The silver bells never stopped.

  Newly attached to my hip belt, they chimed softly as I fought. With each movement, faint silver notes threaded through the sound of clashing steel against splintering bone.

  This was the third day in Ectamel.

  Raik had managed to book us for wall defense on both the long and short nights of each day. Apparently, the name Agame mattered even here as much as raw strength. Not that we were lacking in the strength department either.

  Tonight was a long night, a magenta gibbous moon slowly illuminating the sky.

  Seventy skeletons surged into the killing field at once, packed shoulder to shoulder, their bones pale under moonlight, skulls hollow-eyed and expressionless. Up close, they were worse than I had first imagined. Their bones were etched with faint lines of dark mana, veins of death magic crawling through marrow that had never known blood.

  They smelled too clean for corpse remnants, like old dust and cold stone.

  Yet it was surprising how the human mind could get used to anything. After hours of fighting them, the fear factor was ground to dust, replaced by the satisfaction of good exercise, solid practice, and a job well done.

  Yes, practice. Raik and Katar used the ease of the challenges to train us; Raik on our use of soulbooks, and Katar on our weapon proficiency. Tonight’s exercise was no magic, just pure melee combat. That was the rule Raik had set for us: a weapons-only run to better learn the fundamentals.

  I didn’t complain; my lightning was nearly useless here anyway. Without a nervous system to overload, it could only shatter the death-affinity monster core lodged in the skull, and that meant lost profit. Ectamel paid by the core. Breaking one was like throwing bronze coins into the river out of spite.

  So I gripped my bident taser spear and used it as a spear for once.

  Sergeant Edmund would have been proud.

  Bone dust puffed into the air with every strike, dry and chalky, clinging to sweat-damp skin and catching in my throat. My mail armor absorbed glancing blows easily, rusted blades skidding uselessly across the rings, but the impact still rattled my bones. Getting tapped by a corroded stick was never a good idea anyway, so I always chose to dodge rather than tank.

  I learned fast.

  Skeletons were predictable and formulaic. They raised weapons the same way every time, stepped in the same rhythm, overextended the same joints. As long as they didn’t surround me, I was safe.

  So I didn’t let them.

  I stepped in hard, twisted my hips, and drove my spearpoints between vertebrae the way Edmund had drilled into me, severing the spine or dislodging the skull. One clean strike, then move, without wasting motion.

  A skull popped free and bounced across the stone like a kicked ball, its monster core flickering faintly before going dark. Ja’a appeared from nowhere, picked up the loot, then flew back to the gatehouse viewing booths.

  Calr fought beside me, his new rapier flashing in precise arcs. He couldn’t really break bones, so he dismantled them. Joints first: knees, elbows, then spines. He learned early that using crossbow bolts here wasn’t worth it. Skeleton bones were dense enough that retrieving spent bolts was nearly impossible, and the frugal orphan had learned young not to waste resources, even if each bolt only cost a few coppers.

  Vena held the line on my other side, fully embracing the reach and weight of her claymore. She no longer stood like she had an invisible shield strapped to her left arm. Her stance was wider and more grounded. Her improvement from sparring with Katar showed in every confident movement. Wide and controlled sweeps crushed ribs and sent skeletons flying apart in showers of bone shards.

  Kan stayed farther back, her long chains snapping out with brutal precision. They hit hard and fast, wrapping around necks and limbs, severing skulls from bodies with sharp, metallic cracks. The heavier chains made by Lady Petal agreed well with her kindred strength.

  Shingo was a fortress.

  He advanced slowly, hammer rising and falling with inevitability. Each strike shattered bone completely, sending fragments skittering across the stone. He was still working on his parries, still a little slow to recover, but his armor held even better than my mail, leaving him spotless.

  And then there were Raik and Katar.

  The duo subscribed to the school of do as I say, not as I do, because they were busy turning the fight into a spectacle. They were the reason people gathered to watch.

  Katar fought like a martial artist performing a sword kata, exaggerated movements flowing seamlessly into lethal precision. He would draw his blade in a smooth, almost ceremonial arc, overextending deliberately with complicated swings and movements, then sheath his sword again with a sharp click. A heartbeat later, the skeleton in front of him would collapse into diced bone, cut so cleanly it took a moment to fall apart.

  Raik was worse.

  He played to the crowd shamelessly.

