Apocalypse: Regression

As the enemies slowly approached, the group began to form up. The Walters, Nick, Topaz and Seo-ah had fought together side by side enough times that they already had a general formation they instinctively moved into the second they knew a battle was about to break out.

“You know, I think the notification said that the buildings you can create with the heart require essence,” Seo-ah said as she stamped the butt of her spear on the ground, gripping tightly to her shield, preparing for the engagement. “And would you look at that? Someone ordered a bunch for us, rush delivery.”

“I like the way you think,” Akiko said as she equipped her own weapon, moving toward her companions Landry and Captain Eizo.

“Topaz, you got any juice?” Nick asked as he pulled out his Standard of Greatness, preparing for battle himself. “I think I’ll need something for strength, to kill quickly before they can overwhelm us.”

“Got ya covered,” Topaz told him as she tossed him a red vial, which he chugged immediately. The moment the liquid his throat, he could feel the benefit kicking in right away as his strength jumped nearly forty points, only costing him a small 20-point hit to his agility.

I guess I should repay her with my own buff, Nick thought as he tried to come up with a speech only to settle on the simplest set of words that would do the job: “Those beasts are coming for the heart. Let’s make sure they don’t reach it.”

The words were nothing special and, on their own, would fail at inspiring even the most enthusiastic person to do anything, but it didn’t matter. He had put his charisma into them, boosting everyone’s abilities with his Pep Talk skill.

They felt the ground beneath them begin to tremble with the approach of the creatures as Nick took out his Standard of Greatness to further increase the bonuses, looking over specifically at Elizabeth who was receiving his Lover’s Charm, which was giving her double the stats.

Standard of Greatness Trust Bonus: +60% damage

Nick felt the surge of continuously stacking buffs flow through him as the effects of his titles, such as Hundredfold Victor, began to also activate too. Slamming his standard into the ground as he pulled out his spear, the Weight of Dedication, he looked over at Seo-ah, who was intently focused on the monsters ahead of them with a smile on her face, and felt a little more confident.

Right, we’ve faced worse odds than these, he thought as he stood between Seo-ah and Arnold with Lou on the other side of Arnold and Elizabeth and Mr. Walters on the other side of Seo-ah.

Captain Eizo, wielding his sword and kite shield, didn’t miss the chance to remind Nick of the cost of battle: “I hope you know we charge a pretty penny for every life-threatening fight.”

“You think this will be life threatening?” Landry asked, chuckling as he gripped his twin glowing axes. “I’ll be surprised if this is even sweat threatening with all these bonuses. I can feel the power surging through me.”

“That doesn’t sound right,” Akiko snickered. “But yeah, this will be a joke, Captain. Just watch. I’m going to personally teach those bears why they had to hide in the woods and what happened to their kind on earth.”

“Forget the talk! I’m firing now!” Topaz, who was behind the group with her alchemist class grenade launcher, shouted as she turned back to check with Nick and then, after getting a nod of approval, began to unload round after round. The familiar thumping sound rang out with each round she fired, and Nick watched the arcing chemical-filled cartridges fly through the air.

As the grenades landed amidst the encroaching monsters, they exploded on contact, the force of the detonations causing shockwaves to ripple through the icy expanse. Many of the slowly stalking beasts broke into a full charge while those too close to the blasts were shattered, their howls piercing through the icy wind as chaos and destruction beset their flanks, the explosions leaving large chemical trails of some kind of super napalm all across the ground.

“THAT’S IT! BURN, BABY! BURN!” Topaz yelled, as many of the barely surviving monsters were incinerated by the blue and white fire with dark green smoke billowing up from the blaze.

Nick could barely hear Topaz over the deafening roars of the frozen bears that ran beside the rocky wolverines, drowning out Topaz’s crazed yelling as she continued to fire her grenades. The elusive arctic lynx like cats weaved between the bears and wolverines, their ethereal forms flickering in and out of sight like wraiths. Behind them all, out of the range of the grenades was the arctic vulpe, whose six tails stood on end, glowing with magical energy.

Then the closest of the creatures were upon them.

Captain Eizo shouted, “Come at me, ye villains!” like he was cosplaying as a pirate from an old movie as he let loose a blast of energy that enveloped three charging bears. They veered right towards the heavily armored man and crashed into his massive shield, their ice claws raking against it. Landry struck at the creatures’ sides, sending chunks of ice flying with every slash.

Mr. Walters swung his orange hexagonal shield like a battering ram, sending an ice-bear tumbling. As fast as he was moving though, he was still quickly surrounded on all sides, unable to spin his shield fast enough. He was forced to just punt a knee high gulo gulo, shattering its thick, armor-like hide and sending it flying backward.

As Nick held his position between Lou and Seo-ah, he watched the Walters’ side of the formation, where Elizabeth was now swinging her purple glowing sword, cutting through smaller bear cub monsters. But then he caught the air in front of him distorting like the pixels in a video game when a unit was having trouble rendering, only for them to manifest as a snow white lynx a moment later, claws out and slashing at him with paws half the size of his chest.

The armored suit Seo-ah had given him ripped under the force of the claws as Nick, stabbing out with his spear as he tried to do anything to stop the pain, watched strings of red erupt from his chest across the lynx’s hungry-looking face.

