Dave put the Mana bolt orbs on automatic, allowing them to fire at the targets that the sensing orbs found. His mind linked to the sensing orbs.
His eyes opened in a flash. His crossbow moved; he fired and turned, firing again. With each pull of the crossbow’s trigger, a bolt was released. A new string and bolt was conjured in their place as soon as they had left the crossbow, allowing Dave to shoot as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Dave’s movements were nimble and fluid. By the time the third bolt had been fired, the first hit its target. The bolt hit the Uoue, damaging them and pushing them back slightly. It started to recover when the crossbow bolt’s conjuration spell changed; all of the Mana within it lost the containment of the spell formation.
The resulting free Mana exploded, opening a fist-sized hole through the Uoue and destroying its internals.
“Show-off! Look at me, I’m Dave—got a cool new weird crossbow thingy!” Steve complained, cutting through a Uoue’s leg and then burying the pick at the back end of his axe into the Uoue’s body. He slammed them to the ground with so much force that a crater appeared around them.
“Just need a way to compete with the wife!” Dave said.
He saw the corner of Deia’s mouth rise as her eyes sharpened. The rate at which she shot out arrows only increased. She used the environment around her to move, cutting down Uoue from across the assault formation, smacking another’s limb away from her with the tip of her bow. Flames surged out from her body to burn the Uoue to a crisp. She pulled back on her bowstring again; an arrow was conjured between her fingers and released to hit another Uoue as the one that she’d set aflame fell to the ground.
Around Suzy, her six Affinity creations were even more stable and powerful, each of them on a strength comparable to the Uoue. However, they could use limited Affinity spells, giving them an advantage.
Jung Lee landed in front of the formation in a pillar of dust. Only the noises of his sword moving filled the air.
Dave could see that he was fighting Uoue that were now converging on his position. He met them all. Combined with his six Affinities, he left only traces of gray smoke behind him. His sword flashed as he moved with a deadly grace that Dave felt incapable of replicating.
After a few minutes, the assault force got into a rhythm of dealing with the Uoue, greatly reducing their casualties.
The Uoue stopped attacking and started to flee back into the dust and debris that covered the area around their portal.
“Do not chase them!” Josh yelled out. But his words weren’t enough to stop some as they rushed out into that black and gray dust-filled hell.
Screams could be heard as names were added to the kill log along everyone’s screens.
“Hold your positions and get the wounded to the rear. The flying citadels have a magical formation they want to try. It should at least get rid of this dust,” Josh said.
The assault formation, their blood cooled down from hearing the deaths of those who had chased the Uoue, quickly followed Josh’s orders.
Runic lines along the flying citadels’ soul gem island and the bodies of the citadels atop started to light up. The air filled with humming as complicated spell formations appeared around the flying citadels. Thick lines of power shot out from the four citadels, meeting between them, right over the Uoue portal.
From the different lines, spell formations grew out in a clockwise manner and connected to the other lines from the citadels. The lines were not as thick in the center but the powerful spell formation was thick with runes. Smaller spell formations grew along the lines between the massive one in the center and the citadels.
They were various sizes and carried different runes.
A buzzing sound filled the air as the runes lit up and the spell formations activated. The air seemed to become heavy as clouds appeared in the sky, further darkening the area around the gray and black dust that filled the visions of the assault force.
Thick, rolling clouds converged above that spell formation. There was a booming sound of thunder; lightning arced through those black clouds.
Suddenly, all at once, it was as if a sheet of rain had fallen. The dust over the assault force was forced back as the dust and debris in the air in front of them and under the rain clouds was pushed to the ground. The assault forces looked upon the torrential downpour that was happening just a meter or so away from the front line.
With the rain, all of the dust was suppressed. However, the Uoue were sneaky and a number of them looked to stealth their ways to the front lines. People found the Uoue once again emerging right in front of their front lines.
“Pull your heads out of your asses—this fight isn’t over yet!” Josh yelled as a few people succumbed to the Uoue’s attacks.
Here and there, fighting broke out but none of the Uoue were able to get too close to the assault formation.
The magical formation above the portal dissipated, allowing the rain to come to a stop.
“Nice, a sauna,” Dave said. The air was now humid with the mixture of heat and rain; however, they could now all see through the gray sand and slate plains to the abandoned-looking city that the portal rested in the center of.
“I have a feeling that this is not going to be a fun battle,” Lox said.
New magical lines ran from the flying citadels as a spell formation appeared.
“Well, it might not be all that bad,” Dave said, recognizing the spell formation.
The spell formation was completed in the sky. A few moments later, a disrupting attack rained down from it. The blast of distorted light smashed against the abandoned city.
“Looked like it needed a remodeling anyway.” Steve raised his axe to his shoulder.
The buildings were eaten away by the disruption ray.
“Did you fix the firing mechanism?” Gurren asked Dave.
“Nope. Still got a Nalheim up there stabbing away with a spear to use this,” Dave said, understanding just how ridiculous that was.
