AMGCH11: Invasion of The Mobs (Patreon)

Vast numbers of something hit my fence and fried themselves, earning me some points and clearly alerting someone of my location. Flashes of blue light could be seen from my porch attachment to the ship, my home, and where I kept my monster girls. Banners in the distance, one red and the other leaf green, came into view with the pounding of war drums. This was a show as well as an attack. More sparks hit my fence, draining some of the energy reserves, and one of my redundant posts burst from the effort to hold off such a massive force. More pops filled my ears, along with the smell of bacon that always came with burnt flesh. Another post burst, and others came from different directions.

I was surrounded because I wouldn’t include Medy or Maeve. Neither were what I would call invested after such a short time with me. I didn’t know if they could be invested in the fate of a hero, especially one aligned with the angels. That was a problem but not one I was willing to get into when I had other problems.

Each broken post was thirty minutes of work to replace an hour each if I wanted to upgrade instead of patching up the job. That’s the problem with testing old technology in a new dimension; there was no telling how it would react when tested. I tried to adapt it as best I could to the local energy field, but there were some problems I couldn’t prepare for. This was how it always was for me.

I wish I had help, but I wouldn’t teach monster girls seals even if they could learn them. Any children I had may not be able to learn them, and wouldn’t that be depressing. My senses and the early warning systems around my farm pinged as more monster girls arrived. At the number of pings from different energy sources, I counted around 40,000 enemies coming in from my 9 and 3; this was a pincer maneuver and possibly a siege.

80,000 plus whatever kept striking my fence. My points increased with every dead, which was a small gain compared to being discovered. I wouldn’t call it a total worst-case scenario. There were some powerful individuals among the enemies, but not quite equal to phase 3 Walter. That was good, but I needed some kind of plan to deal with this situation.

My main problem was that, ultimately, my seals, energy, and spells were force multipliers. No matter what I multiplied by, I was still one limiting how effective I could be. Monsters clearly had spells and abilities similar and, in some ways, superior to heroes, and when adding numbers in the mix with the potential of combo spells completely dominated heroes.

I may only be correct in the case of Tier 1 heroes like myself.

My points continued increasing with little input on my part. I purchased all the spells already and only spent points on spells lots, pills, and inventory slots at this point. The gains were worth it, but I was finding the books had limited spells within them. They were truly the basics; if I wanted to move forward, I needed to tier up.

Atom

Hero Tier: 1

Points: 958

I turned off the descriptions.

Shop:

Tier Upgrade II 500p

Strength Pill S 1p

Speed Pill S 1p

Health Pill S 1p

Magic Pill S 1p

Control Pill S 5p

Spell Slot Pill S 200p

Inventory Slot Pill 200p

There may be no limit to the number of spell slots and inventory slots I could purchase so long as I had the points. Creating a potentially infinite loop of points gained through seals and fast-breeding monsters had its merits. Still, I would have to wait until I could find an insect queen monster. I’m sure others had thought of that exploit as well, but seals had exploits all their own. As a human, I felt confident in my ability to domesticate monsters for their points.

I had already begun work on such a plan but would need an insect queen to put it into practice. Then, of course, there would be the hiccups that came with these streamlining the exploits. It was such a fun idea for passive point gains that I couldn’t resist. For now, that was in the back seat as I came back to the problem at hand.

What would be a reasonable response to two armies marching on my farm? My initial desire was to eradicate them in the deadliest way possible.

Blood magic was well within my power, even if I had no spell slots for even the most basic of spells. Most spells were only a collection of effects named by a hero and powered into a spell slot. Once used, that spell slot needed time to passively absorb energy from the hero until they were ready to be used again. There were puppeteering spells, but half of my enemies were vampires with blood magic of their own. With their regeneration, they most likely had more blood to use than I did.

Maeve used a form of blood preservation to keep blood ready on the battlefield. That’s where all the lances came from, and if I had let her, she would have had plenty of blood for a second and third phase using her ten spell and ability slots. That was something I hadn’t known about. Tier II granted ability slots and, depending on what element spells I chose, would give different abilities. Since I purchased all of the available spells, I would have access to all available abilities as well.

While that was great, I had bigger fish to fry. I made my way to the shed, not the one I turned into an energy reservoir but the one I kept replacement posts within. I quickly replaced the ones that broke, grabbing an extra because, just as I hammered in the first one, another post broke. These weren’t upgrades and would break in time.

I thought about quickly taking an AI blueprint and programming in a patch from my cube’s libraries and interfacing it with my defense system. That was the logical next step to improving my defenses, but AI needed time to learn, and a siege wasn’t the best time for that. I had roughly 100 posts carved up and saved for a siege because why build a defense if I wasn’t going to provision it.

