~~~Lee~~~

Lee's eyes snapped open to a much brighter sky... and a mass of movement streaming through his Mana Mind.

He immediately dropped a speed bubble on himself. Primarily to give himself time to wake up. Of course, pumping liquid mana through his brain helped more than any coffee ever could have in the old world.

He couldn't see through Mana Mind nearly as well while in the bubble, but he could see enough to know that nothing alien was in range yet.

What he could see, even if blurry, was hundreds of non-resident humans entering his fort through a hole in the wall.

He'd woken up in the middle of breakfast. Which meant the kids were all out under the open sky. Not that they weren't safe... Three was watching, after all. Of course, there were more children outside... coming into the fort with the non-residents.

Lee let the bubble lapse. "Amy, what'd I miss?"

She wasn't quite her previously cheerful and cheeky self from the day before, as she responded, "Another fort got hit yesterday. They won... but only barely."

"So, the survivors came here?"

"One of the hunter teams stumbled into the aftermath and pointed them down here..." She stopped staring off into space and looked at Lee. "You might need to do some damage control. Maybe back up that team... because they're getting a lot of flack for this already."

"Let me guess, we are getting a ton of non-combat people?"

"Yep."

"Right before a potential invasion that will presumably be that much more dangerous."

"Yep."

"Well, shit."

Lee was ashamed to admit a few of those same thoughts snuck through his head at that moment. These newcomers were endangering his family.

Then he felt guilty because he was doing the same thing by being here.

In much the same way he couldn't solve the problem by leaving, he obviously couldn't turn them away. Wherever they went, it would only be a matter of time until they got attacked again, and a bunch of crafters would die to the first assault.

Never mind the children among them.

Damn it. Lee sent out the fort invites and watched the resident number almost immediately start ticking upward. "I won't turn them away, Amy."

She smiled. "Obviously. That's why they're already moving in. It's just some of the losers complaining."

"If you can, get that hunter team in to see me. Maybe people will shut up if I give them a bonus for doing the right thing."

"Will do, boss." She gave a mocking salute, but didn't rise from her slumped position on the bench. Instead, she let out a deafening whistle toward the sky.

A head popped out over the edge of the roof above. "Yes, Ma'am?"

"Go get Harold's team in here!" Amy said, then waved him off.

Lee eyed her and glanced up to where the man had sprinted away at her order.

"What?" Amy asked with a grin. "I'm a royal guard. That comes with some clout."

"Royal?"

She sat up and gave an obviously mocking half bow. "My lord."

"I'm going to cancel your oath if you start doing that."

Amy laughed, then abruptly blurred to a standing position in front of him with her hand up in a salute. "Sir, yes sir!"

That was a new skill he hadn't seen before... a lot like Alejandro's or even Maria's.

"Sir, permission to rest since this maggot has been up all night guarding you, sir!" Now she was just teasing him.

Lee sighed and looked helplessly back at all the concerned parents and children watching the exchange. "At ease?"

Amy blurred past him to end up sprawled on the plates he'd taken his nap on... which drew even more attention from the kids. Probably because those just so happened to be the only remaining hover plates...

It was a necessary sacrifice for the pending invasion, and one he would rectify afterward. In fact, he'd probably need those runes before the invasion even kicked off. Especially if he wanted to make something for the team that had sent the refugees here.

Actually, he had a few more options, seeing as how it was daytime now... The lights he'd scattered around wouldn't be necessary if the attack came before dark. Of course, if it didn't happen in time, then he'd need to replace the lights again...

Lee felt the people enter the garage below and assumed, from all the runed and enchanted gear, that they must be the hunter team. He headed that way, and Amy appeared at his side before he'd reached the stairs.

The hunters were arguing beside May's workstation when Lee left the stairwell.

"Let them try it!" a young man said with clear venom in his voice. "We don't bow to bullies. Never have. Never will! No matter what!"

They were all young, fort-residents, but not oath-sworn, which was odd considering they were hunters. More interestingly, Lee thought he recognized them. "Hi, guys."

Heads were already turning his way, probably from them feeling his soul, and the speaker addressed Lee without hesitation. "I don't care what anyone says. We did the right thing, and we'll do it again!"

"I..."

"Elitist pricks think they're special just 'cause they started with a combat class, but that doesn't mean shit!"

"You..."

"We all started as crafters and now we kick just as much or more ass than any of those cowards!"

"I'm..."

