by D. Rus
Then I gave an order to the raid army: “Everything’s going according to the plan. Proceed to the zones you’ve been assigned to. Guards of the First Temple – clean-up of Asmodeus’ domain. Larpers and Free Vietnam – lands of Verenus. Korean Alliance – Astaroth’s princedom. Chinese brotherhood – Python's domain. Remember what I asked of you; if you see a Bundle of Nerves emitting bliss and pleasure, do not kill him, he’s mine!”
That’s right, Tavor, you bitch! I haven’t forgotten about you!
The army split up into independent formations and keen-eared search parties. The party was starting. Our objective was to acquire records of the enemy’s communications, start slaughtering the fat logistics officers, and loot supply warehouses. What could be more fun for a warrior inclined to pillage?
Thanks to our former alliance with Asmodeus, we had retained a map of Inferno, and an almost fully complete one too. The entire territory of hell wasn’t too large: an almost perfect circle with a radius of a predictable 666 kilometers. It had 40 castles and over 200 smaller locations: settlements, forts, mines, and reinforced, isolated farmsteads.
Our goal was total genocide, a clean-up op that would leave no one standing. After the destruction of all official settlements, a location always changed its status from “inhabited” to “wild.” It would cease to generate income and no longer supply its former owner with warriors. Evil spirits would inhabit the mines and ruins, and the randomizer would spawn aggressive monsters in large quantities.
In order to reclaim such a territory, you had to remove the wild flora and fauna until their numbers became what they initially were. You would then build a castle and populate it – at least with hired NPCs.
Our strategy – to deprive the demons of respawn points and leave them without access to reinforcements. At least AlterWorld reinforcements, which made up the strongest part of Asmodeus’ invasion army. According to the major’s intel, Asmodeus had gathered allies from three different worlds. But two of them were limited to zerg rushes – mass attacks by low-level monsters. They could be taken out even with simple arrows, although heavy bullets were preferable.
These monsters had the same chances against us as bears would have against military gunners. A thousand bears could wreak havoc in a quiet suburb. But in an open field, pitted against a regiment in trenches, a thousand bears wouldn’t even make it to the first line of defense. Intimidating roaring, impressive vitality, and running at the speed of fine trotters would not help them.
With us, things weren’t so straightforward; we also had magic. But the analogy is close enough. We had gotten skilled at killing. Those who were poor killers had already disappeared from the world political map. Our biggest problem were the AlterWorld legionnaires and creatures far over level 300. It took even us around top 10 warriors to deal with one of those. Now imagine earthmen; a tank squadron per every top creature. And the creature would respawn, perhaps not right away, but in a week.
For the first half hour, the Alliance moved forward together, marking all the interesting places on the map and quickly scouting them. From time to time, small detachments would split off from the army to clean up micro-locations. We slaughtered stone quarry and mine workers, eliminating familial homes of all creatures loyal to Asmodeus. Our hell hounds fiercely tore apart their kin from enemy clans. They harbored age-old hatred toward each other, and their blood feud would go on for centuries. Any hounds that couldn’t pass under the belly of a young female without bending their knees were killed. The pups that passed this test were adopted. The pride left nothing in its wake but empty hills, the hot wind blowing straight through the destroyed burrows within.
Pretty soon, we ran into a few surprises.
One of our search parties which happened to consist of only elves and humans encountered a lost couple from Earth. The young man and woman – dying of dehydration and on the brink of insanity – had survived by pure luck and by virtue of AlterWorld algorithms that were starting to kick in. Ten days they had been hiding in the mountains from various creatures, slowly going insane. It was understandable; the young couple had been at home, drinking champagne and getting ready to make love, when all of a sudden, reality shifted, and they were thrown into the depths of hell. Good thing some food from their table got transported along with them.
The two were given into my mother’s care and sent to the clan’s sanatorium via the nearest portal, so that they could recover their sanity. A young hell hound followed them – hell hounds were the best therapists of all time. The canine snorted with displeasure, but obediently followed the matriarch’s orders; she mentally extinguished the young couple’s panic attacks and negative emotions.
