ARC2 – WARZONE /C27 – First Contact

They arrived on the home world of Vivec, in an Empire in the northern hemisphere called Tartris. Vivec itself was a large planet comparative to Earth being approximately 8 times larger but with a similar atmosphere, located a similar distance from their Sun.

The local inhabitants, the Tartran, had already by now heard of the impending War, which had been officially declared by the Seracians. They hadn’t actually declared War as such but had stated that they were now the defacto rulers of the multi-verse, and expected every faction, neutral or otherwise to declare their allegiance or perish.

It seemed that there were few worlds that wanted Seracian rule, as all had seen what had happened to worlds under their control – they had become wastelands.

The technological might of the Seracians was unrivalled, except by maybe the Korinth Vanguard due to their incredible wealth but it was thought they would probably form an alliance.

This was also particularly unsettling as Hiroma reminded Sam that the Korinth Vanguard, were Vore worshipers and wanted their return. Now with the Order out of the way they had every opportunity to pursue that end.

So far their numbers were very small but it was Sam’s plan was to try and make a defendable base here, bringing any other survivors from Earth here.

Sam also received the news streamed from his AI globe that Earth had indeed been destroyed. Sam felt he should be reacting differently to all this but even this news seemed to be tuned out by his numbed existence. He was up and about but was finding it hard to move about due to his entire right side still being injured. To avoid people noticing he constantly used [Flight] to help him get about.

He also figured why not level everything he could. It wasn’t as fast obviously as in the MR but any advantage he could take, he would. He wondered if he could level in his sleep.

Sarah just seemed to be depressed understandably by their whole plight. He had cheered her and Maria up by introducing them to Traksis and telling them of his vore like abilities. This made Maria enthusiastic as ever do a first pump in the air and cajole him into heading off to the MR.

To be honest he had no clue had it had happened to Traksis. It wasn’t like he could transfer his ability through some kind of osmosis. Or was it? Sarah and Maria had both spent many hours training using him as a human psi-battery, in order to level their abilities. But neither of them showed any signs of change as yet.

He had thought it best to skirt around the issue of the Order tracking down Traksis so swiftly in the MR and almost capturing her. This made going into the MR a high risk activity. Maybe though while things were happening so quickly this was the best opportunity they would have to use the MR for training.

Sam had no idea what Traksis’s stats were now as even with [Flight] in full throttle he was having trouble keeping up with her. Traksis however read his mind and relayed to him all her current stats.

She had already told him about [Absorbing Regeneration] which she had acquired from her fight in the underground competition. It seemed one monster of a skill that also allowed her to increase her stats permanently. And Sam dearly hoped he could get hold of something like that. He got his AI to search all market places for anything that sounded similar.

Sam found out after some trawling by the AI that there was nothing in any listings for Tier-F or even Tier-E of that name. That would not be surprising as such an ability would he thought obviously be sort after. But this included the back catalogues where you could find out historically what abilities existed for each Tier. So how had Traksis managed to get a super rare Tier-F skill that didn’t even seem to exist?

Sam shook his head, at Traksis’ explosive growth. She seemed to be over taking his own in only such a short space of time. However this did give him hope that he could make similar advances if he could just learn how she did it.

Searching through the marketplace listings again his AI found there were very rare abilities in higher tiers that would be instantly sold if they became available. He could maybe try to get hold of one of those for when he could use it. Although there was the small matter of the price tag. Similar skills still sold for tens of millions of credits.

Sam checked his credit balance, seeing he had exactly 17,532 credits to his name. Could he ask Hiroma and the resistance for a loan of such an astronomical amount? He doubted even as a vore he could warrant that much.

Sighing internally, Sam just left a request with his AI to let him know if anything came on the market. Who knows maybe the market would become flooded over the next few days by people desperate to make some quick cash, to escape the upcoming war.

Also nobody even knew what the Seracians plan for the market was. Could they shut down the whole credit system? Surely they would still want trade to continue. But they might want to punish their enemies by stopping credit.

Sam put off such ruminations and entered the Mirror Realm (MR) to clear his head and gain some levels.

After a few hours, in the MR, with the others, they had not been attacked by anything other than each other. Sam checked his STATS:

Name: Sam Slait Level 16

Health Points: 264/264 Skill Points: 389/389 Stamina: 304/304

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Vitality: 22 Strength: 11 Endurance: 36 Agility: 22 Intellect: 100 Perception: 20

Acquired Path: PSI Tier-F Strand: null

Abilities:

Tier-G

[Telekinesis Level 118] [Psionic Drain Level 112] [Telepathic Illusions Level 119] [Tough Level 14]

[Pyrokinesis Level 100] [Cryokinesis Level 100][PSI FLOW Level 27]

Tier-F

[Kinetic Flight Level 89] [Opinokinesis Level 56][Energy Drain Level 76]

[Aerokinesis Level 64] [Cryo Wave Level 72]

His abilities were levelling nicely but it was annoying that despite all his fighting with the Seracians he had not gained one single level.

Levelling could only be done by absorbing cores and the Seracian drones and other mechanoid soldiers did not seem to drop cores. Or at least the destruction that Sam had reaped upon them had left little that could be identified as such. He had also been in to much of a rush trying to stay alive to search through the wreckage.

