“Ready?” I whispered.
I received four nods, then sighed and raised my hands forward.
“Well, here goes nothing.”
The ground trembled momentarily before a large dirt wall rose all around the entire kobold settlement, slowly leaning forward to form a dome with a small opening at the top, much like a dead volcano.
“GO!” I said, and Nedror and Lyra grabbed a shoulder of mine each while Medru grabbed onto Phlora’s. With my gravity magic and Phlora’s wings respectively, the two of us quickly carried the entire party to the very top of the dirt dome. As soon as we landed, everyone split apart to get their jobs done – preferably before the kobolds knew what hit them.
The primary challenge in fighting the creatures of the 25th layer were the tyrannically powerful stats they got from being born as rank S creatures. I also theorized that since they didn’t get an opportunity to struggle for them or get a choice in what their final forms were like, they didn’t get much in the way of racial traits – mythic rarity races should have five or six of those, while most here have one or two only. Furthermore, according to Phlora, most used their stats as a crutch to avoid developing advanced classes.
Regardless, this weakness is what allowed the job of handling hundreds of rank S cannibal kobolds to exist in the realm of possibility in the first place.
As soon as we touched down, I began to funnel the rest of my mana pool into reinforcing the dirt walls, which also had much greater strength due to originating from the 25th floor, denying any direct attempt by the kobolds to punch through it.
Nedror and Medru took positions on either side of the narrow opening, ready to stab down at any kobolds that tried to climb to the exit. During the planning stage, we assumed that having to climb such a hostile incline would make up for our extreme numbers disadvantage.
Phlora hopped into the hole, spreading her wings and preparing to strike from above at any isolated kobolds as well as those who tried to climb the dirt wall.
Meanwhile, Lyra took position at the mouth of the opening and readied her bow to shoot back at any ranged attackers targeting either us or Phlora.
All of this went into motion at once, and instantly, the sounds of screaming kobolds echoed through the dirt walls. I spared a glance into the inside of the walls – most of it was dark, especially with the sun hidden. Where ’d expected the kobolds to immediately rush for the walls, I ended up finding their entire camp thrown into pandemonium.
Taking advantage of the darkness, Phlora struck with impunity, while Lyra let loose mana arrow after mana arrow.
“Hey now, what’s the point in my presence if you’re just going to kill them all like that?!” Nedror complained.
“That is a good problem to have, not that it’s actually the case.” Medru said.
“There’s hundreds of them still down there, and their leaders should show up soon to bring back order.”
As if rushing to prove Medru right, a trio of kobolds showed up and began yelling loudly at their disorganized men. In the meantime, I used [Appraisal] to see what we were dealing with.
[Kobold Lv. 23 – Cannibal Chieftain Lv. 24]
[Kobold Lv. 17 – Flesh Priest Lv. 22]
[Kobold Lv. 19 – Ritual Carver Lv. 29]
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Well, that answers where the forbidden rarity classers were.
“Merdu, signal Phlora to hide in the darkness! Lyra, shoot those three!” I said.
Merdu pulled out a small telepathic stone, which he’d stocked up on before arriving, and crushed it, sending with it a silent message to Phlora. Lyra, meanwhile, fired a storm of arrows at our targets, eager to end their threat before it began.
Unfortunately, that would have been too easy.
The flesh priest raised an arm, and the nearby flesh and blood of nearby dead kobolds rushed to form a shield in front of the trio, easily absorbing every last arrow Lyra fired. Instead, the same arrows – now covered with blood, flew out of the bloody shield right back at us!
“Hah!” I scoffed, launching a massive windball to crash into the arrows barrage.
The wind ball struck the arrows and blew up into a storm, launching the bloody arrows all over the camp. Without the weight of Lyra’s strength stat behind them, the arrows had no chance of killing the kobolds beneath, but at least they didn’t end up buried in our bodies.
