Tom checked his mana and decided that forty-five was enough. His mind focused inside him to his broken shoulder bone. The injury was one of those caused purely by random chance. If the rock hadn’t been in exactly the wrong spot, he would have rolled and emerged from the tumble without even a bruise. Instead, he had a three-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with over thirty pieces.
Pain was deadened, but his entire back itched almost uncontrollably as he moved pieces of bone around. However, for all the issues and broken bits the individual breaks were clean. When he slotted pieces in, the fit between bones was practically perfect. The entire jig-saw clicked together within seconds, as the fragments had not separated far from their original positions. Then the mend bone proportion of his ability kicked into action and the cracks closed and the shoulder blade was as good as new.
He turned his pain receptors back on and cautiously rolled his shoulders. There were no tugs, no aches, no sharp pinches, it was normal.
Tom once more glanced at the person who had been chewed on by the giant lizard. The poor guy. Not only had he been stuck stagnating for weeks because of the wasps in the second major battle he had been brave and had his legs eaten for his trouble. As a result, he was going to be stuck not contributing for another two weeks.
There was nothing Tom could do to help, so he left. When he emerged from the small tent, the plans for the fortifications had progressed to the second stage. The primary planned defence of sturdy stone walls were being constructed. His searching eyes found the quarry. It was Keikain. He was expertly slicing open an existing boulder and a stream of fighters were ferrying the resultant blocks to the nascent fortifications.
“Remember to use your soul storage,” Everlyn told him sweetly as he approached the makeshift quarry. She was on guard duty, making certain nothing snuck up on the exposed workers.
Tom grimaced and shot a dirty look at his girlfriend.
Keikain looked up from where he was working to break up the rock. “You have soul storage?” The man was laughing at him.
“You know I do. But it’s full.”
“What with?”
“Raw meat.”
Keikain smirked.
Tom was sure he must have noticed Tom packing away the meat after the ferret battle.
“If you got rid of the meat, how much do you have?”
Tom reluctantly pointed at one of the larger cubed bricks that the mage had created.
The earth mage rotated and stopped a teenager who was preparing to a lift a quarter sized block, which even so looked way too large for him. Tom assessed the boy more carefully. Rank nine with a sword on his belt. While he appeared skinny, he would be strong.
“Hey,” the teenager looked annoyed at Keikain’s intervention. “What’s your problem?”
“I need you to take,” Keikain paused. “Something to the cooks. Tom, can you put it all here?” Grinning widely, the earth mage waved at a nearby rock that promptly flattened and the dust and lichen on top of it vanished, leaving what Tom presumed was a sterile flat surface.
Tom hesitated. He knew that with the lizard kill there would not be a shortage of food. Storing the raw meat to prevent spoilage was not technically required. One cook could convert meat into jerky using only his magic and half a day of sunshine. That skill and the number of monsters apparently around this area meant that their immediate and future needs were met. There was no real justification to keep the meat and if he wanted the food for emergencies, then jerky would be better, anyway.
Keikain quirked an eyebrow at him and gestured again.
“Fine.” Tom conceded and waved his hand and piles of meat appeared.
“What the hell, man!” The warrior with the sword exclaimed.
Everlyn was grinning as she deliberately did not look at the confrontation as her eyes kept scanning for enemies..
“You,” Keikain said, grabbing the kid. “Get that to the cooks. Tom, take that one first.” He pointed at a rock that was four times the size of what the warrior was going to move.
“Nope,” the boy said, backing away.
With a sigh, Tom waved his hand over the large rock. It disappeared and then he lifted the rock the teenager had been about to take. It was almost too heavy to move, but Tom using bent knees straightened with it in his arms.
His elastic skin skill meant that the rough surface did not cut and Touch Heal discreetly healed the muscle that had twinged in his back.
That was the only good news. While he could heal injuries, there was little he could do against overwork. His back ached and his arm muscles started screaming. He began walking. If he was lucky, he would get an extra natural point of strength.
“I’m not doing it.” he heard the man complain behind him.
“I’ll help,” Everlyn offered though all of them were well aware she was the only one of them who had to stay at her spot.
“Do you want me to leave my post to move it?” Keikain asked pointedly.
The boy’s face went through all the emotions and settled on disgust. He knew he had been given a choice. “Fine. I’ll fucking do it, but for future reference I’m not a gopher.”
It was around forty metres to get back to the makeshift wall and it was already chest height. His arms were trembling, and there was no way he could lift his rock onto the wall. With a small curse, Tom dropped the smaller stone he was carrying and then jumped up on top of the wall. The rock from storage clicked perfectly into place. Then he hopped down and did the same to the one he had dropped.