"What kind of selfish, gutless, heartless bastards would leave all those people to die!?"

"Dude!" Lee finally shouted when the guy stopped to take a breath. "You did the right thing! What are you yelling at me for?"

"Oh... Jason said the fort commander wanted to see us, and I assumed... Well, after what the others were saying..."

Lee smiled. "On the contrary, I wanted to reward you. Didn't realize you guys were the team responsible... Real glad to see you all still kicking, Harold."

They stared at him blankly.

"Building seven? Apes together strong? I promised you armor and bone enchanting? That was you guys, wasn't it?"

Finally some recognition appeared, along with confusion. "That was you?"

"I could have sworn you weren't so..." another young man said before trailing off.

"Old?" Lee supplied. "Didn't you call me a boomer last time?"

"Loud! I meant you weren't so... loud."

There were some nervous chuckles, and Harold said, "I heard something happened to the fort commander... and we were kinda busy with our own stuff... but you really weren't... like this, were you?"

"No." Lee sighed. "Things happened. But aside from that, how's it going?" He pointed at one of them. "You never made me radios."

The kid jumped. "I..." He looked around at his friends, then said more softly, "I tried, but most of us have evolved away from crafting..."

"That's awesome! I mean... if you wanted to?"

He nodded, a smile growing. "I did!" He held up a tree branch turned staff that had a glowing crystal tied to the top. "I'm still sort of an enchanter; only now I put enchants on the ground or walls to help us fight in the lairs."

It definitely sounded good. Especially since they were all still alive. "What about you, Harold?"

"Ah, well, I was a risk assessor, but now I..."

"He can see the future!" another of them blurted excitedly.

Harold's soul felt slightly exacerbated as he shook his head. "I don't see the future. It's... I only calculate the probability of what might happen next in a..."

You have been conscripted into the Dungeon: [Escort Mission]

Lee flinched and, in the same motion, dropped a speed bubble on himself.

Luckily, the daylight probably meant no shadow monsters... Or could they even choose if they were attacking into daytime? Three, you have that skill... I'm hoping that means nothing like those monsters can sneak up on us again... right?

The bubble inevitably expired, but Lee felt a lot more in control by then. He met the still surprised and slightly worried gazes of the team before him. "Get those people out of the street. Now!"

They sprinted away and Lee put himself back into a bubble.

Despite the lack of definition, he kept up the time distortion as people crawled toward their destinations outside. He adjusted slightly when Alejandro finally reached his side, though even then he only made the bubble big enough to include the man. "Have we seen what's coming?"

Alejandro watched the people moving in slow-motion outside and shook his head. "Not yet." He smiled. "I do like this extra time, though..."

"We can have Jeremy pop you to the wall, and I can stick another bubble on you up there. You already know how to escape if you want to leave early."

Lee dropped the time shift and gave the order.

"I can't reach that..."

"Never mind!" Alejandro took off running, and Jeremy sent him to the foot of the wall. So better than nothing.

They didn't have a lot of stairs going up the wall, but then most people didn't need them. Alejandro practically jumped straight to the top using a few jutting handholds, and Lee hit him with Temporal Shift as soon as he reached the summit.

Alejandro emerged from the speed bubble already holding his rune radio, and his voice echoed from the one on Lee's waist while his free hand pointed. "We've got an army incoming. At least three hundred, and less than a minute..."

All sounds seemed to fade into the background, and Lee didn't hear what else Alejandro was saying as he saw the alien figure zip into his Mana Mind. It flew past Alejandro, far too fast and far too close, then shot toward the garage.

It was a D-grade. Lee knew that without a doubt. It was faster than any of them and stronger than anyone, but there was one thing it couldn't outrun.

Time.

"I got it!" Lee yelled, almost in disbelief, as his slowing bubble now held an invisible alien frozen in suspended time. Then he touched his own radio rune while sprinting downstairs. "D-grade caught! Outside the... Shit!"

Stolen novel; please report.

Lee felt a chill and changed course abruptly when his worst nightmare appeared.

Another D-grade.

Ideally, he would have warned the people on the wall above, or at least made sure Bradley knew what was coming, but there wasn't time. Everyone up there would have a better chance of surviving falling off a wall than facing a D-grade in combat.

Lee slid to a stop on the ramp, one arm extended, finger pointing, and his other arm bracing the first.

