by D. Rus
I nodded. Those were valid arguments. Then I turned to Dan. Not that we had much in the line of democracy, but it befitted me to hear all points of view before I gave the order. I had no illusions about myself. As a special unit commander, I was rubbish.
Dan gave a weary sigh. "We need to fight. We need information like we need air. Maybe the entire Earth is already just like this?" he nodded in the direction of the lava flows that caressed the black colossus of the Inferno castle. "What's more is I saw some kind of white, unidentified structure...” Dan involuntarily paused dramatically and then pursed his lips into an evil line. "What I saw was a sacrificial ziggurat. Made of skulls. We must assume that they're human. Don't you understand? A hundred-foot-tall pyramid made of hundreds of thousands of human skulls!"
I gritted my teeth and reached for the scarce Soul Stones. It was time to summon my pets.
"Men, to battle!"
Chapter Eight
The very first cast spells stripped us of Invisibility. Zena jumped down from her lizard and hid behind our backs. She couldn't cast from her mount, but she also wasn't in a hurry to get rid of her pet. It was an extra target for the monsters, if only enough to spread a little damage to the rest of the group.
Dan fell out of formation and stepped off to the side, dissolving into stealth and taking the vulnerable cleric and the operational rear under his own responsibility. Freed from its metal leash, the hound darted forward and in a few powerful bounds had covered fifty paces, instantly knocking down the nearest pair of Maniacs.
The monsters turned out quite brave—or they simply didn't have the instincts for self-preservation. Low-level demons were like that. Their whole lives were in service of pain and destruction. Within the first few seconds of the fight, Belka had managed to generate a heap of aggro and immediately became the priority target. She got too close, inflicted damage, and debuffed with a war cry. The wave of Maniacs that had been hitting the hound rushed back, leaving four motionless figures in the snow.
The Fallen One as my witness, this wasn't a fight, but a lazy swatting of mosquitoes.
Finally, Tommy the snow leopard found a rival for himself and violently attacked the largest Cerberus. Four furious jaws of two creatures began to fiercely tear into each other.
Not receiving a direct order, Hummungus didn't lower himself to the fight. He didn't see an enemy in the feeble demons and wasn't looking for cheap glory.
Fuckyall did not dismount. His unicorn allowed him to ride into battle while it fought and even took on part of the damage. The unicorn, having just changed from white to black, only managed to take a few steps forward when all of a sudden we’d run out of enemies. Only Tommy continued to tear into the belly of the dying Cerberus with his hind legs. The cheating snow leopard had been healed by Zena and now clearly felt invincible.
Snowie, having just extricated his club from its sheath behind his back, bellowed resentfully. He didn't even make it to the targets.
Finally, I finished the long and tedious cast of raising a pet. The snow around me bulged in a big hump. The once permafrosted land cracked, giving birth to a twelve-foot, level 360 spider. The beast clearly had residual memory and fixed its eight eyes on me, but it couldn't resist the will of its summoner.
Coming out of the shadows, Dan swore under his breath and turned away. The sight of Lloth's creations stirred people's primary instincts: fear and hatred.
I gave a mental shrug. I hadn’t had much choice. I only had two kinds of Soul Stones: Black Widow spiders and demons from the Silver Legion. We hadn't had any more battles with high-level enemies over the last few weeks.
Moving to the side, I flipped through my book of spells and turned to the abilities tab. Where's my Split?
"I'm going to multiply my pets,” I warned my colleagues. “Don't be afraid!”
With a crunch of torn tissue and a barely audible groan from the violated universe, one spider was mirrored into twenty-five projections. All of them were level 360. They had impressive strength. The DPS of my pet platoon certainly exceeded that of an average raid group.
And now we're going to war!
Fuckyall appraised the raised army, admiring the black-crimson bodies of the demons on the snow, and smiled. “Easy! Liking taking candy from a baby."
He then frowned. An alarm rang out over the Inferno castle.
