"You didn't give me scritches," Elyra pouted. She was still a mess on the bed, rolling around and contorting herself to face me—like a cat. She stuck her tongue out. "Mrrow?"
I gave in and administered a good dose of scritches, turning her around and lifting her strange clothes that reminded me of home a little bit too much for a fantasy world. The skin on her back glistened in the soft light of the room's light-crystals, and her wings twitched as I dragged my nails over her sensitive skin, pushing in to add a little massage into the pamper-package my little messy angel was getting.
"Greedy," scoffed Zery as she lounged on the sofa, with Calla perched on top of her.
The dryad looked very comfortable there, but her light green blush betrayed that she had not gotten there on her own; rather, she had been physically lifted by the dragon. Cute though, how she let the much bigger woman do whatever she wanted to her.
A wave of magic washed the room, and our heads snapped towards the cocoon hovering half a meter above the ground with Vespera inside. The threads of light and potential keeping her there slowly vanished, revealing a set of large, leathery bat wings first, and the rest of the demon afterward.
"You look gorgeous," I said, walking up to her. Her first thoughts had been about me, wondering about my reaction.
I kissed her and then moved a little bit away to take her all in. Her fantasy armor was as obscene as usual, showing off her curves and skin for all of us to enjoy, and allowing me to appreciate the subtle changes brought by the evolution.
Her skin was a shade darker, like she had a light tan. Her curves were even sexier, hips wide and perfect. I was glad to see that she hadn't lost that little bit of belly fat that was so nice to grab and squish.
"I know how much you like it," she purred in my ear. "So I kept it. Maybe, if you are a good boy and take me out to dinner, just you and me, I might eat a double dose of sweets and work on that belly. No overdoing it, though."
Then she stepped forward, her steps confident and her grin mischievous.
"So!" she clapped her hands. "What'd I miss? Elyra? What's with that collar?"
The angel blushed and pulled on it. It had a little give, and as the demon leaned in to see what Elyra was trying to show her, she gasped.
"Oh, shit, property of Sol Nightguard, really? Are you going to keep it on all the time?"
The angel nodded maniacally. Then the influx of memories hit Vespera.
Her eyes roamed over to me. "Bro. What did you do?? That girl is GONE," she mouthed. Not speaking, even though it was only theatrics. She hid her mouth. "I'm so proud of her!" she whispered.
After some more chill time, the token beeped. It was a call to arms, not from the captain of the guards, but from Ted.
"I'm at the collapsed portion of the walls, can you make it here quick?" he asked in the message.
I sent over a thumbs-up. This service was pay-per-character, and me being loaded didn't mean I wanted to enrich the guild coffers by abusing the messaging function.
I spotted Fredrick on the way there. I did not expect to see the Freebuilder elf in this part of town, given that he was a Chasmer and a powerful one at that. He didn't even notice my presence, though, power-walking away and towards the elevator leading down like he was running away from something.
Made sense. There was a wall breach. We could hear the explosions, sounds of battle, screeches of monsters and screams of the poor people of the city caught up in it. We were there in moments, all thoughts of Fredrick out of our minds.
I pulled from Zery this time, growing twice as tall as normal and manifesting a gigantic ranseus, the biggest kind of polearm I knew of from what little I remembered about the Middle Ages, a millennium before my time. Pretty sure the memory of the weapon's name did not come from me.
The other girls did the same, for the first time pulling from each other and becoming a strange mix of features, sporting weapons of all kinds and fighting in entirely new ways.
Vespera… could fly! Somewhat. Not like Zery, but she could use her wings similarly to how Elyra did, except that she was agility-focused and therefore her movements were quick, precise and the bursts of speed from the wings allowed her to tear her enemies apart.
Elyra for her part, just lasered everything, although she had to start using shields once she learned that her lasers were just as deadly for the monsters as they were for the parts of the city walls still standing behind her targets. Or the houses. Or the allies. They just cut everything.
Zery went melee. Seeing me, she didn't want to be outdone.
Calla was a master of plants, vines and thorns.
Soon, though, the situation became unbearable.
"That's the real threat of the tide," Ted grumbled. Trellen was in the fray, bloodied and surrounded by dead comrades. "They are strong singularly, and they also never fucking end."
There were powerful guilders here with us. Using flashy abilities, they took down the biggest threats only for more monsters to pour in. The more enemies there were, the smarter they seemed to get. Against a guilder who could take down powerful enemies, they used swarm tactics. Meanwhile, AoE experts suddenly found themselves facing strong monsters that could regenerate or tank hits.
