The leading line of Xorn crashed against the four raid groups assembled below. The quartet of tanks scrambled to get a hold of aggro on the front line, and then struggled to hold their ground against the press of four-armed bodies pushing in at them.

Kaldalis grimaced as the gruesome sounds of impact rose over the combat.

In the first raid, the man in black armor had only faced one Xorn, while Kaldalis and Martok had been kiting the remaining foes around, not fighting them directly. That had been ideal, since their attacks were brutally powerful and unrelenting.

Unfortunately, now the four tanks were stuck in a box literally called a “kill box” with no escape or relief from the constant stream of fists.

He couldn’t see everyone’s hit point bars, but he already saw Gabriel going for the big guns. The area was filled with his big AoE heals before the group had even stabilized against the pressure of the Xorn pushing in.

That wasn’t a good sign.

Fortunately, the Xorn were the only enemies who had pressed forward into the area. The red monsters hadn’t engaged yet, meaning they were still only directly fighting the devil they knew, but a couple of them were just a few rows back from the front line. At least they weren’t flinging stuff into the fight.

“Archers!” Kaldalis bellowed, hoping he’d be heard over the sound of combat. “Focus on the killbox! Support the front line!”

It wasn’t clear if it was at his direction, or just common sense, but the majority of the rain of arrows refocused, peppering the ranks of Xorn within the killbox.

“Focus fire!” Kaldalis yelled, turning his head towards the archer tower to try and project his voice. “Focus a target and force it out! The red thing! Force out the red thing!” He pointed at the nearest of the new red monsters. “Get rid of it!”

This time it was obvious that he had some authority here. The arrows from that tower didn’t become a laser focus on the target he indicated, but the spread of the shots did narrow, peppering the pulsating red monster and the Xorn immediately around it.

Oddly, one of the other red humanoids changed course. Instead of pushing forward, it started to push towards the hail of arrows on its fellow. He felt like that should have told him something about them, but he wasn’t sure what.

There was a sinking feeling in his stomach that he was going to find out soon enough.

Despite the initial panic, the front line stabilized and held, however.

From his perspective above the battlefield, he felt like he was watching an RTS battle unfold. The party to the farthest left was struggling, their line falling a bit behind the others, but the middle-left group was the party with Gabriel healing, which meant that the Finnian healer was near at hand to help support them. The extra work on the healer meant that his group wasn’t performing as comfortably as they could have been. But they were still holding their ground just fine.

The group to the middle right was the one with the tank in black armor, and while he was positioned aggressively, he wasn’t far enough out for it to be dangerous yet. Kaldalis wasn’t sure how he wanted to deal with the man’s behavior. He could wait for him to fail and then jump in, but that would put the whole operation at risk. But if he yelled for him to back off, there was a chance he wouldn’t listen, undermining his authority and being just as capable of screwing up the whole thing.

Far to the right, the group there was performing about as well as Gabriel’s group, which spoke well of them since there wasn’t anyone in that group that he recognized. Kaldalis wasn’t sure if that meant they were just that good, or if he was just that shitty at paying attention and recognizing people. The tank was a Bhogad with a spear, and it was plain to see from his movements that he was competent as the familiar Sweeping Strikes ability let him secure aggro on a huge group, and his movement forced the xorn to jockey for position around him rather than stand and fight him directly. It meant that his healers were less pressed, even if it was slightly harder for his DPS to single out any one foe.

Things were going fine now.

It was a rough start, but the line of battle was stable. Nobody was dying, the horde wasn’t gaining ground, and the DPS were pumping out damage. There was still a veritable army on the ground behind him not contributing, but the archers were doing work to try and slim down the health bars of the enemies still to come.

That realization was when things broke down.

And of course, the new red enemies were the source of the problem.

It happened when the red enemy that the archers were targeting was about fifteen feet from the one that had started moving towards it. And it didn’t just happen there. It happened simultaneously across the entire battlefield.

From each of the red enemies, a ring of vibrant red light pulsed outwards from their bodies. It washed over the Infernal Horde with no immediately visible effect, and the four groups in the killbox all flinched back, giving ground in order to avoid the wave of energy.

Kaldalis could see that the man in black armor was too far forward, however.

The ring moved at the speed of a light jog, but being pushed out so far, and with the parties at his flanks giving ground, the disadvantage of sword and shield was apparent. His “mobility” was the ability to use his shield to endure attacks, not anything that enabled him to avoid them in the first place. The energy rings closed in on him from the two nearest enemies, one coming at him dead-on, and the other from slightly to the left. There was no avoiding them.

His group had successfully pulled back, so at least he was the only one in their path.

The first one hit less than a breath before the second.

With shield raised, he was forced to take some serious punishment from the xorn around him, but the man in black armor was braced for-

Absolutely nothing.

