“How does this work again?” I asked the soldier next to me.

  His name was Eric. He was a Level 85 Swordsman. Not an Adventurer, just a guy that wanted to help protect his home and the people in it, not someone that wanted to be at the forefront. A good guy. Part of the post-System generation. A legit twenty-seven years old. And hitting Level 85 at that age and not delving Dungeons, that was pretty good.

  I kind of wished he was an Adventurer.

  Eric looked into the woods as the sound of fighting came through the trees. I’d sent some of the soldiers out to try and delay the Grimdar reinforcements. They’d been engaging them for a bit now. This first batch of soldiers that had come to Grey Wolf Territory with me weren’t just the grunts of the Solace Army. They were some more elite fighters, like Eric, and some more specialized fighters. Those were the ones out in the woods.

  If the Adventurers were our Special Forces, the guys out in the woods were the next closest thing, for this kind of thing they were probably better. Adventurers were specialized, not the best at wars. We were made to delve dungeons, fight Arcanebeasts and climb the Tower. Soldiers like Eric, they fought monster waves, herds of monsters, other Awakened.

  I was standing behind a big cannon. There were six barrels in a circle, each about two inches diameter. Each was also about three feet long, welded to a box. The box was designed to let them rotate and feed energy into each. A crystal on top was what took that energy. The thing was mounted to a tripod that let it swivel and raise up and down. There was a counterweight coming off the back to help keep it balanced.

  We called it the Gatling Cannon.

  I loved the things. I’d first seen them in use a couple years back. Against a herd of Wild Pronghorns. They did a lot of damage in a short amount of time. Each individual shot didn’t do much, but it added up over time.

  They were great for breaking through barriers. That’s when the repeating shots were better than larger cannonballs. The repeating blasts in the same spot just wore the barrier out quicker. The whole theory had been explained to me, but I hadn’t really been paying attention. I just knew they did their job.

  There were three of them spread out around the portal opening, facing the woods. Between them were portable walls. Made out of dark iron, the things had crystals that generated barriers. About three feet wide, six feet tall, three inches of solid iron, the things could take a beating. But the crystal barriers helped defuse the energy thrown at them, helping the portable walls take a beating for longer. They stood at a slight angle, mounted to a thick iron plate with a counterweight on the end to help hold them in place. The things were heavy, made to not be pushed once set down.

  We’d arranged it all in a kind of rough semi-circle about twenty feet out from the portal. We used the river as one side connecting to the boulder. Along the river we had posted a rough palisade wall, more logs being driven into the ground. We used the softer sand in the river to help get them in place quicker, tying them back with rope and rods driven into the harder ground.

  It was amazing how quick things could get done when had superhuman levels of strength and agility.

  The palisade wall was just a half dozen broken down trees, most with the branches still attached. It wouldn’t stop much, but it was something.

  The fighting in the trees intensified, getting louder as it came closer.

  “You feed your Arcanum into the crystal,” Eric said. “The more you push in, the stronger the blasts, but the quicker you’re drained.”

  “Makes sense.”

  We had a couple of the soldiers standing back closer to the portal. They were the relief for the gunners. Of which I was going to be one to start with.

  Everyone shifted, waiting as the fighting got closer.

  “Move the wall,” I ordered.

  Two of the soldiers grabbed one of the walls by the handles on the sides and moved it out of the way, leaving a big gap in the wall. We had smaller gaps because the space we needed to cover was bigger than what we had guns and walls for. But in those spaces would be the soldiers, the ones with Tanking Essences and Abilities. Big armored walls themselves.

  Solace soldiers raced out of the treeline, a couple turning back and firing off Abilities. Lines of red, green, blue and even purple shot into the trees. There was grunting, flashes of other colors and some return fire. The half dozen soldiers raced past the wall, the portable barrier shifted back into position. One of the soldiers bent down, touching a crystal mounted to the base. There was a flash of light and I new the Gravity Essence imbued into the crystal was basically locking the portable wall into place.

  I looked back at the Soldiers, who were pulling out Health and Arcanum potions, already working to get themselves up to full readiness. There were six of them. Eight had gone out. I hoped the other two were still in the woods and fighting. I doubted it though.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “How many?” I yelled, seeing energy blasts slamming into the barriers of the portable walls.

  Lots of colors, bright flashes.

  “Four dozen,” one of the soldiers said.

