Sera had never attempted anything like this.
The Weave of Life's standard network connected six to ten people — a party, a squad. The healing threads linked their vital signs, distributed damage, and channeled healing where it was needed. It was elegant, efficient, and operated within the Life Weaver class's designed parameters.
Connecting forty-three healers into a single purification network was not within designed parameters. It was, by the Analyst class's assessment, "a creative interpretation of the class's architecture that may or may not result in catastrophic mana overload."
Sera didn't care.
In the two hours before the main force's arrival, she worked with the coalition's healers in the Iron Vanguard guildhall's main hall. Forty-three individuals, ranging from Level 12 to Level 25, representing seven different healing classes: Healer, Priest, Paladin, Spirit Medium, Nature Mage, Holy Archer, and Life Weaver (herself, the only one).
The Weave of Life wasn't designed for forty-three connections. But it could be *extended*.
"Think of it as a relay system," Sera explained, her hands moving through the air, trailing golden threads. "I can directly connect to ten people. Each of those ten connects to three more through a secondary thread. That gives us forty-three connections total: ten primary, thirty-three secondary."
"Will the secondary connections be strong enough for purification channeling?" Father Matthias asked. The Dawn's Light priest's Holy Light class was the second-strongest purification ability in the coalition, after Ark's Radiant Guardian.
"Not individually. But collectively, the secondary connections' combined output will match a primary connection. It's about volume, not intensity."
"And all of it channels through you?"
"Through me, into Ark, and from Ark into the Rift Lord." She paused. "I'll be the bottleneck. If my mana runs out or my connection breaks, the entire network collapses."
"What's your mana capacity?"
"With the Lifeline staff's amplification: about 3,200 MP. The network will drain approximately 100 MP per minute at full channeling."
"Thirty-two minutes of sustained purification."
"If nothing goes wrong."
"Something always goes wrong."
"Which is why I'm asking Ark to give me ten of his mana crystals." She looked at the tactical display, where the Rift Lord's massive signature was moving steadily closer. "Each crystal extends my capacity by about 200 MP. That gives me fifty-two minutes."
"Is fifty-two minutes enough?"
Sera's honest answer was: she had no idea. The Colossus purification had taken four minutes and nearly killed Ark. The Rift Lord was at least twelve levels higher and exponentially more corrupted. The purification could take five minutes or five hours.
"It'll have to be," she said.
---
The network assembly began at hour twenty-three.
Sera stood at the center of the guildhall, the Lifeline staff planted in the floor, its mana crystal crown pulsing with green-gold light. The forty-three healers arranged themselves in concentric circles around her — ten primary connections in the inner ring, thirty-three secondary connections in the outer ring.
Each primary connection required a direct thread from Sera's Weave of Life — a process that felt like extending a part of her consciousness into another person's healing channel. It was intimate in a way that was hard to describe: she could feel their heartbeats, their breathing patterns, the specific quality of their healing energy.
Father Matthias was warm and steady — a deep well of holy light that tasted like incense and certainty.
Tomas (Holy Knight) was fierce and protective — his healing energy flavored with the Knight class's defensive instinct, like a shield made of sunlight.
Venn (Sacred Archer) was sharp and focused — each healing pulse aimed like an arrow, precise and deliberate.
The others followed: a cascade of individual healers, each one unique, each one adding their specific energy to the network. The secondary connections were looser, more generalized, but the combined effect was overwhelming.
When all forty-three connections were active, the Weave of Life thrummed with power that made the guildhall's walls vibrate. Golden threads filled the room like a three-dimensional web, each one pulsing with healing energy, all of them converging on Sera at the center.
"Mana drain: 95 MP per minute," Sera reported, her voice slightly strained. "Below projection. The network is... stable."
*Barely* stable. The combined healing energy of forty-three individuals wanted to flow in forty-three different directions. Maintaining a unified output required constant mental effort — like herding cats made of sunlight.
But it was working.
"Ark," she said through their private Weave connection. "The network is ready. How long until the Rift Lord is in range?"
"Main force is hitting the middle perimeter now. The Rift Lord is behind them — maybe four hours."
"I can maintain the network for fifty-two minutes of active channeling. The rest of the time, I'll keep it in standby mode — minimal drain."
"Understood. When I move for the Rift Lord, I'll signal. You activate full channeling, push everything through me. I'll do the rest."
"The 'rest' being touching a Level 50+ entity's core while forty-three people channel purification energy through your body."
"Yes."
"Your body isn't designed for that kind of energy throughput."
"My body isn't designed for 120 classes either, but here we are."
"Ark. I'm serious. If the energy exceeds what your channels can handle, it could burn you out. Permanently. No healing will fix a burned-out mana system."
Silence on the connection. Then: "What's the threshold?"
"For a normal awakened individual, about 2,000 units of channeled energy per second before burnout risk. For you..." She calculated, factoring in the Radiant Guardian's evolved channels, the Soul Anchor's stability boost, and the sheer redundancy of 120 class-enhanced mana pathways. "Maybe 8,000 units per second. The network's full output is approximately 6,500."
