To Lev’s surprise, days passed pretty quickly. The massive approaching horde increased in size way more gradually than expected, which threw his mental calculations off.
Floating above the defenders, he and Beatrice just watched the ongoing battles with muted interest. Four days since the wave started, there hadn’t been a single truly threatening encounter.
He knew they were coming, and when they did, lives were probably going to be snuffed out. It was still boring to just wait, though.
As for the wave, there could be only a few reasons for his estimates to be wrong. The bubble’s speed had carried the Masters to the fort at an impressive speed, which might’ve scattered the monster forerunners after the effects of his influence were lost.
Less likely was the wave meeting something or someone on the way to the fort, which somehow delayed it. None of the scenarios he could conjure in his head fit that, so he pondered the final option.
The storm should reach us in… less than a month, he guessed, looking at the smattering of clouds dotting the sky. It’s not like I’m staying out of the bubble this time, and my bubble is also continuously receiving a steady supply of shadow mana, so my aura is not at fault. One lesson on the central spire was enough for that.
A silent sigh escaped his lips. The price of his hubris was almost too much, and it was a minor miracle that Beatrice was still alive and present in the same bubble.
Inhaling deeply, he forced his mind to return to the present. The chances of some storm monsters landing on the continent ahead of schedule would usually be negligible, but this time, they had a massive buffet in the form of a monster wave. Sherron, Drakys, and Alec were also notably absent, and neither had Mel’s team shown itself again. Those were the strongest Masters participating in the operation.
“Prepare yourself,” Lev warned Beatrice in advance. She used her buffs on him, confused. There were no new monsters in sight.
Near the edge of the human formations, ones that were constantly switched out to let the fighters rest, the ground rumbled. A giant maw parted the dirt, almost devouring the alarmed platinum team.
Loose cables materialized in the Earthen Destroyer’s path. The barrier constructs grew taut and held, stopping the monster in its path. On its sides, invisible shieldwalls groaned from the strain, the ground they were stabbed into cracking.
Before the monster could realize that it couldn’t break through, a massive lance tore through its head and skewered it to the ground. The worm thrashed. It was of no use.
Instead of finishing it off, however, Lev left the monster to the Adepts. They were quick on the uptake after a single signal, and within seconds, the destroyer’s front half was decimated.
[
Your Group has slain [Earthen Burrower - Level 430]
]
None of the participants got a level, particularly because Lev’s presence was overwhelming, even compared to the high level of the monster. It made sense, for he had hundreds of orbs planted in the ground, and even minor vibrations were noticeable through them.
Eventually, he wanted to enchant them with sensory runes, except there were none in the runebook from Drakys. Lev would need to trade or find them naturally.
“How many?” Beatrice asked, seeing that he hadn’t dismissed the lance as tall as a double-story building. It was even enchanted to the brim, mainly with durability, sharpness, and speed.
For a few seconds, he focused on the sensory feedback. The orbs were feeling only tiny disturbances, except the frequency told a story by itself. Sources numbered no more than three, and given the minutely increasing intensity, the monsters were closing in on the same Adept team fast.
Lev didn’t take any chances and grabbed the four platinum hunters, bringing them several dozen meters above ground, right before the monsters burst out of it.
This time, there were several pillars already in place. An orb positively drowning in lightning mana materialized between the worms as the shadow mana ran out. It exploded right as they were boxed in by thick barrier walls.
The result was painfully bright. Contained as it was, the blast was potent enough to light up a whole city. Finding no other way to erupt, the flames and lightning roared upwards, and the walls adjusted slightly to aim the uncontrolled destruction towards a group of approaching Averosts.
“What the fu-”
Beatrice’s words were drowned by the two cannons atop the bubble. She hadn’t seen the monsters coming despite their size. They had excellent aura concealment, and their flight was also alarmingly fast.
Fortunately, Lev could peer through the initial explosion with little difficulty. Shapes stood out, three of them, and he aimed at the ones that felt the least damaged.
As the beams connected, he also used all of the lightning reabsorbed by the pillars surrounding the worm corpses, infusing it all into a barrage of lances.
It spoke to their resilience that, despite Lev using over a fifth of his pool in a short moment, the Averosts managed to survive until the lances tore into their hides, only going down at the tail end of the construct rain.
[
Your Group has slain [Averost - Level 531]
Your Group has slain [Averost - Level 522]
Your Group has slain [Averost - Level 539]
Arcane Maelstrom has reached Level 306
Arcane Maelstrom has reached Level 307
]
No skill levels.
He clicked his tongue but was still pretty satisfied with the random haul. Two levels in a single fight were one more than Masters usually gained after a battle, regardless of how intense. The platinum hunters were also deposited near the fort, their tiredness after the close call evident.
“Where the hell did these come from?” Beatrice asked warily. “I am even keeping an eye out.”
“Beyond even the Grand Forest,” Lev replied.
“Huh?”
“I asked around, but no one knows much about what lies beyond the forest. Hakim once mentioned a stone maze after the green expanse, and since there is no information available on Averosts in any library, it stands to reason that they aren’t denizens of the forest. All the discovered monsters in that place are documented thoroughly.”
Beatrice just blinked twice. “I see.”
“I keep running into them,” Lev smiled. “Made me curious about where they were coming from.”
“Why are they here, then? We’re incredibly far from even the forest, let alone the… maze.”
“My guess is as good as yours,” he shrugged. “The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that there might be a nest or several deeper into the mountains. There’s no shortage of stone cliffs there. Or whatever they remain in. Or maybe they live in trees? Averosts do look a bit like birds-”
Lev’s gaze snapped towards the Northeast. There was movement on a random patch of the ground, but it was too weak for his orbs to pick up. The several hundred-meter distance didn’t help either.
