“You’ve almost got it, pumpkin! He’s weakened! Now all you have to do is-”

“Dad, please, shut up!”

Jason chuckled. He could almost feel the glare in Victoria’s nasal voice, the glare that would’ve accompanied the complaint if she wasn’t distracted.

Identified: Elite – Goretusk Hog

The huge warthog huffed loudly, its metallic, serrated tusks gleaming in the sun, as it tensed up for another charge at her. Vicky snorted blood out of her nose, its crooked shape rapidly straightening as it healed.

They’d been following up on reports they were getting from the north-west, reports of something disturbing, when they’d stumbled upon this stray elite. Vicky, the only Ascendant in their small expeditionary force still at Second Rung, had insisted on taking it down alone.

Ah, to be young and prideful again.

Jason had learned in his years as a mercenary that pride would only get you killed, he’d seen it happen enough times and even perpetrated it more than a few. If he had the choice, he’d never even go up against a Classless without a full fire team. They’d all learned that lesson when Joao, one of his Third Rungs, had gotten a spear through the heart. It turned out [Smith]-forged weapons don’t particularly care who wields them.

Still, it was important they kept the Faction Battery topped off, so his Support Classes could gain levels from working in his settlement’s buildings, thus they often slayed beasts along the way on expeditions. This was no different, except the reports they were investigating were… troubling. It required them to invade two Partitions to the west but not much in this area was strong enough to stand up against a group of Ascendants as strong as his.

The plan was to see what was going on around Marloth Park, then swing south towards the bunker full of food and secure it while his slower forces cut straight through with equipment for a protracted conflict if necessary. Luckily it wasn’t as urgent as beforehand, as they’d stumbled across another one on the way here. It had been full of people trying to ride out the apocalypse, but Jason had put an end to those plans, forcefully relocating them all into his settlement. The influx of people had allowed him to upgrade all the buildings in New Antoinette, his [Small Settlement], from [Primitive] to [Rudimentary] and designate the settlement as a [Capital] where his faction was officially based.

With a [Rudimentary Greenhouse] in his main settlement and [Primitive Greenhouses] in his other three [Tiny Settlements], along with the windfall of food they’d gotten from the surprise bunker, they were comfortably ahead of consumption and even building up reserves. As word spread of the stable food supply, more people would migrate in, allowing him to upgrade his buildings further.

Jason had hoped this string of good luck would continue and it seemed it had, with them encountering a random, isolated Elite that was perfect for Vicky to test her mettle against. Two, in fact, but the jet-black ostrich had run into a tree’s shadow and disappeared before she even stepped off the car. Not to mention the fact that he could intervene at any time, a luxury one usually didn’t get on the battlefield where most Ascensions occurred.

Lowering its head, the warthog charged again, activating a skill. Its tusks buzzed as the serrations rotated like a chainsaw, and it let out a squeal of anger as it bore down on the girl.

Victoria, his beautiful, headstrong daughter, small as she was, stood directly in its path, refusing to make any evasive motions. Jason manifested his [Flintlock Pistol], just in case.

Wielding her twin machetes, she let the hog run at her, taunting it as it gathered speed and fury. Just before its tusk would have brutally impaled her, she brought her machetes together, and with a golden flash, they combined to form one giant machete, with a blade three feet long and an almost unwieldy amount of mass.

Oh? That’s a new one.

Slipping to the side, she slashed downwards, or more accurately let the mighty weapon fall on the raging beast’s neck. He expected it to cut into the warthog’s thick flesh, get stuck, and have Vicky try something else.

Instead, it was like a vault door had slammed shut on the beast, as the blade couldn’t cut through its tough hide, but the force behind the weapon squished its neck into the ground, then cratered the ground, resulting in an internal decapitation. The other four Ascendants watching with him whistled, impressed, as blood flowed from the beast’s mouth into the soil. Jason grinned.

Vicky pumped her fist in victory, but Jason suddenly felt a spike of worry. She’d done it, but now she had to contend with the Trial.

Her body illuminated with the bright, golden glow, getting more and more intense. A horrible thought made its way into his mind.

What if she… no. No, she’s a Blake. This is nothing.

His worry mounted with the brightness of her glow until in a climactic blinding flash, she staggered out of her Trial… changed. Regardless, relief flooded his psyche.

