Chapter 333: The Center Holds

Lucian took the next blow to his forearm and charged forward regardless

Stone crunched beneath his boots as he moved, and a specialist reeled away on his knee, his shoulder devoured by the construct Lucian had just shoved through his side. Beyond him, two of the linked suppression constructs tried to complete a field across the crest. Lucian shouldered right through the field, tearing the nearest one open from the middle of its frame, sending sparks and dead current skittering down the ridge.

The battle, around him, had ceased to be a cycle of careful advances and retreats in favor of sheer weight.

Lucy’s hellflame scorched the interior in low slashes, black edges eating away at overhanging protrusions. Marc held the right, his own brutal geometry folding inward as fast as the enemy pushed out. Silas was knelt up to his elbows in gore, his entire body shaking as he cleaved through anything that came near him. Reia moved as the team’s second-in-command, slicing through the enemy’s momentum in the vital periods before an attack came together. Vyn held the local magic back from the Outer God’s will, her hands firm despite the storm raging around her.

Evelyn fought on her own line, her movements quick and precise. She did not look to Lucian unless it was necessary, and he gave her the same courtesy in turn.

A construct came in high on his left, and Lucian caught it by the arm, twisting his body into the movement and using the momentum to drive a specialist climbing over the construct’s back over the crest as well. Lucian barely had a moment to catch his breath before another rod-pattern appeared at his ribs, and he walked through the charge, closing a hand over the specialist’s wrist and breaking the man’s attempt to cast before he could finish the motion.

Lirael drove forward through the mass of the press

The two of them met in the middle of the ridge, the force of their meeting cutting pale fractures into the stone. She attacked first, layering containment and annihilation in careful motions. Lucian met her with simple power, and the two of them split the rock between them with every clash of their weapons. The specialists that had come to help her were driven back by the sheer force of their impact, and one nearly stumbled into Lucian’s side before the man had the sense to get out of the way. The pressure rolling off Lucian’s shoulders was enough to send most of the enemy force reeling.

"You should have stood your ground," Lirael growled, her teeth bared as she pushed against Lucian’s grip.

Lucian drove back against her, his heels finding a new rut in the stone. "You should have brought more," he countered.

Hellflame cut the edge of their contest as Lucy finished punishing a specialist for trying to flank Lucian. The fire licked at his heels but did not touch him, as it never did. Another enemy tried to exploit the blindness in the magic but found himself finishing his movement to find Evelyn waiting at his back, her own fire already wrapping around his throat.

Marc made some sort of sound as he drove two of the enemy constructs together, crushing them both inward with enough force to fold their frames back on themselves. Silas laughed, a short broken sound, wrenching a third unit from its feet and driving it backward over the crest. Reia’s eyes were too bright, her telepathy carving through the enemy formation’s will in neat sections, and several specialists found themselves hesitating at once as contradictory orders barked at them from their superiors. Vyn grabbed hold of the pause, turning the magic beneath them upside-down so that half those hesitating found themselves suspended in sudden futility.

The pressure of the Outer God was still pressing on all of them.

It was on their lungs, pressing against Vyn’s careful maintenance of the local magic, and pressing against the very edges of the ridge, as if the land itself would soon crumble away beneath Team Zero. Lucian could feel it all, and he did not pull back from any of it. With every pulse of the foreign pressure, Lucian moved through it, and the center of the battle grew exponentially more difficult to contest.

A pair of linked erasure-class constructs came at him from opposite directions, trying to slice the space between him and Lucy open.

Lucian met them before they could finish their charge, twisting his power through their link and breaking their momentum with sheer force of will. He sent them both tumbling backward, one on either side of him, and Lucy’s hellflame finished the job, spearing one of the machines in a lance of constricted fire. The other construct found itself sideways in Marc’s space, and the soldier simply drove it back over his shoulder before stomping on its frame to finish the job.

Evelyn caught Lucian’s eye as she drove a specialist backward off the crest, her knuckles bleeding from a series of tight, quick blows. Her face was pale and set, her lips pressed into a tight line. Behind her, a containment pattern snapped together, and Lucian cut through it without looking at it directly, his body already moving to the next contest before the pieces had fallen away.

She did not acknowledge it, and he did not expect her to.

Lirael came at him again, and this time she did not hold as much back. The two of them carved another shallow trench into the crest, her pale light bleeding away across Lucian’s body where he had taken the brunt of her power. Blood trickled down his temple from the last of her counters, and neither of them moved off the ridge.

Around them, Team Zero held the crest

Silas took a blow that sent him to one knee but was dragged back up by Reia’s grip, his good arm slamming into a construct’s head housing and driving it inward. Marc’s nose was bloody, and he paid it no mind. Vyn’s shoulders shook as she fought to keep the magic flowing through the right patterns. Lucy’s flame burned as bright as ever, though her edges were wilder than before. They all paid, and they all held.

Lucian forced Lirael back another step, feeling the press of the enemy formation change as she did. Not fall away, not quite, but bend in subtle ways. The specialists were already scrambling to adjust their own formations in response, and the weight of the Outer God’s pressure was pressing against their efforts. For a moment, the entire enemy advance hesitated, the force of it all pressing against the sheer determination of Team Zero to hold the ridge.

"Rear anchors on their left are overloaded," Reia said, her voice tight with effort.

"Take them," Lucian told Vyn, and then Marc, and the two of them drove into the enemy formation together, space and magic both folding inward on themselves. The anchors collapsed under the pressure, and the enemy’s left formation wavered dangerously. Silas and Reia drove right into the opening, and Lucy cut the interior of the ridge free of any further interference. Evelyn held her ground, her teeth clenched shut as she kept her position firm despite the shifting around her.

Lucian kept his eyes on Lirael.

She looked tired now, not defeated, but tired. The careful execution of her earlier blows had given way to something more personal, more dangerous. Around her, the few specialists that had survived the ebb and flow of the battle moved as one, their carefully constructed formations holding despite the losses. They all knew they were in a bad place, and none of them had been given permission to pull back.

Lucian met her next strike, turned it, and drove hard enough into her guard that he saw the shock run through her eyes.

The ridge cracked again, and Team Zero held.

Below them all, the presence of the Outer God only grew, massive and patient as it watched the lesser forces battle it out. It did not need to press forward, not yet. Lucian could feel that patience as keenly as he felt his own team around him, their exhaustion, their rage, their determination.

He planted his feet in the broken stone and held the center.

There was no order to fall back, not yet, and there would be no mercy in retreat. The battle pressed on under Lucy’s flames and the weight of the enemy’s pressure, and Lucian Black stood firm in the middle of it all.

Lirael gathered herself to charge forward again, her pale light blooming over her arms

Lucian raised his hands, waiting for her to come.

The ridge was theirs, at least for now, and that was enough to keep fighting.