[MA] 168. Such Ignorance (Patreon)

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[A/N: 1/3 chapters this week. Next one on Thursday.]

"This is humiliating," the invisible Supreme Leader complained as soon as the portal opened.

Failtusk, also floating invisible beside him in the middle of the portal, agreed. Fort Steelrock had achieved grand victories in the past, from safeguarding the Shattered Horn of Sunsinger for five days against the hordes of Callkiller to slaying the Shadow of Life at the gates of Mount Firestone.

And now, the unknown race in front of them dared to send weak Guardians and non-elevated against them!

"Their other D-ranks might be fighting a stronger—" She stopped her loud mouth as soon as she noticed her mistake.

"A stronger D-tier rift than ours, is it, Failtusk?" the Supreme Leader asked with a freezing tone.

She couldn't see his face, but she recalled the faces of those she had betrayed in the past moments. That would be her fate, too, if she said something wrong. And nothing made the Supreme Leader angrier than attacking his pride.

Fortunately, the sound of loud explosions allowed her to avoid the question.

The hairless race that looked like hairless pink tamassui used puny magicless weaponry against the gnolls. To make things worse, it worked. Thousands of E-ranks died in a few moments.

Failtusk was against that invasion, but even she couldn't stop her ire from rising. That was so humiliating it demanded retaliation.

"Change of plans," the Supreme Leader commanded. "The first obelisk will move as soon as the ground engines establish a defensive line. The reconnaissance, distraction, and capture squads will invade right after."

"Yes, Supreme Leader," a nearby male voice replied while already moving away to obey.

Failtusk was the second-in-command and should be the one to relay orders from their Supreme Leader to anyone else. However, he still hadn't forgiven her for allowing treason to sprout among the D-ranks. She would stay under her watch—for her good, he claimed.

The Concept-Cancelling War Engine—commonly called obelisk—entered the other world, and the reconnaissance showed. They were to attack any enemy D-ranks nearby.

They only found the one they were most interested in.

The Supreme Leader kept silent as they watched their target humiliate the weakest D-rank gnolls. Their sacrifice was wasted. The Supreme Leader wanted to understand the power of the enemy D-ranks before advancing, but there was none other than the void-tainted one in sight.

That was, of course, another humiliation. One Guardian alone had entered their rift, humiliated them, and left unscratched. Now, he stood alone against their invasion.

Failtusk got angrier by the second.

Meanwhile, the gnolls' precious equipment evaporated as metal death fell upon them. Fort Steelrock had kept their resources when they became a rift and repurposed them accordingly, but it was still limited. The ground engines were especially resource-demanding to produce. Rift dwellers received back whatever non-organic materials the system disintegrated inside their rift, but anything destroyed outside it was forever lost to them. Invading worlds was a risky affair.

The Supreme Leader didn't mind the E-rank loss, but it worried Failtusk. The gnolls could produce magic tools but not reproduce while in the rift. The fewer E-ranks remaining after this invasion, the greater the chance of the D-ranks having to fight when the next portal appeared.

She didn't want to die; her cursed existence was better than oblivion.

At least the gnolls could make as many Pounding Engines as they wanted. Their only limitation was the number of smiths capable of melting the white metal used to protect the cubes. Not that they would need more in the foreseeable future; the five-hundred-strong distraction squad got rid of the enemy flying machines at a small cost.

"I told you, Failtusk," the Supreme Leader said with unexpected glee. "Look at him. He can deny our obelisk power with his aura alone. If that is not proof of a novel way to use the Void in plain sight and not get caught by the Alliance, I don't know what is."

Failtusk had to admit he had a point. The Concept-Canceling War Engines' blueprints guaranteed they could pierce through two perfectly stacked combat auras. Such a stack was complex enough that none of their D-ranks could do it. How could, then, a single aura resist the obelisks' might?

"But I won't stand for this," the Supreme Leader continued as their target cut down the tenth gnoll officer—more or less at the moment the ninety thousandth E-rank gnoll fell. "Order the capture squad to start laying down the domes. We'll force their D-ranks to show themselves."