Oh boy.

He hopped off the jeep to go help her as she tripped on the uneven ground. Drawing closer, he could see just how much the body reforging had changed her. She was easily two metres tall, at least six foot seven if not more. Her petite form had grown to a lean, musclebound and uhh, overtly feminine physique.

This might be a problem.

He turned back to the assembled men on the jeep as she draped herself over his shoulders, still disoriented.

“I catch any of you eyeing up my little girl or making her feel uncomfortable in any way, I’m shoving my [Bayonet] up your ass, slowly, understand?”

He saw gulps, nods and averted eyes from the group, though Tanaka, the young [Zimbabwe Muvaki], was clearly trying and failing. Considering even Vicky was older than the kid, he’d give him a pass. But not for too long.

He wouldn’t even have brought the nervous youth along if not for his useful Class, an Ascended [Heavy Engineer]. One of his abilities could instantly drop a stone wall in front of him, an ability Jason wished he could’ve had while he was getting shot at all across the continent.

The other Ascendants with him had also been chosen for their useful abilities, while the few remaining were back at New Antoinette, ready to respond to any invasions while he was away.

“Uuhhhh…”

Vicky groaned as she slowly recovered. Jason set her down in the jeep. She was heavy enough now that it tilted from her weight.

She’s not just big. She’s dense.

“You okay, pumpkin?”

Her eyes finally focused as she fully roused from her weakness. She looked down at herself and yelped.

“I’m fucking huge!”

“Hey, language!”

She sheepishly looked away.

She was, however, fucking huge, to the point she was now the tallest person there. Obviously self-conscious and unhappy with her change, she shrank down into her seat as best she could. He tried to cheer her up.

“You look really strong, sweetie. Like you could tackle a rhino!”

She burst into tears.

----------------------------------------

Jason ripped his burning [Bayonet] out of the last of the collaborators they’d caught. The smell of roasted meat permeated the air after all the executions, causing some of the survivors’ stomachs to rumble loudly.

He turned to Aboubakar, his second-in-command.

“Abu, can we not get these people some food? They’ve been through enough.”

The dark-skinned man shrugged.

“You have the same information I do. The food stores in this place have been split between the Mini-Boss and the bandits. You didn’t want to get bogged down here, but unless we’re going to escort these people back to New Antoinette, we’ll have to hit one of their strongholds.”

Perfect. Just perfect.

Upon entering Marloth, they made a great many discoveries, each more ominous than the last.

Firstly, a pig farm somewhere to the north had spawned an honest-to-goodness Boss, with a great many Mini-Boss and Elite subordinates.

Secondly, they were, according to the survivor accounts, fanatic about some cult of reckoning and obsessed with retribution against humans. The sorry-looking people they’d managed to rescue would have been destined for a brutal, painful, short rest of their lives if they’d gotten shipped off to the pigmen.

Which brought him to the third thing. The Partition had originally had two Ascendants in it who’d tried to lead several assaults against the pigs in vain. Bad luck, really, being trapped in a Partition with a Boss as Hegemon. Some of the Legends however, had thought it was a lost cause and made a deal with the beasts, luring the Ascendants into an ambush.

Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

Now, these treacherous Legends kept their small unofficial settlement in the ruins of the town safe by regularly capturing survivors and offering them as tribute so the Boss didn’t come down himself. They… sold their own people. To beasts.

Jason scowled.

“Fuck it, we’re doing both. We hunt the rest of the bandits down first, then hit the Mini-Boss. This will become our territory anyway once we gather our forces and assault the Boss. I won’t suffer this scum to live.”

Nods from all around. None of them would have objected if Jason had simply wanted to move on, after all they had a mission, but this was a chance to do some good.

Shuffling out of the abandoned playground they’d used as an impromptu killing field, they left the corpses laying in frozen terror, unburied. Something would eat them.

Seeing Vicky running his way from up ahead, Jason stopped in his tracks.

“Dad, dad, I found it! I know you said we wouldn’t be able to stay long enough to comb through the whole Partition but I found the bandit base! We can get them right now!”

Jason smiled as she slowed to a stop in front of him.

“It’s fine, pumpkin, I changed my mind already. After all, the first rule of warfare is to never leave enemies behind you.”

She rolled her eyes.

