“No,” I said, having no intention of exiting the fight. I had enough mana to heal myself, as long as I could get the spear out quickly enough. A timer appeared in my vision, surprising me at thirty seconds. I guessed that meant it hadn’t hit anything overly vital, so extreme blood loss was my main issue.

  I reached my hand behind me, forcing my arm into a position it wasn’t happy to be in, but that hardly mattered given the alternative. I grasped the shaft of the spear and yanked hard, ripping it free as more blood poured from me. Corey already had my life orb going to work on the wound before I had a chance to consider my options. I felt both core and soul mana at work, empowering my regeneration and stitch spells, as the holes closed.

  The timer vanished just as I felt a new shield envelop my body. While my core mana pool was already filling back up, that burst of healing mana had used a significant portion of my new soul reservoir. I grabbed the weapon that I had just removed from my torso moments ago and put it into my System storage. I had debated destroying it, but this seemed the better move. While I had spent the time keeping myself alive, around me, the battle had been getting worse for our side.

  I started working to patch up every wound I could see on our people, returning every bit of mana I was taking back from the shields. This redirection of their mana back to our side had to be working in our favor, but there was still the question of whether it was fast enough. Plus, the hard fact was that I was the only one who had a mana pool truly benefiting from this, just because I could keep the others on their feet didn’t mean I could give them the mana to meaningfully fight.

  “Dave, I need you to stick close to me!” Rabyn screamed over the noise. As I ran to him, I pulled up a chat window.

  I closed the window, taking that as enough confirmation for now. There were much higher priorities at the moment. Rabyn was fighting four people at once, and while he was managing to hold his own, a couple of his opponents had weapons that were cutting straight through the shield like the spear that hit me earlier. This meant that despite him giving far better than he was receiving, his wounds were still stacking up beyond what he could sustain.

  I kept the distance as close as I safely could to Rabyn, reducing the mana draw for what he needed, and started going to work with as much healing and shielding magic as I could safely maintain. Several wounds on Rabyn’s off arm closed. Knives began appearing in the hand and vanishing into the bodies of the other squad faster than I could keep track of. Finally, two of them went down, one vanishing from the battle and the other rolling away, likely healing before they rejoined the fight.

  The good news didn’t last long, as I felt the shield around Glorp collapse under a sudden assault. Alpha must have reached them as two costly shield spells went off through our connection. What worried me was that it was only two. Did that mean someone was down? I let Corey focus on Rabyn while I pulled up the chat window again.

  I closed the window after this. I wasn’t happy that Maud was already out, but the fact that she was alive and two more of them were also out was a surprisingly good exchange. “Maud’s down but alive; she also took two with her,” I yelled to Rabyn.

  “That might not be the good news you think it is!” Rabyn yelled back, just as I felt the shields go down again on Glorp and the brothers, another chat window popped into view with a single message.

  “Damn, you were right, Glorp and the brothers are out now too. How did you know?” I screamed. That just left the four of us against twelve of them.

  “Pachydresti tend to start fighting much harder when any of their squad goes down. I wouldn’t say they were going easy on us before, but they have no likely tossed caution to the wind!” He yelled back, ducking under one of them as a second threw themselves onto Rabyn’s knife. As though to prove his words, it seemingly had done this solely to get close enough to slash across the orc’s neck with a glowing blue blade.

  I started trying to heal the wound immediately, but nothing seemed to close it. Whatever that blade had done, it was fighting against my healing magic. “Rabyn, I can’t heal it!” I yelled, panic in my voice.

  “Run!” he managed to cough this single word out, still managing to yell it somehow. Arguing with the man seemed like a good way to die, and as I scrambled to get away, I saw what he was planning in his last moments. Something resembling an apple appeared in his hand, and he shoved it into his mouth in a single gulp. With his throat wound, the pain must have been horrible. Several flurries of knives flew from him, slashing through everything around him. He collapsed to the ground under the bodies of three of them. His body and two of theirs vanished.

