14:00 AT, Day Forty-Two | Fort Pride

  Minor Node Sancter Regulus. The one who captured Ray, lured me in and then thoroughly defeated me. If it wasn't for Initae’s intervention, who knows what would have happened.

  But, he is back.

  Ray places her hand on my shoulder and I turn to look at her. She is smiling.

  I turn to look around and see Emil, Rigar, Linda and many of our other strongest soldiers. I am not alone this time.

  I smile. “Regulus, you are wrong. It is you that will fall on this day.”

  Regulus stares at me, then he laughs. Quite possibly the most evil laugh you can imagine. “Is that so? Well then, student of Initae. Stand and prove your classification as weakling wrong.”

  Regulus takes a single step forward, and then we move. Ray and Linda take aim and fire, while Emil, Rigar and I charge in.

  The projectiles impact Regulus and he just takes them. They impact his armor with massive shockwaves. But they simply bounce off the plasma shields. Even Linda’s anti-material rifle is no match.

  Emil strikes first, aiming right for Regulus’s neck. But the instant before Emil’s strike lands, a Vikean shortsword appears in Regulus’s hand and flashes up to meet Emil. The curve of the short sword easily redirects the force of Emil’s strike and sends him flying to the side.

  In the next instant, Regulus parries Rigar’s warhammer. With just a blade. Rigar stumbles off to the side, completely destabilized.

  My spear goes right for Regulus’s gut and makes contact. I push against the shield and it cracks slightly. But then with his free hand, Regulus simply bats me away like a fly. I land hard against a tree and cough up a bit of blood. I broke at least three ribs and immediately inject a health pack to prevent my death.

  “A fair try.” Regulus says. “But now it is my turn to attack, yes?”

  In the blink of an eye, Regulus appears behind Linda. Before he can even attack, a barrier appears and whisks Linda away to be respawned. Apparently his attacks are so strong the intent of them just means instant death. How absolutely wonderful.

  Ray drops her rifle and strikes at Regulus. He deflects one blade, but her other one lands and digs deeply into the plasma shield. She leaves a single mark against the armor underneath before she is thrown backwards.

  I stand up on my feet and steady myself. Regulus merely stands still, as if inviting us to attack.

  I launch myself towards him, and stop a few meters away. I use {Energy Surge} on my spear, charging it with lightning. I slam it hard into the ground, and a massive cloud of steam rises and surrounds Regulus. Stray lightning arcs through the air and electrolyzes the steam.

  Then I activate {Draconic Breath} and the area in front of me erupts into a massive inferno. I get thrown back from the massive shockwave equivalent to at least a hecto-class bomb.

  When the steam and fire clears, Regulus remains standing. There are several deep burn marks in his armor, and it has cracks in several spots. Part of his hair has been badly burnt. It is possible to do damage.

  Regulus turns to me. “Clever trick. As one would expect from the student of such a strong being. Let me grace you with a trick of my own, it is only fair.”

  I think Regulus does some sort of spin, and then throws his blade like a knife. It cuts through the air, releasing a deafening shockwave that instantly melts all the snow around it. It flies straight towards Emil, who dodges the blade with just a millimeter to spare.

  Emil goes flying into the Fort wall from the shockwave, a sickening crack can be heard as the wall shatters behind him.

  I grit my teeth. We are losing, in a 5v1 with all of our strongest members.

  Ray appears next to me, and places an arm on my shoulder. “Ko. We only have one chance to defeat him.” She points to the gathered army, who are merely watching, knowing they cannot do anything to help.

  “Yeah.” I enable the comms and speak to the entire army. “Soldiers, Initiate Plan Draconis on my mark. Target, that yellow haired klacker.”

  I grab ray and launch us into the middle of the army. Rigar and Emil join us quickly.

  Simultaneously, Ray and I activate {Dragon Lord’s Frenzy}. Applying a massive boost to a good amount of the soldiers. Of course, it comes at the cost of a timer on their life and a greatly increased respawn timer (which is doubled since we are both using it).

  At the same time, all of the soldiers activate their own {Dragon Frenzy} and {Dragon Scale} abilities. Our soldiers go from run of the mill to beings of true draconic strength.

  All of the soldiers also use their inheritance skills to activate various other skills.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Then, everyone charges. Regulus lets out a massive laugh and doubles over. But he draws his blade back and gets ready.

  The first wave of soldiers impacts him from all sides. He cuts them down with what seems to be a single swing of his blade. He even manages to catch the stealthed ones that come from above.

  Emil strikes next, also super powered. He manages to dodge Regulus’ strike and land a devastating blow that takes a chunk out of Regulus’ arm. They exchange a few blows, Emil just barely able to keep up.

  Then Rigar and several others join in the fray. Rigar’s hammer smashes into Regulus and he goes flying into the Fort wall. Cracks spiderweb out and chunks fall from the super strong wall.

  But, Regulus immediately springs back to his feet and injects a healthpack. Meanwhile, Ray and I just stand back and watch. We would just get in the way of all the supersoldiers, they have far outstripped our abilities with all the boosts.

  Emil and Rigar move in on Regulus, accompanied by several boosted great-levels. But it is at this point that all of the high-levels collapse to the ground and burn to a crisp under the penalty of the skill. We are on a serious time constraint with so many frenzies active.

