Chapter 590: Neverending Battle

How many hours had it been? How many blows had they traded? Kai had been fighting the Deepclaw all across the Frontier, crushing many lesser monsters in the battle, and he wasn't sure whether or not they were at a stalemate.

Their strength was about equally matched, but he was a lot more mobile and could always take to the air for a new angle. Now that he'd grown used to its thrashing movements, he could avoid any devastating hits and get the upper hand. But the Deepclaw was better at moving underground than he was, so it could retreat and punish him if he tried to follow.

It couldn't continue like this. Or rather, it could, and every hour it did Kai wasn't able to help the others in their critical battles all across the Frontier. Yet so far, his attempts to break the balance and finish off the Deepclaw had only dealt temporary injuries at best.

When it emerged again, claws gripping the earth to leap at him, Kai plunged straight down. Attacking the front, where it could deploy so many of its claws, was usually an error. But it had a small mouth of jagged teeth that he hadn't tried to target yet.

When he collided with the Deepclaw, it immediately slashed at him, drawing several more lines of blood. Kai winced, unable to simply shrug off the blows, but he'd been prepared to take that damage. Instead of striking back, he put as much as he could into Void Gaze.

That froze the Deepclaw, its claws halting around his body. The technique was getting less effective and its eyes burned angrily at him.

But it lasted long enough: Kai exhaled Baleful Breath directly into the monster's mouth.

He kept going, filling it with flames and darkness. The Deepclaw let out a screech as it burned from within and managed to break free of Void Gaze, striking him across the face and sending him tumbling. Kai had almost grown used to smashing against the ground and managed to skid to a halt, wisps of fire still escaping his mouth, as he looked to see the results.

At first he thought that the Deepclaw had finally gone still, and smoke wafted from the body. But even as he limped toward it, the Deepclaw began to twitch, then pulled itself upright.

Not enough. Not yet.

.

..

.

Zae Zin Nim was pulling the head off a monster when she realized that the sun had gone down.

She wasn't sure how long ago sunset had been, actually. Ever since she had reached Earth Soul, her cultivation had given her extraordinary senses, and her Pure Yin Shroud enhanced her body in many ways. So fighting in the dark was no difficulty for her, and the slow change in light had gone unnoticed.

To buy herself a little time, Zae Zin Nim hurled the head and body in separate directions, knocking down more of the monsters. She noted that the stars had come out, hard and bright overhead. How many others were still fighting with her? There weren't very many fires along the wall anymore, and she remembered there being a lot more earlier in the day.

Based on her sense of the souls, she didn't think that the defenders had been overrun. Presumably they required rest and even sleep, and she had to admit she couldn't fault them: even Zae Zin Nim had been worn down by the endless hordes.

Only in the very beginning of the incursion had she unleashed her full power like she was fighting a short battle between cultivators. After that, she had switched to more cautious attacks, focusing primarily on the more dangerous monsters who the defenders couldn't defeat. There was a mix of acid cultivators, weak crystalliers, and ex-slaves on the wall, so they could handle a few, but they regularly needed her help.

Then, with her reserves ebbing, Zae Zin Nim had waded in physically, which was what she was doing now. Even if her qi was limited, the Blackblood Physique combined with her Pure Yin Shroud made her extremely physically strong. She could take apart monsters like these with her bare hands, and did so.

By now the monsters had recovered from her blows, which put them at mid-range, which was her strongest. She stepped in toward the first two who approached her, connecting with parallel palm strikes that sent both backwards as dead projectiles. Another monster leapt from the side and she spun underneath it, slapping the side of its head with one sleeve hard enough to kill. Others closed in from behind and she continued her turn, pushing off one head to throw her palms into more monsters.

Whenever possible, she still fought with grace and dignity, avoiding the beasts throwing themselves at her. They were unlikely to actually harm her, but she didn't want them to damage her clothing. Kai might look very impressive coming out of a pile of monsters half-naked... the effect would not be the same with her.

Perhaps she could have saved a little energy by moving less gracefully, but Zae Zin Nim stuck with her training and the patterns she had repeated most often. Besides, her body didn't feel weary at all, the exhaustion was solely her energy reserves. She thought she could fight this way for a very long time indeed.

