The Ironwood club was a brutal, ugly thing. It had no edge, no finesse, no elegant balance. It was a dense, heavy mass of heartwood that weighed almost as much as Rilo.
And in Kenji's hands, it was a executioner's hammer.
He didn't swing the club like a swordsman. He swung it like a man tearing down a wall. Every strike was a full-body motion, driven by the desperate, raging need to protect the garden. He stepped into the swings, his cracked bark groaning, his 3% reserves screaming in protest, and he brought the heavy wood down on the pale, eyeless skulls of the Cavern Hounds with a sickening, rhythmic crunch.
*Crack.* A Hound's skull caved in.
*Crack.* Another beast was sent flying, its ribs shattered.
*Crack.* A third Hound had its drill-jaw snapped clean off, the spinning teeth flying into the dark.
The blood was a problem. It was dark, thick, and oily, and it sprayed with every impact, coating Kenji's bark, making the club slick and heavy. He had to adjust his grip constantly, the sap in his veins struggling to maintain adhesion.
But the Hounds kept coming.
They poured out of the breach in the earth like a geyser of pale flesh and grinding teeth. They didn't care about the dead. They simply climbed over the corpses of their fallen, their eyeless heads swaying, tracking the vibrations of the living things above them.
The first kill zone was a charnel house. Rilo's pits were filled with writhing, impaled bodies, the thorns slick with dark blood. But the Hounds were mindless, and the sheer weight of their numbers was filling the pits, creating bridges of dead flesh that the next wave could cross.
"Funnel them left!" Rose screamed from her platform. Her voice was hoarse, raw from the smoke and the shouting. "The eastern thorn wall is holding! Force them into the narrow passage!"
Thorn was a whirlwind at the edge of the breach. Her staff was not a blunt instrument like Kenji's club; it was a precision tool, striking the Hounds at the joints, the eyes, the soft spots behind the ears. She moved with a dancer's grace, her aged body defying the laws of physics, every step calculated to maximize damage and minimize exposure.
But even Thorn was being pushed back. The Hounds were too fast, too numerous. For every one she killed, two more took its place.
Rilo was on the ground, both hands pressed flat against the earth, the small body trembling with the effort of reshaping the battlefield. The goblin's nose was bleeding, a thin, steady stream of red that dripped onto the soil, but the Cides blood was singing.
The ground shifted. A wall of Ironwood roots erupted from the soil, blocking the Hounds' advance and forcing them left, into the narrow passage Rose had designated. The beasts snarled and clawed at the roots, their drill-jaws grinding against the dense wood, but the wall held.
"Kenji! The passage!" Rose shouted. "Seal the far end!"
Kenji didn't hesitate. He brought the club down on the Hound in front of him, crushing its skull, and then sprinted toward the narrow passage. His legs were screaming, the joints grinding, the bark threatening to shatter with every step. His system interface was a relentless cascade of warnings.
[Integrity: 12%. Reserves: 2%. Core temperature: Critical.]
He ignored it. He reached the far end of the passage, where a dozen Hounds were scrabbling over the pile of dead bodies, and he raised the club.
But he didn't swing.
He drove the butt of the club into the ground, using it as a lever, and he reached down with his root fragment. The connection to the network was faint, stretched thin by the energy drain, but it was there. He grabbed it, and he pulled.
The ground erupted.
Not with roots, but with thorns. A dense, impenetrable wall of Ironwood thorns, each one a foot long, burst from the soil, sealing the far end of the passage. The Hounds that had been climbing over the dead were impaled, their bodies twitching on the spikes, their blood pooling on the ground.
The passage was sealed. The Hounds were trapped.
For a moment, the garden was quiet. The only sounds were the ragged breathing of the defenders and the wet, gurgling hiss of the dying Hounds.
Then, the ground shook again.
The breach widened. The earth crumbled, and a new wave of Hounds poured out, bigger and faster than the first. They didn't go for the passage. They went for the walls. They climbed the Ironwood barricades, their drill-jaws grinding against the wood, their claws finding purchase in the cracks.
"They're flanking!" Rose screamed. "Thorn, the left wall! Rilo, reinforce the—"
A Hound crested the wall and lunged at Rose.
The dethroned queen didn't flinch. She sidestepped the lunge, driving her rusted iron knife into the Hound's neck. The beast let out a gurgling shriek and collapsed, but its momentum carried it into Rose, knocking her off the platform.
She hit the ground hard, her broken arm screaming in protest. The knife went flying, landing in the dirt a few feet away. The Hound, still alive, its neck pouring dark blood, scrambled toward her.
Rose's hand closed around a fallen Ironwood branch. She swung it, catching the Hound across the snout, buying herself a few seconds.
But the seconds were running out.
"Rose!" Rilo screamed, trying to pull the Cides blood back, to reshape the wall, to do something. But the network was overloaded. The goblin was drowning in the sensory input, the screams of the dying Hounds, the groaning of the wood, the desperate, frantic heartbeat of the Ashbloom.
The Hound lunged again.
And a blur of gray and brown intercepted it.
