CC 9: Tenacity ~ Forty

Joe stood at the breach in the wall furthest from the city proper. His ritual was active, and the warehouse he was making was nearly complete. The far wall fit directly into the hole, jutting out slightly as he had repositioned the warehouse to ensure that there was the maximum amount of room for the creatures to wander through it. “I really hope the narrowing of walls doesn’t count as a blockage. This thing will fold like paper if they run into it too hard.”

The Ritualist had gotten far better at planning for the future, and leveraged that to his advantage now. Jotunheim’s chaotic field would rapidly force the building to deteriorate, so he had decided to save the innermost sections of wall to be filled for last, just to ensure that they would remain long enough to break up the flow of monsters as needed. Certain that it was just his imagination, Joe still twitched, his eyes flicking back and forth as though the monsters were hidden in the shadows nearby. The air was heavy with the metaphysical stench of bloodlust and actual decay, wafting in from the immense horde.

It was here, at this most vulnerable point, that he needed to prove that this would work. If the monsters were able to push right through the building, Joe would be forced to concede the Village, and issue a general evacuation order. The escape Bubble Beam was up for the test, and he could only hope that the Cyclops didn’t have a ranged option that would allow it to eradicate the fleeing citizens. “No, stop. I can't think like that.”

Joe took a deep breath, stealing himself for the impending battle. He knew that it was going to be rough, but he was going to work his butt off to make sure that he had no regrets at the end. “Warehouses, Ritual of Slaughter, then build ritual towers like a crazy man wherever Socar tells me to put them.”

The ritual completed, barely a strain on his resources or mental acuity in the slightest. Keeping an eye on the building, he saw that the durability counter on it began to tick down immediately, and at its current rate, would lose five points of durability per minute. That was even faster than he had expected, and Joe tried to do the math. “Will it hold long enough to serve its purpose? That's all that matters… so long as the monsters have to still walk down this hallway, instead of circumventing all of those towers, I don't care if it falls after that.”

As this was the nearest warehouse, which should have the greatest number of creatures moving through it, Joe placed the first section of his Ritual of Slaughter and checked that it was keyed to a very, very specific requirement. “Any creature at all that moves through this building while it’s losing durability will be marked.”

Relieved to see that the powerful ritual was still able to take effect on such a low ranked building, he decided that there was nothing else to be done. Joe simply had to work with the hope that everything would work out.

With a flick of his wrist, he channeled his mana into his feet and activated Omnivault, bounding into the air as he rushed to his next necessary location.

As this is the 25th and final wave, a group of elite monsters has joined the battle! You’re so close. Just fight off this last wave, and the Town is secured!

As soon as that announcement had appeared in his vision, the monsters in the distance howled with excitement and broke into a sprint toward the Village. Joe pushed himself further, reaching the hole in the outer wall that needed to be fixed. The one that all of the monsters were currently rushing toward. He arrived when they had only crossed a quarter of the distance, and heaved for breath as his adrenaline forced him to set up his ritual with shaking hands. Slapping everything into position, Joe activated the ritual and the weakest aspects he owned flooded out of his storage device.

If there was one notable thing about creating literal trash heaps of buildings like this, it was how absolutely rapid the process went. Without the delicate managing of aspects, the intricate flows of mana, or needing to take into account the aesthetics of the final product, the process just flat out finished. Joe stared at the final product, the draw of mana rapidly fading, and considered how he could use this more effectively. “You know what? I bet I could use this as a gigantic shield if I have something flying at me. What did that take… twelve and half seconds?”

Even so, the monsters were nearly upon them, and it was the moment of truth for his defenses. Penguins shot across the ground, closer, and closer… rushing directly past the building and toward the original opening that they should have been targeting from the start. Joe let out a whoop of mixed joy and relief, recognizing that he had just gained nearly half a minute to continue doing what he needed. Now instead of going directly into the walls, the monsters needed to circle the Village and find the entrance once more. This caused the group to split around the city, the two halves of the stream meeting up once more when they reached the entrance, pouring in even as enormous orbs of acid rained down on them.

Knowing that time was running out, Joe moved on to the next warehouse, and the next. Soon each of the holes were plugged, though as planned he left gaps to allow the Penguins to get ahead of the other monsters. He did, of course, ensure that all of them would need to go through any of the buildings where he set up the markers for the Ritual of Slaughter. That was imperative for their eventual success, as Joe knew that even if they managed to take out the over ten thousand weaker monsters in this wave, the Cyclops alone was more dangerous than all of those combined. Still, using these warehouses as conduits, he hoped to be able to draw upon the power each of them was imparting to his ritual and unleash it in a mighty final strike against the boss.

