The Systemic Lands

Chapter 250: Day 534 (2) – Viewpoints 20

Captain Terrance

“Alert!” I heard the shout carried by my men and some women. I was only half done putting my uniform on when the shout went up. I quickly grabbed my sword and shield to head up to the gate. Dammit, this was the time when new arrivals were about to go out to grind. Which one of them had done something stupid today?

“Open the gate in the name of Champion Michael!” I heard the loud shout and moved even more quickly. I hurried outside and was glad to see my soldiers opening the gate. I hurried right up to him and saluted hoping he would forgive the mess I was in.

“Champion Michael!” I said and saw he looked exhausted. There were bags under his eyes, he was covered in dirt, and breathing heavily.

“Listen closely, and transmit these orders to the plaza immediately under my authority,” Champion Michael said and my face paled with every sentence he said. I focused on recalling everything he said.

He then asked me to repeat everything back. I quickly did that. “Good, transmit them immediately, time is of the essence Captain,” he said before rushing off.

“Sargent, seal the gates, then begin arranging for everyone to be evacuated to the plaza, have the summoner send out scouts in force, sound the bells,” I issued a command to my second. I didn’t have time to listen as he shouted at various people and soldiers to light a fire under them. I then rushed off to the communication stone.

“Full alert. Priority message from the Champion,” I said to the operator on duty who quickly sat stood up straight when I entered. It was better to have experienced people ready to send messages so they didn’t get distracted by using the communication stone. There were also set times to make contact and check-in every five minutes.

The bells began to ring as I tapped my foot impatiently. It was a long minute. “Connection established,” the operator said.

I immediately began speaking. “Ritualist attack imminent, one to two days at East gate. Champion Michael returned. Chief Administrator Clarissa and Governor General Smith presence requested. All Radiant Beam skill users, Union teams, and soldiers with over 100 Mind stat to report to East gate. All soldiers with less than 100 Mind stat to clear the walls.” I winced since I had only 80 in the Mind stat.

I had seen what the Ritualist had done to people without the stat during the last attack. It wasn’t pleasant to just fall over and die just like that, with no defense, no chance to dodge. At least many soldiers put more into it than the required 60, after the last battle.

“Issue emergency recall orders to all hunting camps. No one is to leave the city. Sound all the bells. Messager over,” I finished conveying the Champion’s rushed orders.

“Message confirmed. Hold for response,” the operator replied. I waited for three minutes before there was a response back.

“Message heard by command and confirmed. Follow plan three for recall plans. Continuous standby for orders to defense,” the operator said. Plan three meant I had send out runners to the camps on this side of Purgatory. I quickly rushed out to arrange that as the bells continued to ring.

Kenisha

I was just getting ready for another horrible day of killing monsters. When the bell began to ring a constant steady ring. A drill would only ring three times and everyone was expected to follow the drill. They weren’t announced, ahead of time but were treated seriously. Anyone not mobilizing would be punished, since the bell ringing meant an attack was imminent. It reminded of the fire drills at school.

After being here for 24 days. Apparently, I had just missed the last battle 6 days before where Champion Michael defeated the level 4 sky worms. Now my job was going out to kill monsters for crystals. This place was weird with their color-coded uniforms, but it made it easy to understand who was who.

The bell kept ringing and I frowned. This was a real attack. I scrambled outside with my sword and shield. Already a large crowd of gray shirts had gathered. “Silence!” a Sargent of the RMPF shouted. Why they had red in their organization’s name was something everyone speculated about. I thought it was because they had red uniforms.

“Silence!” he shouted again and drew his sword. Everyone quickly shut up. The bell kept ringing away. “Better. All gray shirts and non-combat personnel are to get everything they can carry and evacuate to the plaza. An attack is imminent in one to two days from the Ritualist.”

Who was that? I woman who ran the mess hall burst into tears and collapsed to the ground. That wasn’t good. “Champion Michael has returned. Bows and arrows will be your best weapons. If you don’t have a Mind stat of at least 100 you will be completely useless and die instantly.”

That was insane! I was saving up points to just get some Body, which everyone said was needed to survive. A 100 stat points was 34,750. An insane number of points. The guards had at most 200 stat points. The Union teams had around 500 to 1,000. And everyone tried to guess where Champion Michael was at, since he had at least 1,000.

I favored the theory he was at 3,000 points. The exceptional cost increase got insane once you really got into the math. The only thing besides personal drama to talk about was math. It was the hot topic since people carefully calculated out each and every point spent.

“For those of you who are clueless. The Ritualist is one of the two great enemies of Purgatory. A master summoner, commanding hundreds of monsters, and used insane experiments to combine people with monsters. It is no exaggeration to say if the city falls, we will all die or be turned into monsters. I personally plan to take at least five down with me.”

Humans into monsters! There were dark stories about human experimentation, but it was true! Hundreds of them. I needed to escape.

