CC 11: Thunderplump ~ Fifteen!

Joe was having so much fun with his lessons that he found himself staying far past when he’d planned to leave. In fact, the only thing that broke him out of lecture mode was the dozens of horns and alarms going off outside of the observatory. Thankfully, he didn't have to give an explanation to his students as to why he turned on his heel and sprinted away.

Most of them were hot on his heels, needing to take up their own positions among the defenders. Since the Beast Waves were a near constant at this point, the alarms sounding as they were could only mean one thing.

A Boss Monster was approaching.

As he sprinted toward the walls, the Ritualist directed his orbs up into the air above him, allowing mana to flow as they unspooled and took on a familiar shape. Chancing a glance upward, he ensured that the repaired ritual hadn’t gotten kinked or damaged while opening and *tisked*. Making a new Ritual Orb had been the easy part, comparatively. Joe had simply found an Expert smith and let them use his blueprints.

No, the annoying part of the process had been unspooling all of the wire that had been in four orbs then piecing it all back together from scratch. “Seriously, if Jaxon hadn't found that pair of needle-nosed pliers for me, I have no idea when I would’ve seen Morsum again.”

The spell bound in his orb activated, and mana flowed through the hovering ritual circles. Darkness collected around the Ritual Orb of Constitution, scattering moments later and revealing the Pseudo-Lich head. The bright flames dancing in its empty eye sockets shifted slightly, and Joe knew that he was being stared at in annoyance. “Mor~sum.”

“Yeah, well, I didn't exactly plan for your orb to be chopped in half by a Grandmaster wielding laser swords. Don't worry, we’ve got plenty of creatures that need killin’ today.” When Joe finished speaking, the skull released a gurgling sound that could have indicated interest or just a buildup of blood in the back of its throat. Then the Ritualist was leaping, landing atop the walls and running toward the entrance of the labyrinth they’d built around the city.

The Beast Wave below was relentless and unending. But, thanks to the joint efforts of the people of Novusheim, the enormous monsters were being continuously pelted with arrows, spells, and ritual effects. Every tower had become a beacon that showed the best place to attack densely packed monsters, and dozens of the enormously hard-to-kill entities were being slain each second. As he ran past them, Joe tried to pick out which of the towers had been built via ritual and which had been constructed by hand.

He gave the game up quickly, since it was far too obvious.

Anything that’d been built by a ritual was seamless, as if it had been poured into a cast and created as a single whole. In a way, it had. The Dwarven constructions, on the other hand, were not only created from hundreds of individual pieces but were also etched and embellished in such a way as to show some of the history of the city-to-be, as well as showing who had worked on them by their artistic style. “Seriously, even on these? These towers are disposable. How much faster could they go if they didn't-”

Joe shook that thought off. Trying to convince a Dwarf to put unadorned structures together was like asking him not to laugh when one of his towers lit a Penguin on fire. It just wasn't going to happen.

Closing in on the entrance, Joe scanned the miles-long stream of monsters, looking for the telltale signs of the first boss. “Can't believe it's already the tenth wave. Abyss, that means I’ve burned through almost half of my allotted time to get the battery station up and running.”

A deep bellow from a scout rang out. “Boss Monster spotted! It's one of those cats, three times the usual size! It's got a squad of elites on it! Thirty seconds until it approaches the–no!”

The sharp gasp drew all eyes to the scout, and the shocked human got a hold of himself and shoved his hand at a forty-five degree angle away from the entrance. “It's coming over the wall! Archers!”

“Aim for the legs!” The experienced battle commanders among the Dwarves took over, snapping out a half dozen instructions as a beautiful leopard soared up from the ground and landed on top of the wall.

“Oh, feces,” Joe breathed, barely able to get the words past his lips. So far, none of the monsters had been intelligent enough to land on the walls and use them as paths, but it seemed that had changed. The Boss Monster sprinted along the wall, leaving a bridge of ice behind it wherever it went. A handful of elite leopards were right behind it, and they followed their leader, but only for a few moments. Then, one of them jumped off of the wall, but not toward the city as expected.

No, it jumped out into the seething tide of creatures, creating a bridge for them to join combat on top of the walls.

Every few seconds, one of the elites would leap off, and by the time the fifth had jumped, the first to go had circled around and jumped up again. For the first time, the ranged attackers on the walls were having to fight with the enormous beasts at the same altitude, and they quickly became overwhelmed. Bows were swapped out for blades, and quick-reaction forces from the Legion scurried along the new battleground, working hard not to slip off and over the edge of the battlements.

