Balor swung his hammer continuously. He had never had to work or fight for such a long uninterrupted period in his long life and by all accounts of human intentions, this was just the beginning. While defending the courtyard of Ghost Reef he always had another target, and if he could move a little faster, there were still more. For days, then weeks, and months, he pummeled monsters that sought to wipe out his sworn companions, too strained to formulate alternative ideas, knowing that years and decades were meant to follow. His voice was hoarse from shouting challenges and boasting of his victories to stem the tide of doubt that swirled in his mind.

Fighting the forces of mana was like resisting the will of God. It demanded everything he had and even then it wasn’t enough. If the enemies kept escalating in power, the monsters would be too strong to hold back. Sometimes it seemed like he was the only one aware of this fact with the way his companions behaved. The humans still aimed for more than a hundred years of defense, even when the first had been so absurdly difficult, and rather than driving them to be more conservative, they were actually more reckless than ever.

The enemies chipped away at the fortified walls, drawing the corrupting atmosphere closer, inch by inch, with every lunging step. The official territory of the civilization shard was the only thing keeping the crimson mana at bay. If he didn’t defeat the monsters that rushed forward even that territory would be gone. Their intentions would matter little at that point.

He didn’t have the time to consider how other things were changing around him, and though it pained him, it was impossible to stop and repair the eroding walls of the stone fort. They crumbled and deteriorated while he toiled in combat. When the Lighthouse leaders directed him to protect the gap that formed when a giant demon smashed through, he couldn’t spare a moment for anything else.

The damned monsters never stopped. They only became a bigger pain, gaining strength and speed that required all of his experience to match. He almost regretted his proud confidence when comparing himself to the simple human creatures as they progressed in their assimilation. They were his only source of relief, periodically clearing swathes of enemies with suicidal pushes so he could steady himself.

As he struggled on his own to handle increasingly overwhelming enemies, he watched as relatively weaker humans proved their flexibility and forced themselves to match up or die against the same monsters that had him rethinking his conviction. The men and women of Ghost Reef were proving they had what it took to survive for the time being, their ambitions clearly fueling them to commit heroic deeds one after the other. The fighting took every bit of concentration he could muster, and he was thousands of levels their superior, not to mention millenia more experienced, but all that mattered was how they acted in the present.

However, when the local weather really started to change, it was impossible for Balor to completely ignore. The battlefield was becoming a different kind of hell that grew in prominence within his general thoughts, creating a minor distraction that begged him to investigate. Humans warned him that they thought a storm was coming, but he couldn’t be sure what kind of metaphor they were presenting and since they didn’t stop fighting, neither could he.

The air, always oppressively thick and humid, grew heavier, becoming a blanket that condensated from his joints and poured through his beard. Normally, Balor stood in stark contrast to the sweating humans who sought relief from the tropical temperatures in the breeze, the waters, or the shade, but even he was being physically impacted as well.

The climate around Ghost Reef was nothing like the frigid environments he was more accustomed to, but he wasn’t a species that regulated temperature. Hot and cold landed on his skin like the insignificant seasonal fluctuations ignored by the oldest mountains. As long as monsters kept surging forward, he really couldn’t spare more than a brief thought toward the climate, but the humans started to anticipate something and the way they prepared made him nervous.

While the residents of Ghost Reef secured what they could, clearing loose debris and battening down hatches, he wielded his massive shining hammer. It was a blur of metal against the writhing crimson in the air and the black chitin, gray feathered, and gold-scaled bodies that poured through the gap in their perimeter defense.

In particular, he concentrated on the corrupted demonic stone creatures, with their snapping claws and ever-burning flames that dominated his side of the fort. Their countenances flickered in the heat that surrounded them, but Balor was unimpressed with their composition. They barely scratched his surface when claws or teeth slipped beyond his armor.

Sure, the demonic monsters represented a significant quantity of mana, but the stone itself was soft compared to his preferences. Without proper maintenance, they wouldn’t last against the test of time.

