Cathleen was moving up and down the lines, maintaining a distance between 10 and 15 paces from the fighting. Her well-trained perception field allowed her to keep track of the battle and update her orders as needed. And while part of her would have preferred to be crossing spears with her enemy, being the battle leader didn’t afford her that luxury.
“Collins, switch out your team with Hendricks and get your people healed. This battle won’t end anytime soon, so there’s no reason to risk it,” she ordered tersely.
After watching carefully, she nodded to herself in appreciation of how well her troops were performing. Despite the majority of them being penal conscripts, she hadn’t had any trouble with them. In fact, their morale was overall quite high, and their dedication to the cause was nothing short of absolute. Although very few were all that strong, they worked well together and looked out for each other.
Thinking of the penal conscript’s defacto leader, she used her perception field to track down the former assassin. Unsurprisingly, she saw him in the thick of the fighting, shouting out encouragement to everyone around him. Through her field, she could sense his conviction as he loudly declared, “FOR LORD WALKER!” before decimating another group of kobalds with his ability.
Shaking her head in amusement, she mentally turned away from the incomprehensible sight to check on the rest of the battle.
Her senses were suddenly distracted by a large shield erupting in front of a group of her troops. She watched as another surprising convert to Lord Walker’s cause lashed out at the kobald’s defenses, shattering an earthen wall with his shield ability. She had to admit that Captain Angleton’s skill at wielding such a defensive ability offensively was incredibly impressive.
Sweeping her perception field over the battle, she watched carefully as her troops pushed forward. While she knew the sergeants she’d appropriated from Captain Angelton’s forces were well-disciplined and capable, she refused to leave anything up to chance.
“Sergeant Blackwood, reinforce the left flank and take out that group of leaders!” she barked over the unit connection.
Watching the sergeant carry out her orders, she recalled how well he’d handled the breaching maneuver into the chamber. At first, she’d thought they would have had trouble finding volunteers, but she’d been pleasantly surprised at how the sergeant had handled it.
He’d wasted no time in finding willing penal conscripts who were willing to brave the suicidal duty for the sake of having their sentences reduced. When it was all said and done, the sergeant had collected the names and identification records of everyone involved while organizing the entire maneuver. She’d barely been involved at all. Between the sergeant and the former assassin, they’d worked the penal conscripts up into a frenzy, resulting in a surplus of volunteers.
As a result, casualties had been quite low considering how dangerous their breach into the chamber had been. Looking back on it, she believed they’d performed better than even a seasoned assault group would have in a similar situation.
Yes, all in all, she would say her experience so far as a battle leader had been a success.
Her self-congratulatory thoughts stumbled to a halt when she heard the unmistakable sound of a siege wyrm emerging from the kobald tunnel on the other side of the chamber. To see what was happening, she planted her spear and used it as a lever to hold herself up. Just as she thought, there was indeed a siege wyrm being deployed.
Sighing, she couldn’t stop herself from cursing at the kobald’s stupidity. Releasing such a monster into a confined space, even one as large as the chamber they were fighting in, was tantamount to madness.
While she listened in on the command web to hear how the army planned to handle it, she received a personal connection request from Lord Verena.
Opening the connection and immediately sensing Lord Verena’s panic, she asked, “What is it?”
“Nero took off to go fight the siege wyrm! He slipped through the crowd before I could do anything to stop him! Should I go after him?” he asked quickly, while his entire psyche was radiating worry.
Shocked, she unconsciously looked around at the troops who’d gathered under Lord Walker’s banner. “No. Let him do what he feels he needs to. I’m sure he’s smart enough to get himself out of whatever trouble he ends up in. Besides, I’m sure the evaluators are watching over him from wherever they are. They’ll be sure to keep him safe, or at least make sure he survives to learn whatever lesson they decide to teach him.”
Although Lord Verana didn’t bother responding, she was able to feel his acceptance over the connection before he closed it.
Returning her attention to the battle, she continued to wield her unit connection like a maestro using their baton to skillfully conduct an orchestra. As the battle leader, she had a job to do and to do it, she would need to keep her mind on the here and now. Meanwhile, the little lord would just have to take care of himself.
—--
Nero’s heart was pumping so fast he felt like his blood had turned into battery acid. This was exactly the type of feeling of adventure he’d been chasing since he’d arrived in this crazy world. Surviving on a knife’s edge, fighting hordes of monsters while running from certain death. He simply couldn’t stop himself from laughing like a madman and embracing the insanity.
