Lev had been observing the monsters the last few minutes and slowly formed a plan. When his friends steered clear of the monsters, he sent five barriers in a straight line. With his skills running at the maximum, the barriers sheared through all monsters alike, leaving only dead bodies in their path.
None of them tried to dodge.
It was exactly as it seemed. The taunter had deployed an aura that continuously taunted monsters in a fixed radius. The affected monsters ignored everything in favor of getting to the taunter first.
“I’ll take care of the gap between us and the iron team. You guys take the left.” Lev told his team while he focused on creating a blender between the left side of the iron team and the approaching horde. Recalling all of his barriers, he moved them above the approaching monsters and dropped them one by one. Methodically cleaving through necks one by one, his team divided their attention into two sides.
A few minutes later, Lev noticed one of the mages from the taunt squad finally casting a spell. He tensed, waiting for something unexpected to happen. To his relief, the mage just dragged the small hill of corpses he had created under the ground, burying them. Lev motioned for Kayla to stop buffing him, and they continued the culling, more focused on conserving their strength now that the situation was more or less under control.
The formation stood its ground, fairing better than most others due to Kayla’s passive buffs. They really showed their worth in dragged-out fights. Now that the novelty had worn off, Lev continued his monotone task of moving four barriers up and down. The task required little focus and mana, and Lev was slowly regenerating mana instead of losing it. Amelia’s enhancement was also running at a minimum, allowing her to regenerate more mana than it used because of her passive regeneration increase when her body heated up. Kayla just sent the occasional wooden attack while keeping an eye out for sneak attacks. Jack used little force for his attacks, looking to hit vital spots to kill or cripple in a single swing of his hammer.
For an hour, they killed monsters non-stop. Many of them were already injured, no doubt because of the attacks from atop the walls. Lev had floated up twice to look at how many monsters were left, and there was still no end in sight. As he was about to end another goblin, he felt a spell launch from a tower. They had yet to do anything.
“DIRE BEARS!”
The warning reached the in time to see a massive bear making its way towards the wall. Soon, one turned into two and two into four. Lev felt the buff from Kayla reach his entire team, signifying that her skill had leveled up. Lev had also felt multiple skill levels and class levels, but he ignored them and allocated the attribute points.
The dire bears were massive, nearly three meters in height and six in length. They were light brown, the reason becoming apparent when, instead of falling in the quicksand, they solidified the ground and moved on unimpeded. Lev identified the first one.
[Dire Bear - Level ??]
Shit.
By the time the first bear reached them, it was riddled with arrows. Still, there was little blood as it continued its charge. As soon as it stepped inside the taunt aura, it immediately focused on the giant taunter. With a roar loud enough to hurt Lev’s head, it ran towards the iron team with great strides, making the ground shake. Amelia took advantage and scored a gash on its front leg.
It roared in pain and broke out of the taunt.
Several things happened at once. Amelia’s enhancement ran at its maximum as she jumped backward when the bear lunged toward her. Jack’s shield hit the right side of its face with full force. Kayla’s vines wrapped tightly around its front legs, making the bear momentarily stop in its tracks. An extremely bright and loud bolt of lightning hit its back, making it spasm while multiple barriers hit its neck one by one, trying to hit something vital. Eventually, they cut through its thick fur and hit an artery, resulting in a blood shower.
Despite all of that, the bear refused to go down and shakily stood up. Before it could even take a step, Amelia’s flaming sword fell on its head, cutting halfway through its skull.
[
[Your group has slain [Dire Bear - Level 105]
]
Lev ignored the other notifications and observed Amelia to see if she was fine. She stood next to the massive corpse, her sword now planted in the ground, heaving great breaths. Her hair silver hair swayed gently in the heat produced by her skills, giving her an angry red aura. She looked-
Lev shook his head, not willing to continue that line of thought. Their friendship was too precious. Two of the taunt squad mages started working on burying the massive corpse, slowly dragging it below ground. Jack picked up his shield and returned to culling the monsters. Lev dislodged his barriers, spending a bit of mana to fix the slight damage to their edges. Before long, they were again surgically ending monster lives.
After another 15 minutes of monotony, the iron team grabbed a weird glowing stone and sent some mana into it. Another few minutes later, they were once again swept up into a gale and dropped on top of the wall while four different squads were deployed in their stead.
