Chapter 235: The Fields of Victory

Garran knew the party’s escape from the orc camp had stopped being quiet when the first horn sounded.

They had entered the hidden route instead of surviving the three arena battles. The stone room had led them into the camp, where stealth carried them past defenses that would have overwhelmed them in a direct attack. They had defeated the orc chief’s brother and opened the cages holding the elves. Escaping with the prisoners was the final objective, it should have been as easy as walking out the door.

The alarm began before they reached the outer palisade.

Their scout led the freed elves through a gap they had prepared earlier. The mage followed, using his last large spell to collapse a watch platform across the main path. Garran, the swordsman, and the healer guarded the rear while orcs poured between the camp buildings.

Their healer stumbled beside the final row of huts. Garran caught her before she struck the ground.

"I can keep moving." She said.

The blood beneath one hand disagreed. A spear had entered below her ribs, and the healing spell she used on herself had stopped the bleeding without repairing the damage. Their scout had lost his bow. The mage had exhausted the spells capable of stopping a group. Only Garran and the swordsman remained able to hold a line.

The gap in the wall stood ahead. Beyond it, the elves were crossing the marked edge of the camp while the scout counted them. Once they reach that area, the dungeon was complete.

Three orcs emerged from a side passage and moved to cut off the wounded healer.

"Take her through the gap." Garran said.

The swordsman looked at the warriors closing behind them.

"We can leave together."

"Not if they reach the opening before she does. Go."

Garran had enough dungeon coins for another weapon repair. He had known that before choosing the hidden route. The party had accepted the risk because the escape offered rewards and discoveries the arena route did not.

He could still run. The swordsman could carry the healer, and Garran was close enough to reach the wall before the nearest orc. If he left immediately, he might cross the camp boundary with the others.

The final two elves would not make it.

They limped behind the scout, exhausted from captivity and unable to outrun the orcs approaching from the rear. Someone needed to prevent the orcs from reaching them before they crossed the boundary.

"Garran, we can still make it through together." The swordsman said.

"The elves cannot. Take the healer and help them through the gap. I will hold the passage."

The swordsman hesitated.

"If you wait any longer, there will be no reason for me to stay behind. Go."

The swordsman swore, lifted the healer, and ran.

Garran stepped into the narrow passage between two storage huts. His shield covered most of the opening. His axe reached the rest.

The first orc attacked without waiting for support. Garran drove him into the wall and used the moment to improve his footing. Barrels and bundled hides prevented anyone from circling him without taking a longer route.

The next attack came from two directions. Garran stopped the spear aimed at his chest and accepted a shallow cut across his thigh. He did not need to win. He needed to prevent anyone from reaching the wall while the overly injured elves made their way through.

The last elvf crossed the camp boundary. The scout followed them. The swordsman carried the healer through the gap, then stopped long enough to look back.

Garran saw him hesitate.

"Leave." Garran shouted.

The swordsman crossed the boundary. Now the just needed to reach the area where the elven reinforcements would appear.

An axe struck Garran’s shield hard enough to split the wood around its metal boss. A spear entered beneath his raised arm before he could recover. His legs weakened. The orcs forced him back one step, then another.

Garran fell knowing everyone else had escaped the camp.

His body appeared on a bed in Sanctuary’s hospital before the broken shield finished striking the floor of the instance.

The spear wound was gone. The torn muscle in his leg had been restored. His heart beat steadily beneath clean skin, and his lungs filled without pain. A gnome attendant hurried to the bed, checked the notice floating above it, and stopped reaching for the bell used to summon help.

[Physical restoration complete.]

[Consciousness engaged with Afterlife Authority.]

[Protected hospital placement confirmed.]

[Automatic return: 11:59:47]

Garran’s restored body remained asleep.

His awareness ventured somewhere else.

He stood in a dark space without walls. He wore the armor that had been damaged in the orc camp, but the shield on his arm was whole. The spear wound existed only as a memory.

A message appeared before him.

[Your physical body has been restored and is sleeping in Sanctuary’s hospital.]

[You may awaken there immediately.]

[An afterlife destination has recognized your final actions.]

[Valhalla]

[A realm for those who accepted danger and continued fighting for a purpose beyond themselves.]

[Enter Valhalla]

[Awaken in Sanctuary]

Garran read the notice twice. He had expected darkness followed by a hospital ceiling. He had never heard of Valhalla, and the dungeon had offered no announcement explaining why death now came with a choice.

His body was safe. The message repeated that fact when he focused on it. Awakening required only a decision. Nothing warned him that entering would delay his return beyond the twelve-hour clock already counting down.

The clock still carried the danger every adventurer understood. Garran believed his resurrection protection would not return until it reached zero. He could awaken early and leave the hospital, but another death before then would be permanent.

Garran chose Valhalla.

Cold wind replaced the darkness.

He stood on a grassy rise beneath a blue sky. Mountains surrounded the distant horizon, their peaks covered in snow. A river divided the broad land below him. Wooden walls, stone towers, camps, and lines of bright standards covered both sides of the water. Thousands of warriors moved between them.

The body Garran wore felt solid. His heart accelerated when a horn sounded from the nearest camp. Wind pressed against his face. The grass bent beneath his boots. When he removed one glove, he found the calluses he had earned over years of carrying an axe.

The form copied him well enough to be mistaken for flesh. It was not the flesh sleeping in the hospital.

A gray-haired man carrying a spear waited beside the path.

"Welcome to the Fields of Victory. You are the first adventurer sent here through death." The guide said.

Garran looked toward the two armies.

"Who are they?"

"Warriors who met death while fighting for something greater than themselves. Valhalla welcomed them and gave them a place in its endless battles. They fight beneath those banners, learn beside old companions and former enemies, and return to the mead halls when each battle ends."

