Bog Standard Isekai

The [Dread Knights] pushed through the gap in the wreckage and the Lance held them, but not for long. Already more [Dread Knights] were scaling the barrier. They’d attack from behind, and surrounded, the Lance would quickly succumb. More undead were climbing from a buried tunnel inside their clearing; they would destroy the Lance if the [Dread Knights] didn’t get there first. And it was up to Brin to get them out of here.

Brin had never frozen up in moments like this. It was the same question that it always was: fight or flee. But before, it had always only been his own life that hung in the balance. How was he supposed to choose now, when it was his Lance that would bear the consequences? His urge was to find a way to rescue Brych. But honestly, being dangled in the air by an impossibly powerful mutant bat was actually safer than the rest of them, who had high-level, smart, professional [Dread Knights] to contend with.

The army would be no help. Some were coming over or through the walls, but the undead swarmed the wrecked city and progress was slow, especially because the armies were clearly more worried about each other than the monsters in the city. A few [Scouts] and other braver treasure-seekers were rushing ahead to try to claim the loot that must be buried in the destroyed houses, but those were quickly swarmed by the mass of undead soldiers.

He saw a group of [Knights] breaking through the front gates and tearing through the press of undead. Hope swelled as he realized it was Galan. He had Sir Ectar, Lyssa, and a Lance of his finest with him. But Brin’s hopes soon dimmed. They were going fast, all things considered, but the undead weren’t so easily ignored. Even a level 25 undead soldier might activate a Skill that would delay a high-level [Knight] for a moment, and there were tens of thousands between Galan and the Lance. And not all of the undead were low-leveled. Here and there, he saw a leader at level 50 or even higher.

Galan would get to them. He would do it, somehow, because he was a hero. But it would take minutes, at least five. Brin didn’t think he had thirty seconds.

Cid and Hedrek were shouting at each other. Hedrek was urging him to do something, and Cid was refusing. They must’ve come to a decision, because Cid broke off, and then the rest of the Lance. They left, leaving Hedrek to hold the gap alone.

“N… no!” Brin shouted.

Running towards him, Cid said, “Sir Brin. Hedrek holds them off. The rest of us flee. Those are my orders.”

“We can’t! We have to–”

Cid grabbed Brin’s helmet with both hands. “Those are my orders! Now chart us a course out of here.”

Brin looked at Hedrek. The big [Knight] looked energized, like he’d just been set loose, and he held the [Dread Knights] back. But it wouldn’t be for long. He couldn’t waste a single second that had been purchased by Hedrek’s blood.

Somehow he’d known it would go like this, because he’d already gotten started. He turned his gaze away from Hedrek, and ran towards the undead soldiers running up from the underground tunnel. He’d already started using illusions to confuse the undead underground and prevent any more from coming up this way.

“We’re going down!” he shouted.

The Lance charged the twenty regular undead soldiers, and Brin had to take back what he’d said about even regular undead being able to slow down high-level [Knights]. The Lance, hardened against full-powered [Dread Knights], had no patience for these weaklings. They charged in and through, not slowing their pace as they cut through the undead, and not bothering to finish them off or go back for the ones they’d missed. They ran, and then single file, went down into the tunnel.

Inside was black, but Brin lit the path with barely a thought. He was surprised to find that the tunnels, though short and narrow, were solid constructions and not just holes in the dirt. The walls were painted brick and the floors were tile.

His heart twinged when he thought of Hedrek, heard him roaring in defiance from up and behind. Brin grit his teeth and split his mind, returning the second mind that he’d let go of when the Conduit had broken.

The pain of it sent him to his knees. He puked. An act that had been beyond painful back with his full Vitality now brought him to the brink of death. Then, as soon as it had come, the pain had gone, and Cowl helped him to his feet. He’d taken his burden again.

Main: I don’t dare split again. You’ll have to make a conscious mind.

Brin 2: I understand. I’ll watch over them. No one in my Lance dies alone.