Hiroma told them that the Serician tactic of self destructing their soldiers was a common one to avoid their soldier’s cores being captured. But it was possible to extract cores even from the drones, which were powered by psi-energy.

When Hiroma discussed this his mouth scrunched up like he had been sucking lemons. Indeed as it turned out it was a most distasteful subject. Apparently every one of the mechanical soldiers the Seracians had was created using the core of a fallen enemy. This also meant it was completely random which ability you were likely to obtain from absorbing one of their cores.

Sam found that in general abilities were race specific as individuals only had the psi-energy to train a few skills. This pretty well always meant they concentrated on building up the skills they had from birth. There were exceptions though as there were great advantages to having a balanced team in battle. Meaning a physical attack based team (moders etc) could easily but out classed but a physic team.

Before they had had time to formulate a plan of staying or going, they found the Mirror Realm filling up rapidly with Serician drones, flooding the Mirror Realm like angry ants.

Sam’s group attacked or rather he and Traksis did, being far faster than any of the others present.

As soon as Sam was a safe distance from the others, he was about to hit the oncoming drones with [Cryo Wave] when he remembered that he needed cores not just for levelling but for much needed credits. So instead he chased tact and used [Aerokinesis] to trap the drones in a steel cage of air then used [Energy Drain] to safely dispose of them without causing any damaging explosions.

As the drones were dispatched he used numerous tendrils of psi-energy to drag their immobile bodies into a bubble of psi-energy where he could investigate them later.

The others in his group soon realised they could not really intervene. Sam’s air vortex was too dangerous to get close to and Traksis’s ability caused dismembered drone parts to rain down from the high above. This made both area’s no go zones for the rest of the party. This did not however mean there was nothing for them to do. Far from it.

The number of drones entering the Mirror Realm was ever increasing, this meant that many managed to get past Traksis or around Sam’s barrier. Those that got through were targeted by all the elemental attacks or long range constructor they could use, as no one had any flying abilities.

Hiroma had already seen that if this many Seracians were attacking via this particular Mirror Realm then the Tartris really was in serious danger. He felt for the inhabitants with some regret as he was sure the Seracians must have been alerted to Sam’s presences otherwise why send such a large force to an unimportant world?

Therefore Hiroma, left with some of the others to alert the resistance members that they might need to evacuate already. He found however that they had received no reports of any other Mirror Realms on the planet being targeted.

Eventually the tide of drones stopped, for the time being and Sam was able to exit the Mirror Realm and check his spoils. He was glad to see there had been no fatalities on his side.

But this still raised two issues. One should he stay in the Mirror Realm to defend the planet? Two if so how could he stop the drones that entered through different entrances exiting the Mirror Realm?

While he was pondering this he inspected the hundreds of drones collected and again was envious of Traksis’s ability. He would have to go through them prying them open like tins of sardines to get their cores.

Well as he had so many, Sam figured there was certainly no harm in a little experimentation. Remembering Traksis’s attempt to use his [Pursuit] ability to transfer psi-energy, Sam tried something. It had failed but it still gave Sam an idea.

Sending out tendrils of psi-energy to a few of the drones, he used [Psionic Drain] while raising [Energy Drain] to its threshold of 100 and waited expectantly. It was about time he got an upgrade.

[Energy Drain] broke through to level 100.

[Energy Drain is Level 100 break through to Tier-E achieved]

[Processing… new abilities]

[Tier-E abilities available:

Ok, he’d only got two choices this time around. Was that always the case for Tier-E abilities?

And the explanations were much vaguer than previously. Well, [Total Drain] just seemed like a straight upgrade from [Energy Drain]. A potentially useless one for him, as he could end up with nothing remaining of his enemies.

So he had no real choice but to except [Absorption].

Sam used it straight away on a drone. In his mind’s eye he could see the skill highlighting different parts of the drone. Interesting, he hadn’t had that before.

He mentally selected what seemed to be the drone’s core and felt a small amount of energy enter him. Then he tried to select an area of drones, several dozen and tried again.

Again he saw everything highlighted, the cores appearing as green. He selected and it seemed to have worked as he noted his levelled had finally raised by one. Yes!

Wondering whether to try [Absorption] on the metallic bodies of the drones, he decided not to for now. Hiroma might have some idea or even Traksis of the effects.

Sam was stunned for a moment as he tried to process Traksis’ new shape. She looked more like something of Seracian tech now. Her body intricately carved into mechanoid form.

She had clearly had been absorbing everything including their metallic bodies. How did that even work? Was the metal compacted? Or the excess converted? There was so much about her new ability that fascinated Sam.

She had been the length and size of his forearm but now he could see she was at least double the size, at about a metre in length. Her wings now a mesh of shimming metal and her whole body was a gold and silver mech. There was no other way to describe it in Sam’s mind. She looked gorgeous and not a little scary.

She had shot over to him from a few hundred meters away in only a handful of seconds. How did she fly so darn fast when she was so heavy? He had even felt the rush of air as she reached him. She must have been going at least 200 km/h.

As she alighted on the ground near him, he tried to inspect her body further. Traksis had no idea of the exact composition of her body, as her stats and abilities gave no clue to this. She did say her endurance, strength, agility and vitality had all greatly increased though.