Joe lost track of the surge happening at the edges, his eyes tracking the movements of the Boss Monster itself. It was barreling along the walls, slamming into as many defenders as possible and sending them tumbling. As he watched, it suddenly shifted, skidding about a dozen feet before crouching down just like a regular cat and pouncing. Claws extended, the leopard let out a savage growl as it arced above the killing corridor, landing on the next wall over and beginning its sprint anew.

“Feces!”

Shifting his own momentum, Joe grabbed an outstretched arm, feeling like his own was about to tear off as the Dwarf twirled in place and hurled him back the way he’d come. “Thanks!”

“Never have to thank me for chucking a human.” The laughing Dwarf's voice floated to him over the din of battle.

The Ritualist wasn't exactly sure what to make of that comment, but he didn't have time or attention to spare on it. He quickly began calculating how fast he could return to the center of Town, his face paling when he realized that the leopard was going to get there first. “Message! Heartpiercer Mcshootypants! Boss Monster incoming; it's going over the walls. We need to slow it down or slap it down between the walls. Thirteen seconds until it reaches the interior of the–”

“I’m on it; stop talking.” The bristling sensation of her thoughts hit Joe’s mind like someone had whipped a hedgehog into it.

Wisdom +2!

Able to focus on his own race and trusting that other people were pulling their weight, Joe pushed all of his effort into Omnivaulting faster. On his third push, his foot hit a sheet of ice at a bad angle, and a small notification appeared that he had made a bad choice due to his low Luck threshold. With a grunt of effort, Joe forced the magic flowing to his feet to realize that ice was water; it just had its molecules slowed down a lot.

As he slid across the surface of the ice, toward the edge of the wall and a forty foot drop while barely maintaining his balance, Joe dumped mana into his skill and shoved. Fifteen feet in every direction around him, the ice coating the top of the wall shattered and blasted into the air, trailing along behind the Ritualist like the tail of a comet as it hurtled through space. As his upward momentum slowed, the ice caught up with him, and he kicked off it with yet another Omnivault; shifting his direction and blasting forward, getting ahead of the leopard.

Strength +1!

Dexterity +1!

Omnivault (Master II → Master III). Congratulations! As you have increased in Mastery level, all of your Characteristics have increased by +5!

He grunted as his muscles contracted, grew denser, more malleable and controllable. His mind sharpened; the individual hairs on the lower left lip of the leopard leapt into perfect view—he could have done without that, actually—and his plans came ever-more intuitively. Joe backflipped, landing on the second-to-last wall before entering the Town proper, leaning down and slapping his hand on the stone as his momentum was bled off. “C’mon, Heartpiercer…!”

The boss leopard flung itself from its position, eyes locked on the shimmering bald man daring to stand in its way. It let out a warbling snarl as it crossed the distance, paws and claws outstretched to rend his–

*Thwack*.

An arrow that had flown a massive distance slammed into the back leg of the leopard, shifting its spin violently and causing it to miss its landing. It slapped into the edge of the wall just in front of the Ritualist, bending sharply and smacking its head on the stone before twisting and dropping down into the killing corridors. As it hit the ground, the low growl of fury that floated back up caused the hairs on Joe's arms to stand on end. “Nice shot, but that thing is ma~ad.”

Luck +2!

Checking over the edge, Joe met the gaze of the beast, which was gleaming with a ferocious intelligence that made the human's heart sink. A smattering of arrows flew through the air toward it, and the local ritual towers charged up and started sending a melange of arcane energies in its direction. The creature practically scoffed as it began moving with unnatural agility for something its size, dodging most of the attacks and shrugging off the rest of them—weak blows that it accepted in exchange for not being hit by the most damaging of them.

“Not a fan of this thing,” the Ritualist muttered to himself as the leopard spun in place and shot off down the corridor, chased by spells the entire way. “I just need to get ahead of it and figure out some way to make it stay in one place while-”

Joe went silent as a voice cut through the cold.

“Here, kitty, kitty! How adorable are you? Listen, I have this Anatomy skill I’ve been dying to advance. Well, killing to advance, but you get the picture!”

“Change of plans.” Joe started moving faster. “I need to put that beast out of its misery before Jaxon finishes experimenting on it. War crimes are one thing; letting him have free rein is another.”

“Ooh-hoo-hoo! So feisty! Come, now, let me adjust your attitude and finish this pet project of mine.”