Leon Stoneshield, son of a cadet branch of the Stoneshield family, looked upon the horde bearing down on him and despaired. He was in charge of defending evacuating civilians from the residential quarter. To aid in that, he created walls behind the vacating civilians to slow the demons. He was in his full kit, his surcoat proudly declaring his Order for any who saw it.

  The militia and guard he fought with stood alongside him as rearguard. Even the militia fared well against the gibbering horde. They were awful fighters. The demons had strength, speed, and damn sharp nails, but that was the extent of it. There was no skill, not even cunning, in their wild swings. Even their feints, the thing they did best, was an incidental result of their uncoordinated flailing. All told, it was only their numbers and disregard for their own lives that gave them their advantage. Why wouldn't they? Every kill fed their master's power, and death was just an inconvenience. They would scream and gibber again.

  "For Lady Biyu!" came a shout as a soldier struck an imp dead. Leon knew better than to be distracted, but the shout was so out of the blue that he turned to stare at the man. The beatific man looked back at him with eyes of blazing white fire. His spear was semi-translucent, an ethereal thing that should puff into wisps of smoke. The soldier—no, it must be a Knight of the Holy Lances—saluted before throwing himself recklessly back into the fight.

  A soldier's head was slashed with a lucky strike of claws, gouging out deep gashes in his skull and leaking brain matter. The Knight made a grasping move as it thrust its spear into the imp's open stomach mouth, piercing it clean through. That was the last of them, the wave of demon spawn slain. The blazing eyed soldier knelt over the dead man, and whispered. Leon kept an eye on the suspicious Knight while the soldiers and Knights salved injuries and prepared for another wave to come down on them.

  The dead soldier's body convulsed. The wounds that slew him closed up. White fire blazed from his eyes, and the corpse rose up while Leon's stomach sank. Leon prepared his spear, ready to face this new threat. The body stood, and a gossamer spear appeared in its hand. Seeing Leon, the recently dead raised his spear in salute. "Death to the Demon! This battle for Lady Biyu!"

  Other watching soldiers, wary and ready to face a threat in their midst, were put off at this declaration. One of them, a woman Knight, asked him carefully, "Gerard, is that you?"

  The undead turned to look at her with a small smile. "It is, Jenny. I could prove I'm myself, but… I'm dead anyway." Leon turned to the risen corpse he had thought was a Knight, who'd moved on to the next dead body.

  The necromancer gave a sad smile over the dead body, and bowed his head. "You have the right of refusal. We commend you for falling in duty. Not one of us will condemn you. Be at peace." He stood, turning away from the still dead soldier.

  "You aren't going to raise him?" asked Jenny, who kept an eye on both of the revenants among them and for the approach of demons.

  "Joining us is a choice. They're free to refuse." It was Gerard who answered. "Our god demands you have that right. She discourages any from joining our ranks. Another chance to protect the city and your loved ones, but the price might be the Heavens."

  Leon felt his ulcer flaring up. He looked after the necromancer, who was walking away, intent on another battle in the distance. Gerard remained with them, his eyes burning intently as he remained vigilant.

  "Your god is Defender Elderwoods?" he asked. He hoped the answer was no. He knew it would be yes.

  "Lady Biyu is our god." Gerard followed the rearguard as they fell back now that the civilians had been evacuated. More demons were coming.

  "What is she a god of?" he asked bleakly. Obviously, she was a death god. At least the Imperial Government would destroy her, once they learned of it. The Empire had a history with death gods, and that history extended back before the Three Kingdoms to the settlement of the Southlands. It always turned out badly. First, for the people. Then, for the petty god.

  The man frowned. "Retribution and redemption of the dead," he said. "That's what I was told. But I don't think I'm either of those, Sir Leon."

  "What do you mean?" Leon asked.

  "Well, I'm a guardian spirit, aren't I?" the dead man asked.

  Sir Leon frown, trying to piece that together. "So, what, she's the god of Lost Souls?" he asked.

  The man laughed. "Perhaps she is?" He nodded the way the other undead had gone. "He was a vengeful spirit before. Not sure what he is now. All righteous indignation and bravado."

  Leon pressed his lips into a line as he used [Create Wall] on the stone of the road. Another barrier rose up to slow the imps, giving the civilians more time to leave the winter city.

  "Dammit, Lady Chelsea, I fuckin' told you so."

  Richard's stoic figure stood within the bailey of the fortress he'd constructed. His task had been to lead the Guild Tradesmen in building shelters outside the city, along the roads heading north, south, and east. In his Order, he was closer to being a Tradesman than a proper Knight. He could fight, and he was good at it. At heart, he was a craftsman. His Path was that of the Engineer. On the battlefield, his responsibilities included building forts, earthworks, and redoubts. He was one of the few in his Order who had a technique for producing water. It was intended to for filling moats or turning a field into a quagmire.

