The Spectral Knights marched. A thousand mana-made warriors moved as one, their armor gleaming and illuminating the surroundings as they crossed the threshold into the ruined town.
Their footsteps made the sound of a drum, and the ground trembled beneath their weight. Each knight had a shield and sword, weapons forged from the same condensed mana that gave form to their bodies.
They spread through the streets. The first hundred pushed toward the town square. The next groups fanned out to side streets, probing buildings and alleys. They moved without stopping, without looking around; they were just there to make noise and lure the monsters. They did that following the commands of their summoners, who waited beyond the town's edge.
The crimson vegetation reacted immediately to their presence. The vines shifted, thorns oriented toward the intruders. The spongy ground rippled as hidden Thorn-Lashers detected the intrusion through their roots.
The first ambush came from the ruins of a collapsed building on the left. Twenty Thorn-Lashers burst from the rubble. Their thorny vines shot forward like javelins, hissing through the air as they aimed to impale the nearest Spectral Knights.
The Knights met the charge without hesitation or fear. Shields came up, swords swept through vine-like limbs. But the Thorn-Lashers regenerated faster than the knights could damage them.
Three knights dissolved into mana mist. Then five more.
But the knights didn't retreat. They pushed forward, drawing the Thorn-Lashers deeper into engagement. More creatures emerged from their hiding spots, bursting from beneath the spongy ground, dropping from vine-covered rooftops, and crawling from dark doorways.
The skirmish spilled into the streets. Spectral Knights fought in tight circles, shoulder to shoulder, while Thorn-Lashers closed the ring.
Their summoners were still too weak and lower-level compared to the monsters, and this reflected on them. One by one the knights got destroyed, thirty seconds of life at most before the plants tore them apart.
But thirty seconds was enough.
The dying knights bought time for fresh ones to advance. The formation kept moving, pushing toward the town square and bringing hundreds of monsters towards it.
The human survivors outside the town channeled everything they had into maintaining the flow of knights, but it took a toll on their reserves. Only the mages were faring better since, thanks to their higher A.C.U.M.E.N., they could summon more creatures.
More Thorn-Lashers answered the call to battle. They poured from buildings the raid had bypassed during their first raid.
They climbed from beneath the organic matter covering the ground. They descended from trees whose branches stretched over the town's ruins.
The plant creatures likely converged on the spectral warriors, drawn by the concentration of mana and the obvious threat.
The final Spectral Knights reached the square, a bare fifty-yard patch surrounded by ruined buildings and choked with crimson vines. The ground under their feet had turned into a spongy, blood-red sludge. Overhead, the vines wove together into a living roof, swallowing the sun.
It wasn't going to last for long, though.
The knights formed a defensive circle in the square's center so that they could stay alive for as long as it was needed.
Five hundred of them remained from the original thousand, and that was because most of the non-mage fighters depleted their mana, but it didn't matter. The Rift-Sprites were already inside the town. The knights raised shields and prepared for the onslaught.
The Thorn-Lashers obliged. They flooded into the square from every entrance. A thousand of them at least, likely more given the noise the battle was generating. They surrounded the knights completely, cutting off all retreat.
The battle intensified. Knights swung swords, cutting through multiple Thorn-Lashers with each strike.
But the plant creatures regenerated and kept attacking. Thorny limbs pierced shields, hooked around legs, and dragged knights down into the churning mass of vegetation.
The spectral warriors fell in waves of ten, twenty, or fifty, shredded by the Thorn-Lashers, whose cores glowed brighter as they drank the mana of the dying summons.
Outside the town, the raid was watched through the eyes of scouts relaying what was happening. One of them was crouched atop a collapsed wall that offered a clear view of the square. He counted Thorn-Lashers, tracked their movements, and waited for the right moment.
At that point, the square got packed enough, in his opinion. Thorn-Lashers filled every available space, their attention focused on the Spectral Knights. The knights were trapped, and the Thorn-Lashers liked it.
The scout watched the last hundred knights make their stand. They fought back to back, shields locked, swords flashing. But they were doomed.
It was perfect.
The scout scrambled down from his perch and sprinted toward the tree line where the raiding party waited. His lungs burned and his legs pumped hard until he burst into the clearing where Reidar and the others were.
"Now!" he said, gasping. "They're all in the square! The plan worked!"
Reidar didn't hesitate. "Light it up!"
Every survivor turned their attention to the Ember Rift-Sprites they'd summoned and positioned around the town's perimeter. The sprites had been waiting in doorways, on rooftops, in alleys, anywhere with a clear line to flammable material. Which meant everything, given how many plants there were.
If they had to burn the Crimson Briar patch to the ground to complete the quest, they were going to do that.
The Ember Rift-Sprites obeyed their masters. Their throats ignited, flames intensified inside of them until they glowed white-hot.
Then they spat their fireballs, targeting buildings, vegetation, and the spongy ground itself. It looked like the apocalypse had come once again; it was just that it was a rain of fire, not water, that was soaking the ground.
Flames tore through the town in seconds. Buildings, already wrapped in vines, turned into torches the moment the fire touched them.
The spongy ground itself caught fire and began to smoke like burning rubber. Every survivor who could still fight threw every spark or ember they could summon into the blaze. In minutes, the whole settlement was a single sheet of fire.