“Well, as long as it works,” Deia said.
Dave nodded and watched as the disruption ray fell from the sky, flattening the city, eating through the ground, making the buildings that looked as if a giant had eaten them teeter and fall over.
“While it will be easier to see and fight the Uoue, we’re still going to need to get in there and clear them out.” Suzy frowned.
“Nothing for it—it’s the job that we signed up for,” Steve said. “Well, I guess I was technically contracted into it at the first.”
Steve struck a thoughtful pose as Dave let out a slight laugh. The dark atmosphere that had been following them ever since the deaths of Jekoni and Anna had eased slightly.
It hadn’t gone, but with all things, time was starting to heal them.
There was much for them to do and it helped for them to get through their inner pain. Dave could see that a number of them blamed themselves for what had happened. However, they were coming to know that Anna and Jekoni had done it for them, knowing full well what would happen to them. They had died to give them and the others within that Xelur citadel the ability to fight on, to be able to continue on. Still, the members of Party Zero couldn’t help be selfish and hope that there was a way that they could have saved them both.
Dave looked around. His eyebrows pinched together.
He wanted to be here, to look after the people he cared about, but that was his emotions speaking.
He didn’t want to admit it, but right now he was here fighting for his own gain.
Sure, I can help out a bit here, but I’m needed to help with the Pandora’s Box Initiative. Already the more isolated players in the Earth simulation have been woken up and soon Sato’s people will be starting to build their outpost. There’s also the fact that the test portal is nearing completion and I want to work on the battleship and destroyer, and possibly make them from scratch just to look over all of the magical coding with everyone working together. Only then can we get the best results from our warships
.
Dave’s mind turned back to the issues that he had found when Ela-Dorn, Malsour, and he had confronted one of Sato’s stealth ships, the Sprite. He wasn’t pleased with the results, sure he could go through and troubleshoot it all. But by building it together with the others in the Initiative, then they could get to know the ins and outs of the ship and pick apart any small issues, making it stronger and more powerful. They didn’t have endless resources or time, so they needed everything they were building to be in working condition as soon as it was built.
He also hadn’t seen Koi in too long. It felt like with everything going on, he was letting his daughter down. Deia and he had already talked about how much they wanted to spend time with their daughter but it seemed they weren’t able to step away from their duties for even a moment.
Dave took a deep breath as the last disruption ray landed. All of the buildings around the portal had been reduced to nothing but dust. With the humidity, this dust fell to the ground instead of being tossed up into the air.
The portal stood in the middle of the crater, tilted slightly at an odd angle.
The spell formation changed once again between the flying citadels, solidifying and then dropping toward the ground. This spell formation was a shield spell. If anyone stepped out of the portal, they would slam into the shield, then become torn apart by the power of the portal’s event horizon. This would stop any more Uoue from rushing through the portal to help those already in Emerilia.
“Prepare to move—scouts and detection mages out front! Check your mini-maps for anything that the flying citadels are able to find!” Josh called out.
The player-led forces moved forward. They had the best detection abilities and were backed up by the POEs who called out as soon as they found a disturbance, calling down fire from the ranged attackers on the ground or from the flying citadels.
A sand dune flew up in the air. A Uoue stabbed out at a player; they looked down at their chest that had one of the Uoue’s limbs stabbed through them.
Dave and Deia fired at the same time; their bolt and arrow tore the Uoue apart as the other ranged members in the force added in their own attacks.
The Uoue didn’t have time to get a second victim.
Uoue that had been buried underneath the sands and evaded detection exploded upward across the formation at random times, usually claiming at least one victim before they were put down ruthlessly.
Everyone was tense as they continued forward. Everyone on the front scanned the ground, looking for any trace of the Uoue.
Sometimes the Uoue would charge out in packs but without the cover of the dust cloud, all of the assault force could see them. All of their ranged weapons bore down on them as soon as they appeared, mercilessly cutting them down.
Under that hot sun, the Terra Alliance continued forward, gritting their teeth and tightening their hands around their weapons. The atmosphere tensed as no one wished to talk, as if doing so would alert the Uoue and bring them down upon them.
It wasn’t pleasant and it took nearly three hours before they finally reached the edge of the crater that led to the portal that allowed access to Emerilia. There were no cheers of victory, only weary relief as the assault force finally started to release the high state of alert that they had maintained throughout the advance.
Scouts continued to move over the area, making sure that none of the Uoue had escaped while mages used their more powerful detection spells. These took time and Mana that wasn’t convenient to use when they were moving or fighting. These groups were heavily protected as they worked to clear up the remaining Uoue.
Party Zero looked over this all as a familiar face with a group of high-leveled Stone Raiders moved closer to them.
“Hey, Josh,” Dave called out in greeting, waving to them.
“Hey.” Josh looked as if he had aged decades in the last couple of months. They had dropped the truth of Emerilia on him, then he’d been engaged in fighting the creatures of the event as well as whatever decided to come through the portals.
