The Art of Gold Digging

Ch.48— A Battle of Attrition: Part One

It was the sort of silence that settled when everyone in the room understood exactly what was about to happen and had privately decided that speaking would only make it more real.Amy was the first to move. She pushed herself off the wall silently, adjusted her satchel, and looked around the hall once; her eyes scanned the defensive structures they'd built over the past several hours.

Lain's ice barriers and spikes were layered across the two main corridors; the areas further away from their main position were replete with even more spikes in addition to traps. Meanwhile, a collection of improvised barricades made from stacked furniture rested against the far wall.

It looked like shit to be honest, but it was as ready as it was going to get.

"We should get into positions," Amy said, breaking the silence.

They had further spoken about their defense plan during these past hours, as well as explained it to Crow. The gist of it was to gradually retreat towards the hall with the seven doors while slowing down the chaos creature and Abaddon as much as possible, all while making sure not to get surrounded.

Upon hearing Amy's words, the others, with the exception of maybe Crow, looked at her as if it was her fault—or at least that's how Amy sensed their gazes. How unfair…she liked this far less than they did, but the more they waited, the more Abaddon would tire their forces. Someone had to make the call, and seeing how nobody—not even Crow—moved, she regretfully had to.

For a moment, everyone was still, no one really wanting to move first. Amy considered speaking up once again, but then Lain suddenly stood up while brushing something from her sleeve, and with one last glance and nod towards Amy, she walked toward the left corridor without a word.

Seeing her, both Ash and Iris gave awkward smiles before cracking their knuckles and patting each other on the shoulders, then followed. Each went into a separate hall silently; Iris left with Lain while Ash went right.

Lyra lingered for exactly two seconds longer, gaze drifting from Crow to Amy and back again. Then, nervously, she turned and moved toward the right corridor, following Ash with slow, trembling footsteps.

Zayd rose from his position by the wall in that unhurried way of his, collected his teacup, and glanced at Amy. "Please be careful, Miss Stake. Remember that you are, without a doubt, one of his primary targets; make sure to prioritize your life."

Amy sighed, then nodded. Why was it always her…?

Zayd stayed watching her silently, something small and unreadable in his expression, and then he was gone too, toward the left corridor.

And with Zayd gone, that left only Crow and Amy.

Amy was standing a few feet away while Crow, with his missing arm and downcast gaze, was still seated against the door with the blood ritual lines pulsing steadily across his skin.

Amy looked at him, took a deep breath, and then asked. "Do you need a minute?" She said, knowing full well that every second counted.

Crow's eyes met hers. "No," he said. Then, after a pause, "Yeah. Maybe."

Amy nodded and didn't move. Honestly, her question felt more directed towards herself than anything, so she really didn't mind that much.

Crow breathed in slowly through his nose. He stared at the opposite wall—not at anything specific on it, just somewhere neutral.

[The young soldier prepares themselves in their reinforced castle against impossible odds.] Bloodedge suddenly spoke in Amy's head, making her instantly frown. [How poignant. How exciting, how marvelous, not even in my 1900 years of existence— Ouchhh! Owww, sto— oww…]

Amy tightened her grip on the hilt at her side until the voice quieted to a low, theatrical hum. She hadn't expected it to work, but it did. Good to know.

After somewhere around fifteen seconds had passed, Crow exhaled. He looked at Amy again. Something in his face had shifted, and he now looked the way someone looks when they've accepted that an unpleasant thing is going to happen and have finished arguing with themselves about it.

"This sucks," he started.

"I know," Amy said.

"This really does suck so—"

"Crow."

He stopped.

"I know," she repeated.

Everything did indeed suck, but there was nothing they could do about it other than continue; they couldn't waste any more time on this self-pity, as much as she wanted to do just that.

Crow looked at her for another second. Then the faintest hint of a resigned smile crossed his face. He pushed himself forward and began to stand.

Amy watched him get to his feet. It took longer than it should have. He was still pale, and his silhouette looked strange and wrong with only one arm. But he stood. He squared his shoulders and looked towards the corridor that led to the hall with the seven doors.

