They cleaned up the final details and the group broke apart. There would be three groups: Rugrat and Tian Cui would be the scouting force, with Erik leading Lucinda and Yao Meng as assault team one, and Storbon would be with Yuli as assault team two.
Rugrat and Tian Cui snuck forward toward the walls of the castle, using gear that they had purchased just for these kind of operations.
==========
Cloak of Sneaking
==========
Defense:
120
Weight:
2.1 kg
Charge:
1,000/1,000
Durability:
100/100
Slot:
Can cover current gear
Innate Effect:
Blend into the surrounding environment.
Formation One:
Nightstalker-Reduce the chance of others noticing you, increase your stealth abilities and skills’ effectiveness by 12% Effect will be broken if discovered.
Requirements:
Agility: 37
Stamina: 28
==========
==========
Boots of Silence
==========
Defense:
159
Weight:
1.5 kg
Charge:
1,000/1,000
Durability:
100/100
Slot:
Takes up boot slot
Innate Effect:
Increase agility by 3%
Formation:
Silencing- when wearing these boots your movements and your footfalls are silent.
Requirements:
Agility 45
==========
Both didn’t have the formation sockets and relied on formations that had been sewn into their fabric. The effects couldn’t be changed out, still, it would help them out greatly in their attack.
Rugrat had switched out the formation on his rifle as well.
==========
MK7 Semi-automatic Rifle (FAL)
==========
Damage:
Unknown
Weight:
4. 25 kg
Charge:
10,000/10,000
Durability:
100/100
Innate Effect:
Increase formation power by 12%
Socket One:
Punch Through—Penetration increased by 10%
Socket Two:
Silenced—Weapon doesn’t make any noise.
Range: Long range
Attachment: Under-barrel Grenade Launcher
Requires: 7.62 rounds, 40mm grenades
Requirements:
Agility 53
Strength 41
==========
Tian Cui bounded forward, moving between the rocks that dotted the landscape. Rugrat’s rifle traced over the wall, looking for targets.
He let out a hiss as he saw an orc moving around on the wall.
Tian Cui hearing it through the communication device dropped to the ground, her cloak settled around her, it flickered and changed colors, blending into the area she was lying on.
Rugrat’s breathing was deep and calm, his rifle tracked the orc, ready for any signs of alarm on the creature’s face.
The orc didn’t notice anything out of the ordinary. It met up with another orc continuing their patrol together, heading out of sight.
Rugrat continued breathing, he didn’t feel relief, continuing to stay alert, he couldn’t relax this close to the wall.
He scanned again, looking for other threats.
Tian Cui was face down on the ground, trusting in him completely.
“Go.”
A Rock and dirt shifted as she stood up and moved forward again, with her cloak blending into the surroundings it was hard to see her.
Rugrat was reminded of the times when he had done his training for sniper school. It had been hell moving so slowly, but those skills had become ingrained to his everyday actions and movements.
With the power of the Ten Realms and that same training, the Alvans were like ghosts. Rugrat was impressed with Tian Cui’s ability.
He even lost her for a bit before she reappeared.
“Set.”
“Moving,” Rugrat shifted forward, gliding across the ground. When another orc appeared he lowered himself to the ground, melting into it. Dropping to the ground would pull one’s attention with the movement.
The orc’s passed and the game of tag started up again, the two moving forward slowly toward the wall. Moving fast was liable to being caught.
Rugrat swept the wall for formations, traps, and tripwires. He nodded to Tian Cui as the area was reported as clear.
They advanced the last few meters to the wall.
For the first time in hours they allowed themselves to relax slightly, there were no murder holes in the walls so the orcs while they had a good view of the surrounding area, they couldn’t look down.
Rugrat and Tian Cui nodded and moved to part two. They pulled out equipment and got to work, cutting into the wall with mana blades that didn’t make a noise as they cut through the stone, planting charges.
They moved to the gate, checking it and placing charges at places where Rugrat had identified weaknesses in the structure and materials.
Done, they moved to a section of the wall where the orc guards patrolled the least.
“Charges down,” Rugrat reported.
“Nothing in the area where you’re ascending,” Lucinda said, her scouts were watching the wall from on high.
Rugrat and Tian Cui pulled out climbing gear that had been modified with silencing formations. They turned to the wall and started to climb, digging in picks and barbed climbing shoes as they started to scale the wall.
Lucinda provided them an update on what was happening above them.
The other assault teams moved into their final positions. If things kicked off then they were ready to fight.
