The Battle Read online

  But still, they fought back hard, showing no mercy. They had the advantage of both higher levels and a longer reach.

  Five warriors blocked the entrance to the hall, impaling one of our teams on their blades and breaking the attackers into small groups.

  Spears and vials of various colors whistled over our heads. We were many. They were few. The Chinese had overspent, yet no reinforcements or supplies came.

  Snowie reached for his club and looked at me pleadingly. I hear ya, I thought. Saw Bomba’s gravestone in the hall myself.

  However, I had my own reputation to consider too.

  I took out my staff which purred with excitement. Scowling, I made my way forward. My clanmates parted to let me through.

  The black wings of darkness unfolded behind me, pushing my guards back and leaving me face to face with a crowd of enemies. A shadow gently wrapped my face in darkness, filtering out the poisonous fumes.

  By the power of God, by the strength of Darkness!

  I pushed forward, making the sea of foes recede. My blade growled disappointedly, craving a fair battle and reaching for the enemy, stretching out so far that it became needle-thin.

  My foes were pressed like sardines. The crowd swayed backward as the Grand Prince emerged from it.

  Fuck me, he was a badass. He'd been human once, but his outrageous stats deformed him. He'd acquired a giant monstrous frame. His inhuman strength had endowed him with shoulders nearly six feet wide. His great brain distorted the shape of his skull, giving him the gaze of a wise old man.

  His gear was unknown to me. It was something ethnic of exclusive artifact value, judging by the numerous stones and detailed gold decorations.

  I sped up my consciousness, freeing up my mind’s limitations as I summoned up the element of battle. The roar of the coming duel was already in the air, rhythmic as a drum. Possible attack vectors and dodge-block space marks enhanced my field of vision.

  I smiled, raising my staff, "Shall we dance?"

  Even my voice changed... Corey Taylor would have been jealous.

  The donjon’s echo repeated my question, my voice resonating across the giant space. Everyone stepped back from us. The eyes of the Grand Prince were glued to the adamant blade.

  The emotions clashing within him were so powerful that I could read them like an open book. First, disappointment; a grudge against fate, which granted him an unfair battle. What did he have against adamant? An ancestral sword he stole from an Archangel? Pah! So what was left... to die? He had this thought, but chased it away immediately. The thirst for power, life, and revenge outweighed his potential for such a heroic act.

  He made up his mind at last. The staff and I gave a sigh of disappointment: he’ll flee, the bastard!

  He snatched a pendant off his neck and ordered, "Kill him! I’ll go get help!"

  He crushed the single-use artifact in his mighty fist.

  Knowing already that I’d miss, I zoomed forward, dragging out time as much as possible. But an instant cast is an instant cast.

  I stopped at the line of enemy guards, coming back to normal time. I looked at the idiotic mug of some high-ranking officer whose eyes crossed staring at the pink blade pressed into the bridge of his nose.

  "Drop your weapons, or your eternity is over! I’ll carve ya like turkeys! Any cast attempts will be viewed as a threat and curbed in the most brutal manner! Those who surrender are guaranteed life and freedom in the near future! On the First Priest’s word!"

  A deadly silence followed. Some in the back rows quickly used personal portals. But the rest knew that they didn’t have six seconds to cast, and that a Russian shouldn’t be provoked. They were hoping till the last second that it’d all turn out alright somehow.

  I lightly cut one of the guards to speed up their decision.

  He let the blade drop from his left hand. A wise move.

  "And the other?" I nodded at his right hand.

  "It's a no drop," the Chink groaned, backing up into his comrades to get further away from the terrifying blade which reached greedily for his cut. The staff didn’t just lick up blood. It consumed much more. Those who had once felt its touch would forevermore remember the cosmic cold spreading through their body.

  "Drop your weapons!" I repeated.

  Everything went smoothly after that. Once the first guard showed weakness, becoming the sacrificial victim, the rest were more likely to follow. The Chinese were particularly susceptible to this technique: they’re collectivists, and individual heroism wasn’t the order of the day.

