The day was crisp and bright as the various sections of the Hegemonic Unified Army were assembling; although there was a wall of storms rolling past along the horizon.
There was often a wall of storms in that direction. Ros looked up in that direction as a particularly bright magenta lighting lit up the sky under the heavy grey clouds that seemed to stretch to the ground. The next flash was blue. The harpies were feuding again. Every time the hunters got distracted from controlling the population, the spawning harpies fought among themselves. If left unchecked, their path of destruction spread towards human settlements.
Resolutely Ros turned back to the army around her. The farmers were all strong enough to deal with the harpies by themselves. The harpies, the fire drakes, the trolls, and every other monster they could face in the Eighth Realm. Anyone too weak to defend themselves stayed in a city and worked for someone stronger.
Ros looked around at the proudly displayed company banners of the Hegemonic Unified Army.
The Grayshapers, who took pride in being the only First Realm organization to survive to the cusp of the Eighth Realm, were front and center as they had demanded. The Superhuman League and the Imperator’s Elite flanked them. Other smaller groups took less prestigious locations.
Ros and her group, the Wild Hunt, filled a corner at the back, not prestigious, not terribly well connected, but organized, professional and ready.
The humid air was warm enough that standing in the sun was causing rivulets of sweat to drench the waiting warriors under their heavy and impressive armor. Well, most of the mages wore cloth robes, magic ones, of course. The ranged and stealth fighters wore less metal as well, but protective gear is often heavy and almost always covers completely. It was really only the knights and tanks who were baking in their armor, covered by one new layer in Hegemony colors.
Nobody had complained about the thin silk uniform surcoats until the sun of the Eighth Realm hit the navy blue on the shoulders. Now there was a constant buzzing growl of displeasure, none of it spoken aloud.
Ros did her best not to shift or fidget while they waited. She really wasn’t used to waiting for a battle. Most battles seemed to involve walking long distances to a location, then duking it out with whatever monster den or beast hoard you went looking for.
Lieutenant Roslyn Moira Atwood(4th Wave) wasn’t used to being called Lieutenant, LT, Sir or ma’am. She had no formal military training except for her thirty plus years fighting monsters alongside her long term companions. Those same four companions had stepped up as raid leaders when humanity’s collective battle focus had turned from small parties of adventurers fighting small beasts to raids on large boss monsters with forty then a hundred then two hundred people.
The system of platoon and squad leaders their raid guild now had under the Hegemonic Unified Army was the same system they’d been using to fight drakes and dragons for the last eight years.
“Boss.”
Roslyn looked over at her First Sergeant, instantly answering the one title she was used to, “Yeah?”
Before the assignment of ranks the woman was formerly her best DPS Dex-Melee specialist, but always the person who was supposed to keep her safe and able to give orders while in the thick of battle with spells and combat abilities and gorram cannons firing off every second. Now she was going to take point for their unit while Ros lead from the rear, which she found uncomfortable, which was why she was standing at the front now, not in her place.
“We look good, Boss.” FS Andrea ‘Ice Fury’ Portillo(6th Wave) said, still looking with unwavering eyes at the army assembled in front of the largest single portal Humanity had ever seen.
The portal to the Ninth Realm, the Final Realm, had appeared nearly a month before, palest blue, like a wisp of cloud over a clear blue sky. The sky of the eighth realm was nostalgically like the sky back home. Blue sky, white clouds, yellow sun… the home where none of them were ever going to be again. The nostalgia prompted many people to vow never to leave. The army was the strongest 250,000 of the 1,111,110,000 people who had been plucked off their homeworld. It was estimated that more than a quarter of the disappeared, the humans who had left, made it all the way to the Eighth Realm. Ros was proud of her people, proud of how far they’d come.
The portal was an arch —a mile wide at the base. Immediately upon appearing it began to very slowly turn darker blue at the very center.
The portal was squarely across a wide green meadow directly in front of the Citadel where the Last Unified Hegemony of Humanity had its headquarters.
