Defiance of the Fall: A LitRPG Adventure

by TheFirstDefier

  That changed over the last few weeks, though, as his level kept steadily increasing while they could only helplessly fall behind. Still, their speed was respectable, and Zac assumed they’d found great grinding spots as well, likely incursions with their improved experience rewards.

  The wealth ranking thankfully didn’t broadcast the exact wealth people possessed, but it did show he was number one in that ranking as well. Surprisingly, the second spot belonged to someone who wasn’t in either the Level or the Dao rankings. He had named himself after the dragon in Lord of the Rings, so Zac assumed he alluded to the fact that he was sitting on a pile of treasure.

  Otherwise, there was some correlation between the level ranking and the wealth ranking, as everyone on the list must’ve killed an enormous number of beasts and farmed Nexus Coins. But the level Rankers only accounted for roughly half the names on the wealth rankings.

  Ogras believed that it was due to dumb luck. Some individuals had found some great treasures and sold them in the System shops that should have cropped up at various places by now. Some might have scored millions of Nexus Coins just from one herb or rare metal. Neither Zac nor Ogras was sure how the System calculated wealth. Nexus Coins were a given, but what about his other treasures, such as his remaining Fruit of Ascension? What about the Creators’ shipyard? Either of those were worth a fortune, far more than every coin he had gained so far. Calrin might know, but they hadn’t visited lately due to constantly being in battle.

  But even without those two treasures, he wasn’t too surprised about his number one spot. He’d gained over 10 million Nexus Coins from the crystal mine and another 20 million from the last three weeks of carnage. He had a hard time imagining anyone gaining coins at his speed.

  Last was the Dao ranking. He was only ranked seventh on that Ladder, even though he’d already acquired two Dao Seeds. He wasn’t sure whether the ones above him had somehow gained even more seeds, or if they’d managed to upgrade the ones they had. More interestingly, a large part of the Rankers seemed to be spiritual people from the old world. There were priests, gurus, monks, and even a shaman represented on the list.

  He learned from Alyn that a combination of meditation and study of fractals were the best combination to improve the Dao, so it seemed that these individuals hit the ground running when it came to pondering the Dao. They were already quite used to meditation, and maybe even entered the System with certain useful insights.

  The Dao list was also the only list that wasn’t filled, with only sixty-eight spots occupied so far. There were a few that got added every day, though, so Zac expected this list to be filled within the month. This list was also the one that moved the least. He had only seen one movement, where Thea Marshall instantly went from the twenty-third spot all the way to the third. Ogras said she must have had an epiphany or a fortuitous encounter that gave her Dao a level-up.

  Actually, the Dao ranking was the one that shocked Ogras the most. There were only three demons currently on Earth who actually possessed a Dao, according to him. And two of them only gained their seeds after arduously meditating for years. Ogras believed that it was the Tutorial giving a huge hand in some way; otherwise, only those who got Dao Seeds from quests like Zac should have touched the Dao this early.

  Zac was surprised to see that many of the top ten individuals of the level ranking actually hadn’t gained a Dao Seed so far, not even the second-place individual named Salvation. Zac didn’t know whether that made him more or less scary, having reached that level without any Dao to assist and empower his or her skills. Actually, he and Thea were the only two people represented on all three lists, with his rankings slightly better.

  Finally, Zac closed down the windows and got ready for work. Alea roused herself as well and mutely followed behind him as he proceeded up to the wall walk. Ogras approached not long after Zac arrived at the top of the wall, the usual lackadaisical attitude missing. He had a grim visage as he nodded toward Zac before once more looking out toward the battlefield. His hand didn’t stop moving, and the large bristled wolves beneath died one by one.

  “Third casualty this wave,” he curtly said, worry evident in his eyes. The demon forces were limited, and every death hurt them in the long run. Over the course of the whole monster horde quest, it meant thousands of additional monsters the others would have to kill. Three deaths in three weeks might sound good, but only roughly two hundred of the demons were combat classes. Three deaths were noticeable; besides, the quest wasn’t even one-third completed, and Zac could only assume it would keep getting worse.

  It wasn’t that the wolves were extremely strong. The large wolves beneath the wall could roughly be considered as strong as the monkeys in the mountains by now. But their numbers were endless, and the demons were tired. And tired people made mistakes.

  The wolves of this wave apparently were able to shoot out the bristles on their backs in a wide-range attack that targeted both friends and foe. One demon had been unlucky and actually got skewered up on the wall from an errant flying bristle. Normally, he should have been able to erect a defense or dodge in time, but he’d spaced out due to extreme fatigue.

  Zac only grunted in affirmation as he looked out over the battlefield. Most of the wolves were dead, with just a few large packs remaining. He could already see the next wave’s approach from the distance, so he didn’t hesitate as he jumped down right among the bristled beasts. The impact killed eight of them, not giving them any chance to shoot out their projectiles.

  With a large [Chop], he immediately created a circle of death, and then he methodically started killing the beasts with a blank look on his face. A few bristles flew in his direction, but they were no threat to him. The ones hitting his body he simply ignored since his clothes nullified the impact, and those flying for his head he blocked with his axe-head.