  Shields, blades, crossbows, staffs, shock and strengthening artifacts clattered onto the floor tiles. My volunteer goblins began weaving between the warriors, collecting their valuable gear.

  "I am warning you: you will be required to prove the weapons’ personal status with appropriate screenshots!"

  After a brief pause, the Chinese dropped twice as many weapons.

  Most of them took their helmets off without orders, hiding them in their inventories and confirming their captive status. Somehow I associated a bare-headed soldier with epic disasters: retreat, havoc, captivity...

  After all the weapons had been picked up, I continued pressing them,

  "And now, give up the rest of your equipment! Throw it off, don’t be shy. If you lose the cow, you lose her milk too!"

  The Chinese exchanged glances hesitantly: nobody wanted to part with a unique set of armor. When you reached such high levels, you could no longer wear standard clothes. You needed a strong clan’s support and meticulous farming of raid locations: the Inferno, the Seventh Heaven and such.

  I nudged their thoughts in the right direction. "Your equipment is a threat to me and my allies. I can settle for complete demilitarization, or I can slice your thumbs off. With adamant, in case someone was wondering. Your call."

  Yet more steel hit the tiles. The casters threw off their robes, the rogues their chain mail. Studying the crowd in their underwear, I nodded with content. A man in the nude is demoralized and unlikely to resist.

  I turned to Orcus. "They’re yours. Get all their maps and logs, then set them free as I had promised."

  I spoke loudly so that the helpless Chinese could hear me and be relieved. We didn’t need any more humiliation.

  I continued, "Search the castle! Check the donjon again. Comb the cellars, the utility rooms. Put free warriors on the walls. Take all valuables!"

  Orcus nodded, glowing like a new penny, and started rattling off orders.

  In half an hour, I was contacting the Mao’s Legacy clan leader with an offer he could not refuse. "I have a capital Nova for sale, fully upgraded. I am willing to sell it for half the price, with just one defect: five thousand pissed-off Shui Fong fellas beneath the walls. Seems to be all of those who didn’t flee to stick with the Prince. You want it? Great! And you like the defect? Even better! I’ll be waiting for your reps and payment."

  I winked at my reflection in a huge golden tray, then rubbed my hands with joy: another seven million! And that was even before I counted our handsome loot. The Shui Fong familial residence was filled with all sorts of goodies. A looter’s dream come true!

  Chapter Seventeen

  Transcript of verbal contract between the Mao’s Legacy clan and The Children of the Night.

  Transaction goods: castle Shui Fong-0 (hereinafter the Great Mao).

  Building class: Nova, upgrade status: maximum.

  Total interior area: 90,000 cubic feet. Total inhabitable area: 135,000 cu. Building density: 30%.

  Assessed value: 15,000,000. Construction integrity: 93%. Sale price: 7,000,000 gold.

  Energy and artifact armament: 12%. Vandalism-free removal of castle inventory. The buyer receives the non-demountable items only: mana circuits, immured stones of power and element resistance, as well as the castle Altar and the Minor Spring of neutral color.

  Art, décor, design and other interior objects: 100% (1311 points). Note: seller has the right to retain 20% of the interior obje
cts of his choice.

  Storage and production capacity: 0% (current – 84%). Note: seller has 24 hours to claim the inventory. At the end of this period, all left-overs are transferred to Mao’s Legacy.

  Battle log analysis of the "Our cause is right!" divine buff efficiency:

  Weighted average clan DPS enhancement had grown by 68%.

  A fourfold increase in damage has been recorded in a number of situations and personal stats. I recommend granting the most distinguished fighters the rank of "Warrior of Faith."

  At the same time, seventeen clanmates have had a significant drop in their PvP- effectiveness. Four of them had their damage reduced to zero. The Special Investigation Department will compile dossiers on them.

  Splitting the video stream into scenes allowed us to single out the factors affecting the buff’s action.

  Buff enhancers: close proximity to the clan banner, an officer or the clan leader. Successful fights, enemy retreats, achievements and loot. Freeing slaves, shutting off the built-in Chinese translator, drawing historical parallels and awakening the lineage memory.