  Flaming aura flared around him as he leapt onto a skeleton’s shoulders, twisted, tore its skull free, and spun it on one finger like a basketball before tossing it aside, bowing theatrically to the crowd. His reckless actions were devoured by the audience, and it didn’t hurt that he was handsome enough that ninety-three percent of his new fans were girls.

  Katar, I understood; he had always been a bit arrogant when it came to swordsmanship. But Raik didn’t strike me as a fool who would let the crowd go to his head.

  So I asked him on the first day, after a particularly reckless stunt, why he ordered us to fight seriously while he was clearly having fun.

  He just shrugged.

  “Being a freelancer isn’t just about surviving,” he said. “It’s about gaining a reputation. Katar and I can afford to mess around. You’re still learning the basics; you can’t mix it up yet, or you’ll learn bad habits.”

  He wasn’t wrong. Those skeletons weren’t a real threat to him, and his rising popularity was part of why we kept getting defense duty slots.

  The flag raised above the gatehouse was green. Nothing tonight should be truly dangerous, and that made it perfect. The kind of fight where lessons settled into muscle memory. The team was improving by leaps and bounds. At least most of us were.

  Ja’a, of course, wasn’t fighting at all.

  She sat near a gaggle of teens and young girls, all shouting Raik’s name like K-pop fans trying to catch their idol’s attention. Whenever there was a lull in the fighting or when we waited for workers to clear the field and the next wave to gather, she would loudly tell stories about Raik’s childhood.

  Embarrassing ones, of course. Yet told in an endearing way that always made Raik look like the good guy.

  The bells rang, signaling the end of the wave.

  Workers moved in like ants, gathering bones, sweeping dust, and collecting intact monster cores. The killing field was reset in minutes; clean, pristine, and ready for the next wave.

  The next surge came quickly.

  At first, it looked routine. Skeletons pressed forward from the gate once more, blades raised, movements as predictable as ever. We fell back into rhythm without thinking, muscle memory taking over.

  Then an alarm rang.

  It wasn’t the familiar bell. This one was sharper, urgent, cutting straight through the noise of combat. Above the gatehouse, the flag shifted color, the green snapping to yellow.

  The guards on the walls stopped lounging. Casters who had been casually observing straightened, hands already glowing as they began preparing magic.

  A chill ran through the courtyard.

  A moment later, shadows spilled over the top of the wall.

  Ghostly figures slid into view, drifting rather than climbing, their presence making the small silver bells at our hips rattle violently, as if disturbed by an invisible tempest. The sound was discordant, nothing like their usual gentle chime.

  The new invaders flickered in and out of reality, phasing between translucent and solid. It was like watching someone drag an opacity slider back and forth, never quite settling. Each looked like a shadow wrapped in a tattered grey cloak, bright white eyes floating where a face should have been.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Wall casters opened fire as soon as they had a clear line, elemental attacks streaking through the air whenever the creatures became solid enough to hit.

  “Those are wraiths!” Calr shouted. “They’re weak to silver, salt, and elemental attacks!”

  Good. That meant I wasn’t useless.

  I activated the bident taser function in my spear, lightning crackling faintly along the prongs. I disengaged from the skeleton I was fighting, stepping back and angling upward just as one of the wraiths dove for me.

  The silver bell at my hip went wild, jerking and rattling like it was trying to tear itself free. I braced.

  The moment the wraith crossed into range, I thrust as my lightning flared.

  The creature screamed; the sound had some sort of pressure, its form snapping into solidity for a split second before unraveling. The bell stilled as suddenly as it had started, and where the wraith had been, only an undead monster core dropped to the stone.

  It worked. My lightning could hurt them.

  Raik was already laughing somewhere to my left, his fire aura roaring brighter as he tore through the phasing enemies, flames forcing them solid long enough to burn.

  Katar was… doing something impossible.

  He had no magic, but every time the large silver bell rang in alarm, he moved. He timed his strikes to the sound, cutting precisely as the wraiths became corporeal. Only then did I realize what he was doing: using the silver bells’ disabling aspect, striking in the instant they affected the wraiths.