The rebellious paladin spat irritably. "Game mechanics. The castle owners always know about attacks on their troops. By the way, I want to warn you. Demons from "Heroes" have an excellent command of spatial magic—teleporting is their favorite feature. Their racial skill is especially unpleasant: Opening of the Gates, the ability to summon reinforcements onto the battlefield. Follow the pentagrams that appear on the ground. They're direct gateways to Ur-Hekal, the demonic capital.”
Dan viciously narrowed his eyes. Once again, someone stood between him and his family. He took out a vial that shimmered with the gray sparks of poison and refreshed the deadly chemistry of his pair of blades. He turned back to Fuckyall.
"What else can you tell us about them?"
Fuckyall shrugged uncertainly. "I normally played for the Elves. And even then it was the offline version. Hmm. As for Inferno, it's a typical fraction of Sword: all units are hand-to-hand, with the exception of one flyer, one shooter, and one caster. It's a shining example of Chaos. They kill, simply because they can or want to. Their worldview: "Truth in force." The ability to carry out a crime is sufficient reason to do it. Strength above all else, don't deny yourself anything, corrupt the fools—the strong rule the weak."
The hoarse roar of battle horns interrupted the paladin's speech. The unbelievably large castle gates creaked and slowly moved to the side. They were irrationally tall like the Black Gates from the pages of the legendary Tolkien.
Uneven but numerous rows of enemy troops tumbled out of the crimson bowels of the castle. Hundred after hundred, cohort after cohort, legion after legion. There wasn't much order in the enemy ranks. The demons squealed impatiently, snapping at each other, starting quick and often bloody fights.
The icons of Low Morals hovered over the troops like black banners, knocking them out of step and adding additional commotion. But as for Luck, these creatures had plenty, its colorful rainbows sparkling over the rows of demons.
"They’re too many,” Fuckyall muttered, stuffing fresh vials into the empty quick-access slots of his belt. "Although... In Heroes, damage is distributed among the whole group. So each hit will smoke an entire squad of little vermin. Snowie alone with his tank barrel will send the demons flying by the platoon!"
Snowie eagerly peered at the army that was coming out of the castle. The troll's legs, dressed in mithril armor forged by Aulë, impatiently trampled down the blanket of snow. The albino was thirsty for a fight.
Gently wiping the frost from the kill counter of his club, he looked at me expectantly. "Finally I'm gonna hit four digits! I was already embarrassed in front of Bomba. All of eight hundred frags, what a disgrace. How can I explain to her that it’s not just hares and rats, but rather some uncategorized mobs!”
I didn't share his enthusiasm. My expression became all the more gloomy with every hundred that marched out of the gates. Yep, every monster had a gray level of danger. But that didn't mean that they were harmless as a mouse. They weren’t going to offer their throats to our knives! They'd fight till the last. They knew how to fight and they loved it. This was the whole meaning of their short, deadly lives.
Last from the gate was an enormous ballista accompanied by a caravan of loading trolleys. A medical tent was set up in the rear which immediately began to accept and heal the creatures that had been injured amongst themselves.
Well, these were the cannon fodder, that much was clear. But where was the ringmaster of this circus?
As if answering my question, trumpets howled again, causing a toothache as they welcomed the owner of the castle with their cacophony.
"This is the Player,” Fuckyall identified him inst
antly. "We've gotten lucky, to some extent. He's not a mage but a soldier. Abnormally lucky though. According to legend, the Chaosites seek the grace of their master Urgash by getting involved in more and more dangerous adventures, gradually learning to change the rules of destiny and fate according to their own wills and desires. In short, they’re gonna hurt us good."
I assessed the informational contour of the figure clad in black armor. It was pale green: the system apparently didn’t believe him to be much danger but was quite prepared to offer a meager bit of XP on top of some minor loot.
"He's green for me. Somewhere around level 250, I think."
Dan shook his head. "Yellow for me. So it'd be 210 max. However, his legions will be fighting for him. His actual level is secondary here. Well, boys? Fancy a bit of a warm up?"
"Hell yes!" I nodded in agreement and turned to our resident expert on Virtual Heroes. After all, he'd had thousands of similar battles. It'd be a shame not to use him. "Fuckyall, what do you say? Should we stay on defense or attack them ourselves?"