“Oi,” Sven called out. “How about the others?”
Tom looked down and there were a dozen rectangular, half and quarter sized rocks that had been abandoned just like he had with his original one. “I–”
“Just do it,” Sven ordered with a cheeky grin. “What you can do with your storage cheat would other required a concerted effort from a team of four.”
With a curse and feeling a lot like the kid Keikain had bullied to ferry the meat, he got to work snatching a couple of rocks from the ground and into his soul storage and then pulling them out at the right spot on top of the wall. As he worked, he watched Sven use his magic. The man may be more fighter than earth mage, but he clearly possessed the basic earth manipulation ability at a high level. His hand would trace along the crack that separated two rocks and they would melt together. There was no mortar needed and once Sven had finished while you could see the join there was no longer an air gap. The grain joined in the wrong space, but for all intents and purposes the rocks were fused.
“Are you melting them together?”
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Sven looked over at him. “Sort of no and sort of yes. I’m converting about half a centimetre of rock on either side of the join into a new type of rock and that is a forming as a single piece. The join is still probably a weak spot, but not where you think.” He alternated pointing above the join and below it. “Basically, the join,” he pointed at it. “Is the strongest bit of each wall. That means if something hits it, the centre bit won’t react the same as the natural stone on either side. That will cause cracks. Basically, while each joint is stronger than the original the overall structure because of the different rock types will be weaker than if the whole thing was the same rock. Sometimes using stronger materials in part can actually make the wall more brittle. If I was a better mage, the joint would be the same as the rest of the stone.”
“Did you use this in DEUS’s trial?”
“All the time. Most nights I would construct this type of shelter. Even if I used a cave, I would put in a wall.”
The last abandoned rock was shifted into position. “Well, no rest for the competent.” Tom quipped.
Sven chuckled, but did not look up from the newest spot that he was joining.
Tom headed to where Keikain had moved to a new boulder which was both smaller and further away.
One rock went into his storage and the second he picked up.
Tom, struggling under the weight of rock marched back to the fortifications.
While the job was hard work, it was actually quite fun to watch fifty super humans pitching together to create a fortress. The wall went up fast enough to have been noteworthy with heavy machinery. Anyone from earth would have been amazed, but Tom knew from the trial what a high ranked individual could do, even still the level of coordination was impressive.
“Lizard incoming from the north.” A scout shouted.
Tom dropped the rock he had been carried and jogged around the fort to the north side. He spotted the enemy immediately. The scouts were on the ball and although it was running toward them it was over two kilometres away. Its enormous eyes were fixated upon both the new fortifications that had appeared and the strange animals that stood in front of them.
“As we planned,” Michael yelled.
Mentally, Tom prepared for the fight. Last time someone had been badly hurt; this time Tom expected them to get through the battle without injuries. Tom manifested his spear from soul storage. The comforting weight of the weapon immediately soothed him. Battle trance, the challenge of him against monsters, settled like the softest cloak around him.
He lived for this.
The lizard stupidly was still charging them. It was the same type as before, but this one was a little smaller, with more yellow under its neck.
Legen, despite being smashed by the first lizard was undeterred and strode forward to meet the lizard in the open plains away from the fortifications. A fellow masochist, Tom thought happily through how he treated Tiny still grated on Tom but personality aside the man knew his craft.
As per the plan, Tom took his place in formation five metres behind the tank. Other groups were nearby, and they all had their own tasks and this positioning was deliberate. Where he stood in Legen’s shadow was almost the safest spot on the battlefield. That, of course, was not why Tom was there. His job was to be ready to counterattack.
The lizard thundered in. Every step was a thud you could almost feel. This monster, instead of trying to eat the tank lowered its head and charged. Its snout was practically touching the ground, so the bony ridge between its nostrils lined up with the tank. The lizard’s head was longer than a human was tall.
The same magic as last time gathered in Legen to allow him to resist the lizard momentum and then Tom felt the tank use half of his fate pool.
Internally, Tom’s eyebrows rose. That was a lot of fate for a single fight, especially against a smaller version of a monster you had already defeated. Tom examined Legen with fresh eyes.
Bravery.
That was the only answer. Legen had been shaken by that first collision, but had still walked out to face his enemy. Even if he was overcompensating with fate, Tom had to respect the courage shown by the tank to turn up despite his fears.
Boom!
It was like a thunderclap when the impact hit. The very ground shook and the lizard’s face distorted as bones and cartilage broke. The strike was not straight on and like with the last lizard the rest of the body kept going after the head had been stopped. Coiling up and rolling to the left, instantly Tom could see where it was going to land.
He took off.
