CHAPTER 62: Underground Teaching
The Terrenidon on the ceiling didn’t stand much chance. Swords were raised towards the ceiling and it quickly got trapped. The tunnels weren’t very tall, so men plus swords easily reached the beast. It tried knocking the swords out of the way, but that wasn’t enough as they just rose up to pin cushion it until it dropped to the ground.
Once it fell, Adam ordered five men to continue to watch it, making sure it was dead, while the rest jabbed out from around the soldiers with shields. The strength of the creature was enough to push the first shield soldier off balance, so the second was bracing him to keep him from falling. Even still it was close to drawing blood as the monstrous talons of the creature kept reaching around the shield. Fortunately, the talons weren’t able to penetrate the shields, made from the Testudinate metal.
That Terrenidon took several slashes to its limbs, allowing the soldiers to pin them and then put an end to it. As soon as they were done, Adam pushed forward the one he was holding. The soldiers didn’t question or complain as they once more stabbed forward.
Terrenidon “Crawler [7]” killed. 294 shared XP gained.
Terrenidon “Crawler [8]” killed. 327 shared XP gained.
Terrenidon “Crawler [7]” killed. 294 shared XP gained.
A few soldiers went to move towards the one that Adam had pulled from the tunnel, about fifteen feet ahead, when fog began to move into the visible area. Shadows flickered around them but dulled as the fog flowed in, bathing the floor in gray.
Adam stood to the side, watching, so Captain Krysti took it upon himself to give orders.
“Everyone back up. Hurts, Brick, shields back up. Space to the side of the tunnel to create one entry point. Line up behind them ready to stab forward if anything comes in,” he ordered. The fog had very quickly covered the visible area and was rising. Instead of just covering their feet, it was already chest height.
Captain Krysti called out to Adam, who was already obstructed from view by the fog. “Is the fog dangerous beyond blocking our sight?”
“What fog?” asked Adam, then stepped right next to him. The way the fog was rising it felt like Adam came out of nowhere, causing the captain to startle. Adam’s words also felt garbled.
“The fog! It’s everywhere! Is it dangerous?!” another soldier shouted, clearly panicking, the sound stretched and bent, playing tricks on the ears.
“There is no fog,” Adam responded calmly. Though the way the sound moved around, the captain could barely tell.
“If this isn’t fog, then is something messing with our minds?” asked the captain, now unable to see anything but the gray fog. With the sound behaving weirdly he felt like he was tripping on acid, and definitely not a good trip.
“Not your mind, no. More like your senses,” said Adam. Then he paused and said, “I’ll keep them busy. See if you can figure it out. You guys need to be able to get past things like this.”
The captain thought. It wasn’t mind control, which they had no idea how to counter. Adam seemed to think that they could solve this without him or he wouldn’t have left. He also said it was his senses. Sight and sound were being affected. The captain felt his skin crawling and sweating, creating a sense of panic.
First, he tried closing his eyes. That didn’t help at all, except turn his vision from gray to black. Then he covered his ears and tried to feel for vibrations. No sound seemed to reach him except the warped shuffling of his men. It didn’t seem to be coming from his ears. If it was his skin, then he didn’t think Adam would have left it to them. That meant he must be inhaling it.
Completely by touch, the captain pulled off his pack and reached into it. His fingers were feeling odd, sometimes bloated, sometimes stretched far away. It was more challenging than he expected to find his air-purifying respirator. It was a mask that could cover his mouth and nose, with heavy duty filters coming out of the cheeks. He slapped it on, took a few normal breaths and then breathed heavily.
The longer he breathed through the mask, the lighter the fog and sound distortion became. His skin was still sensitive and sweating, but it seemed to be working.
“Get out the breathing masks,” he called to the soldiers. Each pack had one. They weren’t high quality ones but Charles had made sure everyone had one in case of toxic environment.
The captain’s vision had cleared enough now that he could see the silhouettes of his troops digging through their bags. Once they began to get their own masks on, he crept forward until he could see Adam.
Adam was standing in the middle of the tunnel, in front of the propped-up shields. There were five of the Terrenidons that kept attacking him. Three of them stood back and had the tag “Mist Guards” listed above their heads, while two more had “Slasher” for a class tag.
The mist guards were smaller and had smoother looking gray skin than the others. The gill like flaps on their necks kept flashing red as a dust came out of them. Their claws were also much shorter and less menacing than the crawlers.
