Compared to his expectation, there were more prospects.
He didn’t question deeply about how there could be so many so far from any colonized lands, he just admitted it was the case.
If all the prospects, if they were actually all prospects, were accounted for excluding the 14 he saw back at the camp, relaxing, planning, or something, there were an additional 64 fighting here, for a total of 78.
Plus himself, Arik, and Astryde, that made an extraordinary 81 people completely cut off from a way to go back to the IGS without major assistance in a short time.
Choosing the left wing of the frontline for no reason other than feeling like it, he purposely reduced his speed and used a few minutes just to observe how those extraordinary, for multiple reasons, 64 people were doing.
And it was really a mixed bag. As it should be.
Some were obviously long-standing teams, working together by covering the main damage dealers and blocking the more aggressive bone golems.
Some were moving here and there at an amazing speed, freely deciding which monster needed to be put down first, often just interfering with others’ fights.
Some seemed a bit too much like him, just without a way to hide themselves, and more resistant.
Seen from a spectator’s point of view though, the most marking was the diversity in the attacking side compared to the defensive side.
‘When I have time I’ll go read about the diversity of builds in monsters originating from nests. No need to think too much about it now.’
Nothing apart from very isolated team cases and the overall shape of the front line on the IGS side hinted at a planned and organized move, but besides that? It was just absent on the two sides. The IGS camp was just attacking, defending, and retreating in a cycle that switched with the bone golem camp.
After understanding that there was no way he needed to be somewhere in particular, Rune followed his first feeling and went left, towards the left wing of the front line.
Approaching until he was only a few kilometers away from where he wanted to be, he didn’t know if any of the prospects knew he was here or not, but it wouldn’t matter once he started attacking bone golems.
In truth, calling it a front line was a bit too great and flattering for what it really was: A scattered mass of people belonging to the IGS that were going against something much bigger and more numerous.
Nonetheless, it accomplished what it ought to do, so why would anyone try to fix something that worked? And Rune only had to find a place for himself a hundred meters away from every ongoing fight before eventually beginning his fighting session.
‘Once I get used to the rhythm of things here, I’ll see whether I should focus on a pure solo approach or something like a roaming support approach.’
Already thinking about the future that would come to be after days of time, he decided to start slowly by making his safety the main focus and acting by knowing his limit.
‘Let’s start without bait. I don’t think my intent tinkering session changed things for the rest of my build, right?’
Bringing his masteries in case something changed and he had skipped the notifications, he was relieved that really nothing had changed that much.
Masteries
Tier 1 Masteries
Physical Fundamental: Reinforcement: Tier 4 Level 69
Physical Fundamental: Fighting Instinct: Tier 4 Level 67
Physical Fundamental: Body Control: Tier 4 Level 67
Energy Fundamental: Fine Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 58
Energy Fundamental: Grand Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 58
Energy Fundamental: Energy Compression: Tier 4 Level 67
Spiritual Fundamental: Perception Control: Tier 4 Level 8
Spiritual Fundamental: Awareness Division: Tier 4 Level 64
Spiritual Fundamental: Momentum Manipulation: Tier 4 Level 24
Tier 2 Masteries
Energy: Specialized Cosmic Mist Element: Tier 3 Level 100
Cohesion: Specialized Cohesion Infusion: Tier 4 Level 81
Cohesion: Specialized Endless Adaptation: Tier 1 Level 8
Tier 3 Masteries
Energy Compression: Provided Energy Defense: Tier 3 Level 93
Energy Compression: Provided Energy Structure: Tier 3 Level 93
Energy Compression: Provided Energy Armor: Tier 3 Level 93
Tier 4 Masteries
Energy Compression: Provided Quick Compression: Tier 3 Level 86
Body Control: Provided Humanoid Body: Tier 3 Level 87
Awareness Division: Specialized Sense Invocation: Tier 2 Level 15
Shutting down everything including his notifications, he searched for the target that would sign his entering into the front line battlefield.
Finding the perfect “somewhat isolated amidst the swarm” target, a most basic 4 supporting pseudo legs limbs and 4 upper pseudo arms limbs, he descended silently towards it as it was probably wondering to itself which prospects it should go towards.
He was so confident in his cosmic mist’s anti-perception power that he instinctively went all-in on the most basic and optimized behemoth style opening move.
A simple punch targeted at the center of mass that didn’t include a way to retract it once it was launched.
Mixing the surprise and the shock of going from nothing to something the moment its energy armor felt something crash onto it, Rune added another layer with a sudden expansion of his cosmic mist layer, covering his target in it completely.
Then, he went above it as its 4 upper bone limbs started flailing in retaliation and in the realization that it was being preyed upon by something it couldn’t see and that its own perception wasn’t able to see itself anymore.