The entire Eighth Realm was united under the Hegemonic Banners of the two greatest legends of their age. Zhang We and Isabelle Molina, the Hegemon and the Imperator, incidentally not the two strongest, just the two who had teamed up with the Seer to set themselves in charge of all the warring factions. Who had, against the odds and expectations, succeeded in unifying all of them.
The portal had a timer which immediately began a month long count down, and now there were less than two minutes left.
“I have a bad feeling about this.” Hugh, the company’s first line tank (and the lieutenant’s bodyguard for this action) said, eyeing the counter. “If we know when we’re going, doesn’t that mean they know when we’re coming.”
“Portals are one way.” Andrea said, woodenly, no trace of inflection.
In those few words the two had finished another round of a conversation that had been chasing around Ros’s head for the entire month between the portal appearance and this moment.
The conversation didn’t change anything. They were still staring at a portal that was going to open in barely a minute. They as the top 250,000 warriors of humanity were still going to go through the portal as an army.
“Ready.” Ros said into her company voice chat. Her voice held the rock hard willpower of an angry woman.
“Steady.” Everyone she knew and loved back on Earth was gone. Whole eras of her life were laid out behind her in reference to who she was fighting beside when she lost which companion.
The last seconds ticked away.
“Just like we practiced. Don’t even shift until the rank in front of you takes their first step.”
Even the warriors she led saw her as alone at the top of their ranks. She wasn’t really at the tip top. She was one of hundreds of commanders who had come together, donating themselves and their commands to challenge the last layer of the Long Climb, the as yet nameless Ninth Realm.
The front line, roughly a mile wide(someone had immediately measured the portal, 1750 meters), all took their first step together, followed with mechanical precision by the second line and then the third, all the way to the 100th line at the rear. There had been more meetings considering who would stand where than any other planning committee, even the logistics didn’t take so much planning. It was worse than a wedding between two feuding families with both sets of parents in angry divorces, remarried to opposite sides of additional different feuding factions.
As planned, Roslyn watched as her command structure led her troops into the breach in space and time. As planned, Hugh and his cannon sized Pulse Rifle stayed with her. She stepped through a breath ahead of the front line of the company behind hers.
The whole Hegemonic Unified Army marched through with tight military precision and stood, looking around at their new world.
“Dyson Sphere.” The clipped voice of Castilian Marcus Ngobi, 3rd Wave, rang out over the entire 250,000 person force. As Castilian he was commander of the Citadel under the direct command of the Hegemon. He was also a physicist and science fiction buff on Earth. Like all of them he was a long way from his native Kenya. “That’s new. See how the landscape goes up in all directions and disappears, it will connect overhead, past the sun.”
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“Blue Sun.” The Imperator Molina, the Fiery Angel said. She somehow still affected her Portuguese accent even though they all had magically lost their own languages and few people had accents. “Hot, lots of radiation. Means the Goldilocks Zone is further out.”
Imperator was her title, military commander of the Hegemony. The only people she could not boss around were Hegemon Zhang We, who was standing beside her at the front of their army, and their advisor Seer Sylvia Gold, former celebrity medium, their tie breaker in policy decisions. Some people said the Seer was the true leader of humanity. She was back in the Citadel, the lone dissenter in the group of three.
“Means this Dyson Sphere is bigger than it even looks. Billions of times the surface area of Earth, or more.” Castilian Ngobi said evenly.
“Incoming.” Another well known voice called sharply. Takashi, the Winged Samurai, was one of the lower ranked scouts, all of whom had permission to speak out on the command frequency. He had more visual abilities than anyone else in the army, so he was usually the first to spot trouble. “Twelve high, coming in hot. Mounts. They’re mounted knights. Plate armor, no lances.”
The Knights, just eight of them, leapt off their mounts in midair. The whole ground shook as they landed in hero poses, ripples of energy rolled concentrically from each shining foot or fist.
