It truly is the most powerful group of humans that have ever been assembled, and I’m now very much on the side that this will be overkill, to the detriment of elsewhere. Many more have answered the call including people I don’t know, friends and associates of friends and associates. Still, if bringing a gun to a knife fight means we have hardly any casualties and can mop this up quickly then surely that’s a good thing. Maybe humanity really is coming together in a new way post the Influxes.
“Stop looking at this group like that, you dick. Of course it’s this big and they came when you asked. Do you really think anyone here wanted to say they had the chance to take on a Level 500 invader with Bronwic Cadimus, but they stayed at home?” Jeff says while giving me a backhand slap to the chest.
I laugh at Jeff again and consciously relax my face while I look around. Everything is pretty much set. Evan Low has sized all of us up and grouped us into 20 squads of roughly 20 people, each with a smart combination of Classes and missions. My group’s role, obviously, with me at the front, is to land right on top of Hvitserkur and try to take him out as quickly as possible. Four groups with most of the Legendary Classers will be supporting us along with air support from our spacecraft. The rest, mostly Mythic Classers, will be strategically entering Iceland near us to keep the rest of the Rock Trolls busy. Those groups are already on the spacecraft ready to drop out when we get to Iceland so that I can focus on just the five Portals that will bring us close to Hvitserkur.
I trigger Omnipresent and with a strong push of my will, overlay it onto my minimap and share it with Evan. From what I can detect, some of the Rock Trolls are spread out over Iceland but most are actually near Hvitserkur who is currently stationary on a big mountain in the middle of Iceland called Hvannadalshnúkur, part of the Öræfajökull volcanic glacier. It’s the highest peak in Iceland and I can’t help but wonder why Hvitserkur is there. Is he trying to activate the volcano? Enjoying the view?
Foresight is silent, but I expect that. The Skill tells me about threats about to be initiated against humanity, and in this case we’re the ones attacking. I wish Dennis was here with his Skill to calculate the chances of winning a battle given the plans in place. So many people and valuable Skills lost, so many dead. I pull my head out of that mental spiral quickly and refocus on what I’ve got to do.
“Aerial assault, you are green to go. Maintain agreed speed,” says Evan and I know it’s being picked up by the slim devices implanted behind his ears and passed on to the ships. We’ve agreed the timing of these Portals so that we all hit Iceland simultaneously.
“Twenty minutes for those ships to travel the thousand kilometers from Dublin to Iceland,” Evan reminds me. “Be ready.”
I nod as he darts off to finalize preparations with the others and I check the coordinates again even though my Skills and my SMI mean I know them already like the back of my hand, then set a timer in the corner of my vision.
“So, who’s crazy enough to come with the three of us? You know yet?” asks Jeff and I see Brodie shift his position then fix his hollow, glowing eyes on us. He’s the only one of Jeff’s group that’s joining us even though Andiar is a Legendary Class and he’s still one Level away.
“Got room for one more?” asks Jon as he flares his wings and descends next to us, then gives Jeff a nod.
“Gladly,” I say with a grin.
“Shit yeah, Jon!” exclaims Jeff. “Normal formation? Anything we need to know?”
“I picked up a couple new Skills, but nothing that’s going to help in this fight,” replies Jon. His dark eyes take in the group around us. Finn, Alana, Coumba, and some that we met at the last KCC plus a few new faces. Overwhelming firepower is an understatement.
“Make sure you use those Architect of Destruction Skills when we get there,” says Jeff to Jon. “None of us has ever taken on something this high Level before so there’s no game plan other than hit him hard and fast.”
We all return to preparing for the battle to come and reconnecting with people we haven’t seen for a while. Most are open with their Skills and progress, a few are still cagey and I can understand why. Eighteen minutes later it’s time.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
The other groups of 20 are ready. Skills, spells, armor, and items are all activated. I trigger Omnipresent and find Hvitserkur, who hasn’t moved since last time I checked. When I filter for Rock Trolls, who have a hostile reputation with humanity already due to the towns they’ve wiped out, I see there are still a lot scattered around Hvitserkur with him at the middle. However I also see that hundreds of them are making their way from Iceland, spread out and likely walking along the ocean floor. I wonder how many of them will make it past the Monsters of the deep ocean, then put that thought aside and manifest the first Portal. All 20 of the first squad dart through in under a second, followed by the next group through another Portal I manifest.