  Buff weakeners: dying on the battlefield, equipment loss, injuries, and prolonged pain. Chat chaos, commanding officers’ uncertainty, young age, or the exaggerated beauty of the enemy.

  Aggregate loot score of the Shui Fong-0 raid:

  Loot from the 500K GP bomb and the Holy Unmercenary combo: 2411 items and 973,300 gold.

  Among them:

  Miscellaneous trash items looted from players' inventories: 2038 (food rations, ammo, crafter components, and other junk). Most intriguing are the unidentified items, multiple keys, maps, documents, and holocrystals. Sorting and processing will take some time.

  Equipment: 373 pieces. Artifacts: 6. Epic artifacts: 21. Rare: 66.

  Battle loot: divided among the warriors according to clan code. Loot taxes total: 1,210,800 gold. Loot value assessed by the Kravchenko catalogue and the independent module Loot-broker v. 3.11. First line warriors had collected 2,300,000 for the buffers and support classes.

  Gear from prisoners (went to clan treasury): 1147 items. Artifacts: 21. Epic: 177, rare: 781. Approximate value: at least 18,000,000 gold.

  Castle looting: still counting, only rough estimates available. Storehouse space rented from Mules: 2760 cubic feet.

  The following trophies have been integrated into the First Temple’s defense system: dome shield artifacts (3 pcs), accumulating crystals (17 pcs), catapults of various types (79 pcs).

  The Mules have filed a complaint: Lurch’s goblins are rummaging through the loot in search of luxury items. They are impeding the prepaid inventory compilation and logistics services. We ask everyone to be patient and let the professionals do their work!

  The quick war we'd won gave us two days of relative calm. It reshuffled the cards again, passing them out anew and changing the lay of the land.

  Alas, generations have short memories. Again, someone decided to try their luck and probe the bear’s den.

  The iconic image of a furious Russian bear rearing up, then bringing down its mighty paw had impressed many. Its single blow had relegated ten clans to the lost annals of history, for they had angered the passive beast.

  A hundred castles had received new owners. The Maoists had unexpectedly made the top of China’s political Mt. Olympus. The Chinese cluster fluctuated feverishly. A huge re-allotment of freed-up land was taking place, threatening to turn into a full-blown civil war.

  Only the shadow of the Russian Big Brother kept the young, greedy, and the ambitious in check. Watching over things, it sieved through the cluster in search of Slavic slaves.

  The rest of the Revanchists quickly left our cluster, having found more important things to do. The Alliance fell apart before our eyes. The homeless clans had lost ninety percent of their manpower. The global threat from the East had been eliminated.

  But the Chinese triad's rancor and insidiousness could not be overestimated. We had cast them off the top of the food chain. It would be a long time before our officers would be able to stop closely monitoring the Asian region.

  A lot of the clans of Light had followed the Chinese. They took the big fat hint and pictured themselves suffering the fate of the Shui Fong.

  At least no one had a clue that the Reset Potion stores had been completely drained. The Indians, Vietnamese and Koreans all went outta their way in an attempt to dig up as many vials as possible so that they could seize an extra castle.

  Now, loaded autotraders stood on all the large clusters’ auction markets. They vigilantly watched the new lots, ready to snatch up any precious vials at any price. The public bulletin boards were filled with clan quest announcements. They wanted a search for Phantom Dragons whose rare loot included the unique potion.

  Oh me, we wouldn’t be able to repeat the miracle that had so shaken the AlterWorld for quite a while. It would take months to restore the nuclear, er, I mean the vial shield. Seriously, when combined with ABA, it became the mightiest attack and containment weapon!

  Yet the enemy grouping never shrank. True, we had forced the real foe to invest in bribery and propaganda again. The principled and hateful replaced the cowardly and calculating. Trash receded and masks fell off, revealing the faces of the real enemies.

  Well, the fiercer the battle, the greater our need to win, no matter the price. Whosoever littered would pay.

