Qilins charged at us, bodies of hardened scales glinting with dancing firelight. All of them were alight with fire of their own, charging through the wall of fire. One rammed into the 03’s side before the HAMMERHEAD could react. Even as I watched 03 pry the burning qilin off his body, 2 more ran towards the main hangar.

They seemed to always come in groups of 3.

These were purple and orange, the fire glowing from their limbs matching the coloration of their scales. Heat and power raged around them as they slammed against the SHIELDWALL.

The charge and heat would’ve cooked an organic life form. As it was, it displaced the outer coating on its metal body, likely cooking the circuitry inside its arms.

615 directed the undead qilin to charge forward.

The monsters jumped back at the sight of the headless qilin, letting out a series of harsh, barking noises.

They were talking.

615 delayed their response, the headless qilin ambling forward. They tried to talk to it, to reason with it.

03 pounded the first qilin into the ground over and over, all 4 of his arms slamming downwards in rapid succession. His back was slag, melted metal sliding down to reveal circuitry and motors.

He still functioning just as well.

The hydraulics of the main gun had failed, but 615 worked to aim it anyway. Dozens of starfish mechs used themselves as props to lift it and aim down at the qilin.

03 killed his qilin, staggering over. The flame reduced his starfish legs to scrap.

The 2 fire qilin charged the hangar, but we could not aim the main gun at them in time.

The ethereal qilin reached out, its arm phasing through the flaming qilin, incorporeal and surreal. Fire flared around the approaching qilin.

It appeared they knew each other’s weaknesses.

I designated the ethereal qilin GHOST01, watching through the feeds as its arm turned solid for just a moment. It made a pawing motion, and then it became ephemeral again, and the qilin fell over dead.

The flaming qilin tackled our metal qilin, now designated CHROME01, and they rolled in a ball of fire and steel, tumbling off into the forest. The flame qilin, FLAME03, inflicted a half dozen injuries that would’ve killed our CHROME, if it were alive.

Unfortunately, it was already dead, the new wounds on its body little more than decoration. It ripped the qilin to shreds.

03 started the autofactories.

615 continued repair of the cannons. The distant edge of the ship dissolved into motes of light as we converted it into DP. I sent a signal for starfish mechs to bring me supplies. The ship was a buzz of activity, everyone moving at full speed, having no idea how long until the next wave of qilin.

I fell from the hooks binding me to the wall, crawling across the floor.

We needed every hand we could raise. Dead or alive.

The starfish split chalk between themselves, holding them in the manipulators in the center of their body. They dragged the chalk from a dozen positions at once, painting a sigil on the floor from my memory. I had finally finished absorbing Tobias’s library. Among those books were the skills to raise greater undead, concentrated in a single skill: Necromancer, Adept.

///SYSTEM STATUS, OFF01

///Lvl. 6

///CLASS: SKELETON MAGE(ERROR)

///Skills:

[ NOVA-3 PLASMA CANNON (LVL.3) ]|[ ENERGY DRAIN ]|[UNDEAD REGENERATION]|[Play Dead]|[NECROTIC BLADE (LVL.2)]|[Dark Lord]|[Ritual Necromancer, Adept]

///HP: 31/250

///ENERGY: 100/100

///Stats:

[VITALITY: 25]|[STRENGTH:25]

[ENDURANCE:25]|[AGILITY:40]

[WISDOM:0]|[INTELLIGENCE:50]

[PERCEPTION:60]|[REACTION:60]

///Skill points available: 0

///Stat points available: 0

I recalled one of the hammer heads to the room. They lifted Tavi’s body, dropping it in the center of the ritual circle that the starfish had speed painted. Tapping into the other feeds, I saw that all the acolytes were out now, helping raise the newly gained undead. The starfish struggled to carry the qilin corpse that 03 had brutalized, dragging it to the hangar. 03 worked to analyze and begin repairs on the remaining autofactories.

AI615 repaired the main guns. Considering the attacking qilin, it was likely that none other than the FLAME class qilin were currently willing to cross the wall of fire surrounding us. We had hours before the flame consumed the forest, and our only defense was gone.

I pressed a hand to the sigil under Tavi. It flashed to life. The corpse’s eyes snapped open, rolling back, mouth slack, lips pale gray. It groaned, a flash of glory under its skin. Then its neck twitched, head snapping about, before Tavi woke up. Tavi dragged himself out of the circle, trying to rise to his feet before stumbling over, head impacting the wall.

Tavi dragged himself free of it, reaching back to his head to touch it.

“That… didn’t hurt.” He said. His voice wheezed out of his lungs. But he didn’t lift himself from the wall. Instead, his hands explored his body, reaching down. He touched his wound. Without his heart beating, there was no blood floating out.

Tavi looked down at me.

//You will assist in raising the qilin as undead. Head to the —

AI615 interrupted with a ping over the network. A door slid open behind us, away from the main hangar.

“Head to the workshops on this side, Tavi. Avoid the other acolytes for now.”

Tavi continued staring at me, eyes glazed, leaning against the wall. Then he nodded.

“Yes.” He said, stumbling away.

I didn’t question 615. She was the expert in humans. Instead, assisted by the starfish, I joined the acolytes in the hangar, helping them power the spell to raise the FLAME01 that had attacked 03. A steady feed of mechanical material made its way to the autofactories, and soon after we resurrected the FLAME01, a third autofactory roared to life. 03 had shut the hangar door, 03 building a bridge between the two broken sections of the ship and sending the starfish through.

The sections marked as non-essential dissolved into DP or hacked to pieces, fed into the autofactories and recycled. We freed the main guns from their batteries, slowly sliding towards them us as 615 carefully managed a hundred processes. After raising the qilin, there was nothing to do but wait, so 615 sent the acolytes to bed. It was still daytime here, but we had traveled across the globe. It was night time where we had been.

Two autofactories worked to bring the other three online. The third produced a mix of parts for my repair, mini starfish to speed disassembly of the ship, and weapons for the acolytes in the worst-case scenario.

It took a full 8 hours for the forest fire to calm. The world outside the ship was black, nothing but churned earth and ash and the burnt remnant of a forest of trees. Ash still fell from the sky, the fire spreading farther into the forest.

The sun fell below the horizon, the world and sky equally black, smoke choking the sky. The fire was a distant glow now.

The next attack came.

But now we had 5 undead qilin to fight back.