Not forever, however. Normally she could turn amid a mob of such weak monsters without taking a blow, but a crab-like creature attacked from behind, its claw clamping down around her waist.

Zae Zin Nim stared at it in surprise: the claw couldn't harm her, but she had actually been taken off guard. That could only be explained by mental fatigue, from hours of continually controlling the melee around her.

There were monsters rushing toward her now that her arms were bound, but they only rushed to their deaths. She pushed out her arms, breaking the crab monster's claws, and kicked in the chest of the first dog-like creature attacking her. The others died to her whirlwind of blows, which was really just buying her space to look around more properly.

Soon enough Zae Zin Nim found what she had feared: in her fatigue, she had missed a larger monster that was now crawling up the side of the wall. The defenders who weren't asleep could hold off some, but this creature was moderately large, a toad-like beast that unleashed flames from its mouth to harass the defenders. This was a case acquiring her assistance.

Given the problem of attrition, however, she couldn't simply annihilate it with raw power. As she returned to the wall, Zae Zin Nim considered an alternate strategy that would let her resolve things with minimal energy loss... the solution turned out to be surprisingly straightforward.

When she charged the monstrous toad, it saw her and prepared to unleash another flame. Zae Zin Nim ran directly into it, forming a Coldfire Corona around her. Bursting directly through her attack let her reach the monster and finish it off with a single palm strike instead of engaging in a longer fight that would waste time and stamina.

Her strike not only connected, it made the monster explode in a shower of fiery goop. She was extremely grateful that her Coldfire Corona protected her from this as well.

Some of the Krysali defenders said things to her, but they weren't telling her about anything important or asking for help, so she barely acknowledged them. Truthfully, she did not like this part of the defense, always working alone near strangers. Combat along with her spouses could be enjoyable, but this quickly became an exhausting chore.

A chore that, if left undone, could kill everyone who mattered in Krysal.

When light appeared on the horizon, Zae Zin Nim stared at it for a time, trying to figure out what sort of attack it was, before she realized that it was the sun. She had fought until dawn. As she looked over the battlefield, she saw piles of bodies... most of them monsters, and the wall still intact behind her. That was victory, wasn't it?

Of course, there were hundreds of sections of wall just like this, so her victory alone was insufficient. But the elites had said that they basically never succeeded in the defense of a portion, instead needing to retreat as the incursion continued. She had not only held a reconstructed section, she had drawn a disproportionate number of monsters toward her and eliminated them, drawing pressure off everyone else.

There was something flying toward her, and again, it took her a little time to realize that it was a Krysali ship instead of some strange spiky monster. Who was that in the ship? An armored Krysali, though she recognized the armor's style as Aeglien of Torleen, and Yurwa behind him. Odd combination.

"You've done well," Aeglien said as the ship hovered down beside her. He hurled a crystal shard to finish off a nearby monster, but there was little left to fight. "We didn't think you could hold the center."

"What now?" Zae Zin Nim asked. She could still fight, but her head was oddly thick and talking sounded wrong.

"I'm afraid we need to retreat. You held... but the other two damaged sections didn't. There are concentrated hordes pouring into Krysal to the north and south."

She stared at her section of the wall, blinking slowly, trying to make her mind engage. "If we go," Zae Zin Nim said, "the monsters will break through here, too."

"That's an acceptable loss," Aeglien explained. "The rebuilt sections didn't hold well against even fairly average monsters, so they aren't worth anything we can't rebuild later."

"Mm. I will stay and keep fighting."

"Zae Zin Nim, please." It was Yurwa this time, as she moved to the edge of the ship to implore her. "You've been fighting for too long, you need to rest."

"I..." She wanted her spouses, but Zae Zin Nim realized that the other woman was correct. The longer she went on like this, the less use she was to anyone, especially if a real monster showed up. "What... happens now?"

"The evacuation bought us time," Aeglien explained as he offered a hand to pull her into the ship. "We have some squadrons and even elites in the abandoned cities, using them as fortresses to thin out the hordes. Your defense also means the central horde will be delayed, compared to the northern and southern ones."

"And?" Zae Zin Nim meant to sit beside Yurwa and ended up leaning against the other woman, struggling with an odd heaviness in her eyelids.

"We'll defend the other city-states as necessary. But to do that, we need you at your best..."

He trailed off as he realized that Zae Zin Nim was falling asleep.