Elite human fighter rushing the goblin horde.

The enemy falls like wheat before the greatest of weapons: the halbert. They crowd around their own instrument of destruction: A giant bone ram.

Charlie’s village chose a good, no, a great weapon as their staple: the Spear and Alex took that to the pinnacle. But I prefer to wield the best of them all, not a pointy toothpick.

Every other second another goblin falls as I efficiently nip at their heels. And even if no one in my vicinity approached my level of skill, the enemy still suffers at every one of our hands. Their mana shield is intermittent at best while moving at such speeds, roots growing in their path making the passage more difficult, shields of our own forming in random spots breaking their formations them and a lot of other surprises from Nash. But still, most of their steps are met with barely any resistance while they have that ram.

They get bogged once again and I make good use of the few seconds that finish off even four of the green fudgers in a sweeping attack. The nearest Shaman gives me a stink eye, probably wanting to shave a fireball up my backside, but instead, he focuses on defending against our own magical attacks more directly.

Their losses are unsustainable without strong defenses or the advantages of their territory. But then the muddy ground hardens and the bone ram touches the hastily constructed shield and root wall in their path.

Everything within a kilometer flattens out and our control of the mana grows shaky in that region. The shockwave rattles my bones nearly knocking me down. But I resist it with my stats, fed by the extra points Nash’s stat growth ‘powder’ allowed me: Soul Scruff is good stuff. My level of power allows me and thousands of people around me to not only stay on our feet but I actually use this last fraction of a second to kill one more goblin. Hundreds of humans are injured in their compromised position, but the enemy doesn’t stay to capitalize on their brief advantage. Their goal is to move and they don’t want to get further bogged down.

Hours pass in that same rhythm. Loses happen, but unlike most other times, the losses nearly exclusively come in the form of light injuries. Only the occasional lucky shot past all the guards hitting our weaker members on fatal spots is actually dangerous.

Today is probably the safest we have ever been in the middle of the fight.

Still, their choice of target seems odd. A rush towards one of the largest cities in the country, such as they are after the system’s arrival. That’s a 2 thousand kilometers trip. I try to understand, but it feels like I’m trying to grab hold of a fish in plain water, it’s simply too slippery.

Giza city.

It doesn’t sit atop some precious resource and though there was history there, only the soldiers stayed behind.

There is good access to water, strong walls and any attack on it may destroy the exposed infrastructure, but the enemy can’t think that is worth their losses. In the start, we saw arrogance beyond belief from them, but they had started to act more circumspectly. Occasionally they turn back or even surrender.

They have about 50 million troops and they lose nearly a million each hour.

Even with our own injury rate, we have better transportation and given the enemy can only sustain about 50 kilometers an hour aided by their magic. Not anywhere near the level of the elf wind runners, but significantly faster than they revealed until now. At this pace, they will arrive with at most 15 million people to attack the city. That doesn’t even account for the higher density defenses closer to the city. That’s when Nash’s and Pando’s help all the way from another continent will make most of the difference. Ten times the nature growth each second, way more mana available and carefully engraved defenses to be used simultaneously. For miles outside the city’s walls there were such preparations. With some luck, the enemy won’t even make it to the walls.

Their headlong rush down our gullet is a welcome change instead of fighting for every inch restricted in their territory… if it isn’t a trap. I can’t see how it could be, but better not to grow conceited.

------------------- .

Nash’s POV

They run past all the defenses I erect with ease. I save my strength and will to avoid burning out while keeping an eye on the Elves after so many hours of continuous battle. Our pointy-eared friends are just 25 kilometers away while my will starches somewhere a quarter of the globe away. Better not to tempt fate when I have the attention to spare.

The irony strikes me, that the only elf who could have pinpointed my location is safely hidden in the inner world in an isolated pocket and I was ready for anything. Those x-ray eyes of his could have spelled doom for so much if he had a proper chance to use them.

The enemy’s numbers keep dwindling. Not quite at the rate I wished, but as they get within a few kilometers of Giza, the magical formations and turrets start to make their damage past the simple individual shields and effort from their Shamans the number of goblins dives faster than ever.

A sliver of hope that the soldiers stationed at the city won’t have to face that ram blooms.

The enemy falls like mad and not only on a few spots as the best equipped and most talented melee fighters and magical users take to the field on the other side of the world, no, even the ‘average fighter’ we send eats into the enemy with the reinforcement of the runes below the ground. Field tuned to what they need at the moment allows for them to move faster, recover more quickly or reinforce their very bodies backed by the nearby mages with nigh unlimited mana budgets.

