Heralding The Arrival

They hauled themselves into the van unceremoniously, wheels spinning long before butts had properly settled, human forms donned once more for John's companions for the sake of transportation. Lord Brighton had been calling orders out over the radio from the community center to the parking lot, not a moment wasted from door to door.

"I admit, I thought we'd have at least a short while to rest before being thrown into the thick of it." Moira's lips twisted into a grimace, one hand clutched possessively around the shield and hammer shrunken back to their necklace form.

"Well, I've been wanting to stretch my legs since we left Springfield. Guess this is as good as any jog," Lerianna said with a shrug.

"Have we heard anything from the Forgotten Legion since we left?" John's eyes darted out the windows, eyeing the Barriers and the roads to the south behind them as their vehicle swung northward. "Between the constant stops, the meeting with the council, and now this…"

"If they are unable to make the journey, then it would hardly have been worth bringing them along as allies in the first place," Kim remarked sharply. "They practically invited themselves along anyway."

"Well, it's their home too," John murmured.

"There was likely more to it than that, but-"

"But now's not the time for worrying about people who aren't here to knock these resurrected freaks around," Adantia cut in. Her body was leaned back, but the lines of her muscles and tendons were tense, and John could see the way her metal cables were thrashing around in a contained Barrier below the vehicle, even while burrowing to keep up. "I'm used to working on these battlefields alone, not with half a regiment in tow. What's our entry plan?"

"A fair question." Lord Brighton hemmed and hawed for a moment, scratching at his mustache. "The safest course of action would be to unite our forces with those of the adjacent Barriers being invaded, reinforce their positions, and work together to collapse inward on the infested Barrier. We don't know what sort of conditions they'll be in, though, or how they might have reinforced the Barrier in the time they held it undetected—or worse, how they might have trapped it."

"I have the greatest chance of going undetected," Kwang offered. His calm demeanor was gone; the posture was the same, but it was all tempered steel now. "I could infiltrate the Barrier, determine the extent of their forces, and report back what I find within."

"You're also one guy going up against what could be an entire army," Adantia pointed out. "Would be better for me to go in, but if they've warded it, the only way I'm getting in is to smash the whole thing. That gives away our position and risks collapsing the whole thing, which might take the other Barriers with it now that they attempted a merger. You think you can get someone else in with you?"

"I fear my ability to conceal my own presence is far stronger than any power to veil others. I doubt that I could slip one of your power through the gaps in even a rudimentary Barrier, let alone keep them from discovering you the moment we were inside."

"Vallya, you were quite adept at such matters, were you not?" Kim's eyes shifted to the shimmering Star Guardian, a respectful acknowledgment. "You were able to conceal us quite well against the Albidians."

"I was indeed. Though I'm better at illusions and hiding presence than slipping into Barriers." Vallya shrugged, not bothered by the admission. "I wasn't able to hide us completely from someone like Adantia, but I'm sure that I could handle a few mediocre necromancers. It might take me a little while to figure out the Barrier, but I can manage it."

"No good. If you go poking around without knowing what you're doing, you'll just alert them." Etriyya shook her head firmly. "Detection is basic, subtlety is advanced. Might as well ring them up and let them know you're popping in for a visit."

"What about the idiot?" Adantia suggested. She didn't adjust her posture, yet every set of eyes save hers fixed on John, a fact he didn't particularly appreciate. "The way you took over that Trap Barrier wasn't half bad. Think you can do it to this one?"

"I-I don't know. There aren't really any rules to it," John admitted. "Most of the abilities I get from the Shard of Bishamonten are actually pretty vague. Assuming nobody is stronger than the Shard itself, I don't see why not? But it overwrites the Barrier with its own effects, and I'm not sure if I can preserve them when I dismiss it."

"Better than leaving a gaping hole in the line when the whole thing comes crumbling down. If all the Barriers fall, not only are we going headfirst at a wall of undead, but they can call in reinforcements on top of us." Adantia shrugged, and this time she did fix John in her unseeing gaze. "Right now they can only reinforce their own position, and they can't ignore the Barriers without risking us popping out if their living mages push too far ahead."

