Outrage of the Ancients (LitRPG Apocalypse)

Arthur

The area around Glastonbury Tor had already been a mess when he'd emerged, and the battle between him and the monsters that followed had trashed what remained rather thoroughly.

However, that paled to the current state of the area, the remnants of the originally pristine landscape torn up and trampled beneath a hundred thousand boots.

By modern standards, it was a small army. Bordering on tiny, especially when one took into account that this force was drawing from most of the planet, and yet they'd still wound with a force only a little larger than the pre-System forces of the United Kingdom.

More alarming, however, was the fact that even if they hadn't settled on a minimum Level of 50, their forces would merely have been expanded to half a million, drawing on everyone. Everyone. Including the previously immense forces of the USA and its 1.3 million service members.

Granted, those five hundred thousand were surviving soldiers; if one included civilians with combat Classes, it would grow a bit more, but the ability to kill monsters directly and the ability to operate as part of an army were two skillsets that did not necessarily overlap.

As for why there was a minimum Level, that was simple: they might not know the details of the Fomorian forces, but chances were the protection provided by Ascendant Capstones would be sorely needed.

All told, there were one hundred and twenty thousand people who'd be heading into the Otherworld, as deep as was required, into a war against the unknown.

Arthur pulled up the System window describing the current challenge and checked the time.

Twenty-two hours to go. That should be enough time for everyone involved in this operation to rest and recuperate, but also close enough to the time things would kick off for any Fomorians who would be invading to already be present in the target area, like lambs waiting for the slaughter. Though the fact that it was high noon was also important, for entirely separate reasons.

The entire top of the hill had been taken off in preparation, revealing … well, revealing precisely nothing. Even after they'd dug deeply enough to uncover the site of his previous battle against that one Fomorian who'd followed him when he'd accidentally knocked down the barrier.

For the very briefest of moments, he'd feared the plan was dead before it had ever even started.

And then he'd actually climbed down into the crater, and the opalescent barrier had shimmered into existence, as though reacting to his presence. But Arthur was certain it was Excalibur that had called it into being, the blade's mere presence a threat to the veil between worlds, necessitating a response from the System, not that it would actually stop him from acting.

Arthur reached down and drew Excalibur, then hooked the sheath of the blade he'd be borrowing for this battle into his belt, while his regular weapon was busy keeping the breach open.

Galatine was almost identical to his sword, but also vastly different in many other respects, its ability core among them.

For this was the sword of the sun, a weapon that empowered its wielder based on the position of the sun, and at high noon, it had made its previous wielder, Gawain, functionally unbeatable.

Unfortunately, when Gawain had run into a knight by the name of Escanor, who'd wielded the exact same ability, things had gotten ever so slightly messy … but what were the chances of that exact same situation repeating itself?

Slowly, Arthur approached the barrier, a sensation of … relief? washing off the barrier in waves, as though the System itself were eager to get things over with.

He raised Excalibur over his head, into a slash more appropriate to an execution than an actual fight, and brought it down upon the barrier with all his might.

The barrier split before the attack, parting before his weapon had even touched the white shimmer of energy, recoiling as if burned, leaving a gap the size of a castle's gate before him by the time Excalibur tore into the ground and he released it, leaving his weapon planted in the ground the same way Caliburn had been, back when he'd drawn the blade that had proclaimed him the righteous ruler of Albion.

And Avalon lay bare ahead …

For a while, he'd dared to let himself believe it hadn't been as bad as it had seemed at first, that the shock of his encounter with the Fomorian had somehow tainted his memories of the state of the place.

But no, if anything, it was worse than he'd remembered, and that was before he even started to consider the army camp that had sprung up since!

And not only that, but despite what Admiral Drake had suggested, this was a war camp, set up to support an attacking force … a force that was presently shitfaced in the extreme, the stench of alcohol and smoke thick on the wind.

Even better.

Arthur launched himself forward, every stride covering a dozen meters, Galatine practically flying out of its sheath as flames raced up its blade, wreathing it in fire.

And the sentries hadn't even seen him yet … assuming they were there in the first place. After all, why would they post sentries when "everyone knew" the barrier would keep them safe for almost an entire day?

He crested a hill near the camp and leaped, triggering [Physical Limit Break] as he did so, launching himself skywards, aiming to come down right in the middle of the whole affair.

For a brief moment, Arthur hung in the air, scanning the forms flashing past beneath, attempting to vacuum up every scrap of information he could get his hands on.

General Levels, broad summaries of specializations … all very basic, all very useful.

Even though he had mere seconds to take it all in, what he saw still put a massive, savage grin on his face.

And then he landed, bringing Galatine down in a [Grand Slash], the titanic wedge of energy now infused with flame as it crashed down on the densest concentration of Fomorians in an instant.

Previously, the giants had been large, lumbering, deformed humanoids with the occasional extra limb grotesquely attached to their bodies.

Now, now they were just charcoal.

He spun, triggering [Cleave] to extend his sword's edge as he swept it across the crowd behind him, carving flesh and igniting fabric as the projected blade passed onwards.

