CHAPTER 3

Daniel observed the rush of motion around him. He’d only been out of action for two-thirds of a day, but it clearly made a difference.

This group knew more about what was happening than he did.

“You’re at the front. Daniel.” Tamara told him.

“She actually meant right behind the tanks.” Alex grumbled.

He repositioned exactly where he was ordered and together the forty remaining fighters who were continuing to advance towards the building filled with Silver Flies. The missing warriors had been sent back with the food.

Daniel stared doubtfully at the broken building they were approaching. This place had not coped well with the Alpha particle transition, and he hoped the kids were still alive, and that the bloody thing didn’t fall on them when they were exploring it. He turned to face Tamara. “Do we know if any are still alive?”

Tamara shrugged, then nodded. “In the morning they were. Last time we got this far, one man up there on the top floor waved at us.”

“They took part in the morse code last night.” A fat man who had clearly missed a couple of days of meals volunteered. “Still holding. They thought they would survive till today and possibly tomorrow. The danger is apparently the first couple hours after dawn that’s when they flies are most active. The only reason they think they’ll do that well is that was a long lull yesterday afternoon and the reduced pressure allowed them advance their reinforcement efforts.”

“That’s a lot of information to convey in a few light flashes.”

The fat man laughed. “You’ll be surprised at how much a good signaller can transmit. It’s great that so many people remembered the method from their childhood.”

“Why those timelines? Why the morning? Is that what Richard said?”

The man stroked his five-day-old beard, looking thoughtful. “Richard didn’t say anything at that level of detail, but they’ve observed more activity in the morning. Maybe the flies greet the sawn by flying higher and swarm them by accident.”

“And the timelines are because they’re losing places to retreat to.” Tamara told him. “They’ve already been forced up to the top floor, next step will confine themselves to the toilets.”

Daniel had more questions to ask, but he refrained from doing so. Around him, everyone appeared worried. The discussion about whether the children were alive was affecting the entire group. Their target apartment block was only thirty metres away and he could see the silver flies clearly already. They were exactly how Alex had described them. They looked like metallic giant earth flies. Thick bodies the size of a baseball with stubby wings.

One of them suddenly veered from its path shot down toward them. Alex, as the closest tank chose not to use his shield and instead swung his sword. Some form of magic encompassed it and it seemed to blur for the last half a metre and when it hit the fly blue light exploded.

The fly got thrown away. Surprisingly, it had not been cut in two, but was still very dead after that magical blow. A wedge taken out of his front.

Tough, Daniel thought. That had been mentioned to him, but he hadn’t truly understood what those lists of resistances he had been told had actually meant.

Alex cursed and shook his hand. “They hit hard. Guess that was to be expected.”

Daniel observed the others man’s reaction and internally raised an eyebrow in surprise. “That looked like it hurt.”

Alex chuckled. “It did, and it’s not supposed to. It cushions recoil, but the flies are so bloody tough.”

Almost like Alex admitting how hard they were to kill was a signal to everyone else closed ranks tighter. The ranged fighters crowded behind him and hands seemed to almost push him and Tamara, or maybe they shuffled their feet without moving forward, but in next to no time he found himself right behind the front line.

Ahead, extra flies were coming out of the building were orientating upon them.

“Alex, what do you want me to do?” Daniel asked.

“Just hit them with the club for now. Don’t waste your magic.”

Eight Flies whipped down at them simultaneously targeting and they had fledging tactics. Rather than approached clumped together where magic could counter them, they spread out at the last moment and expanded the cone of their attack. Daniel tensed preparing his club to retaliate, but the melee fighters in front of him reacted perfectly. They had days of training, but seemed experienced enough to move in unison. It had to be a skill, Daniel decided. Somehow, they all shifted, so each of them was only contending with a single fly. Alex took his target out with the sword strike that exhibited the same blur of speed, followed by the blue glow on contact. The chatty ex-fat man from earlier expertly used his spear to knock another out of the air. The other six were all stopped with shields. Two flies fell to the ground and were pounced on by the men who had blocked them. The other four flies flew unsteadily away. One tank lunged forward and crushed his escaping fly with his hammer. Two more got killed by with arrows and the last was taken out by a lightning bolt thrown by Tamara.

