“Pomoroi, shoot that damned thing.”

  “Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree!” There was a blast, the cannonball sailed out, and smashed into a formerly invisible shield around the floating iron tree.

  “So it’s like that, is it? But is it invincible, or can we break the shield with enough damage?” I muttered. I’d told everyone to take cover, and I followed my own advice. I was lying flat on my balcony. Best I could do. I still kept my eyes on the tree. Everyone else could get their head down. I was the one who would have to make some decisions.

  I squinted, trying to get a clearer view of the tree. It was hard to see through the rain, but… no buts. It was just hard to pick out details. Screw it.

  “Resume fighting.” I ordered. Fortunately the monsters hadn’t managed to achieve much in the last minute. I didn’t bother trying to micro my Awakened. What would the next wave look like?

  Armored monsters, it turned out. And a lot of them. Not in columns this time. Hmm. Probably not carrying Baboons, then.

  There were periodic pulses of light coming from deeper inside the rain. A harsh blue-white, easy to distinguish from my Awakeneds’ projectiles. A bright flash, then a crack, much softer than thunder but still audible. This damned rain!

  There was a heavy thud from the back of the Tower. I rushed over to the other side. Nothing appeared to be wrong. “Othai, report!”

  “There was a flash of light, then something bloody heavy hit the walls, Tower Master. Doesn’t look like there is much damage, but I can’t swear to it.” She swept her eyes all around, eventually staring down into the moat. “Ah… Tower Master?”

  “Yes?”

  “I think it was an Armored Monster, sir.”

  “What? Why? How?”

  “I can see a body down there that I don’t recognize. And I’d remember this one, on account of the front half being forced into the back half so hard it’s only about two thirds the normal length. Maybe half. The head is completely gone, sir.”

  Yes, that sounds like a solid clue right there. I thought quickly, trying to figure out what, exactly, the second gimmick was. Iron Tree dropped out of twisting storm clouds. Flashes of light in the rain. Auto-splatting Armored Monsters.

  Oh God. “Othai, can you see if there is anything different about their armor? Or how they look?”

  “Yes, Tower Master. It’s a sort of silvery color, and the spikes are a little longer.”

  “Did you have to fight this round for your tenth wave?”

  There was a long pause. I thought she was going to be relationship locked but instead she said- “No, it’s always different. But it’s always something, Sir. I don’t want to talk about how.”

  Interesting, interesting! But not for right this second. Right this second, we have special, wave specific units.

  “Attention all awakened! Be aware the silvery Armored Monsters may suddenly charge forward very, very quickly. They probably have some lightning related power or effect. This means they can probably jump across the moat, but we don’t know if they can get up over the wall!”

  Was ‘suddenly charge forward very, very quickly’ redundant? I watched five of them jump from the edge of the moat and just barely get their claws into the top of the wall.

  Well. Damn. Not that I needed to worry. Mrs. Hungry leapt forward with a pair of meathooks and stabbed two of them directly in the brain, hauling them into a pot that didn’t exist a moment before and vanished immediately after.

  My storage pouch twitched. Apparently, I just earned two rune bones. What kind of cursed mechanic is this?

  Othai didn’t do fancy. She waded over with her halberd and hacked off monster fingers. Gravity did the rest of the work. She looked really used to doing it. The casual accuracy of it was kind of relieving. Monsters were her normal. Hacking them off walls was her normal.

  More thuds as the monsters impacted the wall. They couldn’t quite get over it, but a lot were catching the ledge. This made them hilariously easy pickings for Versai, Othai, and Mrs. Hungry, not to mention the Pikes. Although the pikes hardly got a chance to get a stab in. My Six Stars were clearing them in sprays of blood and screams and final, brutal crunches far below. And they never missed.

  It was interesting to me that the monsters frequently missed. I’d seen monsters mess up plenty of times before- all the ones that had tripped over their dead comrades and gone flying into the moat for one thing. But I don’t know that I had ever seen them judge a distance and just completely get it wrong. Not some perfect predator, then. Even when they had some degree of control, they still screwed up.

  How human.

  I checked in on Miyuki- still doing her steady work, patrolling around the wall and skewering big clumps where she could. I didn’t have her target the armored monsters. The fear effect was already doing amazing things for us.

  The artillery was, likewise, proving why it was the king of the battlefield. Pomoroi was an artist with a cannonball, shredding a dozen monsters with a well placed shot. Four used to be a great result for her. The upgrades were showing. As was the newly target rich environment. I couldn’t see what Radz was bombing, but since she was steadily firing deep into the forest, we wouldn’t run out of enemies any time soon.

  Who else needed attention? The Mikas were chomping through targets, though they struggled to put down the armored monsters. It wasn’t that they couldn’t.

  I looked back over at the Tree. It was gently spinning in place. Had it always been spinning? I didn’t think so. Hmm. It was spinning faster just in the short time I was watching it. Was that… was light gathering on the branches? OH HELL NO!

  “Mrs. Hungry, use Grand Feast! Everybody else, get under cover! NOW!”

  I was a step too late.

  Lightning lashed down from the clouds like the tentacular fingers of an eldritch god. The hateful threads of skyfire came directly for my summons. There was a blinding flash of light and a terrible thunder!

