A day before the campaign Jola was sitting in the conference room with his top level executives; this was the final meeting before the raid. Jola was pumped, new territory meant new possibilities.
Unlike Jola who was filled with optimism, the scout that was at this meeting wasn’t.
The scout reported “There is an anomaly with the undead horde we plan to destroy. Over the past month, the low Rank undead have been disappearing. When we tried to scout further we found mostly Rank 3 undead, a bunch of Rank 4 undead and some Rank 5 undead, some of us died in the return process. The new undead are like nothing we’d ever seen, they spotted us the moment we could read their Ranks. They chased us in an organized manner and apprehended us, without a mind controlling them.
I only survived because I hid and luckily they didn’t find me, since the other people who also hid aren’t back, I guess they were found”
Jola felt the onset of a serious headache; he had just finished getting used to the katana and was hungry to test its power out in real combat, the skilled weapons had come out and Deji had made a breakthrough, now the undead were making suspicious moves.
Anita said “We received reports of weird undead during the raid that happened about 4 weeks ago. And some of the undead you reported here are the same as the undead that was spotted some weeks ago. The undead seemed like an almost perfect counter for our capabilities, this has not happened for any other hordes.
I’ve theorized that since this development was only seen in the south-southeast horde, which we have been actively raiding in preparation for this campaign, it means that the more we attack the undead without eliminating them, the more the undead will evolve to be more dangerous to us.
The undead that was reported 4 weeks ago were variants that were adapted to battle humans, sporting long weapons and horses which are very effective against infantry fighters, which most rankers are. For the rangers, the genius is a perfect nemesis as it is able to stop all long rang attacks from hitting its allies with its weird magic while performing long range attacks that can’t be defended against. I believe the horde is mutating with a ‘What doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger’ style.
I know many of you would suggest we postpone the campaign but I advise against it, the undead aren’t used to our skilled weapons and since they’re mostly Rank 3 we can just remove all the lower Ranks from the campaign and only Rank 5,4 and 3s will go for this campaign”
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Many at the table agreed, they had gotten a new source of power, if the undead evolved to counter that, who knew when a new source of power would come by.
The news was spread to the members of the city. The horde that they were to attack had mutated and only Rank 3 and above were going for the raid. The report stated that the undead horde which numbered about a million had become about 200 Rank 3 undead, 20 Rank 4 undead and 10 Rank 5 undead.
The low rankers of the city were overjoyed, they had dreaded the raid and now they didn’t have to do it anymore, it was like Christmas had come early. Some of the high rankers were worried, 10 Rank 5 undead was a difficult number.
The sanctuary had more Rank 3s and 4s but the undead had a higher number of Rank 5s. This meant that while the 7 Rank 5s of the sanctuary were fighting the Rank 5s the Rank 3 and 4s would have to stall 3 Rank 5s until about 6 of them finished, since the Rank 5s would be tired and injured after fighting.
And what was worse was that the undead had abilities they knew nothing of and were specialized to deal with their regular fighting style. Jola had given the Rank 4s skilled weapons but the skilled weapons only had attack skills, how were they supposed to defend themselves against Rank 5s with those?
They vastly underestimated the influence the new skilled weapons could have on the battle because they were blinded by the Ranks that had dictated so much of their lives after the apocalypse.
But where others saw danger some saw opportunity. The Rank 4s who were looking to become Rank 5s saw this as a chance to face Rank 5 undead and increase Rank within relatively safe conditions. Becoming Rank 5 would set them up for a bright future; they would get fame and be able to make their own organizations. If they worked for Jola they would join his inner circle immediately.
Not all Rank 4s were unable to defeat Rank 5s, some felt their stats were enough for them to defeat a Rank 5, but they never had an opportunity to do so like the first 7 who defeated the Rank 5 monsters in the area.
With this atmosphere the campaign began. Most of the people happily saw off the high Ranks wishing them luck and victory. The 423 Rank 3s, 49 Rank 4s and 7 Rank 5s went off.
When the army got to the horde’s territory, they saw the lack of low Ranks; there was none in sight. They proceeded further into the territory and when they saw the undead they were shocked.
The undead sported a formation similar to theirs, something the undead never did before: The Rank 5s were in front, the Rank 4s behind them and the Rank 3s far back, close to the Rank 5 Hive womb, now Nemesis Prodigy Maker.
The usually had the low Ranks in front and the high Ranks at the back.
Their IPs all said ‘You have encountered 8 Rank 5 Nemesis Paragons, 2 Rank 5 Nemesis Magicians, 17 Rank 4 Nemesis Prodigies, 4 Rank 4 Nemesis Genius, 175 Rank 3 Nemesis Centaurs, 7 Rank 3 Nemesis Endpoints and 21 Rank 3 Nemesis Tricorn’. The names and Ranks of each creature appeared over their heads.
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