CHAPTER 4

The entire landscape had changed, destroying the almost complete solar energy plant. Two years of work wrecked. Miles of panels ruined. Adrian’s lack of emotion around the destruction of the solar farm was puzzling.

Do I care?

He did not.

Its destruction did not matter. Survival and family. Emily and the kids.

The ground was ripped up as if a giant had been snatching handfuls of dirt and throwing it randomly to create little hills and pits all over the previously smooth levelled area. The cliff beside him was similar but different. It was like there had been a thousand years of weathering applied along with biological growth. Thick moss and fungus had sprung up.

The beautiful solar plant, to which he dedicated the last two years of his life, and its soothingly regular rows of solar arrays were trashed. Most of the nice neat panels had been bent and twisted and often forcefully detached from the ground. Out of the hundreds of rows, there were only two that were partially intact. There was even a section of smooth grass that just moments before had been covered with orderly rows of electronic panels. Where the panels had disappeared to was a complete mystery.

Those were first impressions, but then everything about his surroundings rushed from his mind.

There were monsters!

Imps!

Next to the cliff, with ambusher skills forcing invisibility, there was an unobstructed view of hundreds of imps. They were real life monsters: small, barely a meter high with tiny wings on their backs and thin gangly arms and legs on a shrunken torso. Their skin looked like tough, wet leather. Watching them, they were moving mindlessly. Stumbling and disjointed, it was a random walk forward for 5 to 20 meters then an abrupt change of direction, sometimes just 10 or 20 degrees, other times almost a full 180. Endlessly repeating. It was eerie behaviour, their intelligence had to be below animal level maybe they were at the level of some insects. Whenever they would run into a different coloured imp, they would attack mercilessly.

An imp was hopping right at him, each hop bringing it closer. It was suddenly so close that, with a small stick, he could have reached forward and poked it.

With a successful suppression of the desire to jump, the new skills proved their worth. With their help, the instinctual response to scream and flee had been mastered. Up close, the imp skin was in accordance with first impressions. It was wet, wet leather. The eyes were yellow, contrasting with the reddish skin. The imp’s arm ended in two sharp claws, each about three inches long. They were how he imagined bear's claws would look, dark and impossible to see through. The imp’s claws were longer than a bear’s, which was ridiculous as the imps were so much smaller. The claws in front of his eyes twitched, and a fireball floated between them like movement in a lava lamp. Slow and tranquil, but chaotic. The fire itself crackled, and the ball went from a smooth sphere to leaking spikes of plasma. Slowly it drifted to one hand and then to another. A slow juggling.

Despite the situation, Adrian’s magic focus zoomed into the magic the imp was using.

There was so much detail available, much more than the ambusher had ever achieved. Then again, the ambusher had never been this close to any of the creatures it was observing. The imp used two types of mana: a red mana that meshed together with a silvery mana to create the flames. Time slowed; the interplay of colours was intense. When the imp tossed the fireball from one hand to the other, the silvery mana led the red mana fractionally. There was a lot of energy in the ball: Adrian could hear the sizzling of flames and feel the heat.

The imp’s eyes flicked straight towards him, and it took another small hop in his direction. Try not to be noticed. Thinking hard about blending into the rock. Thinking about sending prying eyes away from him and staying stock-still. Motion attracts the eye.

The interface was facilitating the Ambusher Fade ability, taking his intense thoughts and applying calculation power to achieve the required results: psychic ward, physical camouflage, suppressing heat and smell, billions of calculations and actions carried out on his behalf. Stay frozen. Do nothing that might draw the eye.

The imp was within arm’s reach. Beady yellow eyes looked right at his crotch. Theoretically, he could leap out and attack and catch the imp by surprise. He imagined getting his hands around the neck and squeezing. Then, the crackle of fire reminded him of the fireball in the imp’s hand. There was a smell of soot and sulfur.

If he possessed the ambusher’s claws, he would have attacked. It would have been so easy. Quick sidestep and slash. A one hit kill while avoiding the fireball. If wishes were horses, beggars would ride. His soft human hands meant cowardice was the better part of valour. It was not the official saying, but it was appropriate. He was just a human being with below average strength. Staying still, frozen by abilities. Very still, silent, not even blinking.

Then the imp spun around almost a full 180 degrees and started hopping the other way. Adrian almost expelled his breath in relief, but the ambusher skill enforced his silence.

Monsters?

It was all mentioned in the important boring bits.

What?

Absolute indignation filled him. How could the interface choose to skip such important information?

Can I read them now?

There was no response.

I need to know what is happening! CAN I READ THE IMPORTANT BITS?

There was nothing for a moment.

Please.

A sense of slight guilt came to him, and then he got the distinct impression that there was an imp problem that probably should be dealt with before lazing around reading.

Trying to growl, the ambusher skill stopped him. The instructions from mind to throat failed. Probe the skill for a moment to understand the strengths and limitations. When Ambusher Fade was on, it was on absolutely. For now, at least.

