RTA Book 2: Against Ruin's Fate - Chapter 2

The wind whipped through the firebase as Len and Rick moved through the corridors and down the stairs.

Through the nearest firing slit, Len could see the prismatic storm intensifying, rings of energy expanding outward. Where it passed the world was changed.

He and Rick moved to the first floor.

“Breach!” A soldier yelled.

Mandibles shoved through a wall and tightened; Len drew his sword as the wall was torn apart.

“Fuck off will yah?” Rick fired from less than a meter away, spitter rounds stabbing through the furry ant’s mouth as it opened it to hiss.

The rounds blew up inside the creature, dropping it to the ground.

Four more of the furry ant creatures the size of a deer rushed over their dead friend.

Len drew up thermal heat into a lance, cutting off limbs, Rick fired into openings, their armor focusing the blast through their body.

It was short and efficient work.

“I hate the armored fuckers,” Rick said.

“Anything with a high enough body stat is a pain in the ass,” Len yelled back, the wind was getting even louder, the last soldiers were trailing out of the firebase.

A worm about the size of a dog weaved through a pillbox, its mouth opening in teeth as it threw itself down the corridor.

Rick put a burst into it, painting the walls in grey blood.

“Last man!” Adrian yelled, slapping Len on the back.

“We’ll take rearguard!” Len called back as he moved to the firebase’s exit into the mountain, paying attention to his domain.

They cleared the firebase—entering the mountain.

They emerged from the corridor into the large cavern that had been designated for the turntable construction. The massive open space had been carved from the mountain to allow the train to be turned around, facing back toward Plynthia specifically the city Goran.

Now it stood half-completed and littered with abandoned work. Makeshift assembly lines for ammunition production, engineering stations for weapon repairs, supply crates stacked in rows—all left behind in the hasty evacuation. 

The civilian workers and engineers were already streaming toward the tunnel entrance across the cavern.

Stone walls were being extruded out of the ground, soldiers getting shields as Mackie and Edwin dressed them into ranks and organized them—returning order through the chaos.

All the civilians must be back past the train.

An ominous crack echoed through the northeastern section behind Len followed by the groaning of stone under immense pressure.

"That doesn't sound—" Rick began.

The wall gave way in an explosion of stone and dust. The breach was immediate and catastrophic—a fifteen-foot section of reinforced wall collapsing inward. 

Len threw himself forward, reaching out with his will to grab the far wall some twenty meters away, and those that were nearby. He threw them all forwards with himself.

He landed at the midway point and turned to face the breach—Rick landing beside him.

Through the swirling debris, twisted shapes poured out of the firebase into the mountain.

"Contact!" a soldier shouted, opening fire.

Creatures came through openings—another section of wall disappeared.

Mana combust in a tight space like this was going to hurt the enemy as much as them.

Len used Thermal lance, the creatures ran into his lances, tearing through the creatures.

“Blow the firebase!” Adrian yelled.

“Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole! Fire in the hole!” Captain Sam yelled.

Detonations went off, the firebase collapsing upon the creatures.

“Move it! Clear the tunnel firing lane!” Adrian barked.

The bones of the firebase started shifting. Their bodies are as hard as iron and steel.

The mana mutated creatures pushed out of the rubble.

The creatures pouring through the gap defied easy categorization. Some resembled wolves or mountain cats, but with limbs in wrong places, crystalline growths instead of fur, and too many eyes that pulsed with internal light. Others were more insectoid, carapaces fused with tree bark and stone, mandibles dripping with luminescent ichor.

“They need time to form up,” Len readied his sword. Beside him, Rick's hammer appeared in his hand as if conjured, its rune-inscribed head already glowing with power. His spitter slung on his back.

"Just like old times," Rick muttered.

"We were never this rusty in the old times," Len countered, already moving toward the breach.

Four soldiers had formed a hasty firing line, spitters cutting down the first wave of intruders. But more kept coming, and the soldiers were running low on ammunition.

Len reached them first, stepping into the gap. He channeled mana into his blade, compressing thermal energy along its edge until the air shimmered around it. His first swing bisected a leaping creature from snout to tail, the wound cauterizing instantly from the heat.

Rick hit a creature, it coughed blood and dropped.

"Fall back to the tunnel entrance," he ordered the soldiers. "We'll cover you."

"Sir, we can—" one began.

"That's an order.” Len kicked a chunk of stone, hitting a creature that was reeling back to spit something in the face, causing it to stutter its attack. Rick’s hammer hitting its armored exterior.