He still grunted with each impact, the solid thud of metal on demonic stone flesh providing an appropriate amount of resistance, but his hammer won out when a proper rock structure would have defied him for a few swings longer. He molded them to his preferences, the stonemason in him granting him an extra advantage when standing against the monsters that were thrice his height but half his weight.

Behind him, casters helped thin the waves, lobbing spells deeper into the legions. Above him, humans and phantoms supported and fought so that he need not worry about his flanks. As long as he was a stone in the tide, they were okay. He was a natural bulwark, a living barricade, as were the shielded humans that were scattered along the perimeter. They were meant to be an unyielding force in the face of encroaching corruption and chaos. There was no opportunity to grow unsettled.

Still, the weather was doing something he didn’t understand. The barrages of cannon fire were interspersed with distant rumbles of thunder. Something big really was approaching.

He started glancing nervously at the increasingly oppressive sky that churned the crimson haze above them in between strikes. The sky was practically boiling as it grew darker, revealing brief glimpses of clouds that were a nasty purple and black, like they had been bruised. Sickly greens and grays streaked through the crimson, rolling over the battle like a glacier through stone. The clouds were inevitable, ignoring territory and domains to prove their dominance, then disappearing into the haze as if nothing had happened.

At first, Balor had thought Charlie had gone crazy and was teasing them with friendly fire, but when a runner explained that these were the bands from a hurricane that was too big for her to control, he felt like he was the one going crazy. That little Aeromancer was a true prodigy, but the planet her species came from demonstrated the true reason for what he saw as human modesty.

When the main event drew closer it was like the ceiling was closing in on them, pressing down on the island fort. Balor had experienced cavern collapses, but he had never seen the sky threaten to fall. It was just as terrifying as the Icons of Mana that took their time hunting their prey.

He could hear the storm coming. It wasn’t like the roar of the forces of mana, nor was it similar to the grinding of tectonic plates, and that’s what disturbed him. The sound was slowly growing, and he could sense the pressure in the atmosphere changing at the same time. The air was charged with violence that might exceed the fighting between the competitors on the various battlefields around Ghost Reef.

Even the monsters took note, actually slowing their siege as they were forced to contend with what was coming. Water spouts rolled through the shallows, tearing strips from the swarms of enemies. Later, Balor was able to stop and watch, mesmerized, as the sea itself fought back and paused the siege. When the ocean swelled, the weaker monsters were dragged away or shoved into piles as the shoreline changed.

The ocean was growing. At first, he thought it was a particularly large wave, but it kept climbing until it seemed like he was witnessing a wall of black and gray water approach the island, studded with shattered debris and hundreds of thousands of overwhelmed monsters. It didn’t break on the coral reef as any normal wave would, instead simply swallowing the shallows whole while driving onto the island with terrifying speed. A storm surge swept across Ghost Reef, completely destroying weakened buildings and drowning every hint of dry land on the island.

Balor learned a new phenomenon to fear. The storm surge was only the beginning, but it was a fearsome event that he wouldn’t soon forget. He had known water as something different compared to what it could be on Earth. It was a gentle drip or a subterranean stream to him in the past. At most it might be a rolling waterfall or a calm sea.

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His time on the planet with humans had introduced him to the deluges brought by thunderstorms, but they were still within what he thought were the extremes of acceptability. A storm surge was something different. The sheer volume, the relentless power, and the crushing push and pull all defied the natural laws he thought he knew.

He stood rooted to the ground, the water rising all the way to the bottom of his beard as humans held each other and waded forward, seeking to take advantage of the freak event to fight more enemies. They killed monsters that merely tried to return to their feet, actively seizing upon any opportunity to win, but Balor couldn’t follow. The whole world was drowning and he was struggling to deal with the shock. Fighting God was more reasonable than the forces of nature humans accepted as normal.

