The Systemic Lands

Chapter 216: Day 505 (2) – Sky Worms

I began to make out the monsters in more detail. Segmented gray and red worms about twice the height of a human, with spikes coming off their backs, pincers at the front like an ant for their mouth with a circular maw of teeth, bat wings, and a wicked looking double edged blade at the end of their tail. There were ten of them and they gave off the impression of a level 4 monster.

You don’t look like something out of a nightmare without being a level 4 monster. It was a small thing I noted, that the monster types had moved from more animal types to more crazy things at level 4. Flying worms, this was going to be unpleasant

“The City Shield?” The General asked me. I shook my head.

“I want to see their attacks before and after. Once they launch their first attacks, activate it. Everyone give me room,” I said. Clarissa was already moving with her cluster of guards back to my house. The General nodded at me and moved away with his command staff. A lot of the nearby soldiers gave me room as I stood in the middle of the store pillars with Naran.

The monsters were rapidly closing in on the plaza. What was their behavior? Would they go after the strongest, weakest? Or some other priority targeting?

The flying worms broke formation to spread out, just above the height of the Airship Port, which was ten stories tall. A volley of arrows was fired from the top of the Airship Port at one of the monster worms. It spun in the air and the arrows were scattered away from it. Some sort of air defense skill.

Two worms came in at the flanks of the Airship Port. It was fast what happened next, the worms bloated up and burst of air was shot out of their mouths. From what I could make out from the plaza, the balls of airs burst apart into blades. Body parts of the archers were scattered about, along with debris from the building. Pained screams sounded out.

A few seconds later a hum sounded out from everywhere, all at once. I could feel in my very bones began to rise up across the city. From how uncomfortable the soldiers appeared it wasn’t just me. I felt like the air was being sucked right out of my chest as the city lost color. Everything moved into grayscale and the hum disappeared.

A massive glowing white dome surrounded the city, stretching far up into the air. While I could recover my breath and the feeling went away, the monsters were much more heavily affected, losing speed, dropping down closer to the ground. Their red bands, ribs, body structure, was still red. Another data point to contemplate later. Now I needed to figure out how to kill them.

A few more fired off air bursts, but the power was less than what it had been on top of the tower. Instead of killing multiple people at once, people were shredded apart one at time. I noted the summons that had been prepared had all dusted when the city shield activated.

I could hear pained screams not that I focused on it, from where the summoners were at. Note to self, the City Shield doesn’t play nicely with summons. I kicked off the ground to the side and back to my original position, confirming that I hadn’t been affected beyond the initial activation of the City Shield. I was fine and unaffected apart from the world losing color.

One of the monsters came swooping down at me. I bent my legs. “Straight up!” I called to Naran. This was the only move we had practiced for aerial battles to gain height. He was racing in front of me. I leapt up. Naran leapt up after, underneath me. I went up about two stories, when his shoulder’s hit my feet. I bent my legs and jumped off him to gain more height.

The flying worm was about twenty feet from me, or six meters. The worm expanded in preparation for its attack. “Air Burst.” I dodged mid-air as it fired its attack at me. Acid Shot x2.

The worms tried to spin, but it was too late. Some of the acid hit it. While its spin did send a much of my attack back outwards, the amount that had gotten through ruined its wings. The monster plummeted to the ground.

“BEHIND!” I heard Naran shout. I noted another monster moving in below me at an angle as well, cutting off that direction of escape. My hands were quickly making the hand signs needed. My long hours of practicing them paying off, since I didn’t have to think about activating the skill, only my direction.

“Air Burst!” I went shooting through the air towards the Airship Port. Two more monsters were moving to intercept my flight path, while the one below me was blocking my retreat in that direction. All of them began to expand to perform their long-range attacks. Going into the air against level 4 aerial monsters, not the best idea. In fact, it was a very bad idea.

Acid Shot x5. “Air Burst!” I aimed for the ground with both skills. Staying in the air any longer was a death trap. A wave of acid formed in front of me while I shot behind it a moment after. One of the acid balls was blown apart from the monster’s air burst skill.

The worm between me and the ground then spun around, but there was just too much acid to push away with the help of gravity. The monster was hit and began to fall. Unfortunately, I was within range of the monster as I had caught up in my rapid descent. It used the remains of its wings to spin around in midair. Its blade tail quickly arced for me.

I was forced to bring my right arm up to block. Since my hands were too far apart to use Air Burst in time. The blade cut through my armor and through my arm above my elbow. Thankfully that had been enough to slow the attack down as the tail blade bounced off my chest plate. Acid Shot x2.

The monster was hit with another barrage of acid while my right arm went flying away in a trail of blood. I hit the ground and let my legs collapse under me and rolled. The roll went badly since I was missing one arm and I went sprawling across the plaza. The pain hit me from my stump as well. At least it was a clean cut with no weird effects.

I got up to my feet with a bit of difficulty. Missing an arm, really throws a person off balance. I looked around. The first worm I had downed was beaten to death by Naran. The worm that had cut my arm was dust from my acid attacks and a crystal had dropped. The soldiers were doing poorly. Arrows were easily deflected by the spin defense of the level 4 monsters, even with the city shield activated.