Soon, we had to call another evacuation team; our sideline watchmen detected a smoke of an unusual color and sent a scout to find its source. His discovery was astounding; in the middle of a hidden valley was a Canadian attack plane—a heavily damaged one.
Fifteen tons of creased and melted metal wasn’t a bad find, although it didn’t change the lay of the land. But what interested us the most were the two tilted gravestones. It looked like the crash had happened very recently. Had we not just returned from Earth, we would’ve deemed this find priceless. But now, things were simpler. We resurrected the pilots, advised them to loot their graves, then quickly transferred them to the Super Nova. We would chat with them, then return them to Earth.
The Alliance’s main division – 3,000 warriors – approached the first castle. We had sent them ahead just in case; we still didn’t know how the demons were taking this insolent invasion. According to our scouts, there were only cripples with permanent injuries and weak youngsters on the walls. But, better safe than sorry. Who knows how fast info could travel between worlds? Should Asmodeus show up, we’d be in for a blood bath; we had a shortage of adamant.
We easily seized the castle, almost in no time. A fortress’s strength is not in its walls, but in its defenders. We brought down the 200,000 HP gates in two minutes. A short yet intense massacre in the inner court followed, then – a rapid clean-up of the premises. We slaughtered everyone, regardless of their status – demon slaves, crafters, gatherers. Three of our warriors could take down a 200-level imp in a few minutes. On Earth, a teen imp could crush an entire tank platoon.
We spent half an hour pillaging. The loot was scant – very few valuables. Army supplies were minimal, craft and alchemy ingredients – practically non-existent. I presumed that the war on Earth had taken up all of Inferno’s resources. Not without reason it is said that wars are the single most expensive enterprise invented by man.
I wondered if demons were short on gear. I recalled how the elite Silver Legion demons got respawned naked. The war on Earth was intense; after losing a few armies in nuclear explosions, the new army had probably been left without equipment. This could mean good news for us.
I couldn’t let the major know just yet. He had died three times during castle raids; the low-level fellow succumbed to every single blanket effect. After a series of resurrections, he decided to continue his experiments in a more peaceful setting.
A few third-line supporters were currently helping him to level up. Our plan was to make him gain 50 levels in a few days, then send him to Moscow and see what kind of Terminator we will have had created. If the system worked, and he really would become stronger in every respect, then we would have a super cheat at our disposal that would radically alter Earth’s reality. Honestly, I was already fearing the outcome, as the logical response from Earth would be an insistent request to level up a few SWAT divisions.
Our dwarves and goblins were still transporting trophies, while the heavy hitters had swapped blades for smashing weapons and started hammering away at the main citadel’s wall. A cloud of dust enveloped the castle yard. Flying pieces of basalt struck everyone, taking HP and drawing some hefty cussing.
After ten minutes, the complex math algorithms responsible for calculating damage in the game computed the citadel to be unstable. The warped
donjon collapsed with a loud creak. The citadel’s green marker turned gray, signifying that it was now nothing more than ownerless ruins. It would become red in a few days as deadly creatures would inhabit the abandoned quarters. In a week – voilà, a new monster lair. Aggressive loner mobs would now begin to multiply, mature, and gather treasures. In half a year, this location would be titled ‘Infernal Ruins’ or something along those lines...
Our looters got second wind; free building stone, specifically infernal basalt with fire immunity and not just some trivial sandstone, was quite the thing, especially for a thrifty dwarf.
I didn’t mind; those greedy pigs still had 10 minutes left. We were resurrecting our fallen, rebuffing, and fixing our damaged accoutrements. Besides, I didn’t want to kick the people around for no reason; the wise management had already thought everything through a long time ago.
Before we even began our battle at these castle walls, our scouts accompanied by wizards were already on their way to the next points marked on the map. A network of portals was slowly but surely enveloping Inferno. All we had to do was wait until a friendly arch popped open before us, inviting us to the walls of the next citadel.