  Just as he killed last of the Bristleback Wolves, as they apparently were called, the next wave was only a hundred meters away. These wolves were of average size and build and had a grayish-black color. What made them stand out was that they actually looked a bit translucent as he saw them approach.

  Hesitant, he brought out a rock from a pouch and launched it like a rocket at one of the front-runners. It was his standard move lately whenever a new wave of wolves approached. He’d started using it after wave 372, which had consisted of “Wolves of Kar’Ka’Venum.”

  He still had no idea what Kar’Ka’Venum was, but when he charged into the group of wolves and swung his axe in a large [Chop], every single monster exploded in a huge shock wave upon death. The blast from his swing almost killed him then and there, and after that, he swore to be more careful.

  To his surprise, the stone whizzed straight through the monster like it was a ghost. Zac got a sinking feeling as he saw the approaching horde, and without hesitation, he turned around and roared, “ACTIVATE THE ARRAY!”

  87

  Spectral Wolves

  Ogras was quick on the uptake, and he immediately shouted down the other side of the wall, where Janos stood next to a large crystal. The illusionist immediately activated the array with the help of a pile of Nexus Crystals, and with a deep hum, a shimmering dome grew out of the ground, covering the whole inner area of Port Atwood. It reminded Zac of a large soap bubble, with prismatic colors covering the whole shield, slowly swirling about. But the observant watchers could see that the swirls weren’t really random, but rather followed some pattern, and that the stripes of colors were reminiscent of fractals.

  It was the [E-Grade Medium-Scale Town Defense Array], Zac’s first purchase with his wealth gained from the crystal mine. The town planners had gone over various other solutions, such as purchasing defensive and offensive arrays separately, but the Town Defense Array simply gave an unparalleled bang for the buck for these low-tier battles. In the future, an established force would likely have tens of arrays available, each designed for a specific defense or attack, but with their limited resources, they went with the generalist approach.


  The only downside was that it cost quite a lot of crystals to operate. But with a crystal mine in his possession, Zac wasn’t too worried about consumption. Initially, its radius was roughly fifty meters shorter compared to the wall, creating an inner death zone between the wall and the barrier. But after some adjustments, it grew to stop ten meters outside the walls, not allowing the spectral wolves access to the fortifications.

  Zac took a few quick steps backward with [Loamwalker], allowing him to cross over a hundred meters almost in an instant. He smoothly passed through the barrier without creating a ripple. The shield wasn’t intelligent enough to distinguish friend from foe, but as the owner of the array, he had some perks.

  Normally, he would have preferred to keep the array at its original size and test whether the wolves could actually run through the wall, but there were too many tired demons up on the battlements at the moment. They were changing shifts with this wave, and everyone hadn’t left their posts yet. Instead, he had to expend some money in order to ensure the group of demons heading further in to rest wouldn’t be assaulted by these ghost wolves. They were wrung out and didn’t have the energy to resist anymore.

  Soon the beasts heedlessly slammed into the shield, some even dying from the impact. The shield was a product of the System itself and didn’t even flicker from the impact. The wolves weren’t disheartened and started to claw frenziedly at the translucent barrier, but it had no effect at all. After a few seconds, it was obvious that these beasts’ only strong point was their incorporeal state.

  Zac didn’t want to waste even more crystals by activating the offensive component of the array as well, and instead took out his axe and headed out through the array once more. Attacks from the wall also started to fall down at the wolves through the barrier, as it only stopped things from going inside and not the other way.

  It immediately became clear what worked and didn’t work with these things. The arrowheads helplessly embedded themselves into the ground after passing through the transparent bodies of the wolves, with a few exceptions. Any arrow that was imbued with some skill, such as lightning or darkness, had no problem killing the beasts. Meanwhile, the mages had no problems at all and gleefully peppered the wolves full of holes.

  Zac saw the same results. His axe just passed through the wolf it targeted, and it responded by trying to bite his free arm. Zac actually let it in order to see the result, and surprisingly, it managed to grab hold of the small of his arm. Its bite had no effect on Zac, and he felt that its power was only equivalent to the beasts on the two-hundredth wave or somewhere around there.

  He charged a minimal amount of Cosmic Energy into the fractal on his hand, and a small edge from [Chop] appeared. It was barely as long as the normal edge, but it cost almost no Cosmic Energy. Normally, there would be little benefit to using it like this, but with these particular wolves, it was very effective.

  The wolves were like normal beasts to the edge created from Cosmic Energy, and its head was split in two. However, no blood spurted out, and the beast simply broke down into motes of darkness before it was completely gone. Next he tried using only the Dao with his axe, and it worked as well in letting him kill the monsters. Obviously, the beasts would be extremely dangerous to normal humans, but against skills, they were pretty weak.

  Still, the speed of whittling down their numbers was quite slow, as not all the demons possessed ranged skills. Those who were melee classes usually helped out by throwing rocks or shooting arrows from the wall when the battlefield was too dangerous, but now, they could only helplessly stare on.

