Arcane Apocalypse [LitRPG]

"They are coming," Mia said in a muted whisper, her voice getting lost amidst the shouts and the now not-so-distant howls. "Hundred metres out."

Camie nodded, crouching to her side and peering out through a little murder hole, one of hundreds the Earth mages had knocked into the circular walls protecting their half-baked base camp.

Helene and Lina were on her left, her mother squinting out through a murder hole of her own while the Air mage sat with her back against the walls and her eyes closed.

The others were also somewhere near. Mark was one of the quickest Earth mages, likely because his Earth Manipulation skill was already at the Greater level, or maybe even beyond it. It's been weeks since he got that last upgrade; it wouldn't have surprised Mia if his relentless training bore fruit, especially since he focused singularly on that one Skill, while Mia's own training regimen cycled through half a dozen different topics.

"This is going to be a mess," Mark sighed, slumping down next to Mia as he too came to peer out at the forest. "Trial by fire, it is."

Mia grimaced. There was little to see through the head-sized holes; there wasn't much they had a line of sight on, especially with how densely packed the trees were. They wouldn't be able to throw spells at the monsters until they were much too close for comfort.

Mia's Arcane Blast had a range of around a hundred metres, and it was not even her preferred spell for long ranges. That award would go to the piercing Bolt spell. Not that it mattered when she couldn't see further than ten to twenty metres from the dense foliage.

"At least it'll keep the wolves from running circles around us," Mia mused, focusing on that silver lining. Iron Wolves were big fuckers, and they'd find themselves rather limited in maneuverability by the dense forest.

"What was that?" Helene asked curiously.

"The monsters won't have the space to manoeuvre," Mia said, raising her voice to be heard over the constant noise. "Could be worse."

"Not by much," Mark said gruffly, pressing a hand against the wall and infusing more mana into it. Mia had no idea what exactly he was doing, but his next words gave her a clue. "It's all fine and good if these walls hold. If even a single fucker gets inside, we'll be locked in here with half-ton of rabid murder-machine."

"Let's not test your walls then," Mia said, though she wasn't convincing anyone with her fake confidence. Not even herself. "We just have to shoot them down as they come. I don't feel any beyond level 13."

"Some of the bloodthirsty melee guys are heading out to make sure as few of the monsters make it to try breaching the walls as possible," Mark said. "Brent told me we should try providing fire support from the safety of these walls, or pick off whatever gets past them."

"We can do that," Mia said, glancing left and right to make sure the three other women of their team were in agreement. "Brent's going out himself?"

"Yeah," Mark said, shrugging as he slumped back and cut off his mana. "That should be enough to keep it breaking for a bit. Brent's all about leading by example, so it shouldn't come as a surprise."

"Yeah," Mia said absently, then felt Camie tense up next to her. The vampire turned to her swiftly, but Mia just nodded grimly. "Get ready, five seconds until the first ugly."

Her heart sped up, slamming against her chest with a flood of adrenaline as the howls closed in and she noticed the first flickers of moving bodies between the densely packed trees. Battle was coming, and Mia's body subconsciously changed gear from 'scouting' mode to fighting for her life.

It was an eerily familiar sensation by now, one she didn't know whether to welcome or loathe. It meant she was growing used to fighting for her life, growing used to this new reality, but was that really a good thing?

It is. She decided with a barely suppressed scoff at her own thoughts. Anything that keeps me alive is a good thing.

The melee warriors charged outside, leaving the cramped confines of the camp's walls through small — comparatively speaking — doors in the wall, just large enough for a larger armoured man to shuffle through, but far from wide enough to allow even the runtiest Rust Wolf through.

"Into formation!" A man shouted from the other side of the wall Mia was hiding behind, and she instantly recognised the confident, yet serious voice of the eccentric Light Paladin. Sebastian, was it? "Stay close to me! My powers will empower and heal you."

"Really?" This voice was unfamiliar, and the almost giddy excitement in it threw Mia for a bit of a loop. Glancing at the man, Mia recognised his face as one of those harebrained Berserkers. 'The blonde lunatic's friend' was all she remembered him by. "That's awesome, man! I think I'm going to love having you around."

"Focus, please," Sebastian said, sounding bemused. "Monsters!"

True enough, a smaller Iron Wolf leapt out from behind a large bush covered in rusted leaves and bounded towards the line of humans like a murderous missile. Then it tripped, a tiny tendril of wispy white mana thickening and solidifying before its front leg just as it was taking a step. The monster smashed into the ground, yelping as its skull rattled from the impact and its body rolled over itself.

Sebastian and his teammates seemed stunned by the monster seemingly stumbling over its own feet so disastrously, but the Berserker had no such reaction. The man palmed a pair of axes hanging from his hips, then pounced on the quickly recovering monster with a gleeful cackle as a red haze wrapped him in its shroud.

Mia put the man and monster out of her mind, trying to ignore the deranged laughter and the sound of flesh and bone tearing under his savage assault on the downed monster. She almost felt a hint of pity for the creature.

