Chương 43: R&R Ch. 43 — Just Another Straw

Warp" Space fractured as attacks raced towards Nicholas and were deflected away in hundreds of directions. So long as they were away from him and consequently the wall he was defending, everything was going to be alright." Recover" He hated doing it, but he was approaching thirty consecutive hours of being awake and fighting.

Problems were happening more often, often enough that they had stopped the full combat team from responding to every emergency, but as one of the leaders and the one with the universal can help with the situation power, he was being called on the most. Which was also intentional so that he could bear the burden and let the others rest. Jasmine was still dealing with poignant soul damage, he could tell, and it wouldn't do for her to fall apart, so here he was fighting with everything he had.

He was actually doing better today than he had the previous day. Apparently, some people had started believing in the supers who protected them with barriers of gold and silver since his belief had grown considerably. Not enough to rank up, but enough that it was making a difference as his power balanced itself out." Break" Nicholas waved a hand as three Beyonders shattered. It was a word he had been planning on making for a while, one he had wanted specific connotations for, but he couldn't care anymore.

He needed to break as much as possible, and this was the best one so far. Against a human opponent, it wasn't likely to work as well, since even normal people without power had some authority over their own bodies. Bet Beyonders didn't unless they pitted their will against his. And unfortunately, most of them couldn't react to the word fast enough, and the ones that could didn't always know what the word was supposed to mean, anyway. His throat was killing him.

But with the recovery pulsing through him, he could think clearly again and focus his vision. Not a replacement for sleep, but it was going to be the best thing he had in this situation, and Nicholas was going to take every win he could get right now. Sword blazing with power, he flew across the battlefield to the next section. Thankfully, he wasn't underground this time in the bunker fighting anything that was funneled in but flying across the battlefield as a ranged striker."

Down" Gravity warped, and the Beyonders fell away from the wall, picking up speed at a considerable clip before he dropped the working to start the next one.

"You're in good form today," Jasmine said through their headbands as her gun roared and explosions ripped through the battlefield.

"I don't think it's good form; I just think it's desperation, and I'm way flashier when I'm flowing through words like this." Nicholas laughed. Jasmine grunted in agreement as another shot cracked across the battlefield. She didn't have any room to judge, having switched to her consumable load-out. Jasmine wouldn't be recovering any consumables used in her gunslinger outfit until she actually had time to go to the corpses and then craft new weapons.

But temporarily it made her far stronger and able to give their group more time to rest, even as she permanently depleted her power for the purposes of this engagement. Same as him, using tons of light workings was exhausting for his system, but it let him do substantially better in at least some situations." Barrier" The bolt of energy slammed into his barrier, but it did not fall. Nicholas threw a single stone." Impact" The energy thrower exploded.

Part of Nicholas burned; he was getting way fewer kills than most of his peers got when they were put in the situation of skirmishing across the battlefield. Even Pierce, a ranged specialist, got more kills than him when he was in this situation, but here he was unable to match that.

Which Nicholas realized he was doing apples to oranges, he was disrupting and delaying them potentially better than what anyone else can do and he was doing it a rank down but Nicholas didn't like not being able to pull his weight and he wasn't sure that he was actually doing that." Playroom" His quickly becoming signature ability blazing to the forefront, Nicholas constructed a dome of earth, trapping hundreds of Beyonders inside. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve.

Read this novel on the original website." Transmute" The regular earth packed only by his ability and nothing more changed, becoming the hardest material he can think of." Burn" The metal turned cherry red as Nicholas heated it up, even as he sagged on the sword. The playroom honestly wasn't that big of a working all things considered, but the next two had burned through his reserves fast. At the three-hour mark of running interference, Nicholas returned to the wall, landing with as much grace as he could muster.

He barely landed on his feet. All the other people who had been in the melee or running interference came back as well to take a break.

"You good?" Jasmine asked, putting a hand on his shoulder even as she continued to fire.

"Fine, let's just keep going." Jasmine stared at her partner for a long moment before switching to the rank three bullets she had prepared. Her gun could handle them though she had to be a little stingy about using them. There was only so much she could do to make up for the gap that the weapon was a rank higher than the gun. But this was the perfect time.