With one last look at Amy, a clench of his fists, and one last breath, he pushed himself away from the hall door.

Instantly, the blood around him from the ritual Amy and the others had created stopped shining.

Crow looked at it and didn't waste any more time.

Without a single further word, he took off running at full speed toward the left corridor, which they had determined was probably going to be the less dangerous one since Amy wasn't on it, and at the same time the most protected one given that the overall strength and power was greater on Lain, Iris, and Zayd's side.

Crow was surprisingly agile, given the state of his body, running on ice while evading all the traps and walls they had warned him about.

Amy watched him for a moment, then followed, jogging carefully so as not to fall. As she approached the right corridor, she felt a sharp decrease in the magic around her a few seconds after Crow left the ritual center.

There was no dramatic crack, nor sound of something shattering, nor flash of light, nor even visible collapse. The protective magic that had been holding for hours just... ceased. The faint hum that Amy had only subconsciously registered as constant background noise was suddenly absent, leaving behind a silence that felt somehow more total than before.

As she entered the right corridor while carefully avoiding the traps, she began hearing a distant sound. It was like a growl.

Then she heard another, slightly different in pitch.

Then more, overlapping, until they were no longer distinguishable as individual sounds but as a collective, growing thing.

Amy's hand tightened on Bloodedge's hilt, and her expression gradually shifted into one of deep concentration.

The growling grew gradually louder with every step she took.

[They come. As they always have. As they always will.] Bloodedge's sudden voice cracked Amy's focused expression into a frown. [The tide of chaos is breaking against the fragile shore of mortals. The soundless shrieks of the enemy army were yet so loud in the allies' minds. They could almost hear the millions of monsters that are in this very moment wanting nothing but to devour them.]

"I can hear them loud and clear," Amy muttered under her breath. "There is no 'almost'."

[I was being poetic...]

Amy ignored the sword and kept jogging. She rounded the second intersection and finally spotted them.

Ash stood at the corridor's widest point, right where the obsidian walls curved slightly into a circle before narrowing again toward the deeper sections. He had his arms crossed and his weight balanced on both feet in a way that looked casual but wasn't. He'd positioned himself directly in front of the first row of spike traps, close enough that anything charging through would have to go through him first.

Lyra stood to his left, her trembling hands already glowing faintly in a green light which Amy recognized from classes as her way of keeping herself primed without expending unnecessary mana.

Both of them looked up as Amy approached.

"Took you long enough," Ash said.

"Crow just went in," Amy replied while slowing to a stop beside Ash. "Barrier's down."

"Yeah, we figured," Ash said. "They aren't trying to be subtle about it."

Amy looked at Lyra and nodded with a gaze as if asking her if she was ready.

Lyra's expression tightened, and she seemed very hesitant, but she nodded anyway.

The growling got louder.

Then something hit the far end of the corridor—it wasn't a creature, at least not yet. Just the sound of something massive impacting something, traveling through the obsidian walls until it reached them as a damn loud thud.

Amy could see how Lyra at her side started muttering what looked like a prayer with her trembling hands. Amy considered for a second telling her that praying to that Goddess would only bring bad luck if anything, but decided against it; for all she knew it might actually work, considering that they were talking about that egocentric bitch.

Amy was suddenly pulled away from her thoughts when another loud thud rang out. Then another. Then a third, accompanied by a crack.

Amy's eyes started shining as she began using her ability, aiming to the future where the first part of their plan had them reuniting with the others as they gradually retreated. Any more than that and it would leave her without a single ounce of strength to carry it out in the first place. Moreover, she needed to save some for her actual objective.

A fourth thud shook dust from the obsidian ceiling.

Amy stared at the far end of the corridor where the darkness looked like it had begun to move, followed by shrieks and a constant, grinding sound.

"How many?" Ash asked while breathing rapidly.

Amy only gave him a side-eye before refocusing on the hallway.