  The next day after defeating the Chinese, Gimmick had received some fine financial help. At last, he reported that the Juggernaut was ready.

  The clan gave a collective sigh of relief. Everyone pinned their hopes on the ninety-foot giant as the new strength of the First Temple’s defense system. The last time the treasury was emptied, the boys even gave some coins and mithril, as much as they could, just to keep the process going. We needed the Juggernaut here and now as it could alter the current state of affairs.

  Ten million HP, 40,000 damage points per second, a dozen fire point operators, a self-repair system, and a set of passive shields.

  Available power: nine Large Accumulators.

  Fitted with an external mounting, it was capable of carrying two Heavy Golems and four Recon ones. Its landing compartment held fifty warriors and had a comfortable living module.

  The nine-story-tall robot was capable of many things.

  We were in no mood to celebrate, so we put off the music, fireworks and clowns till a more peaceful time. But everyone came, both young and old.

  We took this opportunity to show off the clan’s power and invited all the parents. Even abandoned and foster children weren’t all alone.

  A serious undercover battle for these unclaimed kids had been going on for some time among the perma clan members. Almost all the ladies and at least half the men dreamed of adopting a smart little lad or a fickle young cutie.

  The clan flags fluttered in the wind. The numerous enemy ensigns cast long shadows. They’d been given as gifts to the Fallen One. The triple guard kept a close watch. Security goblins kept getting in their way.

  A bottle of champagne had the pride of place: it was strapped to the Juggernaut’s knee with a silk rope. I kept repeating the golem’s name in my head, bathing it in the emanations of my Divine Spark in the hopes of passing some of its power to our clan’s new wonder weapon.

  Gimmick was solemn like a field marshal taking a parade. His usual coarse simplicity and absent-mindedness had both disappeared.

  The ingenious crafter insisted that the golem be fully armed for its release. "The instant he becomes conscious, he must be as strong as ever!"

  Precious accumulator containers were taken out of the armory and treasury along with sealed chests holding attack and defense artifacts. Heavy and Recon Golems came up to him, climbed the ramp and took their place in their mountings. This was more like an aircraft carrier than a golem!

  I dismissed Gimmick’s demands to allot ingredients and ammo for the troops befitting their ranks as absurd.

  "Enough of this, Gimmick! You’re like Durin, r
aking in the goodies! The Fallen One’s here, don’t make him wait!"

  The crafter instantly stood up straight and took out a huge jar made of solid ruby. He approached the Fallen One and held out the jar with a low bow, "Your Greatness, share your Power with the artificial creature! Give him life!"

  The god looked at the jar, perplexed, then raised a brow. "How much?"

  "As much as you see fit!"

  He chuckled, then smiled, brought his wrist to the jar’s mouth and willed his vein to burst.

  The god’s precious blood flowed into the ruby jar, thickening and turning into one giant crystal of immense power.

  The Fallen One grew pale; he was giving his true essence, not just blood. He was about to pull his arm back, but Gimmick sharply grabbed his wrist and said with surprising boldness,

  "More!"

  I grew dumb with astonishment at such insolence bordering on insanity and snapped in indignation, "Gimmick, ya nuts?!"

  The Fallen One’s face grew dark with rage, but he did not resist. Looking at the crafter promisingly, he held his vein open for ten more beats of his mighty heart.

  Then the Fallen One healed his wound and snatched his hand away. He burst out coughing, then wrapped himself up in his cloak to hide his paleness and his weakened, shaky fingers. A portal popped, and the angered god left our plane of reality.

  I spat in irritation, "Gimmick, are ya outta yer mind?! Or did your brain rust just like yer robots?!"

  He didn’t answer, only shot me a cold look, clutched the precious jar to his chest and activated a jump portal to the golem’s control cabin.

  I exchanged confused glances with my officers: what the fuck happened to our crafter? Orcus frowned and jabbered away into the voice channel.

  The catapults creaked as they made a 180 degree turn and aimed at their own home front for the first time in history.

  Boots thundered over the robot’s external decks as our staff rushed to the control cabin’s evacuation hatch.