{Chapter: 170: Plague Slipping Through The Defense Line}
Perched atop the hulking corpse of a fallen abyssal beast, Emerson the dark elf sat, breathing heavily, his slender body marred by cuts, bruises, and fresh wounds. His long hair, usually smooth and gleaming like obsidian, was matted with sweat and gore.
He was exhausted.
Utterly spent.
Fighting day after day, never sleeping more than a handful of hours, had worn down even someone of his stature. His demigod constitution kept him on his feet, but his mind longed for stillness—for rest—for just a moment of peace.
Before he could even collect his thoughts, a booming, jovial voice echoed from behind him.
"Come, elf! Let's go have a drink! The kind that burns your throat and makes you forget you're still breathing!"
Emerson turned his head, raising an eyebrow with mild amusement.
There stood a dwarf—short, barrel-chested, with arms like tree trunks and a tangled beard streaked with soot and blood. His armor bore dozens of scratches, and his axe looked like it had split more skulls than trees.
Despite their differences, Emerson knew this face well.
A former enemy. A longtime rival. An old thorn in his side.
Hundreds of years ago, they had exchanged more insults than blows and more blows than handshakes. Petty sabotage, ambushes, and ancient racial grudges had defined their relationship.
But war changes people.
And after over a century of fighting side-by-side, watching each other's backs in hopeless skirmishes, those bitter rivalries had faded into the past. The hatred passed down by ancestors had withered beneath the fire of shared survival.
Emerson gave a faint smile, blood dripping from the corner of his mouth. "I thought dwarves preferred beer brewed in molten lava. Or was that just a tall tale?"
The dwarf roared with laughter, clapping him hard on the back. "Tall tale or not, you'll be drinking it today! Come on, don't die on me before we toast to another day survived!"
They walked together, side by side—an elf and a dwarf, races born to hate, now bound by battle.
Had it not been for the invasion of the Abyss, the two of them might never have exchanged more than a blade.
It was a strange thought.
In a way, the war had brought about a kind of unity that peace never could.
And that—more than anything—was perhaps the greatest irony of them all.
Shaking his head while walking side by side to clear away the tangle of old memories, Emerson cast a helpless glance at the dwarf demigod striding ahead and sighed. "Didn't you just drink not too long ago?"
The dwarf immediately frowned, his expression filled with righteous indignation. "That was then, this is now! What sort of dwarf would I be if I didn't drink at every opportunity—even if it kills me?"
His words dripped with the stubborn pride of someone whose soul was deeply married to the bottle more than his women.
Emerson knew better than to argue logic with a drunken dwarf. Still, the look of disinterest on his face made the other man even more disgruntled.
"I'm telling you, I can't even get in the mood to fight without a good drink in me! Give me enough ale, and I'd camp on this battlefield until the end of time," the dwarf declared boldly.
Emerson let out an exasperated sigh. "That's… a very twisted kind of philosophy."
As they walked further, Emerson's eyes wandered to the scattered bodies being lifted by solemn soldiers—some covered in bloodied armor, others barely recognizable. In the background, men and women sorted through the remnants of the monster horde, burning corrupted flesh and salvaging what they could.
His voice turned quiet, thoughtful.
"How many times have we seen this exact scene play out?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
"Three hundred times? Five hundred?"
There was a long pause.
"Do you really think we'll live to see the day when these monsters are finally pushed back? When can we go home without fear?"
The dwarf demigod scratched his thick beard, the humor in his face momentarily replaced by thoughtfulness.
"I mean… maybe?" he answered, half-shrugging. "I've been alive long enough that if I kick the bucket, I won't feel too cheated."
He gave a quiet chuckle. "At the very least, I gave it my all in this damned war. If I fail, I'll face it like a dwarf—with a drink in hand and my boots on. There's nothing else to do."
Emerson stared at him for a long moment before a slow smile crept across his face.
He nodded. "You know what… that might be the most reasonable thing you've said in decades."
There was no glory left in this war—only the weariness of survival, the hope that maybe, someday, something would change. But even if it didn't… at least they had tried.
Emerson clapped a hand on the dwarf's shoulder.
"Come on, let's go to our usual place. But this time, you're buying."
The dwarf's eyes bulged with protest. "What?! I bought the last round! It's your turn!"
Emerson raised a finger with mock solemnity. "Ah, but let me remind you: every time we drink, you guzzle five times more than I do. I've been losing money every time. So from now on, for every one drink I buy you, you owe me three."
The dwarf spluttered in outrage. "That's robbery! That makes no sense! I've been scamming—uh—outdrinking you for years! You can't change the rules now!"
"I can and I just did."
"You—!"
Their cheerful bickering echoed through the hallway as they walked toward the nearest portal, the weight of war temporarily forgotten in the simplicity of friendship.
---
Meanwhile, deep inside the heart of the defense line…
In a sealed underground chamber laced with arcane wards and metallic runes, a group of mages in thick protective gear moved with clinical efficiency. Their robes had been reinforced with enchantments resembling chemical hazard suits, glowing faintly with runes of purification.
At the center of the room stood Emerson, arms spread and armor partially removed as he underwent a thorough magical examination.
This protocol had become standard for all frontline soldiers returning from battle—especially now, when the threat of abyssal infiltration loomed with every wave. Some monsters had once mimicked human forms to near perfection, slipping past defenses and wreaking havoc from within.
The early days had seen catastrophic breaches. Lessons had been learned. Harshly.
One of the leading mages studied the ritual results as a web of light danced in the air, revealing Emerson's spiritual and physical integrity. After several long moments, the mage finally gave a small nod of approval.
"No foreign energies, no signs of parasitic corruption. You're clear."
Emerson gave a tired but grateful smile. "Glad to hear it."
---
Far away, on a mountain ridge hundreds of kilometers behind enemy lines, Dex slowly sat up from his makeshift throne of stone, his crimson eyes gleaming with wicked satisfaction.
He stretched lazily, yawning like a predator that had just caught the scent of its prey.
For days, he had waited, monitoring the faint plague signals across his network of infected bodies. And now, finally… finally, he felt it.
A soft tremor.
A thread of resonance.
His virus had made it inside the defense line.
It was just a faint touch, barely a whisper—but it was real.
The infection had breached the wall.
A grin curled across his face, slow and triumphant.
"It's only a single seed," he murmured, "but from that seed… I can grow a forest of rot."
He stood up fully, cracking his back, his fingers flexing like claws.
"As long as ten, maybe fifteen of them slip through… then we're ready to stir up something big."
His voice lowered to a whisper, dark with promise.
"The next phase begins."
*****
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