The imp was hopping away. An opportunity to learn more. Information was power… ambusher claws were… a virtual headshake. Need to focus on now. The imp was weaker than him, physically. It was difficult to interpret the information, but Adrian felt he was at least twice as strong. In a fight, with a firm grip, he could tear the little thing apart. Wringing the neck would take just seconds. An extended grapple would be a win despite the imps’ long claws and teeth. Wrestling, of course, was a bad idea. It would fight back and use its claws, and Adrian knew those claws and teeth would cut deeply into his flesh. However, once the distance was closed, hands on the imp would allow his overpowering relative strength to carry the fight. Grab the neck and twist, and it would be game over.

The problem was, it was not just a physical fight. The fireball tossed back and forth in the imp’s hands. The fireball would do damage. Looking at it closely, it would hurt him, probably not enough to kill outright, but a direct hit would get awfully close even with inherent healing. The imp also had another ability that would allow it to pump flames to its skin. That might make hand to hand fighting more than a little uncomfortable. Treacherous imagination was happy to supply images of blackened scorched hands. He needed a weapon to allow him to avoid the fire aura.

If it used it.

They are stupid. He had to keep reminding himself of that: stupid, mindless animals.

Adrian tried to rise above the fear that was gripping him, the fear of the pain, the fear of death. Concentrate. Survive. Get stronger and get home, even if it was a thousand kilometre hike. He would endeavour to think rationally. Organise everything into a logical framework. Applying logic always helped him to function through stressful situations. End of the world, Armageddon, counted as a stressful situation. So apply a logical framework. The interface had called it alpha physics. Physics was logical, right?

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The Ambusher's Fade was working. That meant that there was time to think things through. Space to plan and try to work out what to do. The imp was ambling away. Every meter of distance increased his safety. The ability to fade into the background would keep him safe. That imp had been right in his face, so close that its personal scent had saturated his nose. He noted the small blood vessel lines against the yellow colour in its eyes and the lack of intelligent spark. The flare of its nostril slits had been near enough to pat, yet fade had worked. It had more than worked: it had been almost like an invisibility cloak. Absolutely awesome.

Identification skill rank three was functioning as well. Being able to assess the imps’ strength and the magic it could use was a literal lifesaver. He needed more tests before trusting absolutely, but the assumption would be that everything worked as advertised, for now. Trust but verify. Identification plus fade would let him plan when to attack and when to retreat. Continually analysing imps. Their neck was a weak point and vulnerable to blunt force trauma. The ugly things had delicate bones.

With the immediate danger having passed, Adrian looked around more carefully. There were lots and lots of imps. Looking across the solar site, there was an unobstructed view of around six football fields before buildings, hill ridges, or trees limited vision. In that relatively small area, there were over one hundred imps. The imps were everywhere. Some were like the fire imp that had been next to him; others appeared to be ice imps. And, right over near the oven were some air imps. The oven, which had been a key part of his power plant, looked broken. It was a building where the sunlight would be focused in order to heat steam. Now, the glass panels were shattered, and the heavy concrete walls were chipped and cracked down towards rubble.

Even if it was intact, it was useless anyway. Electricity no longer worked.

Further up the slope near the treeline, there appeared to be imps with dark magic flavour. Without fail, every imp was tossing around a ball of energy as they meandered around in their weird jerky way.

A pair of dark imps ran into a single fire imp. The moment they got within ten meters of each other, they all reacted. The fire imp squealed and rushed towards the leftmost dark imp. Its fireball split in two, with half on each clawed hand, and they intensified towards their normal strength.

A detached part of Adrian watched the magic play out. The silvery magic mostly disappeared while the red magic expanded and was concentrated in the two new spots. Adrian switched focus to the wider fight rather than just the fireballs. The dark imps had split up instinctively. The one on the left, which the fire imp was targeting, hopped away from its companion. The fire imp stayed focused on the original dark imp, ignoring the second dark imp. A fireball launched from its hands. The dark imp, using its own missile to stop the fireball, counteracted it. The two forces crashed together and cancelled out. They were too far away for sound, but, based on recent closer fights, the clash would not have been quiet. Imps did not appreciate the quiet sounds of nature.

The second dark imp stopped moving and, safe from attack, focused on the dark ball in its claws. There was a slight intensifying of dark energy. A diffuse tendril of energy no thicker than a hand length drew a smooth arc from the ball in the imp’s hands to the enemy imp’s leg. The instant it made the connection, the ball of energy turned into a missile. It shot along the painted line and struck the imp’s leg.

The fire imp, busily focused on its target, did not see the second attack. The result was devastating. The entire side of the imp from knee to waist seemed to shrivel. The fire that had been in its claws splashed away with the red mana, dragging the fireball down to coat the ground at the imp’s feet. The energy contained dissipated: Some became heat, but most of it just faded into the ground.

The imp, meanwhile, screamed in agony. It tried to hop forward, anyway. Its leg buckled, and it fell. Its short arms could not break the fall, and its head smacked into the loose dirt in front of it. If it had landed on a rock, the fight would have ended then, but it was a moot point. The dark imp that had initially been running stopped moving. It drew a line of energy between it and the downed fire imp. The second dark missile targeted the fire imp’s head. The missile shot away, hitting exactly where the dark imp had aimed.