He knew that it was going to be a delicate balance, that this wave was going to be the dance between life and death for not only the Village, but thousands of Dwarves. Humans too, but those would come back with only a small penalty. He blinked several times at his lack of concern for his fellow man. Perhaps it was just that his mind always focused on the things most likely to be lost, that were irreplaceable, but he didn’t want to lose sight of the fact that he needed to care for his people as well. Still, no matter how he got there, this work would be of great benefit to his people as well.

The night deepened as thousands of monsters queued up to enter the maze, the sheer density of the horde preventing rapid entry and causing the creatures to be severely punished by the ritual towers raining death down on them. At this moment, the bravest human volunteers were standing next to the ritual tower, refilling Mana Batteries by hand and swapping them out whenever the attacks of the ritual tower slowed to a halt. So far, as long as they were not completely barricaded off, the walls had been essentially ignored, treated as natural barriers that all monsters needed to go around.

Only when the defenders didn’t follow the rules of this world did monsters attempt to go over or through them, which was enough for the volunteers to brave the danger. That, and a significant bribe.

Joe worked tirelessly until the final warehouse was up and slowly degrading. Were he not protected by his Neutrality Aura, he would be covered in dirt, sweat, and the stink of fear. He wasn’t too proud to admit that the presence of so many monsters, some of them even coming within a dozen feet of him, had caused him to break out in a cold sweat more than once. Knowing that he was barely staying ahead of the leading edge, Joe set up the final piece of the Ritual of Slaughter, hiding it carefully and innocuously against the wall of the warehouse before sprinting away.

*Squawk!*

A Penguin zipped directly through the building, in one door and out the other, right on Joe's heels. He leaped up and away as its beak closed around his foot, yanking off his shoe as he flew through the air. “No!”

Landing on the wall surrounding the city, Joe dropped onto his rear and dangled his feet over the edge as he stared down at the Penguin who was looking up at him and slowly chewing on the leather shoe. “Penguin! You suck! Do you have any idea how difficult it’s going to be to get new shoes here? I'm going to have to create a building specifically for it, find someone who can make those shoes, get them to sign an agreement with me, and wait until they can process leather and anything else they need. All of this while standing there awkwardly in my socks!”

Of all the things that frustrated Joe at this moment, all of the bizarre Charisma games he had been playing with the Dwarves, the struggles he had been facing, the strange betrayal but not a betrayal from a lady who he had thought he might have a future with… somehow, for some reason, this minor inconvenience was the tipping point. “Jotunheim is the worst! Dark Lightning Strike! Dark Lightning Strike! Die, you feathered menace!”

Breathing heavily, clenching his hands, the Ritualist could only watch as the Penguin took the attacks, clearly in pain, but otherwise ignoring him as it started zipping off down the path. Joe's breathing slowly evened out, and the rage clouding his mind faded while his purpose remained. Still, as he raced along the top of the walls with uneven footsteps, he had to control his breathing so as to stay in the moment.

Pulling out the updated map that Socar had given him, Joe looked over the scribbles and markings. For some reason, the Mage had absolutely horrendous handwriting, and luckily Joe had recognized this, asking him to mark each type of tower with a different symbol. There was a little star, a heart, and an ‘X’, to denote which type of tower it should be. Magic drained out of him near-constantly from that point forward, as he erected towers and placed the pre-built ritual tile on them, in conjunction with the stabilization cubes.

Even with as fast as he could build them, as rapidly as he could power the rituals, it still wasn't fast enough for him. Upon activation, every single one of the rituals began delivering its payload within seconds, blasting out lightning, acid, or a combination he had worked out that allowed a bolt of lightning to pass through the bubble of acid—causing a chunk of it to convert into a corrosive gas in hopes of making it bypass the outer defenses of the monsters. The fact that every once in a while that gas would remain in the air long enough to explode upon contact with the follow-up magical attack was just icing on the frosted cake.

There was a constant stream of monsters all around him, luckily scores of feet below, but as Joe finished activating his most recent ritual, he realized that he was almost at the entrance once more. Devoting the touch of mana required for the final step, the Ritualist had to dodge to the side as a bubble of acid formed and launched nigh instantaneously. “That was new…! What in the world could have caused that to be a straight line shot instead of an arc?”

Joe, mind foggy from the time spent in the cold, as well as the consistent pushing of his limits, turned and found himself at a perfect height to stare directly into an enormous orb. The rapidly-blinking Cyclops had acid streaming and bubbling over its only eye, but the damage could be qualified as an irritant at best. “Ah. That would do it.”