The Wall of Bone was twenty feet away.
It was a terrifying sight. A solid phalanx of rusted iron shields, spears, and rattling ribs, moving with the unstoppable momentum of a slow-motion car crash. They took up the entire width of the bridge. There was no way around. There was no way through.
"Grab the railing!" Reed screamed.
Kaelen didn't argue. She sheathed her sword with a metallic shing and clamped her gauntleted hands onto the stone balustrade.
"I am holding!" Kaelen yelled. "What are you doing?!"
Reed held up the scroll. It wasn't a high-level combat spell. It was a Tier 1 utility cantrip usually used for fixing squeaky hinges.
But Reed wasn't using a teaspoon of mana. He was using a bucket.
He tapped into the Holy/Void cocktail swirling in his chest—the volatile mixture of Kaelen's light and his own corruption.
[SPELL: GREASE (OVERCHARGED)]
[Target: BRIDGE SURFACE.]
[Area of Effect: YES.]
"Lube it up!" Reed shouted.
He slammed the scroll onto the stone.
SPLAT.
The effect was instantaneous. A wave of translucent, iridescent slime erupted from the scroll, racing across the cobblestones like a flash flood. It coated everything. The floor. The debris. The railing.
It reached the skeleton army in two seconds.
The front rank of skeletons took a step. Their bony feet hit the magical oil.
Friction left the chat.
CLATTER-CRASH.
It sounded like a kitchen drawer full of silverware being thrown down a flight of stairs.
The first row of skeletons didn't just fall; they wiped out. Feet flew above skulls. They slammed onto their backs, sliding uncontrollably forward.
The second row tripped over the first row.
The third row crashed into the pile.
"Strike!" Reed cheered, pumping his fist.
It was a chaotic, bone-shattering pileup. Skeletons were sliding past them, flailing their arms, unable to get a grip.
One skeleton slid past Kaelen on its back, spinning like a top. It tried to grab her leg.
Kaelen, still clinging to the railing, kicked it in the skull.
"Be gone!" she shouted.
The kick sent the skeleton spinning faster, straight off the edge of the bridge and into the abyss.
[EXP: +50]
[EXP: +50]
[EXP: +50]
The kill feed was scrolling so fast it was a blur. The army wasn't fighting them anymore; it was fighting gravity. And gravity was winning.
"It is working!" Kaelen laughed, a sound of genuine shock. "They have no traction!"
"Physics, baby!" Reed grinned, wiping sweat from his forehead. "The ultimate debuff!"
But the victory was short-lived.
BOOM.
A massive skeletal hand slammed into the wood of the bridge, digging deep claws into the timber to find a grip.
A Siegebreaker pulled itself forward.
It wasn't walking. It was crawling. It used its massive arms to drag its bulk through the grease, crushing the smaller skeletons beneath it. It was slow, but it was stable.
And behind it, another Siegebreaker was doing the same.
"They're adapting!" Reed cursed. "They've gone four-wheel drive!"
"My sword will slide out of my hand if I draw it!" Kaelen warned. "I cannot fight that thing on this surface!"
Reed checked his mana.
[MANA: 85 ]
[Status: Draining fast.]
The Grease spell had cost him. He didn't have enough juice to blow the Siegebreaker off the ledge with force.
The monster roared a sound of grinding stone and reached for them. Its hand was the size of a recliner.
"We can't hold them," Reed realized. "There's too much weight."
He looked at the bridge itself.
The central support pillar was already cracked from age. Now, it was groaning under the weight of five hundred armored skeletons and two massive constructs.
Reed reached into his right pocket.
His fingers closed around the heavy leather of the Spicy Purse (Grika's Bag of Holding Bomb).
"Kaelen!" Reed shouted. "How good is your swimming?"
"I am wearing sixty pounds of plate armor!" Kaelen yelled back. "I sink like a stone!"
"Right. Don't let go of me."
"What?"
Reed pulled the bag. He ripped the safety cord Grika had installed.
[BOMB ARMED.]
