Luke decided to pull out the stops to take out the Porcupine Cassowaries. He had enough mana in the tank to summon one vehicle, which made his decision easy. The AH-1Z Viper might be loud, but it had more than enough firepower to take out the herd of stiletto throwing monsters.

  He signaled for Bosa to slow down. Then he pushed mana into his Summon Vehicle skill, making sure to have it appear as far ahead as his skill would reach. Once the gray and violet helicopter finished forming, Luke threw his fourth Machine Soul of the day into the creation. That left him with two souls. Since it took about twenty hours to recharge one of them, he was really burning through resources today.

  “Fire one shot from your gun,” Luke said. An echoing whipcrack sounded across the forest. “As soon as the herd of monsters is in sight, use one of your missiles on them. Kill any stragglers with your rotary cannon. While you wait, get ready to take off.”

  The helicopter blades started slowly spinning, gaining more and more speed. He knew from experience that it would be about three minutes before the Viper could take off. The herd of two legged monsters appeared well before then.

  They flowed around the corner as one, like a flock of birds swooping down on their prey. They were met with a summoned version of the AIM-9 Sidewinder. The supersonic missile was designed for air to air combat, and was overkill for the current situation. Its warhead had a fragmenting payload of shrapnel in a ring pattern. The ten foot wide explosion hit the lead bird and three of the monsters behind it. The tumbling shrapnel killed four monsters behind the first one, turning them into a mist of blood and bones. The shockwave knocked down a further two monsters.

  That only left four monsters standing, and they retaliated immediately. They stopped and flapped their wings, sending a dozen metal quills screaming through the air towards the heli. Luke flexed his Acuity at the same moment, knowing that if all of those piercing attacks hit, his Viper would be immediately unsummoned. He shot out a pair of Vortex Doors, one on the ground in front of the monsters, and the other on the nose of the Viper. He watched in agonizing slow motion as his skill zipped through the air and landed where he aimed.

  The portal between two points always seemed fast to form, but now it seemed like molasses swirling. Luke could see the quills streak across the intervening space, getting closer way too fast, even in his Acuity boosted perception. He bit his lip in slow motion.

  Just before the lead projectiles hit, the portal finished forming and the majority of metal projectiles disappeared through it and reappeared shooting straight up hundreds of feet. Two quills still hit the Viper, both too high and too low to be absorbed by the Vortex Door. One hit the landing skid and cracked the summons. The final quill pierced the glass canopy and imbedded itself into the seat. If anyone had been piloting the helicopter, they would be dead.

  Time sped up and Luke held his breath to see if that was enough damage to unsummon the Viper. That was the main weakness of his Summon Vehicle skill, it couldn't withstand the same amount of damage as the original before it gave in and turned back into mana. Luckily for Luke, this attack hadn't crossed that threshold.

  The underslung rotating cannon below the Viper's nose fired up then and shot out dozens of rounds. The high pitched buzz cut across the road, pulping all four Porcupine Cassowaries, one after another.

  The Viper spat three more times and a few downed cassowaries twitched and lay still. Apparently they had been alive and the Machine Soul killed them before they could get back up. Luke remembered now that the sensor package on the military helicopter was one of the best in the world. Of course it would be able to tell which ones were still living.

  “Hey! What did I say about being loud?” Imohi shouted. “You are going to attract titans and those are a real hassle.”

  Luke rolled his eyes and turned around. He addressed the young elf’s uncle instead. “Sorry about the loud explosion, Lord Momoh. These Porcupine Cassowaries seemed dangerous.”

  Momoh gave the summoned Viper a wary look and then glanced over to the bodies on the ground. “Yes. Tier five monsters if I’m not mistaken. An appropriate response, if a bit loud. Perhaps practice with your quieter skills would be in order?”

  Luke nodded. He didn’t want to summon any more vehicles today anyway. Controlling them took Machine Souls and he wanted to keep a few in reserve for emergencies.

