Re-Awakening: I Ascend with a Legendary class

Thalmyr-Ronethis took the western flank. Ronaisan El Topov did not come personally. Their commander was Tessovaen Ire, the precision officer who had run their logistics during the Celestara attack.

Virexion-Kezryx took the east. Jaskrit Kezinos was there in person, at the central command vessel. Aryan noted it on his slate right away. Whatever Jaskrit had decided after the depth incident, he had decided this engagement was worth his own combat power.

Celestara-Dravokh took the northwestern arc. It was the worst position, closest to the Doom Monarch’s territory. Their fleet had not fully recovered from the attack a month earlier, and they brought less than the others. But Joaka Nel Fein floated at the front of their formation with her radiant wings open. They needed the score, even if they had to fight from the bad angle.

Suryax-Regalon took the southeast. Rudra commanded from the lead Mega Dreadship. Silvester and Hiroshi held the forward strike formations. Ainen took the right flank with his exotic flames already burning along his arms in slow, controlled layers. He was one of the four X-rank deck holders on the alliance, and the front of the southeast line was his to hold. Marcus had stayed back with the expedition team.

Big D worked from the command deck beside Rudra. The intelligence network he had built across the past two months fed real-time data on every alliance’s movements into the projection. Without him, no one on the Suryax line would have known what the other three were doing while they were busy fighting their own front.

Saffa, Clovelle, and Fraisea ran the support structure. Saffa kept the defensive systems on the lead Dreadships running smoothly. Clovelle ran the Skydread squadrons in the air. Fraisea handled material flow, pulling captured resources from the field and routing them where they were needed. Ainen’s cooking arrays were set up on a rear platform and would produce buffs between waves, but the arrays ran themselves under Saffa’s supervision while he fought.

Gopu was on the lead Mega Dreadship with Rudra. His new propulsion system had brought the fleet here at twice the normal speed, and he was the only one who could keep it running stable under combat load. He stayed at the engine core and watched his readings.

The Asura Executives were spread through the army in a careful pattern. Each one would contribute, but none would show too much.

Four alliances stood around the Mountain. None of them were really allies. Each one watched the inland horizon for the Doom Army, and each one watched the other three just as closely.

—

A leaderboard appeared in the sky above the Mountain’s peak.

It was huge. It projected directly into perception. Every soldier on the field saw it the same way at the same time.

[Star Mayhem Mountain Defense]

[Rank 1: 0]

[Rank 2: 0]

[Rank 3: 0]

[Rank 4: 0]

A smaller line appeared below the ranks for the field commanders.

[First Wave estimated arrival: 28 minutes.]

Rudra studied it. Then he turned to his command staff.

“We hold our position. We do not engage harder than we need to. We contribute enough to stay on the board, but we do not, under any condition, take first place during this wave. If we look like we are pulling ahead, we slow down. If we look like we are falling behind, we tighten the line. The goal is last place by a small margin.”

His communications officer relayed the orders. Behind Rudra, Silvester smiled a little. He had helped design this strategy.

The plan was simple. The expedition team beneath the ocean needed this defense to last as long as possible. If they swept the first wave hard, the engagement would end too soon. If they fell behind too far, they would lose the prize to a rival. The line they had to walk was narrow.

They had to fight well, fight visibly, and fight no harder than they had to.

The Suryax line settled into formation. The Thalmyr arrays began their pre-engagement cycle. The Virexion storm-armor warmed up in pulses across the eastern fleet. The Celestara light barriers spread out in defensive arcs.

The clock counted down.

—

The first wave arrived seven minutes early.

It came from the north. A tide poured over the inland horizon. The sensors took a few seconds to render it correctly because the count was higher than the default limit.

The Dread Doom Army and the Doom Monster Army moved as one mass. Two tides running through each other.

The Dread Doom infantry were tall. Taller than normal soldiers. They wore dark plate that drank light instead of reflecting it. Each one carried a hooked, polearm-like weapon that trailed a thin dark vapor. They marched in tight ranks and moved faster than infantry should.

The monsters were worse. Wolves the size of houses. Things shaped like spiders, but with proportions that felt wrong. Winged shapes circled above the marching tide. Behind the front line, siege creatures the size of ships pushed slowly forward.

Aryan watched from the command deck and counted.

