"Curtis! Get back here now!" Luke shouted, and for once, Curtis listened, joining Luke in killing a cluster of dwarves, allowing Luke to see to his own injury.

  With The Healer's Moment on cooldown and time being at a premium, he decided to flood the injury with healing mana. Only then did he realize how bad his head was throbbing. Checking his interface, Luke found his mana far too low. Even chugging a mana potion only put him at a third of his maximum. He didn't have enough to waste it brute-forcing his wound closed, so he got some practice using Threads of Mana and Needle of Life on himself while moving and bearing the pain as best he could. It was a much slower process, but he got it done with decent results.

  Only then did he allow his focus to drift as Curtis, himself, and the still-surviving defenders fell back. There was no sign of Halsem anywhere. As far as he could remember from the battle thus far, he hadn't spent all that much mana, and even healed all of Curtis's wounds without wasting any.

  This meant something else had used his mana. It had to be when he used Weaver's Grasp to steal that dwarf's weapon, and from using his healing skills to attack rather than mend wounds. He should have realized this before, but now that he knew, he'd do well to take care of how he used these attacks going forward.

  Even in full retreat, the defenders fought their way back. Warning bells tolled, and several houses were on fire. Screams rang out in all directions. Wherever Luke looked, the red eyes of dwarves lurked on the darkening streets of the outpost. The dwarves were destroying light gems wherever they went, chopping down with their axes to crack the precious stones. Curtis’s light orb had long since run out. It didn’t take a tactical genius to understand what was happening. The outpost would not stand much longer.

  “We have to get out of here,” Curtis said, his voice strained from exertion.

  A handful of defenders followed the two of them. Luke pointed west. “We’ll run back toward the portal. Milla and her people should be close by now.”

  “Unless that first blast took them all out,” Curtis said, turning to slash at a leaping dwarf who’d waited in ambush on a rooftop.

  Luke side-stepped a chopping axe, and the attacker fell to a defender’s spear. “Don’t say that!”

  Curtis shrugged and nodded toward the western gate. “Let’s go!”

  They reached the gate and found it broken, both doors torn down. The guards were dead, even the one in the tower. Dwarves were entering through there. Beyond them, a vast number of dwarves milled about, their attention divided between the outposts and what Luke figured were Integrated coming from the portal. Spells lit up the cavern, explosions tearing into the dwarves, the sound bouncing off the bare walls as the battle continued.

  "What do we do?" Luke asked. "There are so many of them."

  Curtis stepped out in front of him, heaving. His heavy sword trembled. "We'll have to link up with others. This dirty little village is falling apart."

  Luke couldn't disagree with that, but saw no way to get through. A large number of dwarves separated them. The Integrated were making great headway with their numerous spellcasters, and even if he didn't hear her words, he saw the chain lightning spell Penny used on the Flesh Hounds spreading through a large segment of dwarves, all of them dying. She'd come after all.

  "How?" Luke asked.

  "I'll cut a path," Curtis said. "Just stay behind me."

  "My savior," Luke said, his voice high-pitched in a mock tone. The precariousness of the situation was getting to him, and he let out a nervous laugh as he chugged another mana potion. Defenders were holding dwarves back as best they could, but they'd soon be overrun.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Let's go!" Curtis didn't even give them a glance before he set off, activating a skill that made shadows surge around his body, dripping off him to pool on the ground wherever he went. Once again, his sword turned black, and he charged forward faster than Luke thought possible, lugging that massive sword around. Sprinting to keep up, Luke sidestepped blows from the ranks of dwarves closing in and even blocked a few with his staff.

  While Curtis was a killing machine, he still sustained injuries. Multiple cuts, scrapes, and even a slash across his face. They made him stop and stumble for a moment, allowing Luke to catch up. Using The Healer's Moment again, he made sure Curtis could continue without faltering. Once that respite ended, Curtis let out a roar of a war cry and swept his sword from right to left, killing several dwarves.

