Explorer of Edregon

Vin dismissed the literal barrage of 'new monster discovered' notifications he was receiving as he looked out across the meadow, his eyes briefly catching on the many 'new elite monster discovered' notifications that were pouring in as well. He didn't know why this wave of monsters seemed so much more numerous and deadly than the one for the battle for wave two when it was still only a thousand people from Earth that were being brought over, but he didn't have the luxury to stop and think about that right now.

Only moments after the monsters began appearing, Spur's voice rang out from farther down the wall, his sword shining as he slashed it toward the monsters fully surrounding their town.

"Ballistae! Fire!"

Nearly three dozen powerful cracks of thunder rang out from around the town as the medieval siege weaponry launched their massive bolts into the throng of monsters. Each of the ballistae were equipped with a single, explosive-tipped bolt, and Spur and Myers had agreed long ago that opening with such a salvo before the monsters got closer and engaged in combat would be best.

Vin flinched as large clumps of monsters exploded in a burst of purple fire and bloody bits all around them, and the Earthers cheered as they quickly got to work reloading the ballistae with more mundane armaments. They'd still hopefully be effective for taking down the elite monsters, but now they'd drawn the monsters' attention.

Now the battle truly began.

Vin watched from up on the wall as what looked like a rolling boulder of tentacles the size of a car outpaced the rest of the monsters and launched itself like some living-projectile at the ranks of Earthers, moving fast enough to avoid the brunt of Alice's prepared traps that were already dispatching a good number of the leading monsters. But rather than letting it smash into them and send them flying like bowling pins, Alka pointed with her sword and called out to her Slayers.

"Tall Phil, slow it down!"

Darting into the front of everyone, the Slayer that had earned himself a comical nickname just for sharing the same name as the leader of the combat classes slung his warhammer over his shoulder and slammed his massive shield into the ground before activating what had to be a Capstone. "Monster Bulwark!"

The moment the words left his mouth, his entire shield glowed a deep, powerful grey that reminded Vin of solid stone, and he stood there as the giant tentacle monster slammed into him with enough force to smash through a building.

Which made it all the more surprising when the monster came to a complete and utter stop.

While the rest of the Earthers stared in shock at the impressive skill, Alka and her Slayers sprung into action. Sprinting around the giant mass of writhing flesh, they carved and sliced their way through to the center of the elite monster, dispatching it in no time and reforming their ranks before the remaining monsters even caught up.

"Get ready!" Alka shouted, snapping everyone out of their shocked daze and back on the rapidly approaching swarm. "For Terra!"

"For Terra!" came a few hundred rallying cries as everyone readied themselves and met the monster wave head on.

As steel met flesh and the battle truly began, Vin got to work. Similar to his old role during the battle for wave two, it was his job to run around and intervene where he thought his help would be needed the most. Darting past rows of archers and javelin hurlers launching ranged projectiles up at the monsters capable of flight in an attempt to stop them from attacking the wall or worse, flying into the town itself, Vin monitored the battlefield as he went.

Phil had already leapt down from the wall and was currently embroiled in a one-on-one fight with what was clearly an elite monster, some sort of muscle-bound monster with six sets of arms each tipped with dozens of deadly claws. The monster had made short work of two combatants before Phil could get to them, but before Vin could even think about dropping down and healing them, Lumel appeared in a flash of purple, grabbing the two combat classes and vanishing again before any of the monsters could do so much as look at her. Frank was waiting in the hospital with his skills and health potions at the ready, so Vin tried to put the horrifically bloodied warriors out of his mind as he kept going.

From further down the wall, he spotted a blood-soaked Shredder fighting with reckless abandon as usual, tearing into monster after monster with zero regard for his own safety as he relied on his gleaming scale-armor and impressive skills. Vin had since learned that the silver scale armor the Berserker wore had actually been fashioned by Myers out of the corpse of the elite snake monster he himself had strangled to death during the battle for wave two, and he fully approved of who it had ended up going to. As a Berserker, Shredder didn't think about defense in the slightest as he fought, trusting in his overwhelming power and unique skills to keep him going as he fought. Vin now knew that Shredder had a powerful Capstone that actively healed him as he dealt damage, but it was still good to see the occasional monster claw or fang bounce harmlessly off the snake-skin armor.

Vin used a few well placed Stone Shots to take out a couple monsters attacking the Berserker from behind as Shredder pushed far too deep into enemy lines, but he knew from experience that the Berserker would probably be fine.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Sometimes he honestly wondered if Shredder was just too angry to die once he got going.

A few seconds later, Vin finally found some people who needed help. Slowly approaching the wall was a monstrous blob of sickly green slime the size of a house that seemed entirely disinterested in the fighters dancing around its edge and trying to stab it with their weapons. If its size wasn't indication enough, the fact that it wasn't just going after the closest person meant it had to be yet another one of the elite monsters.