"We get John inside of sector four, wrest control of the Barrier, and then collapse in on them with our full might." Moira nodded as she laid out the plan. The van took a hard right turn, yet despite the ****, the Warden hardly swayed as they swung around and decelerated. "That's risky. We'll have to send a **** with him powerful enough to hold back a trap, and to hold their own until the forces from the neighboring Barriers arrive."

"I will ensure that John Newman remains safe, if we are discovered," Kwang offered.

"Yes. We will," Kim emphasized.

"We most certainly will." Sophia matched Kim's glare. Shishun didn't speak aloud, but her spine stiffened as she sat up a little straighter.

"That might not be necessary," Vallya said. One finger raised, but it was her tails that flicked toward John, dancing against his shoulder. "The Barriers are partially merged. That's why you were worried about collapsing the whole line, right? What if John takes control of more than one at the same time? That way, he wouldn't have to get in past whatever ambushes or enchantments they have waiting."

"These Barriers are already the biggest that the Fateweavers left in the alliance could make. I don't want to kill the poor kid trying to twist them together and take control." Adantia laughed in an amused way, highlighting the smug grin she pointed at John. "Didn't you just tell me you weren't going to push yourself too hard? Something about dying? How big of a Barrier can you even make with that thing?"

"I don't know," John admitted. "It doesn't list a maximum size."

"Well, how much mana does it drain?"

"It doesn't take mana to maintain. Actually, I don't think it takes any at all. My normal Barrier ability costs a little when I activate it, but not this one." John caught the lift of Adantia's brows, began a shrug, then thought better of it. "I don't know. Maybe the Shard is fueling it?"

"Kid, get the fuck out of the car." Adantia shook her head as their transport rolled to a stop. "We're gonna put that trinket of yours to a real test. If this works, I might actually not regret bringing you along."

The back door opened to reveal the Barriers in question no more than a hundred yards away. The line defining them as separate had blurred a little in John's vision; he could see the place where they changed slightly in size, but the edges had become rounded, smoothed together.

"One on the left," Adantia clarified as they started to march.

Lord Brighton and Moira led the way. Moira's shield was in hand, hammer at the ready. All eyes remained trained on the Barrier to their right as they went, and for good reason. Fifty feet from the boundary lines, reality rippled, and a rushing wave of bones and flesh emerged, so tightly packed that John had a hard time telling where one corpse began and another ended.

The attack was sudden, but its end was truly abrupt. Cables whipped like lightning, shattering bone and rending flesh. Lord Brighton led the charge, reaching the front lines before the rest of them. A heaping behemoth of putrid, stapled carcasses burst in an arc, spraying brown sludge across the landscape when Lord Brighton's hammer burst its innards into outtards, and the swing of the long-handled tool collapsed three more risen creations before he had to draw back for another strike.

"The Lady binds us to our homes!"

Moira's shield lit with a brilliant light as it was driven into the ground. As she lifted it, a spiderweb of golden cracks emanated forth, shooting past Lord Brighton and fanning out over the ground. They erupted with holy energy shortly after, and all the splintered bones and sundered flesh which Adantia had rent apart – much of which was already beginning to creep back together or hobble on toward them – was blasted into dust or rendered inert, its dark magic eradicated by the Lady's blessing.

John and his companions barely had to perform cleanup duty, only catching a scant few half-eviscerated corpses and one-legged skeletons that had sprinted ahead fast enough to avoid the worst of the onslaught. But that was enough to give John a few very important notifications. His eyes locked on the last one to pop.

+30 EXP!

"...Oh. Oh shit."

John did get experience from defeating other mages – probably any human, but he had no desire to test it on mundanes – but he had never really benefited from it enough for it to become a factor in his mind. He was often at maximum level in major conflicts, and they’d always been short engagements with low body counts. He’d also been unsure how creations and summons factored into the mechanic, but it seemed that at least these unholy corpses counted for experience gains. And against hordes of reasonably leveled enemies like those the necromancers would be using, the amount of experience they could gain would rival a dungeon, albeit without completion bonuses…

"Change of plans." John's voice was confident and firm as he turned to face his creations, already regrouping with him as the last foes fell. "Sophia. Shishun. Vallya. I'm removing you from the party."