[TIMER: 0:03...]
"Fire in the hole!"
Reed didn't throw it at the monsters. He threw it straight down, directly at the cracked keystone in the center of the bridge.
The bag hit the grease and slid perfectly into the crack.
0:02...
"Reed!" Kaelen screamed, realizing what he had done. "That will destroy the—"
0:01...
Reed didn't wait. He let go of the railing.
He launched himself at Kaelen.
"Tackle!"
He hit her with a linebacker shoulder check. Since the floor was greased, he didn't just knock her down; he launched both of them.
They slid across the slick stone, straight toward the edge.
BOOM.
The Spicy Purse detonated.
It wasn't a fireball. It was an expanding sphere of scrap metal and force. The center of the bridge vaporized. The stone arch shattered.
The bridge didn't just break; it unzipped.
The Siegebreakers roared as the floor vanished beneath them. They fell into the white water along with hundreds of skeletons.
Reed and Kaelen went over the edge a split second later.
For a moment, they were weightless. The world was a blur of falling stone, screaming wind, and flailing bone.
Reed grabbed Kaelen mid-air. He wrapped his arms around her waist, locking his hands. She grabbed his collar, burying her face in his chest to shield herself from the debris.
"I got you!" Reed screamed over the roar.
"You idiot!" Kaelen screamed back.
Then, they hit the water.
SPLASH.
The impact was brutal. The river was freezing due to the ice melt from the mountains. It knocked the wind out of Reed instantly.
They went under.
Darkness. Cold. Chaos.
Reed kicked, trying to surface, but Kaelen was heavy. The plate armor was dragging her down like an anchor. She was thrashing, panicking.
She's sinking, Reed realized. She can't swim in that.
He tightened his grip.
[ABILITY: OVERLORD STRENGTH (PASSIVE)]
[Status: ADRENALINE SPIKE.]
Reed kicked harder. He dragged them both upward, fighting the current and the weight of the steel. His lungs burned. The Void inside him hissed at the contact with the running water.
UP.
They breached the surface.
"GASP!"
Reed inhaled a lungful of spray and air. Kaelen coughed, clinging to him so hard her gauntlets bruised his shoulders.
"Kick!" Reed shouted, spitting water. "Kick your legs!"
The current was ripping them downstream fast. Debris from the bridge rained down around them—chunks of wood, stone, and splashing skeletons that sank instantly.
"The shore!" Kaelen choked out, pointing a trembling hand.
A bend in the river. A gravel bar.
"Hold on!"
Reed swam. He used every ounce of mana he had left to reinforce his muscles. He dragged the Inquisitor through the churning rapids, dodging rocks and bone.
They hit the gravel.
Reed hauled her up onto the stones. He collapsed next to her, coughing up river water.
They were alive.
The bridge was gone. The army was washed away.
But as the adrenaline faded, the Cold returned. And this time, it brought friends.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
[Status: HYPOTHERMIA (CRITICAL).]
[Status: VOID WITHDRAWAL (SEVERE).]
[Mana: 4 / 150.]
Reed shivered violently. The wet velvet coat clung to him like icy skin. The Void Shard in his pocket felt like a block of dry ice against his hip.
"We..." Reed chattered, his vision tunneling. "We did it."
Kaelen rolled onto her back. She pulled off her helmet, gasping for air. Her hair was plastered to her face. She looked at the ruined bridge upstream.
"You blew up... Authority property," she wheezed.
Then she looked at him. She saw his lips turning blue. She saw the violet light in his eyes flickering out.
"Avatar?" Kaelen sat up, water streaming from her armor. "Reed?"
"Cold," Reed whispered, curling into a ball on the wet rocks. "Battery... empty."
Kaelen looked at the dark forest. It was night. It was raining. And the "Monster" who had just saved her life was dying of exposure.
"Damn it," Kaelen cursed softly.
She grabbed him by the collar and started dragging him toward a small cave opening in the cliff face.
"Not yet," she grunted. "You don't get to die yet."