I look out and even from this distance and I can not only see their slowly growing island with miles of sea around it, but a city consuming that area. Though the outer boundaries of their territory, covering a lot of the ocean and even a little inland near our main fort hadn’t changed. I can pinpoint anything I want with the perception field, though given the distance is a little greater than my normal range, I rely on the network to extend my range.
On the edge of their territory, about twenty-two kilometers away our army assembles.
In the last couple of months, we stopped our large scale attacks. We didn’t want to push forward, though they had sent their troops out for brief skirmishes inside their protective bubble.
Fighting through their territory came with all kinds of restrictions on our movements and though everyone trained regularly to resist it, it wasn’t something simple to grow used to, like fighting with a weighted vest, it would always affect us placing limitations on our movements. The stronger version inside their city was in many ways less troublesome, given that a couple of steps back would bring both armies into even ground.
I imagine camping inside their territory came at a cost, even if only temporarily as we inhabit the outer edges.
With all our precautions, many of us died in these confrontations in absolute terms, but as a percentual comparison, it is almost negligible. They haven’t committed to an attack for ages, just probing away and getting their newer troops used to our combat methods while trying to find any chink in our armor. But even as they grew ever so slightly stronger, we also grew used to large scale attacks on the open field and more powerful shields. The spheres of death that had broken our defenses and killed thousands with their elders in command had lost a lot of their bite. Our own shield development aided by my skill of summoning something of the same nature to test took the number of casualties in unlucky strikes from thousands to dozens of dead.
The math is harsh and I know deep in my heart that if I was in command on day one, seeing even a few seconds of fighting would make me catatonic and immobile.
Now… I still care, but I also rage, I improve and I protect as many as can, based not on my wishes, but on reality. Weakness isn’t a virtue, virtue leans closer to having someone else’s fate in your hands and dealing with it carefully. And I will grow, to protect, to allow opportunities to any that I can to live for decades, centuries or even millennia.
I won’t become a mindless killing machine like a few superficially looking at my actions saw. I will seek a better path, but for now, bathing in the blood of the invaders seems like the least bad option. They had little to stop me yet and with all millions at my back, I have little to fear.
Our development accelerates to another level as each month a few people bearing faux inner world returned. They bring both modest additions to our coffers, knowledge that perhaps didn’t match ours in quantity, but certainly overcame our best researchers with likes of Merlin and the Necromancer added in the ring and what they learned with the opportunities that they had inside the instance.
Even the hundreds of thousands of letters are a welcome addition. I myself received dozens each month in increasing numbers as old acquaintances heard of my exploits, though in the end none arrived from the few that I actually wanted to hear from anyone but my new friends.
The knot in my gut grows ever so slightly, knowing that each day I don’t hear from someone grows the chance that will forever remain the state of affairs.
About 90 percent of humanity is back on Earth even with all the efforts of the people in the instance to connect all instances and extend that stay as long as possible.
Still, it was good to hear from my new friends. A couple of the forest guards that I interacted with had made their return to Pando and were intent on doing a better job of protecting him this time around. They coordinate and develop our defenses with the friends of the forest.
Especially now that a few of the forest guards could talk to the trees.
My mind comes back to the attack, as the march forward starts. Then a brilliant idea strikes me. It’s a Hail Mary but it will cost me almost nothing. I look at that same Elf that I only pitied for the last time I ‘walked’ those corridors.
“Look alive,” I say to him infusing him with Life. It is external to the real problem, but it’s also not fully empty energy like drinking a chemical stimulant. The streams of Life heal some of the chronic damage caused by the nature control rod, even if it doesn’t fix the underlying problems causing that damage.
He grows more alert and a cursory analysis of the chemistry in his body tells me it’s probably gonna last a couple of hours.
He is not a healer, none of them dealt with the ‘dark nature’ control rods. And something like this wouldn’t work on some that were mentally strong, but him… maybe a can convince the Arch Druid to join our side, even if by exhaustion.
“What did you do human?”
“Well you weren’t paying attention, so I healed your body. I can’t do anything about the underlying problem without a lot more study. But I give me a reason and I will take the time to help you out.”
“So you can heal. What do you want me to pay attention to?”
I raise a few illusions to show everything that is happening and to give him insight in the battle. I get ready for the performance of my life. Playing it up my nonchalant at what is happening a little and demonstrating that while they may be the mighty elves, I’m humanity’s defender and I hold to high ground.
If he had his full mental capacity, this wouldn’t probably come close to working, but now?
“You are here to watch the battle and how effortlessly I defeat you.”
“Illusions won’t convince me.”
“Then watch it all like you are out here with your own eyes.” I reach through space and with a root interlinking us I wield a type of magic I hadn’t used in ages. But Merlin had fixed the main problem with it, migraines. My eyes link to his and everything I see streams into his mind, he won’t be able to deny it. With the portal hidden meters behind him, he won’t have a chance to employ anything that might injure me in a critical moment through the portal. Then I expand not just the visual realm, but sounds, feelings, tastes and smells. I stream everything to him.
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“You will know the truth of my words when your side responds to ours in the same way as your training dictates. When the very Aether in the air sings of your defeat, even if you can only unconsciously feel it. I don’t lie, you will learn that about me.”
I drop, from the sky, dodging from side to side, even though I know that there aren’t any incoming attacks anywhere within a kilometer that can injure me, but I shouldn’t get into bad habits just because of my perception field.
It is very useful, but occasionally I encounter something new that while it can detect with practice, is not immediately obvious.
We cross into their territory in earnest, diving in under the restrictions and I make my moves as effortlessly as I can, though the extra weight and movement restrictions on me are negligible compared to even the strongest people on our side. We still didn’t know exactly why, but yet again I’m built different and my own choices seem to magnify that rather than blunt it. Like my resilience to the caustic void or the fact that I could increase my stats ‘without’ limit.
