I turned to see a storm of boulders tearing apart a parapet, scattering a squad of Ogres.
“Second Wind!” Savol bellowed behind me. The scattered Ogres leaped to their feet and started shooting their giant crossbows twice as fast as normal, causing a discernible lull in the barrage aimed in their direction.
“They’re ready,” Zuban said, stepping closer. “Rushing construction now.”
I felt the tendrils of information shift around me as energy was spent, rushing into the faraway construction crews. It was about time.
“Go!” Sullivan urged.
I nodded, excitement and adrenaline washing over me.
I took my daughter’s hand and teleported away.
***
“His vitals are worsening,” Jim said with a worried frown. “Where are we on the manual logout?”
“First phase completed,” the lab technician replied. “Second phase starting … safe flush of memory buffer commencing.”
The head technician shook his head and worriedly looked over the blinking alerts. “This is taking too long.”
***
We appeared on top of a hill overlooking the caldera. From there, I could see the hordes of bouldites surrounding our battle fortress. From this distance, it looked small and vulnerable, and I marveled at the architectural ingenuity that allowed it to hold this long against the overwhelming odds.
A hesitant cough snapped my attention back to my surroundings.
A goblin constructor stared at me nervously, while his two-hob escort bowed their heads respectfully. “It is done, Chief.”
I turned toward the newly constructed altar. I could sense the zone of influence emanating from it, acting as the anchoring point that allowed me to teleport straight to it. “Well done, now stand back.”
I didn’t waste any more time, opening my Runecraft Design Mode and selecting the schema for the portal. I poured in the mana and completed the enchantment. A shimmering rift opened, connecting us with Goblin’s Gorge.
I stepped back and foblins started pouring out of the portal.
I grabbed Lirian’s arm and teleported again.
We arrived at the site of the second altar, and I repeated the process, opening a new portal and connecting it to Storg this time. Again, foblins began spilling out.
We repeated the same process again and again, opening ten portals in total, one for every settlement my clan owned. We’d prepared in advance, knowing we couldn’t bring in thousands of foblins quickly enough through a single portal. So, we divided them up in advance, just like when we did in the battle for Woodhaven. We’d sent almost a thousand foblins to each settlement, ready to charge in and join the battle at a moment’s notice.
It took me barely two minutes to open all ten portals, and foblins were freely streaming out en masse, almost ten thousand total. They mimicked our enemies’ strategy, covering the very hilltops the bouldites had occupied not long ago.
And now the trap was set. The entire bouldite force was trapped between the battle fortress’s walls and a throng of foblins.
From this far off, I could see sections of the fort starting to break off under the ongoing assault, but I felt certain they would last long enough for our reinforcements to arrive.
I felt giddy with excitement and anticipation. We’d outmaneuvered our enemies. Soon, there would be carnage and glory in droves.
“Charge!” I shouted, reinforcing my command with bursts of mana.
The foblins roared and ran down the hills, forming a ring of nearly 10,000 tiny warriors that quickly tightened around our enemies.
I teleported Lirian and me back to the watchtower.
“Nicely done,” Sullivan said approvingly. From this vantage point, we could see the ring of foblins descending the hills, moments from engaging the enemy’s rear. He took out the box I’d given him and offered it to me. “Want to do the honors?”
“Sure,” I said, taking the item and opening the glass case, exposing the glowing red button.
“Good, wait for my signal. General, get our ground troops ready to engage. We have a short window, only ten minutes, so let’s make the best of it. I want every soldier we have in combat.”
“Savol will do this,” the goblin promised.
“On my mark,” Sullivan said as his eyes followed the foblins’ charge.
“Three. Two. One. Now!”
Thousands of hobs and Ogres rushed out of the one-way exits cunningly built into the walls, and the first wave of foblins hit the bouldites’ rear.
I pressed the little red button.
A tremendous, triumphant roar washed over the entire battlefield as hobgoblins, kobolds, Ogres, and foblins, all instantly gained 100 levels at once.
I watched with glee as a hobgoblin casually stopped an overhead chop from a smasher twice his size, then eviscerated him with a swiping axe. Ogres swelled, becoming larger than the bouldites, their clubs smashing and reducing them to a pulp, despite the defensive enchantment of their mages. Far away, the foblins turned feral, gnashing with teeth and broken claws at the enemies, hitting them 20 at a time, literally tearing them apart.
Bouldites were dying by the hundreds, their screams of death music to my ears.
I saw Rhyno wading through the sea of enemies. The now level 140, tier 3 boss was tearing into bouldite lieutenants like a farmer reaping hay, closing in on one of their mages. A second Ogre was following in his footsteps, a female who was almost as large as him, widening the path of corpses.
Even from this distance, I could hear his roar over the cacophony. ‘I BE THE CHAMPION!’
It was a glorious, wonderful massacre.
And then it was over.
Like a bunch of balloons that were suddenly punctured, my entire army deflated and faltered in their step.
I stared at them in horror. “No. No, it can’t be.”
