Chapter 198 (Patreon)

They stood awkwardly as a group. The unspoken acknowledgement that they would be going into a trial that rival GODs had set up as a death trap for them hung in the air. It felt crazy, but everyone of them had abused the oracle questions in the tutorial and they understood that sometimes faith was required.

“We’ll workshop the question to make sure it’s right,” Michael said finally to break the silence. “And I guess we also need to work toward gaining the resources to purchase a teleport. What sort of question do you think we should do? Personal survival or best for humanity?”

Everyone was silent for a moment as they considered that.

Rahmat cleared his throat. “I know the right answer is humanity, but I don’t want to enter a trial where I’m likely to die. Especially if attempting it is only a slight benefit.”

“Only one question?” Michael quirked an eyebrow at Tom.

“Maybe two.”

“I think we assume one,” the healer concluded. “It’s happening within two weeks? But probably sooner?”

“Yes.”

“Then definitely only the one. That makes phrasing it tricky. I’m with Rahmat on this one. I don’t want to be risking near certain death for a slight improvement in humanity’s outcomes. Like if I have a fifty percent chance of dying, I want that risk to double or triple the ranking points our entire group contributes. If my death is almost certain, then I need the average ranking points to be increased a hundred times to be happy participating.”

Rahmat shook his head to deny that statement. “I’m all for living, but that’s extreme.”

“Well, yes, and no. It’s our lives and we can work on the wording, but for every likely unit of death I want compensation. If entering effectively doubles our average ranking point contributions, but we are guaranteed to die is that a good outcome?”

“Maybe.” Tom admitted sadly. “It’s why we’re here.”

“Not the point I was making, Tom. Same situation, but our chance of being wiped is only fifty percent instead of assured, then that’s better. Our likelihood of surviving has to be part of the calculation.”

“I’m sure you’ll come up with something suitably convoluted.” Tom said with a laugh.

“Me? No. We. We will,” Michael corrected. “But it’s an interesting philosophical debate isn’t it.”

“No,” Tom said immediately.

“If the GODS told you that killing yourself right now would guarantee you ten percent more ranking points than living your life would you do it?” Michael continued unperturbed by the interruption.

It was amusing to see that no one seemed to be keen to engage in the conversation.

“I’m going to have a snack and do research,” Tom said into the silence and he quickly exited from the group. He was surprised to see that Toni and Clare stayed with Michael to continue the discussion while everyone else broke up.

Rahmat set up a spar to face all challengers.

Tom was hungry, and he grabbed food from his inventory. It was the stew from the previous day and still piping hot. All the cooked meals were put into the inventory to both maintain them and also to preserve their taste. The air because of the kobolds was so smelly that it was almost physically heavy. Their first stew left in the open for half a day had been inedible when they had reheated it.

Since then, they had been more diligent in their use of their spatial storage.

All though…

Tom sniffed carefully and was surprised by how fresh the cave smelled. Keikain’s earth magic had made the bodies disappeared and that with the little ritual that Harry was maintaining had allowed the air to freshen up once more.

Time passed quickly and then the monster the scientist had identified as having the potential to clear the bottleneck failed dismally. The fight was over and it was dead before Tom had even recognised that it was supposed to the be the one capable of clearing the entire space.

That was a disappointment for all of them. They were well and truly sick of doing nothing.

He continued solo training and then the next of the monsters that had been circled as having the attributes to break the deadlock arrived.

“This is it?” Tom called out in excitement. The light spar between Jingyi and Everlyn was immediately abandoned as everyone crowded around the ritual screen to watch. Even Keikain abandoned his experiments with the unyielding underground rock to join them.

The monster wave approaching comprised of insect like creatures called a Leaping Tygoid Insertor. Within what felt like moments but was probably closer to a minute, a massive swarm of them appeared in the non-contested area of the canyon that the new monster packs approached from. They moved forward like a flood of spiders. The tygoid had a multi-segmented body the size of a small bird that was held up by fourteen stick-like legs that were many times longer than its tiny torso. The result was a monster that would come up to his waist but was made up almost exclusively of the spindly limbs.