The red ring passed over him, leaving him unharmed.

“What the fuck was that?” Kaldalis murmured to himself, even as he could see the same words on the lips of everyone in his line of sight.

Tentatively, the fight resumed, and Kaldalis was left trying to figure out what it all meant.

It took the front lines a few moments to reorganize and regain the ground they’d given, but not long.

They were holding.

Everything was going to be fine.

Or was it? Kaldalis glanced to his left, and he could see the Xorn who weren’t in the killbox still smashing against the camp’s wooden walls. The outer layer of wood was starting to crack and split under their assault. With the killbox full of the press of Infernal Horde bodies, and none of them yet turning to flee to open up more space, the Xorn army outside was still free to try and rip them a new gate.

The adventurers had to start making real progress before the walls were breached.

Surely, though, the tide would start to turn soon. The parties below had been hammering on the Xorn for a while, and the storm of arrows filling the killbox should eventually send a few others running as well, right?

Of course, that was when it occurred to him what that red glow was.

Kaldalis wanted to curse, but he couldn’t think of any word bad enough to convey exactly how terrible the situation was.

“It’s a heal!” Kaldalis yelled, shouting down at the parties below. “Focus one foe at a time at all costs! The red ones heal! Spreading the damage around is wasting it!”

Even as he said it, another wave of red filled the battlefield.

The pulses were less than a minute apart.

Considering how dramatically inflated the Infernal Horde’s other stats were compared to players and other monsters, the healing was probably huge. They were putting too many eggs in one killbox.

The Xorn weren’t going to be the problem.

It was the ones battering down the door that would be the problem.

Unless they could start making a difference.

“Focus! Focus!” Kaldalis turned and yelled at the archers. “Forget the red ones! Focus on the front line! Everyone on one target at a time! We’re not going to kill one of them until the DPS down there can focus on them!”

Despite the lack of an obvious sign of change, the panic and urgency in Kaldalis’s voice changed the attitude of the whole group. More than half of the DPS down in the killbox started chugging potions. The hail of arrows redoubled in speed, presumably as the archers in the towers started activating cooldowns. Behind him, the waiting groups in the courtyard started to shift uneasily. They couldn’t see what was going on, but the change in mood was palpable.

Kaldalis knew they couldn’t afford to hold back.

Reluctantly, he grabbed a bit of flint from his cooking menu and reached up, lighting the censer atop the staff he held. He’d really intended to use this later, when the captains closed in - or when a Major that would serve as this attack’s end boss appeared - but they weren’t going to last that long without every edge they could get.

The sickly yellow-orange color washed over the Infernal Horde army before him. He watched to see if it would get them over the finish line on one or two of the Xorn.

Between everything they added to the fight, the first Xorn finally broke and ran. It shoved its way back through the crowd. Kaldalis knew from experience that this would help relieve the very real physical pressure closing in on the group down there, but it was just one drop removed from the bucket.

And the bucket was still very full.

“Great work!” Kaldalis shouted down to the front line. “Keep it up! We’re going to-”

There wasn’t even time to finish the thought before he’d jinxed them.

To his left, the camp’s wall started to come apart. It was just a small opening - a circular section of wood only feet wide breaking loose - but sixteen hands gripped the hole on all sides. The four Xorn worked together to rip chunks of wood off the edges, rapidly making the opening wide enough for one of their number to step through the breach.

“There,” Kaldalis yelled, pointing, even as the entire group in the courtyard was already moving in that direction. “Hold them there! Don’t let them flood in!”

“Kal!” Myrin screamed up at him. “Kal, we got another!”

His attention snapped towards her voice, and saw another crack forming on the right side. This crack started smaller, really just a narrow split, but metallic fingers were pushing through it, ripping chunks of wood apart.

Within seconds, it would be a second breach.

“Keep on the killbox!” Kaldalis shouted to the archers. “Keep sending them running there, and we’ll get through this!”

With only a moment’s pause, the burning censer was planted in a narrow gap in between two pieces of wood, where it could cast its debuff over the whole battlefield. For now, though, he had to jump down to take care of matters more directly.

Kaldalis used a charge of his Jump cooldown to get to the second breach. It wasn’t yet open enough to allow entry. But it was getting there fast. A vase-like head wreathed in sand stabbed through the opening, and Kaldalis could sense the malice in the attention of the featureless face.

“How fucked are we?” Balrim asked as he readied a potion. “Be honest.”

“On a scale of one to ten?” Kaldalis said, readying his spear. “About a forty-two.”

“Despair is for those who see the end beyond all doubt,” Myrin said, stepping up beside him with a grin. “We do not.”

“Fucking nerd,” Kaldalis said, shaking his head.

The first Xorn started to shove a leg through the opening to plant a foot inside the walls.

Kaldalis stepped up to meet its advance with the tip of his spear.