Hell had arrived at their doorstep. Monsters, millions of them, were swarming the entire northern front of the wall. The endless swarm of beasts were coming to kill them all.
Actually, kill might not have been the best word to describe it. They wanted to absorb them and take everything their bodies had to offer. They would use the humans as sustenance, and once they were finished, they'd turn their bottomless hunger on one another and use their companions as fuel next.
Now, a collective effort was unfolding unlike anything the child had ever seen. He'd witnessed people working together, but he'd never seen a battle of this magnitude. It was his introduction to real warfare, and the war was on par with one of the greatest that history had ever recorded. Sadly, this war would not be recorded in history, because there was no one to transcribe its happenings. Worthy was merely a guide, not an archivist.
There was nobody to thoroughly document the happenings of today. Hell, there would be anyone that could possibly vet the information, save for witness accounts.
'Pssh. There's no guarantee that there'll be any witnesses coming out of this, will there? This might actually be the end.'
One slip of time. It only took a single moment for the entire course of the tower to change. Now, they were met with an unceremonious death at the ends of millions of ferocious beasts. Even if they could battle all of them, there was no way for anyone except perhaps War and Walkyr to handle the giants.
Asterie and the man who could create the black spheres of destruction might've been crucial here. Sadly, both of them were now dead. They were casualties of a battle that none of them had the full scope of until it was already too late.
Worthy wanted to believe that Asterie and those lost would've been valuable assets in this hopeless situation. They had powers fit to cover wide areas, especially the woman who could rend space and move throughout the world uninhibited.
That was how Climbers died, however. Even those with magnificent power could not rely on it to get them through the challenges presented. Asterie was enthralled by a monster, to the point of it taking her up as a favorite, and that was when her fate was sealed. Perhaps he mind was too sedated to return to its former state, broken into pieces and slowly but surely having itself reconstructed in Furfur's image.
It was all assumptions, a way to make sense of why someone so powerful had to die. In the end, he could only pray he was right. Otherwise, all that senseless fighting would have been for nothing. Their deaths would have been for nothing… Because the entire world was enthralled anyways after their deaths.
'It doesn't matter. I can't change the past, so I need to look ahead of me.' Focusing on the battle taking place… it was still just as dire as it was minutes ago.
A unit of warriors flew through the air with various weapons in their hands. Destructive bows delivering monumental power unleashed hell upon the approaching ground waves, tearing holes into what looked like a sea of blood and bones. Sadly, the sea quickly refilled its lost space with more horrors, and the distance with the wall was closing every passing second.
From above, the flying terrors descended upon the flying warriors, and they turned to meet them with a short delay. That delay cost the lives of a few dozen, who were pushed out of the sky and sent plummeting down to the earth with enough force to leave every bone in their body broken. There, they were drowned in a sea of swelling blood and mass. If asphyxiation did not kill them, then the absorption of the abominations covering them certainly made sure that the men and women died.
Those who had enough strength to contest the initial ground waves were being pushed back slowly but surely. Worthy could make out various unique figures heading the defensive effort, including a man that towered over everyone, wielding a massive halberd, larger than two men. He was directing those around him on how to fight, while swinging the massive weapon as if it were weightless to decimate any monsters who approached him.
A little further from him, Worthy saw someone moving within a fog, shredding anything that entered the fog apart with great precision. The child didn't know if it was a result of the fog or if the person received some kind of boost to their physical abilities. Nevertheless, it was undoubtedly lethal, and this was another factor delaying the monsters from reaching the northern wall.
Another glint was seen in the distance, so the child braced himself by covering his ears.
Just as anticipated, a bone spear crashed into another wall of light, creating a net in the newly created array of grids built by Taivat, who must've been somewhere else on the wall at that moment. The defender was getting no time to relax, as each time the spear of bones was thrown at the wall, he had to deconstruct and reconstruct the barrier to prevent it from being eradicated by the next throw.
