Max was woken up by something tugging on his foot. His eyes flew open, and at the same time, he heard an urgent "Max" in his ear from Lavinia. His hand went to his sword, only to remember it wasn’t there. He grimaced and wondered why in the hell he hadn't worn any weapons. Wearing one probably wouldn’t have been a social gaff in this new world. After all, it had been almost five years since the Earth had been attacked by monsters. He was sure that some of the challengers on the planet had to carry weapons on them.
After jumping up, blood pumping, no attack came. He was still fuzzy-headed, though. With a simple effort of will, he sent a surge of mana through his body, instantly clearing his head and dissipating the fog in his mind. That's when he realized that what had woken him up was when a running person, maybe a homeless person, had bumping into him while running past. The man was all the way at the end of the alley now and turning a corner, not looking back.
“I saw that man running and wasn’t sure what was happening. I was ready to intervene with my spirits but it wasn’t necessary.”
A moment later, Max heard a crash and sounds of violence from a couple of streets over. If he had to make a bet, he'd bet that the man had been running from whatever was making all the noise.
“What's going on over there, Lavinia?" he asked.
"One moment," she replied. About half a minute later, Lavinia said, "A portal has manifested. It looks like monsters are coming out of it to establish a beachhead. It must be new but they’ve already done a lot of damage."
"Got it," said Max. He mentally imagined the streets between him and where the sound was coming from. “Damn.” While not perfectly in the way, Alfonso's restaurant was nearby. Any man who makes good food and is willing to spot a stranger didn't deserve to have his business destroyed by monsters.
He took a few quick steps, and Lavinia asked, "Are you getting involved?"
"Sure am," said Max.
The ghost girl paused before she briefly appeared visually, nodded, and said, "Got it."
"What kind of monsters are we working with?"
"Golems."
"Oh, shit. I hate golems," Max paused and frowned. "On that note, maybe I shouldn't just run out there without taking a second to get my sword. Beads might do the trick, but destroying more shit than the monsters wouldn’t be a good look.”
He reached into his pocket and withdrew a bone bead. "Are you ready, Saliron?" he asked. The spirit mentally pinged his readiness, but Max got the impression that Saliron was completely focused on the bone bead, barely paying attention to Max's words at all.
A few moments later, he'd opened the portal to his storage space and withdrawn Blackmist Incident. He put the miniaturized sword on his hip, closed the portal, and strode forward. When he exited the alley, he saw another handful of people running by, panicked, escaping the sounds of violence. Max turned in the direction they'd come from, rounded one more corner, and found himself in the middle of a small war zone.
Each golem stood nine feet tall, and although they didn't move very quickly, they were monstrously powerful. Max saw one casually pick up a car and shove it into the front of a building. The flickering portal was further down the street, and it looked like not many golems had left so far. He wondered what the odds were of a portal popping up right near where he had returned to Earth and decided that was something he could think about later. He didn't have the time right now.
Max sprinted forward directly at the nearest golem. It didn't become aware of his presence until he was almost on top of it. Golems were tough, but now Max was a three-star mana body Blade Sorcerer. On top of that, it felt absolutely wonderful to be back in a world as full of mana as the Earth was now. It felt like every breath he took, he was breathing in oceans of mana. Blade Sorcerers didn't exactly channel mana from the atmosphere like some other Paths did, but it definitely didn't hurt to have mana around.
And it also helped that Max was intimately familiar with how to deal with golems.
The low level golem, a big clay construct, took a swing at him. In a flash, Max decided how to deal with the situation and decided to stretch his muscles a bit. Max dropped to one knee, engaging a Slick slide beneath the huge arm. He spun on the other side, used his mana senses to pinpoint where the golem's core was, and then, in one smooth motion, drew Blackmist Incident, enlarged the blade, and cleaved into the golem. The blow cleanly shattered the core. Then he kicked forward off of the construct's back, turning his forward motion into a front handspring that transitioned into a sprint at the next golem.
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When he reached his second enemy, the fight went almost like the first. The second golem’s core was shattered at the same time as he heard the first golem’s body falling to pieces to the asphalt behind him.
And this time, Max decided to use the fight as a way to test some of his new abilities. The third golem would be his test subject. Max let the monster lumber towards him. The golem was painfully slow to his eyes, and he had to remind himself it was moving as fast as most adult humans could run.
He channeled mana into Black Mist Incident, but also, with an effort of will as he gritted his teeth, he manifested a bit of the concept of disruption, courtesy of Dura. Black sparks trailed from Black Mist Incident as it arced forward in a collision course with the golem's descending arm. When the weapon made contact, it didn't cut; instead, the golem's arm was blown off in a spray of clay and sand. Max blinked in surprise; his strike hadn't even been that powerful. The mechanics of his slash had been awkward, too. He'd been ducking just in case the strike had been ineffective.
Max spun and took a swing at the golem's leg next. The power of disruption was still manifested, so his strike almost removed the trunk-like limb.
Now Max was seriously impressed.
The golem legless staggered and began to fall over. The power of disruption had almost slipped from Max’s grasp anyway, so he let it go. Then, concentrating on his blade for maximum cutting power, he located the golem's core–in its hip this time–and destroyed it in one smooth, precise strike. This golem froze and began to fall apart like the first two.
