Aura Farming (Apocalypse LitRPG) [BOOK ONE COMPLETE]

For a short while, John just observed from a slightly higher vantage point. The trio had actually managed to kill three of the monsters, slicing up a crystalline praying mantis with the golden machete projection, then blinding the giant ant with a flash of pink before skewering it with dozens of crossbow bolts. The third puddle sizzling away gave him no clue what kind of monster it had been or how it had died.

That left seven monsters as immediate threats. The problem was, more were closing in, and the ones already there weren't all entirely stupid. Whatever effect the pink flash was having on them, they were wary of it, especially the gaseous red cloud, which seemed to be beaten back by the spell. They took cover to avoid the human trio's attacks where they could.

The red stick bug had made its way inside, and it was keeping close to the floor, peering over or around an overturned air hockey table at the humans, but shying away whenever a projectile came its way.

Two rat creatures much bigger than the ones he'd faced were constantly darting around from cover to cover, and they were throwing things that the humans were forced to bat away with their weapons, though John couldn't see what they were. They seemed coordinated.

The gaseous red cloud thing he'd seen on the cameras wasn't paying so much attention to the projectiles or the golden machete projection, its inexorable forward momentum only stymied by the pink flash the man was throwing out every few seconds. John counted in his head, and figured the flash had somewhere between a three and five second countdown. They were lucky the red cloud was slow.

A nebulous blob of a slime monster seemed to gain momentum via the skeletal creatures swimming around inside its piss-yellow fluid. Standing about a metre tall when it stretched, John had to wonder if it was even one monster at all, or if the creatures inside the slime were the real brains of the operation, using the slime as some kind of magical transport, like the fish inside their bag of water in Finding Nemo. The mouth that occasionally gaped open on the upper end of its body contradicted that theory. The slime rolled from cover to cover with surprising speed as the creatures threw themselves at its side to grant it momentum. This monster was the most cautious one, and it wasn't hard to see why: if its 'bag' burst, the creatures inside would go spilling out, and they'd be helpless.

The most mundane monster of the lot unnerved him most, in this situation. Something about the way the giant centipede with glowing red eyes hung back, observing the proceedings before it without making any attempt to attack, spoke of malevolent intelligence. It had been the one searching for the trio originally, he recalled. Its mandibles twitched like it was talking. A shiver went down John's spine.

The last monster visible to him by the naked eye was easily mistaken as a part of the house. It seemed to be made up of cubic chunks of marble that had been lashed together by ropes of shining silver. It lumbered along with all the grace of a sloth. Its advance towards the trio's position was slow and inexorable; none of their powers were stopping it, not even the pink flash, but it was practically on the other side of the house and didn't seem like it would reach its destination for at least a minute.

It seemed doable. As long as it was all dealt with quickly, before more of the monsters approaching the scene could arrive. There were dozens in Mana Sense's range, but not all of them were coming towards the house. Still, there were enough that things could get hairy here. The souls of the monsters inside the mansion ranged from green to yellow, but he knew there were oranges and even reds somewhere out there. He was fairly sure there was no chance of handling them in a fight.

As he had that thought, the eyeball monster came tumbling down the stairs and crashed through a wall. Its eye seemed half melted, the scorpion lashes were almost all limp, and one of its red ankles was bent at a ninety-degree angle. But it was, quite miraculously, still alive.

Then the golden machete spell came down like a guillotine and sliced it clean in half.

The smaller woman shouted something, but her voice was muffled by distance. Likely an insult. Was she having to act 'cool' too, or was something else in play for her?

Mixed feelings did battle in his gut. Despite suspecting such a thing, John was having to come to terms with the fact he wasn't the only one with superpowers. It was undoubtedly a good thing. More superpowers meant more survivors. Regular humans couldn't hope to endure anything he'd experienced in the last twelve hours, and he was sure it was only going to get worse.

Still, he couldn't help thinking about the complications that would arise, too. If this was a widespread thing, it wasn't just going to go to good people. There'd be douchebags with powers. Sadists. Bullies. Even with all this apocalyptic crap going on, he had absolutely no doubt there was someone out there right at this very moment using their abilities to screw over other human beings. It was inevitable.

And he also had to admit there was a small, petulant part of him that was disappointed to find he wasn't special. He tried his best to crush that impulse, but it was resilient.

After a few seconds of watching, it became clear the golden projection came from the hard-eyed armoured woman, the bolts were the taller lady in the chain mail, and the pink flash was the guy who'd looked terrified. They were coordinating fairly well, but their teamwork wasn't seamless. It seemed they were trying to catch the charging monsters with the man's pink flash spell, then attack with either the golden projection or the crossbow bolts. To John's outside eye, there was too much delay between flash and follow up, and he felt it would've been better to keep up a constant stream of suppressing fire with the crossbow.