Meanwhile, the sky had swallowed the crimson haze, painting the world in gray and black, not bright enough to be day, but not dark enough to be night. Brief flashes of lightning extended veins through the spinning mass of churning clouds in the sky, but what was normally the ultimate electrical power of a storm was practically an afterthought. The branching bolts did illuminate the boss monsters that scrambled against the aggression of humans who sought to claim the momentum of the onslaught of elements for their own gain. Phantoms were teleporting to the shoulders of Siege Bosses to end their existence and regular humans charged into the surf to drown struggling monsters.

Not for the first time, Balor felt awe and maybe a shiver of fear with regard to the planet that he had bound himself to, and more directly toward the creatures that thrived in the absolute chaos it was capable of. The winds were howling and Balor was, to put it mildly, perplexed. He had spent countless years deep within his planet, digging inside mountains so ancient they predated the existence of humanity’s forefathers. He understood pressure. The crushing weight of a thousand miles of rock was constant when he toiled as an apprentice. For most beings, the settlements of his people were intimidating enough. The idea that a tectonic shift might bury them was a thought that made them apprehensive to visit.

Other planets had weather that was controlled, routine, and often gentle. From his underground birthplace to the frigid mountain fortresses that he retired to, the nature of the atmosphere was always predictable. Even the tectonic plates that gave others pause were locked into place. All habitable planets in the galactic community were consistent in that way. They were ideal locales to act as cradles for life.

What he couldn’t understand was Earth weather. It was too wild, too extreme, making humans fight for their lives even without external threats. As the winds picked up and the surface of the mass of water was riddled with piercing droplets and whitecaps all the way to the stoop of his workshop, he drifted to the side edge of the gap and held on for dear life.

The tropical stronghold, built on a tiny spot of land amidst a raging sea, was shaking. Instead of the deep resonance of tremors traveling through the earth it was a rattling vibration that even set his own stone teeth on edge. The wind screamed like a banshee, the sound piercing his chest just as the rush of air sought every nook and cranny in the walls. The bands that had led up to the main event had failed to prepare him for the true strength of a hurricane.

Moisture only made the assault worse. Bursts of rain were like battering rams, hammering against the brick surfaces and threatening to rip through even his solid limbs. Visibility was reduced to almost zero even as the storm surge receded enough to expose the courtyard once again, and the shouts and clangs of those who had ventured into the turmoil to keep fighting were drowned out. Balor huddled against the floor, digging himself partially into the wet ground as close to the wall as he could. He was more terrified of the change in air pressure than he was of the legions of demons, hordes of dragons, and swarms of parasites.

To the credit of the forces of mana, they seemed scared too. As the weather changed on Ghost Reef, the fighting had almost completely stopped aside from what the humans and phantoms sought out. The Icons of Mana paused not out of respect for their enemies, but because they physically could not continue.

Balor was in agreement with them, but the humans were infuriatingly calm. They saw the event as an opportunity to gain something, and they threw their lives to the whims of the storm in order to achieve some small victories. It didn’t matter if the monsters replenished themselves. As the enemies of humanity, they would never be given solace.

He watched as a girl, barely old enough to wield mana, who probably weighed less than his beard, calmly leaned into the wind with a sack of supplies over her shoulder, carrying a message for the perimeter defenders like him. Since the fighting had slowed, the Lighthouse was doing the necessary maintenance that had been put on the backburner.

“They said it’s a cat five, Mister Balor. Could last a couple days. It’ll probably get worse before it gets better when the eye wall hits. You need anything before then?” She asked, having to yell over the freight train of wind and rain, but somehow indifferent to the obvious danger it all presented.

“Worse?!” He bellowed from his position kneeling on the soaked ground. “How can it get worse?”

The girl smiled at him, amused by his panic despite the roaring, shuddering, world-rending weather event. She wobbled in the gusts, but still stood as tall as she could.

“Hang in there, Mister Balor. Someone will come check on you later.” She promised before moving along the inside of their courtyard fortress, doing the rounds as casually as a stroll through the park, but much slower as the wind and water pushed her around.

