"Captain, we can't go on like this much longer!" Morcar listened to his guard as he went on about their situation. He didn't even know his name, all his seconds in command had already died, leaving him just with these lowlifes.

  "We have lost too many of the guards," the man went on, "Even keeping the slaves in line is becoming hard, if not for fear keeping them in check, they would have turned on us already. All that's without even mentioning how long we have before the Deepdark returns! We are stuck in this hellhole and we will die here if nothing is done!"

  Morcar massaged his head as the guard finally stopped nagging him, he despised how the current situation put him in such a state that he couldn't even discipline someone like that. The island was his! It was his kingdom, and no one should talk to him like that in his own land. Unfortunately, he needed the idiot and all the others like him outside, he needed them to hold those bugs and to keep the slaves at bay, he couldn't alienate them, not yet at least. He made sure to note those who were speaking the loudest, to deal with them when the Deepdark finally arrived.

  "No need to worry," Morcar finally said as he looked at the man, "We can hold on till then, we have enough of the slaves to use as meat shields till the reinforcements arrive. You all just need to be smart about how to do things, push the slaves first and only engage the Harvesters when you're sure you're going to survive.

  "At the same time," he continued as he saw the man calm down a bit, "Have the slaves start working on one of the biggest caves, we need to fortify it and make it impossible for the bugs to get in. While working on that, have some others start working on moving all the food and water to the said cave, if things turn dire, we can use it as our last line of defence, it should buy us even more days."

  Morcar watched as the man fell silent, most likely overworking his peanut-sized brain to try and understand what was ordered of him, he rolled his eyes at such incompetence.

  "Okay, sir, I will see that it is done," the man finally said, saluting as he turned to leave.

  "Also." Morcar held him back. "Tell the guards that they are free to use the pleasure women, or even any one of the slaves as they see fit, let them relax a bit."

  "Thank you, captain," the guards saluted enthusiastically, as Morcar held back a disgusted look, just the possibility of having a secondhand woman and he lost all his worries, such filth they were.

  With the distraction gone, Morcar sat in his room in silence, his thoughts churning as he went through their current situation. The Harvesters were too annoying to deal with, they weren't that strong, but their numbers would put anyone on their back foot. Even for him, their numbers were getting too much to handle. If not for using the slaves to distract them, he would have gotten injured already, ending up like most of the guards under him. Worse even, their attack showed no signs of stopping, and neither did their numbers.

  Hopefully, using the cave would prove to be effective. It was their last resort though, they couldn't head there straight away as he doubted even that would buy them much time. They needed to hold on outside for as long as possible. Plus, fortifying the cave would take time, and they needed to buy it.

  Morcar sighed as he stood up, thinking of all that was quite demoralising, he needed to unwind a bit. Having some fun with those women didn't seem that bad now that he looked at it, after all, if they were going to die because of this situation, why not have some fun before that?

  Clang!

  A sound caught his attention as something dropped and rolled next to his feet, he looked down just to see a fist-sized metallic cylinder. Morcar didn't know what it was, but his intuition, honed through battle after battle, screamed at him as he almost unconsciously threw himself back. It was too late though.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  BANG!

  A bright flash of light seared his eyes, accompanied by a loud bang that made his head spin and his ears ring. Morcar didn't know what was happening, but even in the muddy state his mind was in, where he could barely understand what was happening at all, he instinctively activated his tier 6 Floating Shield, conjuring a rectangular, semi-transparent floating shield that was curving at the sides, almost at a 180 degrees, to protect him from any coming attack. And he was glad that he did, because as soon as he felt the shield manifest around him, it started getting hit by some kind of projectiles. There were so many of them that it felt as if heavy rain was landing on a rooftop.

  PaPaPaPaPaPaPaPa!

  As he struggled to stand up and forced himself to open his hurting eyes to take a look around, he eventually made a split-second decision, and he activated Second Wind. Second Wind was a skill that would heal him of all wounds and any negative effects he might be suffering from, returning him to his perfect peak state. At the tier he had it at, tier 6, he could only use it every 4 hours, and he generally avoided using it at the beginning of his battle. In instances like the current one, though, it was best to use it and return to peak state and invalidate any and all advantages the attackers' got from launching a surprise attack.

  Back to his peak form, the first thing Morcar noticed was the four black armoured men standing in a loose fan-shaped formation all around him. He called them armoured, but what they seemed to be wearing was closer to normal clothes. Their heads were also covered by weird full-head black helmets.

  Of course, the second thing he noticed was how the Floating Shield was showing signs of cracking. They were fine cracks and it would probably take a few more minutes before it was totally gone, but it was still alarming.

  Deciding to deal with them fast, he ran to where his sword had dropped, while having his Floating Shield cover him from the onslaught of attacks by the weird black-armoured men. With his sword in hand, he could finally start his attack.

  Running towards the closest man to him, the one at the furthest left, he moved his sword for a cut. To his surprise, the man didn't even react, as if the attack was too fast for him, the sword's cut hit him right at the midsection. Unfortunately, Morcar could feel that something held most of the attack's power. Those weird armours were effective, even though they weren't of any material he knew.

  While most of the attack's power was held back by something, the man still flew away from the force. Not caring whether he would remain down or not, Morcar went to the next person, he needed to deal with them fast.

  Aiming for a fast cut, the next man, who was the biggest among the attackers, managed to avoid his first attack and even threw a punch at him, his fist glowing in faint milky white light. Not expecting that after how the first man went down, and with his Floating Shield focused on the others' attacks, Morcar hurriedly lifted his sword to block, the force of the hit sending him stumbling a few steps back once it connected.

  Morcar stabilised himself as he glanced at his Floating Shield just to notice that it had even more cracks. Knowing that he couldn't go on like that, he activated two of his skills, Accelerate and Fatal Attack. The first made him move even faster in small bursts, and the second focused his power on one attack that would ignore most of his target's defence. Best even, those two skills didn't have any kind of tell, so while the target would expect a normal attack like before, they were in for a nasty surprise.

  As expected, the big man couldn't keep up with his augmented attack, Morcar saw him start to move his feet as if to avoid, but it was too late. He followed the path given to him by Fatal Attack as he stabbed him in the chest, he could even feel his sword hitting the man's heart. Removing the sword after twisting it to make sure that the maximum amount of damage was done, he turned to his next target, just to be met by a weird sight.

  His next target was on the ground, holding his chest as if he had been stabbed himself. His heart skipping a beat, Morcar turned to the man he had stabbed, just to see a fist enclosed in an even stronger milky white light flying towards him. Not having the time to move physically, he could only will his Floating Shield to block the attack, which it did, but he was still thrown away from the generated force.

  Clang!

  Even amidst the chaos of the fight, Morcar still heard that sound, looking at his feet with his heart turning cold, he saw the same cylinder as the one he saw before, and the next second-

  BANG!

  The same loud explosion and blinding light happened, throwing him into disorientation. Knowing that he had to get himself together and fight or he would be done for, Morcar tried to stand up. Before his feet could even stop shaking he felt something that made him freeze.

  Crack!

  With a sound that was illusory more than anything else, he felt the Floating Shield break. What followed was the worst pain he had ever felt before it all went black.