Pops finds and joins us on the way, so we split responsibilities. He’ll keep at a distance with the ranged fighters, coordinating them while the melee guys will move in.
“What about you?” He asks.
“Don’t worry, I won’t slack off. I’m going in first, actually.”
“What now?”
“Just watch.”
The street spills us out into the park as it ends, and the flat terrain gives us a good view of the battle up ahead. The inner defenders keep up for now, throwing skills into the horde from every direction. The trenches and walls help break the monsters apart into more manageable groups, forcing them to trickle in instead of rushing the buildings all at once.
From the upper windows and rooftops of the apartment buildings turned fortresses, the gunmen and ranged mages offer their own support. I see ice and earth spikes popping up in the middle of the horde, impaling some of the monsters and creating further obstacles for the others.
“I’m going in,” I tell my guys. “Wait for my signal before you join.”
Emily moves to my side, but I stop her.
“Stay here with Pops. I’m counting on the two of you to have my back.”
She nods, so I start running ahead. My grand plan is to use the devastating dash and ground pound combo to sow some chaos and make it easier for the others to advance into the fray. With how dangerous dash is to use, that’s technically more of a final move than an opener. But I have an idea that will hopefully keep the damage to myself to a minimum.
It’s all in the wording of the dash skill. A one thousand percent increase in movement speed with a range of up to thirty feet, which I hope means I can make it shorter and keep the overall momentum I gain to a more manageable level.
As I near the horde and the outermost monsters notice me, I give it a shot. I pull out the sledgehammer, load a ground pound into it, and I trigger dash on and off in quick succession. To my delight, it works. The acceleration is still immense, but the shorter distance stops me from going too fast and losing control.
I slam the sledgehammer into the first monster I run into. Ground pound triggers, absorbing my momentum as the shockwave spills out into my surroundings. I come to a dead stop as the monster I hit tears in two, the halves flying off. For a good fifty feet in every direction around me, the other monsters get staggered.
“Now!” I yell for the others.
They rush to join me as the gunmen offer cover fire, and we get to slaughtering everything that moves.
----------------------------------------
I repeat the maneuver, darting in and out of the horde and breaking their formation with more ground pounds. My frenzy tops up and stays there throughout, offering me the attribute increases and mental clarity I need. The monsters can’t touch me — hell, they can barely see me as I zip around with short dashes.
I feel fucking invincible for a few minutes as I weave in and out of the battle.
Using dash this way consumes less mana, but I still run out every now and again. When that happens, I go on a more direct offensive, killing monsters left and right as my mana regenerates.
Pinned in the middle and pelted with attacks from every side, the monsters die in droves. I press our advantage, smashing a corridor through the dense horde to reunite with the inner defenders. The trenches and walls make it harder for me as well, as I trip over them more than once while using dash.
But I get it done. I reach the inner line, and from there, I can help ease the burden on those guys as well.
Jessica and her former employees turned beast tamers join me at some point, riding on their pets. The feral cat girl teen, whose name I still don’t know, cuts monsters to ribbons with her claws. She has a handful of pets around her, all cats that are now the size of leopards. They keep to a tight formation, bobbing in and out for quick slashes and bites.
The leopard cats act a lot like their wild counterparts, biting the nape of the monsters to break their spines. Then either her or the werewolf guy, who is also by her side, finish off the monsters for the experience.
Even Damien, the dragon dude, is here. The few pets that he has are all reptiles of various sizes. Two snakes, one pitch black and the other spotless white, sneak around him as they constrict the monsters to death. Another one is a giant gecko that uses its flat tail to swat away incoming attacks. The last one, which doesn’t leave Damien’s side, looks like an oversized bearded dragon. Its throat inflates every so often, a few big scales glowing red hot, and it spews fire.
“So fucking cool.”
The dragon man wields a gutted engine block that he welded a long metal pole to, swinging it around with as much ease as I handle my own sledgehammer. It’s not hard to guess where most of his attribute points go. He smashes the monsters into puddles of bloody pulp, but he needs long, precious seconds to recover from every swing. His pets protect him during that time, and he even uses his long tail as a weapon.
Then there’s Jessica, the Broodmother. She has the most pets by far, enough of them to hold a good portion of the line on her own. She also has a pump action shotgun now, using it to deliver killing shots to the monsters that her pets soften up.
Surrounded by this craziness, I forget myself for a moment. I give in and have some fun in the mayhem. That is, until someone else joins the fray.
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“Out of my way!”
I feel the tingling sensation of outside mana pressing down on me before I see the source. Karen dashes in atop a two headed pitbull, the air around her glowing with swirling colors. She blazes through the horde like a burning comet, adding more chaos with her crowd debuffing skills.
A few notifications flash before me.
Karen Schneider - Level 18 Matriarchal Protector has cast The Matriarch's Truce.
Effects: while in the presence of the Matriarch, your skills will not harm other allies.
Duration: 5 minutes.
