November 3, 2022
Day 14
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Among the crowd that appeared in the Laysan skyline was a man clad in black from head to toe.
A lowered hood and a mask covered almost the entirety of his face, and only his sharp eyes were visible to the hundred or so strangers that had teleported around him. He had an ominous presence, and the men, women, and children falling from the sky alongside him all levitated away, some deliberately, others subconsciously.
The hooded man did not care.
His eyes bore into each of them, casting inspect and checking their levels, primary stats, and a few other attributes.
He took their measure, found them all lacking, and sighed.
Hardly a dozen level 30 fighters in this riff-raff. This isn't even worth my time.
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More than a hundred humans fell from the sky.
Some slowed down as they approached the ground and landed gracefully, but many fell hard. Nervously waiting on the castle roof with all his seven teammates, Rahul couldn't bring himself to care for the injuries of the invaders.
Until he started to recognize familiar faces among the fallen individuals.
Isn't that Daniel's wife? Could that be Matt's son?
Most of the crowd was still full of strangers, but Rahul saw more and more people he recognized.
Seeing a hundred strangers suddenly appear near the island, Rahul had just read the quest title and jumped to action, ignoring the fine print of the notification. Now confused, he carefully read the entire notification that had set him panicking less than a minute ago.
New Quest Received : Defend Your Settlement (1/7)
The World Congress has ended, and the first wave of those who stake a claim on the Laysan Bastion has arrived.
Defend your settlement.
Rewards : 100,000 settlement points.
Even after going over the notification two more times, Rahul found nothing that explained this odd turn of events. The part about the first wave of those who stake claims on the bastion was completely at odds with the group that had entered the island.
Just what the hell has been going on out there? Half the humans are dead and now our own families have come to attack us?
Rahul's eyes scanned the crowd. There were an equal number of men and women and even a few children. Most had gotten up from the fall and were brushing themselves off and drinking healing potions, converging toward the castle without showing any signs of aggression.
That calmed Rahul down. Perhaps this wasn't an attack after all.
While he couldn't identify most of the people that were walking toward the castle, he didn't let that fact alarm him.
It's not like I know all their families.
Daniel, Matt, Helena, Charlie, and Alex all jumped off the roof one by one. Those five had spotted their families and were animatedly talking to them. The new arrivals were all assembled in the castle courtyard now, within the outer castle walls, and there were hugs all around the five members of Laysan Bastion who had reunited with their families.
The remaining three stood on the castle roof and waited. While Ivan wasn't expecting anyone, Rahul and Maya were. After failing to spot anyone for a few more minutes, the trio decided to just join their friends.
Once the initial excitement of the reunions was over, things turned bitter. Those stranded on the island were happy to see so many familiar faces, but they eventually noticed the glaring absences and enquired about them.
The hugs gave way to tears.
Rahul felt for his friends, who were just now finding out that their siblings or parents had perished, but couldn't bring himself to think too long about that. Not now.
At least they have someone left.
Dark thoughts came unbidden to his mind as he went over every face for a third time.
Why aren't my parents here? Why aren't Maya's? Are things so bad in India? Did no one make it?
Next to him, Rahul saw Maya's eyes start to water.
That's when he realized his cheeks were already wet with tears.
Maybe she is stronger I assumed. Or more optimistic.
Just as he was turned to talk to her, to reassure her as much as himself, Rahul's eyes caught the suspicious-looking man who was standing by himself, and his instincts screamed at him. Everyone had given him a wide berth, and it wasn't hard to figure out why. Even if their instincts did not catch the threat that he posed, Rahul assumed that everyone could see the result of the Inspect skill.
??? - Human (Level ???)
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Neither the name nor the level of this person was visible to him. Was it some skill or was this person so high level that even his name could not be discovered by the skill? Perhaps it was the way he had masked his face and covered pretty much every inch of his skin.
Rahul didn't know, and his eyes finally moved on from the figure.
Out of the 100-odd people that had arrived on the island, only about a fifth were mingling with the island's residents. The rest weren't family and had divided themselves into groups. They were chatting with each other and seemed to be appraising the island.
Some powerful factions?
Rahul wondered as he looked around, but his eyes kept darting back to that suspicious hooded figure.
The man seemed to have finally noticed Rahul's stares, and this time their eyes met.
Rahul felt a primal fear rush through his body, making his feet shake and his hair stand on end.
That very instant, the man disappeared.
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Rahul found himself curling up and clutching his stomach as he flew across the castle courtyard and crashed into the outer walls.
He jumped aside the instant his feet found the ground, pre-emptively dodging an attack that never came.
He looked in the direction where he had been standing earlier and saw three more fallen figures. Then a man Rahul didn't recognize raised his hands as if to block an attack.
Rahul did not see the attack, but he saw the man's entire body shake with an invisible impact. He stumbled backward but didn't fall.
I guess the block worked.
Realizing that the hooded man was taking on the entire assembled group, Rahul let some of his sense of urgency dissipate. That was when he noticed that his right hand had already reached for and uncorked a health potion bottle. He sighed and checked his HP.
165/220
Rahul deliberately stopped himself and put the potion back into his belt. The fight with the alpha had made Rahul realize just how much of a handicap he was developing by rushing to heal the smallest of injuries.
