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The following morning brought them to their next location, with those around them who hadn't yet been able to trade out for whatever brief bits of rest they’d be allowed looking the worst for it by the time they took their positions.

In the span of a day, everyone had been exposed to more violence and death than anyone should see in a lifetime and as the two took their positions to contribute to it, Ben once more provided what relief he could, pulling those it was safe to into him mind for the chance to safely unwind amidst it all, chatting with them as he did.

There wasn’t one person who didn’t know what was coming, they’d all seen it in the first wave after all, but it still wore on them as they fell back on talking about what mattered and motivated them. Family and friends who didn’t have the skill or the strength to fight or who were staying behind in their cities and villages to deal with whatever was certain to slip past the defensive fortresses that dotted the lands, all to destroy what was there as they conquered the world.

It didn’t let any of them feel a drop of peace, with many who’d been holding on to hope that things would go as well as the first wave did already felt it fading, but through it all, Ben tried to reassure them, no matter how little he believed it himself.

“We’ll get through this,” He’d say confidently to each one before releasing them from his mind. “The planet hasn’t been preparing for so long for nothing and we have the gods doing their best too. Once we overcome these trials then we’ll be able to move on and rebuild, we all just have to do our best till them.”

Hollow words but they seemed to help, with those being spoken to ending up appreciative of the effort while the work the heavens were showing gave a boost as well.

There were clouds hanging in the air around that gate too, he was sure that was going to be true of all of them, with lightning continuing to rain down on them all, lighting up the area with constant flashes as each strike downed demons, leaving their flying foes to crash down to the ground below, causing more damage to those unlucky enough to be hit from above.

As he took it all in, he spared some attention for Thera as well, slipping into her mind when it wasn’t immediately apparent what she was doing. There were no obvious attacks being fired off from her staff, but that was because she was directing her mana farther out, altering the density of the ground itself to leave demons falling through, only to cancel her effects and let the earth snap back into place, trapping swaths of them in one fell swoop and moving on to different sections of the field to cast that same attack, drowning droves of them in the dirt beneath their feet.

“You managing okay?” He asked her, neither of them looking away from the demons below as they carried out their attacks.

“For now. It’s going to be a long day.”

Ain’t that the truth.

With the heightened awareness that came with his high level of unnatural mind, he was able to take in more on the peripheries of his vision, letting him notice the occasional strikes that had to be coming from the few other awakened mages working in different locations on the field as everyone put their all into their attacks.

Like trying to drain the ocean with a bucket.

As he watched more and more demons come out of their strange gate, his feelings of impending defeat started to swell again. He didn’t know how the gods were managing to hold onto any hope for the future but seeing not a single gap in the wave to suggest any limit or break in what was to come left him trying to guess how many had already gotten past them, finding the number to be uncountable.

Hell, just trying to estimate the number getting through the gate each second-

Wait, what’s going on there?

Not a break in the wave so much as it was demons making way in the oncoming swarm, a new one came through the gate, looking no different from any other but still scratching at Ben’s mind as it looked around, not rushing out like the rest but instead simply observing, with those coming through after it doing everything they could to give the creature every bit of space they could manage, pressing into each other all of the tighter to avoid touching it.

But why do I recognise it? Ben asked himself, the answer coming fractions of a second later as his mind made connections and his blood ran cold. From craftsmans’ tower.

That demon was the same one who’d stepped out of the gate briefly during the first wave, appearing to destroy Iberu’s weapon and disappearing as soon as its task was done, with its presence filling Ben’s mind with questions.

Why’s it here and what’s it going to do? With how it moved the first time I’d assumed it had come specifically to destroy that thing given how much damage it was doing to the demons but was that not the case? Do they have some sort of observer class among them that just happens to pop through? That would explain the one that got trapped here when the gates closed early but then is it going to do anything now? Things definitely aren’t going well enough for us for it to step in if it really only did that last time given how much damage we were doing to them but I don’t really want to assume we’ll get to enjoy that level of luck.

Given the unknown risks, Ben acted to ease his worries the best he could, quickly pulling his partner into his mind and boosting the speeds of both of their thoughts to the maximum.

“Thera, major problem.”

“What?”

“The demon that broke the weapon at craftsmans’ tower? It’s here. Currently doing nothing but no way to know if it’s going to stay that way.”

She instantly remembered it, how it had thrown out earth and stone in an overwhelming attack she couldn’t even touch by incorporating the effects of magic nullification into it, leaving her magic powerless in the face of it as she was forced to wonder how badly things were about to go.

“Okay, so what are we doing then? Any chance of a sneak attack?”

“No clue. The gods have all been pretty firm that the elite demons should only be doing anything during the third wave, for all we know this is just acting as an observer. If we do nothing it just might watch a bit and then leave.”

“I don’t think either of us are that optimistic.”

“Generally not, but the fact it hasn’t attacked immediately is a plus. By the time I grabbed you it was only looking around and attacking it might be the prompt that gets it to take action.”

“But if it’s not prepared then we might be able to catch it by surprise,” Thera pointed out. “Even if it doesn’t do anything now, someone’s presumably going to have to deal with it in the third wave. It’s not something we should just leave and hope it goes away.”

It was a fair point. Even if it was something that could be avoided, that was a matter of then, not forever. The third wave would come and plenty of powerful threats would come with it, even killing one more when they had the chance might make a bit of difference down the line, leaving him to give in to her opinion.