As he ran through the confused kobalds, he could see groups of the larger lizards coming together to try and surround him. Apparently, having exposed himself by attacking the siege wyrm, he’d called too much attention to himself. Perhaps due to his incredibly low opinion of kobald intelligence, he found himself surprised at how quickly they had adapted to his particular brand of warfare.
Despite not staying in one place for more than a second or two, he could tell that the stupid kobalds were finally catching on to his game.
While he was occasionally able to pelt the chasing siege wyrm in the face with one of his spell shells, most of his concentration was busy dealing with the slimy lizards cutting off his escape routes.
‘Even dumb-ass lizards are capable of learning. Who knew?’ he remarked to himself with a smile.
While he hadn’t technically fleshed out this part of the plan, he was nothing if not adaptable. Besides, the middle bits of any plan were always a little tricky. But, he didn’t let it get him down. All he had to do was think about what resources he had available and come up with a counterstrategy that would see him out of his current predicament. Easy, right?
To buy himself some time, he rushed through the doors of one of the larger mud buildings the kobalds had put up. He ignored the surprised kobalds on the first floor and rushed up the stairs. Not knowing what the second-floor kobalds were doing, and not really caring, he didn’t waste any time before swiftly cutting them down without mercy.
Left with several kobald bodies spread out over what looked like an armory, Nero quickly tipped over a large table so he could use it to block the stairs. As a result, weapons and armor spilled out all over the floor. Not having any better ideas, he tipped the table over and used it to block the door.
Feeling the entire building shake as the siege wyrm let out another roar, Nero felt the hairs on the back of his head stand up. Something was telling him that he was really running out of time. He was behind enemy lines, surrounded by murderous kobalds, and an overgrown mutated Komodo dragon with a hate on for him and him alone.
He knew he probably deserved it. After all, the spell shells he’d shot at the siege wyrm HAD done a bit of damage, so it was understandable that the beast was hell-bent on getting its revenge. And while that HAD been the crux of his plan, he still felt the beast was overreacting.
In fact, it brought to mind the time he’d been caught smoking weed at a girlfriend's family reunion. It wasn’t like he didn’t understand what she had been angry about, but the level of anger she had displayed seemed a little unnecessary. Honestly, it wasn’t like he’d slept with her sister or something.
Panting hard to catch his breath, he felt the table beginning to buckle as the kobalds tried to force their way in. Leaning his back against the table to hold it in place, he closed his eyes and tried to think. He figured he had at most two minutes before the building was brought down on top of him, whether due to the siege wyrm arriving or kobald casters tracking him down.
Checking on his mage armor, he was happy to see it sucking in essence from the ether in addition to the essence he’d corralled into his compression field. Considering how much soul stuff he’d crammed into its identity, he wasn’t all that surprised to see it basically maintaining itself. The small section of his mind that was dedicated to managing it was barely taxed, and as a result, he felt that he had plenty more available in the brain tank.
Looking around, he saw several windows that the kobalds had probably intended to use as firing positions. Yet, for him, they would serve as a convenient, if slightly stupid, way out of this mess.
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Happy that he wouldn’t have to blow off the roof to make his escape, Nero concentrated on coming up with a solution to the growing number of kobalds being dedicated to tracking him down.
What he needed was a distraction. Or at the very least, a way to cause enough damage that they focused on that instead of him. Honestly, the fact that they were ignoring the giant siege wyrm wrecking its way through their defenses was more than a little flattering. He didn’t think he deserved this much attention comparatively.
As the table he was propping up began to fall apart under the kobald axes, Nero couldn’t stop himself from grinning at the idea he’d just had.
When considering what distraction he might use, he thought of a particular spell he’d accidentally created. Namely, the ‘sticky flamethrower’ spell he’d made when trying to come up with alternatives to his ‘acid ball’ spell.
‘This is perfect! It’s like all the stories back home. I’m utilizing a seemingly random piece of knowledge that I learned while on my hero’s journey to get myself out of a jam and defeat the evil monsters that have surrounded me,’ he said to himself happily.
Quickly reaching out with his essence field, Nero refreshed his collapsed essence reserves, noting that they were already larger than he’d thought they’d be. ‘I’ll have to look into that later,’ he dutifully reminded himself.
