Chương 472: Chapter 473: The Enemy

<Where are you guys? > I yelled into the communication bracelet. With giant cracks in reality appearing in the sky, it was clear that something had gone horribly wrong. I had no idea what - but I knew that things were about to get bad, unless another timely rescue arrived. I wanted to be near my friends in case that rescue didn't materialize. <I'm with my dad right now. We were getting a meal together, > Anise said. <Why do you ask? > I sent her a picture of what I was watching in the skies. <What is that?

> Anise asked. <I suspect the universal tree is invading. I have no idea how long we have until things get bad, but I want us to group up. That way we can keep our families safe. > <Sallia and I are both at the [Carver]'s house. I was making her some new armor out of ironwood, > Felix said. <I'll drop the armor immediately - that looks like an emergency. > <Let's me up at Anise's house, > I said. <That's the closest to all of us. Sallia, Felix, can you grab your parents along the way?

Also, have either of you seen my father? I'm going to check my house for him, but if you've seen him more recently, let me know. > <An hour ago, I saw your father talking with the trainer at the hero training grounds, > Sallia said. <Got it. > I rushed towards the training field, while my friends led their own parents towards Anise's house. Meanwhile, I watched the skies anxiously. There weren't any signs of monsters yet, but the purple, otherworldly cracks in the sky were growing larger and larger.

I still hadn't seen anyone from our dimensional cluster appear, either, which was making me even more nervous. My friends and I were above average level fighters in this world, but we weren't anything truly special even in our small clan. We might be once we grew up… but that was a matter for the future, not right now. If an army or monster horde of apocalyptic proportions and power invaded us right now, we wouldn't even be able to preserve our own lives.

We had no way to escape, no way to fight off an army, and our ability to hide was unknown. This was bad. Right as I found my father at the training fields, along with a few other hero trainees who were gathering their own families, I saw the first monster emerge from the sky. The first monster to appear appeared nearly a hundred meters tall. It was a gargantuan monster, with rotten wooden teeth and a pair of hungry, bright eyes.

As it crawled out of the crack in the sky and plummeted towards the ground, I realized the monster was quite unusual. Every single tooth, eyeball, and chunk of wooden skin I could see was an independent, living organism. They were all fused together into some sort of super-giant monster. It was more like a colony of weaker monsters, rather than an individual monster.

Even though that was slightly less terrifying than some kind of law-grade skill wielding multiversal horror, the sheer size of the humanoid creature appearing in the sky didn't bring me hope. One hundred meters meant that it was more than fifty times larger than the average member of our clan. It was made of hundreds of weaker monsters, but each of those monsters was still in the upper range of the monsters I had seen in this world. How in the world were we supposed to contend with an abomination like this?

The monster slammed into the ground like a billion ton asteroid, and the ground rumbled and quaked. The monster hadn't landed on top of us, thankfully - but it was still close by. It was less than an hour of travel away from us - and that was by the standards of regular travel speed. I could barely make out the monster through the gargantuan trees, but I could still confirm one thing. The monster was travelling towards us. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Was there anything I could do to kill this thing? I didn't think a few icicles were going to cut it. Even if I emptied my entire mana pool, I might not be able to down this abomination. A whistling sound from the skies distracted me from my thoughts, as another of the giant monster colonies plummeted towards the earth. This one landed further away from us, and began heading in a different direction after landing. Then, a third and fourth giant appeared in the sky.

I eyed all of my skills and abilities dubiously - but none of them seemed like a solution for what was about to happen. When that giant hit us, it would be a desperate fight for survival - and with more giants on the way, I wasn't optimistic about our chances. After nearly a dozen giants fell from the sky, the purple crack in reality started to vomit tiny black souls into the air. They fell like raindrops towards the earth. I grimaced. The giants weren't enough, clearly.

The Universal tree had given them even more backup. The tiny void-colored monsters had landed much further away, so I had no idea what they looked like or what their abilities might be, but I knew instinctively that they would be dangerous. Regular monsters were already dangerous, but they usually weren't organized. They moved in herds, swarms, and packs.

They could fight with some level of coordination, but they didn't have backup from multiple different kinds of monsters, designed to work as a team, compensate for each other's weaknesses, and reinforce each other when emergencies happened. Something told me that was not the case for these giants and the little black dots I had seen.

"Miria?" asked my father.

"What's going on? You spaced out for a second. This isn't the time to lose focus. We need to reinforce the outer perimeter of the beast." I blinked in surprise at my father's words. His gaze was also on the crack in the sky, but unlike me, he hadn't instinctively tried to find a safe place to bunker down with his family and friends. Instead, he was preparing to reinforce the outer perimeter of the clan - just like many of the other warriors in the clan were doing at this moment. I felt a moment of shame.

It was true that I cared about my friends more than anyone else in this world. That was natural. We had been together for centuries now. They were my family. My real family. The ones that came with me in my endless journeys through the near-infinite worlds, and the people I wanted to protect the most. But that didn't mean the other people in this world didn't also deserve a chance to protect their own families and friendships. They also had people they cherished and didn't want to be separated from.

If I hid in a house with my friends, established a smaller defensive perimeter, and prepared to flee if things turned bad, I would essentially be leaving the clan to its fate. That wasn't to say that I shouldn't leave a backup option for myself, if things got bad enough. However, I should at least do my best to stand with the clan until defeat was imminent and obvious. <Change of plans. We should reinforce the outer perimeter of the clan. Otherwise, I feel guilty, > I said. <Guilty?

> Sallia asked, before I heard her mental voice take on a more affirmative tone. <That makes sense. They poured a lot of time, teaching, and training resources into helping us grow stronger. We should be prepared to flee if things go so poorly that defeat is inevitable, but I want to at least see if we can bring down those giants and those little black void monsters. Besides, I bet they're worth a bunch of levels. I'm definitely jealous of the fact that you got your third spark faster than the rest of us.

Let's see if we can take this opportunity to catch up. > Sallia didn't sound very torn up about the decision to defend the clan on the front lines - if anything, a trace of bloodlust and excitement trickled into her voice. <We have all of those consumable items from the Market. We might as well give them a test run here, > said Felix. <It'll give me more information to work with later, if I want to try modifying any of them. But if things go wrong, I'll run.

As long as I survive long enough to carve the splinter of universal bark, our time in this world won't be wasted. > <That makes sense, > I said. <You focus on your own survival first. The three of us will take more active and risky roles in combat. > As my friends and I made plans for how we would battle, my father and the four of us met up on the streets, before we dashed to the edge of the village-bearing beast.

The enemy monsters hadn't arrived yet, but the purple crack in the sky continued to vomit monsters out as if it was trying to summon an entire army. Our ember finally seemed to catch on to the fact that whatever was happening was bad news, and had turned around to start fleeing. Unfortunately, I didn't think we could outrun whatever was happening. The invasion of the universal tree's army was too massive in scope, and the hundred meter tall monster colonies were definitely getting closer.

The five of us joined the defensive line and arranged ourselves, before tense minutes passed by as we waited for the enemy. We didn't have to wait long. Soon, a hundred meter tall giant came into view, accompanied by a plague of dog-sized monstrous rats. Thousands of them chased after our village-bearing beasts, enough to darken the earth and cover the ancient snow in a writhing, hairy carpet. The enemy was upon us.