"What?! You can't be-"

"Father, I don't-"

"Master, please, have I-"

"You're still going to be fighting. I still want you by my side." John held up a hand to silence the reflexive protests he knew would be coming. "I'm just removing you from the party. All of you still get experience even when you're not in the group, we know that from the times you've trained alone. Probably part of being one of my creations. But Moira, Kim, and Etriyya don't."

Understanding dawned in their eyes, with Vallya's shining the brightest. "You're swapping them in to include them?"

"Exactly." John steadied himself in the way he always did when announcing something that rattled old insecurities. "You three are the most mobile. Sophia and Vallya can fly, and Shishun has her Lightning Jump. I'll still have your rings activated for communication, but without you in the party, I won't be able to see your health bars. I want all of you to know your limits, play it safe, and stay close to the group. But I'm trusting all of you to handle yourselves out there."

"Of course. We won't disappoint, Father."

"I won't let you down, Master," Shishun added. Her tail jittered with the **** of a body wound tight by devotion.

"John?" Moira strode up, all business, gesturing to the Barrier which had not yet dumped a small morgue's worth of bodies upon them. "We need to get moving before they conjure another wave."

"Right. We'll handle it once we're inside." The urgency wasn't exaggerated. They allowed the rank and file of the Order troops to go first, leaving their strongest until last to guard in case of another intrusion. None arrived before they, too, had slipped into the safer Barrier, but there were ripples forming in the distorted space's exterior as John stepped through the one across from it.

As John stepped from one stretch of reality into another, his senses were assailed immediately. Wretched, vile smells lingered in the air, so maliciously noxious that he was grateful his brain was too busy processing the clatter and clamor of a few dozen blades clashing against steel and bone. The alliance's soldiers were outnumbered ten-to-one and waging a **** battle against the tides of undead flowing across the Barrier's boundary.

The boundary itself was a sludgy thing, like looking onto the other side through a sheet of ice, or a mountain of glass shaped like a melting ice cream sundae. The other side was heavily distorted, showing only a fluctuating mass of endless bony whites and sickly snot-greens.

The Order knights that had crossed over first were already wading into that mess, blades drawn, the Lady's golden light shining on their armor. John was worried about confusion, about the **** mages assuming this was an ambush, but he saw no signs of conflict or friendly fire between the newly arrived mages and the defenders. Whether Gerry had alerted them or they were merely willing to accept aid in any form, he didn't know—and he didn't care.

"Moira! Kim! Etriyya!" John was able to catch each of them in turn, and not a moment too soon; Kim had already tensed to enter the fray herself. "Accept the party invite! You three can still get stronger from this!"

"What?" Moira's mind was elsewhere, already on the field of battle. She took a moment to process the question, hesitating even when the notification deployed in front of her. Kim had no such qualms, and John suspected just hearing the words 'you can still get stronger' was enough to get her to accept whatever message he might have sent.

"Knew we brought you along for a reason." Etriyya gave him a smile that was more thankful than her words as she, too, joined in. Moira finally spared the mental power to process what he was suggesting a second later, a nod of understanding passing between them before she turned away and charged to join her soldiers.

"Well?" Adantia's voice came from beside him, impatient and irreverent, as always.

"If I invite you to the group, we won't get any experience," John explained reflexively. "We-"

"Not that, you idiot! The Barrier!"

"Shouldn't I wait until we have this side under control?"

John's question was surely a valid one, but Adantia rolled her eyes at him as though he'd asked how to tie his own shoes. A moment later, two cables burst from the ground, their ends split apart into a thousand little strands no wider than a human hair. They whipped and thrashed wildly just beyond the line of scrimmage, far enough to avoid shredding apart their own warriors, but close enough to completely decimate the forces pushing against them. No experience was gained, but a massive advantage in the momentum of the fight was.

"There. You happy? Take control, and I'll take the fight to them." Adantia crossed her arms and gave him her best glare. "Come on. These Barriers are huge—don't hold back. Show me what you can do."

"Alright, well, here goes nothing," John muttered. "I don't really have any experience with controlling the size, so just... hold on to your butt."

"Pass, thanks."

Activating his techniques was always a question mark in John's understanding of reality. The sensation was a blend of conscious thought and the subtle, terrifying feeling one experienced when their muscle memory took over, when their body began to work faster than their mind could fully keep up with.
Altering that activation felt like reclaiming manual control in the middle of that action, or trying to regain traction when a car began to slide—fragile, faltering, each tiny alteration causing a reflexive over-correction that could spiral out of control at any moment.

