Path of Dragons 10 - Chapter 64 - Contingencies

Decided to go ahead and do the double chapter today instead of Sunday (thank the folks on Discord for it!). Enjoy!

Gunnar stared at the monster in his scope as the projectile – nearly a foot long and four inches wide – slammed into him.  It hit with the kinetic force of a round from a naval cannon, and that was just the beginning.  The local ethera went wild as his abilities doubled, then tripled, the impact.  At the same time, other abilities cut into the monster’s attributes, crippling his Regeneration and inflicting a long-lasting and debilitating debuff upon him.

And yet, there was no influx of experience.

Even as Elijah Hart – in the form of maned velociraptor – slammed into the ground in a cloud of gore, he refused to surrender to death.  Partly, that was because Gunnar had missed.  Miraculously, the Druid had been saved by a sudden twitch.  Just a few inches, and the shot that should have exploded his head ended up hitting him in the upper torso.  Even so, that should have done him in. 

By anyone’s measure, it was a once-in-a-lifetime shot.  From three miles away, it would have easily broken the record for the longest kill in history.  Or at least that would have been the case before the world had changed.  Gunnar had reason to suspect that such a record would still stand, given that, as far as he knew, there weren’t any others out there who specialized in guns like he did.

Maybe that would change as Seattle’s weapons became more ubiquitous, though there had been some pushback from other cities when it came to adopting the rifles.  They were great for arming militias, but dedicated fighters were better off using other weapons. 

Gunnar, as always, was the exception.

Calmly, he loaded another round into his rifle, then took aim once again.  The second shot didn’t have the benefit of most of his abilities, but that was as expected.  He’d already planned for the current situation.  As much as he wanted to believe that he could kill such a monster with a single shot, the reality of it was that he knew just how unlikely that eventuality would be.

So, he’d planned for failure.

That was what set the elite apart from everyone else, after all.  No one was perfect.  Everyone failed.  It didn’t matter how much a man planned, he couldn’t account for every single factor.  It was how one reacted to the inevitability of failure that defined whether or not a sniper survived. 

The next round slammed into the prone form, tearing an enormous crater in Hart’s scaley side.  Gunnar saw bones fly away and organs rupture.  That should have been a fatal wound, especially coupled with the effects of the previous shot, which had very nearly decapitated the man-in-monster-form. 

Gunnar reloaded, but by the time he’d slammed the next round into place, the war elves had collapsed upon the unconscious Druid.  Even then, they continued to fall from whatever afflictions he’d inflicted upon them.

To say that he was shocked would have been quite an understatement.  Gunnar had watched as Elijah Hart had slowly dismantled an entire army.  From his investigation, he knew that the war elves had swept across the region, killing without much in the way of opposition.  They’d razed a dozen small settlements and a few major cities along the way. 

They’d even pushed one of the top ten – Anupriya Pandey – into a siege.  Her city, Kalki, managed to stand against multiple attempts at invasion, but even they knew that if they met the war elves on the battlefield, they would be slaughtered.

Gunnar had investigated the encampment himself.  And though he suspected that he could kill a single commander or one of the armored zealots that seemed to hold such a place of prominence when the army, he knew that he could not have affected much true damage. 

The only force that had pushed them back was to the north, and even that was only because of how much territory they needed to cover.  Still, the war elves had only turned back because there were softer targets elsewhere.  One day, they would have gone back and destroyed the so-called cannibals.

That would no longer happen, though.

Even though Hart was all but dead, he’d inflicted so many casualties upon the Third Army that there was no way they could bring nearly as much military might to bear.  They had been crippled, and by one man.

If Gunnar hadn’t shot him when he had, the Druid would have doubtless finished the job. 

What Gunnar found most impressive was the man’s endurance.  He’d kept going for hours, and with only a few minutes of rest in between phases.  That was more than just uncommon.  As far as Gunnar could tell, it made Elijah Hart unique.  And that was saying nothing for his versatility.  The widespread spells he’d used to sow chaos among the Third Army would have been devastating in any other situation.  Then there was his resourcefulness with the rocks, which had added to the chaos.  And finally, he possessed the ability to wade into battle and fight dedicated melee combatants toe-to-toe. 

And he’d won.

A full two-thirds of the army already lay dead, and many more would soon fall from lingering afflictions.  It had been a massacre, and one that, as a human being who loathed the concept of a bunch of aliens coming to Earth hellbent on conquest, Gunnar could more than appreciate.

Now, Hart lay dying. 

Gunnar wasn’t certain how to feel about that.  On the one hand, he’d done his job.  Many people would have better lives because of his accomplishment.  In addition, he’d put down a murdering psychopath who could kill – and had, on a whim no less – entire cities.  By all rights, Elijah Hart was a menace.

Yet, he was also the strongest man on the planet.  Gunnar had doubted that when he’d taken the job.  Sure, Hart probably had the most levels under his belt, but Gunnar was familiar enough with how the system worked that he knew just how little that mattered.  Levels were just one part of a person’s total power.  Also factoring into it was cultivation, class purpose, class rarity, and equipment.  He’d doubted that Hart had the lead in every category.