A barrage of force explosions rippled through the air, stagger one of the monsters. Bombs on arrows. Unfortunately, the monster wasn’t killed or downed even as some follow up arrows struck it.

The soldiers of the RMPF force and the Union teams were doing poorly as they weren’t able to dodge or counter the air attacks. Three of the worms angled their way towards me. Of course it wouldn’t be easy. Losing my arm hurt a lot more than just the pain losing my arm, since I wouldn’t be able to use Air Burst.

Time to use the location to my advantage. I kicked off the ground. These monsters could track my movement unlike the golems, so I did a random zig zag pattern as air bursts exploded in around me. Without the shield weakening the monsters, it would have been game over. I was going to yell at Clarissa quite a bit after this. Saying, ‘I told you so,’ just didn’t feel like enough anymore.

I grabbed my severed arm. Focus. I could survive this. Testing had shown, that having the original body part, made regeneration a lot cheaper if the limb or digit was within a finger’s length distance of where it should be attached. One bit of research I recalled. I raced around the plaza, now with four of the monsters trying to land an attack on me. Make that five as one swooped down into my path.

Naran was there, swinging a sword downwards at the monster. Having over 1,000 in the Body stat was no joke. The attack hit, and the blade dug in deep before snapping at the hilt. Green blood gushed out. With their bright red bands and green blood, they were Christmas worms. The fact that those two parts still had color while the everything else didn’t was freaky. I didn’t have more time to watch as I dodged around the falling monster as it slammed down into the plaza.

“Ah!” I let out a shout as an air burst attack hit me in the side. I managed to take cover at the half wall around the store for a moment. Stone shattered on the wall above me. I took a quick glance at my injury. My armor was shredded and there were several gashes on my left hip.

No time, I kicked off the ground. I barely managed to keep up dodging as more attacks came close to hitting me. Air blades barely dissipating before they struck me, as I felt the rush of wind from various directions.

I was near my home and the doors were open as the guards stood outside, with Clarissa in the entry way. I moved, pushing myself as fast as I could. She quickly had the guards clear a path and she retreated inside and to the side as I went flying through the doorway.

I subconsciously began turning to the right, too late to turn the other shoulder. I slammed my bloody stump into the wall. The pain was so much tears welled up in my eyes. Dammit! I slowly got up to my feet as two guards were shredded at the entrance to my building. The entire structure shook.

“Thanks for keeping the door open,” I said to Clarissa as she came over. She glanced at my stump that was oozing blood.

“You were right,” she said. I tried to wave my hand to indicate that it didn’t matter, but just wiggled my bleeding stump splattering her with blood accidentally. Oops. She just calmly wiped the blood off her face. Naran raced into the building as it shook again. I got a mental alert the building was taking damage. Thank you for the obvious Almighty System.

“You alright?” Naran asked. I had dropped my arm in the plaza when I had been hit by the air burst attack. I held back from making a joke about needing a hand. He really wanted to know if I was combat capable.

“Not really. Going to need a regeneration. What is the monster count?” I asked.

“Three dead, two wounded with arrows and force bombs, five no injuries,” Naran said. Better than I thought, but much worse that I was hoping for. I had downed the one Naran had killed. I killed a second a the cost of my arm. The third was lured to the ground by me and Naran killed the monster with wicked sword swing.

He took two swords from a guard. At least he put one blade in a sheathe at his side and didn’t try to duel wield. Dual wielding was impractical, even with a high Body stat. One could easily be out of position and not have the right angle or leverage. Also had to be sure not to accidentally collide the blades. It was a technique that required a lot of practice, not something to use on a whim.

The building shook again. The wall near the doorway began to crumble. I could see the fear on everyone’s face, even Clarissa who was frowning. Welcome to the joy of level 4 monsters.

“Cover my back, I am racing for the pillars,” I said. There really wasn’t another option as my stump continued to bleed. I needed to hurry up. I had about 200 energy to work with at the moment. Damn, it hurt. I wiped my tears away with my left hand, not accidentally trying to use my bloody stump again.

“Got it,” Naran said. I nodded at him and then raced out of the building as it shook again.

There were three worm monsters swooping about in front of my home. I zig zag and put eyes on the other four. One of them broke off to chase after me. There was screaming and shouting coming from all over. The bell had stopped ringing.

I noted General Smith come out of the RMPF HQ across the plaza with several people who appeared to be familiar. That clever man, he was earning his salary. I had thought these people were at the gates, but he had kept them back at the plaza.

That was smart. The walls and gates could hold for a bit, and he could direct all his firepower to those areas directly from the plaza. A land based attack might only come from direction and there already people at each gate. It hadn’t been known that the City Shield would impact summons, so it made sense to keep the firepower back in reserve where the communication hub was located.

I altered my trajectory towards the group, still zig zagging. All four people in front of the General acted at the same time. Motes of light began to gather.

“Radiant Beam!”

“Radiant Beam!”

“Radiant Beam!”

“Radiant Beam!”