----------------------------------------

The assembled group gazed upon the wall of the Mini-Boss compound from their position just behind a nearby hill, set within a bed-and-breakfast it had expanded and fortified with brick and corrugated metal sheets, many thoughts ran through Jason’s head.

It built a base. With reinforced walls, guard towers, regular patrols, the works.

The last Mini-Boss they’d killed had been smart, but this spoke to a level of organisation many fighting forces didn’t even have pre-system. In fact, judging by its actions so far, that is gathering much of the available food in the region, capturing any survivors, and clearing roads of blockages, he would’ve thought this was a forward base for an invasion.

His eyes widened.

Shit, it’s a forward base for an invasion!

He’d never even considered that beasts could invade Partitions as well.

It’s possible the Boss isn’t even native to this Partition.

Which made it all the more imperative for them to decommission this place. It was encroaching on his territory. Once they’d secured the bunker to the south-east, he’d have to prepare a huge offensive against the beast, as it seemed to have an army of its own and the capacity to use it effectively, if this base was any example.

Taking the bandit base had been easy. This wouldn’t be. Jason would just have to prove that his men were up to the task.

He turned to Abu.

“Bombard them.”

Standard procedure at this point, Jason always softened targets up before moving in with ground forces. After all, the first rule of warfare was to always shoot first. Usually, bombarding a settlement before moving in would be done by teams of [Engineers] or [Gunners], but Abu, a Third Rung [Kushite Bowmaster], had one very useful weapon skill.

He held both his hands out in front of him, and a huge seven-foot tall bow manifested in a swirl of gold. Setting it upright on the ground, he braced his foot against the grip in the bow’s centre and pulled back on the string with both hands. A long, slim arrow appeared, one that shone brightly to Jason’s senses. It was packed with quintessence.

Drawing it to its fullest extent, Abu aimed in the compound’s direction and released. The arrow, now in flight, palpated in Jason’s senses, like a heartbeat. With each beat, the arrow grew longer, wider and thicker, its shrill whistle deepening into a dull roar, until its now limousine-sized bulk slammed into one of the guard towers with the force and fury of a high-speed crash. The tower immediately crumpled and cries of alarm sounded out from within.

Identified: Elite – Bloodseeker Porcupine

A cow-sized porcupine loped out of the main building, searching for whoever was attacking them. Abu unleashed another huge arrow, collapsing another guard tower. This spurred a few dozen of the pale, heavyset humanoid pigs to come boiling up out of the compound after the Elite.

The porcupine, having realised the direction the arrows were coming from, shook its body, rattling its quills. Its eyes flashed red, activating a skill, as a cluster of the javelin-like spines detached from the beast’s back and flew upwards in sync before racing back along the arrow’s trajectory right at the assembled Ascendants.

“Ready up.”

Everyone manifested various weapons or shields and either blocked or cut the spines out of the air. Everyone except Tanaka.

A single quill had stuck through his thigh, a quill that he immediately pulled out, but was now flashing red. There was no way that was anything good.

“Let’s go! Abu, give us a way in!”

The five of them hopped into the jeep, leaving Abu on the hill with his shield floating in a circle around him. He knew what to do.

Their robed driver, Athmane, an Ascended [Heavy Raider], gunned the engine and the jeep shot off down the hill. His class, [Tuareg Imajaghan], allowed him to create a small sandstorm around his mount, obscuring it from view and critically, nudging incoming projectiles slightly off course. Another devastating arrow from Abu blew open a breach in the wall, digging a furrow into the base grounds and crushing a few of the angrily squealing pigmen.

Yes, get angry. Call out the Mini-Boss.

The porcupine, whose spines were all flashing red now, let out a screech and fired off all its quills at once. They rose up in a cloud and split off on ballistic trajectories, arcing high above before speeding downwards. There were a lot of them.

“Athmane, faster please! Vicky, on the Elite with me! Tanaka, defense!”

Jason and Vicky stood up in the speeding jeep, him manifesting his [Brown Bess], her manifesting her [Winchester], which she could fire in bursts of five, both of them zeroing in on the porcupine, which was rapidly regrowing its quills.

Six shots rang out, one chewing through the beast’s back leg and one blowing a chunk of flesh off its shoulder, neither of them killing shots. The rest missed.

Shit.