Balor watched her for a minute before catching a glimpse of the silhouettes lining the ramparts of the remaining walls. There were still thousands of humans up top, bracing against 200 mile per hour winds with one hand while pinning their hoods to their heads with the other. They were shockingly stable, trying to spot their enemies through the cyclone of wind and rain so that they could fire ranged attacks into the gusts. When they struck a target, they whooped and hollered into the wind, letting it carry their voices to their companions.

They continued to fight, utilizing the cover of the weather to launch surprise assaults on the scattered forces of mana. Balor could only watch for brief flashes of illumination. Fragile flesh and blood creatures moving with weary determination that bordered on contempt for the raw power unleashed upon them. They ate their rations, restocked on tinctures, and traded elixirs as the storm created a respite from direct conflict. Some even played dice in the leeward portions of the ramparts, amusing themselves during short breaks while incredible energy battered them and the forces of mana waited in the distance.

A panel used as a roof of one of the fallen apartments was ripped from its position, making a sound that in the mountains would have signaled an imminent collapse of catastrophic proportions. In Ghost Reef, he overheard a human click his teeth as the debris flew miles into the air and disappeared in the swirling darkness.

The hurricane overwhelmed the crimson haze, painting the world in a deep gray that was only darker for all the rain. Balor felt genuine fear regarding the planet Earth. He seriously considered abandoning his post to go help fight in the underground where he was more comfortable, but he didn’t want to ruin the carefully crafted strategies humans had come up with, knowing that none of them would make unnecessary changes.

He tried to laugh at himself for worrying over his own safety. He was made of solid rock, but he was shaken to the core by what the humans described as a bit of wind and water. Still, the storm was brutal and completely indifferent to the lives it threatened. The humans were bafflingly reckless in their acceptance of such a danger. They called it a cat five, but he saw it as the potential end of days.

The winds escalated before they finally calmed. He had dug himself into an indentation he had created when the waters allowed. He emerged from his shelter and looked around, shocked by how clear the air was. Without any of the corrupting haze, it was positively refreshing. He noted the countless bricks that had been stripped from the fortress and tossed into the ocean by a mere storm and shook his head.

The phantoms on the walls shouted down to him, warning him not to get comfortable. They were inside ‘the eye’ they said. That meant they were only about half done with the storm. Balor was sure they were playing a prank on him despite the extinction event they were fighting against, but sure enough the winds picked up and the sky darkened once more.

Another group of humans and phantoms approached him, suddenly appearing from the twisting winds in the courtyard.

“Hey Balor! We’re getting a group together to push out to where the lighthouse was. Might be able to catch the angels off guard while they’re grounded. You in?” One of the mid-level humans asked too genuinely to be playing a joke. His smile rose all the way to his eyepatch.

“Are you out of your mind?” Balor yelled back, doing his best to streamline himself in the indentation he had carved out as the winds exploded back to life.

The asker just laughed at his response. Though he was scarred and missing an eye despite the healing effect of mana, he wasn’t afraid when a sudden gust caused a portion of the wall to dislodge itself and fall around them.

“A little wind really gets the blood flowing and the storm seems to have cleared the air!” He explained with incredible optimism, but Balor wasn’t a creature with blood, so he couldn’t relate. Maybe the corruption wasn’t as bad as it had been, but that wasn’t enough.

The group encouraged Balor to hang in there before they left, recognizing his hesitance, and their bloodthirst remaining more powerful than their sense of self-preservation. Balor thought that maybe their self-preservation was actually fueling their bloodthirst in a twisted way.

When the storm finally weakened enough for the forces of mana to continue their aggression, Balor was actually relieved. As his hammer crushed a demon, he felt the sense that he was really alive all through his stone body. In the shadow of the storm, he was reinvigorated with the sense that they had to survive. He found himself relating with the humans a bit more than usual.