Using all the momentum he could or the stat equivalent of 32 400 after applying his 224% additional efficiency, equalling 540 meters per second.
He ignored the resistance of abruptly creating so much and directed it towards the ground, multiplying his weight and restrictive power by an untold amount.
The bone golem reacted intensely to this pseudo immobilization and started flailing harder than before, but it neither used an element, a reinforcement, or any sort of boosts. It just struggled by doing chaotic strikes that didn’t take that much armor as Rune started assaulting it more aggressively.
Armor loss control, definitive health erosion rate, situational awareness. In his fighting style, only those 3 things were important, and everything he came up with mid-fight, pre-fight, or even post-fight served in furthering one of those 3.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Its energy armor layer cracked soon enough under the assault of dozens of hits as Rune used the blind and inefficient flailing to make a full-confrontational exchange fall completely into his favor.
Seeing an opportunity to put to profit his early ambush, once the armor layer cracked, all his strikes started being focused on the base of one particular upper limb.
After 5 seconds, the average time for bone monsters to pull themselves together after suffering a devastating loss of perception around themselves and the assault of a comparatively small and persistent entity, Rune stopped trying to weaken the monster more.
It was his first time going against and trying to find means to better fight the bone golems, so he wanted to try this by instinct.
He grabbed with his two arms the limb he had weakened, then using a light speed-fast change in his momentum and the exerted strength of his two legs, he pulled. He pulled hard.
The monster reacts explosively from that moment on. Not only did it get over the loss of its perception in a small area around it, it also knew where its assailant was now, and the inevitable happened.
Like a spider, all the limbs available as well as the ones that allowed it to maintain contact with the ground arrived in a whip-like manner.
As if 7 separate spikes, Rune felt the explosive increase in his armor loss, thousands of armor was dissipating with each hit, and the speed at which they happened reached 10 in under a second.
After 2 waves of such an attack, stripping him of more than 40 000 armor in total and the limb he had targeted still not coming off, he made the decision to release it.
‘The limbs are much more attached to the main body than I expected. That’s a definitive failure. I also underestimated the gains caused by 8 fully prehensile limbs.’
Discovering a monster species that had established a territory for itself in their chaotic bone region, one that even seemed backed by a nest and titanic tier 5 guardians was a first for Rune.
And this first active involvement didn’t happen as he would have liked.
‘At least I can get to know them slowly. Not like I can go lower than when I was being chased like a petty chicken.’
Keeping an eye out for anything that could potentially involve him, he entered the fighting phase he knew and loved much more than the opening phase.
Keeping a tight grip on the cosmic mist he had released, he started moving the same moment his target bone golem did and kept it in a perception-loss state as he took opportunities to punch or kick when he could.
It didn’t matter whether its perception was completely absorbed by his lackluster intent’s 3rd stage or if it was only erased inside the small cloud that surrounded the two of them, the end objective was the same after all.
A few minutes passed as Rune kept pursuing the 2-meter high bone golem and slowly backing it to a corner in the health department.
This one wasn’t a tricky opponent in its early and middle phase as it didn’t have weird specializations. But inevitably, Rune knew that if this monster really didn’t have any specializations, it should have compensated in some ways, which wasn’t the case.
So when he felt the traditional glow representing the activation signs of the health or energy regeneration boost, maybe the two, he purposely reduced his strike rhythm.
Yet, even that decision changed in an instant when he felt something change intrinsically in the battle dynamic.
It started with one limb wrapping around his arm the moment his fist made contact with the just regenerated armor layer.
The bone golem instantly acted as if it entered into a berserk mind state, but where one would have believed it really became berserk and had lost its mind, Rune knew better than that.
A berserk state was something he had seen and observed a lot more than other types of rarer monster behavior, and what followed proved to him it wasn’t anything close to a berserk state.
2 supporting limbs anchored themselves into the ground like pillars, as for the rest, they all started assaulting him in the same way they did when he tried to tear out one of its limbs before.
Beating a hasty retreat, he immediately realized it was doomed to fail as another limb wrapped around one of his legs, the right one.
And with now one arm and one leg in its control, it wasn’t possible anymore for Rune, a humanoid entity, to use slyness or dodge to extricate himself.
Still thinking about what was going on and why it would use such a suicidal approach, a few specializations associated with regeneration boosts came to his mind, and a few precise ones that included a specific very aggressive style similar to what was soon going to take place took the stage.
‘Full boosts? Empty boosts? Doesn’t matter, it’s too suspicious anyway.’
Not wanting to play in the palm of the monster that took him hostage, he stopped trying to free himself and started focusing on defending himself by countering each of the 4 remaining limbs that were going all-in attempting to break his armor.
