Through the Portal I take a quick look before I leap. The colossal creatures’ maw is big enough to swallow whole buildings and I wonder how it even uses it. Does the Ravager Manta land on something? Does it have a Skill that pulls things into its maw to be sliced up? Does the mouth extend out and clamp down on things?
I manifest the Portal into reality and jet through, then close it behind me. The Monster surges forward, leaving me far behind, so I open another Portal and jet through and anchor myself to the right side of the maw with my grappling hook. Now that I’m on the underside I can see it’s just as heavily armored, maybe even moreso, and there are many times the number of pouches holding the other Monsters.
The four types of Monster I saw with Foresight are all emerging from the massive fleshy pockets. Openings and bulges of different shapes and sizes release Monsters ranging from the size of a dog to a four storey house. The swarm toward me but it’s clear the cold emptiness of space has more of an impact on them than it does on me. Joints freeze, body parts rupture, silent screams disappear in the void. Still, they come. And I need to find out more about them. My fighting style doesn’t really translate to human Adventurers so instead I settle for pulling the Status of each type as they close on me.
Arkkil Swarm Interceptor (Level 81)
Health: 2220/2220
Mana: 3670/3770
Conditions: Razor Sharp, Eagle Eye, Aerial Dominance, Reflective Plumage, more…
Raven-like winged Monsters, the Arkkil Interceptors have a three meter wingspan that’s useless in space, but in the atmosphere I’d bet they’re agile and fast. They have serrated beaks and limbs ending in scythe-like talons, along with glowing orange eyes. No doubt their purpose is to establish aerial dominance. Dozens of them race toward me, their claws giving them purchase in the Ravager Manta hide that parts easily under them.
Dh’uundar Seige Beast (Level 142)
Health: 14860/15110
Mana: 2220/2820
Conditions: Unstoppable, Seismic Amplification, Adaptive Defenses, One to Many, more…
Towering four stories tall with mottled, thick armored hide covered in spiny protrusions, half a dozen four legged Dh’uundar Seige Beasts close on me from all around. I’m not sure how they manage to thunder across the surface of the Ravager Manta without drifting up and off into space, but they’re fast as hell and their glowing red maws are nasty and powerful. The cold of space seems to be freezing their exoskeleton which blows apart at the joints and causes them to lock up and stumble as they try to reach me. Blood and organic material vaporize and bubble then freeze into crystals. Grisly floating shrapnel spins off into space.
Viscerlok Drone (Level 55)
Health: 2710/2880
Mana: 830/1010
Conditions: Pack Mentality, Shred and Scatter, Enhanced Reflexes, more…
Fast-moving, dog sized creatures with bladed limbs and multi-eyed faces, the Viscerlok Drones swarm across the Ravager Manta in a way that leaves no doubt they’re all about ground suppression, ripping through opponents in minutes like piranha. They’re tough and shrug off the environmental conditions better than the others despite their low level.
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The last type is truly horrific and definitely not meant for space. Monsters that try to flow toward me crack and snap apart, brittle but resilient as their tentacle-like masses of organic matter pulse with glowing red veins and spear out searching probes remind me of frog’s tongues. Their probes latch onto the surface of the Ravager Manta and pull them forward momentarily before they’re frozen and break apart. I have no idea what kinds of attacks they have, but my Foresight vision and their Conditions give me some hints that they help to terraform and drain the land to corrupt it and boost their forces.
Dreadroot Corruptors (Level 139)
Health: 4330/7870
Mana: 4000/5550
Conditions: Corruptive Aura, Spawning Chamber, Mana Extraction, more…
I trigger Sentinel’s Fury and watch Monsters all around me implode, destroying their structural integrity and causing frozen droplet sprays to crystalize and then shatter when they strike the Ravager Manta’s hide. The Ravager Manta bucks and twists, then changes direction to try to throw me off, but I am immovable with my anchor.