There was definitely a skill coordinating everyone. Not Alex, because Daniel knew he had used his level up to create the stasis spell that had saved Daniel’s own life, but one of the other team leaders had something. He would find out later.

“Good.” Alex said. “Back into position.”

The hammer wielding tank hastily retreated till he was shoulder to shoulder with everyone else.

“Slow advance.”

They all marched forward.

The flies were gathering outside the building’s front door. Even though they were far closer now than when the first wave had targeted them, no attacks were forthcoming. The flies seemed to collectively hold themselves back. Their numbers swelled, supplemented by a continuous stream emerging from the building.

There were almost fifty buzzing in front of them. It was too many and Alex realised it, too.

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“Hold, Magic range thin the ranks.” Alex turned and grabbed Daniel’s club before he could raise it. “Hold for now.”

The electricity that had been gathering around his weapon receded somewhat. “My spell is better if I have time to channel.”

“Understand,” Alex said tightly, and then a volley of magic went over all of them. There was fire, lightning, black, ice and even an attack that looked water based. The flies were to spread to be badly affected by the attacks, but only a disappointing handful of flies dropped and most of those from the two lightning attacks. One of the more impressive visual attacks, a giant fireball petered out without even a single insect looking damaged.

Alex tsked in annoyance.

The flies, meanwhile, spread out in response and even more started gathering. The numbers returned to fifty and then a short later jumped to sixty.

“Daniel, I need you to get ready. They’re going to attack en masse, and I want you ready to hit them. But Daniel make sure you hold off till they’re as close as possible in order to maximise your strike.”

Lots of them were emerging and there were over seventy and possibly a hundred gathered already. The way they buzzed around it was difficult to get a firm count. Gingerly and feeling self-conscious, Daniel stepped forward his mind trying to envisage what he needed. He focused on the lessons he had internalised from killing the huntsman. Electricity was gathering on his club and his hair was rising in response and visually he rehearsed what was going to happen. All those flies would charge him and then he would send electricity from him initially up into the air and then it let descend out into a dome from him. The incoming flies would be caught and fried. Already in front of him, he saw the path he wanted the energy to take and to prepare the attack he lifted the club as high as he could. Potential paths the energy could take branched around him. Most of them were backwards into his allies, but he ignored that and used the control granted by his core to force the approaching electricity storm to erupt only against the flies.

The air in front of him became ionised. Daniel could smell the distinct tang of ozone, metal, burnt wire all that he needed was for them to attack.

The cloud had built until there were more than a hundred ahead of them.

“Incoming.”

It took Daniel a moment to identify what Alex had seen. The most distant flies were all accelerating towards them and then like it was rehearsed they all fell into formation and the entire swarm charged toward them.

“Protect Daniel after he has used his magic.”

Daniel ignored the order. Everything was taken up in mapping the way he wanted his lightning to go and then insects entered the pathways he was creating and control became so much easier. They were not made of metal, but each insect glowed in his mind. He tagged them and then the next ones entered the space he was constructing for the lightning discharge and he included them to. He began linking the ones coming from behind to the ones in front. Then his mind or core or whatever the process was continued to tag them, his automatic processor taking over the complexity when his brain could no longer keep up. The closest were metres away and in his mind he could see the web of electricity, emerging from his club and then jumping from insect to insect in a devastating explosion of power before being grounded in six spots about eight metres away.

A brilliant white flash lit up the sky.

Boom!

Daniel flinched back and crouched down, his eyes swam by the lights. Three quarters of his mana expended in those couple of moments even with the boost from the lightning artefact. What he had unleashed was many times more powerful than what had fried the huntsman. People rushed past him and some even threw themselves on top of him to act as literal human shields in order to protect him. Through his ringing ears, he heard clanging sounds as insects slapped into shields and duller threads as they hit flesh. There were gasps of pain.