Vin watched as the very grass seemed to bubble and die underneath the slime, and he cursed as he realized the strange monster had to be acidic or something.

"Get back!" he shouted, leaping off the wall and rushing over to meet the slime before it could accidentally roll over someone. "It probably has some sort of core, like a magical beast, so get ready to strike when you see it!"

Not waiting to see if anyone heard him, Vin quickly threw together one of his newest spells and targeted the rolling pile of slime. "Enhance Gravity!"

Just as he'd hoped, while the slime monster was functionally immune to mundane weapons, its actual body was closer to a liquid than a solid. The moment his spell took hold on the area around the slime, the monster flattened to the ground like it had been stepped on, expanding outward and causing all the surrounding fighters to cry out in pain and rush back as their shoes started to dissolve.

Realizing his own magic boots seemed to be immune to the wave of acid that washed over him, he quickly searched through the sizzling liquid before finally spotting what he was looking for. A fist-sized chunk of something almost metallic was poking out of the now flattened slime, and he chose to trust in the durability of his boots as he waded further into the burning slime and made his way to the core. Not wasting any time, he ignored the bubbling flecks of acid burning against his skin as he brought his golem arm down onto the core as hard as he could, his arm flaring blue with mana as it smashed into it and shattered it into little pieces.

Total Resistance increased to lvl 5! 1,000 exp gained.

Immediately, the remaining slime splashed to the ground, quickly soaking into the earth and probably making it so nothing would ever grow there again without some thorough Druidic assistance. Quickly confirming everyone was okay, Vin turned and ran back to the wall before he could get caught up by any of the normal monsters. To the shock of anyone who happened to be looking in his general direction, Vin hit the wall and began running up it, courtesy of his new boots.

One lone archer stared at him with her mouth gaping, dropping her nocked arrow instead of firing it as he clambered back over the wall. Laughing, Vin clapped her on the back and kept running.

As he ran, he spotted Scule and Reginald using their new tunnel system to great effect, occasionally darting under monsters susceptible to poison and letting them have a taste of some of the new concoctions Scule had spent the last few days working on. While the petian occasionally opted to use his blowgun, most of the tougher monsters he targeted proved to have hides too thick for the tiny projectiles and required a more hands-on application.

"Gas!" he heard someone shouting from further ahead, and Vin's face paled as he saw the problem. One of the bird-like monsters capable of flight had managed to dodge all the ranged projectiles and land atop the wall. Now that it was here, its beak was wide open, and what looked like an eerie, pink mist was flooding out, pooling all over the top of the wall and forcing people to leap off the side or bunch up as they tried to flee. Cursing himself for still having yet to learn Create Wind, Vin ran forward and cast the next best thing.

"Create Water!" he shouted, spraying water before him and stopping the gas right before it could sweep over the mass of panicking Earthers atop the wall. Leaping over their heads, he landed in the wet patch free of gas, meeting the narrowed gaze of the elite bird monster. Before he could try firing a Stone Shot at it, however, Golrim suddenly appeared directly next to the monster with his crossbow hovering just beside its temple.

"What a nasty creature," he smiled, shooting a bolt directly into its brain and killing it before it even noticed his presence. "Careful, Vin. I watched the archers shoot one of these down already that tried flying over the wall into town. It has some sort of organ in its chest that explodes if punctured, spilling gas everywhere."

"Thanks for the help," Vin said, ignoring the screams and sounds of battle long enough to ensure nobody needed any sort of healing before he continued running.

As the battle raged on, Vin did loop after loop across the top of the wall, intervening wherever he thought was necessary and doing his best to provide support to all sides of the battle. When Shia's Living Giant finally ran out of mana, even with the potions she had on her, he jumped in and took over defending that portion of the wall until Reonelli could take over with a group of freshly prestiged combat classes from the second wave.

This was a battle unlike any that they'd ever fought before. Despite how well they were doing, the monsters just seemed to keep coming one after another, and it wasn't long before there were literal piles of monster corpses scattered all across the battlefield.

What is going on? Vin wondered, taking a brief moment to catch his breath after narrowly saving the life of a surprised warrior with a well placed Stone Wall to halt the charge of what looked like a lion with a sea urchin for a head. A quick glance at the clock tower in the center of town was all the confirmation he needed. It's been almost half an hour since we started fighting, which is way longer than the previous battles. It's the same number of people from Earth being teleported over to Edregon, which means the Gods should be using the same amount of mana as the last two waves. Why are we getting so many monsters then?!

Even now it was obvious that the majority of people were beginning to flag from exhaustion. Vin doubted many of the combat classes had endurance attributes even half as high as his own, and he was beginning to witness more and more people make mistakes and need rescuing from monsters than at the start of the battle.

He didn't have time to dwell on the problem, however, as a flash of purple snapped him out of his musings.

"Vin!" Lumel called out, rushing toward him with a wide-eyed and panicked look on her face. "Alka needs you! The Slayers are in trouble!"