Setting the thought onto the metaphorical backburner, he focused on carving the ‘sticky flamethrower’ spell while linking it to his essence field over his shoulder. Having learned his lesson, he made sure to place it far enough away from his face to avoid another unfortunate accident. After all, it would be rather embarrassing if the kobalds he was massacring witnessed him injuring himself with his awesomeness.
Finished with his preparations, he took a few deep breaths to psyche himself up. Just then, he felt the wood split right next to his head. Jumping slightly in surprise, he glanced over to see an axe head being yanked back out of the table.
“OK. Time to go,” he muttered to himself.
Racing across the room, he leaped out of the window onto the horde of kobalds down below. Laughing madly in excitement, he cast an earthen pillar on the ground while activating the ‘sticky flamethrower spell’ hovering over his left shoulder.
Below him, the earthen pillar rose up to meet him while pushing aside the kobalds, meanwhile, he raked the flames across the crowd. He felt like he was spraying concert crazies with a firehose, and it was AWESOME.
Unfortunately, he misjudged the pillar’s speed and ended up directly colliding with it. Dropping his sword, he was forced to wrap his hands around the pillar like a koala while trying and failing to catch the breath he’d just knocked out of himself.
‘Well, that worked well enough… technically,’ he reassured himself while climbing up on the 3-foot square pillar.
Mentally spinning the ‘sticky flamethrower’ spell form, he watched in glee as the kobalds ran around spreading the flames. Unfortunately, he could already feel the siege wyrm barreling toward him on the edges of his essence field, and worse yet, another volley of spells was heading toward him from the kobald casters.
‘They really couldn’t give a shit how many of their own they end up killing in order to get me,’ he remarked to himself in pride.
Knowing he didn’t have much time, he stamped another turret spell form which he’d become increasingly familiar with. Grimacing at the mental effort it took to maintain all the spells he was playing with, he opened his center further, suffering the sweet burn of the soul stuff in the ether being rapidly changed into pure unadulterated ‘NERO’.
Wondering if this was what it felt like to mainline adrenaline, he laughed wildly while launching his spell shell at the siege wyrm’s snout. Not bothering to wait to see if he hit, he turned the spell form around so he could fire another shot directly into the kobald horde beneath him.
As he spun around, he was treated to a kobald spear deflecting itself off his forehead, not even transferring enough kinetic energy for him to feel it. Luckily, it didn’t throw off his aim too much and his spell shell exploded into a giant fireball, spewing dust and kobald parts all over the place.
‘Super mage-armor fueled by the souls of the dead for the win!’ he mentally shouted while uncontrollably giggling.
“Geronimo!” he shouted as he leaped off his pillar into the smoke-filled aftermath.
Checking on his flamethrower, he noticed that despite having fueled it with soul stuff, the essence it was pulling out was quickly draining his collapsed reserves. While the soul stuff could charge and fuel a spell, the spell form itself still built the spell out of the essence in the ether. Or in this case, since it was linked to the essence he’d collected, it created the flames out of his reserves.
Not knowing how he could keep the spell following him without having it linked to his reserves, he was forced to reach out and start gathering more essence through his field.
Mentally, he was really starting to feel the strain. Between having to pay attention to his feet as he ran through the kobalds, aiming the ‘sticky flamethrower’, maintaining his mage armor, and now collapsing more essence while on the run, he was beginning to feel a little loopy.
‘Ok… more than a little loopy,’ he admitted to himself while uncontrollably giggling at all the chaos he was spreading.
In the wake of his attack, his essence field was showing him just how badly he’d hurt the kobalds. There were fires everywhere, and that was before his former position was bombarded by the kobald casters.
“That’ll teach them to stop lobbing their spells like they were just expecting me to patiently wait for them to arrive,” he muttered while pulling out another pair of spare swords from his personal space.
Idly wiping his face with his sleeve, he noticed that his nose was bleeding quite heavily. ‘When did I get hit in the face,’ he wondered before shrugging it off and continuing on his way.
While he tried to stick to whatever cover he could find, it was rather pointless considering the fact he was constantly spewing fire all over the place. Luckily, he was able to still occasionally fire off a spell shell or two at the siege wyrm in between his bouts of essence collection… just to keep the big beastie interested.