Max darted forward and destroyed the last two golems on the street the same way he had the three before. The portal was about thirty yards ahead of him. It was reasonable to expect that with a portal popping up in the middle of a small city like this, authorities or other Challengers would have been called. Max was tempted to jump in the portal, but he restrained himself. None of his friends on Earth knew that he was back yet.
If he hadn't heard about the problems the Trifecta Guild was having, he wouldn't feel a need to be cautious. However, it could be that an element of surprise would be powerful depending on how future situations shook out. He was fairly certain that he would be able to solo whatever dungeon these third-rate golems had come out of. Doing so would definitely get a lot of attention, though.
He tsked and went to each golem body, collecting the crystals that had dropped from their shattered cores. As he waited to verify that no more golems would come out of the portal, he pocketed all of the loot. Then, sure enough, about ten minutes later, a group of people sped to the scene in a couple of blacked-out, expensive-looking SUVs. When they got out, Max counted seven of them. They glanced at the pile of sandy debris, all that was left of the golems, and stared at Max. He stared right back.
"Did you do this?" one of them asked, a middle-aged woman.
"Sure did. It’s been a while,” Max replied. He gave the destroyed surroundings a significant look. “Nice of you guys to finally show up.”
All of the new group scowled, and Max took the opportunity to examine them. At first, he thought that none of them matched, uniform-wise, but when he looked more closely, they all had on some similar colored equipment that united them as a team.
"Who are you?" demanded the middle-aged woman.
"My name's Max," he said. "I just returned to Earth from the Quartet hours ago. What about you all?"
"Oh, he's a new Returner," said one of the men in the group, a tall, thin guy with spiky hair. Some of the others nodded at that, and much of the hostility they'd been radiating evaporated. "We are with the Dark Lancer's Guild. We got the call that there was a portal break here, and we came as quick as we could.
“Took a while,” grumbled Max.
“Yeah, whatever,” shot back the middle aged woman. “This was faster than police used to be a few years ago before monsters came. Also, this area is portal-prone, so it's mostly uninhabited now. The majority of people who still live here are hardliners, stubborn people that won't give up their businesses or their homes. Also, it's not a real nice way to say it, but there are other places that are much higher priority for us to get to. Places with more people and importance. Challengers who are responding to portal breaks in this area are just slower to get here sometimes."
"Oh," said Max. He turned to look behind him at the portal. "So are you guys going to deal with this thing now?"
"Right now? Hell no," said another one of the men, a middle-aged guy with dark skin. He shook his head. "It's way too dangerous to just jump into an unknown portal. No, the way these things usually work is we secure the area, have a specialized team come in to evaluate the portal beyond, and then based on what they say, the our guild leaders or the National Guild Suppression Agency will decide what sort of group will take it. Either way, the rights might be handed out after a bid."
Max blinked, trying to make sense of everything he'd just heard. Very slowly, he said, "If I'm understanding this correctly, you're telling me that dealing with dungeons has basically become corporate."
Another one of the Dark Lancers, a young woman with sandy hair, made an awkward face. "I guess that's kind of true," she agreed.
Max frowned. "I see. Well, I don't think there's anything more for me to do here then. Unless somebody's going to try to take away the stuff I got from killing these golems."
"After the rubble, I thought it was clay men. They were golems?" said the middle-aged woman in surprise.
Max nodded and folded his arms. He noted where they were looking as they examined him. He got the impression none of them recognized the miniaturized Black Mist Incident on his waist as a serious weapon.
"Well, if you could deal with golems by yourself, it's probably even more important that you go to an office for the National Portal Suppression Agency and get your Challenger identification," she suggested.
Max had no idea what any of that meant, but he could decipher some of it through context, so he merely nodded. "Alright, thanks for the knowledge," he said. "Sorry if I messed up any of the SOP with how these things are dealt with now. But I saw a bunch of scared people running away from monsters and figured that, you know, I should kill the monsters. Not wait on paperwork first."
A few of the Dark Lancers frowned at Max's words and tone, but the middle-aged woman merely nodded. "I can imagine how some of this would look after you just got back. But trust me, it's what's working for right now. With what you just picked up, if you go directly to one of the branch offices for the Agency, or even any guilds, you should be able to exchange it for money. I'm sorry that you had to deal with this kind of stuff right after getting back from the Quartet, but trust me, this area is not what the entire world looks like right now." She gave him a half-hearted smile. "We already told you that we're the Dark Lancers. I'm the leader of this group. My name's Nancy Smith. If you see me around, say hi."
"Alright. Thanks," said Max. Then he turned and walked away, rounding a corner until he found the shawarma restaurant. The restaurant had an apartment upstairs and he was hoping for someone to be inside. He knocked on the window, and sure enough, Alfonso was there. The man was wearing his pajamas, looking absolutely terrified. He opened the door for Max and whispered, "I saw some of it. You dealt with the monsters. You are not weak at all!"
"Thanks for the vote of confidence," said Max. "I'm kind of done with sleeping in alleys. Do you mind if I crash on the floor?"
"Absolutely, go ahead!" said Alfonso. He shook Max's hand. "I'm so glad that I gave you food. By the time those other Challengers had gotten here, my restaurant might have been destroyed. Thank you!"
"Anytime," said Max. "But if you really want to thank me, in the morning before I leave, let me have a little bit more shawarma."