The moment he passed the boundary, he felt oddly dislocated. He hesitated for a second and raced towards the undead ice giant. It stood looming above CornWall, unconcerned about him. It rotated its arms mechanically getting ready for the next strike.

The moment he reached the giant, he grabbed the clumps of white fur and began scaling the giant like a ladder. Its body quivered, in faint recognition of CornWall, but either it decided the barrier was more important or the necromancer decided for it.

Regardless, within seconds he had reached its head. He climbed to the top of its head and brought out two blades from his ragged clothes. He struck both of them into its juicy eyes. The blades squelched but he persisted and tried pushing it deeper, towards its brain.

The giant shuddered and spasmed violently.

It jerked forward and the badly balanced CornWall hit the barrier. He tried to hold on but the barrier was curved and he slipped and hit the ground. The giant also hit the barrier but BorderLine had already pushed his sword through its Life. All CornWall saw was the chunks of ash falling on him and the life counter hitting the ground.

Two down.

The barrier was a mess. A web of cracks had spread out from the ends, threatening to break it to smithereens, once it reached the very top. He picked up the fallen blades and ran towards the nearest ice giant.

But it was ready for him.

It swung both its arms towards him. He ran forward, past the arms and into the gap between the legs. Instead of stopping to fight it he ran onwards to the next giant.

Furious at CornWall ignoring it, it howled and chased after him only to be met with bullets and blades from within the barrier. It lost its balance and slipped.

And that was all the time he needed. He climbed the next giant, who was ignoring him, and lay on its head ready to slip the blades into its eyes.

The giant slapped both its arms onto its head, squashing CornWall. It howled in laughter, happy that it had tricked him.

Part of his spine and both his legs were twisted out of shape, but not even a whimper escaped his mouth. He pushed both blades into its eyes, just like before. After clawing around in its sockets for some time it too shuddered and flailed its limbs. It tried to stand still and almost succeeded; but it was still close enough to the barrier and BorderLine attacked.

Three down.

The moment he started attacking he could feel his bone realign itself and start fusing together. By the time he hit the ground, he was completely healed. No fractures. No paralysis. Any blood he lost was compensated.

CornWall glanced at BorderLine waiting for a signal from him. He was on his hands, panting heavily. Even from outside the blue barrier he could see that BorderLine was purple in the face. It didn’t look like he was getting up any time soon.

‘NO. I’m never going to stop. Not here, not anywhere,’ he promised himself.

He picked up the blades once again and ran towards the fourth ice giant. It was ignoring him. A bad feeling crept his stomach. He turned his head towards the giant behind him. It too was ignoring him.

All three ice giants hit the barrier. The cracks increased in length, like a flower opening its petals. The moment the separate cracks met, the barrier would break.

Three ice giants were still weaker than six, but strong enough to destroy the barrier.

CornWall reached a giant and climbed up to its head. He slid the blades into its eyes just like before, bathing his arms in gooey liquid. It shuddered and spasmed, losing its balance. It held its arms out trying to regain balance. It succeeded.

It was blind and almost out of balance, but it held on. It groped its way around the barrier feeling it and raised its arms to strike.

CornWall stared in shock. It adjusted. ‘How the hell did it do that?’

He climbed down the top of the head and onto its face. He tried digging both his arms into the eye socket. It was too small for him to enter. It shook its head and he almost fell off. The giant’s head was shorter than his body and he struggled to keep balance. He stuck his feet inside the giant’s mouth but it quickly bit his toes off.

Despite how far he had stuck his arms into its brain, it made no difference. BANG! The giants still hit the barrier. His giant was slightly out of sync, but the cracks grew again.

CornWall inspected the barrier, it could only last one more hit.

He plucked the blade out of one eye and tried hitting it around the base of the skull. When that didn’t work he tried the cheeks. He tried pushing the blade inside the giant’s mouth, but it kept its mouth firmly shut. Despite his probing his blade couldn’t pierce a single thing.

BANG! The light from the circle pulsed brighter than ever and faded into darkness. The barrier was broken.

CornWall stuck to the giant’s face, but despite its blindness it scooped him out and threw him to the ground. He was streaked with blood and viscous eye fluid was dripping out of him. His already ragged clothes looked like they would fall apart any moment. But he had no wounds.

He looked around, BorderLine seemed to have recovered but the rest of them were frozen in fear. The elf ran to CornWall and stood behind him like a shadow. The moment the ice giants stomped out of their enclosure the sea of undead started giving them looks.

“Gather into a circle,” announced BorderLine. And so the crowd gathered into a circle with CornWall on one side and BorderLine on the other.

Once the giants had gone out of sight the horde pushed in and submerged them.

CornWall swung his fist and knocked the head out of the first undead that attacked him; followed by a twin barrage to a two headed undead dog. BorderLine still had strength to squash back the undead using his large broad sword as a shield rather than a sword. The rest of them hid behind the shield and poked out with their blades. The pilot let loose a hail of bullets.

But a large cat jumped into the air and plowed into their formation, followed by undead squirming through the gaps. Within five seconds, their formation had been wrecked.