Thebe, the final Ascendant in the group, a [San Hunter], manifested a small handbow with a slender arrow on it. Aiming at the porcupine now that they were in range, the short man’s arrow pricked it in the back, and it immediately collapsed, unconscious. That didn’t stop the quills however, still thirstily pursuing them.

Athmane activated a speed skill, and they blurred forwards, getting in underneath the spines’ trajectories and forcing them to turn, making them chase the group towards the hole in the wall that pigmen were now rushing out of.

The quills, hot on their tail, converged behind them in a swarm of angry projectiles. The few that had already hissed into the swirling sand had missed thanks to Athmane’s skill, but with that many spines chasing them, they would simply be buried if they caught up, skill or no.

Countdown initiated. Find acceptable food source before terminus.

The hell is this?

Count: 300 seconds…

Count: 299 seconds…

Count: 298 seconds…

“Daddy?”

“Ignore it, pumpkin. Let’s smoke this Mini-Boss out first.”

Athmane summoned his [Allagh], a long lance he extended out the front of the jeep with one hand, just before they bowled into the mass of pigmen outside the wall, spearing three of them straight through as they ran over several more, scattering them from their path.

It was only now that Tanaka decided to join the fight, and with a sweeping upwards motion, a four-metre high wall, thirteen feet of pure rock, manifested behind them in a golden burst. The spines all thunked into the wall, halted dead.

Aiming out either side of the jeep, Jason and Vicky both blasted away at the pigmen scrabbling to get to the car. Jason unleashed a [Volley Shot] while Vicky used her short-range [Blunderbuss] to clear the flanks of the car, which had finally driven into the compound.

It lay in ruins, Abu having mercilessly pounded the area with his ridiculous arrows. What was once a quaint BnB, then a monstrous apocalypse lair, was now nothing more than rubble.

Where’s the Mini-Boss? Underground?

The team jumped out of the jeep, ready to put down the few pigmen remaining in the courtyard. Athmane drove off to mop up those still outside and Thebe disappeared.

Vicky ran over to the unconscious porcupine and stuck her [Hwi] in its vulnerable flank. The strange sword started leeching off the Elite, growing a metallic wild dog with the energy as the beast withered underneath. Then another. Then another. Soon, the Elite was completely consumed while a pack of six metal wild dogs attacked on the Ascendants’ behalf.

The three Third Rungs tore through the remaining enemies, whose only advantage, numbers, had been mitigated by Victoria’s ability.

Once it was over, they found Thebe sitting down on a pile of rubble, a huge severed porcine head next to him. He shrugged at the unspoken question.

“Was underground.”

The worrying count was still ticking downwards in everyone’s vision, so after they had regrouped and Athmane and Abu were back with them, they picked their way through the rubble, making their way to the food stores, which Thebe said were in the basement.

In the cool, damp space, they saw piles upon piles of edible products. These guys were stocking up.

Yeah, definitely for an invasion. God, this adds an entirely new dimension to securing my turf.

Count: 3 seconds…

Count: 2 seconds…

Count: 1 second…

Ding!

Warning: You have been afflicted with The Hunger!

Affliction scales with number of Advantages and time spent active. Should The Hunger not be sated, Ascendant shall revert to Level 0 until the next affliction period!

Food imbued with quintessence will have a greater effect than food without.

And the Hunger consumed them.

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Jason woke up on the damp floor. Seeing no one else had roused yet, he took stock of whatever the fuck had just happened.

The Hunger has been sated.

It fucking better have been.

They’d savaged their way through all of it. All the food they’d just found. Jason frowned as he thought of the implications.

This is going to be bad.

He had no way of communicating with New Antoinette, but he had a sinking feeling he had just lost a good number of his Ascendants.

One by one, his companions awoke and he filled them in on what had happened. This made it only more imperative that they went and secured that bunker now.

Their plan was to torch this place, denying it use by the enemy, then travel down south, confirm the location of the bunker, then meet up with the bigger force in the forest his scout had mapped out. The Hunger had added a sense of urgency to their mission. They needed everything to go perfectly.

It was then that Tanaka woke up, the last of them still unconscious. Vicky teased him.

“You had enough beauty sleep, princess?”

The boy, who usually devolved into a stuttering mess when she addressed him, simply sat there with a shellshocked look.

“I… I lost my levels.”