“Okay, if you want then I’ll point it out.”

He briefly scanned her memories, taking in where she was looking before he’d pulled her into his thoughts as he projected what she’d seen into his mind for both to look at, adjusting the scene from there to show everything he’d witnessed to give a broader idea of the battlefield as a whole, letting her see where she’d need to look when he’d release her mind before letting her go as her eyes scanned the crowd.

“There,” She muttered the second her sight locked onto the distant target while she started preparing a spell, trying to determine what would work best against a creature like that as she decided on pure, overwhelming power before she prepared to lift a small mountain of stone to throw out with as much mana behind the act as she could in the hopes that it both wouldn’t be able to react fast enough to use its magic, and failing that, not have the mana or skill for it to make a difference.

But as she started casting that, staring at it the entire time, its eyes stopped surveying the battlefield, instead locking onto a target in turn. Them.

Before Thera even had a chance to shoot off her massive spell, the creature was already moving, stone wrapping around its feet as it jumped forward under the power of its strength and mana and shot itself forward with its earth magic, blasting right to them in a snap.

Just as fast, Thera tried to re-adjust her attack, firing what she had, only to watch as it was swatted away, her strength losing to its control as it reached forward, not sparing her a glance to instead grab Ben by the throat.

“Found you.”

Not good.

He didn’t want to know what it could have possibly meant by that and did his best to make sure he wouldn’t get the chance. Despite being lifted by his neck, his throat wasn’t being crushed under the powerful grip that had him so no matter how much it hurt he focused on how he might escape instead, reaching to his belt where his knife sat first to try and swipe at the monster, only for that to fail spectacularly as the very blade he’d forged with care dissolved when he tried to stab it.

…Yeah, magic nullification and earth magic, both likely awakened. Should have seen this coming.

That meant the items on him were going to be useless, but as he prepared his next attack, Thera took action.

It didn’t matter how powerful or skilled the monster may have been, there was no way that they shared the same limit to their mana and that was what she aimed to exploit as she wrapped the fortress wall around the creature, filling it with her power to an extent she hoped would overpower whatever it would need to do to cancel her effect and was rewarded for her effort as she watched it struggle, with the other mages around them seeing what was going on and contributing to her attack, with fire and dark both being shot out at its exposed face and being canceled immediately due to the difference in skill.

But through all of that, it never once let go of Ben, holding on to him while doing everything it could to fight against the crushing force on it as he contributed his own attack, materializing wood to shoot into the arm holding him at all angles, watching as it broke the skin but not getting much farther.

Tough bastard, just gotta keep at it.

With his idea for doing exactly that being to materialize more wood, not in the form of bullets to be shot but instead a circular saw, strengthened under his magic and spinning to cut through the tough flesh, wanting to separate the arm from the rest of the body to free him from the beast’s grasp as it struggled before staging a counter-attack of its own.

The entire time, its eyes had been locked onto Ben, its focus devoted to him for reasons he couldn’t understand but with how it had been trapped it had no choice but to acknowledge Thera, seeing a genuine threat that it moved to deal with.

Without showing any signs to give it away, all at once it lessened the power going toward keeping it from being crushed, taking the injuries that came with it to tear away the floor beneath her, firing it back and filling it with both of its powers in a way she couldn’t react to fast enough, her body smacking against a back wall of the fortress with a sickening thud and ending her attempts to free Ben.

He wanted to scream out but with the grip on his throat he couldn’t even get enough out to speak, instead trying to focus on what mattered. He could still feel the effects of bind between them which meant she was alive, but with no one else powerful enough to help him nearby the demon had freed itself an instant later, neither killing him nor releasing him but instead jumping back from where it had come.

Oh shit. Oh shit oh shit oh shit. Is this fucker trying to go back through the gate? Why? Okay, not important right now. My other attacks weren’t enough which means I need to do what I can with my very limited options and of them there’s really only one that might work, even if there could be some consequences. Not to mention what I’m going to have to survive if I escape.

They were already far enough from the fortress that if the demon dropped him then and there he’d be falling a couple stories to land right in the center of that mad horde but that was something he could deal with when it happened. For the time being he took a risk, knowing he might damage his very soul as he reached out to the monster with connect and felt it link, only to go through the added horror that came from being able to see the creature's skills.

Three awakened ones, with low soul magic being one at the zeroth level, but that wasn’t unexpected. It was the innate magic of the demon race and even if they only needed the seventh level to reach sapience, it seemed obvious that something as powerful as that might have managed to get it higher.

No, what really gripped him was what else he was seeing. Despite having had to do the majority of its growth without the benefits of the system to strengthen it, both of its other awakened skills, high earth magic and magic canceling, were each at the ninth level. The monster that held him was a contender to become a god for two completely different paths to power.

Extra not good! Okay, time to risk it all!

With the connection up he both exposed the full weight of his mind to it while at the same time ripped as much mana from the monster he could, tearing away a flood and overfilling his soul, all to inflict the damage he could in the hopes of either killing it or leaving it in a state of mana exhaustion, with neither attack working.

The thing didn’t damage his soul like the mindless one had managed in the past, but it easily broke the connection, and with it, took away his final option. Not even glancing at him despite what Ben had just put him through, the monster simply carried on, bringing him through the gate to whatever waited beyond.