Worthy didn't want to take a guess about what the appearance of the spearbearer was like. Whatever it looked like, it was powerful beyond belief. It was throwing the spear from so far away that it could not be seen. Only a glint was presented to indicate when it attacked, and that must've been a result of a Reward of some kind, since there was no vibrant sunlight to reflect off of the bone… nor should the bone have light reflecting from it so brightly in the first place.
Focusing his attention into the distance, the explosions coming from within the bone mountain were becoming more and more occurring. Worthy's only guess was that War Reaver was inside, unleashing his destructive ability. That made the boy wonder just how formidable the bones of the mountain were.
In his mindscape, he'd created a replica of War's Divine Sword based on how he perceived its might. It was unstoppable, overpowering everything that it came into contact with—a tool that was not restricted by laws, as it severed them with every swing.
Worthy was willing to concede his expectations of the weapon might've been biased, but none of that excused the fortitude of the mountain.
On his own, War had divided a monster of mountainous proportions several times, and clearly had the ability to do so again. Dividing mountains was well within his ability, so it made no sense to Worthy how he hadn't at least blown a chunk of the abomination away.
He didn't have the luxury of coming to terms with the attack either. He had a decision to make.
The wall dropped again. He had been too absorbed by the battle to realize when it'd dropped before, but now he witnessed the disappearance of each grid, fluttering into the air in arrays of light. Once they happened, another way of Climbers descended from the wall. Some were carried by platforms and others leapt with a reckless abandon that could only be inherited by those whose durability were unmatched.
With nowhere left to go, the Climbers who wielded the resolve to fight for their survival did just that. They made their way over the wall and went to join the battle against the beasts. The chaos was only growing larger by the moment.
Sadly, even accounting for all of these defenses, and all of these Climbers… There were too many people dying. In fact, there were some lunatics who seemed to have lost their minds and resolved to simply attack anybody near them as they panicked, killing men who were once their own allies. Thankfully, dim-witted individuals like that were made quick work of by a unified effort.
'Is there… really nothing we can do?'
Esme must've been with War within the belly of the mountain, so there was undoubtedly no human whose ability could heal quite as efficiently as hers. Anyone who survived being attacked by a beast with injuries, was destined to die, and so as the defensive line was slowly pushed back, there were some left to die. Taking their own lives would've been merciful, but they didn't even have that option. There was no mercy found on the battlefield.
Soon, there was a new source of trembling coming from the wall from behind the boy.
He turned around just in time to see a massive stone hand grabbing hold of the wide, spacious top of the wall. Fortunately, no poor sap was standing where the massive structure had just landed.
Worthy first saw Lady Freya rise over the wall, and then the Stone Titan followed, its featureless face close enough to block out the sun of a home or two. When both its feet were supporting its massive body on the wall, it leaned down to allow Freya to calmly leap from its head and land on the wall.
Quickly, one of the guards of the wall rushed to her side, as the woman expected a summary of the situation.
"I can see what's happening, but I'm hoping I'm wrong. Help me understand the situation." The austere woman folded her arms over her chest, finger anxiously tapping her bicep. She was remaining calm externally, but Worthy had seen the haste the woman moved with to reach the other side of the wall as soon as possible. Freya could make herself appear calm, but she was no doubt as panicked as Walkyr, who was no doubt suffering down wherever he was.
"It's… It's the end of the world at our front door, Lady Freya. The Holy Knight, War Reaver, took the healer and a few others and had Deadman Walkyr transport them to the giant, walking pile of bones. Every once in a while, an explosion erupts from inside the thing, but that doesn't slow it down in the slightest. In fact, ever since War Reaver went in… we've been losing more numbers than reasonably possible.
Worst of all, when everyone blacked out for a while, that was more than enough time for our enemies to get too close for our defenses to even matter. Bolmark is below, trying to keep them back. He has been holding firm, but he is just one man—not nearly enough to compensate for our lack of numbers as the enemy's keep going to the millions and beyond.
If that isn't the worst of it, then whatever the hell is chucking spears at us from god knows where is going to tear a hole through the damn wall if we aren't careful. It started attacking us as soon as Deadman Walkyr went back to assist the Holy Knight in his battle within the mountain of bones."