The Terrenidon slashers had small blade like protrusions from the side of their elbow joints. Their talons were less curved than the crawlers, making the captain wonder if they could walk on the ceilings. No matter what, each creature was a thing of nightmares to the captain. Horror movies suddenly had no appeal to him.
Adam seemed unimpressed by them all. He simply caught anything that came in arm’s reach and threw it back, causing a whimper or squeal when it hit the floor or wall of the tunnel.
“Figured it out, captain? Good job,” Adam said. The captain wanted to feel like it was patronizing but realized it wasn’t. Adam just didn’t seem to care enough about it. He didn’t judge them or criticize them unless it was for not wanting to kill the invaders as much as he did. Everything was about bringing everyone up to speed on the dangers and how to survive.
The captain realized that his vision was completely clear now. “Adam, why didn’t it affect you?”
“Their power levels are too weak. They would need to be at least Tier 3 to have a chance against me.”
“You’re Tier 3?” the captain asked, wondering how Adam could get that high this fast. He had read all the leveling information that Adam’s group had provided and knew it would be a while before any of his team arrived there.
“No idea. I don’t have a class. But I think I have at least Tier 3 strength, though I might be able to get stronger if I get angry enough. Right now, I don’t feel much. These Terrenidons so far are definitely only Tier 1.”
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Once the soldiers were recovered, they came over and watched Adam throw the Terrenidons around. Adam had them practice, in groups of five, defending and attacking one of the beasts. The speed and strength of the creatures was greater than their own, so they needed to work together. More than a few injuries and gashes happened, which Adam left to the three army medics that had come. Each had a [Support] class geared towards healing.
Over about twenty minutes, the number of Terrenidons had increased. When the dust that the mist guards used stopped working, they instead let out shrill squeals that seemed to call other slashers and crawlers to them. The soldiers could no longer hold them off, so Adam threw the creatures to the soldiers one at a time to kill.
Our levels are rising and we are learning strategies, skills, and weapons. Adam really is doing a good job. He’s not pushing us but also not coddling us, the captain thought. He’s even allowing us to get injured and healed so that we don’t fear the damage.
Once the 15 Terrenidons in front of them had been slain, one of the soldiers cheered. “Yeah, baby! Bring more on!”
Adam turned to him. “How many do you want?”
“How many you got?” asked the soldier cockily, having reached level 4.
“347.”
“What?” the soldier asked dumbfounded.
“347.”
“There are 347 more of these stupid beasts?”
“Not really. I was just throwing a number out there. There are a lot more than 347. 347 would be a pretty weak number for an invasion. I killed thousands of goblins.”
The soldier just stared at Adam with his jaw dropped. The rest began mumbling to themselves. The captain shook his head. Killing just a few wasn’t victory. There was no room to celebrate or let their guard down. They had to clear out the whole place. As Adam said, they had to protect the people.
***
The group sat huffing in a tunnel next to a large cavern that they had already cleaned out, trying to catch their breath. There were over 30 Terrenidon corpses in the cavern. Five hours had passed and the men were exhausted. One of the more support-oriented soldiers had been mapping all the tunnels and chambers, as well as counting the kills. They had killed 1,153 Terrenidons by now.
The soldiers were all up to level 9. While Adam’s group could have cleared it out faster, he could definitely see the difference between his group and a trained unit of soldiers. There was an efficiency here, even if the soldiers lacked the imagination to really deal with the unusual situations. This group had to wait for orders unless directly attacked, while Adam’s group had learned to work around each other and support, and to take what they thought was the best action individually.
Quite a few times the number of beasts was higher than the soldiers could manage, so Adam stepped in and quickly balanced things out. He still let the soldiers struggle and get overwhelmed. Their injuries could be healed and about half of them had their clothes torn up. They needed to feel the danger and the weight of these enemies, then overcome them.
Adam also hoped the Terrenidon skins could be used as leather, because they needed some clothes that didn’t get destroyed at the first attack. As desensitized to being seen in the buff as Adam had become, he really didn’t want an army of nude warriors running around. The teenage part of him immediately pictured a group of sexy amazonian women running around in bikini armor, or less, but as appealing as that seemed, once the blood and injuries happened then it would be a great big turn off.
Reaching into his own pack, Adam found that all his sandwiches were gone. He wasn’t expending as much energy here as in his normal fights, but he was still getting hungry. In about an hour they would either need to finish this, or to step out for rest and resupplies. In short, Adam would need more food.