It takes ten seconds to get them all through and then I trigger a Portal to Hvitserkur. I try to find an angle to get close to him but it’s very difficult. He’s surrounded by solid rock and I realize that he’s not on the volcano, he’s burrowed his way inside it. Somehow he’s not even leaving an open trail behind him. In my mind’s eye of Omnipresent the conflicts erupt all around Hvannadalshnúkur and we have no way to Portal to Hvitserkur right now. I guess surprise is off the table.
“Retreat?” I ask Jon, staring into his dark orbs. He hesitates for only a second, maybe to use his Skills. If there’s a way to defeat Hvitserkur in theory he should be able to divine it.
“Full retreat, now!” he calls. I immediately open a Portal to the first agreed extraction point and we all surge through.
“Full retreat!” I send to the nominated person in each strike group.
The first group we’ve emerged beside disengages immediately from the Rock Trolls they’re fighting as Jon triggers Divine Retribution and floods them with powerful destructive magic that kills the less powerful and stuns our more powerful opponents. Five seconds later all our team is extracted back to Dublin and I open another Portal to the second extraction point. The AMLs are high here between my Gift of Gaia and the elevated levels from the Influx, so my Stamina doesn’t really even dip despite the drain on it.
My group powers through the Portal into a much messier battle involving several Rock Trolls over Level 150 along with large numbers of less powerful ones. Their hulking figures, similar in color to the environment, rumble everywhere. The ground shifts and cracks with their Skills to trap and injure us. Despite the chaos, in a second I size up the situation and the others react just as quickly. One of our huge, looming gray spaceships is above providing significant support with rail cannons that shatter Rock Troll bodies and plasma beams that melt them, but their prodigious regeneration visibly begins to pull them together and heal them immediately if they aren’t killed outright.
I trigger Guilty as Charged to put the lower Level Rock Trolls in stasis so they’re easy targets and then Fury of the Clan a dozen times and more which causes my Stamina to drop like a stone, pouding them as Jon, Jeff, and many more pile on the destruction. Freyja, though only a high Level Mythic, is especially deadly and throws herself into the thick of the danger without hesitation to take revenge for what’s happened to Iceland.
Level Up!
You have reached Level 16 as a Human Sentinel
+4 Aura, +4 Mana
+65 free Attribute points to assign
You have 65 free Attribute points to assign
Would you like to allocate them now?
(Y/N)
You have 2 unallocated Class Skill points
Would you like to allocate them now?
(Y/N)
I drop all the free Attributes into Constitution on reflex, even though maybe I should start thinking about other Attributes, and I hold on to the Skill point to build them up for when I get access to my next Tier of Skills at Level 20.
We mow through the Rock Trolls and I hesitate for a few seconds, wondering if we should change our minds on the retreat, then I open up the Portal to Dublin. Everyone agreed to this plan and even if I wanted to change it, now that it’s set in motion I’m not sure how I would get word to everyone in time. Humans break off from fighting the few remaining Rock Trolls and my group pulls back toward me while they pick off the stragglers. Another wave of them blasts up from the ground in a shower of boulders and debris, somehow hidden or transported here, and those of our team on the ground are into the air while some of the airborne ones in power armor or using Skills and spells take a hammering from the rock projectiles.
The last of this second team makes it through to Dublin under our cover fire and I open another Portal to our third team for extraction while Jon calls down Divine Retribution and I hammer the new arrivals with Fury of the Clan, my Stamina now under half. Even though my regeneration is ridiculous at over 1300 per second I curb my use of Skills to keep plenty in reserve. The charge of the new Rock Trolls is broken and half of my group is through the Portal when Foresight triggers past my threshold and I have two seconds of warning about the ground under me exploding. It’s more than enough with Acceleration that I’m well out of the way when ground under where I was for a hundred meters on all sides explodes like a volcano has gone off.