Unfortunately, the tier 4 bone golem he was facing had more strength stat than him, so he not only had to put up with being dragged around, only able to put a slight and close to ineffective resistance, he also only had 2 thin limbs that he could fully control available to defend himself as much as he could.
However, it wasn’t a desperate fight, at least the situation didn’t warrant the need to cut off his wrapped around leg and arm.
And the situation went on for 10 seconds, 20 seconds, 30 seconds with no signs of the strange glow going away, and even as the bone golem continued to treat Rune as a training ragdoll with a growing intensity that he finally recognized as sub-berserk behavior…
He let it happen and only defended himself.
At the 40 seconds mark, a part of the weird glow disappeared.
Deflecting yet another quick sharp spear-like limb, minimizing the damage he had to resist directly, he now knew that his initial conclusion was the right one.
‘Pool-based boosts, never encountered that type of specialization more than a couple of times.’
Observing the dimming glow surrounding the golem reinforced his conviction that what he was facing was a monster with specializations that had to do with extended regeneration boosts depending on its incomplete health and energy pool.
Now that he concluded something and had the possibility to make a custom counter, he patiently continued to defend himself, waiting for the rest of the boost to go away.
‘Though if it’s using both health and energy…’
Quickly crossing out this possibility, the one where its energy regeneration was actually being boosted, as otherwise it would have started using reinforcement as if it was a common pebble that could be found on the ground, he knew that soon its health pool would be back to full.
And from there, its secondary or tertiary specialization that made it so that its health regeneration boost would be extended for an extremely long time as long as its health wasn’t back to full would stop working, forwarding the end.
Following what he thought to be right, he maintained a fully defensive style against the more and more aggressive 4 spear-like limbs trying to open him up until 3 minutes or so later, the glow completely vanished.
‘Well, I hope you took a specialization or have a specialty that cancels the backlash of regeneration boosts or…’
Taking measure the same moment he had no choice but to block 1 spear-like limb with his armor, losing more than 4 000 of it in the process, he switched around and grabbed the limb that had kept his other arm restricted for now 4 minutes.
Compressing a platform below his feet and locking it instantly, he created a battle rhythm change as he rushed straight at the main body of the golem.
Anchored to the ground as it was, it wasn’t able to adapt and suffered the full strength-backed charge, tearing it out of the ground and propelling the two of them into the air.
Confident in his behemoth build and armor regeneration rate, Rune confidently took back control of the flow, and, not even half a minute later, cracked its armor layer once again.
Out of option, berserk state signs appeared, which quickly devolved into a full-blown energy regeneration boost, the last sign of a monster weaker than its opponent but that had no way to retreat.
Did it never learn to? Or was it just unable to? Was it maybe a spawned monster, contradicting the theory that there was a nest deep inside Tolevia? All sorts of thoughts passed his mind, but they didn’t change the fight.
The energy regeneration boost didn’t even give it definitive solutions as it simply didn’t have a build that could use this energy to good use.
Not even a minute passed after the golem entered its berserk state, further simplifying what Rune had to do to win before a final kick to the main massive bone center made it stop moving.
In total, the fight took around 10 minutes: A few seconds of opening, 4 minutes of slow and steady health erosion, 4 minutes of foiling a boost specialization, 2 minutes of intense exchange with an easy conclusion.
‘Doesn’t live up to what I would expect from a monster species that gave birth to tier 5. Probably a too inexperienced and young one? But how could a tier 4 be young if it isn’t spawned by the ether?’
Thoughts, ideas, and conclusions swirled in his empty head for half a minute after the monster stopped moving.
Smelling that the answer probably wasn’t the most straightforward one, he stopped thinking about it and put the entire golem’s body, core included, inside his big ether pocket dimension before looking for a new target.
Such a short and moderately intense fight didn’t even warrant a single leveling notification after he checked.
His expense in terms of mental strength was ridiculous, and he judged he could go without worrying about it at all if every fight he had to do looked like the one he just finished.
Seeking his next target, it didn’t take him much to find one not far from him.
‘And most probably, no one even realized this fight happened. Isn’t that amazing?’
Only he could hear the music exiting his speaker. Only he was aware of what the city looked like. Only he knew how the thousands of bone golems that were swarming in his perception…
Were only the beginning.
The front line hadn’t even arrived at the first layer of the Tolevia he had seen.
And that was amazing.
Relativizing for a whole second and feeling amazing after doing it, he decided on what to try for this next perfectly similar 2-meter tall, 8-limbed bone golem, and settled on focusing his offense on the main body.
Maybe he would be up for a surprise? Maybe it wouldn’t change anything?
In the end, Rune’s subconscious had already accepted that he was in for the long run.
Cleaning Tolevia and elucidating all its weirdness would be his para-training main goal, participating in the fall of a titan was also a para-training goal, as was remaining a spectator to the thing.