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The question of how best to intervene here stumped him a bit. Caution dictated he should rely on Marksman and pick off the monsters from an off angle they wouldn't be expecting; there was no cover between them and him, since they didn't know he was there.

But was that flashy enough? In the circumstances, he didn't feel safe trying to show off. Not with that many monsters on the board. Besides, he didn't think the system would penalise him for killing monsters from a distance, it just wouldn't reward him.

John narrowed his eyes as a new thought occurred to him. Namely: were his assumptions there correct? From the perspective of the trio in the building, a mysterious marksman suddenly picking off the monsters from afar and saving their skin would seem pretty badass.

"Fuck it," John muttered, making up his mind.

John drew a Soul Arrow, took aim, and loosed. The first target was obvious enough to pick out: the weird skeletal fish creatures in their slimy transport seemed most cautious of sharp enemy attacks.

"Sorry to burst your bubble," he muttered as the arrow flew.

+400 Aura

It went way more violently than he expected. The bubble didn't burst, it exploded, showering the entire room with piss-colour gore. More importantly, it launched the nasty little things that had been swimming around inside in every direction. There were dozens of them. John winced as he saw Pink Flash Man dive back into cover, frantically swatting at himself. Crossbow Woman rushed to help him, leaving Machete Woman to fend off the encroaching monsters. On her own, though, she couldn't hold the advance anyway near as well as she had with help. The cloud rolled forwards, and the other monsters came with it. None of them had noticed his intervention, on either side.

Oops.

He was just surprised he hadn't lost Aura for that, honestly.

Forced to make up for his minor blunder, John starting loosing more Soul Arrows. Marksman had vastly improved his accuracy, but he was dozens of metres away, and the Skill was only a Level 1. An Arrow went through a rat monster's leg when he'd been aiming for its head. Another scored a line across the giant stick bug's head but failed to puncture it. The next actually hit the marble monster dead on the largest chunk, which he figured was something important, but barely did anything.

Then he took aim at the centipede monster, the only one that hadn't moved. His arrow sailed true. It sang through the air in a blur of speed, and he knew as soon as he'd loosed it that it was destined to impale the monster right through its ugly head.

The centipede monster turned, and its mandibles snapped out, snatching the Soul Arrow right out of the air. The magical projectile dissipated into motes of light. Those malevolent eyes stared right at John.

Ah, fuck.

Throwing caution to the wind, he started loosing Soul Arrows as fast as he could. With Marksman's guidance, he was able to fire at a rate of about one per second. He focused on the rats first, as they appeared to be the softest target on offer. Shouts echoed from within the mansion as he began to rain down suppressing fire on the monsters. With two angles to defend from, the monsters no longer had as much of an advantage. The look of the battlefield changed.

The centipede monster fled deeper into the house, out of John's line of sight. Meanwhile, the giant red sick bug had recognised the shift in momentum and decided to do away with caution itself, rushing towards the trio. It dodged the golden machete's first swing, and its second, but the crossbow woman stood up and fired a rapid trifecta of bolts just as it was getting within a metre of the bar. With a meaty thunk-thunk-thunk he heard from all the way out here, the monster went skidding back, leaving a gory trail in its wake.

That crossbow packs a punch.

John wasn't just standing around admiring the weapon, though. He was keeping up a constant stream of arrows, dedicating himself to turning the twin rats into pincushions. In moments, they were a twitching mess of gore, looking more like hedgehogs than rodents.

+200 Aura

+200 Aura

With the quickest monsters dealt with, the trio wasted no time leaping over the bar and making a run for it. John let out a pulse of Mana Sense, and only just stopped himself from crying out.

He hadn't tested it out comprehensively yet, but he estimated the range of Mana Sense stood at about a hundred metres. That was easily enough to cover the mansion, its garden, and a decent amount of space all around it. Before he'd engaged the enemy, there'd been a couple dozen monsters in that area.

Now, there was surely almost a hundred, all of them closing in.

Movement on the mansion's roof caught his eye. Tongue of fire were starting to lick up along the walls, bursting through the windows and other gaps they're burned their way through. Combined with the fires stretching across the sky, it created a surreal, dreamlike effect. Like this mansion itself was the very thing fuelling the apocalypse.

Up there, the centipede monster loomed, stretched out to its full height so it was standing only on its very back legs. It had to be three metres tall.

And its head was reared back like a wolf howling at the moon.

"You fucker," he growled, leaping down from the treehouse.

Now seemed like a good time to run.