Despite technically being on the first floor, he wasn't quite at ground level because the garage was sunk halfway below ground. But it was close enough for what he needed. Close enough to send a Mana Beam out through the stone wall and into the charging alien army beyond. More specifically, at the D-grade leading the charge.

So he did.

The white-hot beam of light didn't destroy the wall. Not like he'd feared it would—explosively. It didn't even seem to lose power. Instead, it simply burned right through, as if the stone wasn't even there.

Unfortunately, he missed... firing instead at the alien beside the D-grade. Oddly, the D-grade moved into the beam's path in that single instant as if it wanted to get hit...

It was only after a couple seconds of a jittering and sweeping beam flailing when he realized the monster was protecting its fellow E-grade... Escort mission? Was it really that straightforward?

None of that mattered, though, because he'd forgotten a critical detail about using Mana Beam. Not that it would fire until his mana drained to nothing; he'd remembered that, but that his Mana Mind would shrink along with his mana pool. Which meant he quickly lost sight of his target and was still blind-firing through the wall...

Lee swept the beam back through the areas he hoped the army was traveling, and then, at the last second, cast a fresh time bubble on the trapped D-grade. Right before Mana Mind shrank to nothing.

There was always the option of having Three pump mana into him as his own drained, but Lee had definitely not forgotten the first and last time he did that. He was stronger now, and it might not destroy him... but it wasn't worth the risk.

He'd hit the D-grade head on and barely melted through parts of its shield. Never mind even scratching the armor beneath, because the bastard was quick as fuck about moving the shield to catch the beam with a fresh, unmelted section.

If he went all out and failed to destroy the thing while mana-burning himself out of commission... then he wouldn't be able to keep the other trapped. Better to keep one out of the fight and rely on his friends and family to deal with the other...

He hoped desperately that none of them would pay with their lives for his choice here and now.

Then his mana drained, the beam ended, and Three flooded more mana back in. Mana Mind expanded along with the surge up his legs, and Lee saw his time bubble still holding, then the wall with sweeping melted holes through it, and finally, the other D-grade now under attack on all sides...

The only positive he could see out there was that the army no longer charged the walls. Unfortunately, they were rallying around the D-grade instead.

Bradley was in the thick of it, with each swing of his staff either driving the D-grade back a step or sending an E-grade flying. Alejandro blurred to his side an instant before Maria followed...

Even worse, that was the last glimpse he got of the fighting before the D-grade fled beyond his range.

"Come back!" Lee shouted into his communication plate while cursing his own trapped status and seriously considering leaving the building rather than letting his family face a monster that was only here because of him. "Kill the D-grade outside the garage first!"

Lee had one hand on Three’s wall and a single foot raised for a step when Bradley came flying back beside Maria and Alejandro. Oh, thank god!

Bradley's mana surged out ahead of him, and the towering wall split open to let them through. Then they stopped... and Lee realized a new problem. They couldn't see the invader.

It had been using some sort of stealth effect when it went over the walls and he trapped it. The stealth was still active.

He could see it in Mana Mind and feel the bubble as plain as day, but visually, it was nothing more than a faint distortion hovering in the air.

So he fired another Mana Beam out of the garage and point-blank into his own time bubble.

The bubble broke with that same painful backlash in his head, and the invader resumed charging forward with its original blurring speed. Unfortunately for the invader, Lee's beam traveled faster still. And from this range, he couldn't miss.

His beam caught the monster in its armored face and blasted it head over heels backward.

It also removed whatever effect had hidden it from sight, revealing a bipedal creature that looked almost human. At least from what they could see. Though the dimensions looked off... Plus, full plate armor hid its features completely behind gray metal.

Lee could see beneath the armor well enough to know that it was most definitely not human as it tumbled, helpless and in pain, at the mercy of his magic.

But it didn't hurt for long. Not nearly long enough. Like its fellow, it quickly got its shield up to intercept the beam. Unlike its fellow, this one wasn't trying to protect an E-grade while defending against Lee... Instead, it had a bigger problem to deal with.

Lee's friends.

Namely, it had to deal with Bradley, Alejandro, and Maria. Even worse, it was now within Saira's domain, and her vines joined the attack with frenzied aggression as they lashed out from both the ground and from where they nearly covered the side of Three.

Unfortunately, Lee's opening shot of a Mana Beam still had to finish draining his mana again, and he couldn't risk it anywhere near the chaotic fight. Fortunately, Bradley had opened up the wall and now he could see the retreating army in the distance.