There was more than enough space to sit down on the 10-meter-wide walls, so they did as soon as they landed. Everyone had pushed past their tiredness, refusing to allow a gap to form in their defenses. One of the mages from the silver team who had brought them up addressed the iron team’s leader after checking a notepad in her hand.
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“You were down there for more than half an hour over the normal rotation time. Report.”
“We only had to face a single dire bear at the end. None of the orcs came towards us, so we stood our ground as long as we could. We could still keep going to the support’s passive auras and timely assistance. Thank you for that.” The iron team’s leader dipped his head towards Kayla, who smiled and nodded in response.
The silver-ranked mage also nodded toward her before returning to the warrior. “You guys have thirty minutes of downtime before redeployment. Rest here, and don’t block anyone’s way.”
Having said her piece, the mage team moved to their next task. The tired combatants leaned against the wall borders that were high enough to provide cover when crouching. Lev checked his notifications.
[
Arcane Barrier Manipulation has reached Level 9
Incisive Edge has reached Level 7
Whirling Rim has reached Level 7
Opportunity has reached Level 8
Needle Precision has reached Level 6
Bladewalker has reached level 51
…
Bladewalker has reached level 63
]
Lev looked over the people he was fighting with. They were filthy, covered in blood and grime. The iron team looked tired but unharmed, taking the brunt of the wave. The bronze team looked tired with small injuries, nothing crippling. Lev’s group was clean in comparison. Lev himself had not gone into melee range, and any stray blood was stopped by barrier armor. Kayla was even further behind him, so she was also clean. Amelia’s enhancement heated up her armor and helmet, making most of the blood evaporate or dry up and fall off. Jack’s armor was in the worst state, having been in the thick of it.
As they were recuperating, Lev thought back to the morning. There were nine chimes, but so far, everything seemed stable. The monsters were steadily killed and disposed of, and the rotations were going smoothly. There was no evacuation underway because Windkeep was the stronghold people were supposed to evacuate to. He stood up and walked to the other side of the wall, gazing upon the wave in all its glory. Corpses stained the ground for a long distance from the wall, yet the monsters walked over them and continued without a single downward glance. Orcs were now much more common. The taunters split Massive raiding parties, creating chaos before they could even get close to the formations.
Kayla healed all the little injuries their squad had accumulated. Twenty minutes into the downtime, something changed. His perception made him to the right, to the southwest. Realizing he had felt this once already, he called his friends to stand up and watch. The feeling continued for another fifteen seconds, but he refused to close his eyes for even a moment. Suddenly, a blue blur shot directly upward. It curved mid-air, moving in the direction of the massive wave still trying to reach the wall.
As even the monsters watched, the blur turned into two, two into four, four into tens, tens into hundreds, hundreds into thousands, thousands into tens of thousands. The morning sky turned bright blue above them.
The first bolt fell, entirely soundless. Countless more followed, sounding morbidly familiar to rain. The projectiles fell on the monsters without any explosions. They went through their bodies without resistance despite being tiny, dropping them dead on the spot regardless of what they hit.
Lev pushed his perception to the limit, focusing on why the monsters kept dying even if they were hit in the foot. It became obvious almost instantly, seeing how electricity traveled through the bodies of the monsters regardless of the origin point. A name came to mind, unbidden.
The Galvanic Sniper.
The bombardment continued for minutes, the projectiles somehow always finding their mark. Nobody uttered a single word, witnessing the raw display of power with bated breath. After what felt like an eternity, it stopped, and the world returned to normal instead of raining death. Lev and his friends shared a glance, eyes completely wide and faces pale. Kayla sat down before her legs could give out. Lev started laughing. Nobody blamed him, still stuck replaying the attack in their heads. He eventually calmed down.
“I think we may have underestimated this person’s strength,” Lev uttered with a wide smile.
All of them nodded dumbly, still awe-struck. Amelia shook her head and looked at him. “That has to be above level 500, right?” She asked.
Lev chuckled. “How am I supposed to know? But yeah, probably.”
“But why would the person attack the wave like that?” Jack questioned, a thoughtful look on his face.
As if to answer his question, a clear ringing sound went throughout the city. The bell sounded almost pleasant, but to everyone present, it might have been worse than a screech loud enough to permanently damage their ears.
Tenth Chime.