PenguinKills
patreon
Chapter 81 - Warpath
🕑 Added 2024-07-16 20:00:06 +0000 UTCChris
I journeyed east at a breakneck pace. My boost from [Momentum of the Avalanche] had finally peaked and I was moving the fastest I could. I left the terrain-altering effects behind and focused on traversing as much ground as possible.
I leaped my way east faster than I could truly keep up with the surroundings. I blew through trees and plants like a bull in a china shop. My boosted stats made running through trees only a slight deterrence rather than the obstacles most people considered them.
Splinters and half-broken trees followed me as I rampaged east.
For all my power and skills, I had nothing to help me track my foe. It left me zig-zagging from pylon to pylon for hours without any luck. Most pylons I ran into were turned into the dungeon-esk monster-infested lands but some held people.
The monsters I ignored and I couldn't determine if the people I encountered were at fault. Even in my rage-fueled state, I wouldn't just slaughter innocent people.
If I were to take a second to think things through, I would have noticed the oddities in the pylons that I had passed but my focus was narrowed so completely that I didn't.
As my search extended into dusk, my frustrations grew. They were either good hiders, or I missed something.
~~
Tracy
"Ma'am, you need to see this!" Kathy came running into her office without even stopping to knock first. She was finishing up the checks on the defenses for the wave tomorrow while trying to recover her mana.
Using her trapping skills all day had drained her and her office was designed to help her recover faster. One of the enchanters put a mana-gathering formation down that she had bought from the store. Making the mana density in her office higher which raised her mana regeneration.
They had just gotten the next level of walls at the monumental price tag of over a million points. The upgrade increased the number of catapults from 2 to 4 a side.
The trebuchets that some of the carpenters had built would be left unmanned but the magic store-bought siege weapons were more effective.
They also cost more to use but it was worth it. Especially on the bosses.
They couldn't kill the bosses in the conventional way, they hadn't in a while, so she turned to restraining traps rather than lethal ones. Her traps were made to restrain the boss and keep it in place while the siege weapons concentrated fire to kill it.
No one was strong enough to face the boss in open battle and doing so was suicide.
"What?" Tracy ground out. She was still fighting off the mana deprivation headache and Kathy's enthusiasm added to her already pounding head.
Kathy either didn't notice her plight or didn't care for she continued in her loud and excited tone.
"My birds caught something brilliant! They were patrolling the north where the Mindbreaker was last seen and they caught a fight breaking out. I had expected it to happen tomorrow after the wave like all the others but it happened now!" Kathy rambled out with more words than were strictly necessary.
It took Tracy's tired mind a second to catch up with what was said. Tracy didn't see what Kathy had to be so excited about. The independent group she had tried to warn most likely fell and would be turned into things she didn't like to think about.
With their group defeated, nothing was stopping the crazy lunatic from taking over the north. After finishing his conquest up there, there wasn't much between her settlement and his armies.
Rather than be excited, Tracy wanted to pull her hair out. She would need to work overtime and late into the night to make sure that there were as many traps as possible in the way.
Her new... 'ally', Damien, would be a great addition to her side but she didn't trust the man completely yet. He disbanded his faction and joined hers, which was a good first step, but she would be a fool to trust the man completely.
Seeing the despair in her expression, Kathy rushed to explain.
"No, they didn't lose! I'm not sure how, but they fought off the minions that were sent at them and they even made them retreat!" Kathy exclaimed.
That woke Tracy up. Not even Damien had gotten them to retreat. The most he was able to do was stall their advance until more of the mindless bodies showed up.
Where the Mindbreaker was getting them all was still a mystery. His skills shouldn't have advanced so quickly and he shouldn't have been able to control so many at his rank.
Him being at E-rank was plausible but it still didn't explain everything.
"How? I know that they were stronger than us personally but their camp isn't as strong as ours. They just got the siege weapons last wave and haven't made any of the other upgrades we have." Tracy questioned.
It was something she had wondered about for a while. Tracy spent a mountainous amount of points every wave upgrading her camp and their strong settlement was one of the main reasons they were still alive.
The upgrades they bought with the points they earned were what carried them but the camp up north didn't have them. Their walls were the first upgrade of stone and they only recently bought the catapults.
Based on their reluctance to buy the camp upgrades, she assumed they didn't buy the store-offered traps either. Every time Kathy tried to get close to find out how they were doing it, their scout birds were shot down.
It wasn't even the powerful archer who did it anymore, multiple people in the camp took down the birds. They killed anything that got close. A reasonable approach but annoying nonetheless.
"I'm not sure. I only caught the aftermath and the fight was already over. It does seem that they have a powerful Elementalist, though, for the land was ravaged by both fire and ice." Kathy explained.
Kathy's birds were a tremendous boon but they could be spotty at times. They didn't have the skills a normal scout did and you could only see what they saw.
They didn't have an [Identify] skill or anything else to gauge power level so it was difficult to truly grasp the nuance of a battle. All you saw was the events as they transpired.
Levels and strength could only be determined through action and seeing only the aftermath left them guessing at what happened.
"Show me," Tracy said while holding out her hand to the woman.
Kathy could see through her birds easily enough but it took some practice for her to be able to share her vision with another. It took another skill for it to be possible and Tracy used it to her advantage.
She trusted Kathy but some things she liked to see for herself.