  They all pile onto Regulus, but space seems to shake briefly. All of the soldiers hang in the air, and then suddenly fall to the ground, cut into two pieces.

  Then, Rigar and Emil move in to strike, and are quickly cut down and sent off to respawn.

  Then, almost instantly the rest of our forces are absolutely obliterated. Regulus does take a fair bit of damage. But he ends up winning.

  Now, it is just Ray, Regulus and I. Amidst a field of corpses.

  “Finally. Now I can analyze you more directly, Kovon Ducker. Oh, and your companion is far more interesting than I first thought. She is just a completely ordinary human, without even inae potential. Yet her raw combat potential is off the charts, quite literally. Quite an interesting pair indeed. Please surrender quickly and allow me to dissect you both, it would be most wondrous!”

  Ray gives me a look. “Hey Ko, can we get rid of this guy already?”

  “Mhm, I was just thinking the same thing, darling. How about we do it together.”

  “Yeah, that sounds great. Then we can have many headrubs!”

  We take up our positions and Regulus laughs at us. But we waste no time and strike. Ray’s blades flash in and out, while I distract Regulus and take up most of his guard.

  He has gotten far slower and weaker with his accumulated injuries. His blows still hit like a meteorite, and he is still as fast as the wind. But we manage to withstand and chip away at his overwhelming strength.

  With one final slice of Ray’s blades, the barrier appears and he is whisked away to respawn. Ray and I collapse onto the ground, breathing heavily amidst the field of our lost soldiers.

  We lean against each other for several moments. Then, Ray starts laughing.

  I join in the laughter.

  I imagine we look like a pair of complete lunatics, laughing in a field of our dead soldiers. After just fighting an opponent that singlehandedly slayed every single one. But, if that doesn't sum Ray and I up, I do not know what does.

  “Hey Ko, I love you.” Ray whispers.

  “I love you too, Ray.” I whisper back.

  Unfortunately, our respite is short lived. The gates of the fort creak open and we quickly jump to our feet.

  “It is me! Frank The Great is back once again!” Says well… Frank The Great. Behind him trails a very sleepy looking Vel. For klacks’ sake, can't we get a break?

  “Hey, can't you two just like, klack off somewhere else and let us have the fort?” Ray asks nicely.

  “Unfortunately, young miss,” Vel grumbles, “we must finish the work of that impudent child. Though, much thanks for knocking him down a peg, none of us possess the strength to do it the old fashioned way.”

  “Foolish weaklings! Kneel before Frank The Great, and your lives may be spared! The Empire’s Empress is quite kind and merciful!” Frank bellows.

  “Hey Ray, how about one more bout?” I say, patting her on the head.

  “Oh fine darling. It's only right after all.”

  Ray and I charge in, going for Frank first. My spear, enhanced with {Energy Surge}, hits dead onto Frank’s shield while Ray spins around his back and hits him with a {Rock Crush}, empowered strike. She manages to tear a massive hole in his armor.

  But, in our focus on Frank, Vel’s scythe manages to get Ray’s legs out from under her, and then she is whisked away to respawn. Ha, now she won't be able to lord her deathlessness over me.

  Unfortunately, Vel’s scythe swings around and hits me as well before I can move. I am simply so exhausted. Ray must've been as well. All of those skills and trying to fight Regulus was simply too much for us.

  The barrier appears, blocking the scythe. Then I am whisked away to be respawned.

  Report On The Events Following the First Fort Pride Siege

  - Compiled by Versten, Interim General of The Moonlight Alliance

  14:34 AT, Day Forty-Two: General Ray and Kovon, along with all of the high-ranking commanders and six thousand troops were lost in the siege of Fort Pride. An unexpectedly strong opponent known as Sancter Regulus was present, and singlehandedly wiped out the entire force before finally being defeated by the Generals. However, Frank The Great and Vel The Gardener then appeared and finished off our valiant generals. All of the troops and commanders underwent the effects of several frenzy skills, and thus will be out of commission for the next sixteen or so hours.

  The command structure prompt collapsed, having lost the top 100 ranked members in the military, I, Versten Lpean have been appointed Interim General by the combined council.

  16:00 AT, Day Forty-Two: Following the failed siege, the Lone Snowflake faction launched a massive offensive. With troop numbers estimated to be around twenty thousand, the situation is quite dire indeed.

  00:00 AT, Day Forty-Three: All Forts in the snowy forest, desert, jungle, prairie have fallen under control of the Lone Snowflake faction. The defenders were completely overwhelmed and undercommanded.

  03:00 AT, Day Forty-Three: The Lone Snowflake alliance has managed to capture two of our forts in the wetland, as well as one in the Mesa. This day has been a great upset in the Arena, and will certainly go down in history. The Generals have just woken up, so as a final duty in my service as Interim general, I shall attach an up-to-date map of the arena situation.

  May the Moonlight help us recover. Pro Luce Lunae!

  A/N: I hope this map makes sense.

  End of Chapter 136

  Next: Chapter 137 | Iced Waffles

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  ? The Archmage is Baking Now! ?

  by R.C. Joshua