He really needn’t have bothered, as the number of spell shells he’d already thrown had begun to cause some serious damage to the siege wyrm, and as a result, it was now quite out of its mind in rage. It was smart enough to know who was responsible for its suffering, and the entirety of its pathetic little mind was dedicated to wiping out the infuriating smooth skin with every fiber of its considerable being.
Nero, however, was currently far more concerned with the fact that he was finally nearing the other siege wyrm. While his original strategy was to somehow goad the two beasts into fighting each other, the closer he got to that part of the plan, the less likely he thought his chances of success became.
Between the number of kobalds now paying attention to the uncontrollable flames spreading all over the place and the siege wyrm dedicated to ending him, Nero couldn’t see how to complete the incredibly well-thought-out plan he’d come up with.
Turning a corner, he nearly stumbled into a wall when he saw a group of kobald casters standing there… waiting for him. Somehow, they’d hidden themselves from his senses. He should have known something was off when the small area looked completely empty of kobalds, but he’d been paying attention to too many things and he just hadn’t had the brainpower available to process the obvious warning signs.
Before he could backtrack, slip away, or otherwise avoid what was coming, he watched as the twenty or thirty robed and angy kobalds launched their spells at him from point-blank range.
With no better options, he instinctively ducked down into a ball while covering his head with one arm and protecting his junk with the other. Mentally, he turned his ‘sticky flamethrower’ toward the kobalds and threw the rest of his attention toward his mage armor.
Closing his eyes, he gritted his teeth and demanded that the mage armor hold. Not just hold, but HOLD! There was a moment… just a moment… where it felt like all of reality seemed to pause. He felt the ether shake as his mage armor fundamentally changed. It was no longer just a defensive technique tied to his mind and fueled by the soul stuff around him. It was now a fixture in reality… a true shield that had one and only purpose… to protect its owner from any and all damage.
Time started again, and he felt the spells explode. With his ethereal senses, he saw each spell alter the surroundings as its caster intended. Flames spread, acid splashed, and icicles exploded into razor-sharp shards. The sound was a cacophony of destruction that melted the very ground he stood over. Even with his eyes tightly shut, he could still see it all.
Seconds that felt like minutes passed before the spell fire ended. Nero, feeling confused, stood up and hesitantly opened his eyes, only to widen them in shock.
To his left and right, the surrounding buildings were in shambles. Fires were everywhere. The spell stone ground had been chewed up into gravel. But in front of him, he could see the kobald casters running around in panic as the spell form hovering over his shoulder continued to spew its fiery death into their ranks.
“I’m still alive…” he said to himself in wonder.
Barely believing his luck, he did what he did best and turned around intending to run away. Unfortunately, the moment he did he saw another horde of furious kobalds racing toward him, screaming and hissing to high heaven. Behind them, he saw the siege wyrm in all its glory, trudging forward while towering over them with its ruined snout due to his generous spell fire.
Glancing around quickly, he saw that he was well and truly surrounded by destruction… both imminent and present. The fires and broken stone under his feet, the smoke-filled air, the burning kobald casters, along with the injured kobalds emerging from the rubble of the building all around him, everything came together into a tableau of war that was straight out of one of those fantasy murals he used to download for the background on his phone.
Feeling his center overflowing with potential as it sucked up the soul stuff floating around in the ether, Nero reflexively refilled his reserves by collapsing his essence field. All the while, his ‘sticky flamethrower’ continued to spin around, spreading its payload out over the ground like a sprinkler.
Suddenly remembering something he once heard when he was a kid… possibly from his time enjoying professional wrestling, Sportcenter, or maybe just some old movie. Either way, this moment seemed especially appropriate for the quote he had in mind.
Pulling out his trusty shield, ‘The Wall 2.0’, he screamed at the top of his lungs, “YOU CAN’T STOP ME, YOU CAN ONLY HOPE TO CONTAIN ME!’ before running full bore into the flaming kobald casters, laughing madly the entire way.
The adrenaline was making his entire body feel like it was on fire, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. There were kobalds to kill and a brilliant plan to enact. He would not be stopped. He couldn’t be stopped. He was unstoppable.
With his shield leading the way, he plowed through the kobalds and out of the kill box they’d hoped would be his grave. Behind him, all he left were screaming kobalds who were too busy blaming each other to notice the siege wyrm bearing down on them.
In the distance, the kobalds could still hear the mocking laughter of the smooth skin who was quickly becoming something of a legend… one which the survivors would threaten their hatchlings with to keep them from misbehaving.