A target ripe for destruction. And he didn't hesitate to dish it out despite the retreat. They'd attacked his home. His family and friends. There would be no mercy for those who threatened what was his!

Lee's aim wasn't the best, but he was just glad his arm wasn't melting like last time as he did what he could. All while chaos unfolded right outside.

Bradley blocked a sword blow once with his staff, dimming the runes considerably in the process. He must have noticed that, because he avoided doing it again. Instead, he dodged what he could by sliding on the ever-shifting ground beneath his feet.

Alejandro handled the hits no one could dodge, blurring around the monster almost non-stop as he appeared ahead of every striking sword with his shield in place to absorb the hits. And absorb them, he did.

The new shield was living up to the purpose Lee had envisioned when perfecting the rune empowering it. Blows that should have depleted the protective runes on anything else landed with what looked like no force against that shield.

Lee's kinetic absorbing rune could now be turned on and off, and Alejandro's practice over the last few days had clearly paid off, as he never missed a beat. Every instant the shield was active would drain the rune as it froze the shield in place while fighting against all outside forces, but Lee never even noticed a pause. He only knew Alejandro was activating it thanks to feeling the rune lose power in tiny pulses.

It wouldn't last forever while absorbing hits like that, but the man was doing his damnedest to eke every shred of power he could out of the rune.

Of course, with them fighting in Mana Mind range while Lee was inside Three, their runes would last forever because he could keep pumping mana into them.

Much like Three could recharge any rune inside the building and Lee could create runes anywhere within his Mana Mind, there was no more need to touch the runes to recharge them.

Despite the advantages, they weren't making much headway in bringing down the bastard. The D-grade was too well armored and too fast. It had taken one blow from a rune sword on its shield, which carved a deep notch through the metal, and now it either dodged or slapped the blades aside rather than confronting them head on.

It was also trying to retreat...

Saira and Bradley worked to prevent its escape between dragging vines and shifting earth, but they were only delaying the inevitable.

Especially when the other D-grade came charging back to help.

Lee caught it in a time bubble and then joined the fighting in the only way he could think of. First, by killing his last flying plate runes, and then forcing new runes onto the invader. Or rather, onto its sword and armor.

The gear was heavily enchanted, more so than any he'd seen before, but it was still easier to force a rune into the metal than to stick it directly onto the D-grade's flesh, like he had with the shadow.

He'd only barely started when the invader’s body lit up with mana and turned into a damn whirlwind of motion that even Mana Mind could barely follow...

Bradley's staff flew one way, and the man went the other in an explosion of stone fragments that used to be his armor. He flew away in two pieces. The sword had cut him in half at the waist...

No!

Alejandro's shield turned aside another blow, and the enemy's flickering sword nearly took off his sword-arm at the elbow through a gap in the armor. It didn't quite dismember him, only ringing off his bones. But the wound still disabled his arm...

Maria shoved her husband back from the next strike as it opened his throat and caught another on her runed bracer with a crack that destroyed the rune instantly. It also threw her tumbling away.

She somehow kept a hold of Alejandro and took him with her when she blurred away into the garage.

Alejandro landed beside Trak, who immediately held a potion up while pouring another into the bleeding guardian...

Maria took the potion as she shot back to the monster and smashed the bottle over its head in a shower of green liquid and broken glass. She flickered away just as fast... and still nearly lost her hand to that striking blade. Once again, her runed skeleton was proving itself.

"Jeremy!" Lee screamed as he finished jamming a heating rune into the invader's sword. "Bring it inside!"

His rune wouldn't be enough. Not in time to make a difference. Not before it was too late. If they brought it in here where Three could help...

The only good news was that he could see Saira's vines already latched onto the two pieces of Bradley... could see her healing life-force pumping into the man in a torrent. A torrent to match the blood and... guts spilling from the man.

Jackson had charged out the instant Bradley went down and only now reached the battle that had lasted mere seconds. He didn't have a movement skill, and he wasn't very skilled when he finally took a swing... but he had something none of the others did.

He didn't die.

Not only was his skeleton enchanted, but Lee kept pumping more mana into the rune as each hit landed and failed to bring the man down. All the while, Jackson chopped nonstop at the monster and screamed.

When he still had a throat to scream with.

The invader's sword was also glowing now. Glowing red-hot as it dealt out repeated and deadly injuries to Jackson. Its helmet was also giving off green smoke from the potion Maria had splashed on it...