"Can I die here?"

"Your physical body is alive and protected in Sanctuary. If this form receives a fatal wound during a formal battle, you will be rebuilt at the field’s boundary. You may leave the realm whenever you wish. When your clock reaches zero, you will return to your body whether you are ready or not."

That answer removed Garran’s largest concern without making the armies below appear harmless.

"What happens outside a formal battle?"

"The realm heals ordinary injuries. It does not reward people for inventing foolish ways to test its rules."

Garran suspected Max had written that part personally.

The guide pointed toward the eastern camp. Its blue standard displayed a tower above a river.

"The eastern host is preparing to defend three bridges while civilians withdraw from the southern villages. The western host must capture two bridges before the final wagon reaches the mountain road. You may join either side or refuse the battle."

"What do I earn?"

"Experience from meaningful effort. Victory marks if your side succeeds. The marks purchase training, challenges, and access to places inside the hall."

Garran studied the western army gathering around red standards. He had died buying time for people who needed it. Joining the attackers immediately afterward felt wrong, even if the battle had been created for the realm.

"Show me the eastern camp."

The guide led him down the hill.

The battle began before Garran finished learning the names of the three bridges. He joined a shield company assigned to the center crossing. The warriors around him included humans, dwarves, orcs, beastkin, and creatures he could not name. None cared that he was the only adventurer. Their captain cared that Garran understood how to use a shield and became irritated when he discovered how Garran normally used it.

"You brace alone." The captain said.

"I am usually the only shield in my party."

"Today you are one piece of a wall. Stop behaving like a door."

Garran disliked the criticism until the western archers tested it.

The first volley struck twelve shields instead of twelve separate fighters. Garran felt the impacts travel through the joined line. He adjusted too late and allowed his shield to turn. The warrior beside him corrected the angle before an arrow entered the gap.

The system recognized the mistake.

[Shield Brace practice recorded.]

The western host attacked the bridge behind a line of heavy shields. Garran’s company yielded the first span, then locked together at a narrower point marked by two stone pillars. He stopped trying to absorb every strike himself. Pressure moved along the formation. When the fighter to his left weakened, Garran took more of the weight without opening the right side.

His Shield Brace skill changed under the strain. The familiar activation spread beyond his own equipment and recognized the shields touching his.

[Shield Brace progression increased.]

The fight continued long enough for exhaustion to replace fear. Garran lost track of individual opponents. He watched the spacing of the wall, the captain’s signals, and the wagons crossing the mountain road in the distance.

The western host finally broke the formation with a hammer blow delivered by a warrior twice Garran’s width. The strike crushed the shield against his chest.

Pain erased the bridge.

Garran returned on the grassy rise where he had first arrived. His afterlife form rebuilt itself around him without a wound. The memory of the impact remained, and his hands still shook.

[Formal battle defeat recorded.]

[Physical body unaffected.]

[Return to the active battle is prohibited.]

[Eastern objective completed.]

[Three victory marks earned.]

The final wagon escaped before the center line fell.

The guide waited beside the path when Garran’s afterlife form rebuilt itself.

"The eastern host lost the bridge." Garran said.

"After the final wagon reached the mountain road. Holding the bridge was never the true objective. Your side won the battle."

Garran opened his skill record. Shield Brace had not gained a full level, but its progress had moved farther during the defense than it normally did across several ordinary fights. A related formation technique had also appeared as a locked skill with a short set of exercises needed to begin learning it.

The improvement was real. The system showed that it would return with his consciousness when he awakened in the hospital.

Garran followed the guide toward the hall.

The building stood beyond the battlefield on a ridge wide enough to hold a town. Fires burned beneath openings in its roof. Warriors from both hosts entered through the same doors, their arguments focused on formations, missed opportunities, and the western commander’s decision to commit his reserves to the wrong bridge.

No one carried the battle’s hostility into the hall.

The guide showed Garran the mark exchanges before taking him to the feast. Three marks could purchase an introductory lesson, entry into a specialized training yard, or information about one of Valhalla’s smaller challenges. The rare trainers demanded achievements as well as marks.

One notice displayed a shield divided by a line of fire.

[Master Ordan’s Formation Training]

[Requirements: Ten victory marks. Hold the Ash Bridge without breaking formation. Protect a fallen member of the line until recovery.]

[Requirements not met.]

Garran could see the training yard through an open gate, but the guard outside it did not move when he approached.

"Can I save the marks?" Garran asked.

"They will remain connected to you after you wake. Returning through death requires you to qualify again. A living entrance also exists, though no adventurer has discovered it." The guide said.

Garran spent one mark on a basic formation lesson and kept two.

The instructor did not award him a skill. He placed Garran between two experienced shield fighters and made him repeat the movement he had mishandled during the first volley. Garran failed until he stopped watching the weapon directly ahead of him and began feeling pressure through the shields beside his own.

The locked formation technique gained its first measurable progress.

By the time the instructor released him, Garran’s clock showed less than an hour.

He entered the great hall and accepted a plate piled with roasted meat, dark bread, vegetables, and a pastry he would not have expected warriors to defend. The food had weight and flavor inside the temporary form. It satisfied hunger that belonged to the realm without nourishing the sleeping body in Sanctuary.

Garran sat among the warriors who had held the center bridge. They argued over whether the line should have withdrawn sooner. The warrior who had saved Garran from the first volley claimed Garran owed him a drink on the next visit.

"I may never qualify again." Garran said.

"Then find the living road."

"Do you know where it is?"

"If I did, I would charge more than one drink."

Garran laughed and lifted his cup.

The twelve-hour clock reached zero before he could taste what was inside.

His fingers vanished around the cup. The hall disappeared.