The eastern trench was holding.
Barely, but holding. The monsters kept coming in waves, and Holden kept swinging.
The soldiers behind him had stopped cheering. They just stared.
Captain Venus had sent reinforcements to plug the gaps, and the line had stabilized enough that Holden could step back from the front without the trench collapsing in the next sixty seconds.
He walked back through the mud, dismissed his sword, and wiped ash off his face with the back of his hand.
Holden checked his System balance
[Current KP: 392,290]
He needed a lot more points. But the surface swarm was thinning for the moment, pulling back to regroup. The portal was still open, still vomiting darkness into the sky, but the immediate pressure on the eastern trench had eased.
Emric and Renna were resting against the trench wall. Renna had run out of arrows twice and had started looting dead soldiers' quivers. She had fourteen arrows left and was counting them obsessively.