The elite troops hadn’t gotten there when the goblins set out but caught them just a couple of hours later.

The enemy’s number comes down.

10 million.

The ram with waves of spirits infusing it works in a way I don’t understand, allowing them to advance. But it can only blow so much mass away at a time. Prepared as I’m, brambles meters high, flexible enough to nobody can go over without flying magic and strong enough to be a hindrance pop up repeatedly in their path.

Fire magic is slow to open a path, but their ram flattens out an area hundreds of meters wide with each thumping wave. And seconds later the impediment is once again in fully fledged form.

6 million enemies get slower and slower as the defenses grow denser.

5 million. Then their straight rush changes direction.

They head to … the pyramids.

That’s…

My mind spins and I fail to understand their strategy for a moment. But then it all clicks together.

All that talk about Aether Icons.

I hadn’t discovered much about them and with my deep connection to Pando and his lack of any discovery on the real uses of them…

It slipped my mind…

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

But then stupidity of absurd proportions manifests right in front of me.

The pyramids were are outside the city walls. And they don’t have even a token defense.

I told the world that Aether Icons are important. I start to send messages even as anyone with an ounce of command experience would be able to tell that something had fundamentally changed in the flow of the battlefield.

I haven’t looked at Giza city since traversing the world to get my titles when I was ‘the only’ human on Earth. When it comes to Aether icons, my attention was usually on a few smaller outposts that needed help or somewhere that the enemy was actively attacking.

I spoke about the Aether Icon’s importance to the world but not a single pyramid of the Gaza complex is properly defended. I even checked the isolated Aether icons had proper defenses. This level of carelessness simply didn’t occur to me. Building a wall to purposefully exclude the pyramids.

My desire to crush something is overpowering, but I control myself and release the anger. It won’t help me at this stage.

One second passes, during which I let everything go. Then purpose comes and I push everything that I can in the enemy’s path. Dozens of messages go out while I construct runic formations, some of which I never thought of before this attack. Every size and persuasion of magical attack that I can imagine is summoned draining mana from the local stores freely.

I guzzle all the available external energy and transform it into a river of death.

Millions of roots growing and gaining mass.

I tell a story of the slog, the impossible maze, the challenge that stands tall, not meant to be impossible for the generations, but impossible at the moment. The image is not quite as concise and solid as I would like, but a thousand other efforts take their toll on me from both my main self and my other half.

I thank the heavens I send over the elite fighters.

Without them acting as the sharp tip of our spear, the enemy would likely be in a much better position.

Still, they are relentless, or rather, maybe because they have no other choice. Retreating had long ago gone out of the window, but they wouldn’t have been so intent and willing to sacrifice without anything to gain. We are faster, stronger and had more reinforcements while they had accomplished nothing beyond sending a few of our people to the infirmary and causing a token number of losses. They make a valiant effort until they are only meters away from the pyramid still with a million troops until they step over the stone of the largest pyramid of them all. I keep attacking without interference and even the wall’s defenders step out to directly attack.

My messages had gotten the right people. Even the Aether in the air told me that this entire situation is teetering on the brink of chaos.

We can’t allow that, I CAN’T allow it.

Seconds later in an organized manner they enter the two-shoulder-wide main corridor blowing through the hastily gwon defenses there. Pulses of mana seemingly empower by the very system destroys all the roots before they can do much. And though a few that had more directly felt Pado’s touch resist a few moments longer they aren’t enough.

Then the goblin's chanting brings what I fear.

I feel the system’s attention even from this far away. The exclusion zone slowly expands out from the core of the pyramid. It takes a few minutes for the three passageways to take in the dwindling number of enemies. Three shrinking circles of enemy combatants around the restored entrances connect to a wide chamber in the middle that could house a lot of people.

Yes, each second they lose way more people than they fit inside, but somehow I feel we have already lost. The ones outside simply give more time for the others to enter, and though I make the very ground tremble with roots explosions, making their coordination suffer, they still manage to get thousands inside.

As the last goblin outside falls and the fraction of enemies, stop halfway through the corridor on all three narrow corridors we start to advance. Our numerical superiority becomes nearly inconsequential.

Stone singers try to open up the corridors to allow more soldiers inside simultaneously, but even if their numbers are limited, THE territory is starting to change. There are heavy restrictions on growing plants and other forms of magic. A few of the faux inner world carriers clean up the corpses dealing with the main problem even as stone singers and fire mages back our melee fighters but I can feel the shift coming.