Around him, Fomorians began to turn to face him, the initial shock beginning to turn into rage … but not quickly enough. Not even if he had been wielding Excalibur, but right now, he was wielding Galatine while the sun was at the highest point in the sky.

They were all so very, very dead.

Behind him, there was a tremendous crash as something, probably Ogier, ploughed through dozens of tents while mud and body parts flew, even as Arthur began carving his way through the surrounding giants.

And overhead, storm clouds began to gather.

A titanic Fomorian suddenly stood before Arthur, four fists raised to crush him, but when he hurled himself between his foe's legs, slashing with Galatine, nothing happened save some kind of energy field flaring into the visible spectrum.

Shit.

Arthur slashed at the beast's flesh once again, just to make sure it wasn't some kind of single-use defensive Skill, but it was blocked too.

And since a "normal" defense shouldn't have stood up to his weapon as it was right now, not without even a tiny flash of visible damage … an absolute defense, most likely limited by time, rather than a maximum amount of blockable force required a different approach.

Arthur's left hand released Galatine's hilt as he thrust it toward the portal, the mental tether connecting him to Excalibur going taut and yanking his sword towards him, slapping into his palm.

Maintaining that momentum, he slammed it through the Fomorian's shield and into the flesh beneath, the shield shattering with a sound like breaking glass.

Leaving Excalibur planted there, he once more grasped Galatine with both hands and slashed the flaming blade cleanly through the monster's right leg, the Fomorian beginning to topple.

[Royal Advance] yanked him out of the path of his falling foe, the Skill depositing him right next to a flagpole he immediately began to run up, kicking off it once he was several meters up to launch himself straight at the giant's now much-lower head, his flaming blade neatly parting flesh of the most powerful Fomorian present.

Landing, he yanked Excalibur free from the corpse and hurled it, aiming straight for the closing portal where it plunged into the ground, instantly halting the process.

The first bolt of lightning split the sky, then the signal to begin the retreat.

There was a massive crash from somewhere else in the camp as Ogier began to run, with Arthur following a mere instant later.

The very second they were clear, the thunderstorm redoubled, lightning crashing down in twos and threes, while the rain began to steam whenever it hit the ground while hissing, another spell having converted it into acid.

Together, the pair of them passed through the portal, and Arthur yanked Excalibur from the ground, letting the portal slam shut behind them, leaving the obliterated Fomorian forces trapped in the other world.

He grinned.

How was that for a spoiling attack?

***

Tristan

Holy.

Hell.

That had worked even better than I'd expected. Than anyone had expected, as far as I knew.

The forwardmost camp, the only camp, as far as we knew, had gotten utterly trashed by both Ogier and Arthur, then hammered with the ever-lethal combination of [Century Storm] and [Acid Rain]. Arthur had shut the portal before we saw the end of either spell, but I sincerely doubted there was anything left but a steaming, caustic pit of mud.

As for me, I hadn't actually contributed all that much, though there'd been an idea behind my staying back and watching, beyond the fact that I would have just gotten in the way out there.

I might have literally never used [Inspect] since it didn't work on monsters, but I still had the Skill, and for the very first time, I'd actually been able to use it.

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

And it had been rather informative.

It seemed as though the Fomorians obeyed the same rule of "no one under Level 50 in the army" that Charlemagne and Genghis Khan had agreed on, but surprisingly enough, not many of them were that much higher; most of the army being in the 60 to 65 range.

Granted, that was a hell of a lot stronger than any ancient had been at the start of things, hell, it made them stronger than 99.9% of humanity at present … but it also put them most of them in the "more than twenty-five Levels beneath me" category, which meant I could get their Class name, plus the name and description of their Skills, including their three most boosted Skills.

And even those who were closer to me were still nearly open books.

All told, the information I'd gotten had been telling. And while retroactive justifications weren't exactly a good way to live life, you should have a reason for doing something before you did it, rather than desperately grasping for an explanation/excuse once you'd already put your foot in it. There was something to be said for getting extra justification after the fact.

And ho boy, we'd gotten that in spades.

Because, judging by their Classes, Fomorians were assholes. Also conquerors. And slavers to boot.

I mean … I glanced over at where Genghis Khan was standing. It wasn't like we had that high a moral ground either.

But the Fomorians, judging by a couple of disturbingly specific Skills, they even ate people.

Also, there was something extra terrifying about something other than human pulling any of that shit.

Which just left the question of what else was coming down the line.

Was that the main invasion force?

I paused for a moment when nothing happened.

Hey, [Akashic Retrieval], that was a question addressed to you!

The Skill had been weirdly obstinate about answering questions pertaining to other, sealed-off worlds, but things should be different now, right?

Right. The Skill could be really helpful … when it wanted to be.

And, I mean, it made sense. What would have happened if it hadn't been for the ancients?

Any metropolises would have been the first targets, followed by the next largest concentration of people, until the Earth's population was reduced to scattered bands of survivors, desperately struggling to survive … incidentally also leaving most people stuck with Classes focused on wilderness survival, rather than combat.