It abruptly changed tactics and lashed out, not at Jackson but at his sword. There was a ringing noise of metal on metal, and Jackson's sword flew from his hand as the monster kicked him away.

Then the invader dropped its own nearly molten sword and pulled off its helmet, which was now billowing out a cloud of green smoke from the metal... The action revealed an alien visage of bright purple skin, huge black eyes, and a hairless, bulbous head... right as it plucked Jackson's sword from the air...

Lee saw Mar coming. No one else should have known she was there. But the invader leaned aside at the last moment, just as Mar’s blade should have taken off its head.

She still hit deep, if not true, and blood was spraying from its throat, but not enough. She hadn't killed it instantly—perhaps not even eventually, if it was as tough as the shadow D-grade had been.

Either way, it didn't matter as the monster not only lurched free of her blades before she could do more damage, but its sword swept around lightning quick to decapitate the girl...

"Jeremy!" Lee was already screaming at Jeremy, even as he drove every scrap of his will against the mana in that sweeping blade that would end Mar's life. Even as he pulled the runes from it. Mar didn't have runes on her skeleton, either!

His head felt like it should explode as the sword slowed fractionally. But it wasn't enough! He couldn't stop it! They were too close together for a bubble...

Maria blurred toward them... too slowly. She couldn't get there in time, and she never did. Lee broke Maria's skill when he dropped a slowing bubble around both the girl and the monster an instant before it was too late.

They both stopped. Almost.

The monster with purple blood frozen in a waterfall down its breastplate, and Mar with a sword sinking very slowly through her neck... Fucking hell!

"Do something!" Lee yelled at the useless Jeremy even as he blasted mana into a cluster of runes on the now freed and charging D-grade. He put everything he had into the runes. Mana Beam wouldn't work. This was all he had left.

Red vines were already writhing over the bubble when Jeremy said, "I... can't! They're too close to..."

"Fucking do it!" Lee tried his hardest not to watch that sword cut deeper into her neck. But he couldn’t not see it. Cutting. Cutting. Cutting! It was all up to Jeremy now. He couldn’t do anything to save her. All he could do was slow down her inevitable death. "Nooow!"

He poured all that helplessness into channeling all the mana he had into the other D-grade. The one he could still do something about. He didn't go after its armor with his runes. There was no more time for that. But if he could stick a rune inside the monster... inside its brain?

It had to work! He had to make it work or he would lose every...

Jeremy screamed wordlessly, and Mar was abruptly alone in the bubble! He... did it!

Lee abandoned his rune effort and dropped his time bubble around the oncoming D-grade a heartbeat after it passed through the open wall.

Mar stumbled, blood spraying from her neck... her still attached neck! Even as the surrounding red vines all struck inward full of life-giving energy.

Oh my god! He did it! He fucking did... it?

The building shook violently beneath his feet, and Lee froze in shock as he realized what Jeremy had done. When he saw exactly what that genius fucking bastard had done!

He'd not only pulled the fucker from the bubble and inside Three, but he'd stuck the monster inside Lee's workspace. Inside the elevator room. The cramped and completely closed off elevator room. He'd trapped it!

Kill it, Three! He sent the order, but it wasn't necessary. Three was already going to town with stabbing rebar and concrete... but with the same weak results as it had against that damn shadow.

There was a stretched out moment as Lee watched it dance around Three's attacks while striking back at the door in its attempts to escape. Attempts that were doing serious damage...

At that moment, Lee realized something he should have considered long before this.

His mana blast and now mana beam were not fancy skills. In fact, they were about as basic as it got. They worked by simply throwing as much liquid mana as possible at a target and hoping it went away. Three was great at channeling liquid mana... way better than Lee was.

He'd even hit the building with Mana Beam more than once, and Three had absorbed the liquid mana without issue...

Three. Burn!

He had the vision of what he wanted to see clearly in his mind's eye, and Three acted... almost as he envisioned.

Instead of filling the entire room with a mana inferno and turning everything inside to ashes as he'd wanted, only a single beam appeared between the ceiling and floor. Even then, it only clipped the...

Then one beam became two. Two became four. Four, eight. Until the entire space was an inescapable web of death.

Lee smiled in triumph as holes finally started melting through the armor and into the flesh of that fucking monster! He smiled, even though he was an idiot. An absolute fucking moron for never thinking to tell Three to Mana Beam something!

How had he never thought to...

Zynthar has requested Parley to discuss the terms of the Invaders' Surrender.