Casualties start mounting on our sideOnly made worse by the destruction of one of the greatest engineering feats of ancient humans. But we are fighting now and letting the enemy have more time seems like a really bad idea.

I grow roots in the form of runes, with several formations trying to increase the speed of some of our strongest fighters which seems like the best choice at the moment.

A few of their magic users and other fighters, start to pool their mana in the central chamber. They sit around in concentric rings, with greater and greater concentrations in the middle. I even sense the interaction of an Arch Shamam with a system’s screen. I record each movement, with precision to repeat his actions should I even encounter the same screen, but its contents are still inscrutable to me.

That screen feels important.

Out of everything, that seems like this is their actual goal or rather the step in achieving that goal. I sense a change in the current of Aether around my body all the way back near the Elve’s city and so I split my mind, not as I had done after a fashion to get a second mind skill, but simply paying attention to the two regions at the same time. A headache almost manifests as I try to manifest two perception fields, but the pyramid is so close to the roots that I manage without too much trouble.

The elves are all gathered in the central building. But this time, they are intent and even the second Arch Druid stands around with a resolute face. I can almost sense the system screen before him, though I have no idea what it contains. I can only sense, through inference that there is a single button he wants to press and is waiting.

This can’t be a coincidence. I run over the elve’s city and the goblins finding no further clues. My other half keeps an eye on the goblins as I pay attention to the elves.

I strain my perception trying to capture even the slightest change, the others, in their antagonistic relationship with their leader all prod him.

I can’t understand, but something behind their intentions screams their meaning:

“Go ahead, do it now.”

“Wait.”

“We are gonna be late.”

“Patience.”

“The enemy…”

“Will learn nothing.”

I absorb each of their twitches or involuntary movements, the signals in their brains, the sweat dripping from their brows and the tingles of anticipation through the second Archdruid’s finger.

He is getting ready to press it, but not yet.

We are so slowly mowing down the enemy reducing their limited numbers even with the restrictions of the system. Restrictions that are strengthing.

Our fighter’s moves are slow, but all of them had real stats just like I do. Not nearly as high as my own, but they are freer to move than anyone else on the planet. Shoulder to shoulder, they poke and thrust. The enemy's weapons are of similar size and make as they have the shorter-ranged melee fighters further inside.

But their dwindling numbers get harder and harder to dig into. Each confrontation takes more effort than the last. A little more work, a couple more slashes, our moves less precise, while the enemy grows faster, stronger. There is even a slight field similar to the stat boosting ones but it works differently. I can almost sense the system’s hand directly empowering them even as our efforts to open and widen passageways are pushed back with prejudice. Not even a single scratch mars the walls.

Then a single move of a finger from the second Archdruid puts an end to it all. Not the slow tap of indecision or the measured twisting of the keys to launching all of a country's nuclear missiles at their enemy. No this is the wild west and the fastest man to press the trigger of their pistol wins. Before what has happened sinks in, even with my sky high perception, I almost miss the changes. I’m covering most of the eleven city with my perception field but my human mind can only pay attention to so much.

Runic patterns start to grow underneath the cathedral which acts as a safe zone and I realize that was not an option, but the confirm button for said option.

The system’s gaze comes.

Connected as I’m in the moment, to what is happening and observing somewhere that I shouldn’t even be able to glimpse but I stare and record it all in detail. Every drop of potential in the elve’s city is drained by the system.

I realize that their version of system points has just been consumed in an instant. Background noise that I didn’t know was there is gone. That sensation of filling was absent and I only noticed it through the sharp contrast.

The system has extracted its price and I look out for a super weapon, an adamantine shield, a flying vehicle with which they could go anywhere in the world.

The enemy is problematic, but they couldn’t have guessed that we would be able to diminish their numbers so much. They have a couple of thousand goblins in the pyramid and we have orders of magnitude more than that. Millions of people attack and retreat, healing around the clock with mana to spare in both attack and defense, but the elves were still intact. Even as their territory suffers each second as we made camp and they don’t come to attack us with more than perfunctory attempts, prodding in search of weakness. I can almost feel as if the very last dregs of that potential are taken each second we remain inside.

We did this occasionally to spit them, but if there is a benefit to it, we should take the challenge more seriously.

Strange shapes fold themselves in recognizable familiar runes. A sense of connection of drawing together space and stepping through…

Horror strikes me, as the absolutely worse possible option that I could have imagined starts to form. Tiny runes within runes make a formation more complex than anything I had ever seen. The enemy draws billions of mana and on the other side of the world I already know what I will see forming:

A portal.