Brin wiped his mouth and then pulled away to run under his own power. Every step bruised his feet and sent waves of burning pain through his legs and back. He didn’t know why he felt so weak, he’d lost his Vitality, not his Strength. He gripped his spear tighter just to test things, and felt the bright pain of his muscles tearing. Yes, his Strength was all there, but he wouldn’t be able to bring it out without killing himself. He was limited to magic now.

Brin sent Invisible Eyes forward in every direction. He did as Cid commanded. He charted a course. Undead who’d been ordered to move through a certain tunnel now found a dead end, turned around, and sought another path to the surface. Or sometimes they tested the walls, found it fake and went through. The Lance made short work of those, but the sounds of fighting always brought more undead, and they had to keep running.

It was a mad dash through the deathly warren, and there was no sanctuary and no reprieve. They couldn’t go up, because there were now nothing but roving hordes up above. They couldn’t go further down, because more undead kept arriving. The army seemed endless. They could only go around and around, with no plan except surviving from one minute to the next.

He saw Hedrek, still fighting the [Dread Knights]. Only five remained; the rest had split off to chase after Brin’s team, but the five remaining were using the undead army to wear Hedrek down while they inched around and waited for the right moment to strike. Brin couldn’t bear to watch this any more. His split mind was there to give Hedrek a living wake; he needed to keep the rest of them alive. The key information here was that many of the [Dread Knights] had broken away, and they were heading towards another tunnel entrance. They'd be aiming to catch the Lance.

They ran on, and Brin directed them towards the path where they'd find the least undead. But as the minutes dragged on, he found he had less and less of a choice. More tunnels were blocked by sheer press of bodies, impassibly full of undead flesh. He realized they were being funneled in a specific direction, but there was nothing he could do but lead them on.

He moved them towards an open room where four tunnels intersected, but only because every other direction was blocked with undead. Brin ordered Cowl to use his maul to collapse the tunnel behind them. Then, together with his Lance, they entered the chamber.

Ten [Dread Knights] were waiting for them. It couldn't be a coincidence. The [Dread Knights] must've had a way to direct the undead.

At least it was only a single Lance. That meant that the older, stronger [Knights] didn’t even outnumber them two to one. This was the best odds that they were going to get.

Brin looked to the left and right, and saw the same hopeless determination in the Lance’s eyes that he felt in his own heart. They didn’t fight because they thought they would win. They fought because they were [Knights].

Cid drew his sword. “Well, what do we have to lose? I may as well try it. Hit me with your brain rot, Brin.”

“What?”

“I’m going to take three breaths, in [Meditation] to lower my mental resistance. Then hit me with that thing that made you go crazy and get good with swords. Jake. Make me Jake.”

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Brin smiled, more of a grimace really. “Alright.”

The [Dread Knights] didn’t wait around to see what they had planned. They charged, half of them doing an actual [Knight’s Charged] to overwhelm them all at once. Rhun and Cowl stood in front of Brin and Cid and stood their ground.

The enemy [Knights] hit them in a clash that made the chamber floors vibrate with the reverberation, but they held their ground. Govannon and Meredydd dodged, while Brych and Anwir… weren’t there.

The pure light of Eveladis flew forward with the charging [Knights]. Three of them had broken bottles of the potion upon themselves at the start. They really weren’t taking any chances. Brin watched with regret as his threads were cut off and his split mind returned. He wouldn’t be there for the end after all.

Cid inhaled.

Rhun made a perfect defense, moving his tower shield with a dexterity that shouldn’t be possible for something so big and awkward, while Cowl flung his maul around in every direction, batting away an unending flurry of stabs and slashes.

Cid exhaled.

Brin called on his magic. He used every last ounce of the glass he’d still been carrying from the city and cast it into the [Dread Knights]. He didn’t care that it didn’t break their armor or wound them. All his energy went into pushing them back, into giving his men another few seconds of life.

Cid inhaled.

