Days later underneath the brutal sun Damian crushed another shard underneath his foot as the sleeper invasion force pushed deeper into the enemy's territory, slowly but surely approaching the army that Jasper had seen from high above.
They had thought many battles in this time and had lost more than a few of their own yet with every day that passed the strength of the force increased little by little, as of the moment they were pushing through a horde of large PTV sized lizard like monstrosities which seemingly blended into the environments around them, using their long tongues to snatch prey before devouring them with corrosive acid.
The chromatic scales shimmered in the light making it hard to spot the difference between them and their surroundings yet with his impressive vision Damian was far from fooled by their attempts, taking charge of the formation side by side with Warden as he guided the others to aim at the hidden threats surrounding them.
For the ones which had chosen to reveal themselves were swiftly dealt with by the melee fighters of the formation as the ranged fighters aided from the rear in case any broke away trying to flee, in the past few days the coordination and overall ability of the sleepers had advanced significantly when it came to prowess on the battlefield as well as being able to work as a cohesive whole.
Each person knew their role by now and were determined to achieve their best in what they had found worked well for them, by now most sleepers had a suitable weapon which fit their preferred methods of combat, either by exchanging memories with one another, by picking up the weapons from fallen enemies and even a few handcrafted ones created by the miraculous knight.
However despite how powerful of a force they may have seemed they knew it was still not enough, which is why they had spent the last day purposefully hunting down the creatures near their current hideout in order to gain as much strength as possible.
Due to the chaotic nature of it all the method for collecting soul shards had to change accordingly, now instead of just sending one or two people out to gather them all after the battle was done they instead collected the ones they could during battle, with the ones closer to the rear having the task of collecting any loose shards along their path, whilst those up front where to destroy half of the shards they came across when possible, by what methods were deemed necessary at the time.
This way the rear would not be left behind in terms of strength and allowed the frontline fighters to continue on for far longer than they could have before, letting another arrow fly from his bow Damian heard the voice of the spell speak to him as another one of the large lizards collapsed under his might,
[You have slain an Awakened Monster…]
The voice fizzled out into the distance as Damian focused his attention onto guiding the other sleepers onto the next target, and then the next.
***
After returning to their camp for the night the sleepers all seemingly collapsed onto the ground, overwhelmingly exhausted from another day in this hellish Bastion, the members of the rear shared their spoils between themselves as the sounds of shattering glass could be heard as the shards broke against their skin.
The strength of the invasion force had grown significantly over the past few days, not shying away from any battles which had tried to take them down, overall they must have killed nearly two hundred abominations over the past few days, yet it wasn't nearly enough, most of those had been beasts and monsters with only a handful of them being the undead demons which patrolled the area.
If there was any good news about any of this it was that a few of the sleepers had received useful memories from all their victories which made it all the more easier to deal with the threats which waited for them, something interesting that Damian had noticed however was that some sleepers seemed to possess duplicates of the same memories, which made him wonder on how the spell gifted memories to those infected by its power.
It had been a while since he had studied his runes, so using a moment of rest he did just that,
Name: Damian
True Name: -
Rank: Dreamer
Soul Core: Dormant
Soul Saturation: 144/1000
Memories: [Broken Chain], [Ariadne's Long Bow], [Coiled Nail]
Echoes: -
Attributes:[Deadeye] [Incessant] [Undisturbed] [Mark of Divinity]
Aspect: [Ceaseless Wanderer]
Aspect Rank: Sacred
Aspect Abilities: [Unremarcable]
***
Clicking his tongue Damian was a little disappointed honestly, out of all the battles they had thought recently and all the creatures he had brought down he had not managed to get even a single memory in all that time, it was honestly getting a little ridiculous at this point, his last memory had been the strange charm he had gotten from taking out Javier which thanks to their leader he now knew had a defensive property which inured anyone who hurt him, if only slightly.
Honestly his luck with memories had not been very great when it came to getting them, the one he did get where pretty good but they were far and few between, meanwhile some of the sleepers were wearing full suits of armor, some with leathers and furs, others in beautifully polished plate and even one or two in scales which glistened in the beams of moonlight which made its way through the cracks in the building.
The only person who seemed to have worse luck than him seemed to be Jest who had picked up one a spear from one of the fallen undead Demons they had slain, overall the group was in a good ways when it came to being equipped and yet he still didn't feel like it was enough
Jasper had unceremoniously fallen asleep on the floor, having unwillingly joined the first batch of sleepers to sleep, they had decided to sleep in shifts since even though they could stay awake for days at a time, the constant battles had drained them of most of their vitality by this point.
They did not have much time left to rest after all, for the next day they would be facing down the undead protectors of the inner city and would be in a constant battle for survival until they either pushed past or died trying, they had already hunted most of the monsters they could find over the past few days so there was little point in cleaning up the scraps when it would amount to so little in the end.
Damian had no illusions about the outcome of the next day, out of all the sleepers he knew he was in the least risk, for he knew he could just disappear in a moments notice and watch as the undead tear his fellow man apart, of course his flaw would prevent him from just standing there but he knew that already, this was one of the reasons he had decided to move to the front of the formation instead of the rear.
He had realised that if he didn't know a person was in danger actively then he wouldn't be forced to act, so keeping as many of the sleepers out of his line of sight seemed like a more practical way to fight, it also meant he wouldn't be forced to use his precious arrows to save someone who could more than likely save themselves.
Not every arrow survived every battle, more than half of them were unusable when they went to collect them after the fight or were simply not possible to reach so many had been left behind, this meant that their leader had to spend a good chunk of the nights creating new ones for the next morning, Damian wasn' t the only one with a bow in the group but he was the most prolific so making sure he had good quality arrows was of vital importance to their survival.
***
The next morning the invasion force gathered around Warden as he discussed the plan of attack against their foe, he didn't hold anything back as he spoke to his people, the plan was a simple one at best, the long range fighters were to focus on the undead manning the siege weaponry whilst the melee fighters were to hold of the tidal wave of undead long enough to force the undead captain at its core to show itself.
If Damian and Jasper were right that creature was the one in charge of all the rest, if it is to fall then the power of the undead should drop significantly, if however they are wrong in their assessment then there a good chance that they would be overwhelmed by the undead and meet an untimely end at the hands of the undead sentinels.
They expect that the plan will not go as smoothly as they had hoped yet they had little option in the matter, so swallowing their fear and bringing forth all the courage they have the invasion force marched forward as one by one they passed through the inner gate of the city, halfway to their final destination, the keep hung high above in the distance. The vestige of the dragon sleeping on top was both awe inspiring and frightful as plumes of black smoke rose from its maw at every breath, yet even its might was overshadowed by the undead legion, as countless undead readied themselves for an all out assault, the the noise of clicking machinery moved in the distance as the undead artillerists aimed their weapons at the invading army ready to fire at a moments notice.