CHAPTER 114

Everlyn leapt from her seat. Her bow appeared in her hands with a mystic arrow already strung. Then it brightened in a manner Tom knew was Power Shot activating.

Crack.

It flew away with a crackle of energy and he was surprised that she was not firing flat like you would with a rifle which relied on her power but instead she had tilted the bow up to give the arrow a parabolic arc.

Interested in what they were fighting, he watched the trajectory and then his mouth fell open when the arrow slammed into a target almost five hundred meters away. That was… the only reason he had followed the arc was that the arrow had glowed. Even with his enhanced eyes, he had barely followed it.

A herd of monsters loped toward them. They were not animals anyone would describe as graceful or lithe. They cantered forward on all fours like a super heavy cat. It appeared graceful, but it wasn’t. It seemed to land heavily each time, and when the ground was not perfect, there were small stumbles. A thick flexible neck emerged from a crocodilian torso with an ape like head on top of it. Then out of the centre of its back a hairy monkey tail the size of a large anaconda loomed and in the vast majority of cases carried a rough weapon. Mostly swords, but occasionally flails and maces. No spears, he noticed absently, and he was sure once he was close enough to use identification they would be officially classed as monsters.

Those weapons, they were not human equivalents that would have required the mining of raw material and then forging, but magic ones created by the GODs. If the monsters were killed, they would only receive permanency if they were deemed part of the loot, which could only occur if a sapient creature killed them. If they died by falling down a cliff or as a meal of one of the giant lizards, those enormous chunks of metal would vanish like they were never there.

“They’re the size of an elephant,” Everly yelled.

Crack.

Another arrow infused with Power Shot was launched.

“Rank eleven with strength bias.”

This projectile slammed into the same creature that the first had hit. This time, instead of bloodying the forehead the arrow pierced all the way through. It stumbled and then fell, smashing onto the rocks clearly dead. Its pack mates ran over it with their claws and weighting, digging into its body to get support on the uneven ground. Once they were past, new, large bloody gaps were left in its wake.

There was the sound of shouting in the camp, and fighters were swarming up on the walls.

“I need scouts or hunters on the other side.” Michael yelled. “To make sure we’re not attacked while we’re distracted.”

Tom stood up, gripping rocks. The walls were a little over three metres high. The tentacle like appendage could reach the top while it was on all fours and if the anatomy allowed it to stand on two legs, then its front feet could do the same. There was nothing in Tom’s vast experience that suggested the monster coming for them wouldn’t have that capacity.

Even in numbers overall, these were a minor threat, and the golem answered his mental summons to run around the side of the foundation and promptly plonked itself twenty metres away from them to wait for the monsters. He didn’t think that it could be permanently damaged by these creatures, but if it was, it was not the end of the world, especially if repairing upgraded a component. Even if there was a catastrophic failure, he could already rebuild it and, hopefully, most of the components would survive.

Crack.

The monsters kept running at them.

Crack, crack.

Her second victim died, but the shots were becoming more challenging as they started zig zagging and her fourth shot missed completely and the fifth only grazed its hindquarters, doing no damage. They were still over two hundred meters away, so them avoiding the arrows after switching to evasive tactics wasn’t that surprising.

Everlyn lowered her bow, appearing annoyed. “No point mana.”

There were around thirty of the monsters in the group, herd, raid, or whatever the term was.

He could take out five or six. Evie a similar number. It still meant twenty and possibly more would reach the wall. “Maybe I should use meteorite.”

“Nah, but…” she looked pointedly at the rock in his hand. “Some people say it’s not always the case, but you know in this case bigger might be better.”

Sven nearby snorted in amusement.

Tom weighed the suggestion and then reminded himself who he was talking to. If Everlyn had that opinion then there was a reason for it. The smaller rocks were obviously going to lack the penetration power required. The stones disappeared into his inventory and were replaced by two larger ones that were the size of a softball.

Next to him Everlyn lifted her bow once more to take aim. She held the arrow at half draw for three seconds as the monsters travelled thirty metres closer.

Crack.

They continued to juke left or right to avoid ranged attacks, but the terrain and the desire to get to their target had closed their ranks a little. Another head exploded. Everlyn had aimed for where they were going to be, not where they were, and she had anticipated correctly.

