Buzzing annoying words of the humans distract me from important work.

Blahh bi da dlahh, bai dlahh, blahh blahh.

I do my best to ignore their constant yapping as the fusion of stars unfolds at the tip of my fingers. Attention is paramount, as this is harder than walking a tightrope without a balancing beam, it takes absolute focus to make any progress, but each day I do a better job.

…Mithirl…”

…the enemy.

….Mirithil mine…

….We are screwed. …

A few words pass the filter in my mind and then I realize the buzzing wasn’t the normal yapping. It’s actually important.

“What?” I ask and the entire lab turns to my avatar. The root body I inhabit even though it was actually only meant for Nash with his skill.

“Aren’t you directly tapped into the network? The enemy discovered a Mithril mine. We are assaulting it now, but… it doesn’t look hopeful. If they manage to establish a proper defense there we might as well bunker until Nash is back.”

Exerting immense willpower, I draw my attention from what is interesting and follow the slow words and then I pull on everything. All the scraps of data there is in the network, both public and moments later all the classified info. Not like anyone could stop me from doing it. 567 milliseconds later I realize how screwed we are.

The military projections are dire. The most hopeful estimates put casualties in hundreds of thousands to take the mithril ‘mine’ from the enemy and I doubt we could do it at all.

Millions are heading there and though they talk about Nash coming back to save us all, even he has his limits. Now is the best time to pick off the enemy, while they are sending reinforcements. Each one eliminated before they arrive to reinforce will make our job of driving them out easier.

I have to step up now and bring everything in my power to help. I might not make much of a difference, but even if all I can do is stop a thousand random elves, it will be worth it.

I look at my creation… our creation. It is not ready, it won’t be able to produce the real amount of power it has the potential, but it has to be enough.

“Everyone, we are transplanting this reactor in the ship prototype.”

“It won’t work.” Says one of the researchers and nods go around the room.

“Yes, yes, it will I have the plans in my mind,” I answer sending page after page nearly instantly drawn based on outlines I had thought about for ages.

Oh, the sweet speed of computers.

=========

Enemy’s POV, Mithril Source.

“I didn’t expect the humans would have been able to react this fast to us,” I hear from my buddy while holding my staff ready to cast death and destruction on the enemy’s heads.

“Don’t worry about it. We have plenty of reinforcements and they don’t have the gut to pay the price.”

“Maybe.”

“Do we have enough Mithril to power a portal back to our city?”

“We are finishing extraction now. Patience, the big hitters are going be available soon.”

“You ever seen a planet as crazy as this one?”

“No, nor of a source being found this early, but I’m not a historian. If the humans had gotten even a minimal defense inside, we might not have taken it, but they didn’t find it in time.”

“Bahh. Very few planets find sources this early on. The system is not helping them just yet. With how things are going and how strong they are, it will take ages for the system to start nudging them in the right direction. Maybe we will even find another couple of these places.”

The enemy approaches even as our reinforcements arrive and grow the defenses of burnished wood in this land of fear. Fear that the humans still haven’t properly learned to deal with.

Now, you are going to pay for everything if you choose to assault us.

============

Ajax’s POV

I sit on top of the enemy pyramid, in complete stealth with thousands of miles of transformed desert around. Many would call my actions a waste of Lifestuff. Indeed every hour I spend up here drains my Lifestuff stores, but only by a minute amount each day and the place helps me keep on edge with this aspect of my stealth training.

In my mind’s eye, the seed in my pushes a rough picture of what is happening below. Like a sketch or a painting of what it is observing. Connecting myself to the seed too closely somehow disconnects it from Nash and the gifts he passed on like the perception field. The seed can keep it at a few meters wide but neither version is enough to help me in combat, not as things stand. And that doesn’t even take into account how difficult it would be to maintain it at full power in combat.

That skill belongs to Nash alone and after a fashion, his Avatar seeds fight by themselves. ‘Third hand’ perception fields aren’t a thing.

I spend weeks recovering while looking for the smallest of exploits. The new unpatched dupping system. The endless source of Exp or the glitchy boss kill. I only have one more obstacle, I don’t even dread the actions of the system any longer. At least not compared to the Elves and goblin’s actions.

Entering the narrow confines with thousands of enemies is a death sentence.