  When commanded to prepare a place for the people of the city to take shelter in, he decided to center his forts on a large stone keep. Not a project to build in a day, they had passed it off as maneuvers, with Guild Tradesmen and soldiers brought in as his assistants.

  Three rings of thick walls surrounded a bailey intended to be large enough for them to mount a defensive force without being too choked, but limit how many enemies could fill it before they would trample themselves. The keep was a large, multistory building with no entranced. He had smoothed them over once the people had been brought in, along with the temporary gateways. Tradesmen would do the same in the other fortresses.

  The fort wasn't made for a prolonged siege. It was too small to comfortably keep the number of people held within. Drinking water filled a prepared cistern, but there were no food stores. The walls were thick and there were small, curved passages to provide air. Winter wind blew, drawing air through the narrow holes, keeping the air within the fortress fresh.

  Richard waited with the Knights and soldiers. He held his tower shield and spear, ready to stand alongside the soldiers against the demons. Not as grand a Knight as Lady Chelsea, with her focus on pressing the attack; alone if needed. Not as stalwart as his fellow Knights, who could stand as a bulwark for their fellows. However, he would defend his fortress with the other soldiers and Knights.

  Over the wall clambered the imps. He had a sense of the damage they had done to his walls. Not a technique, but rather long experience with [Reinforce Wall] had made him sensitive to changes in the technique's mana. The long nails of the imps were able to work their way into the stone, forcing cracks. The walls were crude, made with speed and size as the priority. The reinforcement allowed the walls to stand, and did little to improve their defensive capabilities.

  The guard Knights used their ranged skills to pick off the imps climbing the wall. Bullets of stone, fire, and a few spider webs flew up to harass the imps and knock them down. Those who fell were carefully dispatched by the soldiers, their spears striking before falling back before more imps could fall on them. He called off the Knights, having a better idea for how they could use their techniques.

  Richard reformed the battle lines. They readied their spears and shields to receive the enemy. Down clambered the imps to reach the souls lined up before them. At his order, the Knights flung their power against the walls once more. They aimed high, striking the imps just coming over the wall, dropping them down on the imps below. The imps burst into clouds as they crashed into the ground, their bodies too frail for a fall from that height.

  That didn't last long, as the horde reached the ground and ran for them. They met in a clatter of claws on shields and impaling spears. The thralls were untrained, their sharp nails wounding through armor, but rarely landing a decisive blow. The militia had done their drills, and were able to keep the foe back with their spears. The guards were well-trained, and each managed to efficiently kill the imps that reached them. The Knights, better armored and armed with techniques, fared better. They took a thrall with every strike of their weapons, whether enhanced with a technique or not. Richard worried the guard Knights burned through their mana far too quickly.

  Training in Richard's Order instilled this: In a prolonged fight, it was easy to exhaust your mana pool and become a liability to your comrades. One of the Knights fell for that reason, slain by an imp before his technique activated. With him dead, the demons had forced a break in the line. Richard created a wall to fill the gap. The soldiers reformed their ranks around the wall, briefly put off step. The undisciplined thralls suffered from the surprise.

  The fight raged on, and more of the men surrounding him died as he did his best to support them and command the fight. Knights exhausted themselves, and for a moment Richard despaired that the line would fall and the imps overwhelm them.

  This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

  A figure crested the wall, dropping into the courtyard behind the demons. It was a warrior in ethereal armor with eyes of white flame. It lifted its translucent spear as it shouted, "For Lady Biyu!"

  That's not a poison aspect ability, he thought, dumbfounded at its battle cry. Rallying the troops with him with his own battle cry, "Protect the people!", he renewed his fight against the imps before him while the newcomer pressed from behind. The newcomer attacked with mediocre skill, but the imps' attacks bounced off the ethereal armor. Sometimes the armor broke, and the warrior, a female, grimaced. Sometimes she landed a heavy blow, impaling a pair of imps. She dismissed and summoned her weapon rather than pull it free.

  The single reinforcement was enough to turn the battle, and they cleaned up the last of the imps with few additional losses. The newcomer walked over to them, pointing to a few of the soldiers. "You, you, and you, see the healers, or you will die." The soldiers show no injuries that Richard could see. "I patched you up, but you're still… gravely? Gravely! You're still gravely injured. No healing, and you die."

  The men did as the stranger bid, seeking the healers kept at the back. The stranger turned its attention to the dead, and walked among them. It spoke in whispers to each. At one, it reached out for the body.

  "What are you doing?" Richard demanded.

