BZZ-CRACK!
BZZ-CRACK!
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Each blazer burst and gun discharge reverberated through air molecules, sending echoes across the scorched lands of Springhead. In the trenches, the troops slowed their digging, alerting one another to the sound of approaching battle.
From the road downhill, Adam emerged running from behind a ruined house, pistol in hand, Elena pushing him forward, and two other men covering them with Blazer fire.
"STONE! FIRE POSITIONS!"
Adam's cry steeled the nerves of the recruits as they looked at the coming swarm.
If one were to describe them, they would simply say "Ants"; slow, clumsy, but with large fangs armed with jagged parts that meant serious business.
Apart from the Ants, there were the upright, four-armed lobsters, with blue, red, and white colors, mixed in all sorts of patterns.
The three Wartopians present on site (Stone, Dusty, Jazz) were the fastest to respond, their blazers aimed at the swarm, shots fired one after the other.
Blazers were strong and devastating, powerful enough to tear off the limbs of armored troops. Those human-sized ants, on the other hand, proved much softer than that, as a Blazer shot wouldn't lose momentum even after passing through one of them, hitting two and sometimes three at a time.
"Form a line. Defensive positions! Recruits, out of the trenches! Arm yourselves with shovels! Jazz, bring everyone else from base." Elena gave a string of commands, rallying the recruits that were crawling out of the trenches like the ants that were swarming them.
"Adam! Adam!"
Megan came out of the trench, covered with sweat and dirt, as Adam and the three Wartopians with him passed through a ramp previously installed over the trench.
He turned to her as she was still down there; immediately, he lay down and extended his arm, which she took and climbed out at once.
"What are those?" As soon as she emerged, she looked at the crawling pale bugs, and a shiver ran over her skin.
"I don't know! But whatever they are, there are too many of them. We have neither bullets nor blazer cells for all that."
Brief fights were manageable, but an endless number were incoming, and like the tide, it would swallow them if they didn't act.
"HAA! HAA!"
Down in the trench, Kave faced the first one to drop inside, and he faced it with his shovel, dodging its first bite, before coming down on its head and splattering it into a pale mess.
With a single hit, he defeated an ant the size of himself.
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫
"HAHA! That's an EXP farm coming my way!"
Excited, he immediately put it in his Might stat, finally raising it to 4.
"Kave! Get out of the Trench!" Adam called for him, but Kave only went on to assist the others in getting out, while intercepting the second ant that reached inside.
"The System is calling them Krants!" He only replied, relaying what he saw.
"What now?" Adam asked, firing two shots from his pistol.
"I don't have time to read. Take this!" Kave replied as he hit the fangs of the ant he was facing with the back of his shovel, and instead of flattening its head, he stabbed at its base and beheaded the ant, before kicking the twitching body off.
He then carried the head by the fang and threw it towards Adam.
"For fuck's…"
Adam wanted to cuss from the fright Kave gave him, but as soon as the head got near him, he touched it, and a system pop-up appeared.
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[ Krant Worker ] < Medium Krants, Invaders >
Typical worker krant with a wide crustacean body that maximizes underwater movement efficiency. They are effective gatherers and builders, and they fight in melee by swarming enemies.
Bite Attack — The worker ants are notorious for their powerful bites that can split the hardest rocks and stones.
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Adam's eyes sped through the description, trying to gain as much insight into those new enemies as possible.
"Kave! Don't let them corner you! Their bites are bad news!" Adam shouted.
"No shit, Sherlock!" Kave retorted, looking for another one to melee.
The swarm only increased in number, now tripping over itself as they were trying to move uphill. While most of the swarm was slow and struggling to move upward, some were swifter than others, reaching the tunnels faster than the rest of the swarm, a few, but still numerous.
"Flint! Get that recruit out of the trench." Adam shouted to the Urdman Fanatic, who put aside his small blazer pistol and switched to the e-tool.
"Yes, Sir!"
The Urdman responded in a heartbeat, jumping down from his firing position, bashing anything in his way with the e-tool, sometimes even without looking.
Kave was holding a spade that was getting slippery with krant gore, forcing him to take off his shirt in order to strengthen his grasp, fighting topless in his thin, malnourished state. He was facing two krant workers, each of them trying to flank and bite him, forcing him to retreat while swinging widely.
"Sol Imperius is fighting through you, brother recruit! So fight better!"
Flint reached for Kave, tapped his shoulder, and lunged at the first krant on the side, but rather than bashing, he kicked it at the other one, causing the two to crumble on one another, before taking his e-tool and splattering their insides all over his gas mask.
Kave watched the unidentified man doing short work of the krants while he was catching his breath. Once Flint finished his work, he turned to Kave and wiped the goggles of his mask.
He then picked a grenade from his belt, cooked it with one hand, and threw it past the trench.
BOOM!
A fountain of krant gore and limbs erupted from beyond the trench, heralding the demise of many krant workers.
"… a Fanatic?" Kave was surprised as he realized what was in front of him.
"A Grenadier, if you may." Flint replied with passion and fixed his e-tool from a shovel to an axe mode, just by flinging it once.
"Cool!" Kave's eyes were wide with wonder.
"Follow me, brother recruit! Today, we shall wipe this field clean of alien filth. Witness my stand!" Flint shouted at Kave and brought him along out of the trench, though not from the side Adam intended.
"Aye, sir! For his Holy Name!"
Drawn to a madness greater than his, Kave's eyes blazed with fire as he senselessly ran after the Fanatic.