We divided into two groups for the next attack: North and South, so we could take two targets. We had no time to spare, plus, our manpower was huge. Speed and suddenness were our key strengths.
This strategy proved useful. In an hour and a half, I was getting reports that the attacks had been successful. I skimmed the operations summary. The South group steamrollered the former border castle of a demon prince. The tiny garrison couldn’t put up an adequate resistance.
The North group had a harder time. The ancient citadel turned out to be a company town; it was the heart of production of battle artifacts and various alchemic substances. A hundred veterans guarded it, inexhaustible sources of magic crap at their disposal.
My warriors got into serious trouble; many ceaselessly vomited bile, having encountered colorless airborne poison dust. It had no antidote and nearly turned the men inside out. Many were in hysterics; chemicals burned their eyes, and the 24-hour blindness timer scared them to death. Internal interfaces would be their only salvation for the near future, providing access to books, movies, and other positive things. The wounded would just have to relax, stop scratching their bleeding eye sockets, and concentrate on a fun story.
There were surprisingly many heavy injuries. Traps took warriors’ limbs, artifacts damaged aura and severed mana flow cords. For the next 24 hours, we would have to do without over a hundred warriors. The rest of us grew tense. If tearing out your spine with a special ability could leave you paralyzed for an entire day at this point, what could we expect next? Disability groups? It was frightening. Inferno managed to bare its teeth after all.
Fortunately, the loot was terrific, although we would have to figure out several of the artifacts; they had no means of external control. Some displayed the malicious Limited Access note in response to our attempts to control them via internal interfaces.
The Mules Guild was a big help in emptying the industrial warehouses. After the rupture of the worlds, the guild had lost over 90 percent of its staff as very few of the members were permas; the boys merely ran a successful business to ensure prosperity in the real world.
Luckily, one of their permas was a good buddy of mine whom I had met in previous raids – Burly. He had managed to seize the reins of government and crush the anarchists and mutineers, shedding hardly any blood. Most of them were aiming to pocket the contents of the leased-out storehouses – tens of thousands of square feet of freebies. This sum was too large to be defended by a mere hundred dwarves, even if they were unnaturally powerful. But with our Alliance’s protection it was certainly possible...
The South group split up into two smaller groups as the nearest targets could be taken without too much manpower. The North group did the opposite; they tightened their formations, got both dragons to help them, and summoned a dwarf hird from the reserves. They had a difficult target ahead – the former family castle of one of the Grand Princes whom Asmodeus had killed.
The castle’s gates and gratings all had over a million HP. The walls bore various runes. There were several towers and catapults. I wouldn’t have risked attacking such a huge thing under any other circumstances, but the number of demons we saw flashing between the merlons and on our radars was ridiculously low. That couldn’t be it, could it? A mere three hundred, most of them not even warriors.
All right, let’s take her, I decided. I couldn’t even remember how many castles I had already taken. But who cares? Charge, boys!
Chapter Fifteen
Bering Strait. US Navy missile defense torpedo boat.
“...target signature recognized: three Ka-52-M ‘Alligator’ attack helicopters. A couple Ka-60 ‘Swallow’ military helicopters. Distance: 142 miles, altitude – 200 feet, bearing – 60, moving away. Russians, sir! They’re leaving; will cross our air boundary in 40 minutes. Detecting jamming signals... change of carrier frequency... Target tracking has been made more difficult.”
The early warning radar beeped, signaling the discovery of new objects.
“New targets detected! Target number six, presumably an EW A-90 aircraft. Distance: 411 miles, altitude – 35000 feet, bearing – 81. Target number seven, positive identification: strategic bomber Tu-160 ‘Gray Swan.’ Distance: 509 miles, altitude – 45000 feet, bearing – 77. They’re over neutral territory, sir!”