The predatory visage, unable to hide itself in the shadows wearing Nick’s blood like a targeting paint, tried to vanish, but Seo-ah cut the tagged head clean off with an aura-filled blade at the end of her spear before spinning back in a seamless motion to stab a gulo gulo lunging at her.

“Do you need to fall back?” Lou asked as he unleashed a flurry of punches at the monster in front of him, each strike cracking the rough rocky exterior of the wolverine. He then stepped back just as the creature slashed at him with razor sharp obsidian claws. As his brother dodged the strike, Arnold drove his maul down on the wolverine with a crash. Then the after effect of the weapon triggered, sending a fiery explosion that fractured the creature, killing it instantly.

“No, no, I’m good,” Nick told Lou as he backed up for a moment, leaving the muscle bro and Seo-ah to hold the gap as he chugged a healing potion and touched the wound on his chest, wishing Healing Touch were more of a true heal and less of a quick bandaid and first aid patch.

While he stopped his bleeding and closed his wounds, Seo-ah unleashed one of her stronger and more aura-consuming abilities, the Hawarang’s Blossom Fury, as she struggled to knock back two of the large gulo gulos that were rushing at her at the same time. Her spear tip exploded in a burst of aura the moment it hit the closest of the two, and the spinning aura discs that appeared cut through its rocky hide like diamond-tipped saws, severing its body into numerous pieces as her spear carried through to the second one, killing it as well.

As comforting as it was to see her unharmed by the wave, Nick knew it was too soon to celebrate. He saw her step falter as she moved back into her stance. To handle both monsters at once, she had been forced to spend too much aura at once, and Nick could tell right away from her grip, her stance, and that half-second falter that she would be too gassed to keep going if she had to use that move again any time soon.

Even though he wasn’t fully healed up, Nick moved back into position to take the pressure off Seo-ah. The moment he did, he spotted paw prints forming in the snow in front of them and recognized what was going on. The loud roars from the bear cubs and the gulo gulo were covering up the sound of the snow compacting under the heavy weight of the lynx, making the creature hard to detect as it stalked the front line and looked for the weakest opening, which had been Nick a moment ago. This time, seeing the snow and the subtle distortion of the air, he knew right where the beast was.

Nick wasn’t about to let the same trick get him twice. He swept his spear in a wide arc, covering the lynx with snow before following up with a quick, short stab to the beast’s throat.

Even though the monster was quicker than he expected, reacting before Nick could even finish half of his thrust, it wasn’t fast enough to completely get out of the way, and the Weight of Dedication’s tip dug into its right shoulder blade as it evaded the instant kill.

Nick pushed the blade in as much as he could. The beast seemed about to back up and try to escape, so rather than letting it run, he increased the weight of his spear, multiplying its mass over and over again as fast as he could, pinning the wounded lynx to the ground. The beast stared up at Nick in what seemed to be surprise, unable to free its shoulder to run.

Desperate, it tried to bite Nick, hissing at him as he pulled out his sword, but it was too late. Its fate was sealed. The monster stared up in horror, and Nick delivered the final blow, stabbing his blade right through the monster’s eye before quickly reducing the weight of his spear and switching back to the longer-ranged weapon.

He didn’t get time to celebrate his victory, however, as the moment he got back in formation, a beam of freezing cold energy flashed so quickly Nick couldn’t even dodge it, The energy struck him on his right shoulder, and he felt a chill that penetrated even the cold protection granted by his Crown of the Mountaintop. His joint locked up under the icy layer that rapidly formed around his shoulder.

"Topaz! Slow them down! Now!" Nick called out.

“Got it, boss!” Topaz shouted back as she fired a round of sticky grenades. The resulting explosions covered a dozen of the creatures in a thick, sticky, web-like fluid that pinned them to the ground. It even stuck a lynx to a wolverine, sending the wolverine into a frenzy that quickly ended the life of the lynx.

But then Nick saw snow being kicked up in the distance. His heart dropped. He had underestimated the sheer numbers of the creatures they’d need to fight. He glanced at the portal and the Domain Heart for a moment, wondering if they’d have to abandon their position and run. Though the loss of the Domain Heart would be a major setback for humanity, he wasn’t about to lose any of the people he considered family. He was about to shout, “Abandon the heart! Retreat through the rift!” when he saw the arctic vulpe fire a concentrated blast of ice magic. But it wasn’t aimed in their direction. It didn’t blast their defensive line or finish Nick off. It was aimed in the opposite direction.

Topaz shouted, “It's another army! I see more of those stupid rodents and a whole lot of those large ox things! I think they’re attacking the vulpe and the others from behind!”

Nick took a moment to get a good look, but once he did, he realized that she was right. He’d thought all of the arctic creatures were on the same side, that they were the invaders of some established kingdom, but it seemed like there were at least two groups that were enemies to each other.

There was hope. Hope that his little team could fend off the enemy long enough for the Domain Heart to form and for them to claim it as the first of humanity’s defenses in this realm.

Nick used Enhanced Command to magnify his voice as he shouted, “Line formation! Walters, push forward and hold the line! Everyone else, back up and recover. Tighten the flank! We’ll cycle in and out! Don’t let them tire you out!”

It wasn’t the best idea, and he knew it was a gamble, but he also knew that if he could cycle who was on the front, being the aggressor, and who was in the back, just handling offense every few minutes, they’d have the stamina to do the aura moves needed to last. It was the same strategy they had used in the fight against the undead village during his first raid, so he knew it could work. This was their chance at surviving the long battle.