“Giants again.” Someone on Ros’s company line muttered. They were right, although these giants were only twelve feet tall by human measure, not 30 feet tall as the inhabitants of the Sixth Realm.
“Hold all aggression.” Imperator Molina commanded, unnecessarily. The well rehearsed plan was to try to speak with whoever or whatever they found.
For ten long seconds the two forces stood immobile, looking at each other.
“Woo hoo!” One of the Knights whooped. As the sound rolled over the army like a tidal wave, the man in the golden helm began to glow. Actually glow. “New opponents! Let’s Fight!” He called cheerfully. No malice, just battle joy.
He merely pointed his mace in the direction of the human army, no Abilities triggered, no Traits, no enchantments on his weapon. He pointed and a whole column of Humanity’s best soldiers, top geniuses every one, toppled like dominoes made out of tin soldiers trapped in ice cubes.
The flaming red headed beauty beside the Knights’ spokesman cheered and sprayed the nearest ranks of the army with her Deity Tier Area of Effect spell.
All ten of Roslyn’s Tanks were gone in that first AOE attack.
Across the battlefield, single shining warriors went striding out to meet the front lines.
It all happened in mere moments, seconds. The army entered. The army died. Simple as that.
No negotiation, no mercy, no flight, no chance to not fight.
The raid was a complete wipe.
Not that most of the leaders and commanders of the Hegemonic Unified Army thought of entering the Ninth Realm as a raid. It most certainly wasn’t a game.
Death in The Realms (except the second, of course) carried the same heavy finality of death anywhere. Individuals might have amazing Recovery Stats that could withstand anything another human could dish out, but it was like they were rank newbies again.
They were an army made of gossamer thin tissue paper.
The Ninth Realm was silent again for a long moment.
The last breaths of the dying were all that could be heard, groans and the weak muttered cantrips of humans who still had an ounce of healing magic on their last breaths.
As she spoke her own healing phrase, Roslyn looked across the wreck of the battlefield, knowing in her very soul that they could have done better, should have done better. She and the rest of humanity had been fighting their way up Heaven’s Path, through the previous Eight Realms for thirty seven years. They should have been Demi-Gods by now, not the barely united rabble that didn’t last an entire minute in their last battle.
“Is this a joke? I don’t understand it. It’s not funny.” The voice was orders of magnitude louder and stronger than the energetic Knight. The speaker was larger than the knights too, larger than the giants of The Sixth Realm.
“How is this even possible?” A second voice asked incredulously. A Divinely Beautiful woman in a long white dress floated into Roslyn’s field of view.
Ros was still muttering Warrior’s Ease, a weak spell that healed ten points at a time, but couldn’t dispel debuffs or bleeds. It wasn’t doing anything against the radiation that was slowly cooking her alive.
She was half propped against the side of her big bodyguard, Hugh, who was quickly growing cold. The big man’s Pulse Rifle was crumpled under her shattered leg, not the most congenial of camp chairs.
The enemy had quit the field. All the Shining Knights were gone, replaced by larger, older- looking ageless Deities.
“Ach. Still breathing, are you?” An ArchDeity Tier Being crouched beside Ros, kneeling in the blood of her company of well trained soldiers. Her friends, the men and women she had fought beside against manticores; whole flights of griffins; even quite a few dragons…
The Deity had a kind face. He shone with an ethereal light through every shining blueish pore of his skin.
“Not for long.” Roslyn said, or tried to say. Her lungs weren’t drawing right. She had too many holes in her chest.
“Here.” The familiar green glow of a healing spell washed over her. He didn’t take his hand away, pinning her like a mouse under his car sized hand and tenderly stroking her hair with one side of one fingertip. “Pity. You do show potential, you humans. We send back any who survive if there’s a poor showing. That’s you at the moment. The children got a little… excited.”
“Children?” Roslyn croaked.
“Hmm… I could have wiped the battlefield clean in under a second. They took at least twelve. You’re too impetuous as a species, Humans. Rushing from stage to stage. You should have expected more challenge, sent some scouts, something. Maybe we’ll send you all back if the council agrees.”