Karen Schneider - Level 18 Matriarchal Protector has cast Flock of Martyrs.
Effects: gain +3% to the following attributes whenever an ally is wounded: constitution, strength, agility. This effect stacks up to 30%.
Duration: 10 minutes.
She stops next to me, staring daggers at me. The two heads of the pitbull pull a ferret looking monster apart.
“You blew up my fucking house,” she hisses.
“Yeah.”
“You’ll pay for that.”
“You can kill me after we’re done here.”
The hardass exterior melts, and she puts on a rueful smile. “For the repairs, jackass! You’ll pay for the repairs!”
I nod, unable to help myself from laughing.
“Will do, let’s finish up.”
Karen nods, and we split up as we return to work.
----------------------------------------
Before I know it, the battle is over. I stop and, without targets to fuel the frenzy, it starts decaying. Pain from wounds I didn’t notice before floods in, revealing once again that I’m not as invincible as I feel. I’m full of cuts and scrapes from claws, teeth, and running into the occasional monster or tripping over corpses at high speeds and eating dirt.
To my surprise, my health is down by more than half.
“How the hell did that happen?” I wonder aloud.
As better judgment returns to me, I look around the battlefield. A lot of the monsters I fought have either arrows sticking out of them or bullet holes punched into their bodies. Pops and Emily did as I asked, they had my back. I’m probably only alive because of their support.
Fuck me, the frenzy skill is much more dangerous than I thought.
We regroup, and I help Emily collect her arrows. I find the one with the mark on the shaft, and I have the feeling that I should add another one. Even though I don’t remember when she shot it, I heed that feeling and scratch the second mark into it. Emily takes it back with some confusion, then we move on.
We meet up with William, and after we sit down to catch our breath, he brings mixed news. We lost people, both here and at the outer perimeter, but the casualties are within acceptable levels.
“How many?” I ask.
William hesitates, exchanging a look with Pops before he answers. “Twenty that we know of so far, but probably double that.”
“And that’s acceptable?”
“In this context?” William says, letting the question hang in the air.
I sigh. He’s not wrong, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. That’s between twenty to forty lives, between twenty to forty people. A drop in the bucket, considering what’s been going on, but every drop counts right now.
At least we didn’t lose any of the non combatants, and we still have enough fighters to weather a few more assaults like this one.
More of the outer defenders come in to report the happenings in their areas, and we ask them about the rest of the monsters.
“They’re keeping their distance for now,” one of them says, “but they’re fanning out around the safe zone, and other monsters are joining them.”
I don’t like the sound of that, and by the looks we share, I figure Pops and William don’t either. The wave boss still has around five hundred monsters left, and in a couple of hours, it could gather another hundred or two. If we assume it held the higher level monsters behind for a final push, which it most likely has, we’re in for some serious trouble.
“What are you thinking?” William asks.
“I’m thinking we’re fucked. We only survived because of the encirclement maneuver, but it won’t work a second time. The wave boss can stagger the groups it has left.”
“Ideas?”
“We need to send a team out there during the next attack to take out the skunk. Cut off the head and the minions will scatter.”
“Thomas?” William turns to Pops.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Pops says. “Problem is, who will go? We can't force anyone, and I don’t see people volunteering.”
“About that,” I say.
I give them a look that they don’t much like. In a grave voice, Pops growls, “don’t even think about it.”
“I already made up my mind, I’ll go.”
“Jack…”
“No. It’s not up for debate, I won’t sit on my ass while we lose more people. I'll look for a few volunteers, and we'll get it done.”
I move to get up. Pops does as well, and he grabs my arm. It’s not an aggressive gesture, that’s not how we do things. We don’t yell and throw tantrums, that’s a lesson he’s been hammering into Mike and I since we were kids. We don’t argue, we discuss matters like adults.
He looks me in the eye, and he says, “I can’t stop you, you’re a grown man. But you’re my son, and I don’t want you to go.”
I don’t pull away from him and stomp off. I free my arm, and I pull him into a hug. He’s a strong man — hell, probably the strongest man I know. A man that’s been through more than enough hell to last him a lifetime. But even he has his limits. He won’t let it out, not here where people can see him, but I feel how he trembles as I hold him.
And I understand. I know he’s seen people die before. I know about the sleepless nights when he cried in Mom’s arms, thinking Mike and I were asleep and we wouldn’t hear it. He’s holding it together for now, despite everything, but if Mike or I die, he’ll break.
Still, I can’t let that stop me. This isn’t just fun and games, we can’t count on anyone but ourselves right now. If he goes out, if anyone else does, and they die…well, that’s not something I could live with.
“I already took an arm off the fucker, so I’ll be fine,” I say, patting him on the back. “You focus on keeping everyone here safe, and I’ll take out that stupid wave boss. Then we’ll go join Mike and we'll end the siege together.”
“Okay,” he says, and he pulls away from me.
Then we get back to it. If we want to pull it off, we need to prepare.