Lighting Steps super charged his movements. Compared to the first one this lizard looked significantly more hurt as its front bounced back from the tank even as its back and tail went past him. It settled with a wave of air. The collision having twisted it a hundred and eighty degrees, pivoting around the tank and leaving its head in front of Legen but the rest of the body off at a forty-five degree behind the tank.
It lifted its head woozily, its jaws appeared to be disjointed and hopefully unusable.
Tom exploited its dazed state. Two steps took him past the tank and then after the third he leapt. Tom soared through the air and landed on the side of its snout under one of its eyes. If it had not just crashed into a wall, the manoeuvre would have been crazy as the head was large enough to bite him in half and could strike quickly enough for that to be a genuine threat. It had been a deliberate gamble to get him to this position, with the only safety net being the untested Lightning Dodge. But it had worked.
A thrill of excitement filled Tom. His feet slammed down on the broad base of the monster’s snout. Tom triggered his spell. Lightning Spears was flooded with mana and five appeared infused with ten mana each. They were all ready and aimed.
He kept moving. Lightning Steps sparked on the scales providing him via some static electricity bullshit traction which should not have existed but it was sufficient for him to leap off like the ground was flat instead of almost vertical to push him over the head and then he was falling down the other side. Another five spears were shot at the second eye and then he pushed off and burst away from the monster before an errant tooth filled mouth or a multi tonne tail swiped him. Every step propelled him twice as long as usual and faster than Usain Bolt back on earth. He was quicker than anyone pre-GODs, but Tom did not consider that; he just sprinted till he was beyond the range of the monster, and only then did he turn to look.
The lizard was crooning.
Blood and fluid ran down from the closest eye, which had been mulched. It flailed in every direction. Its tail slammed down and cracked a small boulder. A leg lashed out and Tom glimpsed claws that were as long as a sword and probably more deadly. It was thrashing violently, shadow boxing with its environment, and blind. Its attacks were undirected. The tail did not change direction to hit someone like the first lizard had.
Thor darted in and swung his hammer, targeting the upper knee. It shattered and showing the battle caution of a survivor like all of them were he retreated immediately. The tail flailed near him, trying to squash him and Thor, despite desperately rolling to the side, was battered anyway though his massive hammer deflected the tail just enough so that instead of squishing him it cracked an innocent rock next to him.
The lizard tried again this time with a horizontal swinging motion with the tail travelling about hip height. Unfortunately for the lizard, it was too late, as Thor was already out of range.
Magic flashed, arrows and the random melee fighter took advantage of the lizard lunging forward to target someone else who had successfully hurt it.
Blinded and with its jaw clearly broken, there was little it could do apart from futilely swing its tail. It landed the occasional glancing blow, but Thor’s hit was worst and he was well enough to swing his hammer to land a strike on the tail itself when it got close.
Practically the lizard was already dead and Tom allowed himself to watch in order to get a better feel for the capability of the people he was thrust into battle of survival with. To be honest, he was impressed.
They knew what they were doing.
The lizard spun away from him and Tom, mainly because he was bored, charged once more into the opening. He was not alone five others went with him. Almost coordinated he sprinted at the third leg. A swordsman blurred forward using a movement ability, targeting a different leg from the one Tom was aiming for.
While the swordsman landed his blow first, Tom, with the help of a class skill from an expert class outdistanced the other three. Just like last time, he hit the upper knee. A full power strike with his spear and four Lightning Spears augmented it. The spear crashed against bone and he felt the joint give way as his magic landed. The crackle of electricity disrupted muscles, but that was secondary. With a flourish, he withdrew his spear and was running backwards, watching the enemy expecting a response but the large animal ignored him and instead took off at a gallop to escape.
Crunch.
It ran into a rock. It lay there panting and a host of humans, including Tom descended upon it once more. He spotted an opportunity and harpooned the briefly stationary tail. Others had the same idea and ten fighters hooked the tail similarly.
A moment later, emerging from its dazed state, it tried to move the trapped appendage. Its strength strained against them and it got the tail a few centimetres off the ground despite their efforts. It was trying to force the tail into position to defend its stomach from the group carving up the belly. But it lacked the strength. The tail was forced down once more. Other fighters clambered over its back, on it’s head all of them working together to stop it from using its giant body as a wrecking ball.
Its feet scrambled but with several legs damaged and the weight on top of it the lizard collapsed. Axes and swords rose and thrust. Spears stabbed, and Tom focused his effort on holding the tail down as the rest of the humans swarmed over their victim.
There was a subtle ding to indicate the system considered the battle over and that the lizard was dead.
Tom grinned at those around them. Securing the tail might have been an insignificant detail, but it had helped them finish the monster safely without injuries.