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  I furiously blinked my eyes clear. “Report!”

  No one answered. I crawled over to the battlements and saw my summons were locked up, shivering in place. “Goddamn status effect! I raked my eyes over and… and the ones standing on the old Rampart front wall hadn’t been hit. The heavily reinforced concrete roof overhead had stopped the lightning. The Pomorois and Radz looked nearly dead, covered in bare scraps of clothes, twitching on the ground.

  “MEDICS TO THE WALL! HEAL THE MOST WOUNDED FIRST!”

  I rushed to the back. Mrs. Hungry was in better shape than my artillery, and Othai was better still, though they were both ragged. The Pikes, on the other hand were lying scattered on the battlements, their pretty ribbons all undone, their white berets covered in blood and muck that couldn’t possibly be on the stone wall. Rakkim was beat to hell, but wonder of wonders, shook off the stunned effect first.

  Following her last set of orders, she picked up her carbine and started moving towards the gate house we built. “Rakkim, cancel that last order! Run around the wall and shoot anything trying to climb up! Keep going until the stun wears off everybody else.”

  Miyuki! I rushed over and my ninja looked like she had been attacked by wolves. The damn, damn scrap roof! We didn’t have enough concrete for everything, and the “Toss whatever on there, at least it will stop arrows or fire bombs or something” roof did exactly nothing to stop field effect lighting strikes.

  “Oh God, the Scouts! RACHE, RIKKA, BACK TO THE TOWER AS SOON AS YOU SAFELY CAN FOR HEALING!” Goddess, please let the lighting strike have a limited range. Please, please, please don’t leave my scouts stunned in the monster-filled woods. Because I can see them moving around down there, and the monsters are definitely not stunned.

  No death animations. There were no death animations. That meant they were still alive. Alive was good. If there is even a single breath of life- hah. If there is even a single hitpoint in them, we can save them. We can save them. Even though the monsters like to, to, to play with the awakened, if they can. To make their final moments last. But if they are alive, we can save them. I’m sure we can save them.

  “Oh No! Where is the ouchie?”

  “Pain, pain, fly away. This is only a bad dream.” Pammy and Maria, my two medics came out from their bunker at the bottom of the wall. It looked like they avoided being stunned, thank the Goddess. They rushed up and started using their healing abilities.

  Pammy rushed up to Radz, flinging her bandages over her and wrapping her up like she was a mummy. Radz, for her part, lay staring up through the ruined roof. Still stunned, but there was something in her eyes I couldn’t recognize. Not peace, exactly. A kind of fanaticism. Everything was as it should be, conforming to the world she understood.

  Maria for her part used sticking plasters. I don’t mean band-aids, I mean big square gauzes loaded up with some kind of ointment which she rushed around slapping down on the Pomorois. Steelheart Pomoroi had held up rather well, but the ordinary one was barely hanging on. I looked away. It was an absurd thing to think, but… I felt like I was disrespecting her. Like I was violating the dignity that was so much of who she was. Insane to think, on a battlefield.

  I’m only a weeb. All I can do is my best. At least Versai was up and carefully guarding the medics. Six Stars recovered faster, it seemed.

  I rushed over to the back wall. Mrs. Hungry and Othai had shaken off the stun and were back, keeping the wall clear despite the damage.

  “Mrs. Hungry, how long until you can use Grand Feast?”

  “Not until we kill another ninety… eighty nine… eighty eight monsters, My Lord. I was setting it up when the lightning hit. My feast was ruined and has to be rebuilt from scratch.”

  I nodded. Yes. As expected, I truly am the dumbest scumbag who ever looked up 2B’s skirt. After telling myself again and again that the timing of the Feast would be crucial, I had her start casting it just before the tree did something wild. Yes, I alone stand at the peak of mount moron, pissing into the sub-zero winds. I pinched myself, hard. Now wasn’t the time for self recrimination. Now was the time to keep my damn head in the game!

  “Can you use Family Meal?”

  “Yes, My Lord.”

  “Do it. Heal the Pikes!” Sorry Miyuki, but they’re hurt worse than you. Don’t worry, Doc’s coming.

  The monsters weren’t being shy about taking advantage of the stun. The Metal Armored Monsters were launching themselves across the moat with an alarming regularity, while the ordinary variants were still finding chances to scoop up Murder Baboons and fling them up at us. Pachinko is fair in his unfairness- they missed a lot. But if we didn’t have our Six Stars up and moving, we’d be dead.

  We might still be dead. Versai was already starting to use her speed hack, which meant that she was being overwhelmed. Othai didn’t have a speed hack, and she needed to keep the monsters off the wounded and Mrs. Hungry. It was getting bad, fast. Othai was moving with terrible efficiency- each step leaving a body behind her. A bloody harvest even as more fingers and elongated hands sprouted on top of the parapet.

  Rakkim was helping as best she could, but Goddess Bless her, she couldn’t be everywhere.

  I didn’t want to see another death animation. Not like this. Not when it was my fault.

  “You have nothing to fear. Mika is here!”

  “You have nothing to fear. Dora is here.”

