The village is awash with panic as the villagers rush to their homes boarding themselves in as the threat approaches. The screeching of the greater snow wraiths becomes deafening as the thundering of their sprint through the forest becomes louder and louder. The screeching of the five emit in a cacophonous discordance far more bone chilling than the winter air.
Seven men including Manny rush to join Ke’an at the entrance to the village, each carrying with them bolt action hunting rifles at the ready and crates to set up a small wall to defend. As the thunderous wails grew closer more of the town's defenders set up a makeshift firing line and hastily scraped together walls. Ke’an retreats back to Manny and the group of villagers. He looks at their guns knowing full well they are not up to the task at hand.
Normally enchanting a gun is pointless because the bullets themselves are what needs to be inscribed with lengthy runes and it must be on the bullet not the casing. This makes monster hunting rounds heavy and inefficient since they must be at least four inches long and composed of layered metal. Bows are more prominently used in monster hunting since the enchantment can be inscribed along the full shaft of the arrow. The stamps Ke’an uses to enchant items and especially his gun are one of his clan's most well guarded secrets as it could change the face of war forever. Faced with certain death Ke’an has a choice to make, die with his secrets or prepare everyone for what they are about to face.
Ke’an clicks his tongue as he mulls over what he thinks he should do. “Are you willing to lose a few of your town's bushes to power my magic?”
Manny nods his head quickly. “Better a few bushes than our lives if these things are greater wraiths. What do you need?”
“I just need time to set up the magic circles.” Ke’an says as he takes out his stamp labeled fire looking at it reverently then with a sigh he continues. “Everyone stamp their guns with this pass it around and make sure everyone does it once.”
“I’ll make sure they do it right.” System says as she steps forward.
Ke’an hands the stamp to System and rushes off to the first row in the orchard at blinding speed. Ke’an could feel that he was faster than he was even with the wolf attribute before. He could only imagine what the boost would do to his speed if he had it now. Even with the added speed he could not help but feel ill prepared for the fight ahead.
The berry bushes are about eight feet tall but Ke’an knows that individually they will not provide much in the way of life energy to fuel the magic they need. He draws out a circle on the ground which acts as the conduit to siphon the life of the plants. The area of effect would increase as the plants die. Ke’an is hopeful that it will only take one of the farmer’s fields but not foolish enough to not plan a backup just in case. He is able to draw with machine-like precision and speed thanks to his dexterity attribute.
Ke’an runs back to the entrance of the village joining the now twenty-four men that gather with rifles and gardening tools. System tells those without rifles to stay back as they will most likely just get themselves killed. They didn’t listen to her and are ready to face the wraiths and defend their village. By this point the men built a rather solid though hastily assembled defensive wall using crates, wagons and even upturned wheelbarrows. All they could do now was wait for the enemy to arrive as they all bunker down. System walks up to Ke’an and stamps both of her hands before returning the stamp to him.
“I don’t think that is how those stamps work.” Ke’an says with confusion lining his words. “They are meant for weapons you can’t enchant people.”
“These are my weapons.” She says as she balls her fists and does a quick jab. “The stamps are a great way to produce temporary and simple effects on items, however I know how to bend the rules a little bit. I did make the rules of this world after all.”
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“Okay, if you say so.” Ke’an responds dismissively.
“You could sound a little more impressed.” System says in a pout.
“I will be when I see it.” Ke’an says.
“Uh huh… just remember all you have to do is get one on the verge of death and then use your Regicide power on me and I will finish it off.” Systems says with offense at Ke’an’s tone.
“Easier said than done… Do you think I can use my editor to get rid of all of this snow?” Ke’an asks.
“I was thinking that too, but I think you should save it until after we see what we are up against. If the boss creature can summon greater wraiths I think we need to save it for that.”
Ke’an nods and pulls out his revolver while pushing what he thought was a small amount of his magic into the gun. The stamps convert the raw mana into intense elemental magic far greater than anything Ke’an had seen before. To his surprise the gun began to glow brightly as heat and fire radiated in bursts. Thanks to his intelligence stat his magic was far more potent than before. It is so powerful now that he was worried it would destroy his gun.
Ke’an looks at his minimap and sees the town lit up with green dots. All of the townsmen that have come to fight the wraiths with him have their name show up alongside System. It isn’t long before the long awaited emergence of the wraiths. Ke’an can see them appear on the minimap as red dots which he concludes means they are hostels and to his surprise it is only the first two of the five.
The greater wraiths are far different from the lesser ones. It is a demonic entity that takes on the physical characteristics of the first element it comes into contact with once it manifests. Due to their demonic nature they corrupt the element they incase themselves in. The corruption changes the properties of the element in abnormal ways. There is no way of knowing what abilities one will have or the appearance they will take, worst of all they are far more intelligent than normal monsters.
The first wraith breaks through the final line of trees sending them crashing down and which sends up a cloud of silver sparkles and dirt into the air hiding its form. Ke’an activates the magic siphon on the first field and everyone’s firearms begin to glow with heat elemental magic thanks to the stamps on them. The farmers fire wildly into the cloud, their bullets zipping through the air and leaving flaming tails behind them.
Ke’an, on the other hand, is waiting to fire his shots for when he has a clear line of sight. Ke’an’s mind clears of everything going on around him as his focus leaves him entranced in the moment. He can feel the gaze of the creature in the mist even at the twenty meter distance. All he needed was a line of sight and he would take his shot. After a few seconds of gunfire the farmers stopped shooting to take stock of the situation.
The biggest issue with fighting greater wraiths is the fact their powers can differ greatly from the element that makes up their body. A greater snow wraith is just as likely to spit fire as it is to freeze you solid. In a loud bang several spikes of what looked like ice shoots through the clouds impaling several of the exposed gunmen. The spikes moved at the speed of sound creating loud sonic-booms as they flew destroying anything in their way including the makeshift walls. Instead of freezing people the spikes turned what was left of their target into stone, after which they would crumble into dust.
The cloud finally settles and everyone can see the sleek crystalline body of the snow wraith in front of them. It looked like a massive centipede, a hulking leviathan that stretches the length of a train though most of its body is still hidden in the forest. The visible portion of the creature is well over one hundred meters long. It moved on grossly misshapen human arms that terminated in unnaturally long fingers.
Its carapace looks like rough ice and is riddled with bullet holes steaming with the heat of the barrage of gunfire. The body segments are lined in long spikes which glean in the sunlight in an eerily beautiful fashion, a disturbing dissonance to the visage of the rest of the creature. The head of the creature is the distorted frozen facsimile of a human face with rows upon rows of jagged ice teeth that spill out of its gaping maw.
The second snow wraith was standing on top of the first. It has the appearance of a massive albino gorilla with an extra arm that separates just under its right armpit. Unlike the centipede it did not have any bullet holes in its body and appeared to be unscathed. The ape reached down and ripped out the spikes of ice that grew from the centipede which caused it to yell in pain. It pointed at the town and screamed as it continued to pull and tear.