Chapter 593: Recovering Amid the Apocalypse

After defeating the Deepclaw, Kai was operating in a reduced condition. He could still kill the average monsters easily, but was it actually a good use of his time to go off fighting them? Yet just sitting around felt wrong - Behemoth's Heart had a lot of work to do fully recovering him, but the incursion was still ongoing and he couldn't leave it alone.

That was why he had asked the elites to drop him off in front of a city facing a normal horde.

They left him in southeastern Krysal, in front of a city he barely knew. It had fallen fairly early in the revolution, so he never really fought there, and it hadn't developed any of the troublesome politics of other areas. Right now, whatever had become of it, this city was just another place that was in need of help, and he was there to help them.

Though Krainuun's plan to evacuate the eastern portion of Krysal had allegedly gone well, there had been some holdouts and stragglers, or some who even returned home when the incursion started late. Now they were too far east, poorly defended, and with a long stream of monsters pouring out of the Frontier toward them.

Kai hit the ground like a meteor, creating a crater outside city limits directly in the path of the monsters. He dropped down to one knee and focused on Legion Bite, extending its effect as far as he could. The first monsters arrived and had bites torn out of them, prompting even more to plunge in and try to attack him.

Behind his back, he could hear the people of the city cheering for him. Their heroic protector standing in the way of the wave of monsters... when actually Kai just planned to rest for a while.

This far out, thinned by other fighters, the monsters weren't really threats to him. The stream of monsters could have flooded over the damaged walls, but they weren't fast or strong enough to escape Legion Bite. All he needed to do was stay in their path and the horde would run directly into him to die. Since he wasn't pushing himself, Behemoth's Heart continued to restore him after the battle, and all the bites of the monsters filled his energy reserves.

Thankfully, the people of the city stopped cheering and got back to work. Some were trying to properly defend themselves while others did the sensible thing and retreated. Either way, Kai was giving them a new lease on life while he prepared for more strenuous actions.

Kai closed his eyes and let himself sway on his feet a little, losing that absolute focus that he'd been maintaining for so long. It wasn't sleep, but it felt good to relax for a moment.

When he sensed someone approaching, he groaned and had more trouble opening his eyes than he expected. It wasn't that he couldn't, just that he really didn't want to after finally resting. Yet he couldn't let someone potentially get hurt... except he knew those footsteps.

"Omilaena?" Somehow it was easy to open his eyes then to confirm.

She was walking toward him, offhandedly killing a few monsters on the way, but her casual pace was belied by the fact that she was utterly covered in monster guts. Kai had been using his own body to batter monsters during the early incursion and he wasn't that covered in their blood. In a strange way she looked good, with her dress plastered to her, but he realized how worn she was and concern overwhelmed everything else. Clearly she wasn't interested in-

"Hey there," Omilaena said from outside his range. "You wanna fuck?"

"I'm glad you're okay," Kai said with a wry chuckle, "but I really don't think so."

"Listen up, because you're not going to hear this often, but me neither. Too tired. Anyway, is that biting technique going to eat me?"

"I'm controlling them subconsciously, so I don't think they'll target you."

"Can you make them target me? Completely unrelated: can you make other kinds of mouths?"

"My techniques are usually flexible, but not that flexible."

"Shame. That's something to work on." Omilaena gave an exaggerated shrug. "I'm going to walk in now, and if I get bitten a little, well, that can be fun."

She sauntered into his range and, and he'd guessed, the spiritual mouths quested around her to target monsters instead. Despite all her playful lines, he suspected that she had told the truth when she said she was too tired. When she pressed herself against him, she was just imitating her usual seduction and it was more of a slump.

"I'm glad to see you." Kai wrapped an arm around her, holding her up. "Are you okay? I heard you took on a nation-destroyer on your own."

"And I don't want to again. I'm fucking exhausted. That..." She leaned against him more heavily and they shared the muck and grime for a while. It was messy, but the human connection felt more real for everything they'd been through. Even though he was exhausted too, Kai felt his body relax. If only Zae Zin Nim could have been there too.

"So why are you really here?" Kai eventually asked softly. "I doubt they'd teleport you across the continent just for emotional support."