"Yes, Supreme Leader!" another voice said, leaving to dispatch the orders.

Restrictive barriers started popping up around the visible reckon squad, the invisible capture squad, and their target. Hundreds were erected in mere moments.

Still, no other enemy D-rank showed themselves.

They were saying they didn't need more to deal with the gnolls.

Failtusk could almost physically feel the slap on her face.

The Supreme Leader's aura started twisting the world around. Pockets of air were erased from existence, and even a nearby gnoll cried out in pain.

"This is enough," the Supreme Leader said with unhidden anger. "One D-rank from each obelisk will advance to defend the ground engines. If no D-rank appears, the capture squad will act at once."

"Yes, Supreme Leader!"

The gnoll D-ranks advanced to protect their E-ranks at last. The enemy replied not with any D-rank but with more metal death.

A seemingly endless rain of cylinder-packed explosions.

Failtusk felt Reality try to take her leg away as the Supreme Leader lost further control of his aura at the continued humiliation.

"Prevent this insult at once!" he commanded aloud, and all D-ranks waiting by the portal used their magic and Skills to prevent the enemy magicless weaponry from entering their rift.

Magicless or not, enough of the cylinders could kill even a D-rank—as shown by one of theirs who fell on the other side of the world. And there were enough of them coming their way. Many gnolls cried in pain as their will shattered, and Failtusk felt dozens fall to the ground. Failtusk herself grunted in discomfort.

"I won't stand by this anymore," the Supreme Leader said, then raised his voice. "The capture squad will take the target. All of you will find the D-ranks yourselves. Invade, slaughter, and plunder at will until they come."

An idea came to Failtusk then. "What if they are like us?" she asked. "What if they would rather lose all their lessers than risk their lives? What if our target is the only one who cares?"

"Then we'll give them what they want," the Supreme Leader replied and yelled, "Kill them all!"

"Yes, Supreme Leader!" two thousand D-ranks replied.

They charged. Their sudden, fast movements made the invisibility spell hiding them fade.

Fort Steelrock's best marching at the enemy once more was a sight to behold.

It inspired all E-ranks. They disregarded all plans and rushed after the D-ranks. The price for humiliating Fort Steelrock would be paid in rivers of blood.

Failtusk wasn't immune to it. Her blood burned with the desire to join her people. Gnolls were what the Alliance called a pack race. She didn't like to be left out.

"Am I allowed to go?" she asked.

"No," the Supreme Leader replied. "I won't stay alone while my people advance. You'll share my burden with me."

His voice did sound burdened.

The two had also appeared when the invisibility spell dropped, and Failtusk looked at him. He looked magnific in his D+ armor made of wyrm scales. Each scale had been strengthened with magic to become black plates harder than most metals, then molten together in a thick armor covering his entire muscular body. Light gray runes shone throughout it. Spikes made with wyrm fangs came from the elbows, knees, heels, and boot tips. The open helmet was shaped like a dragoon with four intimidating black and red curved horns.

The Supreme Leader's face looked both angry and longing. He was their strongest and thus had become the rift's "boss." He was ready for war yet wouldn't be able to leave the rift until their punishment was over.

Failtusk looked back at the other side of the portal. The unfair thing even stopped gnoll attacks from going through, so the leader couldn't attack from here. Yet, the unfair thing had allowed the enemy to send plenty of death cylinders their way.

Rift dwellers were considered little more than training dummies to the Alliance. Their crimes were always against the Alliance's core tenets, and they were only kept alive to serve a purpose—to make the Alliance grow stronger. She still recalled going against a few rifts before she was locked into one and reading only "Rift Dweller" in the AP gain message.

The Guardian System didn't even care to call dwellers by their names.

Still, they had to accept it or get executed. Only three things made most beings take the terrible offer: the promise of eventual release, having their biological ages frozen for the punishment's duration, and the opportunity to plunder any world the rift connected with. There were stories of rift dwellers who paid their time and came out much stronger than they entered. They used their time to train and lucked out in the worlds they were deployed against.