The distraction provided itself a moment later as the other pack mates of the wolf followed it out of the thicket. Mia had a line of sight on two out of the four newly arrived monsters and wasted no time in taking a shot at one of them.

This time, her aim was true, and the monster's head exploded in a shower of gore and crackling pink energy. With a hissing zap, a bright beam of lightning crashed into another of the wolves. The creature had no time to even yelp in pain as the esoteric energy mimicking electricity ravaged its body, using its metallic fur and bones, the monster might have thought its greatest defence to its advantage.

The monster fell, twitching as the lightning coursed through the lifeless husk's nervous system.

The warriors outside gave the fallen monster a wide berth, eying it warily as lightning crackled around it even seconds after its death.

"Nice shot!" Sebastian shouted, a hint of fear in his voice. "But maybe don't do that again this close to us? Everything is made of metal here."

"Sorry!" Helene shouted, sounding embarrassed, and the next bolt of lightning zapping out of her hands was much thinner, plus it also went around the fighters in a wide arc to strike the monsters from the side.

It'd be great to have that level of control over my own spells. Mia mused, then sent another pair of Blasts at the monsters when she caught sight of them. They both only proved to be grazing shots, but that was enough of an opening for the fighters outside.

One of the women who belonged to Sebastian's team darted forward like a shadow and planted a dagger into a disoriented wolf's skull, the blade sinking into the thick metallic hide and bone like it was melted butter. The other fell under the combined assault of Sebastian and the female archer.

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"Next pack will be here in about half a minute!" One of the scouts shouted, and as Mia glanced up, she caught sight of a pair of feline ears having grown over the man's head. He did not have those in his human form before, Mia was sure. Partial Shifting is a thing, I guess?

Mia checked her mana reserves again, feeling relieved at finding just a few percentages of it missing, despite knowing she'd been careful with it throughout the day.

"So far so good," Lina said, her voice a bit strained yet eager to fight.

Of course, that was when Mia felt more monsters coming up from the depths of the earth. Just as she was about to shout an alert, the man with the Earth Sense skill — Kevin — was just a second faster than her.

"Underground monsters incoming!" He screamed. "Four- no, five! FIVE!"

"WHERE?!"

"Here! And the-" Kevin shouted, his voice into a frantic crescendo. Mia spun around just in time to see the panicking Earth mage crash into a diminutive healer with his shoulder as he threw the two of them away.

The young man who'd been scouting ahead with his Mage Eye skill wasn't so lucky as to get a saviour, though. Worse yet, he had that absent look Mia had come to recognise as him looking through his magic floating eye.

Mia's mouth fell open in horror as a monstrous mole burst out of the ground and clamped its jaws down on his legs.

She snapped back to attention a moment later when the diviner gave a shrill scream and started to beat on the monster.

He wasn't the only one either, just the first and the loudest. Mia sent the Arcane Blast she'd been preparing into the flank of the beast, aiming as carefully as she could so as to not make the situation worse.

The monster tensed as some hasty attacks landed on its body, then finally let go of the still-screaming diviner when Mia's spell landed and blew out a chunk of its spine.

Mia wasted another few precious seconds making sure the healers who'd been standing right beside the diviner got to him before anything … permanent happened to him.

Others were still under attack though, so she snapped out of it a moment later. Others still needed help … though they were already getting it.

Every remaining screamer was already being tended to by a healer or getting a healing potion shoved down their throat. The monsters attacked when they were distracted, and were rather tough, but not tough enough to withstand the fury of dozens of human — or ex-human — fighters.

"THE WOLVES ARE HERE!" The scout shouted on top of his lungs, sounding panicked. Mia felt a similar emotion simmer in her stomach as she beheld the chaos the underground monsters' appearance brought about.

Mia spun around, seeing a pack of three wolves with rough grey fur stalking menacingly towards the squad outside. Sebastian and his squad were backing up slowly, dragging a woman with a mangled right arm away from another mole corpse.

A lance of crimson energy speared through a Wolf and pinned it to a thick trunk behind it, then it was followed up by a crackling beam of lightning. The lightning arced and split, forking between the three surviving wolves and making them seize up.

The Berserker was upon them before the crackling energy even abated, laughing even as arcs of electricity jumped at him. He just continued smashing his axes down one after the other, the red haze around him thickening until it appeared like a viscous fluid sticking to his skin.

His movements were speeding up, his savage chops that did little damage before now cleaved through the thick neck of an Iron Wolf.

Sebastian hauled the wounded man up and ran back through the door with him, where he gently dropped him and ran back out.

Mia kept a spell ready, but the squad finished off the paralysed monsters with little effort. One when the final monster facing the group Mia had been providing ranged support fell, did she turn her attention to the other fights still going on around the camp.

Two fights were still ongoing, and Aiden's team was having trouble killing the monster. Their only luck was that the monster was far too occupied trying to get its feet unstuck from a pair of jaws moulded from the ground beneath its feet to do any serious damage to them.

A furious Brent burst into the last battleground, charging through a bush with razor-sharp leaves like a bull. He was past the struggling party in a second, and his sword came down hard on the distracted monster's neck, cleaving right through it.

