they were planning to the walls.

They'd already been testing the defenses. It was only a matter of time before they found something that worked.

Julia's newest Class Skill was All as One, and it was a difficult thing to explain conceptually. However, it had sunk into her like it had always been there, waiting in her body to be called upon.

What it functionally meant was that all of Julia's body—all her mana—was a part of her at all times, no matter the distance or location. This meant that if Julia left mana traces in certain places, she would be able to feel those traces like they were extensions of her body—because they were.

She had planned to use this Skill to detonate the remaining fragments of Etherium, following the same tactic she'd had Trixy use against the Nashiin leaders.

She'd planted them in the muck of the marsh floor all around the eastern quadrant of the wall, surrounded by a shell of her own mana. She'd aimed to use this as a means of detonating them remotely, ideally doing critical damage to any approaching armies.

This plan was already looking less hopeful with the Nashiin freezing the marsh. The explosions would undoubtedly do tremendous damage, but she'd been counting on them moving through the water. If she detonated them in the water, the shockwave would travel much farther than the actual explosion.

Now, she was going to have to throw that entire plan out the window.

"ᚷᚨᚦᛖᚱ"

"Gather"

She spoke the enchantment into being, not fully understanding what she was doing. It simply felt right. Speaking wasn't that different from her previous method of using mana itself as a medium for enchantments, after all. It was simply imprinting the enchantments on the air rather than a material.

This instinct seemed to arise from some convergence of her Class Skills and the Universal Truth she'd attained—or maybe it was a convergence of the Truth and her Class itself, rather than any specific Skills. Whatever the case, the words flowed from her mouth as though she were speaking her native language.

The fragments came bursting out of the ice covering the battlefield, flying toward Julia like shooting stars—all aglow with a bright white light.

The few seconds it would take for them to arrive was perfect for Julia's other preparations. She looked over to her left to see the Thornalûn in an intense fight with the horror. It battered at the group, but every limb was intercepted either by Sahira or Sahmira's shields, the force of the blows cratering the ground beneath the two as they blocked.

The members of the family struck at the arms when they could, though it was moving so quickly that those chances were few and far between.

She looked to her right to see Ithshar's squad in much the same situation, though they seemed to fare better.

Sahveth took blows from the limbs on his shield as though he was sparring with an apprentice, the other two bouncing around between the limbs, striking at the core. Ithshar was in the back, away from the fight, with her eyes closed—preparing something, undoubtedly.

Julia glanced down to see the third horror spinning—not its core, but its legs.

The legs spun about the core so fast that she couldn't make any individual arm out, and it battered the wall with an unbelievable fury. She wasn't sure whether this was another test, or if it was actually going for a breach.

Regardless, she cast her Spatial Coordinates spell, drawing its attention for just a moment before it resumed smashing the wall.

She cast the same spell twice more, and each time she cast, it drew the respective horror's attention for the briefest of moments.

Those moments were enough.

Ithshar snapped her eyes open the instant the horror's attacks slowed, its attention on Julia. She flipped her hands to be palm-up and made a motion like flipping a table over.

A gout of white fire burst from the ground, but unlike normal fire, this coalesced into an extremely bright wave before flying toward the horror.

The horror shrieked a terrible cry of damned souls when the fire struck, but it did more than damage the horror. The fire itself seemed to have mass, as it pushed the horror just enough to destabilize it, flinging four of its six legs into the air.

Jallis and Elulis smashed their weapons against one of the two remaining limbs, causing it to fly over the edge of the wall. Sahveth grabbed the tip of the final leg, and with a great heave, threw it over the battlements, launching the horror into the air.

The Thornalûn used a similar approach, all piling up behind Sahmira and Sahira, who pushed against the creature's core with their shields.

Selûneth was the only member of the family to hang back, holding their hands against the floor of the wall. Julia couldn't see clearly, and it happened so fast, but whatever she did caused the floor to become slicker than ice—did she draw the oil out of it like the wall's surface?

The horror slid back, flailing its limbs uselessly as they failed to find purchase, before it was sent flying into the air.

Both horrors flared their limbs, knowing there was no way to control their descent. They seemed to be attempting to alter their descent trajectory, but Julia didn't care much what they did.