“Orc!” Lucinda called out, they were just a few meters from the top of the wall.
Rugrat dug his feet in and the two of them pulled themselves tight to the wall, the cloaks covering them.
Rugrat’s foot shook. A part of the wall shifted, a rock coming free under him.
Shit, it’s loose.
He tried to adjust his foot to make sure that the rubble would stay in place.
He could hear the Orc above them walking around, it snorted in boredom.
Rugrat’s foot shifted, he hadn’t adjusted to the broken piece enough.
The piece of rubble fell away and dropped down.
It hit the wall and then the ground, sounding like lightning in Rugrat’s ears.
“They’re alerted to something,” Lucinda said in hushed tones.
Fucking orc and your damn hearing, just turn back around, nothing to see here. Nothing at all. As Rugrat continued his mantra he was mentally readying himself to hurl himself up the wall and take the orc on.
“Orc is looking over the wall.”
While there were no murder holes to look down through, if someone leaned over the wall then they could see directly down. Luckily, none of the orcs had done that while Tian Cui and Rugrat had been planting charges.
They probably believed that they would be able to see their attackers crossing the ground ahead of the castle walls before they reached the base of the wall.
The time stretched before there was another snort and shuffling.
“Looks like he’s moving away,” Lucinda said.
“Yeah, you’re in the clear.” A few moments later.
The two continued their advance and more of the wall fell away as Rugrat shifted his foot, his leg had gone numb holding it in position but he ignored it, pushing forward.
They were just a meter or so from the top of the wall when Lucinda stopped them.
“Two orc commanders!”
They flushed themselves against the wall again, hearing the footsteps, feeling them through the st
one wall.
Rugrat heard them leaning over the wall and felt the breeze that shifted his and Tian Cui’s cloak.
The orc made an alert noise. Rugrat was moving, before Lucinda could say anything, activating his domain as he scurried up the wall.
He threw himself over the wall, summoning mana blades that he sent out at the startled orcs.
There were two big bastards.
Rugrat’s blades shot out at them. One cut through the orc that had spotted them, tearing him apart. The second dodged to the side and pulled out his blade.
Tian Cui threw a dagger as she reached the top of the wall, but her position and where she was on the wall, her dagger hit the orc in the shoulder but it didn’t do anything to stop him.
Rugrat had dropped his climbing gear into his inventory and had his rifle up as the Orc raised his head to let out a yell.
He started when the first special round hit the orc in the neck.
The orc looked at them in surprise as Rugrat stepped forward, firing three more silent shots, following the orc down to the ground.
The silencing spell on the rounds made sure that the orc didn’t make any noise as he died.
Rugrat saw the second tombstone materialize.
He scanned the area.
“Orcs heard something, moving toward you but not running,” Lucinda said.
Rugrat used his storage ring collecting the bodies casting his cleanse spell, removing the blood from the scene.
He jumped off of the wall into the stronghold with Tian Cui behind him.
She had her rifle out now as well.
They dropped to the ground, taking the fifteen-meter drop with ease.
Both of them used movement techniques, crossing the dead and empty ground from the wall into the buildings around the castle.
They entered a building. There were orc commanders all over the place sleeping. Rugrat’s Rifle snapped from one side of the room to the other, taking it all in in a moment. He relaxed slightly as none of the orcs were awake.
Seeing there were none, blades of mana appeared in the air around him, he positioned them over the sleeping commanders. As one they stabbed down into the orcs’ vitals.
A few were a bit tougher and the blades twisted around and cut deeper.
In a few seconds the sounds of struggle were gone and replaced with silence and blood.
Tian Cui and Rugrat cleared the building and set a trap formation at the doorways.
They climbed up a ladder, opening a roof trapdoor and snuck onto the roof, it was square with crenellations along the sides.
From it they could see the wall and down two walls.
They broke up and moved into position. Rugrat got into position, checking his mobility and taking off his cloak while under it. He used it as a tarp, covering himself and his rifle, blending into the rooftop.
He pulled out a cushion using it to support his rifle as he laid out magazines.
“We’re inside the wall, we have firing positions, readying ourselves,” Rugrat reported to the two other teams.
“Let us know when you’re set,” Erik said.
“The orcs on the wall have wandered away. They didn’t seem to notice anything,” Lucinda said.
Rugrat felt a weight shift as he checked his preparations and switched channels.
“Ready?”
“Ready,” Tian Cui responded.
He looked over, seeing a slight rise on the roof that was her cloaked position.