He was the official head of the Terra Alliance, which meant managing all of the different guilds, kingdoms, and groups that had come to join the alliance. It was a lot of pressure and he knew if he didn’t do his best then people would die.
They all stood there in companionable silence. It had been some time since they’d had a minute for them to just be with their own thoughts.
Malsour opened up a party chat with them all so that no one might be able to hear them. “I’ve decided that I’m going to return to the Initiative,” he said, his voice firm even as it contained a thread of guilt.
“I will be doing the same,” Dave said in a heavy voice. He didn’t want to leave his friends to face the dangers that lay ahead alone, but he was needed by the Initiative much more than Party Zero needed him.
Josh looked to them both and nodded. “I know it’s a hard decision to make but, even though you’re great fighters, if you can make a few more things like the flying citadels, it will increase our fighting abilities a hundredfold. Which is much more aid than just your fighting can offer.” Josh let out a sigh. He didn’t want to say the words but they needed to be said.
Deia and Dave shared a look. He didn’t want to leave her but he needed to, for now. She smiled at him, sensing his inner turmoil, her eyes telling him that she would be fine.
Dave nodded slightly to her. The corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
Chapter 7: Show and Tell
Ela-Dorn was pouring over the plans for the portals as well as the wealth of information that Dave had supplied her on his various theories and the documents that detailed plans on portals, teleport pads and Onos. All of it had served as fuel to further her research.
She was now working toward her next class-changing level so that she could add in having the gravitational anomalies and master of space and time classes. With all that she now knew, by just getting those two classes she would gain a wealth of stat points.
People all through the Initiative were also changing their classes, building up skills that they didn’t know existed and opening their horizons further than ever. These people who had thought of themselves being on top of Emerilia in all of its knowledge were now learning that they had been deluded. As they came to know more, the more they found questions. Most of them were submerged in research and experimentation, spending every waking moment working on different experiments and projects.
There was a serious atmosphere to Ice City and the various bases. But under it, there was excitement. Here they were on the leading edge of discoveries and making leaps that people on Emerilia would think them crazy for even mentioning.
They had adapted a similar outlook to what Dave had introduced: they were seeing just how far they could push the boundaries. If they thought it might work, they would put in all their effort to figure out how to bring about the changes that they wanted. There were people from all over now putting forward theories that were being proved or dismissed every day. These theories had turned the different bases into a wealth of furious activity, each and every day it seemed some new connection was made, or a theory proved or disproved. To them it was researching bliss.
Then the players who had been woken up had added in their efforts.
They came without the ability to help out at first, but they were quick learners and their imagination hadn’t dulled in the slightest. They came up with some incredible ideas, some of them were even insane, but still it got the others thinking and they worked to see whether they could make these ideas a reality.
The population of Ice City had been scared and tense when they had heard about the players being woken up from their slumber. There was truly no way of knowing how they would react. However, now there were already players who had not only been introduced to the community but had taken up jobs within it. The number of them who wished to help out was incredible. Much like how players on Emerilia were, if they were given a quest they would do everything in their power to comp
lete it.
They shared all that they learned with one another in their own slang and language, easily getting the point across. What might take Ela-Dorn and her colleagues hours, only took them a few minutes.
There was a knock from Ela-Dorn’s doorway. She turned from the interface she was reading to find Dave in the doorway to her laboratory.
“Seems like you’re always looking over some project or stuck in some book,” Dave said with a small smile.
“Well, it seems that I’m always finding myself behind you and the rest of the people in this Initiative!” Ela-Dorn retorted. “So, what are you coming looking for me for?”
“Well, I was thinking that it might be a good idea to have someone who knows a few things about portals with me when I fire up our first prototype.”
“You’re going to start it up?” Ela-Dorn asked. “Wait—the ship one or the smaller one?”
“The smaller one. Don’t want to have the big one just start melting down. Any changes that need to be made with the smaller one we can just make and apply them to the bigger version.” Dave paused and looked thoughtful. His mouth opened and closed as he frowned; his finger rested against his lip. “Maybe that would work—well, it should anyway.”
“What are you muttering about?” Ela-Dorn’s eyebrow arched in question to Dave’s sudden look of discovery. She’d seen it before. Either he’d come up with an incredibly good idea, or an incredibly stupid one. There was no real knowing of what would come out from his mind.
“Well, I’ve been thinking on the battleship. There were a number of issues I found with it when we used it that one time. I wasn’t sure how we could fix them. I was thinking that if we got everyone together, we’d build a ship section by section until it’s all complete. That would take a bunch of time, resources, and manpower, but then we could take that design, replicate it again and again for functioning warships as soon as they’re complete. I was thinking too big. We can already make the different components and as long as we’re not running a ton of power through it, then we can make everything smaller. We don’t need to make a full battleship—we just need to make a model, see how it works, fix the issues and then copy it over to the other battleships. I’m thinking that we make a model of the battleship, but at a thousandth the size. It will be easy to detect any issues and changing them out would be easy and not require nearly as much Mana.
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