A blade of water careened into the approaching tide. It was thick, razor sharp, and decimated all in its path. Lena was standing upon the top of the wall, helping whenever she could. Fighters below her were shouting commands, asking for help, or just unleashing skills by yelling their name.

Her knees were trembling. The amount of carnage and blood was overwhelming. But she just kept firing.

In the distance, among the unbelievable swarm, Leo was out there. Massive explosions of ice were cascading across the swarm like a carpet bomb. It was happening roughly every minute or so and was likely the reason they hadn’t been overwhelmed already.

Well… one of the reasons.

Maniacal laughter of the highest degree echoed out next to her as a young woman with glistening red hair—much brighter than hers—cast spell after spell upon the enemies. Flame was raining down upon them one minute, the next it was boiling them from below. The woman’s lust for battle and diversity of skills was incredible. This had to be the Ruby her sister spoke of.

When Lena had looked at her, the fire caster had given her one look, then scoffed. It was likely at her level, as even with Lena’s profession, she was still almost ten levels lower than Ruby was.

That didn’t bother Lena, she wasn’t trying to be the next Leo. She wanted to grow in her own way. With a profession instead of a class. Something everyone had told her she was great at, including her new… god.

The Fate-Bound Seamstress was not something she could really comprehend. Nor was she spoken to much regarding her profession with any tips or tricks. That was okay. What she did tell her, only a few days ago, was to evolve her class in preparation. Preparation for what she did not tell her, only to prepare.

After Lena had gone to try and save Leo, her class had risen quickly to 19 due to the much higher level enemies she fought. After she had returned, she hadn’t wanted to raise her class again at all. It just didn’t interest her.

But after her patron had said so, Lena decided to just join one of the nightly fights to push it that one step further. In doing so, she was granted a selection of three classes, and one of them was the obvious choice.

Name: Lena Horton

Class Level: 24

Profession Level: 41

Race: Human (E)

Class: Threadtide Arcanist

When she had been offered a class related to threads, Lena had been shocked. After talking about it with her sister and others, never in a million years did she expect to see anything offered apart from some kind of better water mage.

She hadn’t shown anyone the skill she had gained from learning the class, not because she was nervous, but due to a more selfish reason.

Not wanting to be relied upon for fighting.

She knew the skill was incredible. Knew it would change how people looked at her. But then she saw Ruby and her grand scale of spellcasting and Lena felt… better.

Even with the attacks of all the strongest combatants, the tide only felt like it was growing. A particularly large Soldier Antling had managed to break past Leo and somehow slipped through the cracks of the ranged fire.

Lena chose this moment to unleash her skill. It had a long cooldown so she needed to be sure it would change the tide of battle.

“Shared Current.”

She swept her hand forward, releasing a lattice of shimmering water threads across the battlefield. The threads pierced through nearby enemies and then spread as it covered the tide. It linked them together like droplets along the same current.

For a brief moment, Lena felt their fates flow as one.

The main Soldier Antling she was aiming for was completely bound by thread that did not inhibit movement. It bound its soul.

“Hit the Soldier with everything you have!” Lena shakily commanded.

~

Leo was fighting within the crowd of antlings, barely a single part of his body wasn’t covered in sickly green ichor. He’d been completely adopting his tactic for swarm fighting he’d come up with during the push to the tower. Strike quickly, strike decisively, move on.

The intentions weren’t to kill outright, just to spread the frost.

And spread it did.

With the help of his companion, who was also darting among the crowd, antlings were coated left and right. Frost crept into their joints, under their carapace, all of it slowing them just enough to not get overwhelmed.

The two fighters were covering for each other in combat, watching blind spots and executing joint attacks. But even with all his stat advantages, fighting against this many was mayhem.

Swathes of fire had started rippling across the battlefield soon after he’d jumped into the fray, usually he’d be quite alarmed seeing such a thing, but in this case it brought him relief.