Things certainly spiraled, and John couldn't claim to feel particularly in control, but the results spoke for themselves.

There was an actual texture to the process this time. John didn't simply receive a notification. He felt a pulse of mana reverberate through him and then into reality beyond, reshaping the fundamental structure of the landscape around them. A hint of crimson tinted the blue hues discoloring physical space, washing over the land with reckless abandon flavored by a hint of raw, unsatiated fury. John began to feel a stretching sensation within his mind, as if the nervous tissue therein was being elongated along with his mana, pulled like taffy across the distant miles.

It continued past the partially merged divide between Barriers, removing the film of distorted light that seeped through the adjacent mana constructs. It rolled over the countless horrors beyond, bringing them into a sickening clarity.

And then it just kept going.

John felt impacts resonate within him. No less than four, each weaker than the last, but undeniable. It was a bizarre sensation, as if his soul was colliding with a brick wall—and coming out victorious but still noting the impact each time.

Adantia's gaze shifted over time, and though he didn't know why, it seemed to shift in time with the blow to his spirit. The second brought a tweak of one brow, an acknowledgment of something he didn't understand. The third brought a questioning look pointed his way. The fourth, Adantia's eyes widened slightly—impressed, but unmistakably aggrieved in the same breath.

"Alright, alright, point made." Adantia patted him on the back with enough **** to break his concentration, and the Field of Judgment notification finally emerged. His mind pulled taut like a bowstring, but the sensation of stretching remained, a tensile presence that was just tolerable enough to fall short of a headache.

"I- I wasn't trying to make a point. Did I go far enough?"

"John, you–" Adantia fell silent when a ringtone sounded. Her hand flickered and a phone appeared in it, the movement too quick for John to be sure if it was a retrieval spell or mere speed. "Yeah?"

"Adantia, what the hell is going on out there?" Gerry's voice was loud enough to be recognizable even without being put on speaker. "We just lost control of five Barriers, all centered around–"

"Yeah. Got a little carried away. Barriers are secure, don't worry about it. If there are any necromancers here, we should have them trapped, too," Adantia interrupted smoothly. "Get your Fateweavers some rest and pull in the rest as clean-up crews."

As the conversation went on, undead poured over the now-evaporated divider. Cries of shock arose from their allies. John's family and the Order ran forth as one, weapons raised, to meet the surge of foes now cresting through the unprotected opening. Of course, their position clustered entirely around the Barrier was as foolish a position as it was intimidating. Nearly a quarter of their undead foes were destroyed, eviscerated beyond fighting capability, or simply battered and tossed aside by the spraying arc of tendrils that burst forth once Adantia's surprise had faded.

Gerry's voice had faded in the meantime, not enough to be silent, but enough that John could no longer make out the words. Adantia ended the conversation without fanfare as the thrashing of her steel cables intensified under the renewed focus.

"You okay?" Adantia's concern was so removed from her usual snark that John didn't realize she was addressing him at first.

"Fine. Little... snug?" John questioned. One eye crinkled with half a wince. "Could've kept going, though. I think."

"Yeah, you just snagged five Barriers from multiple Fateweavers. I'm fine with stopping there." The sarcasm returned, now that Adantia seemed convinced he wasn't about to keel over. "Have to admit, I'm almost impressed. Kinda bullshit you don't even have to fuel this with your own mana too. How long can you hold this for?"

"I don't think there's a limit? The strain isn't getting worse, I don't feel burned out, just–" John stumbled for the word, and found it with ease that relieved him, made him think he was right about not frying himself with the effort. "Learning my limits. Without meeting Ereshkigal this time."

Adantia's eyes widened at that, in the sort of wary way that made John think she couldn't tell whether he was serious, and had strong opinions about both answers. "Yeah, well, let's agree to save that for another day. You good to fight, or do you need me to watch over you?"

Experience notifications began to ping in and out of existence around John as Kim, Moira, Etriyya, and Lerianna carved a path into the decimated undead. John's hand tightened around the hilt of his blade.

"I'm good," he vowed. The Shard of Bishamonten throbbed in his chest. His new scar, his only scar, throbbed across his abdomen.