Fuckyall didn’t hesitate. "Full steam ahead! We're all hand-to-hand here, but the enemy has the Lilim who are all distance wizards, and the Matriarchs who are acid shooters. Judging by the looks of it, they have something like two thousand of them!”
Still, the enemy leader beat us to it, promptly demonstrating the harmfulness of passive tactics. The Player raised his sword and joyfully exclaimed, "Urgash!"
The name of Chaos' Original Dragon rang out in the frosty air.
"Uurrgaassh!" the demonic legions repeated.
The ballista snapped, launching the battle timer and sending us a fifteen-foot-long arrow with a crudely forged tip. The artillerymen chose the largest and most dangerous target in their view: Snowie. However, even our troll had enough agility to dodge the shot of the low-level unit in a single, lazy motion.
Then the gray sky was painted with the bright strokes of multi-colored fireworks as fifteen hundred Lilim and five hundred Matriarchs gave the first salvo.
We consisted of thirty targets. Seventy shells each was quite tolerable. The flight time was less than a second, and the creatures' levels were all below 80. We waited with interest and a touch of irony, not particularly twitching.
My sight glitched. Clumps of black magic filled the entire visible sector, overexposing my retina and causing my eyelids to contract reflexively. However, the interfaces were still there. I read the battle chat line by line, slightly stunned by the barrage of explosions and flashes.
The passive shields obediently swallowed the damage. That was what they were meant to do: they were the first to meet the enemy, even before the activation of the numerous formulas for armor, abilities, dodges and blocks, parries and counterattacks. With proper persistence, even a little rabbit could dismantle a high-level character's passives.
Minus thirty... minus fifteen with an attempt to poison—this was clearly a Matriarch. Crit, minus sixty-five—a gift came from another Lilim in the triggered glow of her Luck.
The overall damage was a little more than two thousand. Our shields shrank by half and the next salvo would lick them clean down to the very armor. Not bad. I expected worse. However...
Just imagine yourself wielding an enormous sword amid one and a half legions of Lilim. This would be like mowing a hay field from dusk till dawn! They had plenty of time to sort me out. The only good news was that the number of shots was strictly limited. Fuckyall didn't remember the exact value, but it was a two-digit number and the first digit was probably a one, not a two. The game loved active fighting and despised protracted firefights through sections of the castle walls.
Damage was within the expected values: three to five shots were plenty to off an ordinary earthling. And with a lucky crit, one could be enough. It was similar to regular pistol fire, only here ordinary bulletproof vests were unlikely to help because the incoming damage had magical and acid modifiers.
I opened my eyes, blinking. Around us, and next to Zena in a solid mass, huge blotches of crimson pentagrams stood out against the once white snow. Were those Gates? I didn't know what relations the Player had with Urgash, how much of the appropriate skill he had, or the number of soldiers that were produced with every summoning.
The primary tactic of the enemy became clear: they put pressure on with free reinforcements and mowed down the hits with skirmishers. Well, we didn't need to play by their rules.
It was my turn to throw up my hand. I bellowed,
"Barrraah!"
We drifted and went for it. Tommy alone thrashed around desperately in the rear, meowing pleadingly. In this fight, his life was going to be measured in seconds and I really didn't want to lose the precious XP to him. It would take me a week’s worth of non-stop farming to regain it. So I selected a block of ice farther from the battle front and issued the key command, "Protect!" Desperate to join the fight, the snow leopard sensed a catch there somewhere. But there was little he could do. He was probably wishing he could sink his claws into me—once I survived the battle, of course.
An armada of low-level Maniacs rushed out to meet us. Four of what looked like standard legions—four! Four thousand creatures armed with white-hot chains. Ahead of the enemy shooters, detachments of sluggish and indifferent Cerberuses lined up. Everything had a price, including synchronizing three heads on a single body.
The anticipated thunder of the clash was essentially nonexistent. This wasn’t two honest armies about to clash, shield to shield, on Alaska's white snow. No, the sound of this battle was different: the nasty screeching of minor demons, the whistling of magic ripping through the air, the slapping of blows, the clanging of chains, and the reverberation of the many-legged arachnid lawnmowers.
