“Wake the fuck up fellas! We've got a bunch of visitors!”

  I snap into awakeness and jump to my feet. As I wipe the sleep from my eyes, my dagger and stave jump into my hand, ready to welcome some visitors. I immediately notice the swarm of monsters that are ramming themselves into our shield. I turn on my helmet, ready for whatever is coming.

  Liv – who was the one that shouted – appears next to me. “Those monsters are gonna regret disturbing our sleep.”

  “Did their parents not teach them manners?” Violet sits up and rubs the sleep from her eyes. Her eyes’ have a look that just screams ‘death.’ I am glad it's not directed at me this time.

  “Uh team, you're gonna want to see this.” Stephen says, holding a local map in his hand. There is our little shielded area which is colored a nice safe blue. But then, for around five hundred meters all around us, red. Thousands of monsters. “Fuck, one of the hatcheries we took on wasnt fully cleared. There was a single egg left and the entire thing seems to have regenerated, and the monsters are not happy.”

  “Dontcha worry.” Liv smiles. “Those monsters are going down, no matter how many they send at us.”

  “Monster burn.” Moxie adds, brushing a strand of hair off her face.

  “Alright, I have a strategy.” A large smile spreads over my face. “Lets rush in there and give ‘em hell. Doesn't matter if they aren't happy, if they are dead.”

  “Could have said it better myself, but close enough.” Violet says, then she walks up to the shield, deactivates it and is immediately surrounded by monsters. But, her blade flashes and six of them die instantly. For a brief moment I get a glimpse of her, she is smiling.

  Of course, the monsters on the other sides also need targets. It just so happens that a bunch of them decide they want a bite of me. I ready my dagger and throw a few fireballs as the mob charges towards me, a smile matching Violet’s appears on my face.

  It is a slaughter.

  But, not for us.

  The monsters die. Hundreds of the tightly packed mob are devastated by a single blast from Moxie. Meanwhile Violet is somewhere in the horde, a one woman army. I kill hundreds as well. It is as if my blade leaves the core of one monster, only to immediately enter another’s, over and over again.

  It is grueling and horrifying work. But it is also satisfying. The battle euphoria courses through me, even as I am slashed and bitten. I keep fighting. The only thing in my vision is my current target, and my next one. They are so tightly packed that I barely have to move to hit them, they willingly impale themselves on my blade.

  The world shakes as Moxie casts each of her spells, the monsters don't even flinch and continue rushing towards us. The only thing they are capable of understanding is to kill. Of course, we take a good deal of injuries. A hound manages to sneak up behind Stephen and slices his leg really well. He becomes our first unhealable injury, but Moxie quickly rushes over with standard medical supplies and stitches the wound together the good ol fashioned way.

  Apparently one of Moxie’s degrees just happens to be in medicine. She is apparently trained in every type of medicine. From cardiology to podiatry. Personally I think that counts as more than one degree, but apparently not to whoever put together the data entries.

  The monsters start to thin and eventually they stop coming altogether. Wasting no time, we backtrack to the hatchery that recovered and destroy it, making sure to get every last bit.

  We gather around a campfire, taking a break for some breakfast. “Well, we are all thoroughly awake now.” Stephen says, “The sun is just about rising, so we might as well continue on. It's not like a few missed hours of sleep will affect us. We have trained for far worse.”

  Violet is off to the side, polishing her blade with a cloth for some reason. “Speak for yourself. Some of us need our beauty sleep.”

  “You are plenty beautiful, even sleep deprived with messy hair.” The words slip out before I can think about the consequences of my words.

  Violet appears beside me. A dagger materializes at my throat. “What did you say?”

  “Must’ve been the wind.” I gulp. My laryngeal prominence gets dangerously close to the blade’s edge.

  “Hmm, that is strange. There is no wind in this region of the planet.” The dagger seems to get even closer to my throat. I can't even risk swallowing anymore.

  “Uh, maybe it was one of Liv’s farts, must've created a breeze.” I reply cooly.

  “Hey!” Liv shouts from across the camp, but giggles a bit. The dagger moves away and I hear a light laugh behind me. It can't be, did I actually make Violet laugh? It's quite a nice sound, I wish she would do it more.

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  Violet backs away. “I guess that is a valid explanation.” She walks off and sits back down. I must be imagining it, but I swear I hear a faint ‘you are not so bad yourself.’ But there is no way she would actually say such a thing, must've been the wind.

  We finish our meal and set out for the next hatchery. It seems a bit larger than the others. Apparently the objectives get a bit harder as we get closer to the central rift. Which makes sense when one thinks about it.

  This time, I let Violet go into the hatchery first and follow behind her. The moment she drops in, all the monsters are immediately attracted to her. Which makes sense, because she radiates badass energy. I use the distraction to slip around to the eggs, planting some of Moxie’s explosives as I go. She has taken to calling them big boom orbs, but I don't think the name is going to catch on.

  With some cover from Stephen, Violet and I manage to escape just as Moxie triggers the explosions. Which means we manage to not get splattered by whatever goo is inside the eggs.