  "Gave him a choice. Go on to be Judged, or stick around and protect the city. He chose protection."

  "Animating the dead is disgusting," he said. It was a simple, obvious truth. All the Empire agreed.

  "You won't let him protect his people?"

  Richard almost snapped an answer, but he forced himself to think it through. "I will," he said at last. "But not by using a dead body." He used his technique [Shape Earth] to create a body of clay. It was dark red, and shaped to look like a man in armor. "Use this."

  The girl stared at the body, then at him. "Don't know if I can do that. I'll try… if it doesn't work, you must let me use the body."

  "Try," he said. He wouldn't agree to the alternative. The spirit frowned at him, suspecting he was tricking her, but she placed the soul in the clay.

  It moved slowly, ponderously. Lifting a hand, it frowned at its fingers. "Too soft," it rumbled wetly.

  He wondered if a technique like this would work on a possessed object, but he used [Dirt to Stone] to change the clay into tough pottery. For good measure, he added [Reinforce Wall]. The techniques took hold, although the reinforcement was designed for slabs of stone and the result was meager.

  The possessed pottery soldier moved slowly, shifting and working its body. As it practiced moving itself, the movements smoothed out. It moved its arms and legs in practiced stretches, and the stiff joints flexed with greater ease each repetition. Soon the motions were lumbering instead of sluggish.

  The spirit of the woman eyed the risen man. "I've got three more who want to fight," she told him. "I'll leave them with him, since he knows what he's doing now." Something passed between the spirit and the pottery soldier. The spirit turned to leave.

  "What's your name?" Richard asked the spirit before it could go.

  It paused, frowning at him. "I'm Hotaru Twicedead."

  "I am Sir Richard of the Order of the Stone Circle. What do you mean, twice dead?"

  "A man in a tower killed me. The bastard Lady Biyu killed." Anger filled her voice as she mentioned him, and the flames in her eyes flickered black. "When Lady Biyu let me help fight, I got into a body with a mind. I took it, so I could fight! I also remembered him, including dying. So, I kinda died twice." She paused, tipping her head. "It made sense at the time?" She beamed at him. "There's a fight, so I must go!" She was off.

  "Will you make us more bodies?" asked the pottery soldier.

  Richard wondered if this counted as necromancy, but… was it wrong if the soul volunteered? In the end, he justified his decision by focusing on the fact he was just making statues. He had nothing to do with them being possessed. Absolving himself of wrong doing, he made three more statues. Wary and nervous soldiers eyed the pottery warriors.

  That was until one of them walked over and gave a familiar greeting to a group.

  "Walt?" one of them asked.

  The statue's fake lips twitched in an attempt to smile. "Yeah, that's me, Jones."

  They talked. Instead of putting people at ease, their confusion only grew.

  When the demons came again, the pottery warriors stood vanguard, separate from all the others. They served to break up the horde, forcing them to either go around or be broken. Their hard bodies were difficult for the imps to damage, and stopping them required they be completely shattered. The pottery warriors were slow but strong, smashing the imps easily while the soldiers and Knights managed those who made it past them. They reduced casualties, and this time the pottery soldiers declared the soldier who would die without treatment.

  Chelsea defended the east road at the base of the knoll, at the crossroads of the inner ring road. Even the demon would find the palace complex difficult to assault. Steep in all directions except east, that meant she defended the easiest point of access. No one expected the demon to assault the palace, at least not in the early stages. It would seek to claim more power from the northern residences, or maybe from the city nobles and their servants from the south. Those lucky enough to flee the merchant quarter east out of the city would look like a meal ready and waiting in the slapdash fortress Sir Richard had built. The nobles had their own entourages and formations to protect them in their homes until they could be evacuated to the fortress to the south. Sir Leon was among the Knights helping to evacuate the people from the residential quarter, leading them north out of the residential quarter.

  They city would soon be abandoned, leaving the people they could not evacuate to the rampaging of gods. She had already seen Lord Lance from the Holy Lances striking the behemoths in the distance.

  Lord Herbert was with her, spearing an imp before waving away their foul stink as they puffed into smoke. A pair of soldiers had fallen back from the merchant square to them. Their eyes burned with white fire, and in their midst wounded soldiers recovered to fight once more. They'd been told that they weren't healthy or healed, just patched up. Three of them were told in no uncertain terms to seek healing. She had sent the three hiking up the hill to the gatehouse, where the Healers had been stationed.

  Lord Herbert eyed the fire eyed warily. "Do you know them?" he asked Chelsea when they had a quiet moment.

  "No. Why do you ask?"

  "Those men are dead," he said.

  That caught her attention. "What do you mean, they're dead?"