Though the soldiers had done well, they could use some replacements too. It was impressive to last this long, amazing really, especially considering how alert they had to be with the tunnelers ability to jump out of the very walls at them, but everyone had a limit. They were also struggling more than his group to mentally understand the increased prowess their bodies had from leveling. All their training and exercising from before the [System] came told them their limits, and their minds couldn’t understand that they had moved past them. That was another issue his group hadn’t experienced.
Using his soul mapping, Adam tried to sense the nearby enemies. He could only sense about 50 remaining, but due to the number of tunnels, he had never been able to sense every enemy at the same time. That meant there might be more. He also didn’t sense a powerful soul indicating a boss, which confused him.
“Time to keep moving,” Adam said after another 15 minutes. The soldiers, to their credit, only mumbled some complaints and stood up while picking up their gear. They seemed to be in a haze, enough energy to keep going but shutting down their brains to follow the orders.
“Adam, I don’t think we should go on much longer. This rest was hardly enough,” Captain Krysti said. Adam had noticed the fearful and distrustful looks the captain had thrown him in the beginning. The more the soldiers had fought, the milder the looks became, until Adam felt like he really was being viewed with respect. He appreciated that the captain had been open minded enough to allow Adam to earn the respect.
“Don’t worry. I only sense about 50 more. It sounds like a lot, but you’ve been putting them down quickly enough and are now on level with them. I don’t know where the boss or owner of this rift is, so after we clear the last groups then we’ll leave. I’m concerned they’ll shut the rift barrier so we can’t get back in but I understand it’s been a lot for your men.”
The captain nodded in appreciate. “Thanks for thinking that. I’ve had more than a few superiors who would keep pushing us past the safe point, and none of those also took part in the fights. I’m sure you could have cleared this place faster than us, but it’s been good that you’re taking the time to train us up.”
***
The final group was large and waiting for them in a large cavern. This final cavern was circular, and like everything in this rift, it had rough rock walls. The size was huge compared to the other rooms they had found. It was about twice the size of a basketball court, and the ceiling was about forty feet tall. It was so tall that none of the crawlers would have survived a fall from it.
The troops deployed similar to how Adam’s group had done in the goblin castle. They set up just in front of the tunnel, so they had room to retreat, and they had enough swords to spread out a bit more. The group was absent of mages and ranged, but it shouldn’t be a problem against the Terrenidons. The medics also kept their swords out to ensure they gained XP from the kills, but stayed closer to the center so that they could cast a [Slight Heal] when they needed to.
Adam watched the tired soldiers tearing apart the group of beasts. It took about 20 minutes, then the last Terrenidon fell into the messy pile in front of them. Adam looked into his soul map and still didn’t see any other enemies, yet this room had no doors or exits. While the soldiers recovered, he walked along the walls trying to find hollow spaces. No amount of knocking or vibrations caused a difference in the walls.
Once he was about halfway down the room, already looping back from checking the other side, Adam noticed a brown crystal about three feet high in the dead center of the cavern. It had been hard to see because of the dim lights and the similar coloration of the walls. Adam jogged over to it, looking all around in case there was some guard for it. When he touched the crystal…
This Dimensional Convergence Rift has a controller.
Have the controller attribute permission to use the Rift Menu.
That confirmed it for Adam. The owner of this rift had not been killed during their fighting. He suspected the Terrenidons weren’t actually sentient, instead just guard beasts for this rift. None of them had done anything different then animals could do, nothing that Adam interpreted as learnable communication.
He headed back to the soldiers, unsure how to proceed from here. Their tired expressions told him that retreating was definitely the way to go. Unfortunately, while they had cleared a lot of the creatures, it did mean the owner of the rift could bring more through while they were away. All that effort was worthwhile as it gave the soldiers more experience, both for leveling and to know how to manage enemy spaces better. However, without being able to take control of the rift there was nothing to ensure they were protecting the area outside the rift barrier.
“We ready to head out?” asked the captain when he saw Adam headed his way.
“Yeah, nothing more we can do right now,” answered Adam.
Suddenly Adam felt something wrong. There was a feeling like part of reality stopped existing. A ripple occurred on both sides of the room, between himself and the tunnel they had entered from. The ripples were like when Jordan added or changed a building in their own rift.
It took a moment longer for the soldiers to notice the distortions. Once they did, they dropped their packs and pulled their swords, standing back to a defensive stance. The ripples spread out, growing until they were about 15 feet tall. Instead of a building appearing though, two giant Terrenidons stepped out.
Adam clenched his jaw and knew…the trap had been sprung.