Tom hesitated.

They were still too far away from him to join in. While in the trial he had often used long ranged bow and arrow against actively evading animals, his thrown rocks travelled slower than the arrows which meant he had to predict further in advance and without helpful skills his hunting sense wasn’t enough for the situation he was in. If they got a little closer and condensed a bit, then accuracy would not be vital. If he missed smashing a skull and hit the hip of the monster two rows back… well that could still be a success. The joint would be pulverised and in terms of reducing pressure on their walls then slowing one was almost as effective as killing it.

Tom assessed his throwing distance.

When they are a hundred metres away.

He was rank nine in strength, which was more than twice as strong as a human from earth, but if neither his skill nor magic worked, he could only throw the kilogram plus ball of rock in his hands fifty metres at most.

Tom breathed in deeply, took aim with only his technical skill, and then launched. Upon release Throw Rock was triggered, and the missile shot away from his hand, accelerating beyond what it should while more than doubling in mass, which shifted air resistance from a slight concern to a nonentity.

The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

There was no time to wait. The ten large rocks he had stored were used one after the other by the time they had crossed the first eighty metres separating them his mana had been reduced by two-thirds.

His throws wreaked havoc in the charging monsters. At least one stunned stumbled and then was trampling the claws of its pack mates doing far more damage than Tom’s glancing strike with his rock. Everlyn’s arrows and others also slammed home. Multiple enemies that his stones had not got near tumbled and fell because of their efforts.

Tom monitored his success. Three died, six more were crippled by his throws and a divot larger than a beach ball was blown out of one of the rare patches of soft ground the one time he missed. More importantly, the intimidating charge had been completely broken by their combined efforts.

The herd that had its numbers more than halved continued its relentless charge. The monsters split up and then tried to recombine. They coordinated their loping run, leaping and landing and each stride sent shivers through the stone wall that he stood upon.

A smaller rock appeared in his hands. The monsters were closer and their ape features meant that there was no convenient temple weakness for him to target.

Eyes? That heavy brow bone hung over and didn’t give him sufficient room to sneak a rock through. An arrow certainly could and he saw one fall as someone, probably not Everlyn based on the physical nature of the arrow, slipped their shot through the eye and into the brain.

Nose?

From the facial structure, there was a chance a good strike on it would be lethal. Tom weighed the likely skeletal forms. He compared what he imagined these monsters would have versus others that he had killed.

Maybe…

He focused on what he was doing. Slowing his rock in order to engage precision throw. As the ability activated, issues with this technique were revealed and he made minor adjustments. They were only thirty metres away, so he didn’t have to worry about gravity but the spin that would be imparted to gain extra speed combined with the stiff wind meant that he needed to aim slightly to the side of where he wanted to strike.

The stone launched smoothly through the air and the ploughed into the nose. The rock disappeared and a puff of pink mist was expelled from the face. The head rocked backwards and then the monster fell and tripped over another.

Dead?

Didn’t matter it bought time. With lightning hands, he had his hand up ready for another throw. The animal that had leapt clean over the downed one was the closest target. He could hear their panting breaths and the click of each claw on the rock.

Right when he was about to launch, an arrow slammed through the left eye of the one that he was targeting. There was a mini explosion, which told him it was one of Everlyn’s power shots.

He pulled the throw and searched for his next target, but the entire wall was erupting in a tsunami of spell casting. Magic was raining down on the front line of monsters like it was a tropical storm. A monster got torn apart in a conflux of smaller spells as the combined efforts of around a dozen casters crashed into it simultaneously. Another one was impaled upon a spear or rock that jutted abruptly out of the ground. Timed to catch it when it was mid gallop, suspended in the air at exactly the wrong moment and had no chance to evade the spell. It was only a glimpse, a fraction of a second, but Tom was willing to swear the tip of the stone spear had ended at a point sharp enough to pop a tomato just with the force of gravity. Applying that sort of sharpness spoke of immense technical skill or a high tiered dedicated one.

The monster had no chance. The stone went straight through it and the point burst from the monster’s back. It jerked to a halt and Tom was impressed that the pillar did not break under the massive force that stopping one of these monster’s mid charge represented. That was a high levelled spell.