Meredydd and Govannon fought back to back. Govannon’s enemies were more cautious now that he could break their armor, and they did all they could to not give him the chance. A [Dread Knight] pulled his spear back a little too far, and Govannon knocked it out of the way. Another blow would let Govannon take the man’s helmet, but right at the same time, Meredydd slipped and went to one knee. Govannon helped Meredydd up rather than take the opening, and the desperate fight continued.

For once, it was Aeron who really shone. While not exactly outstanding in any particular way, he was the one person Brin never had to worry about. He never took a step back no matter how hard the [Dread Knights] pressed, and never endangered his comrades by pressing forward either. When any of his teammates looked close to crumbling, he was always there to push just a bit harder and bring them back in line. It made the difference, granting them the last few seconds they needed.

Cid exhaled.

Brin put everything into his mana, trying to keep the [Dread Knights] back with sheer force of will. He was running low again.

Cid started to inhale. Aeron took a boot to the chest, falling to his back. They were out of time. He’d have to do this now. Brin held a mirror up to Cid’s eyes and unleashed [Say What’s True]. He’d improved his ability to impress Jake 18 onto another consciousness. Finally recovering the split mind from the Zaff fight had increased his knowledge of what it took by leaps and bounds. He gathered all he knew about Blade Mastery, even the things he’d only discovered in the depths of insanity, and pushed it into Cid.

A hulking [Dread Knight] used a surprise [Knight’s Charge] to fling Cowl to the side, where he crashed against the far wall. The huge [Knight] had lost his sword somewhere, but he had a long knife. He stabbed towards Brin, and Brin realized that although he was fast enough to dodge, he still couldn’t. Moving at that speed with such low Vitality would kill him faster than the knife would.

There was a white flash, and the [Dread Knight’s] arm went flying. A second flash, and his armor was rent from shoulder to pelvis. He stumbled back, bleeding freely.

Brin tried to meet Cid’s eyes, to see what kind of insanity lurked there, but he couldn’t tell. Cid wasn’t looking at him.

Another [Dread Knight] dashed forward to take his wounded comrade’s place, and Cid burned a [Knight’s Charge] to meet him. Cid battered him like a pinata, and three more jumped in to gang up on their Prime. Even that wasn’t enough. Cid met them blow for blow. His sword moved faster, his movements more sure. His form was perfect, and most of all, he made it all look easy. Cid walked around the battlefield with unconcerned grace. He stepped off a [Dread Knight’s] swinging mace, then onto the man’s head and flipped down behind him, all the while swinging left and right to parry strikes that would knock down stone towers.

This was the Prime. He kept thinking of Hedrek as the powerhouse, but Cid had always been better than Hedrek, hadn’t he? Brin had forgotten when Cid was struggling under the weight of the Path of the Blade, but now he could see that Cid had reached the end. For the first time since Brin had known him, the System was now working with Cid instead of against him.

A [Dread Knight] used a [Knight’s Charge] and Cid used one as well to meet him in the air. Their weapons clashed and both of them flew past the other to land without injury, though the [Dread Knight] was breathing heavily and Cid was not.

The other [Dread Knights] followed the same strategy and used their [Knight’s Charge], one after another. It’s what Brin would’ve done. They were trying to wear Cid down while making sure not to get in each other’s way–[Knight’s Charge] was strong, but it wasn’t careful. Cid met every one with a [Knight’s Charge] of his own.

Unlike Zilly’s [Dash], you couldn’t really use [Knight’s Charge] to go both in and out of combat. Cid always had to charge towards an enemy, but he could move to the side and past as long as he struck with his sword as he went, and he used that strategy to great effect, flashing across the battlefield and keeping control of his positioning.

A quick, frantic series of explosive clashes later, and each [Dread Knight] in the enemy Lance were panting and exhausted, while Cid looked exactly like he did after their morning run. Which was to say, completely fresh and unbothered.

One hand behind his back, Cid lunged forward three times, each blow sending another [Dread Knight] careening to the ground. When one didn’t get up again, that was enough for Arcaena’s finest. They turned and fled.

Only after they were certain they were really gone, did Cid turn to meet Brin’s eye.

“I’m fine,” Cid said. “I feel good. Situation normal.”

