It was pitch black.
Erza took two steps forward into the cave. She couldn't see a single thing. Her hands were just waving around in the empty air. She figured she should check her surroundings, so she tried to use her Requip magic to pull out a plain steel sword.
PING!
A bright purple light flashed on the ceiling. A massive, painful drain yanked straight on her magic container. Erza gasped, dropping hard onto her knees. Her chest was heaving. It hurt like hell.
Gramps wasn't kidding. Use magic and you're done.
Before she could even stand up, the dark walls around her literally ripped open.
The cold air vanished. Suddenly, she was breathing in thick grey smoke and heat. She blinked, wiping sweat from her face. She was standing on a jagged cliff overlooking a giant canyon valley. The grass below was burning.
Then, Merlin's voice dropped straight out of the sky. It sounded like an old recorded message, totally clear and relaxed.
"Welcome to the Commander's Ridge, tin can," Merlin's voice boomed. "Your magic is locked down here. No flashy spells. Look down at that valley. Take command of that shattered battalion and hold the choke points against the monsters. If they get overrun, you fail."
The voice vanished. Just the sound of fire crackling.
Erza looked over the edge.
Down in the dirt, about thirty phantom soldiers were running around in circles. They were screaming, waving their arms, completely terrified. Some had wooden spears, some had iron shields, and a few had bows.
From the end of the canyon, a heavy rumbling sound started shaking the ground.
Erza didn't wait. She jumped off the cliff. Her armor clinked loudly as she landed right in the dirt in front of the crowd.
A messy sergeant with blood on his forehead ran up to her, yelling hysterically. "We're doomed! There's too many of them! We have to run!"
Erza lunged forward. She grabbed the collar of his uniform, pulling his face right down to her single eye.
"Shut up and stand straight!" Erza barked. "Running will just get you killed from behind! Are you a soldier or a coward?!"
The guy went dead quiet, completely shocked by a fifteen-year-old girl glaring at him. The other soldiers stopped running too, staring in awe. Erza let go of him and pointed her sword at the canyon walls.
"We are blocking this path right here!" Erza shouted. "You three with the axes, drag those wooden spike barricades to the narrow ridge! Create a bottleneck! Lock it down!"
She pointed her blade up at the cliffs on the side.
"Archers! All eight of you, get up on those high boulders on the left ridge! You have the high ground! Do not shoot until the monsters hit the bottleneck! Swordsmen, line up right behind the spikes! If anything squeezes through, cut it!"
The men hesitated, but her voice snapped them out of it. They ran. The axemen hauled the heavy logs, jamming the sharp spikes between the stone walls, closing the wide path into a single tight lane.
Erza turned to the rest of the men holding spears and shields.
"Spearmen, form a wall right behind the swordsmen!" Erza ordered. "Lock your shields together! Overlap them! Plant the back of your spears in the dirt and angle the tips forward over the spikes! Nobody breaks formation!"
"Yes, Commander!" the sergeant yelled. He ran to lock his shield. A solid wall of iron and spear tips locked into place right behind the spikes.
Erza walked right to the center of the shield wall. She dug her boots into the gravel, standing at the very front of the bottleneck. She gripped her silver sword—the one Merlin gave her. She didn't have enough magic for her big chants, but she guided a tiny flow of Ethernano to boost her muscles.
"They're here!" an archer screamed from the rocks above.
ROAR!
Thirty monsters breached the smoke at the end of the valley. They were ugly, four-legged beasts with bone plates on their backs and dripping fangs, sprinting right for the narrow lane.
"Hold the line!" Erza yelled. "Archers, loose!"
SWISH!
Arrows rained down from the high ridge, thudding into the beasts. The monsters slammed hard into the wooden spikes, scraping their claws to climb over.
"Hold! Push back!" the sergeant screamed. The spearmen grunted, leaning their whole weight against the shields, thrusting their spears through the gaps to stab the beasts.
Erza stepped right into a splintering gap, her blade blurring.
SWISH!
She slashed downward, her silver steel cutting straight through a monster's head. No sparks. She twisted, kicking another beast right in the jaw as it tried to leap over the iron shields.
"Help! They're breaking through the right flank!" a swordsman screamed.
Erza whipped her head around. Three monsters had found a path through the loose rocks, bypassing the spikes and knocking two men down.
"Spearmen from the back, shift right! Cover the gap!" Erza ordered loudly. She used her physical boost, lunging across the dirt to cut the front legs of the beast.
But the rumbling got louder.
A massive alpha beast, three times bigger than the others, jumped straight over the wooden spikes. Its giant claw came crashing down at her head. Erza threw her silver sword up, locking her arm against the creature's massive fangs.
BOOM!
The weight of the alpha pushed her boots deep into the dirt. Her muscles were straining. The monster bared its teeth right in her face.
Behind her, the soldiers started screaming again. A whole new horde of shadows appeared on the high ridges, completely wrapping around their position. They were trapped.
Erza clenched her jaw, her single eye burning as she held the beast's weight, her mind racing for a way out.