Does anybody like training montages? No? I'll save you the trouble then.
Isaac spent the week ramping up to the raid in intensive training, carrying buckets of water up and down the stairs of the only multistorey building in the village. He punched trees, actually doing more damage than Obbie did, and then, drawing from his San Francisco gym and rock climbing days, scaled the daunting cliff side adjacent to the village, retrieving bird eggs as an amused crowd watched from below. Since XP gain (now modeled as increased neuroplasticity) was boosted in the starter region, he was impressed at how quickly he picked up the basics.
After much debate, it was decided that he'd be best employed as a psychological weapon, word was spread that the Village of Tears had finally regained the long prophesied successor to the last Lord of Destruction, a being that had once terrorized the lands. Of course, this was over 22 million years ago, so nobody had any clue what they were talking about, but it certainly sounded scary.
Isaac tried out some of the other abilities his new class came with, such as the Cataclysmic Bombardment spell usable twice a day, which was sound and fury signifying nothing. At worst it could give you a mild tan if you kept it up. It did more damage to my console, which immediately filled up with a million error messages, but I simply ignored them, nobody had the time to fix that mess.
Many Akeni scouts retreated in terror as the winds howled and small mushroom clouds arose from the vicinity of the Village of Tears, and soon word spread that a long lost hidden magic system had returned to the world.
When the week came to an end, the raiding parties from the other villages had converged, ready to set out for the long march to the Akeni camp, all the way over at the other side of the crater.
Isaac walked amongst them, his cape swirling around him, moved by an invisible breeze. His intimidating pink armor helped cement his image, as he stood alongside the other warriors from the Village of Tears. Using the excuse that the Obsidian Blade was too dangerous a weapon and the Akeni too unworthy a foe, he'd been outfitted with a magic sword and spear, which while nowhere near as intimidating, could actually hurt what they hit.
While the raiders feigned confidence, fear still coursed through their veins. History still remembered the consequences of the last attempt at putting down the Akeni, half a century prior, but everyone wagered that decades of tithes had robbed them of most of their arsenal.
Isaac was useless at stealth, but none was needed, since the warband raised hell all along the way, in an attempt to draw in some villages that were still reticent about participating. Soon enough, a few dozen more joined their ranks and and their numbers swelled to couple hundred.
After they'd travelled till noon, the first sign of Akeni presence was spotted. The villagers gasped, spotting a fresh corpse dangling from the trees, with a warning that the same fate would befall any who trespassed into Akeni lands. To bolster confidence, Isaac went ahead and cut the body down, and a few minutes were spent preparing a funeral pyre. With the flames at their back, they marched onwards, crossing a known Akeni watchpost, already abandoned.
First contact was heralded by a shower of arrows, a village brave busy regaling the others with the stories of his prowess dropped to his knees, his boasts replaced by the gurgle of blood. Battle cries on their lips, the others rushed forth to engage the Akeni scouts hiding in an elevated position.
Isaac wore a metal cuirass beneath his decorative armor, but was still stunned by the first arrow that struck him, scrambling to cover and crying out in relief when he found that it hadn't pierced through. He quickly ran back into the fray, looking for an opportunity to strike back.
This is where he first saw an Akeni, the creature about as tall as he was, wielding a spear of silver metal. Outnumbered, it desperately fended off the attacks of two human men, managing to catch one off guard. It stabbed its spear through his calf, forcing the man to his knees, but was unable to land a killing blow. Isaac rushed in from behind, and without hesitation chopped down with his steel blade, landing a grievous blow that almost severed a limb. The Akeni roared in pain and dropped the spear, leaving itself open to a coup de grace.
Quickly acknowledging the gratitude of the saved, Isaac ran to the front, but discovered that battle had already died down, the Akeni more concerned with skirmish and retreat when they saw the numbers arrayed against them.
Half a dozen of the warband had died, a dozen wounded while three Akeni perished. While they hadn't used any of their rumored artifacts, these warriors often had Star Metal Armor, which was scavenged from the ship they had once arrived in. It was a sturdy material, capable of withstanding blows from anything that wasn't ensorcelled, but the Akeni didn't have all that much of it remaining, choosing to preserve full armor sets for their strongest fighters.
Isaac stood alone, looking at his blade which dripped with petrichor. He wasn't the kind to wrack himself with guilt, so after a moment had passed, he accepted that it had been them or him, and walked back to where the wounded were being treated.
He was surprised to discover that the quality of healthcare was certainly not in keeping with the rest of the tech level, first aid kits with medicinal herbs were kept at the ready, wounds were rapidly sutured and covered with a fragrant paste. Within seconds, bleeding stopped, and even severed limbs were collected and kept aside in an icebox for when they could be properly reattached. Only one of the wounded died, an Akeni spear having utterly disemboweled him.
The rest were stabilized, those who could still fight rejoined the ranks, while the rest were sent back under guard to a nearby village.