"Ready?" Nicholas called through the main communication channel. The chorus of readys responded, warming their hearts. Even after so long of fighting, their team was still responding to them strong. They would keep fighting until the enemy was gone." Barrage" Jasmine still thought it was pretty slick that Nicholas had made one of their signals one of his magic words because as the shards of glass-like force flew through the battlefield, everyone's attacks came through.

Her gun barked, and a damn near laser the size of a barrel swept across the battlefield as she decimated opponents a rank above her. Once again it burned that they wouldn't be able to reach E-rank till after all of this was over. Just that little bit of extra power would go such a long way. Even as the ranged bombardment continued, Nicholas and Jasmine's senses were focused on the enemy forces to get information that they couldn't normally get.

The attacks were clearing enough of their shields that they could peer through the blockade better.

"They're forming up just outside of our firing range. At least a squadron is." Nicholas said first.

"There's a D-rank leading them," Jasmine said quietly. She had gotten a lot of practice checking something if it was E-rank or not, and by consequence, it was now easy to tell when something was above that water line.

"Do we call the others?" Nicholas asked quietly.

"No, we can handle it. All we need to do is win, right?" Jasmine joked. Nicholas pulled out a pill bottle that neither of them wanted to use, but this was what they had to do in this case. Pills popped, power rippled through them as their reserves were back to full. It felt disgusting, and it would be weeks till they could clean out their power enough that it felt back to normal.

"Everyone continue the bombardment but reserve power; we have a squadron preparing for a charge led by a rank four." Retribution said her voice confident even as the words fell like hammers upon them. Another rank four? Another intelligent group of E-ranks that would be doing their damnedest to break through them and get to the civilians behind? The members who were on the road of true heroism felt their resolve harden even as their hearts cracked.

And the ones that had just been doing this so they could retire soon afterward cursed mentally cursing the day they had gotten powers.

"Retort and I have decided that the two of us will take on the Rank Four. Pierce, you're going to be leading the defense against their squadron." Retribution continued. The reaction to that is mixed as well since they would be without the rest of the quick reaction force. On some level it was understandable they needed rest; they had been working more often than anyone else and even they on the regular shifts were beginning to fall apart.

But was it smart to trust the two f-ranks to handle it without any support from the e-ranks?

"So long as I am still standing, I won't let any of you fall. You don't need to like me, but my words are my bond. So long as I live I'll be the first to fall," Retort said, his voice strong. Power pulsed. It was impossible, but Retort and Retribution gave off the signature of them running on full, not forcibly refilling their power, but as if they were fresh off of a week's break.

"The two of us have used one of the emergency refills so that we're now operating at our best. We don't take your lives lightly. We promise that so long as we're here you won't fall." Retribution said her power settled over them like a blanket.

"On it," Pierce said, breaking through the silence.

"We'll begin discussing strategy now. Good luck, you two."

"Same to you," Retort said. Lupine moved robotically to his position with the other melee combatants. He thought the situation was bullshit. It didn't matter what those two said; that he was in melee meant he was in more danger than anyone else, and anyone who said differently was drunk. And he would be in the melee when the troops got close; he and the rest of them would be jumping down to try and break through their formation and break them up.

He glared at the backs of Retort and Retribution; it was all their fault. If they hadn't been so confident, he wouldn't be in this situation. He knew what happened to rookie formations during waves if there were no standout prospects. They would be scattered about. Lupine was under no delusion about who the prospects the higher-ups would be pushing were, and because of that, they were all likely to die. They would probably win this time. Maybe they could even do it without a single casualty, like they claimed.

But it would teach them that they could push, that they could ride the line and reach for a higher level of power and come out on top. Perhaps it wouldn't even be the second time they overextended that got everyone killed. But what about the tenth? This was a wave they would keep extending until everyone died. If he had just reached one more tier, he could have retired happily or gotten a better shift, but instead he was here. Lupine would survive.

All he had to do was to figure out how to turn this situation to an advantage, Beyonders were a great source of power and more than one super had risen to the top because they assimilate their power, it would be easy if he knew where the corpses were his hunting spear let him absorb the traits of his prey. But Retort had been burying them all. Sure, he said it was so that he could stop the enemy from feeding, but really, who believed that? Everyone was out for number one.

Even the ones who said they actually wanted to go the distance as a hero were just pretending. Why shouldn't Lupine get the rewards? He's been suffering this whole time and forced to fight on the worst shift, with the weakest leaders, and they were jeopardizing him again for no reason. This was his chance.