The mass of insects noticed the reception that was in front of them because they immediately spread out without slowing. Now, instead of being concentrated in the centre, they stretched from cliff to cliff.

As they got closer, they started leaping. The tiny bodies launched a handful of metres into the air, and then they fell down upon the monsters waiting for them. The existing beasts were battle hardened by days of strife and they reacted to the suicidal charge of the tygoid’s violently. They went on the offensive, but the tygoids had a skill that allowed their legs at the last moment to fold away to almost nothing. The attempts to cripple the attackers by targeting the visible legs failed and those small, insignificant torsos smacked into the waiting monsters. Some landed on heads, legs, back, but it didn’t matter. The tygoids immediately bit down and injected their payload and the monster they had landed on seized up like they were being struck with lightning. The tygoids legs reappeared, folding out from the nothing space they had disappeared into and then they sprang forward once more with a massive leap.

It was not a one sided battle.

Every one of the leggy creatures on the left side of the canyon got destroyed by the snail like mollusks that sprouted flames that made the bodies curl up, drop and then not move anymore apart from the occasional torso that was subject to the laws of Physics and blew apart in a puff of smoke like a presser cooker going off as the superheated gas inside it overwhelmed the carapace to escape. The mollusks were clearly a hard counter for the insects, but while they got butchered on that side the ones in the centre and right rushed through the enemies almost unimpeded. The trick with their legs disappearing taking them past scything limbs and chomping jaws and let them land and bite down before they leapt forward once more.

They were an unrelenting wave that was only broken in a couple of spots like what happened on the left. Occasionally they ran into a monster that countered their weird attack style, but the pockets of resistance that could do that were few. Fully half of the monsters that entered reached the other end. It was clear that if they chose to pause and continue the fight, excluding the mollusks and a couple of other groups that the tygoids would win. But they did not launch another attack or stop to eat instead they kept marching forward happy to leap frog the obstruction and maintain their cycle of the ecosystem.

The entire fight had taken less than ten minutes to occur.

In their cave, hidden on the side, they looked at each other in confusion. This was not how any of them had expected the first of these potential clearing battles to go.

“That was?” Harry shook his head. “Surprising?”

“It was good,” Everlyn stated. “They’ve almost broken it. Look. They’re fighting amongst themselves.” She pointed.

The creatures that had been bitten had not died like they had originally thought. Instead, they had been stunned, and that was now wearing off. They were like zombies rising from the dead. Their steps were unsteady, but then becoming increasingly stable. There was something wrong with them and then, with unbridled fury they attacked the fellow monsters surrounding them.

“That’s a dangerous ability,” Jingyi commented.

“But it’s not enough to clear the canyon.” Michael said. “Those parasited bodies aren’t strong enough to kill everything else left alive.”

Tom agreed with the healer’s assessment. The parasited bodies, as Michael described them were clearly not as strong as the unaffected bodies. They were still capable of killing an opponent but sort of on a five to one basis versus the one to one you would expect if they had returned at full strength.

The tygoids had however done a number to the creatures below. It was hard to calculate relativities, but it felt like over half the massed monsters had been destroyed. “The tygoids were the first of many potentials,” Tom answered absently. “But they’ve definitely weakened the defences.”

“Hate to be a downer, but that doesn’t mean anything,” Michael replied. “I’ve seen this happen before. A particular vicious fight that reduced the combat strength down there significantly. But then more packs come,” Michael shrugged. “They do some damage and carve out their own territory. Then the next pack comes and repeats it and pretty quickly it’s all jammed up again. A few hours after that, it’s back to be being as strong as ever with a different mix of creatures.”

“I know, but I was in the scientist’s mind. He knew what he was doing. He was certain that the monsters coming through over the next ten hours will clear it.”

“Ten?” Keikain complained.

“Fifteen monster packs… that’s how long it will take to cycle. There is nothing we can do to speed it up, through its possible one of the earlier potentials might win and we get out sooner.”

On the screen, another pack appeared. They were caterpillar type creatures that swam through the air. Tom nodded in satisfaction. It was only thirty-five minutes after the tygoids at least the time between the groups was not extending yet. The packs slowing down due to a lack of pressure were what would often clear the circulars when they clogged up. They were lucky they were not relying on that phenomenon because if they were they would probably be here for another couple of days.

