The beasts were tireless. Rabid in their fury, they ignored the slaughter that fell on them, uncaring of the twisted and broken forms of their fellows that were left littering the frontier.

  Without a moment to rest, Kaius was in constant motion. No matter how much stronger he was, forcing the creatures back was an endless endeavour — one that stretched his teamwork and cooperation to the limit.

  Through that very pressure, he felt a pressure building in his bond skill.

  It was a familiar sensation — one that he had experienced multiple times before. The skill was about to break through.

  The realisation was stark and sudden enough that it nearly knocked him free of the melding of senses that was pushing his skill higher in the first place.

  Forcing himself to relax, Kaius submerged himself as deep as he could in the bond — feeling Porkchop’s excitement mirror his own. The sharing of their senses was vital to their defence. Automatically, by sheer dint of their familiarity and connection, they had started to avoid paying attention to the same beasts — a move that granted them a more complete picture of the battlefield.

  It was the only way Kaius was able to keep his backline safe. Beasts clambered atop the Pegleg from every angle, forcing him into a state of constant motion. His blade blurred, spraying a constant stream of blood in its wake.

  Constantly circling the deck, those beasts he did not cut down were knocked free. Ianmus and Kenva worked with him, back to back. They trusted in his capability to keep them safe. Focused on one side of their land yacht, they cut down the beasts that were constantly trying to tear into its legs.

  For all their strength; for all their teamwork was a machine of oiled precision, they were not perfect. Their vessel carried more than the blood of their enemies. Dents were strewn across its hull, and more than one of its legs had begun to move just a little stiffer.

  The damage wasn't so severe that their craft was slowed. Not yet, but that moment would come.

  Right as Kaius drove his blade through the forehead of a wolf, he felt a pulse deep within his soul. The familiar ding of a system notification sounded in his mind, and Brotherhood of Ichor and Animus surged, rising with new potency.

  Finally, Finally! His last general skill had broken through into the second tier.

  The change was immediate — every action, every movement that Kaius made was empowered. While it wasn’t an overwhelming increase, it was broad.

  Broad enough that it took three more kills to pin down the changes. He wasn't enough of a fool to split his focus and read its changed description in the middle of battle. None of his sword arts had changed. Initiate's Glyphic Bladerite empowered his blade's enchantments just as much as it always had. And the Mystic Rend he'd used to cut an insectile monstrosity in half hadn't felt any stronger either.

  No. What he felt was a resonance within one of his general skills. Every ability that enhanced his body directly was just that much more.

  “I think I got the inverse.” Porkchop said, though neither of them had taken a break from their slaughter.

  Focusing a hair more of his attention on their melded senses, Kaius could see what he meant. Porkchop’s armour felt tougher, more natural against his frame. Porkchop had taken an unusual direction for a greater beast — the use of armaments.

  His version of their bond skill seemed to have empowered those aspects of his abilities, maybe even his use of artefacts as well.

  No doubt there would be more, but understanding the specifics of the change would have to wait until there weren’t two dozen souls relying on them for protection.

  It wasn’t the only growth that their constant battle had brought. Most of his skills had increased in level thanks to constant use — even his class had nearly reached the point of his next skill unlock.

  Each beast might have been weak, granting only the barest morsel of experience split four ways, but even crumbs could fill someone to bursting if there were enough of them. If they were lucky, they might even reach the point of evolving their next class skills before getting back to Deadacre.

  “I see Ophelia!” Kenva cried.

  Kaius looked up, towards the direction of Deadacre. He spotted the storm mage immediately. Little more than a dark speck against the sky. Ophelia rocketed towards them, her eyes wide in shock. She took in the teeming horde that had surrounded their landyacht.

  “Ianmus, tell the next group to ready themselves to join us on deck!”

  Ianmus nodded, hurrying to the hatch that led below decks. He ripped it open, and Kaius caught a glance of pale faces snapping to the open port with terror-filled eyes.

  “The next group needs to get ready, our storm mage is coming in fast!” Ianmus yelled over the constant roar of beasts. “On our signal, come up on deck as quick as you can — we’ll keep the beasts off!”

  Waiting just barely long enough for the gathered survivors to confirm that they’d heard him, Ianmus slammed the door once more.

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  Kaius redoubled his efforts — this was going to be rough. He’d done a good enough job keeping the deck of the Pegleg clear of beasts, but that was when he only had to concern himself with keeping his backline safe.

  Ianmus and Kenva were strong — strong enough that they could handle themselves if anything slipped past him. More than a dozen fragile villagers was another story — especially when they would be drastically limiting his room to manoeuvre.

  “Think its time for a Starfall?” Kaius asked as he dashed along the edge of their landyacht — hurling three beasts that scrambled at its edge down into Porkchop’s waiting arms.