“Yeah, but that’s exactly what you would say if you were crazy and trying to hide it,” said Brin.

“That’s not true,” said Cid, shaking his head in annoyance.

“That’s exactly what I say when I’m crazy and trying to hide it,” said Brin.

“We should press on,” Cid said, and strode forward.

The next part was better, and worse. Cid fought like a legend from a dream, and the regular undead soldiers were like paper people against him. But Brin couldn’t scout ahead any longer, and he couldn’t confuse the undead’s movements with illusions. They were utterly lost amid an endless foe.

Cid didn’t speak much, but of course none of them did. The endless battery of relentless undead left little room for conversation. Brin also held his tongue, because what if Cid was actually crazy? Did it matter? If Cid was crazy and Brin could talk him through it, would he even want to do that? He couldn’t risk this newfound strength.

He didn’t know how long they wandered; he could only keep track of time by the slow drip of exhaustion that gradually wore the Lance down. Meredydd gave up his complicated scythe for the more regular movements of his sidearm. Govannon stopped his sneaky, complex dueling moves and just chopped at the undead like a woodsman making firewood. Even indomitable Cowl gradually loosened his grip on the emotional and physical weight he was carrying for them, which further ground the rest of them down.

He didn’t realize when exactly happened, but sometime down in the depths, he started to realize that they’d done it. They weren’t totally out of danger yet, but they were going to make it. That realization didn’t bring with it any extra energy or motivation. It was the opposite; he just wanted it to be over now, and his tired limbs protested every movement. He couldn’t even fight; with his mana all but empty, he had to leave it to the others who were growing more tired and sloppy.

Only Cid seemed undaunted, and when Brin finally asked about it, Cid nodded.

“I have it. I’m [Inexhaustible].”

Brin used [Wyrdic Inspect], and sure enough, Cid’s Class had changed.

Untiring Knight Captain

After a while, he heard a sound that gave him hope. It couldn’t have been more than an hour or two, because the Eveladis still clinging to his skin would go away after a few hours and he still couldn’t use his illusions. He heard the clash of steel against steel. Someone was fighting nearby, and fighting meant allies.

“This way! We did it! We’re almost out of here!”

The Lance gained a final surge of energy at the words. Cid cleared the path and they broke through the last of the undead. There were steps leading up, and the force of moving up them in his heavy armor made Brin’s muscles tear and his bones creak. He stumbled, gasping, into the sunlight.

A Lance of [Knights] of the Order of the Long Sleep, led by Galan, stood in a ring around the tunnel entrance, protecting the circle from an unending mob of undead.

Lyssa was in the center, protected, and standing next to her was a heavily injured Brych and a very proud-looking Marksi.

“I told you I’d find them!” said Brych.

Brin was mixed with horror and relief at the sight of Brych. He was alive! But he was hurt. More armor than not had been broken or torn away, and he had heavy rents in his clothes and skin. Some had been hastily bound together with strips of cloth while others bled freely. Both his eyes were bandaged, and one bled through the bandage. He smiled, despite it all, to see his Lance alive. Most of them, at least.

Marksi, of course, was totally fine, though he definitely had a story that he wanted Brych to tell.

“We’ve got them. Reverse and press back!” Galan shouted, and the [Knights] began to move.

Before anyone could move, a meteor of golden light crashed down nearby. A wave of golden light burned the undead, scouring the main part and scattering the rest. The fire burned into the [Knights] and they were only saved when Sir Ectar released a Skill that protected them with a magical dome.

The fire passed over them, and then a golden sword pierced Sir Ectar straight through, to poke through the back of his armor. A fellow [Knight] grabbed him and pulled him away, to reveal a figure in golden armor.

Lothar was a [Paladin] again, in power if not in truth. His posture was no longer heroic, his bearing no longer noble. He clutched his face with one hand and gesticulated wildly with his sword.

“Woe unto you my friends. And I do call you my friends, though you have betrayed me. Woe unto you, traitors! Deceivers! Cry out! Mourn! Mourn and rage, for your end has come!”