  While they talked, Bosa stopped the hover truck and sent out a dozen threads snaking across the ground. Luke found himself impressed with her control. He knew now that her class controlled needles, not thread. The deception required so much finesse.

  She was able to collect two tier five cores and seven tier four cores. There had been more monsters than that, but apparently Luke had so thoroughly killed them that they hadn’t even formed a core. A pitfall to keep in mind for later.

  For now, Luke wanted to get some use out of the Viper. He commanded, “Take off and stay just above the treeline. Fly ahead of the convoy, maintain a three mile lead on us. When you see a group of monsters, send me a video.”

  The summoned helicopter slowly rose into the air and then shot forward. The steady drone of the blades soon disappeared. Luke hoped that his mana would last long enough for the Viper to kill some monsters. Each minute ticked off a point of mana and he only had four points left.

  Thankfully, his high Acuity came with high mana regeneration. The death machine should last at least ten minutes. Maybe more if they drove through high mana areas. If the Machine Soul found some monsters and not other travelers, he was going to have it unload its full arsenal just to see what the explosion was like.

  As the convoy sped forward again, Luke turned his attention to his stat screen. He wanted to check if he had leveled up from the high tiered monsters. To his delight, he found that he had.

  He was level twenty-one now. And since Summon Vehicle was high enough, he could level up his War Machine class to twenty-two now. He just needed to decide on where to put the stat points he had just gained from level twenty-one.

  After some consideration, he decided the only good choice was Acuity. If he could get his mana regeneration up to one per minute, he could keep his summoned helicopter up full time. That would turn his skill from an occasional special attack to a key part of his build.

  He put two points into Acuity and told himself to put the next two points in there as well. He bet that when he hit level twenty-four in Acuity, it would have another jump forward in efficacy.

  He closed the screen and then tapped into the camera feed from the Viper. It was very different from his drone he had built with runes and electronics. Instead of a standard camera view, the summoned Viper gave him a layered view of the forest with heat, depth, and color.

  The sensors could detect a group of monsters wandering ten miles away from the road, far enough that they hadn’t heard the earlier explosions. He considered diverting the heli for some fun, but he decided to keep the Viper above the road for now. He was down to three points of mana, so he had at least a few more minutes.

  Time slowly passed with no more sightings. Luke kept switching back and forth from the view from his helicopter to the view from his mech. Only the latter had mana vision, so he needed to keep checking for hidden monsters.

  His mana pool ticked down to two points. Then he saw it. A lumbering giant. It towered over the nearby trees, almost two hundred feet tall. It had to be a titan. Luke mentally directed the Viper to turn and zoom away towards the monster. It was an Ent of some sort. It had a buttery yellow bark and cream colored leaves. A white mist trickled down from its branches and covered the forest floor as if it was snowing.

  Luke had the rotating cannon fire a few dozen rounds into the monster’s central trunk. A few chips of bark were knocked off, but it failed to do any real damage. The Snow Ent looked up at the helicopter and opened its jagged mouth. It must be roaring in defiance, but he couldn’t hear it.

  Tick. One point of mana left. Luke gave the command to unleash everything at the monster. Hundreds of rounds of bullets, ten Hydra rockets, four JAGM missiles, and the last Sidewinder. The summoned arsenal created a real explosion, throwing up dust and bark and obscuring the Ent.

  Luke thought he could hear the explosion faintly from his spot on the caravan, but that might have been his imagination. Dust slowly cleared and then the camera feed cut out and he felt a wave of weakness wash over him. He was completely out of mana.

  A few minutes later, Luke felt better as his regeneration started refilling his mana pool. It was too bad he hadn’t been able to see if he had killed that enormous Ent or not. Although... A check of his stat screen gave him his answer. He was still level twenty-one. That must have meant the titan lived and the combined might of the modern US military wasn’t enough to kill a single Ent. That was too bad, but at least the monster was wounded and had no reason to suspect the hovering people on the road were related to its pain. It would have no reason to wander their way.