“Up.” Alex’s voice thundered, and the bodies rolled off and Daniel leapt to his feet. He looked around curiously. Burnt husks littered the surrounding ground. When he glanced back, there were no human down, but the healers were still busily casting their spells to heal everyone. Tamara as he watched stepped across get closer to a fly that was spinning on the spot with a wisp of smoke on top of it and brought Mystic Explosion down upon it. There was a satisfying crunch.

“Primary tank’s eyes out.” Alex ordered. “Everyone else do what she’s doing?”

Alex who clearly considered himself to be one of the primary tanks stepped forward along with three others. All of them stood in loose stance ready to spring to deflect any flies that wanted to attack them. Not that any major assault was likely his lightning had apparently knocked out almost all the ones that had made it outside and he could only see ten or fifteen flies around and active, through he guessed if one of these hit you in an unprotected head you would be in a bit of trouble.

Tamara playfully bumped into him. “Stop admiring your handwork and help.” Her staff came down and cracked into a second bee. There was a clang without the satisfying crunch of the first bee. She frowned brought mystic explosion up and then back down. This time, the bee’s body crumpled.

Daniel looked more closely and while his lightning and grounded pretty much all the flies over half were still moving, shocked rather than dead.

With a sigh, he stepped forward and swung his club as hard as he could at the closest bee. There was no ambiguity as the fly burst apart when his weapon collided with it. Daniel moved on and was amused to see the magic users were throwing themselves into the task. Often having to swing the weapon multiple times to kill a single fly. Of course, the more physically oriented fighters had no such problems.

With one eye on the building, he went about crushing flies. One of the hurt ones seemed to revive itself and flew away briefly before a lightning bolt from Tamara took it down.

“Hurry.” Alex snapped.

Ever so slowly they kept advancing with the scattering of flies outside the building, taking the opportunity to launch pot shot at them, but with only a couple at a time it was easy enough for the outer ring of tanks to intercept and stop them. Daniel was amused to see that Alex no longer swung with his sword but first intercepted with his shield to stop the creature’s momentum and then only using his sword to finish them.

“Good job.” Alex grunted as he deflected another bee. Instead of smacking into him it bounced off and one of the spear wielders impaled it as it went past. Daniel was really impressed with the level of skill displayed in that strike. It was one thing to baseball bat something away, which is what he would do with his club and quite another to impale a flying insect.

“Skill and a skill,” Tamara told him with a laugh.

“What?”

“He has a lot of talent with using the spear, but that last thrust was magic to let him move faster. He basically had an ability that let him cheat there.”

“Of course.”

“It’s nowhere near as broken as yours. You know, ‘I’m able to move ten times faster than anyone else.’”

“It’s not quite that good.” Even as he disputed the categorisation, Daniel knew he was lying. He remembered how people would suddenly change to look like they were frozen statues in how slowly they moved. “Maybe it is,” Daniel relented. “Still, that attack was impressive.”

“No less than the tanks.” Tamara said quietly, pointing as Alex jumped at exactly the right moment to shield bash a fly that was about to get past him. It bounced off and soared up into the air. It stabilised, looking unsteady in the air, and then an arrow went through it. “Did you see that jump?”

“Yes.”

“I mean the way the air rippled around him at the end.”

Daniel shook his head.

“There.”

A fly was diving from a high angle past the previously fat man who had lost so much weight.

It was clear to anyone with spatial awareness that the angles meant the shield could not intercept the insect. The tank didn’t even bother trying. Instead, he swung his own spear, using the flat of the blade instead of the edge. The world seemed to ripple slightly and to his eyes it looked like he missed the fly by thirty centimetres, but the fly bounced away as if it had been deflected.

“That was a skill.” Tamara told him. “It made the spear wider.”

Tamara saw something and lightning arced out from her hand. Four insects that had emerged from around the corner of the building got struck they crackled and fell.

“Inside.” Alex ordered, and he pushed through the doors into a small atrium. Glass covered the floor and there was a bank elevator on the left along with some access stairs and then to the right the front of what had from its looks at one time been a high-quality Italian restaurant.

Which was now filled with the flies.