Five figures flew away from their blind near the cluster of [Eldritch]. Five figures ignorant of what was about to happen. Five figures flapping with an urgent need to flee.

Only three had heartbeats.

<Nice illusionwork. Tying together true magic with System Skills> Ada ◮ commented over [Speak with Elves], as she watched the figures into the distance. <How long will those last?>

<About a half-hour,> Mack ◐ replied. <That should be plenty of time to play with 13 [Eldritch], catch up inconspicuously and replace ourselves.>

<'Play'?> Ada smirked <I thought you were a bit more restrained this life?>

Mack scoffed. <I am! But that doesn't mean I don't feel a little cramped sometimes.> Mack punched Ada lightly in the shoulder, then started moving up the ridge. <Especially since I haven't really pushed these new [Arch Cleric] Skills that much, not with the group around.>

<Bah! Fine,> Ada called out as she turned to follow. <You can kill them all if you want?>

<Oh ho! The Blade herself is giving up a chance to fight?>

<Eh. I rumble around enough on the front line anyways. I, at least, get it out of my system every once in a while.>

<Is this a gonad thing? Because I'm pretty sure they're working just fine.>

<No! Of course not,> Ada denied abashedly, before grinning broadly. <It's a [Cleric] thing.>

<Yea yea yea, whatever,> Mack muttered as he, followed shortly by Ada, crested the ridge and looked down on the [Eldritch] positioned below them. From the combined Skill [Divine Omnibus], Mack used [Divine Channel] to begin to "open the channel to the god Adonite." In reality, as the mana pooled behind him, he saw that it simply latched into the world enchantment of the System itself and began to draw and aggregate XP, ready for it to be inserted into any of the next [Divine] Skills that Mack or any other [Cleric]-adjacent Class could draw on.

Mack began by drawing on his new Skill [Divine Fortress Walls], as enhanced by [Flexible Divinity], and sketched out in his mind. A minute turned to two, as the [Eldritch] below continued to ignore him. As Mack thought through his design, Ada stood casually beside him, shield arm hanging loose, sword sheathed, sword hand at rest on the pommel.

Finally, Mack was satisfied and triggered the Skills. In mere seconds, the pair watched as golden-hued translucent panes instantiated around and between the [Eldritch], standing there in a loose circle. Around them all, a cylinder a hundred meter wide, and twenty meters tall wrapped around them. Within, twenty panes of force—drawn with XP-fueled true magic as mediated through the System in the name of a god—divided and subdivided the interior, separating the Eldritch from each other. And on the side of the cylinder facing the pair of [Celestials], a semicircle five meters tall was carved out of the cylinder, one [Eldritch] right in the middle of it.

<A maze, huh?> Ada sent.

<Well, I was actually thinking more containment area. Like a reverse fortress. But I didn't want them bunching up on their way out, so… yes, a maze was my way of limiting the flow.>

<Huh,> Ada sent, as the [Eldritch] finally realized they were under attack, and a screeching wail reverberated in the rocky valley. <I mean, why couldn't you do that when the team's around?>

<Because,> Mack replied as his [Divine Finger] sent a searing ray straight through the [Eldritch] (L30) coming out of the "door." <I could pull off [Divine Fortress], but that's way too limited in shaping, and can't really be used as containment. The Skills needed to pull something like this off are too expensive for a [Cleric] to ever get, and no [Arch Cleric] would ever bother with this combination.>

Then, humming as something caught his eye, Mack waved a hand and a [Divine Corrosive Field] sprung up 20 meters long, half in/half out of the doorway. Mack watched as the second [Eldritch] (L30)—Mack decided to call it Beatrix—lumbered its seven walking limbs into the field. A light smoke began to sizzle off the [Eldritch's] body, but it was a fifth of the way through and no substantial damage had occurred. Mack started exponentially increasing the amount of MP he was pumping into the Skill—and thus the amount of XP the System was feeding into it. Several more seconds passed by, and Beatrix had nearly escaped when larger chunks of flesh began sloughing off of its endoskeleton. It barely managed to stumble out of the field, have lost two walking limbs, plus some other pieces. It wailed, and then began to stumble up the hill towards them, but moving no faster than a [Donkey]. A [Divine Finger] ended it in just a moment.

Mack hummed to himself in annoyance.

<Yes?> Ada asked.

<That really is horribly inefficient against [Eldritch]. Sure, it was fairly cheap to set up, but I dumped almost two million MP into the damn thing. Only need about 50k in a [Divine Arrow] to oneshot the other (L30s).>

<I told you not to get it.>

The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

<I know! But it's not like there's that much really interesting in the Skill store. What else was I supposed to buy?>

<Hmm, true,> Ada remarked as the third [Eldritch] (L30)—Chris—rumbled into the now dissipating [Divine Corrosive Field]. A more sinuous, albeit only two-legged, [Eldritch], Chris began to accelerate quickly now that it had open ground towards its intended victims.

Chris died a moment later to a [Divine Arrow] with 50k MP.

<See! I told you that would work!>

<Yes,> Ada sighed. <You did.>

<And it was so much more efficient,> Mack waved his hands, somewhere between excited and exasperated. <Stupid Skill.>

<Hey, what's that?>

Whatever it was, the [Eldritch] (L52)—codenamed Molly—already was three elbows deep into the fuchsia-hued facet. It then thrust its arms outwards and, far more silently than something so momentous should have been, a warbling, roseate tear in reality opened.