A few automatic turrets might have been the way to go if I expected a siege.

I bit the bullet and purchased Tier II. The blow to my wallet was nicely padded, thanks to the constant influx of points. Piles of monsters appeared over my fence line, and monsters continued to crawl over them only to fry as well. While the actual fence was where my property line ended, my fence wasn’t actually limited to the wooden posts I carved them on.

-500p

Atom

Hero Tier: II

Points: 1200

Shop:

Tier Upgrade II 3000p

Description: The amount of points required to reach the next Tier in the shop and acquire more items for the shop.

Strength Pill S 1p

Description: A pill that increases physical strength by a small amount.

Speed Pill S 1p

Description: A pill that increases physical speed by a small amount.

Health Pill S 1p

Description: A pill that increases physical health by a small amount.

Magic Pill S 1p

Description: A pill that increases physical magic by a small amount.

Control Pill S 5p

Description: A pill that increases elemental control by a small amount.

Spell Slot Pill 200p

Purchased: 3

Description: A pill that increases the number of spells someone can learn by 1. This price increases with each purchase.

Inventory Slot Pill 200p

Purchased: 3

Description: A pill that increases the number of items someone can store in an imaginary space. This price increases with each purchase.

Ability Slot Pill 50p

Description: A pill that increases the number of abilities someone can contain by 1. This price increases with each purchase.

Fire Package I 500p

Description: Fire ability bundle to purchase the fire abilities of Tier II

Immolation 200p

Description: 5% chance to catch enemies on fire with the slightest spark.

Possessed Of Light 220p

Description: Spirits of Light infuse your flames and act under your orders. Look into summoning creatures.

Mind Forge 680p

Description: Fire can be used to replace materials from monsters and metals in the crafting of objects. Once the flames have burned a monster or object, they can replace a single object during crafting.

Ash Package 1 500p

Description: Ash ability bundle to purchase the ash abilities of Tier II

Honing Suffocation 200p

Description: Ashes will fly into enemy lungs, gills, or oxygen-absorbing skin and clog and burn the organs.

Smog 1 slot 180p

Description: Ashes produce poisonous gas.

Unkindled Ash 300p

Description: Condensed ashes lose their heat and harden into obsidian blades.

Water Package 1 500p

Description: Water ability bundle to purchase the Water abilities of Tier II

Pressure Prodigy 190p

Description: It becomes easier to condense the pressure of water.

Tentacle Torment 210p

Description: Unleash solid water tentacles that can shatter boulders and lift enemies.

Drown 180p

Description: Attacks have an increased likelihood of filling an enemy’s lungs.

Water Package 1 500p

Description: Water ability bundle to purchase the Water abilities of Tier II

Puppeteer Practitioner 230p

Description: gain control of enemies through their blood 50% faster

Blood Boil 200p

Description: Boil the blood within enemies.

Blood Steel 240p

Description: Turn blood into constructed weapons

I skipped to metal because I didn’t really have a way to use any of the other abilities yet.

Metal Package 1 500p

Description: Metal ability bundle to purchase the Metal abilities of Tier II

Gather 200p

Description: Liquify and pull metal from surroundings so long as it is under the user’s control.

Pull and Push 300p

Description: It greatly enhances the user's ability to push and pull objects made of metal.

Galatea 1000p

Description: Create a metal entity that consumes metal with the implanted personality of the user’s choice.

The abilities felt like gatcha pulls. The galatea ability would be good for creating constructs that could do mundane tasks. I know they seem to be made for combat, but let's face it, I need something to do farm work and nothing else. I was unfortunately stuck until I managed to get the blood or essence I needed to gain further spells. Even then, I doubted I would use anything more than fire, blood, and metal.

Blood and metal were exactly what I needed for crafting. If I could get some wood magic, that would be even better. Purchased an ability slot and then Gather.

Atom

Hero Tier: II

Ability:

Gather

Description: Liquify and pull metal from surroundings so long as it is under the user’s control.

To be blunt, all I needed was this ability. Gathering materials took time, and I could always use more metal. I would only ever use the Galatea ability if I was using them to mine or gather materials in another way.

I needed metal to build far more permanent installations.

“Atom, we need to talk,” Medy said, interrupting my pondering.

“Do you see what’s happening? I think we should take the ship and find a place to settle elsewhere.”

“What will we do when the same thing happens there, move?” I shook my head and gave her a winning smile. “Fighting is the best thing we can do. Despite their numbers, they aren’t willing to commit. With a little time, we’ll become so embedded they will never be able to remove us.” I said.

Thoughts of real artillery, high walls, a bunker, and labs beneath came to mind. This little skirmish was a warmup.

