Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 151: The Three Forces

The Town Protection Array was actually blocked by the system. Zac quickly brought out one of his Thunder Punishment Arrays, and to his dismay found them looking like lifeless marbles no matter what he tried.

“The Ruthless Heavens indeed,” Ogras muttered with a sardonic grin. “I guess we’ll have to do this one by hand.”

Zac started to wonder whether the System could actually hold grudges. He had cursed at it quite a bit in the beginning when he was stuck alone on the island. Was it retaliating now by increasing the difficulty to unreasonable levels? Or did it try to suppress him since he wasn’t a cultivator?

In any case, the sight in front of him spelled trouble. He wasn’t contending with one force now, but three. More importantly, he was placed against intelligent forces this time. The wolf horde had been somewhat easy to handle since they were dumb beasts, but the same couldn’t be said about actual invading forces.

They would have organized armies and employ strategy in trying to defeat him. He was sure that the system had provided some pretty good incentives to them so that no diplomatic solution was possible. Not that he thought it was possible in any case.

“I think we should charge in, catch them unaware,” Zac said with some hesitation.

He didn’t want them attacking the wall since it would offer scant protection now that there was no Array to secure it. It might work against dumb beasts, but against an army of high leveled warriors it was only a small diversion.

“There’s no way they would be unaware, rather the opposite. They should have been given plenty of forewarning, perhaps even having the opportunity to accept or decline the quest,” Ogras disagreed.

“We should scout them out and gauge their strength. There are some differences between the pillars and normal Incursions. They are smaller. I think their forces should be limited,” the demon added. “If they were completely confident in defeating us they would already have rushed in. The fact that they are playing it safe is telling us something.

Zac gave a start and once again looked at the three pillars. They felt huge where they shone in the distance. However, Zac had to agree that they were quite a bit smaller compared to the one with the demons. That red pillar had stretched endlessly into the sky, clearly visible even from the other side of the island. It had felt like it reached the heavens, and apparently, even the closest islands had seen the red light when the demon Incursion was active.

These pillars were large, but not to that point. They were many times higher than the Ayr Hive, but that’s was about it. Zac wasn’t sure what it meant, but the size of the pillars had indicated the difficulty of the wolf waves. The pillar that sent through the Fiend Wolf was quite a bit larger compared to the ones before it.

“So we just stand here and wait? It’s too passive,” Zac frowned with impatience. He was in no mood to let the invaders run rampant on his island. Who knew what kind of mess they would create while they stayed on the wall like some turtles.

“It is, but sometimes we need to waste time to save time. We can send out a few scouts to check things out. I’ll even go myself. But we shouldn’t antagonize them until we know their relationship. Who knows, they might even fight each other. The undead forces are notoriously unwilling to work with almost any other force, and they might just attack the others before turning their attention to us.”

Zac nodded after some thought. Though it sounded implausible it might be correct. The goal of those forces should be to kill him and he could only die one time, meaning that only one force would get the reward. Perhaps they would even succumb to infighting for the honor to kill him, provided that hey felt he would be easy to handle.

Besides, charging in like a barghest wasn’t the best idea. Who knew what cards these people had up their sleeves. He didn’t even know what forces two of the incursions belonged to. Gathering intelligence first might be the smartest play.

They had stood at the walls for a few minutes by now, and there still wasn’t any activity. Unfortunately the incursions were far enough that they couldn’t see their forces due to foliage blocking the view.

“Very well, let’s gather some intelligence,” Zac said, feeling unsettled by the inaction.

He almost hoped that a wave of invaders would come running through the forest at them, screaming and waving their weapons. A full-frontal assault would be perilous, but it would also be easy to handle. He just needed to take out his axe and go crazy. Now he was unsure what to do or expect.

Ogras nodded and disappeared into the shadows. Not long after Zac saw a few figures blend into the forest as they moved toward the pillars of light. Most of the demons sat down by now with closed eyes, patiently waiting to explode into action. Zac had to stop himself from pacing back and force like a wreck since he didn’t want to show how unsettled he felt by the situation.

He had already defeated one incursion, but that was different. For one he had learned that Clan Azh’Rezak was far weaker than the average when it came to the power of the invading groups. Usually the opportunity would have been snatched away by a more powerful force, but Azh’Rezak managed to hold on to it due to some turbulence in their area.

Secondly, he had deployed guerrilla tactics against the demons, and they didn’t even know about his identity until the very end. And finally the war with the monkeys provided a stage where he somehow luckily came out victorious.

It was different now, with him being a defender in the open, and at least the undead were a formidable force.

To take his mind off the situation he opened his quest screen. It was mentioned earlier that his quest and rewards were updated, and he wanted to see what he would get.

IncursionMaster(Unique):CloseorconquerincursionandprotectTownfromdenizensorforcesofotheralignmentsfor3months.Reward:LimitedStructuredependingonGrade,TownupgradedtoGlobalCity,statusupgradedtoLord.RoadtoHegemonyopened.(2/3)

There were some differences from earlier, with some more apparent than others. The description had gone from saying only denizens to “denizens or forces”, which made sense as Ogras had told him already that denizens were referring to beasts.

The rewards had also changed. The paltry 5 crystals had been swapped to a Limited Structure, and Zac guessed it was something similar to when he got the Creator Shipyard, though the wording was a bit different.

His town would also be upgraded to Global City instead of City. Since the prompt earlier had mentioned world leader he’d almost thought for a second Port Atwood would become a capital. However, it seems that wasn’t the case. He wasn’t clear about the difference between a City and a Global City, apart from guessing the latter was better.

Finally there was the Road to Hegemony. He had no idea what that meant, but he sensed that this addition might be the most important one. He wasn’t sure whether to ask Ogras about it or keep it a secret, so for now he tabled the matter. He needed to actually destroy the three incursions for any of this to matter.

