“I’ve got several,” Aldric replied. He took out a scrap of spell paper coated with adhesive, smacked it to the face of a nearby beast before imbuing it, then kicked it over to the oncoming flood of monsters. The spell scroll erupted in a burst of air, obliterating the face of Aldric’s first target while catapulting a good chunk of the mob in all directions. “None of them are ideal, though.”

Zasia sprayed a cone of fire, turning in place as she did so. Aldric instinctively ducked under it as he knifed another creature that had made for Zasia’s legs. “I’ll take anything at this point!” she shouted. She didn’t even flinch as Aldric threw another dagger just barely past her head and over her shoulder. The blade snatched another beast out of the air before it could land on her.

They were standing their ground, but it was a war of attrition, and these creatures vastly outnumbered them. Aldric knew Zasia’s mana pool was massive, but it wasn’t bottomless. He was already getting tired, himself. It was probably time to do something drastic, regardless of witnesses.

“There’s really only one way I can think of,” Aldric said, coming to terms with his plan. “We starve the portal. Deprive it of mana until it naturally recedes while finishing off the things that already got through.”

“And how are we supposed to do that? I’m already down to about half mana!”

“Half empty or half full?”

“Shut up and take this seriously! Just tell me the plan! What do we do?” Aldric ducked another cone of fire from Zasia, feeling the onset of a sunburn on his neck and back. She did that on purpose, didn’t she?

“We don’t. I do.”

Aldric saw the moment Zasia realized what he meant, her face going ashen. “Aldric, you can’t!”

“If you have a better idea, I’m listening!” Aldric shouted back, weaving his blades back and forth as he kept the beasts at bay. He quickly ran one of his blades through another scrap of imbued spell paper, a patina of ice now coating the blade. He tossed it at the ground several meters away and watched as the earth rapidly froze over. Ice suddenly engulfed any void beast unlucky enough to be close by.

“Unless you want me to showcase a bunch of other stuff people really shouldn’t see, this is our best option!” he shouted when Zasia still hadn’t responded.

“Fine!” she snarled back at him. She channeled her frustration into a wall of wind blades that tore through the frozen mob with gory abandon. “I’ll buy you time!”