“We didn’t understand. Not at first.” She said. “Once we did… you’re sending me back?“
“You and whoever survived.”
“The portals are all one way.”
He tut tutted like she was a child. “They can be opened.” He also Examined her, a feeling she was quite familiar with, although his version left her feeling completely laid bare.
Roslyn Atwood
Age: 58
Physique: Human(D)
Qui Expert: Early Solar
Strength: 12,496
Endurance: 22,552
Recovery: 14,636
Soul: 2,023
Resilience: 7,945
Luck: 18,380
Body:
Uncanny Balance(B)
Augmented Strength(S)
Augmented Recovery(SSS)
Adamantine Skeleton(A)
MindTraits:
Mental Bulwark (B)
Spatial Awareness (C)
Command Presence(D)
Refined Senses(B)
Soul Traits:
Qui Expert (D)
Crystal Affinity (E)
Justificar (E)
Beast Empathy (S)
“Huh. You’re right. You didn’t understand. Stunted from the very First Realm. You are, in fact, barely strong enough to properly challenge the Second Realm.” He looked troubled. He looked up, as if listening for something. “How sad. You’re the only one left.” He stroked her again, wiping her hair back over her ear like an infant or a doll, keeping her face in shadow.
“If you can send me back... If you’re talking about resurrecting all of them...” She said quickly, after his attention returned. “Can you send me all the way back? To start over from the beginning? I was in the Fourth Wave.”
He laughed. He said something in a musical language she couldn’t understand, but would never be able to unhear. “Time travel?”
“Just my mind, my memory. I can do better. We all can.” She breathed deeply and suddenly realized the blue sun was killing her all over again, even in the shadow of his hand. She had only a few moments left before her face peeled off.
“Unusual request, but Granted. We’re also going to change the parameters for your Realm Gates. Your Army only had two DemiScion tier warriors in the whole 250,000. Don’t try the Ninth Realm until your whole troop is Peak Scion or above. Even a Scion needs daily healing here. It’s not much of a Proving Ground if all the candidates are still infants. It should be a battle, not a slaughter.”
Roslyn felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. Peak Scion Tier? That was nearly three full tiers above her… eleven evolutions.
She was barely Early Expert Tier. She hadn’t even begun cultivating until the Third Realm, eight long, difficult years into her Climb. Humanity still wasn’t fully convinced that Qui Cultivation was the best path to greatness, even in the Eighth Realm.
Somehow Roslyn found the tenacity to Examine him back.
Aetherniel Tennambrielo
ArchDeity Tier
HP???
MP???
She gulped uneasily.
He laughed, which sounded a bit like a bell tower pealing all at once.
“Tenacious little thing. I’ll give you a hint, since I like you. Cultivate your Qui morning and night. Fall asleep circulating your Qui and when you wake up with it still circulating you’re ready to advance.”
“Thank you for the advice.”
“Hold your breath. It doesn’t change anything, but it might make this easier on you. Oh, and close your eyes.”
Roslyn closed her eyes and held her breath. She felt delicate fingers prying at the threads of her mind, gently, patently pulling her out of her body.
The ArchDeity took his time gathering tendrils of instinct, memory and personality. The bundle of Roslyn Atwood screamed in soundless agony as it was pried out of time. The three and a half decades of life between the present and the before were blunted and muted as they were sent back in time but her knowledge of the realms was brightened and reinforced.
She landed on Earth, a location she never thought to see again, on the day she would be removed from her home and placed in the First Realm of The Heaven’s Path Proving Grounds, along with ten million other unsuspecting humans.
Roslyn had been Fourth Wave. The Third Wave was one million, the Second was 100,000, the First was 10,000, and everyone who disappeared before then was a missing person, seemingly unconnected to the massive later disappearances.
Each Wave was removed one year and one day after the wave before. The Fifth wave would be 100,000,000 people. The Sixth…
A Billion