Failtusk hated everything about it.

What were the odds of rift dwellers finding a world with weaklings? Almost none. That required an outlier to stand so above everyone else that when a rift of their rank appeared, the few who lucked out and used the opportunity to also rank up wouldn't be enough to defend the world.

The infamous drow history, who had gone through it, was a cautionary yet extremely rare tale.

More commonly, the worlds that received rifts of the same rank as their strongest had to fight seriously to protect themselves but weren't endangered as a species. Even if their best fell, many more rose to the occasion, and their numbers were almost always enough. When it wasn't, the loss was significant but bearable. Such rifts helped the Alliance curb weakness and inaction while training their warriors for the ultimate fight against the Void.

When the gnolls were still genuine members of the Alliance, they had suffered its indifference to their pleas. Time and time again, the gnolls lost their best in wars against other races or against strong rifts, yet the Alliance did nothing to help. It claimed the loss wasn't enough to get them extinguished, and they were right—but the loss was enough to mourn and despair.

The gnolls turned to the Void then.

It had been a mistake. Failtusk wanted to go back to the times before. The Alliance was uncaring, but it gave their races opportunities to grow—like it was giving the hairless race.

The gnolls had been stupid not to see that.

There were no such easy opportunities for rift dwellers. Failtusk was sure the gnolls would never, ever, have any chance of finding an easy world to invade.

Then again, maybe they didn't need it.

She looked at their target, who suddenly found himself surrounded by the capture squad.

Maybe he would be the key for them to escape their prison at long last.

= - = - =

Liya watched the battle beside the other Observers.

They didn't even look in her direction after her stunt back in the tutorial. She immensely enjoyed the treatment.

She had observed Earth as was her bidding. They had a slight chance of victory in what they called the Rift War.

Such ignorance! They should see what a real Rift War was like.

Ignorant or not, their odds were infinitely better than what the drow had had. If all went well, Liya was confident almost twenty percent of their remaining population would survive. Maybe thirty if they really lucked out.

She wished the drow had had that many people to repopulate and fight for their race after they were crushed by the D-ranks from the rift they got.

Liya wanted to intervene here, save this baby race, teach and lead them to glory.

She wouldn't.

One of the things the drow had learned very well was that they should put themselves first whenever it was them or another race. If they didn't put themselves first, no one else would. And for all Liya knew, she might be the last drow alive.

Their continued existence might depend on her, and if she went against the rules here, the enemies that might've obliterated the drow by now would also get to her.

She was glad she had learned to isolate her unhelpful feelings and thoughts too, or she would die from worry.

Instead, she looked at the almost thousands of D-ranks invading a world protected by mere hundreds of thousands of weaklings and mourned the humans in advance. Even if they emerged victorious, they would still pay a heavy toll.

Fortunately for them, the gnolls were an easy foe; they couldn't plan for shit. They lacked the creativity to think of what-ifs and have multiple plans at ready. The ultimate proof was that they had turned to the Void to grow stronger and kept at it after getting their B-ranks.

Almost as fortunate for the humans engaged in combat was that help was coming. Wannabe heroes thought this was some history and they should arrive at the last minute. Some opportunists suddenly understood their best chance was a temporary truce with their primary target. Egoistical hermits realized they had to help just because a world without others of their race would be boring to live in.

That's what she hated the most about humanity, their individuality.

No, that was wrong.

What she hated the most was how they allowed themselves to be led by their absolute worst as long as they got enough benefits. Their history was full of that. From the old times to recent days, they left their fate and morals in the hands of their leaders and shut their minds down to the leaders' wrongdoings for convenience's sake.

There were plenty of good people out there; humanity simply didn't care to recognize and push them to the top. Instead, they lazily picked those who could echo their stupidest ideas loud enough.

Now, they would pay the price.

The two thousand gnoll D-ranks that had just left the portal reached humanity's army...

...and plowed through them like the Void on an uninhabited planet.

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