Chương 24: The Siege of the Culvert

The twelve vanguard soldiers from the Pixel Rex Mercenary Corps hit the floor of the ravine with a series of heavy, metallic thuds, kicking up white limestone dust around their boots. Across the narrow trench, the massive timber gates of the southern drainage culvert shuddered as another squad—wearing the silver-and-crimson sashes of Merlion Holdings—scrambled down from the western slope. The giant stalker let out a low, gut-rattling roar that shook the dry terebinth brush.

It lunged forward, its slate-thick tail slamming against a boulder and shattering it into flying shards. It caught the Pixel Rex front rank head-on. Clang.

"The hide is too dense!" the lead Pixel Rex tank shouted, his arm shaking under the massive kinetic impact.

"Every strike is bouncing off the slate plates! Our blades are chipping!" Ethan stared at his translucent character menu. The flashing text of the Artisan Class Balancing Matrix blinked at the top of his profile: Crafting profiles receive experience points based on the value and material utility of their localised trade transactions. The developers had built this mechanism specifically to keep artisan-classes from falling behind the combat curve.

Despite the high-density glucose shot pumping through his real-world veins, Ethan felt the cold, creeping shadows of his twenty-six-hour fatigue trying to claw its way back into his skull. He had ninety-four server hours left on his lease, and he wasn't going to spend them panicking. His brain processed the numbers with clinical precision. He dropped to his knees in the wet river mud, his gnarled fingers working with aggressive, silent speed.

He channeled a minimal fraction of his mana pool through his infinite-durability blunt bronze trowel, mentally arranging the consonantal root א-ד-מ over and over. The red earth groaned under his palms. Instead of casting a wall on the spot, he used his newly unlocked Semitic Conjugation Matrices to condense the iron-rich silt into compact, hard-baked terra-cotta bricks. They were modular, compressed blocks embedded with the creation code, ready to expand into full 500-durability bulwarks the moment force hit them.

One brick. Three bricks. Six bricks. Zero copper spent on input. He swept the pre-crafted blocks into his coarse burlap apron and stepped out of the shadow of the wall. He trotted right up behind the collapsing left flank of the Pixel Rex line, where a warrior's bronze shield was groaning under the stalker's tail swipes.

"Clear out, mud-scratcher!" the warrior snapped, not turning his head as his boots skidded through the silt.

"Go back to the pottery wheels! You're blocking our vanguard's pathing alignment!" Ethan did not step back. He held up a glowing red brick directly beside the warrior's visor.

"Your shield is at twelve percent durability," Ethan said, his voice flat, unaffected by the roaring beast before him.

"The next tail sweep splits your line and triggers a squad wipe. This is a modular clay bulwark; it renders a five-hundred-durability terra-cotta wedge. It can help you lock the beast's left turning radius for four minutes." The warrior's eyes widened behind his bronze nasal guard as the stalker's tail swung back for a secondary strike.

"Give it here! Quick!"

"Two kilograms of raw weapon scrap," Ethan said, keeping his palm steady.

"Or I walk over to Merlion Holdings."

"You extortionate rat!" the warrior hissed. He unclipped three dull copper javelin heads from his harness and opened his trade window. [Trade Finalized] You have traded: [Deployable Terra-Cotta Wedge Brick] You have received: [Damaged Copper Weapon Scrap — Weight: 2. 1 kg] Artisan Trade Experience Awarded: +450 XP The warrior dropped the anchor stone into the silt. The red ceramic wall erupted violently into place, pinning the monster's left shoulder.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Meanwhile, Ethan's level bar surged past the fifteen percent marker toward Level 5. He sprinted across the muddy trench toward the rival Merlion Holdings squad, who were struggling to flank the trapped beast from the right. Pixel Rex paid with junk. Merlion can pay the premium. The Merlion captain spotted him approaching, his bronze khopesh raised.

"Back off, F2P trash! We don't need a pottery exhibit interrupting our raid!"

"Pixel Rex just bought the left wall to secure their positioning," Ethan said, dropping his shoulder as he skidded to a halt beside the captain's stirrup.

"They are already executing their high-damage combos. Two Silver Shekels via personal ledger trade, or I sell more bricks to Pixel Rex and let them box you out entirely." The Merlion captain looked at the rising terra-cotta wall on the opposite side, then at the monster's exposed throat.

"Dammit. Send the trade request!" Ping. [Trade Finalized] You have traded: [Deployable Terra-Cotta Flank Brick] You have received: [2. 00 Silver Shekels (Private Ledger Transfer)] Artisan Trade Experience Awarded: +500 XP Ethan handed over the second brick. The captain hurled it into the mud face. The earth roared, a second massive ceramic slab locking the right side of the ravine. The Gaba'on Stalker was now completely squeezed inside a narrow, two-sided terra-cotta vice.

Ethan retreated back to the mud-brick foundation wall, his pouch heavy with fresh copper scrap and two newly extracted silver shekels.