No – he’d been convinced that someone else out there was stronger.  Maybe it was one of the former top-ten.  Or it could have been some wildcard.  The reality was that the whole concept of ranking was somewhat nebulous.

Or it should have been, at least.

Now that he’d seen Hart in action, following him for weeks, he’d revised that assessment.  Elijah Hart was the most powerful man on the planet.  Full stop.  No addendums.  If there was anyone stronger, Gunnar would have heard about them. 

The question that he knew would haunt him in the following years was whether or not he’d just robbed Earth of its best chance to save itself, either from the threat of the Primal Realms or future invasions. 

But he knew he’d never really had a choice.  For one, he was a killer.  That was who he’d always been and what he would always be.  He wasn’t meant to save people, except by virtue of the ones he killed. 

More than that, though, was the fact that by doing his client’s bidding, he was ensuring that Seattle’s less fortunate got the attention they needed.  That was more important than some vague threat that might present itself in the future.  By all rights, humanity was extremely resourceful, and he expected them to figure out how to combat whatever problems presented themselves.

Hart was just one man, after all.  A powerful one, to be sure, but compared against all of humanity, he was nothing.

And then there was the other thing.  The unspoken threat.  Either he did the job, or he’d get added to their list.  What’s more, the sorts of people who hired him weren’t really the types to hesitate to kill thousands just to prove a point.  So, even if he avoided direct consequences, the very people he wanted to save were likely to pay the ultimate price.

All of that had coalesced into a situation where he had no other option but to do the job he’d been hired to do.  So, that was what he had done.  Soon, the elves would finish the man off.

Or at least that was how he thought it’d go, right up until a group of people appeared on the horizon.  They sprinted toward the battle so quickly that they covered multiple miles in less than a minute.  When they reached the elves, they did so with a clamor that Gunnar heard even miles away.

More importantly, Hart still wasn’t dead.  Gunnar would have gotten experience if he was.  And the hill goblins – for that was who’d rushed in from the mountains – crowded the battlefield to the point where Gunnar couldn’t get another clear shot. 

Not long after, an army poured out of the nearby city of Kalki.  Thousands of people, hollering for blood as they swept across the intervening distance and slammed into other side of the elves’ chaotic line.

If the Third Army had been intact, it never would have mattered.  They would have met the charge the same way they’d met every other challenge thrown their way.  Yet, Hart’s efforts had been so effective that not only had he reduced their numbers by nearly two-thirds, but he’d also destroyed any semblance of organization they might’ve mustered. 

After all, it was hard to field a cohesive army without leaders.

He watched as the battle went on, waiting all the while to get a clear shot to finish Hart off.  However, even after nearly half an hour, it became clear that such an opportunity was not going to present itself.  And it was far too much to hope for the Druid to die from his wounds.  Even if he might have – which Gunnar doubted – there was no way that the hill goblins didn’t have at least a few Healers with them. 

No - Hart was going to survive.

Which meant that it was time for phase two of the plan.

The second Gunnar made that decision, he pushed himself to his feet, then obscured the evidence that he’d been there.  After that, he gathered his rifle and took off to the west.  Before long, he descended into the jungle, where he made certain to leave just enough of a trail that someone of Hart’s caliber wouldn’t fail to notice it.

That was the key, he knew.  Leaving a trail was easy.  Leaving one that was concealed enough not to be obvious, but detectable enough that it would be found was the difficult part. 

Still, Gunnar had used the technique multiple times over the years, usually against particularly durable targets.  So, he was well-versed in the strategy. 

On and on he went, steadily trotting through the jungle the whole way.  Most of the local beasts were incapable of detecting him, and even the ones who knew he was there were unlikely to think he was worth attacking.  Because of that, he made good time, though he was periodically slowed by the terrain.  Leaping over streams and going around cliffs was never quick.  As he ran, he gathered materials for makeshift traps.  They wouldn’t be complicated affairs, but he didn’t need them to be.  Simple was better.  Simple could be effective, so long as he consistently used Conceal Trap – an ability he’d gotten at level seventeen – to keep them hidden.

Only two days later, when he recognized the area, did Gunnar slow to a stop.  Looking around, it didn’t take him long to identify the boundaries of his prepared location.  The more elaborate traps were still intact, so he wasted no time in activating them. 

That was location one.

Location two was more than two miles away, but he reached it without issue.  The intervening distance was festooned with more traps.  Some were designed to immobilize the target, while others were meant to inflict damage.

None were strong enough to truly harm the Druid, but Gunnar hoped the sheer number would slow him down while adding to the damage he’d already done.  And what he intended to do.

He repeated the process six more times until he finally reached the seventh and final location.  Once those traps were armed, he took up his first position, which overlooked location seven.  Then, he settled down for a few hours rest.  For now, he just had to wait.  He’d left a few alarm traps along his path, so if Hart followed – as Gunnar knew he would – he’d know.  Meanwhile, Gunnar made one contingency plan after another.  He’d spent a long time scouting the area, so he knew every inch of the jungle.  Something told him that he’d need that knowledge before it was all said and done. 

One thing was certain, though – one way or another, Gunnar would finish the contract.