Here on Earth, two alien armies hacked at each other. Our poor pale blue planet, will you survive this Armageddon?
Our formation didn’t last. We weren't the typical Roman legionnaires where the shield of the one standing to your right covered your weapon hand while your own shield covered your left flank. AlterWorld's soldiers were individualistic, therefore closer to the Hollywood idea of Vikings or barbarians. The enormous square figures of our warriors clad in steel gripped their oversized swords, making their way through a raging sea of demonic flesh.
And then, the first fateful moment. Earth's physics readjusted to the gaming conventions, dividing the faceless legions into single units. Instead of the expected Smite seven with one blow scenario, we had to destroy the targets piecemeal. Damage wasn't spread out among the whole detachment and there was no sense in thrashing the vermin with thousand-hit blows when there were a couple hundred lives on board.
Fuckyall was the first to understand the cost of our mistake. His voice was heard over the noise of battle, ringing with alarm which made us tense and forget about his insubordination.
"Into a triangle! Back to back! Zena and Dan on the inside! Otherwise we'll be crushed!"
Swarmed by monsters on all sides, we moved sluggishly like flies caught in jam. The demons had our hands tied and hung like grapes to our feet. Our mobility practically went down to zero. All we could do was stand in place and pulverize the hordes that rolled by.
I quickly understood how unfortunate my choice of weapon had been. It was an insanely slow sword with fantastic damage and a chance to kill in a single hit. It was created to fight uncategorized beasts and was totally unsuitable for killing small fry. AlterWorld's mechanics didn't allow me to slice a few creatures at once in sweeping strokes. I had to either use damage skills or work the old-fashioned way: choose a target, strike, choose a new one. No bulk discounts.
I would have blasted the Staff of True Flame with a maximally defocused beam, but infernal creatures were basically immune to fire. For them, a thousand degrees of boiling magma was home, sweet home.
I would tear into them with my automatic, but cartridges were scant—two magazines per gun. And our firearm skills were approaching zero, anyway. Can you learn marksmanship in battle, having sixty cartridges for
ammo against a few legions? You'd be delusional.
The fastest things I had were my bare hands. DPS was one and a half seconds per strike, in comparison with the seven seconds it took to swing a two-handed weapon. So I sheathed my sword behind my back and switched to street fighting. I'm no melee-monk or some crazy rogue who had invested in brass knuckles, but I should be more than enough for these demons. Strength in place of skill, hatred in place of talent.
Strikes with my thirty-six-pound fists broke through skulls, crushed ribs, and knocked out fragile vertebrae. Every hook brought death. Each uppercut lifted their fragile bodies into the air or tore the next loser's head off from his shoulders. I involuntarily shook my head. This was Bollywood, not a real fight.
The Maniacs almost instantly gnawed through my passive shield and began to doggedly beat my artifact armor. Their black claws repeatedly took off micron chips from my armor. Their white fangs maimed my mithril with thousands of micro-dents. Pools of acid and thermal shocks knocked out molecular chains of my unique steel. Water wears away stone, blades of grass break through asphalt.
The difference in characteristics was fantastical. It was easier for the beasts to kill themselves against my mithril armor than to pierce it. But there were a hell of a lot of them. Strikes to the back ignored my abilities which were meant to be used in a fair fight. I couldn't dodge or block; only my modifications to physical resistance and armor were working. Damage was almost always marked with the asterisk of a crit, even though the damage number was most often a zero. From the outside, this probably looked beautiful: red numbers of damage received rushed out to the sky in an endless stream:
0... 12... 0... 0... 4... 0*... 0... 0... 21*... 0... 7... 19*...
A little too fast...
Hundreds of scathing hits per second were still hundreds of hits. The chains and claws found cracks in my armor, acid flowed into the joints of the armor, and the incessant fire of arrows hit right or wrong. That's the demons' philosophy: the enemy should suffer more than you do. If the enemy is overtaken, then it's no shame to die at the hands of your own.