It flinched as Rick called it back and kept hitting. Len kicking another stone.

The soldiers hesitated only briefly before nodding and beginning their withdrawal, firing controlled bursts as they retreated.

The spitting creature collapsed under repeated strikes, more of the creatures freeing themselves from the rubble.

Len moved back slowly, Rick with him.

They needed to draw back, but at a pace that kept them at the perfect distance where they got closer to the assembling shield wall, without giving the creatures enough room to build up too much momentum, or have the numbers to overwhelm them.

"Thought we agreed to stop playing hero." Rick said as he hit a charging beast, throwing it to the side.

Len dispatched another creature with a precise thrust. "Old habits."

"Yeah, well, those habits got us killed last time."

"Technically, we lived to a ripe old age."

Another wave of creatures surged through the breach. Rick stepped forward, slamming his hammer into the ground. The stone floor rippled outward in a shockwave that sent the beasts tumbling backward.

Len grabbed a beast leaping through the air at Rick with his will and slammed it into the ground.

Rick smashed its skull and moved back as Len formed heat lances behind him, places to catch the three creatures that rushed Rick.

Len and Rick moved as one unit, no wasted movement, no verbal communication needed. The pressure mounted, the two of them controlling an area twenty meters wide, stopping anything from passing them.

"Time to go," Rick said, dispatching another beast with a casual hammer swing.

Len nodded. They'd bought enough time. He could see that the line was dressed and ready. “Move!”

Len jumped to the side and reached out with his will, throwing himself backwards. The mana density threatened mana poisoning but it also pushed his recovery to new heights.

As he and Rick split apart to either side of the room, spitters opened up from behind the shields, creating a corridor of suppressing fire. Len and Rick sprinted across the cavern floor, dodging abandoned equipment. 

They cut through the beasts.

Len ran to the edge of the tunnel and put his hand out, waving it. “Friendly coming in!”

“Move!” Someone yelled.

Len came around the wall of the tunnel, hugging the wall, feeling every hair on his body sticking up as he moved so close to the business end of so many spitters firing at the same time.

A hand grabbed his shoulder and pulled him between shields that closed behind him.

“Thanks,” Len said.

“No problem.”

Len looked out between the slim openings in the shields as he moved to the rear of the formation, getting a clearer view as he regrouped with Rick.

Outside, through gaps in the crumbling structure, Len could see the storm had intensified beyond anything he'd witnessed in either lifetime. The sky was a chaotic swirl of colors that shouldn't exist in nature, and the very air seemed to warp and twist.

"This is accelerating faster than it should," Len observed as they clambered over a fallen support beam.

"Timeline's already changed," Rick replied. "We knew there would be variables."

"Not variables of this magnitude."

The firebase entrance, visible from their position, began to disintegrate as the storm's full fury struck it. Massive stones were torn free and hurled skyward, swallowed by the swirling vortex of energy. The very composition of the material changed before their eyes—going through different states and varied materials—upgrading its composition, the mana mutating it.

The creatures were panicked—even mana mutated they sensed the threat of the storm.

Creatures were lifted from the ground, scrabbling to hold onto some kind of purchase. 

Their bodies contorted as mana corruption accelerated within them. Some simply came apart, others fused with whatever debris the storm carried.

The shield wall was being pulled towards the storm.

Len stretched out his will, his mana grabbing onto the soldiers, and digging into the tunnel itself to secure them. Rick's will joined his own as the storm battered their men.

They were at the edge of the storm as it dug into the mountain itself. It was a physical force battering and fighting them. 

Len staggered, pain lancing through his skull as his will strained against forces that defied mortal comprehension. Through narrowed eyes, he watched the firebase completely dissolve, the mountain face itself being reshaped by chaotic energies.

In that moment, Len felt small—a mote of consciousness against the universe's indifferent power. For a hundred and fifty years in another timeline, he had built his strength, ascending beyond what humans were meant to be. And still, faced with this raw force of mana, he was insignificant.

But he wasn’t powerless.

Fuck you nature. He braced himself, and dumped his experience into his body stat and he opened his mana gates and drew in deep.

Mana—that heady rush spread through his body, his channels gorged on that power. It hit his core, his cultivation rocketing upwards as he pulled out a mana stone from his pocket and threw it into his mouth and circulated his mana.

Len’s entire being felt like he was burning up, his nerves being reinforced as a torrent of mana was released through his body.

He gritted his teeth as red vapor spread through his core as he felt himself pass through a bottleneck and keep going.