He switched back channels.
“We’re good to go here. Blow it when you’re ready,” Rugrat said.
“Moving up,” Erik said.
***
Erik was moving from rock to rock, watching the wall. The hogs were snuffling around, moving forward, the two assault teams were commanding them, Lucinda in charge of them all as she knew beasts the best out of them all.
Erik saw movement on the wall and then heard the yell of Orcs.
“Seems they know we’re here!” Yuli said.
“Fire in the hole, fire in the hole!” Erik hit the formation trigger in his hand three times, it went off with the first.
The walls blew inward, charges going off along its base. The shaped charges doing their work as it collapsed back around the castle.
The gatehouse was torn apart but the falling rubble blocked it off more, than making it inaccessible.
Orcs that had been on the wall where the charges were, had been thrown clear, the first tombstones appearing where they fell.
Lucinda and Storbon used a hog horn, claiming control over the startled hogs, in times of panic they could start to fight against the control over them.
The assault groups reasserted control and sent them charging forwards.
The hogs let out their war cries and rushed towards the walls, dust covering the castle.
Orcs were yelling amongst the walls and there were horns calling out to one another.
Erik saw Orcs moving among the rubble. He was running forward with the others, shooting at the moving shapes.
Hogs hit the enraged orcs, running through the orcs. More orcs charged out of the buildings to try and assist, they kept getting stuck in the doorways in their rush.
Damn, that is a lot of Orc Commanders, not a normal lower level orc among them.
Erik was with Yao Meng and Lucinda. Lucinda was holding back a bit, coordinating the hog horde.
Erik and Yao Meng crossed the rubble that had been the wall.
Erik saw an Orc cutting hogs down with his blade and sending a low-level hog flying with a kick. There were holes and cuts across his body where the hog’s tusks and teeth had found purchase.
Erik fired at the orc with a burst of automatic fire.
The orc dropped under the fire as Erik followed behind the hogs.
“Contact right!” Yao Meng yelled.
Erik turned to see Orcs break through the wall of the building they had been living in they brandished weapons and wore armor.
“Grenade out!” Yao Meng fired his grenade launcher. The round went through a small window and into the building. The explosion blew smoke out of the building and caused it to collapse. Orcs were killed or thrown down, the hogs trampling and goring them.
They pushed on, he saw Storbon and Yuli hit the main castle.
Storbon’s grenades blasted holes in the walls while Yuli buffed their hogs as they charged inside.
The two followed the hogs in before the orcs could get a foothold.
Yuli started to transform the castle’s doorways; blocking some and trapping others so that the orcs could only leave through the routes that she and Storbon were covering.
Rugrat and Tian Cui were on their rooftop, using it as a firebase as they targeted orcs that were moving inside the walls.
“Looks like there is a resistance building up close to the rear cave,” Rugrat said.
Erik looked at his map quickly. The hogs initial momentum was slowing as the orcs were starting to get organized and more of them in their full gear got into the fight.
“We’ll try to punch a hole through them,” Erik said.
Yao Meng and Lucinda followed him as they pushed through the buildings.
Orcs appeared and they cut them down in a hail of rounds.
They found orc and hog bodies as they pushed up, there was no time to loot them.
They found a series of buildings that had been broken and damaged in the fighting.
Erik turned a corner, seeing orcs in a line, hogs were attacking their former masters with gusto but the orcs were holding their own, coordinating and buffing one another with their close proximity.
Erik fired on them. Lucinda pushed up beside him. The two of them held and fired on the Orcs. The Orcs yelled and tried to charge forward but were impeded by the hogs. One threw his weapon in anger. Lucinda dodged in time and it stuck into a wall.
Erik cut the thrower down with his rifle.
The Orc’s line collapsed and the hogs rushed through and turned to attack
the other pockets of orc resistance.
“Castle is cleared and secure,” Storbon reported.
“Sweeping across the rooftops,” Rugrat said.
“We’re rolling up the remaining orcs near the cave to the rear of the castle,” Erik said.
He saw a shadow passing overhead. He saw a flash of armor and weapons as Tian Cui and Rugrat moved from rooftop to rooftop.
Erik was using his domain allowing him to sense what was behind walls.
He stopped as he picked up something strange.
He held up a hand to the others and turned to the wall. He lowered his rifle and motioned to the two others. Waving them around the wall.
“In position,” Yao Meng said.
Erik pulled out a grenade and let his rifle hang on his sling.
Sixth Realm Page 42