Though if before even a single stat a day sounded slow, now I need a lot longer for each hard won point.
This aspect I don’t even have to focus to make effortless. I can’t ignore the extra ‘weight’, but it feels like putting on a 2 pound weighted vest in the gym after a proper warm up.
The others however slowly go up from 10 to 20 to 30 pounds on their torso and beyond, binding their movements. Around their city, a few steps back would bring us to even ground, here the equation is different. We had to commit. But I had a few tricks up my sleeve that will mitigate the danger.
I feel for my soul, in the perfect state it reached after months of relative rest.
For the past several years, first in the void trying to come back to Earth as quickly as possible and then flying around our planet, I was in constant and chronic soul fatigue. I had occasional bouts of rest, but it wasn’t enough. It seemed like every month, every week, sometimes even every day something urgent prompted me to push myself beyond my limits. There was always a supply on the other side of the world that might save someone if it got elsewhere faster. Or someone needed a rescue, or the system poking its nose where it didn’t belong or an enemy with a new trick. I rode back and forth on the beyond the razor's edge too often spending time on the downward spiral. I never allowed myself to get stuck there, and the general trend had been upward, but at a much slower rate than if I had been more intentional about my rest.
But the world doesn’t conform to my wishes, instead, I grow and adapt to reality, and that taught me a lesson that I couldn’t have internalized nearly as well without suffering myself.
The breather for these last four months allowed me not only rest but time to experiment. I pushed in different ways and experimented with time to rest and grow beyond my limits each time.
Properly structured soul strength training.
Coming back to the present, I let my senses and willpower drag against the surroundings. I can feel space, not pushing to break myself, but like a handshake lets you get to measure the muscles underneath the skin. You simply know what is underneath even if they don’t try to crush your hands. It’s clear as day, if the 10 pounds of strength someone exerts is all he has or is the surface layer of a deep well of power.
Even with the restrictions I’m under, I can push farther than anyone else, but I can’t simply break the effect.
This battle won’t be like so many before, I know that we will suffer way more casualties than any of our fights until now. It isn’t something pushing for, but I agreed to its necessity and I share in the burden of the decision.
I will do all that I can.
Then the enemy army comes to meet us. They know we wouldn’t push to their city, but they don’t want us simply camping inside their place. So we meet 51 million troops while our numbers are just shy of 100.
But the enemy didn’t quake in their boots, nor are numbers like this something the human mind could fully comprehend. Tightly packed, they took dozens of square kilometers while we used over double for our own formations.
Then I push the ground faster and let the wind slide off me. Not just with my main form, the level 103 running skill, but also with my Qi guiding the air efficiently in close imitation to their wind runners. Nowhere near at their level of skill, but enough to give me an edge without wasting a lot of mana.
My form skips over everyone else’s relatively tame pace and I stand at the forefront of our army, just behind our main mana shields. A few seconds later, the battle lines collide with each other and their shields and mages behind them enter a contest. The kilometers long line of troops starts to widen and they probably want to surround us, but we hold the greater numbers and though we can’t magic our way into their flanks, they definitely won’t be able to get an advantage there.
Both our sides phase through our own shields, while restrained by the enemy’s permeable shield and then lets the killing start in earnest.
Swords versus the spear. Their lithe grace versus our muscle and enthusiasm.
I dive right on the battle line. Our soldiers can see me clearly, as I move amidst the enemy. A magical battle of even greater proportions to the siege of our main forward output starts. Their shield adds another layer of weight on me and but I still manage to advance some 5 to 8 meters before, I’m actually pushed back as the ground gives way even with my reinforcements. The others however only manage a few feet.
Our own magical developments are put to the test against their attacks. The hundreds of shield designs are meant to protect us from the higher energies they use to attack and pierce. Though, without the guiding hand of the Elder, even their best attacks are a lot less effective.
I spin my staff madly, a piece of equipment that for all its impressiveness when I first wield it, now is starting to show its age as other techniques starts to show up and the average level on both our sides closes the gap.
Especially that little 50 percent reduction in attack power. Still, I don’t trade it. It doesn’t feel right. I would be a more effective killing machine with a proper spear in my hands, even if I only relied on my own forging experiences with the severe material limitations I’m under. But that FEELS wrong.
I kill, I bathe in the enemy’s blood. I won’t close my eyes and pretend that want I do doesn’t have a cost. That anything I do has a cost. Closing my eyes and simply speaking platitudes of peace when the enemy is trying to choke me out is not a path I would choose. It’s not pacifism, it is simply naivete.
I won’t lie to myself and say that is what I seek. What I seek is greater. I seek a state that I won’t NEED to kill. Right now, I’m strong enough even without choosing a weapon whose main purpose is to kill, I can still play on the battlefield, and a staff is a lot more suited to me.
Blackwood knows me well. I will miss him.
Instead of complaining or doing something else stupid, the time comes. A synchronized signal goes to everyone that needs to be aware of the plan and then I start. I spin my inner world and place three walkways in the precise spots arranged.
I start to build my willpower, even as I feel my other half fully take over my body and three nearly invisible portals pop up behind enemy lines. I push almost effortlessly like I was expecting to deadlift ten tons but only get three or four on each side of the bar.
But then the system realizes my actions and it comes back with a vengeance.
Four meter wide squarish portals fully come to life and teams of highly trained people sprint out of the inner world in lockstep.
I can see the shocked faces of the ones in the back, the less experienced if there is such a thing amongst the enemy.
The ones that aren’t fully prepared to fight for their lives, are watching and expecting to fight later. They are instantly teleported to the thick of battle and how quickly they can adapt will determine the fate of this clash.