  Calr was sprinting across the field, dodging between enemies while Kan lashed out beside him. She had fixed silver bells to the ends of her chains, using them to destabilize the wraiths first, followed immediately by crushing blows that tore them apart. It reminded me of the rat hunt, with Calr acting as bait. His golden hind-grace Soulbook had integrated well with him, making him extra agile and allowing him to slip between ghosts and skeletons alike, while Kan did the bulk of the killing.

  Shingo, after a moment of confusion, remembered his barrier spell and covered himself with a dome of hex-shaped protection, anchoring the line while skeletons and wraiths battered uselessly against it.

  Vena stood untouched.

  The incorporeal monsters didn’t even try to approach her. They veered away instinctively, like animals avoiding a fire they couldn’t see. She used her Radiance Strike Soulbook to hit some of the wraiths flying around her.

  I dragged my focus back to myself just in time.

  Two wraiths broke from the wall together, diving in a shallow spiral straight for me. The bells at my belt erupted into frantic ringing, the sound sharp enough to make my teeth ache.

  I channeled lightning into my spear and threw a bolt at the first, timing the strike to the bell’s peak. The wraith snapped into solidity for a heartbeat, long enough for the lightning to tear through it. Its form collapsed inward, unraveling into nothing but a falling monster core.

  The second was already on me.

  I tried to brace, shifting my stance to stabilize for the follow-up, but I was half a step too slow, stabbing it as it raked through my left arm, claws passing straight through both chainmail and under-armor.

  It didn’t cut… at least, I didn’t feel any bleeding.

  It burned.

  No, not heat… something worse. A bone-deep, freezing agony, like frostbite and freezer burn at once, creeping through my arm and biting into my hand. My fingers went numb instantly, lightning sputtering as my grip faltered.

  I gasped, more in shock than pain, as the monster dissolved in front of me.

  Vena was there before I could even shout.

  Her hand pressed to mine as she whispered a prayer. Warmth flooded back into my arm, washing away the cold in an instant. Skin, muscle, and nerves were whole again, clean and complete, without the lingering aches left behind after I was pummeled by a troll.

  I flexed my fingers, stunned.

  I guess frostbite damage healed more easily than bone fractures.

  Good to know.

  I surged back into the fight, lightning flaring again as the remaining ghosts were exterminated. Kan and Raik did most of the heavy lifting, silver and fire tearing through the phasing enemies until the last of them unraveled into silence. The skeletons still had to be cleared afterward, their mundane bones suddenly feeling almost comforting by comparison.

  Only when the last skull fell did the tension finally drain from my body.

  My heart was pounding, adrenaline flooding my veins.

  I had just fought ghosts.

  And won.

  The thought was ridiculous… insane even.

  And I couldn’t stop smiling.

  We were allowed a few minutes of rest as the workers cleared the field once more and the next wave gathered beyond the gate. During the lull, I made my way toward Vena.

  She was methodically wiping bone dust from the edge of her claymore, carefully treating the weapon more like a sacred tool than a piece of steel. The bells at her belt chimed softly when she shifted, a quiet counterpoint to the distant scraping sounds outside the wall.

  “Hey, Vena,” I said. “Do you have a turn-undead miracle?” I asked, thinking of how the wraiths refused to interact with her somehow.

  The question came straight from years of gaming experience. Cleric versus undead. That was just how it was supposed to work, right?

  She shook her head without hesitation. “No. I’m not an inquisitor or a paladin. I don’t have offensive miracles.”

  That answer surprised me enough that I pressed. “Then what kind of miracles can you perform?”

  I knew that she had probably explained all of this when I first arrived in Hano. Back then, I had been drowning in new concepts. A lot of things had gone in one ear and out the other.

  Raik drifted closer as well, interest clear on his face. The Elemental Bloodline Realm being three realms away from the mythic, clerics were not as common there.

  “I have eight basic miracles,” Vena said after a moment of thought. “Heal, Clean, Cure, and Purge. Those do exactly what you’d expect.”

  “Wait,” Raik interrupted. “What’s the difference between Cure and Purge?”

  “Purge removes poison,” she explained patiently. “Cure helps the body heal disease. I usually use both, because poison can cause disease.”

  “And?” I prompted.

  “Sleep, Numb, Sanctify, and Exorcise,” she continued. “I can also…”

  “I’m sorry,” I cut in again, holding up a hand, “but you said you don’t have offensive miracles. Couldn’t you use Sleep or Numb on an enemy? And you need to explain Sanctify and Exorcise in more detail.”