Every thought I explored is completely unworkable. The enemy ‘never’ opened their shields, even if I somehow magically entered inside through the hordes rushing out to attack us as they had tried on occasion. I would be bumping against their physical bodies in the confined space.

And if they closed the shields with me inside. I would be stuck inside for who knows how long if I somehow managed to keep my stealth.

Weeks, months maybe years.

I could hide inside my seed’s faux inner world if I extracted it from my chest. But then the seed would be fully exposed. I couldn’t use my stealth skills from inside the inner world pocket. And that doesn’t even account for the need to open a portal inside. Sustaining a tiny one inside my own body to let the seed keep a connection to its roots and the mana batteries was the most I could ask for.

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The enemy’s pattern of movement shifts. The seed had an observation good enough that I don’t even need to rely on my life stuff senses.

Goblins teleport from their city to the other side of the world. Others stay in the tight confines of the pyramid. A ritual I don’t understand starts. A hint of Mirthil arrives from the elven city as a few Archdruids join with Shamans. The moment seems important. There is a trade they already agreed upon and now…

I get up with twitching legs and take a couple of steps, ready to make use of the opportunity if any present themselves. No thought, just action.

Everything happens at once, a column of mana thicker than anything I ever witnessed explodes from the top of the pyramid, shooting like a beacon toward the sky. Enough mana to fully expose me and make my flesh boil with mana burns.Maybe even enough to actually burn me to a crisp.

Even from meters away my Lifestuff consumption skyrockets to keep me in stealth.

The enemy is clearly doing something and then I see from the corner of my actual eye where the thousands that just disappeared from inside the pyramid went. A single moment to teleport past all the protection and shielding in place in the middle of our barracks. Some type of teleportation that took them less than 200 hundred meters away.

They started to wreak havoc attacking the half prepared troops there. Elven and globin magic users hit the defenses with enough power to obliterate most of them. There are layers upon layers needed to step out in full freedom in a critical place so close to our city, but even then it is bad enough.

Then I see the tip of a cursed bone ram leaving the portal to the goblin city. They can’t make the bends of the corridor but teleportation solves that problem.

Another leavy of Windrunners arrives from the elven city, this time not heading to the goblin city, but ready to rush out of the main corridor.

Wielding both the talismans of the elves and the shields penetrating formations they might be able to escape and we likely won’t be able to catch up without flying vehicles.

This teleportation must be fed by the pyramid, which even buffs the enemy enhancing their already scary coordination to rival even our strongest warriors.

Our own reinforcements seem muted and before I know what I’m doing, I’m on the corridor opposite to their mad rush. Its shields are down and there are heavy patrols along with a small stream of enemies even on this side, but now, with the teleporting, the limitation is no longer the corridors but the portal.

They must be burning their mana stores at unbelievable rates. But I don’t concern myself with that. I make the most of the chance I was given.

I simply step forward, not daring to actually touch the walls. If even our own side had pressure detectors, so the enemy might have much more. Streaming an unwise among of Aether to hide my actions and mana, I shuffle on the ceiling as fast as possible trying to avoid bumping into anyone. I ‘glue’ my hands and feet half an inch from the wall in practiced motions over and over until I arrive in the central chamber.

My heart thumps with such strength I fear even the sound dampening of my stealth skill will be overwhelmed. But nobody even glances at me.

Instead, I keep lizard walking on the ceiling until I’m in the middle of the chamber in the lowest ‘ceiling’ they constructed out of bamboo and drop along the central axis top of the sarcophagus, just past the pair of portals.

A pair of scouts look in my general direction as I frantically feel for the system’s presence.

They rush looking for any disturbance. But moments later I’m no longer there.

Instead, I’m in the dreaded place the system took me to inhabiting a ghostly body, in a dark forest with a message that I may not directly remember, but reading it rekindles something in my mind. Erased memories shaped and intended in my brain by the very scars the system put there.

You meet the parameters to unlock a legacy Class.

Error… system user already has a class.

Do you wish to switch your class from A&*MT#2 (Legendary) to Speaker of the Dead? (Mythic – Locked rarity)

Yes No

I hesitate only for the barest moment, before lowering my arm ready to tap the no. I take a deep breath with my fake body, ready myself to return and do it.

This is the same message, so it will meet the same answer.