Satisfied, I trigger Resonant Strike and feel the waves flow out from me to disrupt everything in their path. I purposefully don’t target the Ravager Manta and the wave of disruption almost instantly creates a fine frozen mist that boils away an instant later, leaving me alone for a hundred meters in any direction. Notifications roll in as my Danger Sense pushes on me strongly from behind me on my left. You don’t stay alive after an Influx by hesitating; I’ve pushed off and fired my jetpack to use the last of its Mana battery in a blink. I look behind me and Perfect Focus gives me a vivid, slow motion view of one of the spears on the Ravager Manta’s own tail slam into its body where I was anchored.
I swap out my now-dead jetpack and open a Portal then rocket through to another spot on the same Ravager Manta. The AMLs feel elevated here and my connection with Mana from Holgaad and Milford Sound feels strong as always, but since I’ve not fought in space before I decide to check before I ramp up my Stamina expenditure.
Current Ambient Mana Level (AML): 12 +67 (Gift of Gaia)
Stamina Regeneration: 1,292,973 per minute - 21550 per second
Those numbers are totally mind blowing. I trigger Resonant Strike eight times and then another six a second later. The Monster below me resists at first as my Skill strikes it. Almost 300,000 Health and a kilometer wingspan are no joke, but my Resonant Strikes are all focused below me and the surface under me ripples then explodes in a chain reaction down through the body of the Ravager until the space around us is filled with huge boiling and crystallizing chunks of flesh and blood, and two enormous parts of the Ravager Manta separate and spin slowly away from each other, covered in swarms of Monsters, as I float in space and watch slightly in awe of my newfound abilities but also with hope.
My sights then turn to the thousands upon thousands of these things, an invasion fleet much too big for me to stop to get to Earth. I trigger Omnipresent and pick a big one, well over a kilometer of wingspan, and manifest a Portal to it then jet through and swap out my jetpack for a new, charged one as I hit the surface. One last thing to try.
With focus, I reach down and touch the Ravager Manta below me and trigger Psychic Eruption and Geas. The thoughts of the Monster are alien and aggressive, but I grit my teeth and press hard, forming the clearest possible picture in my mind and enforcing it upon the broken, twisted mind of the Ravager below me. It resists, my instructions not aligned to what it’s here to do and what it wants. I dig into the churning core of my new Class and release some of the deep, dangerous energy I can feel down inside of me. Maybe it’s reckless, but it feels a lot like when rage fuels my actions and determination except it has the power of a nuclear bomb, or maybe Dark Mana, rather than one man.
I squeeze a small portion of that power through my body, mind, and SMI into my Evolved Skill and feel it take hold, overwhelming the Ravager Manta’s mind. It now has one primary focus that it won’t be able to break - slow down and disrupt the attack on Earth. In a move so violent and sudden I almost lose my grip, the Ravager Manta pivots 180 degrees and fires all its Mana jets, thrusting it back and across the formation. I don’t know how successful it will be, but I spend another five minutes jumping from Monster to Monster and get ten of them to act as disruptors with my Geas Skill.
Repeated pushes of the still mysterious connection I have with Dark Mana to bolster this Skill both exhausts me and makes me want to explore it even more. I try to wrap my head around how I should visualize it to help me comprehend what’s going on and how I can use it, and the only analogy I can come up with right now is having a fusion reactor infused all through me. My regeneration is so high and still getting stronger that it’s been ages since I felt exhausted physically. It’s quite an unusual feeling now, and I’m relieved as the seconds crawl by under Perfect Focus and I begin to feel back to my normal refreshed state.
With my enhanced Perception I can see the Earth in the distance and estimate at these speeds it’s less than 30 minutes before we arrive. I jump off the last Ravager Manta and float weightless in space. My Geas is having a disruptive impact in places as Manta ram into each other and spear out with their tails, but it’s not nearly enough to give us more time. There are simply too many of them flooding toward Earth; I’ve probably only bought us another five minutes with five minutes of time.
Now my immediate task is completed I feel my anxiety about what’s going to happen spike, but I push it down. Next step, share what I’ve learned with Evan and see how I can make the most impact in his plan.