"That's within range."
"Within range isn't the same as safe. If you take damage while channeling, your mana channels constrict. If they constrict below 6,500 capacity, the overflow burns."
"Then don't let me take damage."
"That's..." She sighed. "That's the plan. The strike team keeps the Rift Lord's physical attacks off you while you channel. The network provides the purification energy. And I maintain the connection while trying not to think about the seventeen ways this can go catastrophically wrong."
"Seventeen?"
"The Analyst class in my head ran the simulations. Don't ask about the outcomes."
"You don't have an Analyst class."
"No. But you've been lecturing me about probability for two months. Some of it stuck."
A pause. Then: "Sera."
"What?"
"Thank you. For the network. For staying. For everything since the shelter."
"You can thank me after we survive."
"And if we don't?"
"Then I'll heal you in the afterlife and tell you 'I told you so.'"
---
The network remained on standby as the main force hit the middle perimeter.
The impact was immediate and devastating.
Thirty thousand entities — a wave of corrupted dimensional beings that filled the streets like a flood of violet darkness. The forward wave's organized formations were replaced by overwhelming numbers, a crush of bodies and corruption energy that slammed into the chokepoints with the force of a natural disaster.
Chokepoint Three held. Rook's Bastion absorbed the initial impact, the Aegis Wall's extended defensive zone catching the first wave while Mira's arrow rain devastated the packed ranks behind them.
Chokepoint Seven held. Kira's fire and Jin's precision carved through the entities at a rate that would have been impressive against anything except infinite reinforcements.
Chokepoint Twelve began to crack.
Stone's position faced the heaviest concentration — the western approach had fewer natural bottlenecks, and the Tide's corrupted intelligence had identified it as the weakest point. Level 35+ Rift Brutes hit Stone's line in packs, their combined mass threatening to physically push through the Fortress Commander's immovable stance.
Stone held. His Fortress Commander class was designed for exactly this: an immovable object against an unstoppable force. But even immovable objects had limits, and the Rift Brutes' compounding damage was slowly — inexorably — grinding through his defenses.
"Twelve is bending," Ark reported from the command tower. "Stone has maybe ninety minutes before the line breaks."
"Can we reinforce?" Dex asked.
"Not without weakening Three or Seven. We're committed everywhere."
"Reserves?"
"There are no reserves." Ark's voice was flat. "Five hundred fighters, three perimeters, eight chokepoints. Everything is deployed."
The math again. The impossible math that said five hundred people couldn't hold a city against thirty thousand, no matter how smart the tactics or how strong the enchantments.
They needed the Rift Lord. They needed Operation Purification.
They needed it *now*.
"Where's the Rift Lord?" Ark asked the surveillance network.
"Three kilometers west, behind the main force. Moving slowly. ETA to the middle perimeter: approximately two hours."
Two hours. Stone had ninety minutes at Chokepoint Twelve. The timeline didn't align.
Unless Ark went to the Rift Lord instead of waiting for it to come to him.
"Change of plan," Ark said. "I'm going through the main force to reach the Rift Lord."
Silence on the communication network.
"Through," Dex repeated. "Through thirty thousand enemies."
"The Phantom Blade's stealth. The Chronomancer's acceleration. The Pathfinder's terrain awareness. I'll go underground — the Cartographer identified a sewer route that runs west beneath the main approach. Surface exit one kilometer from the Rift Lord's position."
"Alone?"
"The strike team comes with me as far as the sewer entrance. From there, I go alone to the Rift Lord. When I'm in position, Sera activates the network and channels purification energy through the Weave of Life's connection."
"The Weave's range is 150 meters with the staff amplification," Sera said. "You'll be a kilometer away."
"Can you extend it?"
Sera closed her eyes. The Life Weaver's architecture unfolded in her mind's eye — threads and connections and possibilities that the class had been growing toward since Level 1.
"If I move to the sewer entrance — closer to your position — and if the ten primary connections move with me... the relay system could maintain coherence at 800 meters. Maybe a thousand."
"That puts you in the field. In the middle of a battle."
"It puts me where I need to be." Her eyes opened. "The strike team guards my position. I maintain the network. You purify the Rift Lord. That's the play."
Ark looked at her. The woman who'd been a veterinarian eight weeks ago, who'd healed his broken ribs in a parking lot, who'd stayed beside him through every impossible escalation since Day 1. She was offering to walk into a warzone to maintain a healing network for a purification attempt that had a 30% chance of working.
"Okay," he said. "We move in thirty minutes."
He looked at the tactical display one last time. The red wave of the main force was pressing against the city's defenses. The massive signature of the Rift Lord pulsed behind it, vast and corrupted and imprisoned.
Thirty minutes. Then he'd walk through an army to touch a god.
The Radiant Guardian's light blazed in his chest, warm and steady and unwavering.
*I'm coming*, he thought, directing the words toward the distant entity. *Hold on. I'm coming to set you free.*
The Rift Lord didn't respond.
But somewhere in the corruption's grip, something shifted. Something that might have been hope.
Or might have been despair.
