More hideous beasts bounded toward me, and I superheated an Untamed Torch with Flame Empowerment and shot a series of fireballs in quick succession as they closed in. Each one blasted a hole through a demon and added its smoking remnants to the piles of corpses surrounding me.
The constant use of techniques started to wear me down, and I felt my limbs become heavy with fatigue. I still had more Vigor in the tank, but I couldn’t use it if my body was too exhausted.
I felt something cool touch the back of my neck. I glanced around and saw Kumi standing behind the shelter of Vesma and Kegohr. She had two of her water skins open and was directing their contents with the Song of the Sea. The water flowed through the air, forming a cord that connected me to Kumi. Down that magical connection flowed the healing power of water. It restored and renewed my spent energy, giving me enough strength to continue channeling.
For a moment, the waves of demons attacking me subsided. It didn’t seem that the fear of death was enough to deter them, but the fallen bodies were making it harder to get through.
The Augmenters in our force were using whatever powers they could to deal with the demons. The air was thick with dust from Sandstorms and the smoke from damage done by fire techniques. The earth beneath my feet trembled as repeated Ground Strikes ripped through the market square, sending demons hurtling in every direction. Tahlis disappeared and reappeared all over the battlefield, taking down three or more demons every time he showed his face above ground.
Mahrai’s golem was stamping toward the barricade. She was on its back, clinging on with one hand and using the other to fight with her staff. The weapon had turned to stone thanks to a flow of earth through it, and when it hit the demons, it caved in skulls and snapped arms. But there were so many of them that it was impossible for Mahrai alone to clear them, and the press of their bodies kept the golem from reaching the barricade.
“Batter up!” I yelled.
I flooded my earth channels with Vigor and stamped my foot on the ground. A Ground Strike shot out from me and through the demons blocking the golem’s path. As those horned, twisted bodies flew into the air, Kegohr and Vesma, alerted by my shout, launched blasts of Untamed Torch into the flying targets like they were shooting clay pigeons with spells instead of shotguns. Demons exploded or melted beneath the heat of their hits, and black ooze rained down across barricade.
The golem strode through the gap I’d created, stamping on a fallen demon as it went. Others tried to block the way, but Mahrai batted them aside with her empowered staff. Together, Mahrai and her golem reached the barricade, and the stone giant started tearing it apart, lifting up barrels, tables, even wagons, and flinging them aside.
Getting through that barricade was going to be critical. These demons weren’t coming out of nowhere; they’d been summoned by the priests within. The longer we stayed trapped out here, the more of them would come. If we wanted to end this, we had to get past that barricade and into the palace.
I cut down two more demons as they charged. The power running through me, the electrifying burn of Vigor from dozens of techniques used in mere minutes, was exhilarating. I felt as though I was made of magical energy, a being of pure force acting upon the world, making it my own.
But that was the thinking of the Straight Path. This moment wasn’t about me; it was about everyone I fought beside.
I climbed onto a heap of enemy corpses and called out to Vesma and Kegohr. Once I had their attention, I pointed to a section of the barricade.
“We need to blast a way through!” I shouted. “Use your flames.”
Without my order, the initiates lined up to either side of them and used Ground Strikes to hold back the waves of demons. Protected by these junior guild folks, Vesma and Kegohr were able to focus on the problem ahead. Both summoned large, intense balls of fire and launched them. As each one shot out, I used Flame Empowerment to make it larger and more powerful. The fires hit the barricade, and sections burst into flames.
“More!” I shouted.
Again we called upon the element of fire to tear into the heaped wood holding us back. The flames grew, and a chunk of the barricade collapsed in on itself, but we still didn’t have a way through yet.
Ganyir shoved his way past the soldiers holding back demon attacks. He raised his fists, and his whole body started to tremble. Then, the ground beneath his feet shook as he unleashed some technique I hadn’t seen before. The shaking spread, an earthquake that radiated from Ganyir in every direction. Soldiers sank to one knee or leaned against each other to keep from falling, while demons went sprawling on the ground. But it was when it reached the barricade that I saw the technique’s real effect.
All along its length, the barricade trembled, and pieces started to fall. Chairs went sliding down the backs of heaps of furniture. Loose planks fell away from carts. In the burning section, blackened timbers collapsed into heaps of ash.
Around the square, buildings shook. Shutters banged against walls, and doors rattled in their frames. Tiles shook loose and crashed down in the street. The only thing in sight that wasn’t shaking was Mahrai’s golem, a
