Endless Tide

The closer they got, the louder the drums, until their heads were pounding with a minor headache that matched the rhythm of the instruments.

They stopped in a crowd of fellow Mages, most armored Guards, and others nobles or the rare commoner Mage. The street they stood in was five hundred feet wide and extended to the palace behind them miles away before being interrupted.

To either side, various other streets started, cutting through the city for ease of access. If the attackers made it through here, they'd have thousands of other Mages throughout the city to contend with.

Like the other Mages present, Fate and the others separated so there were about six feet between each other and everyone else. Enough room to do their thing without the worry of harming anyone else.

The wall in front of them was a solid surface with no discernible gate, but Fate knew from word-of-mouth and the Magiweb that it was indeed the "gate" of the town.

Imprints in the stone would make this section of the wall disappear, allowing traffic in and out. The "gate" could also be closed in times like this for a sturdier product than the metal city gates of the past.

Pressed up against the wall were buildings packed together so as to leave little room between them, the structures arching over the "gate" area and leaving it free for foot traffic while still towering over it after a twenty-foot start above the ground.

Each building was taller than the wall itself, providing various Guards with an elevated position to sling projectiles or various Elements at unseen foes.

They also blocked the wall from view near the center of the city, where Fate had mostly stuck to.

They were also heavily reinforced with dozens of Imprints and strong materials, to the point they were sturdier than the stone wall itself, providing a second line of defense should an enemy breach the walls.

While the walls would crumble to someone at the lower Arch-Mage Stage, these buildings would take at least someone at the higher end of the Stage to demolish.

Which is why the enemy was attacking here, where they only had to deal with the weaker stone wall.

Fate spotted a Guard on top of one of these buildings, who was waving down at them to get their attention.

With four lightning-fast bolts of Mana, the Guard connected a line to his head and those of the quartet, his voice speaking into their minds.

"Hold here," he told them. "They're about to breach."

"Who is?" Fate asked. "Who are we fighting?"

"The imps," replied the Guard soberly. "They're here, and they number in the millions." With that, he cut the connection, returning to relaying orders to the Guards.

Imps?

Fate had a hard time believing that they were responsible.

They only attacked villages when they were desperate for food or women to mate with, and were far too lazy and clever to attack a fully-stocked and well-defended city, especially the capital of the empire itself.

But now they had gathered in enough numbers that they felt they could take the heart of Ziobrun?

The whole thing sounded absurd. Who could possibly motivate so many lazy creatures to do such a thing? And that didn't even explain the massive hands in the sky that were fighting a literal Ascended to a standstill.

But Fate's skepticism wouldn't change the truth.

Bang.

The wall shook.

BANG.

Another shake, more violent this time.

BANG!

The wall was smashed in, and a flood of red-skinned imps poured through, gleefully attacking with everything from pitchforks to maces and swords.

Fate recognized the goat-like qualities in many of these imps, and concluded that their mothers had been goats, much like the imps he had killed in the Golden Caverns.

Such a practice was quite popular among imps. They gained the agility and digestion system of goats, and they even gained milk from their captive mothers.

Goats were also easier to capture and take care of, with none of the ribbon-rendering claws of tigers or badgers.

The others had traits of more common animals like abnormal height, cow splotches on their skin, sheep wool around their waists, and pig noses, with a rare few having the hair and facial features of a human parent.

These last ones seemed to be the leaders, and were better equipped in arms and armor – which is to say, they HAD armor, and they had an enchanted weapon each. They stayed at the back, shouting orders in broken English, content to stay back and not work.

Imps would always find ways to be lazy.

The humans handled the first wave with ease.

The citizen Mages without weapons held their fire as the armed Guards mowed down the chaff before moving on to the human-like ones.

Despite their bravado and confidence, the imps were still only Tier III at the highest, and were no match for the Facet-enhanced Master Bodies of the Masters and few Arch-Mages present.

The Guards didn't leave their position or even need their Skills, not that it would have helped anyway with the imps' absorption Blood Skill. The four human-imps fell in short order, their faces still contorted in arrogant sadism as their heads rolled from their shoulders.

But while the Guards were occupied, more imps poured through the opening in the wall and gushed through the side streets and past the Guards.

Fate stepped forward to block them off, but a Guard atop the buildings around them yelled down.

"HOLD!" he shouted. "Let the others deal with them! They won't get far."

So Fate replanted his feet and started swinging his sword at the oncoming imps.

They were an endless tide of red to match the expansive crimson clouds above. Every one Fate felled was stepped over by two others. If it weren't for the other Mages behind him, he'd have been assaulted from all sides.

Even still, he kept an eye over his shoulder and his aura trained behind him as he swung again and again.

All the while, the war drums never ceased.