  Very few demons dared to pass through the barrier to fight head-on. It wasn’t like the wall that had the gates or ropes hanging from it that would allow the demons to quickly retreat if needed. If they passed through, they would be stuck on the battlefield until the barrier was lowered, as they couldn’t come and go as they pleased like Zac.

  The longer the barrier stayed active, the more crystals would be consumed, and Zac felt the need to end this battle quickly. He started to charge up his [Chop] skill until it was five meters long, then with a mental command, the edge multiplied into five identical parallel edges. They were right next to each other with less than a centimeter between them, making the edge look like a thick block of fractals.

  Zac rapidly swung his axe horizontally five times, and with every swing, one of the edges flew out in a different direction. Each blade created a huge path of death, and Zac felt a constant torrent of Cosmic Energy enter his body as a large part of the battlefield turned into black motes of light.

  The new attack was the result of constantly being in pitched battles for weeks. Both his [Axe Mastery] and [Chop] had improved once again, reaching Late Mastery. According to Alea, the mastery stages of skills were Early-Mid-Late-Peak before they reached their limits and needed to be upgraded, meaning the skills were close to completion.

  The improved [Chop] currently held stable at five meters instead of one, and now allowed multiple blades to be created. Initially, he had only managed to create two, but as his control over Cosmic Energy improved from constant battle, the number of blades he could maintain stably increased. The extra blades had no purpose when they were attached, but greatly improved his area damage when he shot them away.

  [Chop] was more and more turning into an area skill, but it didn’t really improve the power of his strikes. He would have to imbue his Dao into the blades in order to improve the lethality compared to a normal swing. Luckily, area damage was just the thing he needed with the monster hordes, so he was quite happy with the improvements.

  Initially, he wasn’t sure what the point was of creating five blades in this new manner since he could just create them one by one and shoot them out in succession instead. But he realized that the Cosmic Energy consumption was a lot lower for copying an existing blade rather than creating it from scratch for some reason. Creating five blades the new way only required half the Cosmic Energy compared to creating them one by one. Each blast he shot out usually killed a good number of beasts, so being able to launch twice as many was a huge improvement.

  He hadn’t really explored the effect of [Axe Mastery] yet, as he didn’t have the luxury of spending Cosmic Energy on the training system with the hordes constantly requiring attention. He hoped he’d get some days off where he could try it for a bit after the first horde was finished with.

  Zac spent a decent chunk of Cosmic Energy in quickly reaping the lives of a large part of the wave, which allowed the melee warriors to head out and help out with the remainder. Soon only a few stragglers remained, and Zac could deactivate the shield. The shield had only been active for roughly thirty minutes, but Zac knew that it had cost him over a 100,000 Nexus Coins. Even with his large number of kills from using his area attacks, he knew he took a loss from this wave.

  That was why he had refused to use the shield thus far, even though it cost the lives of a couple of demons. It might seem callous, but no one was stepping up to share the cost of maintenance, with everyone trying to amass as much wealth as possible from the waves.

  He could force them to hand over some the earnings, in a manual shakedown of sorts. But he didn’t feel the need for that as of yet, and saw their gains as a salary. But if it came down to it, he wasn’t above commandeering everything they had in order to protect his base. The demons were aware of this fact, and many even braved the dangers of the wolf hordes in order to burn all their cash at the Thayer Consortium when their pockets became heavy.

  Apparently, Calrin was well aware of the situation and had hiked up the cost of the herbs needed for medicine baths to twice its normal prices, citing the troubles of restocking during wartime. Zac suspected this was all baloney, as the gnome had access to the Mercantile System, which allowed him to easily restock the supplies at any time.

  The demons could only grit their teeth and cough up their hard-earned Nexus Coins. Zac really looked forward to the shareholders’ meeting of Thayer Consortium in two months w
hen he would get his quarterly dividends from the proceedings. He had a feeling that the little gnome should have squeezed out an extraordinary amount of coins from the poor demons by then.

  Since the ghost wolf wave was largely dead, the System quickly pumped out the next one, and the army went back to business as usual. This time, it was large lumbering things that looked made out of rocks, and some even had moss growing on their wide backs. The wolves were easily the largest kind so far, each reaching over three meters tall, with the leader towering over five meters. It was a bit troublesome, as the walls only stood at eight meters, meaning that the huge thing might be able to reach the top if it stood on its hind legs.

  The saving grace was that there only was a little over a hundred of them, but each felt like a walking siege machine, and Zac started to wonder whether he should erect the barrier again before these hulking things started to break down the fortifications. Imagining the cost of maintaining the barrier with these monstrosities charging at it quickly helped Zac arrive at a decision, and he charged toward the wolves after the customary rock throw, which only elicited an angry growl this time.

  88

  A Day in the Wolf Horde

  Zac intercepted the group of wolves some distance in front of the walls, not wanting to give them a chance to ruin his fortifications. These hulking things really looked like they could cause a dent in the wall. Zac really wished that the walls were inscribed with protective inscriptions like the whole shipyard, since then he wouldn’t have to worry about this. Unfortunately, there was no one with the skill set to inscribe the wall among the demons.