"Is there a point in asking?" she said.

Ash turned to look at her. "That many?"

"Again, is there a point?" she repeated.

He turned his head back toward the corridor, then let out a series of shaky breaths. "No, I guess not."

Besides Amy, Lyra had stopped muttering her prayer and instead was holding a series of mostly protective amulets and a small knife.

Amy looked at her for a few more seconds, then turned her gaze once again towards the hallway. "Just follow the plan," she said quietly. "Hold position. If they get too overwhelming, fall back. Never go on the attack; make them come to us. Do not break formation. And please be careful with the traps."

"You've already said that three times, Stake," Ash said.

"I'll say it a fourth if it means you both remember it."

"I remember it," Lyra whispered, or at least that's how it felt; hearing anything over the amount of noise here was beyond hard.

Loud…maybe she had just jinxed it, because right at that next moment, there was an even louder thud, and then, it wasn't loud anymore. It was so silent that she couldn't even hear her own breathing.

It took her an instant to realize that part of her nose was bleeding and the world was moving in slow motion.

She hadn't planned it or made any kind of conscious decision. One moment she was standing beside Ash with her hand on Bloodedge's hilt, and the next her body had already moved.

She had never felt such a strong reaction from her ability in her entire life. It was as if it were outright yanking her to act. She stepped half a pace forward, dropping into a low stance with Bloodedge coming up in front of her in a two-handed grip she had never learned to use.

She didn't have time to think. She barely had time to brace. Right after she put herself into that position, a humanoid creature came through the corridor at a speed that even in the slow-motion world she could barely track.

It wasn't large; it was small enough to slip past the first traps and barricades through a gap neither she nor anyone else had really accounted for, and fast enough that Ash's shout of warning came out half a syllable too late. It had no eyes that Amy could see, and it didn't seem like it needed them either.

Bloodedge went through it.

The impact traveled up both her arms hard enough to make her teeth click together. For one very long second, she felt the resistance, and then it gave, and the creature made a sound that Amy would spend a significant amount of time trying to forget, and then it was still, impaled on the sword she was barely holding upright.

Black ichor dripped onto the obsidian floor.

Amy stared at the thing on the end of Bloodedge. Her arms were shaking. She became aware of this in a distant, clinical sort of way, the same way she became aware that by the trajectory of that thing it had been coming directly for her and that she was breathing way too fast.

Beside her, Ash had gone completely rigid.

[Magnificent,] Bloodedge spoke, [your skill is surpri—]

"Get ready!" Amy screamed, cutting through whatever the sword was about to say. She yanked Bloodedge free, and the creature slid off the blade and collapsed, already dissolving at the edges into dark smoke.

"Holy fuc—" Ash started.

"Get ready!" Amy repeated, louder this time, snapping both of them out of it. She turned just enough to look at them over her shoulder, and whatever they saw in her expression made Ash immediately drop into a proper fighting stance. Lyra's hands came up, healing light flooding back between her fingers with renewed urgency.

Lyra said something, but Amy couldn't hear it as the corridor erupted into shrieks.

Creatures that looked like black wolves but had extra legs or lacked heads entered first. Then there were other variations of animals, such as lions, dogs, and even humans—all with extra legs, dripping black fluid all over the place as they sprinted and swirled toward them.

The only reason they didn't come crashing into them in a wave was the size of the hallway and the ice walls they had built to shrink it even further. The hallway bottlenecked them as they slammed into the spikes mindlessly. The first row hit the spike traps before they'd gone ten paces, and the sound it made was awful and somehow very discernible despite all the chaos. Two of them died immediately, and a third got tangled in a fallen monster and was crushed by the mass coming from behind.

The ones that made it through were already climbing over the dead.

"Ash!" Amy shouted, and Ash's fists immediately came down onto a section of ice that was connected to the ceiling.

The ice broke, and big stone spikes fell from the ceiling in a line across the corridor, not perfectly—several went crooked and fell without doing damage.