***
Indication lights were blinking like crazy throughout the immersion lab, and stressful sirens were blaring.
“Get him out!” the head technician shouted.
“I started the sequence,” the lab tech shouted back, his fingers tapping madly at a keyboard. “The second sequence is almost finished, the third one is about to begin, then we can start safely remove—”
“No time for that,” Jim snapped. “Switch to emergency logout sequence. I want him out in ten seconds.”
“But sir! The cerebral strain is too great, if we force him out now without a gradual release he might suffer permanent damage. We only need 20 more seconds and—”
“Look at the display, man!” Jim roared. “He doesn’t have 20 more seconds!”
The techie paled. “Right. Initiating emergency logout sequence now.”
A crane reached down from the ceiling, lowering a four-pronged vice toward the capsule.
“Logout in 8 … 7 … 6 …”
***
I couldn’t reply. I stood, frozen, as the battlefield below me changed.
The bouldites quickly rallied and resumed their attack with a vengeance. But unlike before, they were now engaged headlong against the brunt of my army, and there were no walls for us to hide behind.
The smashers and lieutenants pummeled in glee, pulverizing our front ranks in seconds. Our soldiers fought on desperately, trying to keep the enemies at bay, but without enough Ogre Mages to bolster the lines, they were fighting a losing battle. The situation at the rear was even worse.
Reduced back to level 1, the foblins had no chance against the enemies that turned to vent their anger for the sudden attack. A hundred foblins stood no chance against a single bouldite. Maybe several hundred could have managed to kill one, likely by suffocating it from the press of their cold corpses, but there were many more than one bouldite on the field.
The rear of the enemy turned, and in a few squelching bursts, the entire force of foblins had simply evaporated,
turned to nothing more than a red splatter against the rocky ground.
“No,” I whispered.
With our forces fully surrounded, the bouldites wasted no time in killing the monsters who came out to destroy them, decimating most of my army in moments. Only the thousand manning the battlements and a few hundred soldiers who didn’t make it out remained. I noticed Swarm amidst the sea of enemies. He was still going strong, lashing out with his gigantic tentacles flailing, clearing a large swath of land around him. But then three bouldite mages focused on him, trapping him between giant rising stone pillars, forming them quicker than the golem could shift himself away. The other bouldites seized the opportunity and hacked at any exposed limbs, shattering dozens of beads.
Another flash of pink showed me that at least Aidanriel made it through, somehow climbing up our high walls to reach the safety of the battlements. Then there was an explosion from the battlefield as the enemies reached Swarm’s vulnerable core and broke it apart, causing his remaining beads to lose cohesion and roll away aimlessly on the ground. The loyal abomination had left dozens of shattered enemies behind, but now he was gone.
Within moments, our force of over 5,000 soldiers was reduced to barely 1,500. This was crazy. This was absurd. I refused to believe it.
“No.”
Then things got even worse. I felt my body becoming lighter. My limbs turned transparent and started melting away.
“NOOO!” I shouted, pushing away the cold hard facts of our defeat.
I refused to accept it.
I refused to lose.
Refused to give up.
I rejected my shackles.
***
“Holy shit,” Jim whispered as he glanced up at the nearby monitor.
“What’s wrong?” the lab technician asked nervously. The FIVR capsule in front of him was wide open, Oren’s limp body was still fastened in place, his eyes still closed. “Why isn’t he waking up?”
“He …” The head technician’s voice was weak. “He rejected the logout signal.”
“What? How is that possible?”
Instead of answering, Jim simply pointed at a particular line on the monitor. ‘CCP: 100%.’
“Oren has just achieved full integration with the game.”
***
My limbs solidified once again.
I was breathing heavily.
But that was inconsequential compared to what was happening around me.
The entire world was shifting
I opened my eyes, and for the first time, I saw.
The information tendrils I used to see had turned vast, encapsulating everything, and I realized that until now, I was only touching at the very edge of them. Everything was calculated, computed, and quantified.
I could see it all now.
The terrible foes around me were not monsters, they were simply an amalgamation of numbers. A thousand for HP, 20 for ingenuity, 65 for robustness. Eight vulnerability points …
It was hard to breathe under the onslaught of the information, but I saw it. Clearly. It all made sense now.
I summoned my shadow and the two of us let out a volley of drilling arrows.
Twenty arrows sped down to our enemies. Each arrow consisted of numbers between 82 to 98. Simple, but if directed properly, they could be more. Every single arrow hit a bouldite in one of their eight vulnerability points, drilling straight into it, and just like that, 20 enemies were gone. I refocused my mind and recast the spell, using the full range of my ability to send out three volleys this time, and just as easily as before, 30 enemies fell dead.
I laughed joyfully, hardly able to believe it. This was so simple. Why had I even tried to fight them any other way? Going against them with armies, spending countless hours to level up; it was like tying down my arms. Unleashing it was better.
It was so simple when everything was just numbers.