Kathy took her hand before closing her eyes to channel her skill. It was disorienting at first, but Tracy was used to the change.
Seeing through a bird's eyes was difficult to get used to but this wasn't the first time she had done this.
What she saw left her breathless. The camp looked like it was on fire at first glance but she soon noticed it was only the land in front of the wall that was ablaze.
The gate was blown in and bodies burnt and broken scattered the land. She could see people milling about cleaning up the battlefield with practiced ease.
She wished to get closer but the bird would only get shot down. The only reason she could see clearly was the great vision the animal had.
Around the wall were stone ramparts that looked like they were pulled up from the ground. Stone chunks littered the area in front of the gate and various earth walls and shields were smashed in and left broken.
Kathy's Elementalist theory was proving likely. Stone, fire, and ice were all spread around the battlefield.
The fire was mostly out but Tracy could see the burnt scorch marks and blackened areas that marred the land from intense heat. There were ashes of who knew how many blowing in the wind as a result.
For some reason, the ice was still around. The stone was in chunks, the fire mostly put out, but the ice was showing no signs of melting.
About 50 yards away from the wall there was a massive circle of frost that covered the ground and upon it were countless bodies.
All of them were frozen in various states of dismemberment and mutilation. Heads were frozen feet away from bodies. Chests were flattened from what looked like blunt force trauma. One headless body even died standing up and froze before it could fall over. Like a cannonball took off its head and the body froze upright.
What she saw was gruesome and it caused her to fight off the nausea rising from her gut. It was a scene from a massacre. The fact someone had the power to do this scared her deeply. It was unsettling to see the carnage that was left behind in the battle's wake.
The ice led away from the camp and into the forest. The path of bodies followed the frozen land before ending in a clearing. The clearing was where the trail of ice and bodies ended.
All told it looked like the Mindbreaker lost a good portion of his army in the north. He had more thralls scattered around the land he owned but most of his people in the north were gone. Only their corpses remained and for some, not even that.
"Where is he?" Tracy asked. Kathy knew who it was she was talking about.
"I haven't been able to find him. He was traveling toward that camp when I last saw him but I haven't found any traces of him since. None of my birds have seen him either. Usually, he is easy to find since he travels with an army but I've had no luck. It's like he's hiding." Kathy said.
"Is he dead?" Tracy couldn't help but hope for that outcome.
"No. His thralls continue working in other areas so he must still be alive." Kathy dashed that thought with her answer.
They didn't know what would happen to the people under his control when he died but them continuing as normal was a good enough sign he was still alive.
While unfortunate, there was nothing she could do about it. She hoped that this would weaken him significantly enough so she could get out of this tutorial without having to deal with him.
Just when Tracy was about to ask to leave the vision, she saw something peculiar. A trail of broken trees led further east. Something told her that the path of destruction wasn't from a wild beast.
The clearing was wide and most of her attention was on the marks of fighting, which led her to only see the beginning of the destruction and write it off as unimportant. The tree line wasn't what she was focused on at first but what she saw drew her attention and she motioned for Kathy to move the bird over there.
After getting closer, she saw that the path carved a line through the forest headed directly east.
Something had rampaged through the forest without regard for damaging the surroundings. Every 5 to 6 feet small craters left a line of pockmarks leading west.
Trees were destroyed and plants were left in pieces. Some were ripped from the ground completely.
"What is this?" Tracy asked.
"I don't know. I didn't see this at first, I was focused on the battle." Kathy responded curiously.
Without needing to be asked, Kathy followed the line of destruction further east. It went on for miles and it seemed to never end.
Kathy had to mobilize a few more of her scouts to speed the search up.
It took almost 30 minutes before they found anything and Kathy inhaled sharply when they did. Kathy could only share one bird's vision with Tracy so she was left clueless as to why the woman was startled.
Tracy wasn't left in the dark long as the bird she was seeing through changed. The new bird was higher in the air and viewed the trail from a different angle.
That new angle revealed the reason behind Kathy's surprise.
A man was at the end of the path creating the trail they had followed.
He was sprinting through the forest at a speed the birds could hardly keep up with. His legs exploded the ground under him, launching him forward. It was how the craters they followed were made.
He punched through trees and stomped on anything in his way. The metal armor he wore was covered in dried blood and reflected the setting sun's rays which made him easy to spot.
What she thought was the path of a great monster, was the result of a man. One human made the path she had been following for half an hour. In his hand was a massive Warhammer over 5 feet long. It seemed to have a slight glow to it but Tracy was too far away to see it in greater detail.
Without even knowing the man, Tracy knew he was on a warpath.
"Who is that." She couldn't help but ask. She wasn't even witnessing the man's battle prowess and she was scared of him. If he could do that by just running, what else could he do?
"I think he's the leader of the camp that was attacked," Kathy answered with uncertainty.
"What's he doing?"
"I'm not sure,"
As they were watching, the man suddenly turned. He had continued his path east spanning the length of the tutorial area. There were only a few pylons further east from where he was and all of them were uninhabited.
The setting sun made it easy to discern his new direction. Even seeing through a bird, Tracy could tell which way his new path led.
South.
He was pointed toward her camp.
Comments
Demonlord
Haha I imagine Chris running through literally EVERYTHING in his way like the boar monsters in the first few waves (don't know the exact number of the wave) And he's dead set on killing the mindbreaker (even when he didn't know he's after the mindbreaker)