As the party moved ahead with better security, evening arrived, and the steep walls of the crater meant that darkness fell over the region well before the sun itself set. Isaac was surprised, he'd heard that pre-modern warfare often halted at dusk since the belligerents couldn't fight what they can't see, but then was handed an evil-smelling concoction. He drank it, and was surprised to see that his vision greatly improved, while he couldn't see in pitch darkness, it was certainly at a level where he could continue fighting under the light of the two moons.
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
He was informed that the Akeni had terrible night vision, and it was better to press the advantage now. The preparation humans could use was useless for their alien physiology, so barring rare artifacts or artificial illumination, they'd struggle to see in the twilight.
Soon enough, they came across the first lands farmed by the Akeni, and fields of alien vegetables that faintly glowed in the dark were set alight.
The warriors gathered and prepared to rush across the remaining open terrain towards the short palisade of the Akeni village. Potions were downed, conferring increased strength and agility, prayers were sent the way of the ancestors. Finally, a whistle sounded, and the warriors charged towards the walls with weapons raised.
This didn't go well. They'd barely gotten halfway across when an Akeni warrior, taller and better armored than the rest, reverently raised a weapon even its muscular physique struggled to wield. A quick incantation later, the multiple barrels that formed the bulk of the weapon began spinning, and then a hail of lasers speared the darkness.
Isaac had ensured that he wasn't leading the charge, so he had a moment to wisen up as the lasers raked their ranks. A Leopardman was the first to be hit, the ensuing explosion of light blinding the warriors closest to him, before the stench of burning fur wafted Isaac's way. Isaac screamed and threw himself behind the stump of a tree, scrambling to minimize exposure to the laser minigun. It continued firing, the pulsed lasers blowing fist-sized chunks out of anything it hit, and a score of half-naked warriors were killed without ceremony.
The fear of death brought clarity to his mind, for Isaac summoned Obbie, and swung it down on the ground, producing a massive explosion that threw up a dense cloud of dust and debris. This, combined with the darkness ruining the gunner's vision, meant that the majority of his shots failed to hit any of the onrushing horde. A man from the Village of Tears managed to reach the palisade, and tossed overhand a glowing vial. It flew over the screaming Akeni, and exploded the moment it landed on the other side. The blast turned part of the palisade ruptured into shrapnel, killing many Akeni and attacker alike, but more importantly, it disrupted the fire of the gunner. This brought time for a Leopardman, supercharged with combat drugs, who leapt half-way up the wall and then scrambled with his claws to clear the top. He immediately grappled with the Akeni leader, but howled in pain as the steaming hot barrels of the laser minigun were shoved in his face. The Akeni snorted contemptuously, and smashed his skull in with a Star Metal hammer.
Isaac used his last cast of the Cataclysmic Destruction, targeting the palisade. It didn't do any damage, but certainly caused confusion in the enemy ranks and allowed more of the attackers to pour into the breach.
He unsummoned Obbie, and threw himself into the fray, wielding his spear. I checked his vitals, and indeed, this uncharacteristic act of bravery was largely due to the potion he'd drank, as was the relative fearlessness of the other warriors.
The Akeni varied greatly in size, some barely five feet and change, and others hulking over the other combatants. Unluckily for them, they seemed to assume that the massive explosion destroying their defenses was due to the spell cast by Isaac, and scrambled to stay clear of him. Isaac engaged a smaller Akeni, who he managed to beat back into a corner even with his subpar swordsmanship. It cried out in misery, blood trickling down the cuts on its face and even dropped its weapon and sought to surrender, but Isaac snorted and stabbed it in the face, leaving it to writhe around on the ground.
Another round of cheers in the chat, who wants to watch some namby-pamby Isekai protagonist who's afraid of killing? Viewership metrics were up another 7% and rising.
He turned to where others swarmed the Akeni leader. It shrugged off many blows with its artifact armor, yet another intrepid Leopardman managed to find a chink in the plate and shanked it with a poisoned blade. Realizing it was no match, it screamed in frustration, detached the powerpack from its weapon and bit down on it.
Isaac came to moments later, ears still ringing as debris and detached body parts rained down from the sky. The human warriors had gone berserk, ignoring their losses and striking down the remaining Akeni. Only one of them had another laser gun, but he either wasn't quite sure of how to operate it or it had been damaged over the years, because he had scarcely fired off a few poorly aimed shots before an Elf domed him in the skull with an enchanted arrow.
What ensued was a slaughter. At some point, Lord Wang had arrived to oversee the battle, hovering overhead on a metal disc in a rare display of his Cultivator prowess. Some of the remaining Akeni fell to their knees and beseeched him for mercy in their awkward imitation of human speech, but he only sighed and turned his face away as they were killed. He showed more emotion as the rampaging attackers finally reached the Hive Nests full of Akeni Matriarchs and their young, but seemed to realize that there was no point stopping the slaughter now, when the race was as good as dead. He closed his eyes and turned away again, as an egg-laden Akeni was dragged out and ceremoniously disemboweled, the unborn young yanked out and spit upon swords.
The corpse pyres blazed high that night, and the low lying clouds over the Footfall Crater were stained with soot. The Akeni, stubborn remnants from a cross-platform promotional event several patches ago, were no more.