CHAPTER 89: Solo Raid

Normally it would have been an hour and a half drive. With no worry about traffic, speed limits or anything else, Adam drove as fast as his rebuilt motorcycle could go. He was pushing 150 mph, and truth be told, he wished he could go faster.

The frame was built of an alloy that combined earth metals with testudinate metal. The alloy was necessary since the density of the testudinate metal created too much weight. The metal had to be diluted, but with other elements that wouldn’t just break apart under that density.

Adam had no idea what the tires were made from, but it wasn’t earth rubber. Even at these high speeds, with some of the skids he had pulled, there was no smell of burning rubber from them. No friction degradation that he could tell, though they held good traction.

The drive had been so wonderful, and a bit dangerous due to no streetlights. His headlights didn’t show much in front of him considering how fast he was going. What he thought of as his danger sense was useless since it didn’t trigger from danger but from other people’s intent. Everything out here was dark and in shambles. Collisions were likely if anything was on the road or he didn’t know of a turn before it happened.

The roads hadn’t broken in the two months since the invasions, though it would be less than a year before they were overgrown or cracked with no ground maintenance or cars driving on it to keep the plants down. No cars were out or parked on the roads to create obstacles. Still, it was challenging making some turns and remembering which way to go.

A few times Adam changed directions randomly, hoping to see some invader hunting parties on the soul map. He had only heard of them before, never seen them personally, never had a chance to end them. It often took him a bit to find signs that he recognized when he wanted to get back to his planned route.

With the unplanned detours, it still took him an hour to get to his destination. It was a rock quarry. Or it had been a rock quarry. Now it was a merged rift occupied by invaders made of rock.

Were they rock golems? Or actual people? The scouts hadn’t been sure. Adam wondered how rocks could have a soul to contain a class. Ultimately it didn’t matter. They were invaders, and Adam would end them.

The quarry wasn’t a likely target for the Sentinel Army raids. Aliens made of stone wouldn’t be susceptible to stabbing, slashing, or most elemental damage. It would take mostly blunt force damage to beat them, which Adam had plenty of.

There also weren’t resources here that they needed. Rock could be found all over, and earth rock wasn’t very sturdy. Even the goblin rock castle had been sturdier than earth concrete.

Not to mention the distance to this base made it impractical to travel so far to it. Traveling between the rifts was one of their largest barriers to attack. It prevented reinforcements from mobilizing quickly. Too much fuel was required to use vehicles for all the people and supplies that were needed as well. They tried taking what they could from gas stations in the nearby towns, but there would always be a finite amount. Without access to new vehicle designs, fuel sources, unearthly resources, or just more knowledge, they would reach their maximum travel range in only a few months. Then their defensible range would rapidly shrink.

Adam could tell when he hit the invader base. There was a slightly foreign feeling in the air, a different atmosphere that gave away the changes to the planet. The paved roads suddenly became small rock spikes. The sides of the road also went from having trees to suddenly being barren of plant life.

Skidding to a stop, Adam stepped off and popped down his kickstand. He had quite a few weapons to choose from, but he would go with the best tool for the job, his trusty war hammer.

Pulling the war hammer from the long holster on the side of the bike, Adam pounded it on the ground a few times. He knew that it was impossible to approach a base without being tracked, so stealth wasn’t even a consideration for him. Not that he could stealth. Or that he would.

Today was about getting back to his mission, and to relieve the stress from the horrors he had seem. It was to get payback, both on the invaders who were forcing so many changes among humanity, but also on the world for being changed from the comfortable state he had been living in before the [System]. While it might be petty to take his aggression out on these rock creatures when they hadn’t harmed humanity yet, they were still invaders. Adam’s inner voice was telling him to conquer, demanding it while burning him from the inside, and that wouldn’t be denied.

Adam walked boldly in the dark of night towards where the quarry had once been. He felt the ground sloping down until he came to a split in the ground. It widened until it was about 18 feet across. The split continued downwards at a steeper angle, while the walls just stayed at the level the ground above had been. There was no ceiling, so Adam could still see the stars in the sky as he walked.

“Come on!” he shouted, feeling the echo and vibration down the slanted corridor. “I’m coming for you all!”

Still, there was no noise or movement. His soul map wasn’t showing anything on it either. The area felt like it was abandoned. Adam wouldn’t let his guard down though.

The one downside for Adam picking these enemies as his raid spot was that since they were made of rock, they had no blood. No blood meant no regeneration for Adam. Though when he thought about it, maybe they would have blood, just of a different type. Something alien.

Then somewhere in Adam, the thought solidified. You might not be able to squeeze water from a stone, but he would find a way to make them bleed, one way or another. There was no doubt in Adam.

As he reached close to the end of the sloped corridor, he felt a warm breeze coming towards him, along with just a hint of dim light. The walls opened to the side and he was on flat land again, even if it was gravelly and jagged. The ground would destroy regular sneakers.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The room, for he had no better idea what to call the area with dimensions of about 50 feet by 50 feet even as it still opened to the sky above the 30-foot-tall walls, had several furnaces and basins with molten rock in them. Quite a lot of corridors in the rock led to other areas, along with tunnels going into the rock walls. Adam had no idea what was in any of them because there was still barely any light for him to see by.

Along with the furnaces and basins, there were quite a lot of the rock creatures. They came in a variety of sized, from waist height to twenty feet tall. Some had round, boulder-like torsos while others had slender torsos. Each one had four legs with nubby feet that looked like a fancy end table come to life. The song “Be Our Guest” started playing in Adam’s head, as he pictured them as giant furniture moving around.

They didn’t have true arms or hands, but there were long protrusions poking out from their torso in four directions, like the points on a compass. These arms ended in three stubby prongs on most, swinging back and forth to reach either side.