The elf held on behind CornWall, but they had been separated from the rest of the group. The undead streamed past them, most of them opting to attack CornWall. He was trampled, punched and kicked and every so often he managed to send a punch back. Flesh and bones would break and heal so fast, there was a blur of red all over his body. Any life counters that fell out were lost in the sea of undead.

The elf hid behind and CornWall managed to take most of the hits for him. Seconds trickled to minutes and minutes dragged on. Both of them had lost track of time. In the beginning they held ground but soon they too ran with the undead; sometimes carried by them and other times besides them.

They tried jumping on top of the undead and for a minute would succeed in surfing the sea of undead only to be thrown down by a larger and more ambitious undead. The third time they tried riding a blind giant wolf, they saw a flash of light. A white flash of light shot into the air once more.

The elf and CornWall reached the same conclusion. “Help!” they screamed in unison.

The elf began waving his hands aggressively. Two of the surrounding undead took offense to that and send a blow to the elf. CornWall took both the punches for him and send them back to their recipients

The wolf howled feebly, shaking its shoulders to shrug off its riders. In response, CornWall dug the last remaining blade into its eye socket and it stopped shaking. All the while the elf kept screaming in a shrill voice and finally they saw a flash of light right beneath their feet.

The ground shot forth as a spike with both of them and the wolf on the platform. They saw glowing white wings before they saw the Player who escorted them.

The woman in white was back.

A slab of blue light appeared right next to them.

“Get on it.”

They both jumped on the light and the spike shot back to the ground and the battered giant wolf joined the sea of undead.

“Kill it,” shouted CornWall, but the Player ignored him.

Instead the blue light surrounded them completely and flew into the air. There was larger spherical barrier higher up. Their smaller barrier entered the big one and faded away, allowing the two of them to enter the floating barrier.

Inside the floating barrier were the rest of their crowd. A bruised BorderLine was lying down, the rest were even worse with large, festering wounds. This could have been an infirmary the way the sick lay in columns. But he noticed there were seven of them instead of ten. Three were missing.

Another smaller barrier entered their large one, followed by the angel. It was one of the missing members. It was the tree nymph. He had lost both arms and his bright green skin was now purple. The angel hovered inside the barrier for a few seconds, two halos twirling on her head instead of one.

It was a spell to heal their wounds. CornWall could see the bones and flesh of nymph’s arms grow back as fast as his own wounds would heal. The rest of them lay there in shock, though their wounds were healed they lay down whimpering in pain. Once they were healed the barrier started moving and shot forth past the mountain range.

Their surroundings blurred into an ashy grey still untouched by the sun until he realized it was actually the sea of undead. It spread out as far as he could see. Instead of heading away from the firework of spells they sped faster and faster in that direction. Despite their speed their flight was still smoother than the helicopter.

“What about the old man?” asked CornWall. No one answered him.

He raised his voice and asked again, “What about the old man?”

The Player glared at him, “Two are dead. I guess the old man is one of them. Don’t worry I won’t abandon them. If I miss even one then my work will be incomplete.”

He was confused but decided not to disturb what the Player was doing. He looked around. The rest of them were still lying down in a daze. Some closed their eyes in mental exhaustion. But BorderLine sat up and stretched his arms.

He glanced at the angel and scrunched his face in thought. He stood up and asked warily,” Why were there so many undead?”

She still hovered inside, wings beating and eyes closed. She was directing the barrier.

She was silent for a second before replying, “Guild wars. Those morons wouldn’t even accept a negotiation for safe air travel, so we’re going to have to do this the hard way.”

He nodded but before he could do anything the barrier jerked to a stop. Beneath them still was an undulating sea of undead. The angel swooped out.

Most of them slept while BorderLine and CornWall waited in silence for a few minutes. While they waited inside they could see bright lights streak past their barrier. Whenever the spells hit the barrier they faded away instead of passing through.

‘This was way more convenient than that helicopter. So why didn’t the Player just use this in the first place?’ wondered CornWall.

BorderLine got up and headed towards where CornWall sat. At first he stared at CornWall with a weary smile, when he got close enough he scowled and removed his linen shirt. He scrunched it into a ball and threw it to CornWall.

“Here.”

“What’s this for?” asked CornWall holding the shirt in his palm.

“To wear, obviously. You’re butt naked.”

“Why would that be a problem?” asked CornWall, genuinely confused.

BorderLine looked annoyed. “It may not a problem to you, but I don’t want to look at your balls each time I try to talk to you,” pointing his hands in exasperation.

CornWall was confused, but he obliged and slipped the white shirt on. It was slightly oversized but that was completely intentional.

BorderLine sat there awkwardly twirling his beaded locks while CornWall stared through the barrier. While in motion, its translucence prevented him from seeing anything but basic colours. But now he could see through it clearly enough.

The grey sea of undead chased each other from side to side. They rolled over like waves each time they collided with another horde. And he found he could start seeing shades of earthy brown in between the dark grey. They were reducing in number. Finally.

“I’m BorderLine by the way. Call me Line,” said BorderLine holding out his hand.

CornWall grabbed his hand. “My birth name is CornWall.”

Line waited, motioning him to continue.

“Most people call me 1331.”

Line raised his brows but before he could reply they were interrupted.

A smaller barrier joined their own barrier, followed by the angel.

Inside were an old man and an undead.