The two emerged from the side of the incoming monsters. Flint dangled his e-tool at his side, then took out a slender tube, extended with a container attached to it with various tubes, scribbled over with various prayers in Urdic. He then aimed it.
"Holy Scorcher!" Kave's breath felt heavy the moment he realized what would be released next.
"Brother Recruit!" Flint called for Kave, "I shall deliver the blessed breath of Sol upon those freaks. Anything that gets past the holy blaze is your duty."
Kave's adrenaline started rising instantly, jumbling his brain circuits as his face brightened with the scorchers' flames that were directed at the ants.
WHOOSH-FWOOSH!
The fires started to spread in strings of blazing hot liquid that turned into dragon-like breath. Kave watched, his madness rising as he saw the krants running frantically with flames eating their bodies. One of them was about to ram him, but with power rising within him, he bashed it whole.
"Kita—KITA zo!! Chū… chū… KURAI YO, BEECHI-MUSHI!!"
From behind the trench, Adam watched as his blood ran cold. He looked at Megan, who just shook her head, unable to make sense of this madness.
"For fuck's fucking sake!" He stomped the ground and handed her his pistol, "Take my gun, join the firing position. You're a better shot than me."
"What will you do?" She asked, fearing he might do something reckless.
"We fight according to our classes, right?" He asked and looked at the incoming swarm, "Kave is doing it, you are doing it, it's about time I do the same."
Adam reached into his coat and took out the Gobzkin Club with the Bending Rune, which he was carrying this whole time.
"Prepare yourselves! The front line won't hold much. I'll keep them concentrated." Adam said and turned, "Elena, buy me time."
"Yes, sir. Cover fire!"
Elena obeyed immediately but left her position to act as Adam's bodyguard, leaving the line under the command of Stone, who blasted with his heavy blazer, killing a dozen per shot.
Adam advanced ahead until he reached the trench once again, and, club in hand, he screamed and shouted.
"EARTH SPIKES!"
Right across the other side of the trench, a group of worker krants managed to approach and were about to flood it with their bodies, maybe intending to form some sort of a bridge the way ants do. Adam couldn't let that happen and made his power flow into the ground 15 feet ahead of him, forcing it to erupt with a booming sound into various earthen spikes.
They weren't much, but three krants died on the spot, others lost their limbs, and the rest were deterred and shot down by Elena.
≪ You have gained 1 EXP! ≫
"Join the line! Cover for the front fighter."
From the back, the rest of the Wartopians arrived from the base with Jazz, led by Sharp, who directed Hammerhead, Patch, Buzz, and Biscuits to go join Stone, Dusty, Wrench, and Magpie.
With the arrival of all the Wartopians, the Blazer fire intensified, and the krants were pushed from one side, easing the pressure on Flint and Kave, who had been holding the firing line.
Meanwhile, the remaining 7 recruits were standing back, shovels ready, watching the fight with their blood running cold.
"Recruits, advance to the edge of the trench! Intercept anything that tries to climb."
As Elena shouted at the recruits, some moved while others simply froze in place.
Feeling the pressure his fellow recruits were subjected to, Officer John Reeves, who had also joined the trench training, spoke to them:
"You hesitate, you die! You fight, you live." He said and rushed first with his shovel.
The others followed him without organization, but they all moved, waiting for the tide to hit.
On the front, Kave still waved his shovel like a madman, tripped on the gooey insides of the ants he slew a few times, but he still found his footing and fought harder, sinking deeper and deeper into madness:
"EEEEEEEH? Okite kudasai! No—okitenaide! NE—NENNA! SHINE janai!"
As he fought and fought, Corporal Flint would take breaks to manage the fire and not waste his Flammable Gel charge; he would then turn to Kave and give him guidance.
"Swing, brother recruit. Your whole body swings: feet, hips, waist, shoulder, all before the arms. The fight ends in your head before it even begins. Carry Sol Imperius in your heart! Call for him with every strike, thus he guides thine hand. SOL IMPERIUS! SOL INVICTUS!"
"Ossan! KONO KO—KO—KOKORO KOWARETA!"
"That sounds more like it! He is smiling upon us from the flames, brother recruit!"
Yet in their adrenaline bliss, Flint and Kave couldn't feel the presence of the large lobster-like Krant that was approaching them from beyond.
It stopped right before the fire, as if aggravated by its heat, and aimed its largest pincer up.
The eyes of the lobster krant detected powers and signals that wouldn't be seen by the naked eye, and through the flames, it could see its targets, albeit bothered by the unfamiliar energy and heat. Its pincer still opened to its widest, revealing a muzzle-like tissue at its base.
On the other side, Adam was beside the recruits, supporting them with the power of the Shaman's Club.
"Earth Spikes! Earth Spikes! Earth Spikes!"
He kept shouting as he created a choke point for the recruits using earth spikes to prevent them from getting overwhelmed by the Krant workers.
"Do you have to shout that every time?" Elena asked, seeing that it didn't matter whether he shouted it or not.
"I'm a geek at heart, Sergeant. If I'm going to be a sorcerer, I'll do all the sorcery a geek must do!"
But just as he finished replying, something registered in his mind, and he looked directly at the area where Kave and Flint were holding their ground. His senses felt something dangerous, and he could only shout:
"EVERYBODY DUCK!"
VWOOSH!
With a single word, almost all the Wartopians ducked to the ground, but right at that moment, the fires Flint and Kave were surrounded by were blown apart by a powerful projectile that almost obliterated Kave, had it not missed him by an inch.
The target was Adam, who wasn't fast enough to duck.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
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