This pain is bearable. I need to use my HP like any other stat. It doesn't need to be full all the time. More importantly, I can't afford to be paralyzed by pain the instant my enemies land an attack.
Then, noticing the dwindling defender numbers, Rahul winced in pain and started running back into the fray. Then he heard Daniel shouting.
"Anyone without a combat class, get inside the castle now. "
"All ranged units, on the walls"
The commands brought some order to the chaos, and Rahul stopped running and took a moment to think.
Why am I being so impulsive and running back to the fight? I'll just get my ass handed to me again. I need a plan.
Rahul had inspected most of the arrivals to the island and knew that there were at least twenty that had a higher level than him. He decided to wait and watch how they fared before taking any action himself.
The moment there was order restored to the castle, Rahul saw Daniel take control of the sentinels that were on standby and order them to march out into the courtyard.
The infantry sentinels marched toward the hooded figure and the ranged sentinels on the roof fired arrows as Daniel began orchestrating a counterattack against their lone adversary.
The moment Daniel ordered the humans into formations, Rahul felt a huge weight off his shoulder.
He was not the strongest person here, and he was glad not to be the one in charge. While he had enjoyed leading the small team in the dungeon, Rahul knew that managing a battle with dozens of combatants and hundreds of sentinels was not for him.
He had been worried about how the dynamics of the group would change because of his far out-leveling his friends. He was relieved beyond words to see Daniel organically take control of the situation without sparing a single thought for that pesky matter of levels.
Finally able to focus on how he could individually contribute to this situation, Rahul thought back to the punch.
It came out of nowhere. One moment I was looking at the man and the next moment I felt a fist crash against my guts. I swear I didn't even see the shadow of that man even when he punched me at what I assume had to be point-blank range.
Unless it is some kind of projected intent or mana punch?
Rahul was wondering whether the hooded figure was using a skill when the whip-tailed crocodile walked out of the castle gate only a dozen feet to his left.
Rahul's breath caught, and he froze. Getting punched and reaching for the potion had rekindled his memories of last night, and his feet trembled as he recalled the one-sided beatdown he had been subjected to.
Behind the alpha, more reptiles followed and marched toward the attacker. Only after they had surrounded the enemy did Rahul start breathing again.
The alpha is just a sentry now, controlled by Daniel. And I'm far stronger than I had been last night.
Rahul reminded himself and focused his attention on the attacker who continued to pick off one opponent after another in rapid succession. Among the fighters that had gone down to the rogue's punches were five that had their levels hidden.
Stronger than me, and yet they have dropped out after taking a single punch.
That knowledge strengthened Rahul's resolve to proceed with caution.
While it had been only a minute since the first punch landed on him, the battle seemed to already be overwhelmingly in the hooded man's favor.
At least everyone who fell is alive. The punch hurt, but the HP I lost was limited. Not enough to kill even Ivan and Matt who are only level 14 and 15 respectively.
Based on his attacks so far, Rahul guessed that the man had a rogue class specialized in fast-paced hand-to-hand combat. Judging by the insane attack speed and the limited damage output, the rogue's dexterity was much higher than his strength.
Still reticent to rush back into the fighting, Rahul kept observing the flow of the battle.
Daniel continued to take charge of the battle and the non-combat portion of the crowd had retreated into the castle. Helena, Alex, Charlie, and Maya had joined the other ranged and magic users on the wall, but no one was firing, not even the ranged sentinels.
The hooded figure moved too fast to catch with arrows or targeted magic spells, and any attempt to use AOE attacks ended up hurting friendlies instead.
So Daniel had ordered all but the melee troops and sentinels to stand by.
Stand by and take the rogue's punches.
Rahul morbidly thought as he watched the flow of the battle. The hooded man jumped from defender to defender, throwing punches with wild abandon, while the defenders held their ground helplessly.
The battle hadn't turned dire yet, as no one had died. Some were even able to successfully block the punches, but no one was fast enough to land an attack back at their enemy.
At least the status quo is buying us time. There has been no irreversible damage. Yet.
Rahul thought and then focused on the defenders that blocked or fell to the rogue's invisible attacks, and started to notice a pattern.
The hooded man was attacking in a fixed sequence, starting with a specific person and going to the next until he had thrown a punch at all the defenders. Then he would start with the first person again.
Rahul watched for a minute as the rogue cycled through the group three times, and realized that the defenders had noticed the pattern too, with more and more attempting to block the attacks every cycle.
That insight, however, was not enough to block the attack, and the hooded man was able to consistently knock down 80 percent of the fighters in every cycle. By now, only a group of 30-odd defenders remained, the remaining having bowed out like Rahul. Ivan and Matt were still among the 30, despite being forced to drink healing potions after every second attack.
Rahul didn't in the least bit feel guilty about letting the two fight while he stood and watched like a passive bystander, as his decision had finally borne fruit.
Knowing where to look had allowed him to anticipate the rogue's trajectory from one defender to the other, and Rahul had been focusing on that trajectory between every attack.
Finally, it happened.
Rahul saw a blur of movement mark every one of the hooded man's motions.
Once he had spotted it, he kept his eyes trained on the target. Everything else disappeared from his vision, and Rahul saw the blur resolve into a gliding shadow.
He smiled.
It was time to get back into the battle.