"My whims are more important than the continent," Omilaena mumbled into his chest. "No, you're correct. I need to sleep, but I'm here to give you this first." She rummaged in her spatial satchel and, after a while, shoved a bloody sack toward him.

Kai's eyes went wide as he sensed the power of the monstrous core within. He pulled it out and consumed it, the raw power a sumptuous meal compared to the insubstantial bites of the monsters still dying around him. As he consumed the essence, Omilaena explained about the fight and he isolated the potential streams of power, eventually deciding to call the nation destroyer a Deathmaw.

<Deathmaw Essence - I (alpha)>

Deciding on a name was enough for now, because he could isolate a useful ability later. Right now, supporting Omilaena seemed more important, because despite her words, he thought there was more to it than just her exhaustion.

"Are you okay?" he asked quietly.

"I am, just..." Omilaena smiled wearily at him. "That was close. I honestly think I would have died if you and Zin Nim hadn't forced me to do so much Physique training."

"The strongest monsters each incursion are no joke. Normally it takes multiple elites to finish them off, and they take losses sometimes."

"Well, I'm glad it didn't get into Irun, but I also don't want to do that again." Omilaena finally pushed off a little, patting his shoulder. "Absorb that essence and get stronger, alright? We're going to need you soon enough."

"What are you going to do next?"

"I told you, sleep. But after that... I'll be helping out more in Irun. You probably heard that, despite my heroic, self-sacrificing, and humble efforts, the wall got broken anyway. Too many monsters have grouped into a central horde, so they'll need some help."

"I'll have to catch up to you later, then." Kai pulled her into a brief, messy kiss. "Probably just a few days."

"Yeah, hopefully. You'd better be more energetic then, because I will be." Omilaena playfully bumped her hip against him, then separated and headed out. He wanted to pick her up and tuck her into bed so she could sleep off that exhaustion, but they had higher priorities at the moment.

Just the brief visit from Omilaena made Kai feel better, and mentally was more refreshing than everything he was consuming from the monsters. It also made him more restless, however: he was tired of staying here and just defending the city passively. Unfortunately, his reserves were deep and it took a lot of weak monsters to restore them, so this was still the best place for him to be.

It was an hour later, when the stream of monsters was petering out, when he got another visitor: Zae Zin Nim. She appeared with an elite on the plain outside the city, looking much sharper and more alert than Omilaena had been, or Kai felt. At first she surveyed the city with stern disapproval, then she located him and smiled.

"Will those target me?" she asked, frowning at the effects of Legion Bite.

And so they repeated that conversation, albeit with fewer sexual implications. Zae Zin Nim also moved in without being harmed and soon relaxed against his chest, though more for affirmation than rest. She was angry that she'd missed Omilaena, especially since they likely wouldn't get another chance to be together before the end of the incursion. Kai stroked her hair to soothe her and had to admit that he was soothing himself as well.

"The others failed me in Krysal," she complained as she explained her front of the battle. "But what's worse is that so many are saying this is the fault of the revolution. They forget that the walls were initially destroyed before it, and we're just cleaning up the consequences."

"People aren't good at dealing with complex causes," Kai said with a shrug. "It's easier to find someone to blame."

"Well, this one is annoying. Thankfully, I will be spending more time fighting on the front lines."

"I know there are three different hordes, but are there a lot of problem areas?"

"So I'm told." Zae Zin Nim frowned as she looked over the horizon. "We didn't have a nation-destroyer on this front, but there are moderate numbers of higher rank monsters, the sort that would usually require crystalliers to handle. So I expect to be moved across Krysal many times."

"I probably will too. They said they might need me in Goralia once or twice, but Krysal is the big problem."

"Then it is a pity that we will likely be handling separate crises, because both of us would be overkill. And Omilaena will be in Irun."

"Not much longer now." Kai rubbed Zae Zin Nim's back encouragingly. "We just have to keep everything together for a few more days and we'll have survived the incursion."

He said that to comfort, and his wife did seem cheered. She was in better spirits as she lingered before she ventured off to her own assignments. With her gone, Kai was even more restless, but at least he felt that he'd mostly recovered... the problem was that he wasn't reassured by his own words.

It was only a few more days provided that everything went right. Deep inside him, he had a bad feeling that fate wouldn't let him off so easily.