The dark imp did not even bother to wait for the flight time. The moment it fired, the imp started a jiggling dance. Adrian had seen the performance before and labelled it the victory jig. All the different colours did it after winning a fight.

As before, the dark energy was concentrated and then sped along the created pathway. The fire imp died instantly. Life just left it, and its entire body became a husk. The skin on its skull desiccated, and then the effect washed across the entire body. Nothing left but a husk.

The two dark imps rushed the body and scooped something out of the chest cavity. Even from seventy meters away, what they had grabbed glowed with energy. With normal vision, he could barely see the small stone the imp held, but with magic focus the thing sparkled.

Adrian's attention snapped back to his immediate area by an explosion of force.

CHAPTER 5

An ice imp and fire imp were fighting in front of him.

They were not charging each other. Instead, they were throwing magic balls of energy. Each attack collided at the midpoint point between them and negated each other in an explosion of noise. He had missed all but the noise of the first volley. The second was in his face, just twenty meters away. See, hear, and feel. The explosion of energy made the wind stir against his face, a noise like throwing water into an oil pot and a wave of heat followed by cold.

Just three seconds later, the third set of magic attacks launched. This collision seemed smaller. The sound was as intense, the light-show just as impressive, but there was no buffeting wind.

Less power. He looked closely at the two imps, and there was a thinness to the magic in their bodies. The imps were out of magic.

They had no magic left. The two imps looked stupidly at each other for a moment, and then they both charged. It was a slow, comical charge. The imps, even while rushing, only reached a fast walking pace. They hopped till they were right in each other's face and then stopped at a distance where either could have leant forward to kiss the other one.

There was no kissing involved. Instead, they both snarled, revealing small thin teeth. The mirrored actions made the encounter feel ritualistic. Then their stubby arms and claws flashed at each other. The claws were doing minor damage with each swing, but they fought ferociously. Black ink-like blood oozed out of the scratches that formed from each slash. While the progress in the fight was slow, Adrian could see the damage building up. The ice imp had the advantage. It would be a Pyrrhic victory because when it won it would be near death itself.

With a start Adrian looked around more carefully. There were no other monsters near him. The fire imp visibly died with its body shriveling up slightly as life left it.

An image from the interface. It was a wimpy cartoon stick figure leaping forward and using a rock to bash the head in of a cartoon imp, a cartoon imp that was far cuter than the one in front of him. The imp died and the stick figure grew muscles. Next it fought a giant snake and afterwards the cartoon man could cast magic. A kaleidoscope of similar images followed, ending in a knight in shining armour who had lasers coming from its eyes.

There was a pause, and then he got the impression of a lengthy legal disclaimer. Images not created to scale. Lasers coming from the eyes was creative license and probably not workable in the actual world.

The images had only taken fractions of a second. The ice imp looked dazed, standing over its defeated opponents. Thick black blood was leaking from the dozens of slashes criss-crossing its arms and chest.

It was clear what the interface was telling him. Fighting equaled power growth. Maybe this was some of the important but boring bits the interface had skipped. The interface was telling him that, in some ways, life was like a game. Killing monsters would cause increased power, maybe levels, maybe something else, but it would definitely result in power. He needed power if he was ever going to get to Melbourne to save his kids.

Approval washed over him.

The fire imp’s body completed its collapse to the ground. The ice imp was weak and devoid of magic, and no other imps were near it.

At some point, he would need to gain the courage to fight against the monsters. Time to man up. You have to start fighting sometime. Heart beating a million miles per minute. Pep talks, even internalised, where just that.

Cold logic. There must be millions of humans being forced to make this same choice. Yet it was not an actual choice. Cowardice in the new world was not viable. The hundreds of imps in front of him reminded him of that.

It was survival of the fittest. Life had always been survival of the fittest, at least outside of civilised cities and social welfare. Now, the world was back to a more primal state. Survival meant striking back at the invaders. These imps did not belong to Earth. Killing the imps was not murder. It was not animal cruelty. It was humans against the aliens. Killing the invaders was the righteous choice and, logically, the only choice.

Hear still thumping. Peaceful upbringing made him shy away from blatant violence. The imp looked like it was about to get the shiny thing from the downed foe. Not today, you alien monster.

Yet… I am not a killer. How can I…? The imp started its obnoxious victory jig.

The thump of every heartbeat. He couldn’t… The imp dancing, alien, ugly, horrible.

It was out of ice magic and hurt.

He charged.

There was a desire to scream while charging Braveheart-style, but he worried about attracting unwanted attention. So, instead of shouting, he resorted to his fiercest scowl. The imp turned, alerted by the noise of each step.

It was near dead, though inherent healing was at work. And, without intervention, it would survive and be at full health within an hour.

It still tried to gather some of its magic. It was slow going for the imp, and Adrian could see with his magic focus that it was going to fail. Adrian clenched his fist and threw a wild swing, aiming to hit the side of its cheek as hard as possible.

The imp was already close to death, but even if the imp had been healthy, the punch might have been enough. Adrian felt the bones of the cheek crumble under his strike and the head snap back with a loud crack as the imp's neck broke.

With his magic focus, it was easy to see life flee its body.

It died far easier than he expected.

First blood Humans!