  “It's beautiful.” I say, perched next to Violet on a rooftop overlooking the pit of fire the former hatchery has become.

  “That it is.” Her scowl twitches, and I see a brief smile. I suddenly feel motivated to go burn down this entire planet. So, we end up doing just that.

  After ensuring the hatchery is completely cleared, we move onto the next one. It goes smoothly. Though Moxie ends up getting snuck up on and gets a pretty bad bite. She treats it the best she can. It is important to note that the hounds do in fact have teeth, and they are very sharp.

  We complete the next hatchery without issue. But the sun is starting to set so we make camp nearby in what used to be a park. I say used to, because it is now soaked in monster blood, which isn't very healthy for plants and such.

  I collapse onto the ground and lean against the FAUD, exhausted physically and mentally. Luckily, I have some rations in my hands and consume them like a black hole for food. After Moxie finishes replacing the wrap on Stephen’s leg, she sits next to me.

  “Maka, look at this.” She holds out her hands and a bunch of runes appear in the air. They start rotating around and they fly up into the air. Once they hit the top of the shield, they spread out and Moxie starts putting some mana into them.

  The sky turns a pitch black and then slowly a few speckles of light begin to appear. Many stars appear, a nice sight since we cannot see any from this planet due to the light pollution caused by the massive rivers of lava and volcanoes everywhere.

  I turn back to Moxie and pat her on the head. “Hmm, maybe we should call you Moxie, weaver of the heavens. How does that sound as a title?”

  She looks up at me, her red eyes and hair looking like they are on fire due to the lightning. “Not fancy enough. Moxie is weaver of reality.” She smiles at her suggestion.

  “Well then.” I pat her on the head again. “Weaver of reality it is.”

  She seems content and turns away and begins spinning some runes in her hands. I try to imitate her and manage to make a cool floating ball of darkness. But it quickly disappears as I lose control of the mana flow. Moxie makes this stuff look like child's play, when it is really a super complicated science that should take hundreds of hours of intense study.

  However after a bit more practice I do manage to copy a pattern that Moxie shows me. I push a bit of mana into it, and I am instantly blinded.

  “Hey! Turn that blasted light off. Some of us are trying to get a bit of rest.” Liv shouts.

  “Whoops! It's a bit more mana sensitive than I thought.” I swear I only meant to push a tiny amount of mana in. Yet it made such a bright light. It must be super efficient or something. Moxie probably had to crack some sort of code, that must be why she can fling around such large area spells without running out of mana.

  I check my spellbook skill and find that I have my first option for a rote spell. It is called fireball. Which makes sense, I have been casting a lot of fireballs lately. I select it and add it to the spell book. Immediately I get flooded with notifications as the skill levels all the way to 14 in one go.

  I stare dumbfounded at the message. I turn to ask Moxie about it and she just shrugs. She says it might be because the skill couldn't level until I got my first rote spell, as happened with her. It was simply catching up to where it should be. Either way, I feel assured that I can now cast fireballs much quicker, which I bet will come in handy in a pinch.

  After a while of staring up at the newfound starry sky, Stephen calls a meeting.

  “So, we have cleared all of the hatcheries. Which means that our last objective is the queen. A level 190, not to mention the fact that her rift is guarded by other stronger monsters.”

  Liv walks up behind Stephen and slaps him on the back, hard. “Ah, don't worry about it. Between Maka’s genius strategies and Moxie’s batshit crazy spells we will be fine. Not to mention Violet’s whole one woman army thing. Oh, and I guess you can land a shot or two as well.”

  “Excuse me, I land more than ‘a shot or two’!” Stephen retorts, but then laughs lightly.

  The laughter is infectious and spreads through everyone else. I even hear a quiet laugh from Violet before she catches herself. One day, I'll make her laugh so hard that she won't be able to stop. We laugh for quite a while before we are all completely exhausted.

  We figure out the watch schedule. Unfortunately, I got stuck with the second watch, but Violet got the first one. So at least I get to be woken up by her again. The anticipation makes me take a few extra minutes to fall asleep, despite my exhausted state.

  It seems like I made quite a good amount of progress today, which is good to see. I need to keep getting stronger if we are going to eradicate the monsters.

  Good work mortal. Continue on your path, you are getting closer to being worthy.

  [Scout has leveled up! Lvl 67 -> Lvl 70]

  [Mage has leveled up! Lvl 42 -> Lvl 52]

  [Average Level is now 61]

  [Gained 13 Unallocated Stat Points]

  [Lemon has leveled up! Lvl 24 -> Lvl 27]

  [Stealth has leveled up! Lvl 8 -> Lvl 9]

  [Blink has leveled up! Lvl 15 -> Lvl 16]

  [Magic Fundamentals has leveled up! Lvl 8 -> Lvl 12]

  [Spell Book has leveled up! Lvl 1 -> Lvl 14]

  [Dagger Proficiency has leveled up! Lvl 5 -> Lvl 6 (capped)]

  [Stave Proficiency has leveled up! Lvl 5 -> Lvl 6 (capped)]

  Next Chapter: Their Armor Is Tough Too

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