For a few seconds, he wondered if he was just seeing things. No monsters were present around that spot, nor were the air or mana reacting oddly. Beatrice was also starting to look confused, though before she could say anything, something happened.
Mandibles popped out of the ground. Small, barely the size of Lev’s arms. A brown ant followed, smoothly digging out of the ground and whirling towards the nearest humans. An almost imperceptible mass of mana was left behind as the creature charged.
For a long second, Lev’s brain struggled to make sense of the monster. An ant… ants usually lived in huge colonies. Given the weak aura, the creature was also either still in the first threshold or it was a really weak second-threshold monster. In fact, upon further inspection, it was definitely the weakest second-threshold monster he had ever seen. For all of those levels to do so little for personal strength…
… Because it only needs to do its job as a soldier or scout for the colony, not be a juggernaut, his mind connected the dots.
They potentially had thousands or maybe even hundreds of thousands of ants charging the fort, with that one leading the masses.
“Hunter Lev,” Grand Strategist Wayne’s message came out of the tablet before Lev could even think of reporting the ant. “Lure them out.”
“On it.”
He moved without hesitation. Swarms were already bad news. Ants, though? That was the worst type of swarm, especially if the colony or colonies were also dialled up to Monarch’s standards.
Flying out of the bubble, he overloaded his armor with lightning and shot off. Acceleration took a few seconds to not pop the eardrums of the defenders, and when he was past the formations, he flew close to the ground.
Then he also brought Stargazer in front of him and stabbed her into the ground while flying at the same speed. A massive groove was carved in his wake, tremors spreading far and wide.
His aura was also revealed, only a quarter of it at first. After some hesitation, he let out half of it and aimed his left arm at the ground when he was over a kilometer away from the humans.
A fireball decimated a large chunk of it. Another landed in the crater, before one more further widened it.
After twenty fireballs, the hole looked more akin to a landing site of a small meteor. Lev hovered a dozen meters above the deepest point, staying stationary.
Come on, he breathed in deeply. The bait was set. I know you want me.
The first signs of the lure being effective were tiny, concealed auras. Lev tensed. Three blobs of acid shot out of the crater’s walls, ineffectively splashing against several hidden shieldwalls.
Raw force slammed into his armor. His flight went out of control, and he was tossed out of the crater. Before he could reorient himself, another burst of force slammed him into the ground.
Mandibles scraped against the barrier armor in the same instant. Panicking, he released a wave of lightning, killing seven ants in that single move.
That did nothing to calm him. Forming a few orbs and sending them underground revealed no signs of the monsters in vibrations, nor did his Mana Perception pick up where the next force attack came from.
An invisible blanket was dropped on top of him. It attempted to drag him to the ground, but he was ready for it. Blue fire counteracted the telekinesis or kinetic energy, whatever it was, saving him from getting swarmed by a dozen ants.
Breaking free of the trap, he shot upwards. As he watched, the dozen became two dozen, and soon, hundreds of ants were breaching the ground.
We really are under attack by a whole colony…
Lev sighed. He could already see what he needed to do, and for that, he called forth the bubble. Beatrice was still inside, so keeping her a good distance away from the ants, he signaled for a buff.
Intelligence and mana regeneration were boosted immediately. Lev’s range expanded by nearly a hundred meters, a massive improvement.
Within the confines of his influence, arrows formed by the dozens. An ugly and terrifying mass of mandibles and segmented bodies was trying to reach him, with little success.
It was depressing to think that even things like ants were out for his blood. There were bound to be an extreme number of those on his tail now, and there wasn’t much he could do about it. Manawell or not, he could only face hundreds, not thousands or tens of thousands.
For now, however, he could manage. The boosted regeneration allowed him to infuse the arrows with reckless abandon. Orbs drilled into the ground for as far as his manipulation range extended, and as expected, they were ripped to shreds within instants.
That was fine. He merely needed to know where the monsters were grouped together.
Out of the corner of his eye, he also caught a distant platinum team getting ambushed by a mage ant. The lead warrior’s legs snapped, bones protruding through the thighs. He fell down screaming.
Terrified, a fire mage loosed several overloaded fireballs at the ant, but all of them exploded mid-air, well before their mark.
Lev almost rushed his preparations when a trident whistled through the air. Neither the humans nor the ants saw it coming as the mage ant was torn asunder by an incredibly precise strike. In a blink, the trident also flew back, recalled by an active enchantment.
Following its trajectory revealed the unexpected source of the attack. Grand Strategist Wayne coiled his arm back before launching the trident again, this time towards an invisible enemy.
Several meters underground, another mage ant’s aura was revealed before it dispersed.
Seeing that the strategist had his back, Lev returned to the disgusting mass of chitin below him. Nose scrunched, he waved a hand downwards, and hundreds of infused arrows followed.
The bubble scooped him up before they impacted. A veritable ocean of flames bloomed on the plains, covering hundreds of meters with fires loaded with lightning.
Thin limbs, bones, gore, and many other organs flew out of the eruption. Each arrow empowered the last, fueling the explosion as it dug downwards, disintegrating the ground.
More of the ants were caught in the blast. Most of the explosion was released upwards, but Lev wasn’t focused on that. The bubble had more than enough protection against heat and lightning’s destructive nature.
By his side, Beatrice flinched as his cold aura surged. It was completely bereft of emotion except dark, dark glee, for a lightning bolt was rushing towards the bubble.
It tore through several shieldwalls, finally fizzling out on the sixth. Lev couldn’t have cared less about the loss. Instead, his gaze remained fixed on the source of the bolt, one oh-so-familiar despite being different than the demon that still haunted his dreams.
[Stromrider Vulture - ????]
He couldn’t wait to tear it limb from limb.