“Attention! Permission received to open fire on targets 1-5. Representation code correct. Safety catches removed from weapons systems. Homing radar activation, forwarding data to SM-6 control system. Probability of hitting target with one missile – 82%, two missiles – 97%. Opening missile cells 12-22. Ready! Launch! SAMs in the air. Shooting off accelerators. Activating thrusters. Missiles on intercept course. Ninety seconds till rendezvous point.”
“Attention! Registering jamming signals on all frequencies! Hard rays detected. Source – target number 6, the EW aircraft. Target designation failure! Missiles following pre-mapped route. ‘Fledgeling-9’ has abandoned course due to horizontal rudder failure. ‘Fledgling -17’ – failure of both control units, self-detonation. Loss of remote sensing of ‘Fledglings:’ 3, 8, 11. Reassigning targets. Targets within homers' perceptibility, 15 seconds till target interception. Homer seizure! ‘Fledgeling-4’ has abandoned course. Interception in: three, two, one! Multiple explosions. Detecting destructive agent clouds. Targets... Targets not hit! Repeat, targets not hit!”
“Sir, receiving orders to repeat attack with full stacks on both sides.”
“Attention! We’re illuminated by a radar. Source – target seven, ‘Gray Swan.’ Sir, these are our waters, we’re in our own right! Will they really dare return fire?!”
“We’re illuminated by another radar! The ‘Swan’ has launched two missiles, looks like antiaircraft missiles. Oh, God, SOS! We’ve a 120 seconds till interception! Sir, requesting permission to abandon ship! Sir, what are we to do?!”
“Do your duty! Repeat attack! Open missile cells 1-32!”
“Sir, we don’t have time! Long-range SAM preparation takes over three minutes! An entire minute for the gyroscopes alone!”
“Load half the clusters with air defense SAM cartridges. We’ll try to intercept the Russian missiles for a start. May God help us!”
Eight hours later.
A heavy mithril barrel of a 120 mm caliber took a wide arc and smashed into the skull of the dungeon boss. Crunch! The monster’s legs gave way, and the giant creature fell to the stone floor.
The trichromatic sparks of divine magic flew everywhere, mixing with the monster’s brains and black blood. The 5-digit crimson crit number slowly floated up to the ceiling and vanished. I took a screenshot; such a hit was worthy of a painting in Super Nova’s Hall of Fame.
Status alert! You’ve received experience.
Congratulations! Group mission ‘Ancient Lair Clean-Up’ complete.
&nb
sp; Reward: +710k XP (personal). Gold (per each group member): +500.
Rating: bonus difficulty boost for next personal dungeon. Your cakewalk days are over!
Relationship with Inferno faction: improved! Thank you for clearing the lands. Current level: Hatred! Diplomatic status: War!
I gave the demons a middle finger in my mind, You’ll never have my friendship. This war would have no gray areas; it was us vs. ultimate evil. There were millions of victims in Russia alone, and ziggurats built from the skulls of children.
I gnashed my teeth, sighing; the thought of my involvement in the catastrophe was weighing me down. I couldn’t fix what I had done. I could only survive until they invented Time magic and travel to the past to kill myself when I was an infant. Damn Terminator...
It was all just stupid dreams. But I certainly could influence the here and now. The main thing was to avoid making the age-old mistake of the kind-hearted: we had to crush the evil in its lair, not letting the sprouts of evil spread over our own garden.
These considerations influenced my order; no prisoners, kill all. My clan mates grumbled; slaughtering elite crafters was like slaughtering chickens laying gold eggs. All of my greedier warrant officers objected to such an illogical order and agitated the warriors for a rebellion.
I had to insist; no exceptions! I had already tried to reach an agreement with a demon once; that led to the death of two continents. Australia was completely silent, even on radio frequency bands. As for Africa, the remnants of the Egyptian army were barely making it, surrounded by the enemy. They survived only thanks to the ancient pyramids which suppressed magic for several miles around. Maybe there were still a few wild tribes here and there, protected by powerful shamans and generally not very crucial targets for demons. But these were more like death pangs for a continent...