Chapter 56: The Siege of Ironclad

His student badge buzzed again with the looping warning: "All available Awakened report to Ironclad Academy. Calamity-class event in progress. This is not a drill."

Alvian looked at Martha. She sat up in bed, her eyes wide with fear, holding her blanket with her crystal-covered fingers. She did not understand what was happening, but she knew something was wrong.

He looked at Leo. The boy was staring out the window at the glowing tear on the horizon. His newest drawing was pinned to the wall: a black hole in the sky with stick figures falling inside.

He looked at Serah. She watched him, waiting to see what he would do.

"I have to go," he said.

Serah nodded. She did not try to stop him.

"There are students there," she said. "B-Rank, C-Rank, D-Rank. None of them can fight Rank 3 beasts with phased bodies. Their attacks will pass right through."

"I know."

"And if you use your Domain there, the World Will’s monitoring will notice. One more major event will bring Fate Enforcers down on you."

"I know."

He picked up his jacket. It was the same patched jacket he had worn to the Awakening Ceremony. It had been repaired, burned, dissolved, and fixed again. It was barely holding together.

He picked up his sword. It was the chipped short-sword that had carried him through the Warrens, the tournament, the Estate raid, and the God Roll. The blue energy lines in the steel glowed softly in his hand.

[DING!]

[Weapon status: Cracked but functional.]

[Talent resonance bond: ACTIVE.]

[Recommendation: The Host really should get a new sword at some point.]

Shut up, he thought back to the System.

He looked at the tear on the horizon. Three kilometers of Undercity streets stood between him and the Academy. He could get there in minutes.

Martha’s voice stopped him at the door. "Alvian."

He turned around.

"Be careful," she said. Her words were simple, but they carried heavy meaning.

"I will."

He walked out of the apartment, down the stairs, and through the maintenance tunnels of level thirteen. He ran up through the Undercity levels, past empty hallways and locked doors, heading toward the surface and the Academy.

Above him, the sky bled rainbow light. The Rift pulsed like. Deep inside it, a massive creature was forming—something that would take much more than a basic attack to kill.

Alvian Vance, Level 50, E-Rank Clearwater, S-Rank Skill holder, walked toward the tear in reality with a cracked sword and a coat of acid.

-–

The courtyard was hell.

By the time the emergency broadcast reached every student badge in the city, Ironclad Academy’s main grounds had already become a slaughterhouse.

The sound of the Rift was beyond words. A deep hum vibrated in everyone’s chest, mixed with a high screech. The dimensional shockwave knocked down students within a hundred meters when it opened. Some never got back up.

Hundreds of dimensional beasts had poured through in the first hour.

Rank 3 Voidcrawlers, spider-like things with crystallized dark energy shells and eight legs that blurred with spatial distortion, scuttled across the training grounds in coordinated packs. Rank 4 Phase-Stalkers, taller than men, their bodies flickering between this dimension and somewhere else, walked through walls like they were made of smoke.

The instructor corps, twelve C-Rank and B-Rank Awakened, had formed a defensive line between the Rift and the student dormitories.

They were losing.

Helen Croft stood at the center of that line.

Her war-hammer, a heavy magitech weapon taller than her torso, cracked with stored kinetic energy. Her B-Rank Kinetic Surge Talent let her absorb the impact of beast attacks and redirect the force as devastating counter-strikes. The scar across her jaw pulled tight as she gritted her teeth.

A Rank 4 Phase-Stalker charged her, mandibles phasing through physical matter.

Helen didn’t dodge.

She swung.

BOOM.

The hammer connected with the creature’s torso. The kinetic shockwave rippled through its body, disrupting its phased state for a fraction of a second, just long enough for the impact to register. The Phase-Stalker flew backward thirty meters and crashed through a stone bench.

It didn’t get up.

Helen did not celebrate. She planted her hammer and gasped for air. Three more beasts crawled out of the Rift for every one she killed. The line barely held. Sweat poured down her scarred jaw. Her missing ear throbbed with pain.

"Hold the line!" she roared at the instructors flanking her. "Those students don’t die today!"

The instructors fought and bled. Two died in the first twenty minutes of the second wave, torn apart by Voidcrawler packs that overwhelmed them with numbers. The remaining ten closed ranks to cover the gaps.

The evacuation in the underground tunnels was worse.

The Academy’s escape tunnels had cracked in dozens of places from the dimensional shock. Small cracks appeared every few hundred meters, leaking Rank 2 creatures.

Top students defended the tunnels, including Serah Garrick.

Serah was building instead of fighting. She used her SunFire Talent to reinforce the walls. She pressed her hands against a two-meter crack, using golden fire to seal the edges and stop the tear from growing.

Small, spider-like creatures scraped their crystal legs against the fire barrier from the other side. They searched for weak spots.

The barrier held.

For now.

"Keep moving!" Serah shouted at the younger students streaming past her. "Don’t stop! Don’t look back!"

Her Essence reserves dropped fast. B-Rank Talents were powerful but used lots of Essence. She had held the barrier for twenty minutes. Her hands trembled, and sweat poured down her face.

The barrier flickered.

She gritted her teeth and pushed harder. The golden light steadied.

"Just a little longer," she thought. "Until the last students get through."

Darius Magnus was in the upper tunnels.

His chest was bandaged from the tournament, where an E-Rank kid had humiliated him with acid. He should have been in the medical wing. Instead, he threw magma.

His C-Rank Magma Talent, once used to bully and show off, now kept people alive.

A Rank 3 Voidcrawler pack broke through a side corridor, charging toward first-year students.

Darius stepped into their path without thinking.