"ReLEaSe," Julia spoke, though the words were becoming increasingly indiscernible to anyone but her.

The Etherium fragments that were gathered and floating between her hands suddenly ignited, releasing the energy they stored.

"CoAlESce," said Julia, the words transitioning fully into a language that only she understood—only she and the World, perhaps.

The brilliant kaleidoscopic light from the Etherial energy gathered and swirled between her hands, one cupped palm up, the other cupped palm down above it.

Julia began something reminiscent of a chant as the energy swirled and mixed, becoming increasingly bright—the rainbow of colors shifting to pure white.

A swirling wind kicked up around her as she began to rise. Her feet left the ground, her body rising diagonally off the wall. She was now floating over open space above and in front of the wall, all three horrors in sight, as the two that were airborne impacted the ice, cracking it and nearly plunging right through.

Julia didn't realize it, but her eyes began to change. Her already-blue irises began to glow a vibrant, sky blue, and her dark pupils glowed a bright white, as though the sun itself blazed behind them. And still, she chanted in the language only she knew, the words echoing across the battlefield like the dictations of a divine.

Two of the horrors launched off the ice—the same two that jumped to the wall—aiming to take Julia out of the sky. The third stopped its barrage of the wall, as though it sensed impending doom. It began to lift the core out of its center, pressing it against the wall. A purple glow shone through the eyes and mouths of the faces, now visible on the core as the bone armor fell away.

Several things happened simultaneously in the next instant.

Julia finished her chant, shifting her downward-cupped hand atop the glowing ball of energy into an open palm held against her chest before pushing the ball of energy with it, as though pushing it away from her.

The energy split into three, searing beams of energy, which moved as fast as a lightning strike. They passed straight through the three horrors, seemingly doing no damage. However, a crack appeared on the one pressing its exposed core to the wall, and it began spewing a viscous purple liquid—or was it energy—over the wall.

The purple energy-goo coated a huge section of the wall, including the part of the battlement where she and her squad had been standing mere moments ago.

The sky which was lit up by the energy Julia had contained went dark in the next instant, the light retreating from her eyes, and the energy sent to complete its task.

Three columns of intensely bright light suddenly shot into the air, vaporizing the three horrors like insects that flew too close to a fire. The towers of light lit up the night brighter than the sun, forcing everyone in the area to cover their eyes.

Julia canceled her gravity to remain stationary in the air, taking stock of her men and squad. They were all accounted for—it was ironically fortunate that they all split in different directions to confront the bone horrors, as that had kept them out of range of the purple goo.

As the light started to fade, leaving behind gaping holes in the ice below, Julia saw the purple goo begin to sizzle, and the wall began to shrink as though it was melting. It sagged and groaned, as if under a great weight, blobs of it dripping and slopping down to the ground.

Her Sight saw it all—the life energy contained within the core of the horror had all been ejected before her spell struck, and it was tainted with the unlife of the Nashiin. It tore through the life energy in the wall, consuming it and converting it to align with its wicked purpose. It was like rot tearing through a plant, contaminating and changing as it spread.

Julia realized suddenly that it would spread unchecked unless she intervened. This must be a trump card of those horrors—they sacrifice themselves, losing the Nashiin a siege weapon—but they obliterate nearly any blockade in their way.

She quickly flew down to the wall, the short time the flight took already seeing the wall reduced by half its size, and she began to channel her mana. The energy for the spell to remove the bone horrors had fortunately been donated by the Etherium, so she was still topped up on her own mana.

She scanned the wall, realizing it would be prohibitively difficult and mana-intensive to remove all the corruption from the entire section of wall, and she made a difficult decision—she'd have to give up part of the wall.

She flew over to an untainted section of the wall and cast her lightning into the wood. It shot down into the structure, where she began to spread it out like a blanket, covering the cross-section of the wall completely with her consumption intent.

She did the same on the other side of the wall and landed atop it.

All she could do was watch helplessly as an entire chunk of the wall dissolved, the corrosion stopping at her magic barrier, where it threw itself against her will like a living thing. This was fine for her, as it saved her the trouble of having to scour it all away.

The horrors had fallen, but an entire army of Nashiin now approached a wall with a gaping hole in it—and Julia had just used her trump card.