The sky wasn’t black. It was a churning, bruised purple, choked by the smoke of a thousand burning pyres.
"SHIELDS!"
Oliver didn’t have to think. The body he inhabited moved on its own accord, muscle mory overriding his confusion. He slamd the heavy tower shield down onto the stone battlents, bracing his shoulder against the cold steel.
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK-THWACK.
The sound of arrows raining down was like hail on a tin roof, but heavier. Deadlier. A scream erupted to his left—a soldier hadn’t raised his shield fast enough. An arrow the size of a spear had punched through his throat, pinning him to the stone floor. He gurgled, hands clawing uselessly at the shaft, before going still.
Oliver stared. He could see the light fading from the man’s eyes. He could sll the sudden release of bowels mixed with the copper tang of blood.
It’s fake, Oliver told himself, his breath hitching in his chest. It’s a simulation. Just a test. That guy isn’t real. He’s just... data.
But when he looked down at his own hands, encased in battered gauntlets, they were trembling. The vibration of the impacts felt real. The heat of the burning oil cauldrons felt real.
"UP! THEY’RE CLIMBING!"
The roar ca from a Sergeant a few paces away—a scarred veteran nad Garren, missing half an ear.
Oliver pushed off his shield and peered over the crenellations.
Below, the earth was gone. In its place was a sea of muscle, iron, and hate. The Orc horde stretched as far as the eye could see, a writhing carpet of green and grey illuminated by the fires of war machinery.
Hundreds of ladders slamd against the wall simultaneously.
"Push them off!" Oliver shouted—his voice booming, deep and authoritative.
He grabbed a ladder, the wood groaning under the weight of the monsters climbing it. He shoved. Beside him, two other soldiers helped. The ladder tipped backward.
Screams echoed from below as the orcs fell, crushing their kin beneath them.
But for every ladder they pushed, two more latched on.
A massive, green hand gripped the ledge right in front of Oliver.
An Orc Warlord vaulted over the wall, roaring spit and fury. He was seven feet of pure muscle, clad in crude iron plates, wielding a serrated axe that looked like it had been torn from a torture rack.
"DIE, HUMANS!"
The axe swung.
Oliver ducked, feeling the wind of the blade shear the plu off his helt. He didn’t have his agile adventurer’s body. He was heavy, encased in plate. He couldn’t dodge gracefully. He had to tank.
CLANG!
He caught the return swing on his shield. The impact jarred his entire skeleton. His teeth clacked together.
Pain.
Real, white-hot pain shot up his arm.
Warning: Left arm structural integrity at 70%.
"Damn it!" Oliver gritted his teeth. He couldn’t use his runic sword—he was stuck with this standard-issue knight’s blade. But the skill... the skill was still his.
As the Orc raised the axe for a killing blow, Oliver didn’t retreat. He stepped in.
He slamd the edge of his tower shield into the Orc’s knee. There was a wet crunch. The monster howled, buckling.
Oliver didn’t hesitate. He drove his sword into the gap between the Orc’s helt and breastplate.
SHHK.
Hot blood sprayed across Oliver’s visor. It tasted tallic. Salty.
He kicked the corpse off his blade and spun around. The wall was being overrun.
"Hold the line!" he scread, rallying the n around him. "If they take the wall, the city falls! Push them back!"
For the next hour, ti lost its aning. It beca a blur of gore and steel. Oliver hacked, blocked, and shoved. He watched n lose limbs. He saw a young squire take a mace to the face, his skull collapsing like a rotten lon.
He fought until his arms felt like lead, until his lungs burned with smoke.
And then, a horn blew from the enemy lines.
The orcs retreated.
****
The battle wasn’t heroic. It wasn’t like the duels Oliver had fought with Isolde, or the tactical strikes he’d used in the goblin den.
This was a at grinder.
It was an endless, exhausting rhythm of kill, push, step back, kill.
An orc crested the wall. Oliver didn’t fence with it. He shoulder-checked it, driving his pauldron into its tusked face, hearing the crunch of cartilage. As it stumbled back, he drove his sword into the gap between its neck and breastplate.
Black blood sprayed, hot and stinking, coating his visor.
He ripped the blade free and spun. Another orc was already there.
Slash. Parry. Kick. Stab.
His arms burned. His body was screaming in protest. He wasn’t gaining mana back like he used to. Fatigue was accumulating, heavy and suffocating like a lead blanket.
"Oil! Pour the oil!" a sergeant scread nearby.
Two soldiers tipped a massive cauldron over the edge. A waterfall of boiling pitch cascaded down.
From below, a chorus of screams rose up—agonized, gurgling screeches that sounded terrifyingly human. The sll of cooking at wafted up, sweet and sickening.
Oliver gagged but forced it down.
"Nice aim!"
A burly man with a thick beard and a warhamr clapped Oliver on the back. It was Kaelen. Oliver had been fighting beside him for the last hour.
Kaelen wiped gore from his beard and grinned, his teeth white against the gri. "That’s twenty for , Cap. You falling behind?"
Oliver managed a dry rasp of a laugh. "I stopped counting at survival."
Kaelen chuckled, leaning against the battlent for a brief second of respite as the next wave regrouped below. He reached into his tunic and pulled out a small, dented locket. He clicked it open with a thumb.
Inside was a tiny, crude portrait of a woman with laughing eyes.
"See that?" Kaelen said, his voice dropping, softening in a way that didn’t belong on a battlefield. "That’s Elara. Not the Princess... my Elara. She’s back in the capital."
Oliver looked at the picture. He tried to stay detached. He’s an NPC. He’s a construct.
"She’s beautiful," Oliver said, the words slipping out automatically.
"She’s terrifying," Kaelen corrected with a fond smile. "If I don’t co back, she’ll resurrect just to kill again. She’s due in a month. A boy, the healer says. I’m gonna teach him how to swing a hamr."
Oliver felt a cold knot form in his stomach. The detail. The emotion. The way Kaelen’s thumb caressed the tal casing. It was too much.
"You’ll teach him," Oliver said, his voice firm. "We hold until dawn. The reinforcents are coming. You’ll go ho."
Kaelen snapped the locket shut and tucked it away near his heart. He hefted his warhamr, the grin returning, sharper this ti.
"Damn right I will. Let ’em co! I’ve got a nursery to build!"
BOOOOOM.
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