"If they breach this block," Ted left the rest unsaid. "Lad, I will need you to go all out. Buy me time."
He didn't stop to tell me what for. He just ran towards the wall, eyes glowing with his strange magic, no doubt showing him schematics and paths to take. The way his eyes darted here and there, as if reading and manipulating holos was too familiar.
"You heard him," I said.
I activated the Nephilim mode, pulling from all the girls. They gave their energy willingly, sacrificing a portion of their power so that they could empower me instead. Then I went in, wrought in silver fire, sporting five sets of wings, lacking only Eve's input.
I tore everything apart. At the beginning.
But then the monsters kept coming. And kept coming. The more I killed, the more there were. It was like the tide was increasing, reaching its apex, the most dangerous moment and the tipping point. If we could survive this, then all would be good but…
It wasn't looking good. The girls were struggling. The city was taking hits. Several fires had broken out and their roaring flames consumed the houses and shoddy shacks and filled the air with acrid smoke, trapped inside the block's closed architecture.
Soon, I discovered that no more help was coming.
"Fucking Chasmers! Shit!" I heard Trellen scream. He was surrounded by dead friends.
"What's going on?" Vespera asked him.
He wanted to sneer at her, a slave, but didn't have the life in him to do so. Instead, he just deflated. "They are leaving, that's what."
Ted yelled from the other side. "Could be a good thing, lad! Or could be that they know we are cooked alive! It's on you, now!"
I pulled more, and the girls gave all they had to give. A sixth set of wings appeared, faint lines of holographic green. Eve!
I attacked with renewed vigor, but once again the tide threatened to drown us all. By now, I was the only one fighting, the others all trying to keep the monsters from spilling into the rest of the city.
"Never before was a tide this vicious," I heard someone say through one of the girls.
I kept pushing myself, but it wasn't enough.
Then Eve stirred. "I think… you are close to level 6…"
I pushed harder. The silver fire shrouding me roared with power, and the girls poured all their energy into me. Something was singing between us, the effort and struggle pushing the bond like never before, making it grow more and more, pulling us closer.
Then I leveled up. There was only one obvious choice as for what to get out of it, of course.
Skill level up - Power of Love 3 → 4
Stat transfer is now seamless between the Bonded.
Bond Level up! Bond Level 5 → 6
+150 to all stats
The song was shattered. The level should have brought other change, something different, something more fundamental but the dire situation called for stats and that's what we got. We were all very angry and disappointed, of course, but now was not the time.
The stats helped. I hated how much they helped. Another doubling, making me powerful enough that barely, just barely, the flow of the battle turned in my favor. I wasn't on the back foot anymore, and the wounds accumulating on my body were slowly closing up.
I felt that the girls and I were closer than ever, the Bonded sharing a single purpose and mind, and that was to fight the tide. There was a resonance between us, the shattered song beginning anew. Change was inevitable, and thus the song was different, but it was still one where we were one single instrument, united in body, mind and soul.
"That's it!" Ted's shout shattered the song again. I wanted to strangle the fucking dwarf!
A monster almost got my head, but a shield from Elyra redirected the blow just enough to allow me to pulverize the thing, venting some frustration at the very least. For good measure, I kept pulverizing them.
The wall glowed under Ted's magic, and white bricks crawled towards the hole, plugging it shut. We concentrated all of our attacks there, keeping the tide from spilling in again, until Ted finally slumped on the ground, utterly spent.
Now it was only clean-up. We saw guild workers again, even a couple of powerful Chasmers. They all gave the girls a wide berth as my Bonded roamed the block to kill the stragglers. Meanwhile, I channeled [Matter Transmutation X], pulling all I could from our already strained mana pool, using the new level of [Power of Love] to my advantage to make the process smoother. Some sections of the wall were weaker than others, and under Ted's tired direction, I managed to slowly reinforce them all, working from the most critical to the least important parts until the wall was more Blackstone than white bricks.
Just like that, three more days of tide passed. The wall was now completely transformed—Eve and the new stats allowed me to finish the job in mere days.
We survived; the city survived, if barely. Things calmed down slowly, and by sunset of the third day the black tide of monsters had become just a trickle of creatures.
By morning, all that was left were the screeches and screams of those monsters that had managed to hide between the blocks, in the canals and sewers, being slaughtered by the hundreds by the guilders and the city guards.
The Chasmers simply watched, safe in their underground retreat.
"The fuckers," Ted said with a scowl. "It's clear that all this was sabotage. You say you saw Fredrick? Well. Gonna have my hands full the next few days."
"Need a hand?" I asked him.
"Be on call but… You helped plenty already. Thank you, lad."