  “You heard her,” I shouted so the soldiers around me could hear, I saw Mason about four soldiers to my left, near the waterline. That was his to watch. “We have four dozen invaders coming our way. They want to take our world and plunder it. Are we going to let them?”

  “NO!!”

  I laid my hand on the crystal of the Gatling Cannon, which flashed briefly. I could feel my Arcanum flowing from my Core and through the crystal. The Cannon started to hum a bit.

  Shadows could be seen under the tree canopy. Blasts of colors shot out, striking the ground in front of us, the barriers and even over us. I glanced up, making sure the couple archers had plenty of cover on top of the hill. We’d been afraid the Grimdar could surround the hill and come at us from the top, so we’d made sure doing that would cost them.

  “Hold your fire,” I said, and turned to the man next to me. “Sergeant Parker, you have the command.”

  “Yessir,” Parker said. “Hold!,” he shouted.

  The first Grimdar stepped out of the trees, a hulking brute with gray fur and tan stripes. He held a mace. Another followed and then a third. More blasts shot out, hitting our barriers. The portable walls had a second benefit. The crystal formed barrier spread out past the iron. If close enough, the two could intersect. It wasn’t that strong, but it could hold for a bit and helped cover the gaps.

  “Hold,” Parker yelled out.

  More Grimdar came out. They looked pretty cocky, which was kind of to be expected. These guys were probably vets of many incursions, or had been trained by vets. They’d been through it before. We were a new world, a backwater, fresh to the Multiverse.

  “Lord Howell,” Sergeant Parker said, voice calm as a dozen Grimdar stood at the treeline. “Would you like to do the honors?”

  “Yes I would.”

  I activated the Gatling Cannon.

  Blasts of white energy shot out, the barrels rotating quickly. They streaked across the distance. I sprayed the cannon in an arc, striking all the Grimdar. A couple fell, some shrugged off the hits and a couple shots impacted summoned barriers. I kept feeding Arcanum into the crystal, more shots firing from the multiple barrels.

  “FIRE!!,” Parker yelled.

  The other two guns opened up, multiple colors of energy blasts firing through the gaps in the walls. Streaks of energy shot out from the top of the hill.

  Grimdar started to fall.

  The glowing Essences left behind started to get lost in the bright flashes and haze of the various colors being thrown around. I could barely see anything. Lots of colors from both sides. The other two guns were blasting out blue and green, based on the Arcanum the gunners were feeding into the crystals. Then the green changed to orange as the first gunner was replaced.

  We kept up the barrage.

  The second gunner was replaced, with purple energy this time. I wondered what kind of Essence made purple energy. The colors were normally pretty easy to figure out. Fire was red, blue water, etc…The non-elemental energies like my force, kinetic and sonic tended to be white. Colorless.

  “Lord Howell,” someone shouted from behind me, trying to be heard over the noise of the weapons. “Do you need to be relieved?”

  “Not yet,” I yelled back.

  I strafed the gun back and forth, picking out the shadowed forms between the trees. I could see the impacts bouncing off shields and barriers formed by the Grimdar. Earth, fire, water, air. All kinds of things. I concentrated on those, figuring the shots from my cannon were stronger. A barrage, concentrated on one spot, made short work of most shields.

  “Hold,” Sargent Parker yelled out, the command passed down the line.

  We all stopped firing.

  The chaotic rainbow of colors faded. There was no return fire. I blinked, clearing away the afterimages and saw a lot of dead Grimdar along the treeline. I couldn’t see any just inside the trees but knew they would be there.

  There were a lot of bodies.

  I stepped back, seeing a soldier almost directly behind me. I pointed at the gun.

  “Your turn,” I said, smiling.

  “There’s nothing to shoot at,” he said. “Sir,” he added.”

  I clapped him on the armored shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. There will be.”

  I looked up at the top of the hill, seeing Sunie with the archers and other ranged. They were facing in all directions, watching the woods. Mason stood near the makeshift palisade. There were a couple of Grimdar bodies floating in the pond. Lots of Essences.

  Sergeant Parker stood in the middle and I joined him.

  “Sir,” he said.

  “Sarge,” I nodded, turning around and looking into the woods.

  “I’d like to send some trusted troops out to collect the Essences and anything else we can quickly grab before the next wave,” Parker said. “But there are probably Grimdar watching and waiting.”

  “Mason,” I called out, the big man turning to me. “Want to come out into the woods with me and play with some Grimdar?”

  “Sounds like fun,” he said.