March of The Dead (MotD)

Evelyn sat in her Order's barracks.

That was the best way to categorize her Seeded, especially since she could not reveal her Soul Seed ability. By calling it an Order of Knights, it would explain their close knit group and obeying one person. It would also give them reason to act on their own, independently from anyone else.

The Galmorian City Lord even gave them a large barracks building despite the increasingly cramped quarters of the city, so long as her Order promised to aid in the city's defense and do a few other duties.

Of course, despite its large size, Evelyn simply had too many seeded. Too much equipment, too much organization, too many supplies. Luckily, some of her Seeded were quite adept at Earth Magic, and with the City Lord's permission, she had them expand the barracks down into the ground, so long as they didn't expand outwards.

With three floors above ground and three more below ground, there was enough room for everyone to only share a room with three others, including all their equipment.

As the head of the order, Evelyn had her own room, as did Luke just next door. Though at the moment, he sat across from Evelyn in her room.

"They are asking about you again." Luke said, not bothering to look up from the mess of papers on the desk separating the sofa from the two lounge chairs.

"I know. Emma told me."

"Then you also know they are only asking to be polite. The Order is becoming strong quickly, but they could still barge in without much trouble."

Evelyn sprawled out on the sofa, "Yeah. I know."

"You are going to have to talk to them eventually."

"I was kinda hoping they would be called away before then."

"What duties? They volunteer."

Evelyn grumbled, going silent for a moment before quietly asking, "Do you think they know anything?"

Luke looked up momentarily from his papers, but soon returned to them, "I doubt it. They might have been his best friends from childhood, but a lot has happened since then, even before Onigas."

"Yeah but Mike is a smart guy, maybe he has some way to track him?"

"He doesn't. I'm not doubting his ability. He even helped me locate my father when I got curious. But Alaster can teleport pretty much anywhere he wants, any time he wants. He has no need to eat, drink, or even sleep. And to top it all off, he has that ability that even the System seemed scared of."

Evelyn sighed, knowing all of this. She had thought of it all before, and talked about it several times with Luke. But that did not stop her from hoping.

"What do you think they want to talk about?"

Luke put down his papers and looked at Evelyn sternly, "Evelyn, you know exactly what they want to talk about. They want to either go out and look for him, or bury him."

Evelyn sat up, "But how can they bury him if he is still alive!"

Luke slowly stood up and walked around the table to sit beside her, pulling her into a tight hug, "Eve, we don't know if he is. We don't know if he is the same person if he does live. And we don't know what he is doing. He destroyed Onigas, the city he cared most about. He killed Humans as they tried to flee. He held the woman he loved as she died because she couldn't be healed because of something he did. He has been gone for years, doing who knows what, if he is even alive."

Evelyn sniffled, "He is still alive. He is too powerful to die without making a ruckus."

"But if his body still lives, what about the person inside it? After all that, its not a stretch to think that he changed so drastically that he can't even be considered the same person anymore.

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Evelyn, its been two years. You can't keep holding onto the slim chance that will come back. A chance that becomes smaller every day. Its time to move on. Focus on the things you can do. You have an army of people devoted to you. Stat-wise, you are on par with a Master. There is still a war going on."

Evelyn pulled herself tighter into Luke's embrace, "You're right. Just…let me stay this way for a little while longer."

Luke smiled softly, rubbing her back, "Whatever you need. I'll be here."

* * * * *

Far to the west, where gentle green hills and dark forests gave way to craters of mud and scars of nature, Zalar continued to hold back the tide of Demons that sought to tear them apart.

Laborers never stopped moving, hauling the massive and highly volatile cannisters from their storage and charging ports deep beneath the earth to the large Mana Cannons atop the walls.

Cannons that never seemed to stop firing, each one creating another insult to Nature's beauty and reducing even more Demons to paste and parts.

Engineers kept the cannons in working order, only being given a few moments between cannisters to repair or replace components.

Select Mages used obscure and random spells to calculate the distance to the Demons and what angle to put the Cannons to.

The top of the walls was an anthill of constant activity, but there was a certain order to it. The same could not be said about the trenches down below.

A maze of dead ends, tight corners, bunkers, traps, and pools of muddy water and blood much deeper than they appeared.

At the foot of the walls, closest to the city gates and next to the field hospital, Golem Mages kept their various types of Golems working and armed before going out in small units to reinforce the soldiers. Their durable and powerful support helping to keep multiple flanks from falling.

The Golems ranged drastically. Some only slightly taller than a normal soldier, armed with Mana Cannons that fired multiple beams in a scattered pattern in one hand, and a large dagger in the other. Their weapons replaced their hands, removing the risk of dropping them while also making them much easier to control in the cramped chaos the trenches regularly devolved into.

Others stood as tall as buildings requiring entire teams of Mages to keep them running but could transform multiple muddy trenches into fiery hellscapes or flatten them entirely.

The most common type, however, were large enough for the Mage to ride inside it, using the Golem as a form of augmented armor. These types of Golems had a wide assortment of weapons that could be quickly exchanged depending on the situation or Mage's preferred choice.

Though the most common loadout was a thick steel tower shield that could cover most of the Golem's body, enchanted to be more resilient against Magic. This shield was usually paired with a short shovel with a sharpened edge, making it effective against both armor and flesh alike while still having the utility to quickly dig more trenches or bunkers. And to top it all off, shoulder mounted Mana Cannons, designed to either fire a single large blast to remove priority targets, or designed to fire a series of smaller blasts meant to clear a large area.

Unfortunately, due to their power, the shoulder Cannons required more Mana than the Golem could provide, requiring external charging and therefore limiting the Golem to only a single use before needing to return to the Golem Depot and replace it with a charged Cannon.

Yet despite the power and versatility of the Golems, the true fighting force within the trenches were the common soldiers, armed with short swords, shovels, clubs, and a rifle.

The fighting was far from clean or honorable.

In the muddy and waterlogged trenches, there was only one rule.

Survive.

When the melee inevitably began, in the tight confines of the trenches, more died to drowning and being stepped on than to a weapon.

Claire hated looking over the walls to see it. She was just glad that by finding the 'blueprints' of the ancient weapon, and reinventing the rifle, she was able to reduce the frequency of the melees.

Though, as both a blessing and a curse, she rarely had the time to venture up the walls and watch.

She spent her days deep in her research lab and foundry trying to create better weapons, better armor, and even better Golems, alongside other researchers, enchanters, and smiths. An army on their own. Sometimes going weeks without breathing fresh air above ground.

Yet nothing could have prepared her, or Zalar, for what the Demons would do.

The Coalition was desperate to conquer Zalar. They knew just are delicate this stalemate in the war was. They knew that the different Human forces were too far from each other, too separated, to provide aid to each other. And they also knew that the Humans had some way to relay basic information amongst each other. They knew that Zalar had become a beacon of defiance against the Coalition.

So they sought to destroy it.

If the Three Kingdom Alliance to the East fell, it would be devastating to the Humans, but the Humans would simply look to Zalar even more. Zalar for war, Galmore for peace. But if Zalar was the one that fell? Human morale across the entire continent would fall.

That is why they sent so many to be cut and blasted to pieces against the Zalarian defenses. If they broke Humanity on the surface, they could begin migrating their own citizens to this world and gradually breakdown the Monsters of the Deep. But if they did not send so many soldiers to the Deep while they attempted to conquer the surface, the Deep would come to the world above to defend it.

The War Masters were holding multiple threads delicately, while still constructing new ways for their people to survive and win.

And one such method had finally bore fruit. One such method that could defeat Zalar once and for all.