<A rift,> Mack whispered in astonishment. For all of the thousands of [Eldritch] they had slain, never once had the duo ever encountered an [Eldritch] entering or leaving their reality. While they knew from church doctrine that [Eldritch] entered the world of Ager through tears in reality, they had never observed these self-sealing wounds in the cosmos.

And here was one being sundered before them. A pink blemish on existence.

And through it stepped an [Eldritch] (L72).

Then a (L87).

Then a (L92).

And a (L104).

And a (L88).

Only three seconds had passed.

The two were in shock. Who, what, where…

Two (L30s) waddled out through the opening in the walls formed from Mack's Skills. And that instigated them to action. Not a word was exchanged, as Ada leapt forward fifty meters to engage, drawing her sword as she did so. The two (L30s)— their codenames already forgotten—were bisected in a moment. Ada fortified herself at the doorway as first the remaining (L30s) and then two of the (L41s) reached the exit, but they were barely able to move into range before whatever passed for [Eldritch] biology was abruptly shunted to non-functional by a steel blade.

Then the (L72) showed up together with the (L87). And it took several attacks—nearly thirty seconds—before they were but carcasses. Then the (L104) showed up and it was another thirty seconds, but Ada took a cut along a shoulder. Then a (L88) and a (L97)—when did that show up!—barreled forward through the tight corridor. A braced shield, a slice, a cut, a shield bash, a Skill, two, three, four!, and one was down, while the other limped.

<Mack!>

<They're holding the rift open!> he yelled back as he frantically double-cast. <There's already thirty over L80, and they're bashing at the walls, whittling down my MP.>

<Thirty!>

<Thirty-three now. Kill faster!>

<I'm working on it!> she snarked back as the (L92) finally showed up for dinner. <Do you have a solution for the largest [Eldritch] invasion I've ever seen, let alone heard of!>

<I'm—shit, give me a moment.>

<I don't have a moment,> she said as her sword finally broke, and she used a Skill to conjur a new one. <Are you even watching me?>

Three broken conjured weapons later. <Mack!>

<What!?>

<Are you ignoring me?>

<Shut up! I'm trying to find a solution for the largest [Eldritch] invasion we've ever seen… I've got forty-two [Eldritch] inside the walls.>

<What! I've already killed thirteen!>

<Kill faster!>

And with that, Ada began pushing her way farther in, the numerous interior walls Mack had made long having been simplified down to a just a handful. Her MP was down a quarter, and her Skills working overtime, as she cut and killed, and she herself bled just a fair bit. She started instinctively drawing on her XP pool, using true magic to strengthen herself and her attacks. She made it halfway to the rift, when Mack finally spoke again.

<I need your XP!>

<How much!>

<As much as you can!>

And somewhere between her shield crushing exo- and endo-skeletons and her blade parting flesh from same, Ada found enough focus to pass back twenty million XP along the bond between them. A deep, bone-chilling cold swept through her, hindering her movements as the XP drained from her over several minutes, and her wounds were accumulating. She was now down two-thirds her MP, and only had 3 million XP in reserve. But as the impossible chill from the transfer dissipated, the XP continued to flow in as she had now killed twenty-seven of the monsters.

But more were coming through. (L112). (L91). (L102). (L108). (L99). All [Eldritch]. No unseemly large [Eldritch Elder]. Nor any odd [Eldritch] variant. And for these small twists of luck, the two could only be quietly thankful as the sounds of battle echoed in this rocky enclave.

<Okay, I've got it!> Mack finally announced, and with that, the [Divine Fortress Walls] refigured into a small twenty-meter cylinder around the rift, and a winding tunnel around it, keeping each of the [Eldritch] still contained within the walls. <All you've got to do is push them back through the tunnel, and then hold it!>

<What!>

<It's the only plan I've got!>

<Arrgh! You could help you know!>

<I've got twenty kills if you haven't noticed.>

She hadn't noticed, and that made Ada very worried. But she shrugged it off and began the long trek forward. The slaughter continued.

It wasn't long really. Perhaps no more than a thousand seconds. Ada killed, and killed, and killed, as did Mack with his [Divine Arrows], [Divine Fingers] and [Divine Godballs]. And she pressed the tide all the way back to inside the cylinder, the unorthodox path behind her disappearing as she passed, leaving only a singular hole in the cylinder.

She fought there, beset on three sides, but letting none through.

The bodies piled up.

Her injuries piled up.

All while Mack counted down until his solution—whatever it was—took effect.

Mack had just hit sixty seconds when Ada's shield shattered. And for all the conjured weapon Skills she had picked up, she had never grabbed one for shields. And so she conjured a second weapon for her other hand and became a whirlwind of death. But all the [Eldritch] now surpassed (L110) and her weapons were snapping once per second, their tinkling chime oddly discordant with the carnage around her. She lost a greave at one point. Then a pauldron. Then her helmet. And when her weapons were breaking faster than they could be formed, she began to fight with her fists and, with a moment's change, claws.

Mack had hit seven when Ada had to throw herself a dozen meters to cut off a (L112). This one managed to grab her, or at least hinder her, but Ada sunk her arm elbow deep into it and pulled out a vital organ, still beating in her hands.

Ada didn't even notice the (L131) behind it, piercing through its own comrade just to get into her steel shell.

She hardly felt the penetration, as she killed yet another.

Mack called two.

Ding! You have died.

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