Everything the man had just unpacked was equally as distressing for a multitude of reasons.
War, Esme, Deadman, and a few others were inside of the mountain trying their hardest to defeat the beast before it can reach the city. At some point, Worthy figured that the Holy Knight had taken who he could grab before the fog had conquered the Prime Settlement, and thus saw no reason to return if there was no hope of saving people with the mountain's approach.
That was true, of course. The Holy Knight couldn't have predicted Worthy's mind could be the key to defeating the puppeteer he'd desperately been trying to find a way to delay. When the mountains revealed themselves as living, sentient enemies, the Holy Knight and the settlement's guards must've been left with too few options to pick from.
Ordinarily, War could've used his raw might to defeat his enemies. In some cases, that would be true. In fact, Worthy didn't doubt that War could ascend from the bone mountain at that very moment and defeat the flesh mountains generating the relentless flood of flesh abominations.
Something must've gone wrong inside of the bone monster when War realized his physical might was not enough to overpower it. There had to have been something within it that was keeping him delayed far beyond what Furfur of the Mind could've done. War's very presence dissuaded Furfur from acting too irrationally. It only made sense that something else with a piece of intelligence would come to distract the Holy Knight.
It was an elaborate plan, which was in the end foiled by a twelve-year-old boy's stubbornness.
Sadly, even when Furfur's plot was dismantled before his eyes, the damage outside was already done. War chose the Bone Mountain, and that mountain held something harrowing enough to keep him inside of it. Worst of all, there were others inside who must've been crucial to his fight, which is why only Walkyr was being sent back and forth to deliver updates about the outside…
The man's body was steaming, the last Worthy saw of him. More than likely, he'd been enduring the heat produced by War's battle the most. Esme could alleviate the pain of her enemies, and perhaps even herself if Worthy guessed her limits. Nevertheless, that healing must've been showing a never-before-seen sign of delay in the wake of War's incessant annihilation of his enemy.
Sadly, that was only one problem. War being gone was detrimental, but it did not mean that the thousands of Climbers couldn't fend for themselves. There was still hope that upon reaching the wall, the momentum of the battle would change once more Climbers were in proper defensive stations, fighting in familiar territory.
Clearly, the battle on the open plain was supposed to serve as a killing field. If not for the creation of more enemies, it'd have proven itself to be largely effective.
What was distressing about this, though, was the fact that once the abominations reached the wall, Taivat's barrier of light would lose its efficiency with more abominations chipping away at it before the spearbearer could unleash its spear. Or, worse than that, the spearbearer could wait for the barrier to be damaged or dropped, then unleash another attack before Taivat could ready the next layer of protection.
'What… What could I contribute here? Anything at all?' He didn't see what he could add of value. His knife was valuable in a fight against one or two enemies. Flesh abominations were mindless, thus a child with enough equipment and training could defeat them with resounding ease. Despite all of that, these abominations, while mindless, were too numerous for the boy to hope to survive a few seconds again.
The Accursed Port was being besieged, and they could do nothing but delay the inevitable.
Something massive moved over Worthy, and the boy raised his head to see the Stone Titan, which had regained its size during its climb up the wall, leaping from the platform and descending down toward the ground.
Worthy felt the ground shake from the distance when it landed, and the violent vibrations—save for the ones generated by the wall-mounted artillery—became more distant. The Stone Titan was not approaching the Bone Titan as Worthy thought it would. Instead, it was moving towards one of the living mountains of flesh, its feet gliding over the Climbers and narrowly avoiding those in the sky. After a few more steps, its feet crashed down on top of a horde of horrors, and then continued moving deeper and deeper into the sea of carnage incarnate.
There, Worthy witnessed something miraculous, which he hadn't thought was possible.
He'd seen the Stone Titan assimilate with the earth before to increase its power. Before his eyes, the color of the grey stone its body was made of had changed. It became crimson, as if blood was flowing through its veins to make it into a living organism.
The Stone Titan was becoming a Flesh Titan, growing more massive by the second as the stone layer of its flesh expanded and expanded, until the grey of its stone were more like fissures, or the veins of a body made of living parts.