The ones that made it past the fallen spikes died on Ash's fists. He didn't waste a single second as he stepped to the front. His first punch connected with the wolf-looking creature. The creature flew backward into the swarm behind it, provoking two more to be knocked sideways by the sheer force of the impact.

"Back up!" Ash shouted over his shoulder, without stopping his swinging.

Amy didn't back up. Not yet. She moved to his left, following her ability, toward Ash's blind spot, where something small and eyeless was trying to squeeze through, just like the first creature but significantly slower.

Bloodedge came up. She adjusted without thinking, and the creature hit the blade instead of reaching the boy ahead.

[Ohhh~ What a delightful technique! Still lacking yet the potential—]

Through gritted teeth, Amy ignored the blade's words and yanked it free before stepping back and finally retreating along with Lyra and Ash.

But as they retreated, another creature came through. This one was bigger, closer to a bear mixed with a spider. It hit the second row of spikes mindlessly and slowed, but didn't stop, pulling itself forward with the legs that hadn't been impaled.

Amy threw up a barrier between it and Ash's exposed flank.

The golden light appeared, the way it always did, and she had already mentally prepared for the impact to shatter it so she could cast another one right after. However, the bear-creature slammed into it at full momentum, yet the barrier held.

Amy blinked.

The creature hit it again, and it held again, flickering and cracking, but whole.

Last time, while she was running from the mini-chaos creatures, her barrier hadn't broken either—she had thought it was simply due to the lack of strength of the insects…yet…

She told herself, filing the observation somewhere in the back of her mind.

She let the barrier hold a second longer than she normally would have, giving Ash time to deal with the two creatures pressing toward his right side, and then she dropped it as Ash turned to the bear monster and killed it in one hit.

Ash was bleeding from somewhere above his eyebrow. He didn't seem to care. He probably hadn't noticed either.

"Lyra, Ash—" Amy started.

"I see it!" Lyra said, and the healing light went towards him.

Ash nodded repeatedly in acknowledgment, which Amy interpreted as gratitude, and kept swinging.

They kept retreating for another twenty or fifty seconds until the momentum seemed to be slowing down. Would they finally be able to hold a position?

The answer seemed to be no, as the very next instant, the wall to their left made a sound.

It was a very specific sound, very different from the impact of a creature throwing itself against something; it was more as if something was cracking from within.

Amy's head snapped toward it.

The barrier Lain had built at the lateral junction—the one that sealed off the connecting hallway to their left so they couldn't be flanked—was still standing. But it had developed a large crack.

[That doesn't seem ideal.]

"No," for once, Amy thought the blade had said something worth listening to.

She grabbed the back of Ash's collar.

He was mid-swing and nearly lost his footing. He glanced back quickly and, upon confirming it was Amy, he nodded, turned his head again, and continued fighting while resuming their retreat.

They retreated in the controlled, ugly way—nothing like strategy and everything like organized panic held together only by her ability. Ash moved backward while still swinging, keeping his body between the creatures and the two girls. Amy covered the flanks with Bloodedge and barriers. Meanwhile, Lyra stayed close, healing them both.

From a distance, Amy could see the cracks in the wall widening; a second crack appeared, parallel to the first.

"Faster!" Amy said.

"I'm going as fast as I can while also punching things!" Ash said.

"Punch them faster!"

"That's not—"

The ice barrier at the junction fractured. Not all at once, luckily, just a section of it, maybe two feet wide, collapsing inward and skittering across the floor.

Instantly after, Amy could feel how noticeably the momentum of the wave had increased, forcing them to retreat another thirty meters before the geometry of the corridor shifted in their favor as it got narrower.

"Here!" Amy said, calling for a stop. "We need to hold here!"

Ash was already planting his feet and pushing with all his might before she even spoke.

While Amy continued with the barriers and the occasional thrust of Bloodedge, she also assessed the defensive line they had finally—after being pushed back further than she'd hoped—managed to establish.

She looked at the number of creatures still pushing, yet not breaking through.

It was a battle of attrition now.