Sam shouted out their names into the air, relying on his powerful lungs to make his voice carry all over the city.
Two of the captains were out leading hunting parties, Ava and George, but the rest were in the city. A few minutes later, Eduardo came running in, closely followed by the others. Sam quickly told them about what the scout had informed him about, and as the fastest among them, Sam decided to go and collect them. Well, Eduardo was actually the fastest, but he couldn't keep up his top speed for long. In a contest of endurance, Sam would win every time.
He kept slow within the city, as it was slowly becoming more and more crowded with buildings and farms, and then picked up the pace as he left. Running across the leveled earth, Sam took in the surrounding plain. It was large and flat, the perfect accoutrement to a walled city. Any army camping out here would be very visible, and vulnerable to attack.
As Sam ran in the direction that the captains and their charges had gone earlier, he started to hear fighting. Sam went even faster, eking out every scrap of speed that he could muster. On the horizon, he could see a small group desperately fighting against a larger force, made up of a wide array of alien species. It seemed that the enemy scouts had found his people. Sam gripped his mace tightly, and charged. As he approached, a few shouts of alarm could be heard across the distance between them. Those quickly turned to laughter, and as Sam approached, he could hear a few heckling shouts.
“Hah! Another puny human, here to aid his pathetic allies,” one of the aliens spat as he laid into one of the faction members there. He was a large specimen, with long tentacles instead of arms, and each tentacle was crowned with a long spike. Those spikes seemed to suck energy out of whatever they touched. This army was a cut above the last one by the looks of it, unless the elites had been sent ahead for some reason.
The alien abandoned his attack, and sent one of his tentacles slicing towards the air at Sam. Obviously expecting it to skewer Sam, the alien had a wide grin on his face. He did not expect Sam to dodge it. He most definitely did not expect Sam to reach up and grab the tentacle with ease, before reeling him in like a fish on a line. Shouting in astonishment, the alien’s noises were quickly cut off by Sam’s mace. Upon seeing this, a few of the aliens ran. When Sam stepped towards the others, they ran as well. Apparently they recognized him. George and Ava gave him grateful looks as he stood there, watching the aliens running away.
“They just appeared out of thin air. It was like they were cloaked or something, and only became visible when they neared us,” Ava reported. Sam frowned. If that was true, then their advantage created by clearing out the woods would be made null and void.
“What exactly did it look like? Did they teleport, or did they phase into existence?”
“There was a short moment in which we saw the outlines of their forms, and then they appeared. So probably phasing,” Ava answered.
“Damn it. They must have some sort of limited invisibility technology. We’re not going to be able to see them until it's too late. However, how strong were those aliens?”
“They were at least as powerful as we were, and quite a bit more powerful than the people with us. They killed Jack and Diana,” George said, his face stony. Sam followed his gaze and saw two corpses lying on the ground. His face hardened as he looked at them. Death was not a stranger anymore, after the apocalypse, but it was still jarring for him to see someone that was under his protection dead.
“Let’s take them back to the city and give them a proper burial,” Sam said after a moment of silence. “However, I think I have some good news too.”
“What is it?” George said, frowning.
“From your description, it seems as if that was some sort of advance group, made up of elites. I doubt that the main body of the army will be equipped with those devices. After all, one of the scouts detected them. Unless that is only part of the army, and they’re trying to trick us. However, we cannot succumb to paranoia. We must proceed as if only the elites have this,” Sam explained.
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The others nodded and the group started to make their way back to the city. There were about 20 survivors and all of them looked a bit shell shocked from what they had witnessed. None of them fully knew the power of those further along the path to power. They had assumed, from the last battle, that all of the aliens were weak. That was most definitely not the case however. The most injured of the survivors were carried by the others, with Sam balancing four people on his arms and shoulders. He barely even felt the weight. He grunted as he felt more of a metaphysical burden on himself from the bodies that they were transporting back. He had thought that he was over the emotional weakness of his early days in the System, but this was just as fresh and as painful as when he had seen that corpse in the first moment of the initialization, if not more so.
When they reached the city, the gates opened slowly, even their creaks sounding mournful. Luckily nobody had started forming relationships yet, or Sam would have felt even worse about having to explain to a grieving loved one what had happened to their partner. Then again, that was a result of the fact that almost everybody had died. Damn, but the new world was pretty messed up. It seemed that high stats did manage to mitigate the effects of emotional torment a small amount, which only meant that Sam was not incapacitated anymore from seeing death. He was just a bit perturbed.
As the procession made their way through the city, people started to come out of their houses and buildings to see what was going on. By the time that they had reached the city hall, almost everyone in the town was following them. These were the first deaths among the faction members, and they were a dark tiding of worse times to come. Sam set down the injured gently, waiting for Lao to come and heal them, and he then carried the dead over to a clearing near the Dao tree that looked perfect for this purpose. Sam looked over his shoulder, and saw the solemn faces of thousands of people watching him. The spark of shyness that he had felt before did not even form this time, instead buried beneath a deep sorrow coupled with a burgeoning rage. His Dao was starting to build strength within him, and he was glad of it. Without the comforting rage, he would have lost himself by now.
As he contemplated what exactly his rage was reacting to, he felt something click into place within his Dao, and another piece of the puzzle that would lead to the next stage of mastery formed. He was still far off from upgrading his Fragment, but he was getting closer. Besides, he was by far the most potent Dao wielder among humanity. He had no need for more now. Then Sam remembered the lifeless corpses staring up at him from their purpose on the ground, brutally slain by uncaring aliens who only cared about wealth. A red haze began to rise up around Sam, and rather than harm those around him, it started to fill them with purpose. His Dao infected their hearts and minds, aligning them briefly with his own struggles. With a click, a new skill was formed, one that he had already been in the process of making, albeit unconsciously.
You have gained the skill [Arbiter’s Mantle:Epic]. You can now use your Dao to empower those around you with the concept of your Dao. This only works if they are in a similar mental state with you, and are aligned with your fate in a positive manner. The effects are the same no matter how many people you target, but there is a maximum range, which is that of your normal aura range.
Sam didn't even have the energy to smile as he saw this. Normally a new skill would be very welcome, but not today. There was also something in the description that he had never seen before. The skill had mentioned his fate. Was this something new that had been unlocked after he had stepped on the Road to Zenith? There had been something there about a Fatemark, whatever that was. Surely these two things were related. The effect ended as his mind cleared, leaving everyone around him with a strange sense of emptiness. Sam cleared his throat, and looked towards everyone. It was time for another speech. The words did not come easy to him this time.
“My friends, today we have suffered a great loss. The lives of everyone within our faction are inconceivably precious, and those who take them from us will suffer the consequences tenfold. These two promising fighters were stolen from their path, before they had even begun to explore the wonders of the Multiverse. They were not slain out of honor, out of treachery, no, they simply were killed because they were in the way. The scum that threatens our planet have no motivation save for the filthy lucre that they can strip from our corpses. However, there is a fine line between revenge and becoming just as bad as those we fight. We must kill them, that is sure, but we must also show mercy to those who surrender. This will be hard, but it is something that we must do if we are to remain a righteous faction.” Sam took a deep breath and then continued speaking. “There is no time to mourn now. We must prepare for the coming battle. This will be a far more dangerous fight than the previous one. This time, the enemy came prepared. We must fight with all of our strength, to preserve our legacies and the future of Earth. When all seems lost, and evil comes calling, what are we?”
“THE ARBITERS OF JUSTICE!” The crowd screamed immediately. Sam smiled. It seemed that they had found a new slogan. Then the smile vanished, replaced with the grim mask worn by those who were about to go to war.