*Snap*

His cooldown for Absolute Shatter had ended and the cacophony of ice shards exploding across the battlefield began again. Notifications rolled in as those who had been damaged by previous attacks were hit once more. The shatter in itself wasn’t enough to outright kill some of the antlings, but definitely enough to wound them.

Leo couldn’t keep this up however, detonating so many shatters was draining his mana pool rapidly, not to mention keeping up his Ice Stance. One good thing did come from this tactic though.

Elemental Momentum: 100

His stacks of Elementum had long since reached max. He was just looking for an opportunity to use them.

Suddenly, a web of water descended over the battlefield. Leo jumped back to look at it and his eyes focused on a girl he hadn’t expected to see on the battlements. Lena was casting some kind of spell across a large majority of the hoard.

His eyes picked up her mouth moving as her eyes landed on Leo. He tried to focus his improved hearing over the sounds of antling screeches and the loud battle.

After getting his improved senses from the skill from the bond, Leo had worked hard to shut out all the overwhelming information the skill could give him. He likened the experience to the hero Daredevil, who suddenly gained increased hearing after losing his sight.

The system likely helped him handle all the information as adjusting was far easier than it probably should have been considering Leo had gained increased effect to not one, but three of his senses.

He tuned in to her words, hearing them just barely.

“Hit the Soldier with everything you have!”

Leo didn’t know what she had planned, but he felt the sheer intent behind her words as the spell overtook the crowd. His skills burst into motion, rushing towards it with Wyrmstep in order to bring Ellie along. They converged mid-air and Ellie vanished into a flash of light, quickly becoming a set of gauntlets on Leo’s hands.

Within moments he was upon the creature, hand glowing with the culmination of all his gathered elemental power. He didn’t just press a palm to it this time. He hit it full force.

“Freeze.”

His gauntleted fist smashed into the carapace of the antling like a battering ram, fully infused with his Elementum. The power rushed down his arm and into the creature and then Leo backed off quickly before other attacks could rain down on the enemy. But none did. They were all too focused on their own fights.

The antling started to writhe and flail under the power within it. Ice began spreading across its skin like frost on a window. Then it froze. Literally. Spikes of ice emerged from its frozen form, completely obliterating the monster.

Leo was wondering why Lena wanted to focus so heavily on one target, but then he saw it.

Thin threads of water connected the once Soldier Antling now ice sculpture to a lot of other antlings. The mana coursed through the threads, barely visible enough to see and when the effect went off…

His eyes went wide.

The full culmination of his attack was spread to every single target connected to the threads. All at once, antlings began freezing solid, jagged shards of ice ripping them from within. It spread like a plague until the last antling nearby in the cramped street was nothing more than a frozen husk.

Leo looked on at the scene before him, dumbstruck, awestruck, and just all around struck. Whatever skill Lena had used had linked the Soldier Antling to all the others, spreading whatever attack it took to nearby enemies that were also linked.

“Holy shit that’s effective,” he muttered, looking up at the mage. His smile dropped when he saw the state she was in.

Blood dripped from her nose and mouth, running down her face, barely standing. Lightning Drive instantly coated Leo’s entire body, uncaring about still needing to wait before using it again. Then Ellie furthered her manifestation, coating his legs and feet in solid metal.

He took off like a crack of thunder, dashing across the battlefield in record time and scooping her into his arms before she could even topple.

“Amy!” His voice was carried on a wave of aura that had everyone in the camp looking.

“Here!” a voice shouted from below and Leo instantly locked onto her. Within a second he was in front of her as Amy gasped loudly.

Her hands were glowing vibrant green as soon as she spotted her sister. “No, no, no, no.” She kept repeating, trying to force more healing into her as tears rolled down her face.

“Get me another healer! Now!” Leo’s voice bellowed out once more and after a few seconds, the main healer from Gareth’s group arrived.

He took in the scene instantly and started healing Lena as best he could, but she was in a really bad state. Judging by how Amy and this other man looked at her, she was barely hanging on.

“Come on Lena, hang in there, please.” Emotion was thick in his voice as he stared down at her unconscious form.