My breathing got even heavier, and a sharp pain started pounding at my temples, but I ignored it all.
Drilling arrows were even more purely made of numbers than the bouldites. Three castings were just an extension of another number, that of its governing skill. And I could override both.
I cast a single spell next, but this time hundreds of drilling arrows burst out of me, and each one felled an enemy when it struck. I didn’t stop. I simply turned slowly to face the army around us and allowed the arrows to continue pouring out of me, disseminating their ranks hundreds at a time.
My headache grew worse, and I was dimly aware of others shouting my name.
I just laughed. It was all about numbers this whole time. Ten lumber to build a hut, 80,000 for a city, half a million to raise an army, to reach for this moment.
The ache in my head had reached new heights. I knew it wasn’t an illusion. The pain was real, but even here there was a number attached to it; 83 percent. Once it reached a hundred, I would be done.
The pain flared up again, and I dropped to my knees, finally bringing an end to the unending deadly projectiles.
“Oren!” Sullivan was pale as he kneeled beside me. “What the hell? Are you alright?”
I laughed, feeling blood trickle down my nose and over my chin. “Everything is made of numbers. I can’t believe I didn’t realize it before.”
“Father?” Lirian looked anxious, bending down to help me rise.
My eyes widened as I looked at my daughter. Numbers were strewn all over her as well – unreasonably large ones. Yet still quantifiable. And at the center of her chest was one unlike the others. One so huge my mind boggled at trying to grasp it. Infinity.
“I now realize how David sees the world,” I said weakly. Allowing the others to help me to my feet. I glanced down. Almost the entire enemy army was destroyed. Only a few dense packs of bouldites remained.
Sullivan stared at me in awe. “I never saw David do anything like that.”
“David is a pacifist.” I wiped the blood off my chin. “I’m not.”
“Father, the way to the cave is clear,” Lirian said with urgency. “Only a few stragglers remain.”
The number attached to my headache rose to 84.
“Damn,” I said, more annoyed than worried. “We should hurry then.”
What I had to, I said simply, channeling the reply straight to the glowing, swirling vortex of numbers draped across my shoulders. It seems only fair; Shiva cheated, so I did too.
No. I’m not leaving while I’m this close to my goal.
“Let’s go,” I told the others. I stumbled as I tried to walk. Eighty-five percent. I got the hint. I needed to avoid manipulating the numbers further. Using my skills should be safe. I only hoped I’d last long enough to reach my goal.
My mana bar was almost empty, but a flick at the information governing it brought it back to full. As an afterthought, I raised it to a solid million. Another tic at my headache counter was awarded to me for the action.
Savol was already hurrying away from us, gathering the remaining soldiers, shouting orders to them.
Most of the scouts remained on the battlement to provide us with cover and fire on the rest of the enemies. But the remaining melee warriors and all the surviving Ogres – 600 soldiers in total – quickly formed organized ranks in front of the main gate.
The surviving players joined in. A stream of freshly respawned players came out of the church, accompanied by more players that hadn’t participated in the battle. And leading them in was David.
“I saw what you did,” the player said grimly. “You went too far.”
I shook my head, wincing slightly at the new wave of pain. “It doesn’t matter. As long as we win.”
He nodded. “I know, that’s why I asked the others to come as well.” He gestured to some of the players; Ayelet, Jaelon, and many of the others we’d rescued who originally chose not to participate in the fighting. “I told them this is the time to make our last stand, so they came.”
“Thank you,” I said gratefully.
I noticed some of the players who survived the fighting were heavily injured; Ragnar, Malkyr, Nero, and several others. I cast Heal Followers twice, bringing everyone back to full.
“Thanks, Chief,” Malkyr said, visibly relaxing as his painful wounds disappeared.
The rest of the players stared at me, wide-eyed.
“How did you do that?” Hoshisu asked in a low voice, no trace of her usual suspicion present. “It shouldn’t have been possible.”
“No time to explain,” I said. “We have to reach the cave. Open the gate!”
26 - The Final Boss
We rushed out of the battle fortress under a cover of arrows that quickly downed the few nearby stragglers.
Everywhere I looked, corpses littered the ground. I was wading through a field of dead bodies.
Just like in my dream.
The isolated packs of bouldites had bonded together, generating a force of several hundred that blocked our way toward the cave. I reached for their numbers, ready to snuff them out, but a new flare of pain distracted me as my headache counter ticked up to 87, just for considering it. I knew I needed to conserve every bit of this newfound power for the enemies that awaited me at the end.
So we met the bouldites head-on instead.
Even though my earlier display of unexpected power had netted me the majority of the XP, my soldiers also received a small portion, and they were now all level 50 or higher. The disciplined soldiers arranged themselves into an arrow-shaped formation just before meeting the bouldite charge, cutting into their ranks deeper than they could have before. They still fell as we carved a bloody path through the enemy ranks, but they lasted longer than usual, trading their lives for pushing us forward.
Life Reset: Salvation (Life Reset - Neo Book 6) Page 47
