FB: Chapter 96 – Construction Finishing

“All teams are in place along with scouts to report disturbances. Interceptions have picked up,” Joker Seven reported.

“We are all set on the outflow canal. Explosives are being put into place at the mouth,” Quant Z stated in the command center. We were personally located where the water from the Mineral Springs would flow into the Black Swamp.

Two minutes went by, and I thought I heard an explosion in the distance. It was hard to say. “Outflow good. Defensive teams are standing by to repel monsters. They are swarming out of the Black Swamp.” They would be high level undead monsters, but we had consumables ready to go and a defensive fortification had been built so we could leverage a large number of magical guns onto the monsters.

I looked at the water of the Black Swamp. There was movement in the direction of the outflow canal. The mega project was actually working to impact an entire area. “Dammit! Move in teams thirty one through forty to location ‘D’ and move up reserves one through four to intercept.” I looked over at Joker Seven.

“Problem?” I asked.

“A large hostile force has taken out two teams and is moving towards the outflow canal. They are looking to seal it most likely. Teams are moving to close the gap and Champion level teams in reserve are moving to intercept. Didn’t expect one of our elite teams to fall so quickly and a lack of warning from our scouts. Most likely high value consumables are being used,” Joker Seven explained, and I nodded.

“That is why I requested we have more than enough people to counter any trolls. Any symbols on their outfits?” I asked.

“A gold outline in the shape of a dick,” Joker Seven replied. Of course it was a dark guild. They had probably received instructions and support from my countless enemies. “Looks like the dark guild Devil’s Dick.” I nodded at this.

“This was expected but let us look underneath. They are probably trying to pull our forces out of position,” I stated.

“Attack at rally point ‘A’,” a staff member reported.

“There we go. They are looking to expose this feeder stream to the outflow canal to an attack. Pulling troops away in either direction.” I pointed out the location on the map in the command center and everyone took a look.

Joker Seven quickly began issuing orders to move teams to cover the new gap, creating a hole in our defensive line on purpose was a good strategy if our side wasn’t ready for such shenanigans. He then moved up another four Champion teams to the gap and had them go into high alert to intercept an enemy force that should be moving on their position.

I looked over the map as markers were moved about. “We have a large group arriving in sector five. Scouts report a linked teleport array,” a staff member reported. That wasn’t cheap, around 100 platinum for a linked teleport array which would only last a single day. It was a good way to move a large number of troops to an out of the way location. You mobilize somewhere else and then set up the linked teleport array, moving hundred people over every ten seconds. In an hour you could move 36,000 people.

The main weakness of the linked teleport array was that they were highly visible when used, sending up a large beam of blue light into the sky and they couldn’t be placed under cover either. It was also very easy to disrupt or destroy. “I will deal with the linked teleport array personally. Keep everything on track. I should be back in time when we start flooding the Black Swamp from the Mineral Springs.”

“That is in ten minutes,” Quant Z stated as I left. I gave him a thumbs up right before I used Blink. Now wasn’t the time to take things slow. I quickly ran and used Blink when it was off cool down while moving towards the pillar of light constantly flaring in the distance, Slice in hand.

Right after I used Blink four people appeared around me, each with a thorn spear. They stabbed out. I broke the orb in my hand instantly. It cost 10 platinum to pay for a Force Bubble consumable that lasted only one second. But more than worth it as their weapons bounced off my shield. I was ready for counter tactics with my own counter tactics. I spun with Slice. “Vomitatis.” I also puked all over them.

They clearly weren’t ready for me to counter a targeted teleport assassination. All four assassins were killed, two of them instantly from being cut through with Slice. Their dropped fell to the ground. “Command pick up all nearby dropped items,” I said. Since there were no other players around, the command instantly worked. Another minor trick to speed things up that I had picked up on. That was the risk of attacking outside of a guild battle or the arena, you didn’t get to keep your stuff.

A quick verbal command and I checked my inventory. There was some good stuff there, including several valuable skill shards. Either loaned out, or they were planning to sell them later and hadn’t soul bound them. Their loss was my gain. In addition there were several dropped consumable items they had on their bodies.

Some people really wanted to drag me down. The funny part was that this assassination team and Devil’s Dick were most likely separate groups acting to sabotage what we were trying to accomplish. Having two different attempts, with one dedicated assassination team was already quite impressive and showcased how much hate both myself and the Fanged Fox guild had generated from other players.