Silence descended, even the noise of the continuing battle was drowned out behind him. Leo couldn’t look away, she had to be okay. It was his fault this happened…

After a minute or so of intense healing, she was away from the edge of death and both Leo and Amy sighed with unbelievable relief.

Amy managed to speak after taking some calming breaths. “What happened? I didn’t even know she was participating!”

Leo spoke softly, voice strained. “She… used some kind of skill. Connected all the ants with watery threads that were linked to one enemy….” he paused. “She… said to hit the Soldier with all we had…I– It’s my fault..”

Amy bit her lip as she looked at him. Leo was expecting a tirade of anger and outrage, but she only shook her head. “She never told me about any kind of skill like that. She probably didn’t know how bad it would hit her. It’s… not your fault.”

Leo grimaced, face twisting in rage. This tutorial had been testing his patience, his will, and his resolve. Now it was causing things like this to happen.

“I’m so fucking done with this tutorial.” His words came out like a growl. His aura started seeping through the pores in his skin, not that of his Stormforged Presence, but of the storm itself.

Amy gasped slightly, looking at Leo with cautious eyes and then spoke, “Leo, please. Not here.” She exhaled quickly. “You need to calm down.”

Like a bucket of cold water was dumped on him, Leo regained his senses. All the anger was completely thrown to the depths of his core, and then buried under a sheet of bedrock.

“I’m so sorry. I– I didn’t mean to,” he stammered, hands trembling as he got under control.

She smiled at him, but it didn’t reach her eyes. “It’s okay. Just… go make us safe? Make it safe for her.”

“I’ll do that.”

He looked at the other healer who had been watching everything without a word, Leo could tell he didn’t want to be here any more.

“Thanks man, you really helped us out.” He put his hand on the young man’s shoulder and the man winced slightly. Leo quickly removed it and just nodded.

“No problem,” he paused. “I’m going to g-go back to the front now. If that’s okay?”

“Course it is,” Leo said, “I’m going too.”

He jumped up onto the wall again to look across the battle. Things were winding down a little, but not entirely. The swarm had been defended against well enough, but more were coming. There was a whole city out there that they could be attacking.

“What the hell was that attack?” Ruby questioned, approaching until she was almost an arm’s length away.

Leo didn’t even turn, just sighed. “Not now, Ruby.”

“Don’t give me that,” Ruby clicked her tongue, then spread her hand across the battle ahead of her. It was a field of spiked ice sculptures in different states of ant. Some could be made out, others were just pure ice, slick with green splatters.

“You can’t show me something like this, then not tell me what it was.”

“I’m asking you to drop it, I don’t want to talk about it,” Leo said, voice calm, but tired.

“Fuck that,” she said, ignoring his request. “Was it something to do with that weak looking water mage?”

Leo’s eyes snapped onto her like a sentry turret. “Careful.”

She flinched, but then continued her questioning like she hadn’t. “So it was, hmm.” She glanced behind her, noticing the downed mage, covered in her own blood.

Then she laughed. “Too weak to handle her own skill. How pathetic is that.”

Leo’s aura clamped its spiritual jaws so hard on Ruby that he was certain she would take damage. Her laugh died in her throat as she tried to push it back, barely breathing under the sheer intense pressure of it.

Only when he realised how hard he was pushing did he completely pull back, looking away and back into the crowd. His lip was trembling with the uncontrolled rage that was trying to emerge. Fists clenched to white knuckles.

“How—” she spoke softly, almost timid. Then she flared. “How dare you.”

Fire coated her hands in an instant, coming together in a clap. A flamethrower of immense power surged toward him.

He felt it coming long before she fired.

Spark Dash carried him forward, underneath the fire. He grasped her forearms, coating his own hands with Reinforced Stoneskin and then forced them upwards.

Their eyes met between Ruby’s arms, flame roaring above them into the sky. Neither of them spoke, nor did they blink. Whatever skill Ruby used petered out into nothing but wisps in the air carrying heat.

Leo spoke, eyes cold. “Sorry.”