A third, fourth and then fifth wave of monsters struck. The losses were significant on both sides, but the remaining monsters folded into the collective and the fighting strength of the area began to rise once more.

“What’s that?” Harry said suddenly pointing at the very edge of the ritual. “That has to be the eldritch’s. They’re a candidate aren’t they?

“They are,” Tom agreed as he studied the approaching force. Their movement differed from most of the groups they had witnessed. The eldritch’s maintained actual formations as they travelled keeping a perfect distance apart from each of their neighbours.

The main mass of each creature was the size of a human, with a dozen tentacles sprouting out from the top and bottom of their bodies, which they used to both move themselves and wield the chunks of stone loosely shaped like a giant blade that they carried. Each of the stone blades was held by four tentacles and each creature wielded between one and three of them. The creatures were a dark green colour, and each tentacle was a thickness of Tom’s wrist and two to three metres long.

“They look…” Toni rubbed her eyes in this disbelief.

“Horrifying.” Claire finished for her.

They had stopped with eerie precision in neat rows when they had noticed the crush of monsters ahead of them. It was like the mass of near identical creatures examined the situation in front of them and identified opportunities. There was a subtle reorganisation within the terrifying creature’s ranks. Some shuffled forward others back. It all happened in a handful of seconds and afterwards they were distributed with the same precise distance between each of them.

“Bloody creeps.” Rahmat said and made a cross on his chest.

The sinister creatures moved as one. They compressed themselves and positioned to fight unfortunately, on the far left-hand side of the canyon, which was the farthest monster position from their vantage point.

They couldn’t see much, but the gap between each of the eldritch monsters closed, and they surged forward in a disciplined line with all the individuals moving exactly in rhythm with those around it. The synchronicity extended down to individual tentacles.

It lasted till they hit the monster lines and then, like every battle Tom had seen the struggle descended into chaos. There was bitter fighting for a couple of minutes, with the main visible display being those massive blade shaped stones rising up and descending.

Abruptly, for no apparent reason, the horrors retreated. With an instant, they were once more in perfect formation except the occasional eldritch, which carried one of their wounded.

They reassembled in their neat lines but this time seven of their number were left in the centre of the arrangement. They were the injured ones and all of them had lost tentacles, with one of the seven having lost every single tentacle, except for one which had been halved from its normal length.

There was another reshuffling, and then they surged forward again. They hit the same spot. Fought for a minute before they retreated.

More wounded were placed in the centre, but one of the monsters injured in the first skirmish stood and retook its place amongst the ranks. It was missing tentacles and carried only a single stone blade, but apart from that it looked as fighting fit as all the others.

“Fast healing,” Harry commented. “If we fight them, we need to apply Tom protocol to them.”

“Cockroach?” Toni asked amused.

Harry grinned and sent Tom a wink. “Exactly. Make sure when we squish them they stay dead.”

There was something about the still ranks of tentacle monsters, which was deeply unsettling, and it did not only affect the ten of them watching through Harry’s ritual. The monsters that were already waiting in the canyon sensed it too. They were restless. Unofficial ordering that had applied for days was breaking down. Groups on the front line were trying to push in deeper. Other sections shrank in on themselves, reducing the amount of territory they were defending to make their footprint smaller and their defensive lines more compressed.

The horrors surged forward and then abruptly sideways. A bunch of wolf like creatures fled from the surprise attack. Overwhelmed by fear, they turned their back on the eldritch horrors and fled straight into the remnants of the kobolds. The near humanoids never stood a chance against the savagery of the wolves and were torn apart in the unexpected melee.

The tentacled monsters were satisfied with their feint and did not follow the wolves. Instead, they retreated and fell into their perfect formations, but their ploy had done its job.

The disturbances spread.

A domino reaction occurred and pockets of fighting broke out amongst monsters across the entire field. Creatures that, while not being friendly with each other had been battle companions for days turned upon each other. Unwritten truces were thrown away in moments, and the instigators watched in perfect stillness.