I reached the massive amount of people forming up around the linked teleport array. There were some defensive fortifications going up, but they weren’t being built at a rapid pace by a large group of people. Clearly these people hadn’t properly prepared for a combat deployment, counting on the assassination squad to take me out. I cut through the guards easily, sharding them left and right. I reached the linked teleport array on the ground just as it flashed again.

Racing towards the center, I smashed the crystal and the entire thing deactivated, completely worthless. That was a 100 platinum flushed down the toilet. There were shouts of panic as people realized that they were cut off from reinforcements and the massacre was about to start.

The people behind this had already brought in 3,000 combatants. I just needed to thin out their numbers and break their spirits. It took 3 minutes to get out here and I spent another 4 minutes cutting down around 500 people. Not as many as I would have liked, but more than enough to send the rest fleeing in random directions.

It would be hard for them to regroup since my forces were already on their way out here to follow up on my attack. I was needed to break their spirit and scatter them so they would be easily picked off now. I got back to the inflow canal just as water from the Mineral Springs began to rush into the Black Swamp.

That triggered a massive reaction. Hordes of Pus Warriors, Toxic Frogs, Mega Mosquitos, and Spiked Reeds began swarming towards the canal. This was a far bigger reaction than the reported response from draining the swamp, but that had been part of the calculations as well, which was the reason I had come back here.

The monsters were above level 200. I began to cut them down with my sword and drawing massive amounts of aggression from the remaining monsters. Magical gunners were set up at a distance raining down attacks at everything that wasn’t near me to help alleviate the pressure.

The poison damage didn’t even phase me and the smell was nowhere as bad as the Murk Swamp. I really loved Slice since I didn’t need to use tremendous number of consumables to kill monsters. I just needed to smash them in the face or weak point. A useful combat method and a way to reduce stress at the same time.

“ROOOOAAAAR!” I looked up to see a Death Drake flying towards me.

“Blink!” I teleported into the air as the overgrown level 300 lizard flew at me. “Slice!” I used the attack at point blank range right before impact. My downwards swing hit it right on the neck. I had been aiming for the head, but that was fine. I was hit with the monster’s death aura attack, which began to deplete my HP. High level large monsters had aura skills to prevent getting close to kill them easily in close combat.

The skill Slice was considered a critical attack and partially split the neck. The monster was too high level for such an attack to kill it, which was why it didn’t shard from a critical attack. But then the mega sword Slice hit. It was super critical as the monster’s neck was cleaved apart. The high level Death Drake sharded as I fell back towards the Black Swamp. I hadn’t teleported that high up and only took some minor fall damage which was quickly healed up from my poison absorption.

There were cheers in the distance from my guild. I went back to smashing monsters rushing through the swamp water which was quickly clearing up. It would take a while for the water in the Black Swamp to drain and be replaced with water from the Mineral Spring, but that was fine.

The monsters attacking were quickly becoming weaker and I began to land more and more critical hits while the magical gunners had an easier time killing the Black Swamp monsters. This had been anticipated. Once things stabilized and the spawn rate dropped, I retreated back to the command center.

“How are we looking?” I asked Joker Seven while various people tried to contain their reaction to the smell and viscera covering me.

“All attacks on the canals have been repulsed. There was some minor damage, but the repair crew handled it without issue. No more reports of attempted attacks. It looks like the trolls have given up.” I nodded at this.

“Quant Z, where are we on the Black Swamp?” I asked.

“Changes have been seen by all monitors at the outer edge of the Black Swamp. The outflow has started clearing up. If the second phase of the operation hasn’t started already, then we might need to move onto the alternate plan,” he stated.

“We will move with the secondary plan once night passes. Hopefully we don’t have a night battle.” The main plan had been to try and draw the Unmentionable Horror out of the Black Swamp to my location. That would have made things much easier. If that didn’t work, then I would have to go in and deal with it directly in the waist deep water.

With how long the operation was taking, we wanted to fight the Unmentionable Horror in the daylight. We had started the previous night. Each in game day was six hours with daylight lasting around four of those hours.

Fighting in the night in the Black Swamp would be a bad idea. Diseased Ghosts would be a pain to fight as ethereal monsters with no good spots to deal critical hits to bypass the absolute level advantage. We also needed the time to reform the support teams to for the second phase of the operation.