  “Not yet! Their numbers are still building — as rough as it might be now, it’ll be worse with the next lot. Save it for then.” Kenva replied, her hands a blur as she released arrow after arrow.

  Each and every single one slammed home into skulls, taking a life.

  Kaius looked up — Ophelia was approaching quickly. They had less than a minute to clear some room. He’d have preferred to have more of his second tier spell, but it had been an emergency — he hadn’t exactly had the time to switch out his inscribed spells. Thankfully, Starfall was not the only spell he’d held in reserve. He still had dozens of casts of Stormlash.

  Linked as they were, Porkchop came to the same realisation he did — they needed him to pull away the worst of the crush.

  “Porkchop’s going to pull them away — we go all out the second he does!” Kaius called out.

  His friends nodded. Ianmus’s keyseal brightened enough that Kaius knew he was ready to cast a Preeminent Halo. The mage wasn’t done, gathering more mana for a solar ray.

  “Be safe,” Kaius said silently to his brother through their bond.

  “It’ll take more than Steel beasts to get through my armour, no matter how many of them there are.”

  That might have been true, but no armour was flawless. If Porkchop wasn’t careful, there was a very real chance that he could be brought to the ground by a simple weight of bodies. Even he would be in grave danger if that happened.

  Before he could second guess their plan, a roar resonated from below. Porkchop charged — tearing away from their landyacht. Beasts fell under his paws, bone snapping audibly as his weight and momentum crushed their feeble bodies.

  Spike after spike erupted from the ground around him, spilling blood and fouling footing.

  Yet the beasts only ran around him — fully focused on the far more visible target of the Pegleg.

  Right up until Porkchop roared. Again and again he screamed out his Warden’s Challenge, a defiant call that demanded the beasts face him in battle.

  Kaius physically saw the skill take hold. The creatures might have been somewhat resistant due to the Tyrant’s influence, but simple might and so many activations of the skill overpowered that.

  A chunk of the horde paused, snapping to Porkchop. With a united, baying cry, they lunged.

  He had to act now, before the moment of distraction was lost!

  Kaius slammed his blade home into its sheath, digging deep into Drakthar as Porkchop disappeared into a mound of scale and fur. Twin snakes of stormy fury crackled in his grip. Snapping his spells, Kaius targeted the creatures still charging for the deck of the pegleg — not all had fallen under Porkchop’s sway.

  Again and again he cast, leaving smoking carcasses in his wake.

  “Shattered axles, is Porkchop going to be alright?!” Kenva asked, snapping off a handful of arrows into the mass of beasts. Vines sprouted where they landed — snagging half a dozen creatures each, creating physical barriers that halted the advance of those behind them.

  “He’ll be fine!”

  I hope, Kaius added inwardly.

  Stony faced and focused as he was, he couldn’t deny the flood of relief he felt as a wall of orichalchum arose in the middle of the dogpile. Half of the beasts trying to pin Porkchop were sent flying with a chorus of yelps, revealing the demonic face of Porkchop’s helm.

  Crystal coated one paw. He swiped, cracking bone and clearing himself more space.

  More were cleared when an orb of superheated solar might landed nearby. Ianmus’s spell expanded, vapourising all it touched.

  In between casts of his own spells, Kaius snapped his head around. There were no beasts within a dozen strides of the Pegleg — they’d made a window.

  A quick check crystalised his nervous hope. Ophelia shot towards the deck, hovering above them as mana surrounded her in pulsating waves.

  “Quick!” the storm mage screamed, nervously eying the beasts that chased their vessel. She was a mage without a backline — one focused on maintaining her flight. She was vulnerable.

  Kaius was at the hatch in an instant. He ripped it open, seeing the gathered survivors already waiting on the stairs.

  “Go! Go!” he yelled, grabbing each one by the shoulder and shoving them roughly towards Ophelia.

  Every moment this took was another that Porkchop was taking the brunt of their pursuers' fury. It might have been his brother’s role, but it burned all the same.

  The terrified villagers stumbled across the deck, and Kaius saw Ophelia's spell take hold. One by one, they lifted into the air — letting out surprised yelps to the last as they windmilled their limbs.

  Securing her last passenger, the storm mage shot off without a word — far more focused on ensuring her charges, and her own, safety.

  Before he closed the hatch, Kaius caught a glimpse of the pale faces of the remaining survivors. A dozen of them — each an old and grizzled fighter, still stained with blood from their initial flight.

  They were scared, to the last. Yet there was fire in them. The fight hadn’t left their spirits, and to Kaius’s surprise, he could see relief.

  “You’re not going to let us die, are you?” a grizzled man in his middle years said, staring at him with something approaching awe.

  Fuck. He didn’t know what to do with that.

  “No.”

  He slammed the hatch shut. The battle waited.