As the chaos continued, the chieftain gathered more and more of the kobolds, while the ritual carver began to mumble a hymn. Slowly but surely, thin threads of mana began emerging from the surrounding kobolds into the body of the ritual carver.
I didn’t particularly study ritual magic, nor do I understand the Akashic variant of that spell, but one thing was very clear.
“Stop that kobold right now, or we’re all screwed!” I said.
Lyra launched another barrage of arrows, and I fired off a magmaball at the ritual carver. Lyra’s arrows forced out the flesh priests shield, and my magmaball struck right at it and got to work incinerating it. Unfortunately, while the flesh shield wasn’t going to hold for long against the magma, the magmaball failed to punch through and lost all of its momentum.
Still, even that attack was a distraction.
With another telepathic stone shattered, Phlora emerged from the darkness and lunged straight at the back of the ritual carver’s skull, steel claw first. The harpy’s attack came out of nowhere and struck with great fury, but it clashed against the chieftain’s bone mace instead, whose owner somehow spotted the attack and intervened at the last second. With a swing of his arm, the kobold practically launched Phlora away, straight towards the dirt wall.
The ritual carver’s hymn slowly began to ramp up, with the strings of mana slowly growing into thick ropes as the weight of his spell began to weigh on us.
The kobolds knew just as well as we did that that spell spelled our doom, and they were willing to throw their own bodies at our attacks to stop us from intervening.
I ground my teeth in frustration, with more than a slight hint of fear welling up in my heart. Even as an elemental, that spell held more mana than my entire reserve several times over.
Just as I was about to panic, something unexpected happened.
Nedror jumped into the hole and screamed.
“Weigh me at the bastard, girlie!” he yelled as he fell straight downwards.
“You idiot!” I yelled back, activating [Destined Collision] on the falling dwarf and the ritual carver.
The dwarf fell like a javelin straight towards his target, punching through the flesh shield sword first and slamming into the chieftain’s bone mace. With the sheer weight and momentum behind the sword, it punched right through the mace and pierced the ritual carver’s head, instantly ending his life.
The chieftain roared in fury and swung his mace again, throwing off the dwarf back into the air without his sword. Instead of letting the dwarf fall back down, I used [Force Lord] to pull him back up.
“Hahahahaha! I knew you’d pull me back just in time!” the dwarf laughed.
My brows twitched.
“Focus, the fight isn’t over yet!” Merdu yelled.
I put down the suicidal dwarf next to me and began to launch magmaballs one after the other. Sure enough, the flesh shield couldn’t hold, and the flesh priest quickly gave up on it and dispelled it.
The moment the shield went down, an arrow slammed into the priest’s skull and pinned his body straight into the ground, followed by another dozen that turned his corpse into a pincushion for good measure.
“Well done, long ears! This fight’s already over!” Nedror laughed.
By now, most of the kobolds gathered around the chieftain, who looked angrier than ever as he pulled out Nedror’s sword out of his mace and threw it away.
“We should crush them now that they’ve gone and gathered themselves up nicely for us.” Lyra said, funneling a large amount of mana into her bow.
However, before we could launch attacks on the kobolds beneath, the unexpected struck once more.
The cannibal chieftain struck at his own men, killing several kobolds where they stood. Shock froze us just as it did the kobolds, leading to another strike from the chieftain as he felled even more kobolds.
Instantly, what little order remained shattered, and most kobolds fled from the mad chieftain, while a few daring ones lunged at him.
“…What the abyss is going on?” I mumbled incredulously.
Meanwhile, the chieftain shrugged off the kobolds’ attacks and put them down in no time. Then, he yelled.
All the fleeing kobolds froze, then turned around and walked straight back at the chieftain as if some foreign parasite controlled their bodies. The chieftain began killing the kobolds by the dozen, and a red mist began rising from his fur.
“Let him finish.” Merdu said.
“He’s graciously sparing us from having to hunt down every last feral ourselves. We can deal with him afterwards.”