He did not stay and watch the Titan's battle with the mountain of flesh. He could already tell it would be a gruesome bout, as the Titan grew to the size of a mountain itself.
Like a dam, it halted the flow of abominations who turned their attention to it, seeking to protect their mother from the large predator.
'This… This cursed place! Those words didn't carry any dread, huh?! Destiny my right foot, you lunatic! We're dying here!'
Through the cracks of his anger, Worthy was rational enough to realize Alice had been right. She said the Accursed Port had been given its name to describe its destiny. That destiny was being fulfilled at this very moment. Humans had developed a way of living in the Prime Settlement to the point of having a supposed hierarchy and jobs. The purpose of entering was to challenge the Tower, and yet there were people that grew comfortable and weak under a sky that was nothing short of artificially crafted.
Hell, they weren't seeing the sky whatsoever. It was the maw of a beast who'd swallowed the world and blocked out the view of the sun. Those who became comfortable in the sanctuary for years had not seen the sky of the outside world in a time that was too long for Worthy to fathom.
'No matter how wretched this place may be… I'm not going to just let it take me out! I didn't survive against Furfur just to get eaten alive by some flesh-absorbing predators, or a prick with a spear I haven't even seen the face of!'
The child ran through his memories, searching for anything of use.
Alice fought the Blood Marauder with her army of golems and inventions that were not of her world. She traveled her dead world and built small settlements where she could rest, and also where he had a lingering suspicion others would need for rest as well. Alice then sailed a sea of a dead deity's divine ichor until she reached the end of the world, and created the First Gateway.
Worthy stood on the walls of the Accursed Port, the largest shelter Alice made, and thought back to his brief conversation with her.
'What was it she said… 'It is a port, not a hub.' What does that even mean in the first place?! She couldn't have been any more clear with her words, that ancient woman, could she?'
However, it only took a bit more searching in his mind to find the difference, and it came in the form of a single piece of information he'd collected some time ago. When he saw the corpse of Asterie, hanging halfway out of a dark hole in a wall, he noticed that darkness within those spaces only really equated to living things. Even the tunnel that he'd walked through, once belonging to a living worm creature, had no light within it once it was dead, and thus required no illumination.
The walls of the Prime Settlement were alive. Middle Town was a name created by Climbers who had no way of knowing what it truly meant, because Alice had transcribed a name into the very concept of the town, rather than leaving something material they could use to remember its title. Those without a Reward like Worthy's wouldn't have had the chance to learn its real name unless they could perceive the assigned names of things, which would be a rather convenient power.
Their current problem was that they were trapped. The artillery was not enough to defeat the endless waves of monsters. Even as the Titan reached the first mountain and began crashing into it, uplifting the abomination until Worthy had a clear view of the underbelly of a mountain for the first time, that was not nearly enough to save their lives.
Those on the ground were pushed back, and the only place that they could retreat to was inside the walls. A chaotic retreat would spell death, as Worthy could now hear the leading figures screaming to their respective followers through the sounds of artillery fire. Once their back was against the wall… that'd be it. They'd have to retreat inside or join the dead, and many of them would, even while in the middle of retreating.
'...I hope that she wasn't being poetic.'
Alice claimed that the Accursed Port was just that, a port, not a hub. Meaning that things were not supposed to wait and meet there. Rather, they were supposed to depart…
Or maybe it could depart.
Worthy took a gamble. A desperate gambit, to seek out something that might not have existed in the first place; yet he still hoped that it did.
Because if he was wrong, they had no more options. They were going to die, and there was nothing they could do to stop their deaths. Even if War managed to kill the Bone Mountain and then set out to eradicate the weaker ones, the majority of the Accursed Port would've already fallen.
The boy closed his eyes and thought of a specific name. He thought of multiple names, in fact, running through his options.
After a while, something resonated with him. He opened his eyes and he saw it. A crimson thread connecting him to something behind him, near the center of the city…
He'd created a link to the Accursed Port. Well, technically it was a specific place in the port.
Worthy had created a link to the Heart of the Accursed Port.