Kenji hit the Hound like a battering ram. He didn't use the club. He used his body. He slammed into the beast, wrapping his arms around its neck, and he pulled. The bark on his arms cracked, the sap spraying, but he didn't let go. He twisted, his joints screaming, and he threw the Hound off Rose, sending it crashing into the wall of thorns.
He turned to Rose, offering a hand.
"Get up," he said, his voice a harsh, grinding rasp. "We're not done yet."
Rose stared at him. The dethroned queen was covered in blood and dirt, her broken arm hanging at a strange angle, her face pale with pain. But her eyes were clear.
She took his hand.
He pulled her to her feet. She retrieved her knife, her grip white-knuckled.
"Thank you," she said.
"Don't thank me yet," Kenji said, turning back to the battle.
The Hounds were everywhere. They were climbing the walls, pouring through the gaps, swarming the garden. The traps were failing. The walls were crumbling. The defenders were exhausted.
And then, the ground beneath the Ashbloom opened up.
It was not a breach. It was a collapse. The earth simply gave way, swallowed by a massive, underground cavern that had been hollowed out by the Hounds. The Ashbloom, its silver leaves glowing faintly, its roots exposed and vulnerable, teetered on the edge of the abyss.
And from the abyss, a massive, eyeless head emerged.
It was the Queen.
The Cavern Hound Queen was a monster. She was three times the size of the scouts, her pale flesh covered in scars and bony plates, her drill-jaw a spinning, grinding nightmare of teeth. She was the one who had been driving the Hounds, the one who had been directing the attack, the one who had been waiting for the right moment to strike.
She pulled herself out of the cavern, her massive claws digging into the earth, and she let out a roar that shook the Ironwood forest to its roots.
The Hounds stopped. They turned, their eyeless heads swiveling, and they retreated, forming a protective circle around the Queen.
The Queen's eyeless head turned, tracking the vibrations. She found the Ashbloom. She found the silver leaves, the faint, pulsing light. She found the thing that the Eldritch wanted destroyed.
She lunged.
Kenji moved.
He didn't think. He didn't calculate. He didn't consider the odds. He simply moved. He placed himself between the Queen and the Ashbloom, the Ironwood club raised, his bark cracked and bleeding, his reserves at 1%.
The Queen's drill-jaw came down.
Kenji swung the club.
The impact was like a thunderclap. The club, the dense, heavy heartwood of the Ironwood, shattered against the Queen's jaw. The shockwave traveled up Kenji's arms, the bark on his forearms exploding, the wood beneath splintering.
He was thrown backward, crashing into the base of the Ashbloom, his vision swimming, his system interface a cascade of crimson warnings.
[Integrity: 6%. Reserves: 0.5%. Core temperature: Fatal.]
The Queen shook off the impact. The shattered remains of the club had barely scratched her bony plates. She turned her eyeless head toward Kenji, the drill-jaw spinning, and she let out a low, rumbling growl.
Kenji tried to stand. His legs wouldn't obey. The bark was too cracked, the joints too damaged. He was a broken sword, a shattered vase, a man who had given everything he had and it wasn't enough.
The Queen lunged.
And the sky turned gold.
A blinding, radiant light erupted from the heavens, cutting through the ash and the darkness, illuminating the garden in a wash of warm, golden fire. The Queen recoiled, her pale flesh burning, her drill-jaw grinding to a halt.
The Hounds scattered, their eyeless heads swiveling, their bodies convulsing in the unfamiliar light.
Kenji looked up, his vision blurred, his system interface flickering.
Five figures descended from the sky.
They were clad in armor that glowed with a sickly, violet light. Their weapons were things of legend—swords of pure energy, shields of crystalline force, staffs that crackled with arcane power. Their system interfaces, visible to Kenji's fading sight, were a chaotic, corrupted mass of violet text.
They landed in the garden, the impact shaking the earth, and the light from their armor pushed back the darkness.
One of them, a tall man with a shaved head and a cruel, smiling face, stepped forward. He looked at the Cavern Hound Queen, at the swarming Hounds, at the broken defenders.
And he spoke.
In Japanese.
"Man, they really weren't kidding about the infestation down here," the man said, his voice casual, amused. "Looks like we got here just in time."
Kenji stared. His mind, reeling from the pain and the exhaustion, struggled to process what he was seeing.
Otherworlders.
Otherworlders with legendary gear and corrupted violet interfaces.
Rose let out a choked sob from behind the barricade. The dethroned queen was staring at the five figures with an expression of desperate, overwhelming relief.
"Reinforcements," she whispered. "We're saved."
The tall man turned to look at Rose. His eyes, hidden behind a visor of violet glass, swept over her broken arm, her blood-soaked clothes, her desperate, hopeful face.
Then he looked at Kenji. At the broken plant-man, lying at the base of the Ashbloom, his bark cracked, his reserves at 0.5%.
The man's smile widened.
"Hey, check it out," he said, nudging one of his companions with an elbow. "The NPCs are fighting the mobs. That's kind of cute."
Kenji's heart, or what was left of it, turned to ice.
The golden light was not a rescue.
It was a death sentence.
[RESERVES: 0.5%]
[INTEGRITY: 6%]
[STATUS: CRITICAL - IMMOBILE]
To Be Continued...