  She nodded, accepting the interruption. “You technically can. But unlike healing, those miracles are easily disrupted by good aura control. Against trained fighters, they’re useless."

  “And Sanctify?” I pressed.

  “Sanctify creates holy fields,” she said. “We use it on temples, roads, and grave markers back in the Mythic Realm. It creates fields that repel monsters. But it takes time, prayer, and rituals. You can’t just cast it in the middle of a battle.”

  “And Exorcise?”

  “That’s for curse removal,” she said. “Mostly from mythic sources like unholy ascendants and other divine miracles. Some people with the combination of psychic and death affinities can create curse-like effects, but I’m not entirely sure how Exorcise would interact with those.”

  I tilted my head. “Does the prayer you say matter?”

  “Of course.” She looked almost offended at the question. “There are several amplification factors for miracles. Distance is the first; the closer I am, the stronger the miracle. Second is prayer. A well-worded prayer can extend a miracle to multiple targets or greatly increase its strength, especially when the prayers are linked to land, a person of significance, or an important event.”

  I gave her a flat look. “That’s why you kept naming saints when you were healing me.”

  “Yep,” she said, smiling.

  “You know how I feel about those rumors,” I muttered.

  “Guess what,” she said, unfazed. “My healing worked better. That means there is real weight to those rumors.”

  “That’s disturbing,” I said, my frown deepening.

  Raik cleared his throat, steering us back on track. “Is there any other way to strengthen miracles?”

  “Yes,” Vena said. “Two more. But neither is happening anytime soon.”

  She hesitated, then continued anyway.

  “One is a family bond. Miracles work better on parents, children, siblings, or spouses. Since I have no living kin, and I’m not planning to get married anytime soon, that one’s wasted on me.”

  She said it calmly.

  “And the other?”

  “Virgin sacrifice,” she said plainly. “But I plan to use that in my sixties. I’d rather die casting it than waste my youth and all the healing I could offer the world.”

  I didn’t respond right away.

  It struck me, suddenly and unpleasantly, how she seemed to measure her own worth. Not in years lived or joy experienced, but in numbers of people healed and lives saved.

  Conviction like that didn’t come cheap. You didn’t ascend this young without paying something for it.

  The bells rang again, announcing the next wave.

  The clear, chiming melody mixed strangely with the conversation we had just had, and it reminded me of something familiar. A video game I played; something about the Finality of Fantasies. In that game, the white mage job was similar to the holy cleric class, with no offensive spells and no flashy damage, and yet, it still had a unique interaction with undead.

  An idea clicked into place.

  “Hey, Raik,” I said quickly. “Can we try something for this wave?”

  He raised an eyebrow. “What do you have in mind?”

  “I want Vena to heal the undead.”

  “What?” Vena exclaimed, half turning toward me.

  “Was that never tried before?” Raik asked, curious rather than dismissive.

  Vena hesitated. “Before the final Holy-Unholy reform, holy energy was used to counteract unholy power. But now, the two paths are better at coexisting.”

  “But you said these undead feel… wrong,” I pressed. “Ancient and mythic. Not just elemental death mana. I bet they’re aligned with the old Unholy path.”

  She frowned. “Would that even work? My healing only affects living.”

  “Ja’a said they have souls,” I said. “Or at least a semblance of one. They have an aura. That means you could heal them. And since they’re already dead…”

  “My healing doesn’t have the intent to harm,” she said quietly.

  “Is it really harm?” I asked. “If their existence is nothing but pain?”

  Raik shrugged. “It doesn’t hurt to try.”

  Vena took a slow breath, then nodded.

  The next wave burst through the gate, skeletons spilling into the courtyard, weapons raised.

  Vena stepped forward and knelt, bells chiming softly as she did. She pressed her palms together, her glass talisman trapped between her hands, and spoke in her native holy tongue, her voice steady and clear.

  “Oh, Ectamel, undead bane,

  Ease these souls from their unending pain.”

  Golden light bloomed from her like dawn.

  It washed across the killing field, warm and gentle, and to my delight, and everyone else’s shock, the skeletons collapsed. They simply fell apart, bones dropping lifelessly to the stone.

  There was a long second of silence after that display.

  Then the bells chimed again, and the people roared.

  And for the first time since the founding of Ectamel, the undead died peacefully.