  Rather than jump over the corpses, Luke took them into his inventory. Even as they ran, two dwarves stepped in behind Curtis, facing Luke, and swung with enough force to break Luke's staff in two. Luke stopped, sidestepped right, and lashed out with a thread of mana that ended the rightmost dwarf's life. The second one grabbed its axe in two hands and swung in a blow that would take Luke's arm off. Two Threads of Mana met the blow. One deflected the attack off to the right, putting the dwarf off balance, and the second reached in with Needle of Life, slicing the monster core free. Pocketing the core and everything else in reach, Luke ran to keep up.

  They were right in the middle of the churning sea of dwarves at this point, and the Integrated coming from the portal weren't far off, but Curtis was again slowing down with injuries. This time, Luke couldn't find a single window of opportunity to heal them. So close, yet so far away. Dwarves died around them en masse as Integrated spells tore them to pieces, and many of the melee-focused Integrated dove into the sea of dwarves to battle them.

  A war cry from a voice Luke recognized rang out, and he saw flashes of a spear in the distance, killing all who stood in its way. Mateo and Penny were both here, then.

  Curtis stumbled and dropped his sword. Dwarves swarmed him, and Luke kicked at them, trying to force them back. An axe cut into Luke's side, and he cried out, retaliating with a thread of mana to kill the bastard who'd injured him.

  That accomplished, he pulled the axe out of his leg and dropped it.

  Weapon type axe not compatible with class: Lifeweaver.

  "Fuck," Luke grunted, killing another dwarf while he reached into Curtis to find what was wrong, even as the Reaver struggled to keep the monsters at bay with a new, much smaller sword better suited for close quarters combat.

  A long gash along Curtis’s chest yawned open. It had sliced through muscle and hit bone. Just then, another blow, this time from a sword, dug into Luke’s shoulder, forcing him to the ground. Dwarves closed in as Luke chugged health, stamina, and mana potions, none of which were near potent enough.

  Gritting his teeth, Luke threaded Curtis's wound closed in a rush as he moved left to avoid a blow, then kicked a dwarf in the face. There were too many of them, far too many. Luke used two Threads of Mana to stave off attacks from dwarves, whipping the threads around to divert blows away from them, rather than block, since that would just end with the threads being cut.

  An unseen blow to the back of his head pushed Luke forward, and he fell. Scrambling on the ground, he came up with his staff, now broken into two pieces, and slammed one piece into the face of a charging dwarf, a little surprised that it allowed him to use it as a weapon.

  A second blow came, and Luke used both halves to block, even as he struck out with a thread of mana in retaliation, piercing the monster’s brain.

  Congratulations! You have reached level 12!

  Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Focus).

  Ignoring the messages, Luke pushed Curtis up and forward. If they didn’t keep moving, it wouldn’t take long before they were buried in the avalanche of dwarves. When trying to stand, Luke’s injured leg buckled under him, and he fell with a pained grunt, healing himself as he fell. It was a rush job, but it was all he could do in that desperate situation.

  Several dwarves swarmed in, and he saw Curtis’s back disappearing. The Reaver hadn’t noticed Luke falling behind, but he couldn’t fault that. Dwarves hung from his legs, biting into him while others threw themselves in his way, forcing him to attack again and again with every step.

  Luke's mind swam from the repeated blows to his head and throbbed with the lack of mana. Bile rose from his stomach as he pushed off with his legs, attempting to stand. More dwarves leapt at him, pushing him down to the ground with their sheer weight, holding him as one dwarf, a little taller than the rest, stepped forward. This one was shirtless, covered in body hair, with bulging muscles underneath. The dwarf's skin was a mess of the purple lines that ran from all dwarves' eyes, and there was no intelligence in its glowing red eyes.

  Dwarven Commander. Level 9.

  The commander raised a two-handed axe over its head and showed the first expression Luke had seen in one of the dwarves. A smile.