This was the first time I negotiated from a place of strength, and I was starting to like it. “If you don’t get us out of here, we won’t have sex anymore,” Medy said.

I raised an eyebrow. We were having a fight, but the balance of power was well in my court. I had Maeve, the sweet Dullahan pussy with thighs, for days. What did Medy have? Large boobs, infinite lubrication, unending stamina, no gag reflex, and inner muscles that could alter their approach at will. Ok, logically, she was worth a move or two.

Admitting her clear value wouldn’t help me. “You should trust me more. I am more than a match for two little armies.”

Bat girls fell like rain, running into my fence and dying from the brutal electrocution. Really, what else could they expect when dealing with me. Another post shattered, and I replaced it using the metal core within to manipulate the new one into place. My hands moved as I practiced my control in real-time.

“The only reason they haven’t used their witches to break your wards is your grace period. You only have two months left, and then they will no longer hold back.” Medy said.

“Yet they decided to lay siege to me. I’m sure they want me to make the first move.” I said as more bat girls died along with a seemingly endless stream of zombies. My points were rapidly increasing under their attack. “If their plan was to make me rich, then they are succeeding.”

“We’re all going to die because you can’t see they are hitting us with disposable troops to weaken us,” Medy said.

I lifted my hand, pulled a ball of blood from a basin, and worked on my newest post design. The metal core let me turn it with my aura. I used fire magic to burn the seals into place. My new post had far more accurate seals than the ones before.

“No, I can tell they want to war of attrition. I don’t think they are aware of who they’re dealing with. In two months, even their full force won’t be enough to crack my fence. I’m glad they’re giving us these practice throws to get our act together.” I said.

“You’re making a mistake. Countesses are the military leaders of countries; they rule entire countries and keep the piece. Do you think they lack experience dealing with heroes? Even Walter didn’t dare fight them, and he poached from Pluto himself.” Medy said.

“Whose Pluto? Never mind if he was important, I would have heard of him by now. Do you see that army out there parked outside my fence as bodies pile up and they continue to throw their lives away?” I pointed to the ever-growing pile of bodies. The enemy forces were hidden beside the growing numbers of fallen. “They would have won if they had waited and caught me outside my home. All they would have had to do was post some scouts and wait until I left before sieging it. Then I wouldn’t have a place to fall back to and would have had to leave and start a new farm elsewhere.” I said.

“I don’t believe you. This place is exotic, but it can’t be a match for the territory of a queen or tyrant.” Medy said.

I patted her face. “You’re cute when you have no idea what you’re talking about. The worst thing an enemy could do was let me set up. If they had disrupted me from the beginning, they might have stood a chance.” I flipped my new post over and checked for any flaws. “I wouldn’t have a place to train or prepare. There would have been no energy spring to heal me or cows for meat and milk. I don’t only rely on pills; I need a place with relative safety to train, and due to the grace period, all they can do is send trash mobs at me and rattle their sabers. I have two months to force them into making a mistake while I train and grow much stronger.” I said.

“That is the most optimistic way to look at this situation. What will you do when the grace period ends and they begin their bombardment with high-powered elemental spells? They will use this time to find a mistake in your defenses, and the moment they’re able, they’ll capitalize on it. You think you’re powerful, but heroes have come and gone on Echidna, and our armies have become very adept at dealing with them. No angel-aligned hero lasts longer than three months, and that’s only if they hide. You can fly; we should leave this place while we have the chance. They don’t have their own witches ready to take out a flying machine. Whatever you do, don’t fight them on their own terms. You are smarter than that; you tricked Walter and me.” Medy said.

A trumpet sounded three times, and a flag was raised as a horse galloped around my fence, and the rider blasted his trumpet.

Maeve poked her head out of the door.

“That’s a flag of parlay; if you meet with the countesses, you might be able to negotiate an end to this. If you swear to never fight Persephone, they may let you off the court always has more problems than a mere rising hero.” Maeve shook her head. “I would advise you fuck them both to show your serious about peace. Werewolves like it doggy style, and Elizabeth likes being choked,” I raised an eyebrow. “Hey, you hear some crazy things while guarding the gate. I don’t know why someone who doesn’t need to breathe likes being choked.” Maeve said.

I gave Medy a look.

“Do what you want; we aren’t exclusive.” The metal slime said.

I rolled my eyes and gave the flag a long look. Maeve probably wouldn’t like to me. The bat girls continued to fly like flies going into a bug zapper, and the zombies would soon form a wall too tall to deal with. I would have to learn to fly just to get out of my own farm. Maybe I should try a peaceful solution until I can see to my own goals.

Infinite points sounded better and better the more I thought about it. Not only that, I wanted to really build some long-range artillery.