  All the same, Luke decided to keep his defense of the caravan as quiet as possible for the next twenty miles or so. He took out the Dazzle Deer with well timed acid shots. The Paper Oni fell to fireballs. The Mist Kobolds died to lightning and acid bolts.

  After they were miles away from the Ent titan, Luke started to relax. He took the time to appreciate the fact that they were in hovering vehicles. The smooth ride meant that the journey was comfortable. More importantly, they were able to glide across the land at about forty-five miles an hour. If they were taking carts with wheels, the poor dirt trail would have slowed them down to twenty or thirty miles an hour.

  He checked his mana and to his surprise, it was already full. The mana density must have gone up again. That only made him more wary. The more mana, the deadlier the monsters.

  More monsters appeared and they died one after another. Luke noticed that low level monsters appeared often, but if there weren’t any monsters in the area for a while then a high tier monster was in the area. He kept an anxious eye on his store of magnet ammunition. He was already down to three-fourths of his loadout. He had more magnets packed away, but he couldn't keep this pace up indefinitely.

  Towards the end of his shift, they came across the first sapient travelers of the trip. He heard them before he saw them. They were singing a warbling dirge, many voices raising and lowering in a chorus. Luke thought it was a monster at first and activated Armor Adjunct. The sparkly defense spread out from him in a small aura.

  When they came around the bend, he saw a small river crossed the path and an old wooden bridge spanned it. A trio of wagons were just on the other side, one of them blocking the way. Luke tapped the top of the hover truck, the signal for Bosa to slow down and stop.

  There were six guards per wagon, each of them heavily armed with shining metal crossbows, spears, and axes. The wagons must have been driven by a spell engine because there was nothing attached to pull them along. Instead of the brown seasoned wood Luke expected, the wagons were constructed of green wood, even the rims of the tall wagon wheels.

  Orcs, elves, dwarves, and dryads were all loudly singing, their eyes closed. Luke was wondering if there was some river crossing ritual that he had never heard of before. Bosa slowed and stopped a few hundred feet away from the bridge.

  Now that they were close, they could hear other voices too. There were five people in the river, singing up at the people on the riverbank, providing a counterpoint melody. They were bulbous headed and covered in slimy scales. Their ears were like fish fins and their heads were covered in thin scraggly hair. They were ugly and gave Luke a weird feeling. If they weren’t singing, he would have assumed they were monsters. Maybe that was his prejudice talking.

  The other two hover carts behind them didn’t stop when Bosa did, instead sliding around and heading directly to the riverbank. The servants sang too and joined in on the dirge. Luke looked over to Momoh’s cart as they passed, and he wasn’t singing. Instead, he had jumped to his feet and was shouting something, but it was muffled by the singing.

  Luke realized all at once what was going on. The people in the river were actually monsters. They were sirens or something, and the song was a mental attack. The only reason he hadn’t succumbed was because of his Armor Adjunct. Momoh’s high level or platinum class must have been enough to overcome the effect.

  A small smile grew. He hadn’t been speciesist after all, those ugly shits were monsters after all. He decided they were River Siren and they were going to die. He shot out a lightning bolt and a fracture bolt. Momoh joined in with a writhing ray of brown magic.

  All three shots were blocked. The river itself rose up to stop the attacks and the sirens sang unimpeded. They had turned and were now staring evilly at Momoh and Luke. Huge tendrils of water started rising up, each monster controlling one. Momoh fired his brown ray again, but it was swiftly blocked.

  Internally, Luke cursed himself. He knew that the little shits would die to a few well placed Phantom Shots. But that was the one skill that he couldn’t show off. It was a forbidden skill and he had specifically told Momoh that he didn’t have it. One of the five tendrils wrapped itself around the lead wagon and was slowly pulling it towards the river.

  He clenched his fist. He wasn’t going to let people die to protect his secret.