The eldritch abominations observed the spreading chaos that was at such odds with how they held themselves. They had not weathered the skirmishes untouched. Almost a third of them were injured in the centre, but food and bodies from their first couple of attacks were passed towards them. The damaged horrors feasted on the supplied corpses, and the group stayed out of battle as the rest of the monsters tore themselves literally to bits.

The two-thirds of them that were still healthy launched another charge. This time, the enemy fought. Rock wolves stood their ground and were pounded into fragments, and then they kept rushing forward. The mollusks that had been so effective against the tygoids died their flames being redirected by some form of anti-magic shield that sprouted from every fifth eldritch in formation. Then, having been barely slowed by the first two opponents they crashed into the edge of the territory controlled by some sort of floating slime.

The slimes, rather than meeting the threat head on flew sideways closer to the canyon wall, abandoning their territory and fleeing. The eldritch ignored them and continued plowing forward in a straight line right at an artificial hill made of piled monster bodied which was being guarded by a type of hawk. The hawks took one look at the monsters coming their way and leapt into the air en masse leaving their home they had defended for twenty cycles without hesitation. They flew away to attack some goblinoids on the far side of the canyon.

The eldritchs inexplicably retreated.

Three different groups tried to move onto the high ground the hawks had left empty.

Once more an all out, war broke out. The horrors were back in their starting spot with about half injured in the centre of their defensive lines. But it was clear that the group was healing and if pushed most of them could already return to battle.

They waited.

Almost forty minutes had passed and then all the horrors including the injured started moving. They compacted tightly and pushed forward into the monster held territory marching toward the canyon walls. The established monsters got out of their way and nothing challenged them. In short order, they were packed closely but positioned tight against the cliffs and effectively sheltered behind a host of other different types of monsters.

“My god,” Toni said. “They are too smart. They’re going to let the next lot of creatures finish the fight for them.”

No one bothered responding. It was clear from the manoeuvres they had seen that this was exactly what they planned.

Twenty minutes later, there was a thundering roar, and a troop of monkeys with triple tails appeared. They struck the ground with their tails as one and even over a kilometre away through the underground they could feel the vibrations from the blow.

Five times they repeated the thump and then squealing they charged forward into battle.

The carnage was absolute, but Tom mainly had eyes for the eldritch horrors. They held their position and when the monkeys got close and saw the massed forces ready to attack; they shifted their focus away from the tentacled monsters toward the easier victims on either side.

The monkey’s kept fighting their numbers dwindling precariously, but they were still alive, and Tom estimated ninety percent of the monsters that had been there before the eldritch creatures had arrived were dead. The tactics deployed had been devastatingly efficient.

For the last couple of days, the raw combat strength of the gathered monsters had been equivalent to three or four circular packs of monsters. Effective combat prowess, of course, was far higher due to the mix of types and abilities, but all of that was now gone. The tygroid that had passed through without stopping had reduced that amassed power to maybe being comparable to two packs. That had built up slightly till the eldritch horrors had appeared.

The overall fighting strength was above one, but eighty percent of what remained was the eldritch abomination themselves. The rest of the forces were as good as gone.

The final monkeys were killed as they refused to back off and create a mini territory in the larger framework. The eldritch took that as an opportunity to act. They swept out with less than a dozen remaining injured. With the pack at full strength, they butchered their way across the canyon.

Monsters that have been entrenched for days turned tail and fled and then suddenly there was no resistance left.

“Will they stay?” Michael asked him.

“No, they won’t.” Tom pointed. Already the stragglers, the one’s closest to the entry to what had been the killing zone for days… they were moving. The ones closest to that entrance were no longer looking for enemies to execute instead they were shuffling in a perfectly coordinated line to escape the immediate area.

Within five minutes, the creepy things were gone.

Tom, conditioned by what he had seen over the last few days had expected them to stop and eat, but that didn’t happen. The eldritch had kept going, and the path was unclogged.

The only question remained was whether the next pack would stop to eat and restart the process.

The monsters following the monkey were some sort of snake and they saw the remnants of the battle and if anything they sped up to get through and away from the killing field, though they all saw how they dragged dead bodies along with them to presumably be consumed while moving.

Then the next pack did the same and two hours later the circular was working once more.