Mia checked and rechecked all of her senses, both supernatural and not, making sure that truly was the last of them. What she was doing might have been redundant with specialised scouts around, but she didn't care; she had to make sure.

By the time she was satisfied, everyone seemed to realise that the fighting had come to a stop. Tension hung heavily in the air as healers shouted at screaming patients to stay still.

Mi thought to ask whether anyone died, but thought better of it. Even whispering the question to Camie was out of the question with the beastkin around. If anyone had a hearing better than hers, then it'd be a canine beastkin.

So she resorted to counting.

They stayed near the wall, watching as the healers did their job and as the worried teammates made that job a hundred times harder for the poor healers.

Mia searched for any familiar faces amongst the injured, but the only one whose face really stuck around in her head was the man with the Mage Eye skill. Only because he had an interesting skill, too.

Try as she might, she couldn't have named any of the five wounded fighters even if her life depended on it.

I could have called out a warning if I knew their names. Mia thought with a grimace, hating how little she'd cared about anyone in their little expedition who didn't have any interesting magic.

Even Kevin was just 'Earth Sense guy' in her head.

"Stop it," Cami said, poking her cheek with a finger as she frowned down at her.

Mia startled initially, inching away from the offending digit before realising who it belonged to. When she did, she instead grabbed it and interlocked her fingers with the vampire's. She clutched Camie's warm hand like a lifeline.

"Stop what?" She asked, trying to distract herself.

"Brooding," Camie said, entirely ignoring the chaotic scene playing out in the centre of their half-formed camp in favour of watching Mia. "Worrying. I don't know what you're worrying about, but I know it'd be dumb. Stop it."

"It's not," Mia said indignantly, though she made sure to whisper it under her breath, her eyes swinging about to see whether anyone was giving her mean looks for talking.

"What is it then?" Camie asked with a frown of confusion, likely having discerned that Mia truly thought her worries were legitimate and not just silly guilt.

Hindsight and mistakes were how she learned half the stuff she now knew, and that went doubly for anything that had to do with fighting. She could only get knocked around by Camie in a spar so much in the exact same way before she came up with a counter after all.

"I could have warned them if I knew their names," Mia said in barely a whisper, gesturing at the wounded.

"That wasn't your job, was it?" Camie asked with a huff that seemed to signify just how fed up she was with Mia worrying about 'dumb things'. "You were ranged support, not our scout or diviner."

"Still," Mia said, wavering a bit. It would have been so easy to say it was just 'not her job'. "I could have saved them if I just … cared. Just enough to learn their names."

"They are alive," Camie said, shrugging as she comfortingly ran her thumb across the back of Mia's hand. A gesture Mia had done to her more than once, and the vampire was effectively imitating. "You said you wouldn't take on undue responsibilities. What changed?"

" … nothing?" Mia said, barely even remembering having said something like that. Maybe it was a half-formed thought she spoke aloud while half-asleep.

"Good," Camie said, as if that was the end of their little debate.

Instead of lashing out like she had half the mind to, like an immature child, she took a moment to think. Her eyes closed, and she slowly let out a long breath.

Am I being dumb? Mia mused, trying to distance herself from her emotions and look at the problem objectively. Would I blame Mark if he had the same capabilities as I and he failed to warn the victims?

The answer came to her instantly, and it was a resounding no. Not even if she had been the one to get her leg nibbled on. The one she'd be blaming would be-

"You furry fuck, what good are you if you can't even warn us of a damned mole the size of a van coming at us?" A man screamed right into Kruger's face, pointing at his wounded teammate, who was still being tended to.

Mia glanced at the pale-faced woman and grimaced at how utterly mangled her entire right arm looked. The monster must have gotten its jaws locked around her shoulder, because it looked like a scant few tendons were the only thing keeping her arm attached to the rest of her body.

Every healer in the Raid was now huddled around the woman, all the other wounded having been tended to and mostly treated, or at least stabilised.

"You think this is a game?" The man fumed, scowling down at the unperturbed Shifter. "Think I didn't notice not a single one of your kind is among the wounded? What is your scheme?"

"None of 'my kind', as you put it, is injured because we have better instincts than you lowly humans," Kruger said with a dispassionate, faintly sneering tone as he glanced down at the five wounded humans. "And it seems your memory is faulty too, our task was to alert the crew of anything attacking us aboveground."

Kevin froze like a deer in headlights as Kruger stared at him, which prompted the furious teammate of the injured woman to swivel around and give him a loathful glare.

"Well shit," Lina said from the side. "I should have kept my mouth shut."

"Agreed," Mark said, voice serious even as he gave a slight grin to take the edge off of his words. "Where the fuck is Brent when you need him?"

"Coming," Mia whispered worriedly just as the man in question came hustling through one of the doors around the encampment's walls.

"Well, I'm glad I'm not in his shoes right about now," Mark said, hands gripping the handle of his mace as he eyed the crowd. "Hope nobody does anything stupid."