Chapter 103: Miscalculations

Before the gargoyle could reach the petrified Dickson, Abigail was already in front of him.

She planted herself between them, her sunglasses angled downward, carefully avoiding any direct eye contact with the creature. Behind her, her five-star profound spirit hovered, vast and imposing.

“Wind Impact.”

Her spirit mimicked her movement and its battle fan swung once.

A massive wind strike slammed into the gargoyle, forcing it backward through the air, but that was all. The creature screeched, reorienting itself mid-flight. Its wings beat hard as it twisted aside, narrowly dodging the second and third follow-up attacks.

Abigail clicked her tongue.

The gargoyle hovered, circling her, searching for an opening.

She didn’t move.

She couldn’t.

Dickson was still petrified behind her. If anything happened to him in this state, if he shattered even a little, it would be over.

That won’t happen on my watch.

The gargoyle suddenly dove.

Abigail met it head-on.

Her essence surged violently, pressure rolling outward as her profound spirit intensified in tandem.

“Wind Cyclone.”

The world twisted.

Abigail and her spirit spun simultaneously, both transforming into raging miniature cyclones before merging into one. The combined vortex collided with the gargoyle, the rapid rotation landing countless invisible strikes in an instant.

The gargoyle was hurled backward, body cracking as it slammed into the stone in a concussive state.

Before it could recover, the cyclone stopped. Abigail stood in its place and her fan snapped forward twice.

Two razor-sharp wind blades tore through the air and cleaved the gargoyle apart.

Killing it instantly.

A familiar sensation flickered in her mind, the quiet confirmation of Existence gained, but she ignored it completely.

Her focus snapped back to Dickson as she rushed to his side.

****

Adam and the mission hall had already planned for this. He was at the focal point, the place where the monster tide was densest, where the pressure was meant to break first. That was why, at the start, he’d stood alone with nothing around him but monsters.

But after getting used to Mind Control — E, he gained leeway.

And he used it. The focal point was no longer enough.

So Adam moved.

He ventured across the battlement, cutting into other battles, stepping in wherever the situation looked dire, or sometimes simply because he felt like it. Any battle Adam entered changed instantly.

Acolytes and heirs felt it the moment he arrived, a tangible weight lifting from their shoulders, the suffocating pressure easing just enough to let them breathe. And just as instantly, that weight returned the moment Adam left.

Vanessa had been right.

Adam was the wild card.

And wild he was.

A gargoyle beat its wings furiously, trying to gain distance from the wall, trying to escape him.

Adam chased it anyway.

He leapt straight off the wall, wind roaring past him, and swung his scythe midair. The Poison — F coating flared as the blade sliced clean through the gargoyle’s neck.

Its head separated in a spray of blackened essence, but before gravity could claim him, another gargoyle charged in from the side.

Adam didn’t panic, as its body jerked unnaturally and mind control seized it in a split second, turning it into nothing more than a stepping stone. Adam kicked off its back, vaulting cleanly back onto the wall as the creature crashed away beneath him.

Already, he was moving again.

He didn’t even look back.

Even so, the truth remained.

Adam was still one man.

There were only so many places he could be at once. And because of that, the areas he hadn’t reached still endured the full brunt of the tide. Adam wanted to help everywhere, but he couldn’t.

Casualties are bound to happen.

He didn’t deny it.

No matter how manageable the tide was labeled, people would die. Without him, the number would have been far higher. Without him, the idea of “manageable” wouldn’t exist at all. And now, with the heirs fighting alongside the Acolytes, the casualties would be reduced even further.

But never to zero.

In war, there was no such thing as a zero-percent casualty rate.

Adam knew that.

Even among the heirs, deaths were possible. And if not them, then their followers. Someone would fall.

That was reality.

A kobold suddenly burst from the mass, its body glowing red as its special talent, Fury F activated. It roared and charged straight at Adam.

Adam charged back.

As the battle raged on, cracks tried to form, but they never lasted.

Any monster that attempted to push past the wall was eliminated almost instantly. Pixies and gargoyles were prioritized ruthlessly. Acolytes and heirs with long-range or emission-type affinities focused on them; the moment they crossed into the sector, they were immediately shot down.

And even if one crossed over…

The citizens were already evacuated deep into reinforced shelters, sealed away from the surface.

Monsters breaking through would be a problem later, but for now, the Acolytes were doing everything in their power to ensure none reached the other side of the wall.

For a time, it worked.

As the Acolytes and heirs acclimated to the intensity of the battle, their movements grew sharper and confident. The tide was brutal, but it felt… controllable.

Then the sirens arrived.

They had lingered at the back of the tide, the true heads of the swarm, and now they stepped onto the battlement.

Mutant, unranked, level-3 sirens.

The air changed the moment they entered the fray.

Their presence alone carried weight, a suffocating pressure that pressed down on the defenders. Within minutes, humans began to fall. Mostly Acolytes and followers of the heirs. Bodies hit the stone, blood spreading where confidence had stood seconds before.

The flow of battle shifted toward the monsters.

Adam felt it immediately.

At this rate… everyone will be wiped out before the tide ends.

The thought was coldly clear and unemotional, as he understood a crucial fact.

When the mission hall had labeled this tide manageable, they had been wrong.

It was inevitable.

Their calculations were solid, but they were based on natural monster tides. This wasn’t natural. This was artificial. Every model they used assumed patterns, balances, and delays that simply didn’t apply here.

They had no way to analyze an artificial tide properly. And thirty hours?

Thirty hours was too short a time to figure out a way to properly analyze the artificial tide. What normally took years of data collection and refinement had been compressed into a desperate guess. Errors were guaranteed, especially when it came to the number of sirens.

The result?

A manageable status that was rapidly turning into a wipeout.

Adam stood surrounded.

More than three dozen mutant sirens encircled him, their eyes locked onto his. His clothes were torn, shredded by claws and shockwaves, but his body bore not a single wound.

The sirens hissed softly, circling.

Adam stared back.

Then he pulled up his panel.

His eyes went straight to the bottom.

[Existence: 743]

****

A/N: If we reach top 60 of the golden ticket ranking or get up to 800 power stones this month there will be a mass release.

Thank you for the support so far it is really encouraging.

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