Their motions were slow and made a slight grinding noise, like the joints of an abrasive toy. There was no head on any of them. No eyes for sight or ears, as far as he could tell. They were damn rocks, probably sensing through vibration.

The basins were filled with molten rocks and had the creatures bathing in them. Some of the creatures were working to pour the molten rock into molds. Adam wondered if that was how they made more, since obviously mammalian procreation wasn’t a thing for them. It would be interesting to read a dissertation on rock reproduction based on this room.

BANG!

Adam slammed the head of his hammer on the ground. None of the creatures turned towards him, but he guessed they were mobile from any direction. How could they not be aware of him?

BANG! BANG! BANG!

He continued the banging. The smaller of the rock creatures began moving away from him. They had “Pebble Worker” for a tag, between level 4 and 6. The larger ones had more diverse classes, “Slate Crusher,” “Rubble Shifter,” and “Boulder Smasher.” Those had classes between 11 and 14.

Adam waited until one of the slow-moving creatures approached him and then he swung his hammer. It hit dead center of the torso of a rubble shifter, between the arms and the legs. The thing shook and then fell over, cracks appeared in its torso, but there was no kill message.

The feedback Adam received through the hammer was also rather painful. The vibration from the impact had shaken his hands and elbows, through his joints and to his bones. Once more, levels and stats didn’t ensure victory.

Triggering his pseudo-skill for [Kinetic Impact], Adam’s hammer began to glow. It was a tiny light that diffused in the open space, but there was a comfort in it to Adam. The glow of power. His power.

A slate crusher took a moment to help up the hurt rubble shifter that Adam had knocked over. Then they ambled over to him. Adam would have no trouble out running them or dodging them. The length of his hammer’s handle would keep him out of reach from those pronged limbs around them.

They had their own way of fighting, though. They didn’t rush him, couldn’t rush with those slow movements. Instead, they formed a circle. There weren’t enough of them to really keep him from moving out of it, but the echoes from a few impacts make him realize that reinforcements were falling from the walls. They were literally coming out of the walls, as if they had been asleep in the chunky rock there.

A second circle was formed around Adam, blocking the gaps in the first. Adam roared, surprised that the vibration of his voice and his [Incapacitating Shout] had no effect on them. Then Adam charged.

He rushed towards the one he had hurt earlier, wondering how many strikes it would take to put it down. A hit with the glowing hammer in the same spot shook the rubble shifter backwards into a boulder smasher. [Kinetic Impact] caused it to fall sideways into the next creature in the circle. The distance they moved was short, and the power transfer from the pseudo-skill wasn’t enough to hurt them. It became a slight knockback against these sturdy and heavy invaders, and that was all.

It didn’t matter to Adam. He opened the spigot of power by using his only real skill, [Body and Soul Shaping], feeling more strength and heat reach him. Thoughts of the hopeless and desperate people who had spent weeks being cooked alive flitted through his mind, providing his river more than enough powered rage. The women and children they had found in the city caused his heat to pulse even faster.

The next swing of his hammer absolutely shattered the rubble shifter, pelting those around it with the rocks that made up its body. The rest seemed to take offense to that as their limbs swung back and forth with more vigor.

Petramus “Rubble Shifter [12]” slain. 598 XP gained.

Adam rushed to the other side of the circle and swung his hammer again. Two swings and a slate crusher fell.

Petramus “Slate Crusher [11]” slain. 534 XP gained.

Adam expected a gap to be where the rock monster fell so that he could slip out and fight where there was more space. Maybe kite the slow-moving invaders around with hit and run tactics. That was when he realized that a third and fourth circle had formed without him noticing. There were already a hundred of these creatures in the room surrounding him. He was truly surrounded and any gap he entered would have put him in a worse situation.

The Petramus were slowly moving forward, shrinking the circle, removing any space for him to move in. Adam pictured those men, those human men who had done horrible things to their fellow humans and how they felt it was appropriate. How easy it was for them to turn on their own due to selfishness and a sense of entitlement.

So much anger. His inner heat increased, and the river picked up speed as it became rapids. Adam was suffused with the rage. Before today it had all been towards the invaders and fueled by whatever changes to his soul the [System] had brought, the soul corruption. Now he knew that the threats weren’t just from outside the humans.

Sure, the military and government had betrayed and tried to assassinate him, but he had expected that. Mostly they were doing that to have something to fight the invaders with, just on their own terms, like Adam wanted to have. It had been selfish and wrong, but not truly destructive to their own kind.

Today he had seen a sadistic darkness in those people. They were stealing the very life and souls from people who didn’t deserve it and weren’t even becoming stronger or more protected by it. Their strength, arrogance, and entitlement were illusions from pathetic men who would crumble under the changes the apocalypse had brought. They just wanted to make a false world to live in until someone else fixed things for them.

It took a moment for Adam to realize he had been growling while clenching his teeth. Television, movies, and books talked about things like he had seen, but that couldn’t prepare such a sheltered teen from these experiences. Even the horrors of the invaders he had witnessed could be brushed off as them being monsters. But humans doing the same? That caused Adam an inner pain that even the soul corruption couldn’t smooth out.

Petramus “Slate Crusher [12]” slain. 575 XP gained.

Petramus “Boulder Crusher [14]” slain. 629 XP gained.

Adam felt the handle of the hammer bending beneath the impacts. There was so much rage inside him trying to escape. So much heat coming out with every exhale. His grip had pressed finger indents into the testudinate metal.

Dropping the hammer, Adam balled his hands into fists. They began to glow from [Kinetic Impact].

If there was no tool that could get the job done, then Adam would make the world a better place with his own two hands.