It took almost twenty minutes until Ogras was back, during which time Zac only got more and more impatient.

“There are a lot of enemies,” Ogras said with a frown. “There’s a veritable sea of Zombies, tens of thousands. There’s also Aberrations and three to four-meter corpse golems. Unfortunately, it seems the horde has a Lich or Corpse Lord. Otherwise they’d have mindlessly charged at us by now, sensing our life force.”

Aberrations were dead beings that were naturally formed in ominous grounds, often being a mix of various species and bodies. Not two of them looked the same, as they were essentially randomized mistakes of the universe. Their distinguishing feature was extreme endurance, even for the undead beings.

The corpse golems were somewhat similar, though they were constructed rather than formed. Necromancers or liches created them from a bunch of cultivators to suit their purposes. Usually they were quite large, and a fusion of a group of people.

The more skilled the creator, the more beings he or she could add to the monstrosity, making it stronger. Its height was generally the measure of how powerful it was, where golems above five meters were usually E grade or above.

“The other forces aren’t as numerous, though their warriors are generally far stronger compared to the Zombies. The black portal is owned by a force I don’t recognize. They are either a golem species or something rock-related. It was hard to tell. They’re completely pitch black and gave off cold auras. They seemed to have exceptional perception, as they killed the scout we sent before he even came close,” the demon continued.

“The last force is only around a thousand strong, and they might actually be more annoying than the undead. They’re the fools of the Church of Everlasting Dao. I would wager they are on average stronger compared to our own forces,” Ogras concluded with a sigh.

Zac groaned when he learned who the final incursion belonged to. The Church of Everlasting Dao were the lunatics who went to newly integrated planets simply to eradicate all life. They were of the belief that while the System was compelled to keep integrating new worlds, each time it did so it expended important energy and hurt itself. That, in turn, prevented the System from evolving itself and the multi-verse.

In order to reach nirvana or whatever they tried to kill as many people as they could so that more energy would be freed up for the system. The general consensus about this belief was that it either was complete idiocy, or that it was a front for the church elite to stuff their pockets with their victim’s wealth.

No matter which case was the truth it didn’t help Zac, as he was suddenly stuck on the island with a bunch of Zealots. Furthermore, if another one of the incursions were the famously annoying Undead Empire and another was run by insane inquisitors, the third mysterious Incursion likely wasn’t any good news either.

“So what do we do?” Zac asked.

“They are holding some meeting at the rock people’s place. For now we hope they have a falling out and do our job for us.”

Zac nodded but didn’t feel too hopeful. He could only spread the available intelligence amongst the ranks, and keep everyone on alert. Soon the last hope of an internal fight breaking out was dashed, as an army approached the wall.

Zac understood what Ogras meant when he said rock-people, as he couldn’t really tell their appearance either. They were around two meters tall, and Zac couldn’t make out any features as they were unnaturally black. Zac wondered for a second if they all possessed some racial skill that obscured them, but threw the question to the back of his head as he brought out his axe.

The ground shook as the army approached, and huge boulders were magically ripped out of the ground by the rock-people and started hovering above their army, creating quite the image. The rudimentary traps across the battlefield were all but useless against the sentient species as they approached.

The very air thrummed with power around the incoming group, and even Ogras’ ever-present grin was long gone as he looked out over their enemies.

----------------

Bishop Orsiccas leisurely walked back toward his camp, glancing at the army of Yrd Stonemen leaving for battle.

It had been an annoying discovery to find that they weren’t the only ones to get the blessing of The Boundless Heavens, but that they instead shared it with two other groups. That kind of situation clearly muddied what should have been a great opportunity to make some money.

It was quite convenient that at least one of them belonged to some weak backwater group. They would make great sacrifices for the Grand Plan, keeping the Zealots happy, and in the process scout out the powers of this Monarch-candidate.

This was the third world Orsiccas got tasked with purifying and processing with his fellow bishops, which is why he was chosen to head this special assignment while his brothers kept the activities going in their main base. But this was the first time that he’d heard of a Sacrifice to gain such a blessing this early. Monarch-selects usually only emerged after over a year had passed.

It was also quite the headache to find that the undead scum were here. Whenever the Church met those bastards there was always a bloody battle for the high potential corpses. Losses went up and profits went down.

At least he wasn’t up against a proper Lich, but instead a Corpse Lord. While neither were easy to deal with, Liches were nigh immortal save from certain types of attacks. They had proper purifier-forces who trained especially to combat the undead on the various fronts, but Orsiccas hadn’t brought any here as he expected to be up against the humans or one of the other three species of this new planet.

Worse yet, the Corpse Lord seemed to be a noble. He even doubted whether he himself was its match. Still, he had a full battle-monk contingent with him, which was enough to decimate the undead forces if it came to that.

Orsiccas caressed his mace with a resolute expression. He wouldn’t let this one go even if he had to go up against an undead noble, as the bonus he would receive was substantial. Not only the reward from The Boundless Heavens, but also the one he would receive from the church for procuring such high-grade materials.

Someone who was already a monarch-candidate would have to be a prime specimen in creating a premium vessel. Human bodies were always in high demand as well, as many powerhouses chose vessels of the same species as their original bodies.

Orsiccas never understood that kind of mentality. Those old goats had lived for tens of thousands of years, yet they hadn’t had enough. Instead, they chose to scrap their mortal coil for one of the Church’s vessels, even if it meant retraining their bodies from the ground up.

Not that Orsiccas complained, as that very business had enabled him to reach heights he could only have dreamed of, with a clear path all the way to becoming a C-Ranked Cardinal. And in the meantime, he would make a pretty penny in the body retrieval business.

Because to live was to fight, so business was always booming.