  And in the valley and the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil, because the hardest waifus in the multiverse got there first.

  “GENUDA DEFENSE FORCE- DEFEND THE TOWER. DEFEND YOUR COMRADES! NO RETREAT AND NO SURRENDER!” I yelled. I put all my fear and anger and shame and yelled my defiance at the storm. And they answered me. They answered me!

  “YES SIR!”

  Damn me if Othai wasn’t roaring right there with them. The Pikes were up and racing, racing along the wall, flicking monsters into the moat with their long spears. Othai was hacking and stabbing and hooking like she was getting paid by the head and the rent was due.

  On the front, Mika had activated Tower Wall. All those identical faces and identical cold blue eyes peering down their crossbows, head protected from the rain by their soft white berets. Each firing as fast as they possibly could, and each shot aimed. Thinning the monsters before they could even brace to jump. Killing them as they tried to jump. Shooting them off the parapet if they made it. Walls could break. Hearts could break. But the Genuda Defense Force would die before taking a single step back.

  Then the cannons roared. “Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree! The Army shall fall back in good order!” Steelheart Pomoroi cried.

  She’s clearing a lane, my god, I hear the whinny of Rache’s motorcycle and Pomoroi is clearing her a lane back to the Tower.

  Rache exploded through the raindrops, looking more like Lady Godiva than a trooper. She had her hat on, though, and her boots, and her saber cut anything she passed as she raced for the moat. Faster and faster, the monsters closing in on her.

  “Pomoroi, by Imperial Decree! The Army shall fall back in good order!” It was the other Pomoroi this time, they were alternating, Goddess be praised they were alternating fire to keep the lane clear. She was a surgeon with that cannon- the wind from the passing cannonball might ruffle Rache’s hair, but it would never touch her.

  Rache crouched over her handlebars, urging her pony on, running faster than it ever had. The road was clear. She was the fastest thing on the battlefield. With wild yell, Rache aimed at the heaped monster corpses at the edge of the moat. She lifted that front wheel, rode off the ramp and my heart was in my mouth as she sailed over the moat. I could feel time slow. I could see the sheer joy on her face, the absolute delight as she crossed the line between life and death. And the oncoming wall?

  Ain’t no thing for her little filly. She landed on one wheel, right on the parapet.

  Then the medics had her, pulling her down and covering her in bandages and sticking plasters. By the time they were done with her, a ragged looking Rikka emerged from the shadow next to the collapsed Rache. My scouts were home. Goddess knows what they went through in those woods, but they came home to me.

  Miyuki was on her feet too- her clothes still tattered and torn, but her aim was as steady as ever. Each arrow skewered at least two, leaving the screaming monsters and whistling arrows to slow the enemy’s advance. My Awakened were shaking off the stun. They were getting healed. And they were returning the damage tenfold.

  “Not today. Not today! You don’t get to take any more of them. Not today!”

  I looked down at my scouts. “Rikka, Rache, report. How does it look in the woods? How many more monsters are still coming?”

  “Not many, My Lord.” Rache nodded in agreement.

  “Just a few banditos, but they’re moving mighty quick!”

  “Anything special about them?”

  The bandaged scouts looked at each other. “They’re the armored kind? And kind of shiny?”

  The metal armored variants then. Not ideal, but we were getting the battlefield under control. Now that I knew what to look for, I’d just keep an eye on the Tree. as soon as it started turning, we would give up the wall and retreat back to the Medics’ bunker. I bet the stun effect wouldn’t even hit as hard. The only worry was if I could get the Artillery clear in time.

  Well. Not the only worry.

  There was another shift in the drums. They slowed to the double thump of a leviathan's heart. The bells had stopped ringing.

  “Pomoroi, Radz, hold your fire.” I kept a tight watch on that damned tree.

  More monsters rushed out of the rain, but they were coming in drips and drabs now. I would normally think the wave was almost over. “Miyuki, hold your fire. Keep a close eye out for hidden units. Only fire on my order!”

  Something nasty was coming, and I wanted to get my retaliation in first.

  I saw a block of Metal Armored Monsters moving towards the iron tree. They sat on their haunches, looking up at it.

  “NOPE! ARTILLERY, SNIPERS, CAROUSEL, KILL THE ARMORED MONSTERS UNDER THE TREE!”

  My artillery spoke with one voice, thundering out their fire. But Miyuki got their first. A yard long arrow buried itself in the ears of one of the monsters. There was a brief shriek from the whistle, just long enough to make them freeze up for a second. Long enough for the artillery to arrive.

  A half beat later, the tree glowed with a harsh blue-white light, creating a visible shield in the area around it. And under it. Ghostly tendrils of electricity extended downwards. Searching for something. Finding only gorey meat.

  The tree screamed in fury. I don’t have any other words for it, like metal being ripped apart, like a tree branch cracking high above you in the woods. Like a prince seeing his brother crowned. Fury, and a sense of loss. The tree slammed into the ground, raising a shockwave of mud and mutilated flesh around it. The light shield condensed, and the tree slowly stood, twisting itself into a mockery of the human form.

  It turned to face us.

  Time for phase three.