His body was strained, the run from the dungeon, the injuries, the fighting.

Pain tells you, you’re alive. Pain tells you that you fucked up and pain tells you to give up.

He grounded himself. His will hardened, reinforcing the shields through sheer determination. Beside him, Rick did the same, their combined effort creating a bubble of stability against the storm's fury.

The noise was overwhelming, then suddenly—gone. A pocket of unnatural silence enveloped him as Len lost his hearing. Wind tore at shields, some flew away, ripped away.

He was at his limit, there was no more to give. Len snarled at that voice in the back of his head. There was always more. The mind weaker than the body, he kept drawing in mana, cycling it through his body to reinforce his will.

The storm would not have his lads.

Len tugged the men that were nearly torn away back.

Their friends grabbing onto them and pulling them back down to the ground.

How long they held, Len couldn't say. Time seemed to stretch and compress in the storm's presence. His muscles began to tremble from exertion, sweat soaking through his clothing despite the cold mountain air. Just when he thought he might collapse, the pressure began to ease.

Slowly, gradually, the storm's fury abated. The winds receded, the chaotic energies dispersing as the vortex moved westward, leaving destruction in its wake. Sound returned in a rush.

Len held onto the men he had braced with, sagging.

Troops checked on one another, they were shaken. Fear draining to stunned relief.

"You good?" Rick asked, his own voice hoarse from exertion.

Len nodded, too drained for words. Together, they turned to survey what remained of the firebase and cavern.

Nothing recognizable was left. Where the firebase had stood, there was just a hole in the mountain.

Converted materials dropped to crash where the firebase had once been. Now it was littered with all kinds of high grade materials, the firebase some walls, and an outlined on the ground of rooms and walls.

The landscape beyond had been reshaped and altered.

Altered plant growth thrived and spread at unnatural speeds, claiming their territory.

The mountain face had been reshaped, carved into impossible geometries that hurt the eye to look upon directly.

"How..." a man—one of the civilian engineers—whispered, "how can anything survive that?"

Len had no answer that would make sense to someone who hadn't lived through the apocalypse. How could he explain that this was just the beginning? That what they'd witnessed was merely the birth pangs of a world being reshaped?

That the mana storms had altered continents.

“Well fuck, I just got the firing slits just how I wanted them!” Rick moaned.

A few nervous laughs broke the tension. Len felt the corner of his mouth twitch upward despite everything.

"I’m going to need a bigger hammer," Rick muttered.

"And better walls," Len agreed.

“Good to see that the wind didn’t mess up your hair too much sir,” Adrian said.

“Its fucking great not being bald anymore!” Rick grinned.

Len shot him a look.

Adrian frowned, shrugged and shook his head.  "All personnel accounted for. Twelve wounded, three seriously, but no fatalities. The tunnel integrity is holding. Though I’d like to get that checked."

Rick tapped the ground with his heel. “I’ll need to firm it up at the entrance and I’ll want to check the area around the turntable.”

Len nodded. "Get everyone deeper into the tunnel. We'll need to reconfigure our defenses and salvage what we can."

"Yes, sir."

“Make sure that everyone gets healed up. I want everyone checked for mana poisoning, its easy to forget about it in the middle of a fight,” Len said.

“We’ll cap up the end of the tunnel to slow the mana getting through. I want everyone coming with me to have a healing ability and to be checked before they leave the tunnel,” Rick said.

“I’ll see to it,” As Adrian moved off to coordinate, Len turned back to the wasteland that had been their firebase. In the distance, the dungeon site glowed with pulsing energy, visible even through the twisted landscape. The evolution wasn't complete—it had only entered its next phase.

A low grade tremor ran through the ground, the dungeon shifting and altering to a new form.

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+6 to Body

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Body: 117

XP: 2,765/20,375

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+2 to Mana

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Mana: 87

XP: 3,153/12,683

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They stood there a moment longer, two men who had already lived through the end of the world once, now watching it begin again. The challenges ahead were immense—rebuilding their defenses, turning the train around, preparing for what would emerge from the evolved dungeon.

But they'd faced worse. They'd died fighting it, in a timeline that now existed only in their memories. This time would be different.

It had to be.

"Let's get to work," Len said finally, turning away from the destruction. "We've got a train to turn around."

“And a new base to build. Can you make me some gun barrels? I’m thinking the kind I could fire a misbehaving private through,” Rick said.

Rick was grinning, but there was a glint in his eye.

“I’ll see what I can do,” Len sighed.