“There is nowhere to run to. The last time the Ritualist attacked he spread through the city, killing anyone who tried to hide. Also running from Purgatory is an automatic death sentence. Even if we did escape, the Ritualist would sweep over the city and move onto the next.”

“That is why we will be making our stand here. Believe in the RMPF. Believe in the strength of Champion of Michael. Now I want everyone ready to move in under an hour. No exceptions and no trouble.”

I quickly hurried to gather up my pack and everything I had saved in the chest that was assigned to be for long term storage. I had my wallet with me and a picture of siblings and parents. I gave it a light kiss as I packed up all the crystals I had been saving up as well.

The Astrologer

Dammit, I cursed in my mind for the hundredth time. Everyone was stupid and I was screwed. I had my hopes on Uday to kill the Ritualist, but apparently, he was slacking off in his progression. It was perfect, the Ritualist would be killed and Uday would be reminded to stay in the East Bastion, the perfect fallback point if I had try my backup plan.

It was a terrible plan. I was trapped and everything had been moving into position for my escape before she made a move. I couldn’t afford to face her with just an Astral Projection and Life Imbue. My other skills were worthless in the face of her unrelenting power and cunning. The fact I was as capable as I was outside my current prison was a testament to my knowledge, perseverance, and foresight. I did not choose the name of Astrologer just for a sense of drama and style.

Becoming trapped had been the only way to save my life at the time, but every day since then had been a day filled with regret and anger. Uday was completely worthless, he probably didn’t even use the City Shield with how proud he was. Just a dumb stupid brute. I didn’t dare show myself in front of him in my diminished state, since that would lead to him ruining everything like the Ritualist was about to.

Almost two years of painstaking work to manipulate everything to perfection to ensure my survival. The only regret I had was letting that Ruth woman escape. I thought for sure Michael would have killed her after I pointed out her actions.

Ruth had scampered off to the West. Hopefully she was dead or at her tender mercies. The first would be a blessing for both Ruth and I, the second would just accelerate the clock on my demise, but Ruth’s suffering would be legendary as each, and every thought and scrap of information was extracted in the most brutal of efficiencies at her tender mercies. Dammit!

Dammit! I kept cursing in my mind, as the bells sounded in Purgatory. I would be forced to act. I wanted to stay out of the picture until just the right moment and have myself freed before anyone could really think too hard about my requests and the full implications. Even better if no one alive knew about me at all so I could fade into the background and gather strength in secret once I was freed.

It was going so perfectly too. Just another couple hundred days and everything would have been in place for my escape. I could almost taste my freedom. But people had to be stupid idiots who couldn’t take a hint.

I thought for sure my Ajani impression was spot on, but Michael was a paranoid bastard. I had been hoping for him to turn around and not poke the Ritualist. I hated to admit that I underestimated the man’s tenacity and willingness to be as horrific as possible. He might even give her a contention for worst person to ever exist, but he was weak. A factory line of level 3 hybrids. At least there was no chance that he had breached the level 4 barrier and if he had I would be in trouble.

I wasn’t about to suffer the backlash from my skill, So I Predict. The Ritualist needed to die so I could use the skill once more. It was the best level 4 skill, a masterpiece. But with great power came drawbacks. The fact that I could only have one use of it active at a time and couldn’t rescind its activation were a big drawbacks.

Well the Ritualist was going to die by my hand since he had outlived his usefulness as a patsy. It would be easy enough to dodge any attacks he sent my way and use resonance to strike him directly and sever all his tethers. That was why summoning was worthless. Anyone with sense about energy could easily use the tethers as a means of attack.

Two uses of my fourth skill Null Refraction would exhaust me, but more than enough to kill the man with all the tethers he had. I would target his tethers directly and they would all be severed. His hybrids would turn on him and it would be his end. Strike at the heart, and the body shall fall.

Ah, there was Champion Michael, he just ran past me. I would be seeing him later. He certainly was fast. Well that gave me more than enough time to get everything into position for my strike against the Ritualist. I went past the outer loop and no one was around as I ducked into the side streets.

I disappeared and floated away. Time to arrange for my Astrologer appearance. I would turn this shitshow to my advantage in the end if I was forced to act. I would kill the Ritualist in one move and then cement a favor from Michael that I would leverage. It was shame my earlier stint as a guard warning him about Ruth would be lost. I couldn’t let Michael know about the true scope of Astral Projection no matter what and how much I had been messing around in his backyard if I wanted him to do what I needed him to do to free me.

The moment he knew about the skill, he would realize the extent of my machinations. While I wasn’t in his inner circle, I had penetrated his home and picked up on quite a bit from Clarissa. I had even saved her life two times, so Michael wouldn’t be distracted by city drama. Still, he had somehow missed the thing that should have alarmed him the most. He had woken up on Day 1 of his calendar, not Day 0.