  The third tried to roll away again, the same as it had done before. Instead, one of Rabyn’s knives flew from the ground and caught him again in his skull. This time, they stopped moving. Apparently, they had made the choice not to escape.

  It was now three of us against nine of them. The odds were quickly moving out of our favor. I was a little surprised Rabyn had chosen to exit instead of stay and fight, but if the wound was entirely unhealable, that could explain it. He would have just died the moment the timer ran out.

  I quickly scanned the battlefield. Elody was still standing, trails of blood marking every wound she had taken and healed so far. She now had a second silver sword floating next to her, opposite Gamma, the three of them looking like they were in a complex dance with the five Pachydresti. Connie’s phantom orchestra was still going strong as Beta dueled with the one I had fought earlier in the duststorm.

  I decided Elody needed my help more than Connie at the moment, running to her just as one of her attackers started stomping the ground in rapid, strong impacts. Each one sent out a shockwave of force rippling through the ground. This was something my shield couldn’t do anything about, as the tremors were enough to knock me off my feet. I wasn’t the one who mattered here, though. Elody was surrounded, and she had been at the epicenter of the quake attack.

  As I forced myself to my feet, I spotted Alpha in the sky. Good, I’d need their help for what I was planning. “Connie, can you focus on mana regeneration?” I called back to the woman, unsure if she could hear me, but I assumed the slight change in the melody meant she had.

  Elody was on the ground, still fighting, but she had no room to get back to her feet. That meant I didn’t have much time left to try this. I again opened my chat window and fired off some orders.

  I closed the chat window and activated Overclock. I felt the mana surge through my body as Corey redirected as much mana as my channels could safely handle directly into my primary core. It was hard to tell how much higher rank my core had been pushed, but considering the power I felt, I was sure it had been significant. Now it was time to see what happened if I shielded my enemies.

  John was both worried and relieved when Maud walked out of the Arena door. He was glad she had made the choice to leave like Mel had wanted her to, but her being here also meant his dad had one less fighter on their side. Things had just started to really feel right between them again, and the idea of losing the man after they were on the verge of fixing their relationship made his stomach drop.

  The fact that Earth also hung in the balance didn’t help matters. But Maud was here. She was alive and she was safe. He ran to her and gave her a giant hug, scooping her up in his arms. She might have been stronger than him these days, but he knew he would catch up under Rabyn’s training, assuming they won this.

  “Glad to see you too!” Maud said, returning the hug and planting a kiss on his face.

  “What happened in there?” John asked, worried.

  “Well, I uh blew myself up, but hey, I took one of them with me. And as far as I know, everyone is still alive. Oh, interesting, I can talk to your dad still in our chat. That seems weird,” Maud said, her voice suddenly distracted.

  John set her down and waited for the news as she spaced out like she usually did in these moments. He had to keep it together for her.

  Pachydresti are one of the older species in the Spiral. Despite that, they don’t have a faction of their own, preferring to align with other factions as it benefits them. Even stranger, though, within those factions, they almost always field squads entirely made up of Pachydresti. This is because they are one of the few species out there that make a strong use of a paragon class. Seemingly, at least as far as any of them will admit, this class works best only on their own kind.

  The Varied Peoples of the Spiral by Krrtck

  4000 Followers - Bonus Chapter

  ?????????? 10%

  1000 Favorites - Bonus Chapter

  ?????????? 10%

  100 Subscriptions - 3 Bonus Chapters

  ?????????? 50%

  100 Members - Vote On 2 Bonus Excerpts

  ?????????? 40%

  Read up to 20 chapters ahead of Magical Engineering on my Patreon:

  Checkout the official

  And if you like my work, consider checking out my other ongoing series.

  Rise of the Hunter: I can travel to the Cultivation World!

  by Mr.Sinclair

  Jihoon just wanted to awaken—now he's on the verge of becoming something else entirely.

  Now able to shift between two worlds, Jihoon begins to uncover secrets buried deep within kingdoms and sects.