“Wave size, three to four hundred thousand. Tier range sixty to ninety. Siege creatures are eighty to ninety. Front-line monsters are seventy to eighty. Standard infantry sixty to seventy.”

Rudra nodded. “All forces, engage.”

The wave hit the base of the Mountain.

Thalmyr-Ronethis moved first. Their forward arrays fired calibrated strikes, but not at the front line. They hit the command nodes behind the front line. The Doom advance lost its coordination within the first minute and broke into ragged pockets. The rest of the Thalmyr fleet swept through and cleared the disorganized units.

Virexion-Kezryx did the opposite. They opened with overwhelming storm bombardment. Lightning columns crashed down across the eastern advance and vaporized hundreds of Doom infantry per strike. They did not need to be clever. The Doom Monarch did not seem to care about losses, and his army kept pushing through the gaps anyway.

Celestara-Dravokh held the northwestern arc with barriers of light. Their defenses were built for this kind of fight. Joaka’s radiant strikes carved through monsters with clean, precise hits. They were not the strongest fleet on the field, but they were the most defensively coherent.

Suryax-Regalon fought.

The army moved in the layered tiers Rudra had set up. To any outside observer, the performance looked exactly like what a recovering mid-tier alliance should produce. Geneline-awakened solar attacks flared with steady efficiency. The Mega Dreadships fired their main batteries at a measured pace. The Skydread Crafts engaged the winged Doom forms using the older, unconverted doctrine. Good, but not impressive. The Asura Executives fought carefully. Each one showed just enough to justify their rank, and no more.

Ainen anchored the right flank himself. The first ranks of Doom infantry hit his position and burned. His exotic flames came in three layered types, each one carrying a different property absorbed from something he had burned before. The first layer was a cold flame that froze targets in place. The second was a corrosion flame that ate through their armor before the corpses even hit the ground. The third was a denial flame that consumed energy attacks mid-air. A siege creature lumbered toward him and he turned it to ash in three seconds. But he held his combat to the right flank only. He did not extend his fire across the line. He did not show what his flames could really do at full release. Like Silvester and Hiroshi, he was fighting at half capacity on purpose.

Saffa redirected defensive energy to whichever Dreadship was taking the most pressure. Clovelle ran the Skydread squadrons in deliberately simple patterns. Fraisea pulled materials from broken Doom monsters as they fell and routed them back into the supply chain for the next wave. The cooking arrays on the rear platform kept feeding food buffs to soldiers rotating off the front, so no one needed to fall out for fatigue.

Big D fed Rudra a constant stream of cross-fleet data. Thalmyr was pulling ahead. Virexion was holding steady. Celestara was matching Suryax. Every adjustment in the line came from those reports.

Gopu kept the propulsion system running clean. He did not fight. He kept the ship moving.

Holding back without looking like they were holding back was hard. Silvester, Hiroshi, and Ainen spent most of the engagement managing the line speed. Whenever the alliance started pulling ahead of Virexion or Thalmyr on the counter, they slowed down. Ainen pulled his flames back to two layers instead of three. The line eased off.

The first wave broke at the forty-one minute mark. Much longer than expected.

The Doom advance collapsed against the four alliance lines. What survived was destroyed or driven back into the horizon. The bodies left behind were already dissolving into something else as the inland atmosphere consumed them.

The leaderboard updated.

[Star Mayhem Mountain Defense]

[Rank 1: Thalmyr Ascendancy | Ronethis Apex Sovereignty: 84,720]

[Rank 2: Virexion Dominion | Kezryx Void Imperium: 78,310]

[Rank 3: Celestara Sanctum | Dravokh Tyrant Conclave: 51,940]

[Rank 4: Suryax Kingdom | Ananta Regalon: 49,610]

Rudra studied the numbers.

Then he allowed himself a small smile. “Good.”

His communications officer blinked. “Sir?”

“That is exactly where I wanted us to be.”

Around the Mountain, three other commanders were celebrating, analyzing, or repositioning based on what they had just learned. The Suryax-Regalon line settled into watchful readiness.

Far below the ocean, on the other side of the world, the expedition team was finishing the final tuning passes on weapons no one outside the alliance had ever seen. They were preparing to dive into a depth they had no plan to leave without what they had come for.

The clock to the second wave began.