Tom refocused and launched at a different monster that had somehow almost reached the wall without being savaged. Everlyn stopped firing. A sideways glance told him she had run out of mana like most of the surrounding people. Keikain caught another creature mid-air with a stone spike in what was practically a frame by frame replay of his first kill. The earth mages’ skill and experience shining through.

Tom’s third smaller rock crashed into the monster’s cheek instead of the nose and bounced off. The sudden movement of the head had not been much, but that was the problem with using his aiming skill. It made the rock slow and therefore easily avoidable.

Utilising Throw Rock during a melee situation would be different, but Tom would need to spend awhile practising his movement and spear positioning before that came useful.

The enemy was less than fifteen metres from the wall and he kept his mana in reserve. Across from him, the battle had reached Golly. It was dwarfed by what they were fighting, but it didn’t stop the two of them from slamming into the stationary hunk of stone. The golem was knocked backwards but Tom did not get the impression that it had been hurt and one of the two monsters who had collided rocked away and seemed tentative to put weight on one of its feet. A shard of ice blasted into its thick neck and then burst through to the other side. Tom decided that he probably did not have to worry about that part of the fight.

The entire wall rocked as another of the strange monsters did not lower its head at all, but charged into the solid rock. It turned its shoulder so that its heavy side slammed into the wall instead of its head. Two more, thwarted by the long spikes pulled up short. They reared up on their hind legs the long neck tilting to give them vision as they first knocked the tree length spikes away before battering at the defenders with large clawed feet. The creatures were huge and if he was fighting by himself, he wouldn’t have blinked at them. Large could be exploited by agility. Unfortunately, he was with other people, so he couldn’t take his time with that dance. That method would wear the monsters down over time and they would destroy the fortifications in the meantime.

Two more reached the attacking range, and they used the tail from their middle of that back. Both wielding swords that were his height long.

They swung.

Tom saw a flame mage fail to brace. The mostly dull sword slammed into him and he was knocked back into the inner courtyard by some sort of expulsion of flames around the torso suggesting a defensive spell was in play. Tom judged. It felt like a terrible lapse of judgement to have been hit by something moving that slowly.

It might have been the first time they had seen the attack, but the force of that sword should have been easy enough to determine. You either had the strength to block it or you dodged out of the way. If you got knocked flying, it was incompetence.

Tom’s eyes scanned the battlefield. Only seven of the creatures were currently arrayed against them. Some of the ones that had fallen might get up again and join the fight if this species had regeneration, but for now the numbers they faced were limited. But there were no massive waves of magic to deal with the last group, which was a pity. Out of the corner of his eyes, mages who had used too much of their mana massaged sore heads, others paced and appeared frustrated at their inability to contribute. Mana problems!

Before he acted, he forced himself to take a moment to categorise the battleground. In addition to the ones still standing, which were easy to mark as a threat there were also the fallen bodies.

He chewed his lip.

Most looked dead, the rest on the way to joining them. Looked! That was not a mistake Tom would make again. Everything was alive till experience notifications told him otherwise or Tom had a chance to independently verify. He would watch them and assume they were a threat.

Another rusty slab of metal swept down ponderously to scrape over the wall and through all the gathered humans. Tom jumped over it more than aware that even though it was easy enough to avoid if it hit then best case he would be knocked flying, worst case would be the sword packing some powerful offensive magic.

It was academic he avoided easily and when he was at the peak of his jump; he launched a rock at the sword wielding monster. The hours of practice he had invested paid off, and the rock slammed into its nostrils. Its snub nose deformed and its eyes rolled back, showing their whites. He felt the same pinch in his forehead that he had observed in the mages and internally he sighed. Everyone was out of mana. The period of quick kills was over.

His feet landed back on the battlements and he knew without mana he had only two options, and that was to retreat or get close. Fighting these monsters at mid range just played into their strengths. Everyone else was backing off and too many of them were still standing. Golly was fighting with his stone fists, pulverising flesh with each blow, but not doing critical damage. The archers other than Everlyn were still firing, but the arrows were little more than annoying mosquitos to their enemies. None of them finding eyes or sinking in unnatural distances, which implied to him that the first shot he had witnessed had been some sort of special ability.

“Fuck it.”

Tom leapt off the wall, aiming for the head of the closest living opponent.