  "They're possessed. I've heard stories about guardian spirits, but they're supposed to be rare. What are the chances of two Lost Souls possessing bodies to fight a battle against demons?"

  She thought about it. "If guardian spirits are a real thing, then I guess pretty good? When else would they show up in numbers?"

  Lord Herbert scowled, ready to argue, but he had to concede her point.

  "Who are you protecting?" Chelsea asked one, deciding there was no point in guessing. They weren't hostile so far, so why not ask?

  "The city," replied the spirit she addressed. "We accepted the Deal."

  She felt her stomach sink. A sudden premonition held her tongue from asking the obvious question. It couldn't be true. How could it be true? Lord Herbert asked on their behalf.

  "Who'd you make a deal with?"

  "Lady Biyu, through her agent Hotaru Twicedead. We could stay, defend the city, and be damned, or we could go to Judgment." He shifted, nerves showing. "We were encouraged to pick the latter."

  "Lady Biyu offered you the choice?" Lord Herbert asked. "My sister married a fucking necromancer!?"

  Chelsea snapped out, "Your sister is dead." He glared at her, but he didn't argue.

  The flame eyed man looked at them dubiously. "She's a god. My god now, Lord Herbert."

  There was silence.

  "Did you know about this, Lady Chelsea?" Lord Herbert asked.

  "No. What do you mean she's a god? She's far too weak to be a god."

  "Here I stand, ready to defend my city, even though I have died." He blinked, and twisted to look north. "Seems my time is up," he lamented. Wounds burst across his body, more than enough to kill a man twice over, as he collapsed to the ground. His companion burst into blood, flesh, and broken bones.

  Lord Herbert stared at the bodies.

  "What was that?" he asked at last.

  "My cousin is going to tell me 'I told you so'," Chelsea sighed, having no answer for Lord Herbert. "Still, this doesn't make sense." Her brow furrowed.

  Lord Herbert watched as the sky opened up, and a ball of sparking, molten rock fell from the sky and into the merchant quarter, destroying a block of buildings. The sound came moments after the scene, along with wind and a shaking beyond sound that rattled their bones. Dust and smoke rolled out from the city as a ball of white fire trailing a long tail rose up from the crater, its own night sky a private backdrop. More falling stars streak across the night sky, one hurtling into the world to wreck another building and the imps within.

  "Father's going to be removed after this," Lord Herbert lamented. "And don't they know their destroying a city?"

  "Probably say it's a noble sacrifice," Chelsea said. She patted the man on the shoulder. "The city'll be rebuilt. Best to think about what comes after for you."

  "Me? Probably learning how to plant wheat."

  With the gods fighting within the city, they fell back to the gate and then the Greater Palace themselves. If there were survivors in the city, they were on their own.

  Anton stood in the courtyard of the Greater Palace. He couldn't fit inside the building, or he'd be in there protecting the people himself. Instead, he held the courtyard with the palace guard. A few men were distracted by his presence, an erect Saurian holding a spear a fearsome sight for Humans. He leaned on his stout spear, using it to help him balance, as he kept a watchful eye open.

  Anton was a bit surprised there were no Reglads in the city. He would have smelled them if they were. This close to the Shadowlands, there should have been a few travelers from the southern beaches. On the other hand, it was cold here. His people could live in the cold, but the land here was higher up than the Shadowlands. Colder. It did get cold in the Shadowlands, but there were hot springs and mud pots to huddles near during the winter months. You'd have to fight the Monsters and wildlife for them, but it was worth it.

  The gibbering things came in a rush, going over the walls and roofs, even though there were soldiers stationed to slow them down. He prepared himself to fight, his eyes watching as metal armor broke under the flailing nails. The weapons held out better, probably because the creatures had no idea how to parry a spear. He unlimbered his spear, and struck the first imp, man-sized, that ran at him. It impaled itself before puffing into smoke that reminded him of home.

  More came, and he worked with his allies, doing his best to avoid blows. But, he was a large creature. One of the strikes eventually landed on his hide. When their nails finally struck him, it was the nails that shattered on his bony plates. Both of them looked on in surprised, and Anton found himself laughing as he struck the dumbfounded demon down.

  After that, Anton waded through the imps with impunity. He used the long claw on his hands to slash the imps, and he took their blows. Their nails scraped and broke on his armored hide. The soldiers cheered him, and rallied around him as the center of their defenses.

  When the imps were dead, and the soldiers had helped clear the buildings, one of them asked Anton, "How are you unharmed?"

  He would reply, if he thought the man could understand him. None of them knew Trade Sign. He did know the answer. They were the half-made. So called because magic didn't work for them… and didn't work on them, either. The thralls were at a severe disadvantage against him with their bodies of mana.