New messages, rapidly stream until a new prompt asks me to make a choice, a much more palatable choice.

Error…

Fjjdh…

Error…

System user has rejected all the Egypcian legacies.

Hidden option unlocked:

Do you wish to switch one of your subclasses to Speaker of the Dead? (Mythic – Locked rarity)

My mind spins with the implications.

The end of my torment. Hints of the past before I poked at the pyramids grace me now. The possibility of getting my memories, back. The enemy was ready to kill me just outside.

The importance of my task while so many are dying for earth. I try to talk to my little seed to find the empty spot as I already knew was there.

My Aether is gone, everything that I could have used is absent.

But now I have a chance and grab it like it’s the last foot of rope keeping from dropping thousands of feet.

Yes.

My lousy level 50 subclassgest replaced. I will get ‘only’ 50% of the bonuses compared to a real class, but that is plenty for me.

I expect to now finally be able to explore the dead forest, but the barrier is still there and without a second of warning the system sends me back in the very heart of the enemy’s invasion.

I send a mana pulse through the comm rune in my belt of utility for help just as an elbow from a surprised elf catches me under the ribs.

The Goblin that did that is way more surprised than me.

I shoot out a dozen packs of self-moving plants before I take off running. Each moves with a hint of my stealth skills and illusions to distract and confound the enemy to my actual position.

If it delays them even 5 seconds, I will be safe.

I manage to dodge a couple of enemies going through the back corridor, as the warning goes out.

I pass another closing shield just in the nick of time, but instead of relief, dread hits me.

Before me is the last shield already at full strength. I have no idea what is going on with my reinforcements if any are coming, so I simply get ready to fight the only goblin in the same section of the corridor with me. Then, whoever is controlling the defenses activates the active part, not even giving the goblin inside a chance at life. Instead, they use the formations to flood the place with fire powerful enough to turn even stone into ashes.

Panic rises and tries to dominate my mind, as my flesh my own man child gets overwhelmed but I pull on a system skill that is supposed to be about stealth and warp it. I infuse all my Lifestuff and even the hint of whatever Nash gave me into it, not sparing a hint ready to burn it all for a chance at Life.

I don’t know where the knowledge and instinct to do it comes from, but I trust it with everything I’m.

As the fire washes over me, I’m partially ‘phased out of existence’ while at the same time becoming even more real. A strange interaction I can’t parse outgrows with the purpose that Lifestuff induces flows through my veins. I feel the burn get to me, but that means I’m not dead yet. I can taste the absolute certainty in my path that Aether can induce is only a millimeter away, but I keep myself at a distance. The dangers that most Aether wielders have to deal with every day, only now manifesting to me.

My skin shows second-degree burns even with my ‘perfect defense’.

I glimpse my path to freedom as the fire dies down. The rolling mass strained the last shield to such a degree that I now have a shot at getting through if I don’t delay.

I reabsorb most of the Aether left, but leave what would normally be a wasteful amount in my legs and take off toward freedom while asking my seed to open a portal to my faux inner world. I pull out a formation that hadn’t been precisely designed for this situation, but it's close enough. The seed in my chest struggles to accompany my speed, especially under the restrictions of the enemy domain, but it manages in time, so I swing the ‘talisman’ while infusing as much Mana and Lifestuff as I dare in the weakest spot in the shield.

Trusting that it will be enough, I slam the ‘explosive’ formation in the moment it it goes off against the shield. A nearly invisible mana spike disrupts the shield with a similar mechanism to what the enemy was doing to our own shields. So close to it, my skin tears and I feel weakness wash over me but a path to freedom opens up.

I poke my head and one arm out through the quickly closing hole, fully exposing my back to the enemy. I try to push farther just as someone from our side, the strongest warrior in the region wields a mallet that probably weighs half as much as I do. His skin shines with conflicting glows from two active skills coming up simultaneously.

I half expect him to drop to the ground twitching uncontrollably, but he keeps his wits about him and in a single move that would surpass even Nash’s strongest blows… he hits the shield.

The very air cracks with the impact and the pyramid vibrates.

Black spots show up in my vision. As another gobbling arrives and swings its sword at me. But arms that could have ripped tree trucks from the ground pull me into an embrace into safety.

Then another spell through the small hole in the shield and only darkness remains.