Meanwhile, anyone who sufficiently stood out from the pack would call down monsters on their own position until they died, "the tallest blade of grass is the first to be cut," and all that.

And even with things having gone infinitely better than we ever could have expected, thanks to the appearance of the ancients, we still "only" outnumbered that force twelve to one.

Which was a lot, granted, but that was everything we had to throw at them; they … they likely had more. A lot more.

Okay, one more question: how was the Fomorian military set up, in terms of size, Classes, and levels?

Actually, no, scratch that. Gimme as thorough a breakdown of the totality of the Fomorian forces as you can.

Aha. Informative, but incomplete. Understandably incomplete, considering the way the Skill worked and its limitations, but incomplete nevertheless.

That left two more questions, though: what were their total numbers, and when would we have to fight them … questions I could not use because I was out of charges for the day.

Dangit.

Though ultimately, there was one big thing that jumped out to me: they didn't seem to be used to actual confrontations, rather being designed to mop up after the System's challenges.

Not only would they likely not have had the same leveling "opportunities" we'd "enjoyed" in the past three hundred and sixty-four days, but they'd also doubtlessly never expect us to be in any position to fight back, let alone make the opening move.

The spoiling attack that had just ended certainly had shown just how powerful the element of surprise could be, and most likely would continue to be until the Fomorians finally accepted that they weren't dealing with helpless prey this time around.

The two ancients finally reached the start of the tent line, where Fionn and Merlin were waiting.

Ogier suddenly coughed, then spat on the ground, spit splattering red across the hard-packed dirt at his feet.

The reactions varied, but all of them were some version of "alarm" and "you need a medic," for example, I was already moving to open a portal to the Untersberg's infirmary …

"Bit my tongue," he announced, sounding half-embarrassed, half-irritated, voice, a newly-acquired lisp underlining the truth of the statement.

And, by a unanimous decision made seemingly via telepathy, we all decided to ignore it.

Arthur was practically shaking with rage as he quickly ran down in just what a state the Fomorians had left Avalon in, while Ogier just nodded slowly whenever appropriate.

Then Charlemagne motioned for me to start speaking, so I quickly rattled off what I'd found out, then waited while the arguing started.

Genghis Khan wanted to take his people into the field, to sweep up the remains of the Fomorian army while protected from the caustic sludgepit the enemy camp had turned into with his Skills.

Charlemagne wanted to instead prepare the army properly, and prepare for the attack that would come when the barrier fell in truth tomorrow, setting up solid defenses that would, unfortunately, hamper the highly mobile Mongolian forces.

And Fionn wished to go on a proper scouting expedition on the other side.

As for me, I was listening to the voice of the System.

[Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 88 -> Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 89]

[Skill gained: Spread of Knowledge]

And apparently, the System saw my information gathering as worthy of reward. Just one more Level to go until Limit Break!

As for the Skill itself, it was both useful in general and perfect for the situation at hand.

So I activated it immediately, taking all the knowledge gathered on the enemy, converting it into a digital format, and sending it to all phones belonging to people who needed to know it.

And the arguing continued for a while after that. There'd been plans made for what to do after the spoiling attack, but it had been far more successful than had been expected, and therefore, than had been planned for. And therefore … well, the current situation had resulted.

Fionn turned to me. "Do you think you could fly around above the camp for a bit to make it a viable target for portals?"

I nodded.

"Well, I'd say that's another reason in favor of a second expedition. Unless they're waiting for us right on the other side of the portal, another 'expedition' would be a good idea."

Things apparently settled, not just Arthur but also Ogier immediately began to stride towards the portal.

I pinched the bridge of my nose. So much for the cooperation established during the World Boss battles … it seemed cooperation was a bit harder in ad-hoc situations than expected.

Either way, things had been decided this time, so I followed, ready to hurl fireballs into the face of any enemy that was close enough to deserve them, while Arthur once again split the veil and marched through, leaving Excalibur and wielding Galatine instead, though the blade's flames were noticeably dimmer this time.

But there was nothing waiting for him on the other side, save a few random Fomorians milling around in the distance.

Of course, they did react, with blistering speed … at least compared to their initial reaction.

In other words, still slightly slow … more than enough time for Fionn to hurl a fistful of energy beams that split to home in on each Fomorian's head in turn. They all fell before they could even raise the alarm, for what little that would have done, considering the rather low number of their fellows remaining.

And I just transformed into an eagle and took to the sky, watching the landscape beneath me drop away, hills growing small and people becoming almost invisible …

So, this was Avalon. Or, at the very least, it had been.

Once.

Because right now, I was seeing less "verdant paradise" more "industrial wasteland."

And I wasn't sure what made me think that, because there wasn't anything even remotely "industrial" there, it was a largely agrarian, medieval, kind of place, yet the vibe was … well, it was off.

Off in a way I couldn't quite lay my finger on, but off nonetheless. And this place was certainly nothing like the utopian fairy realm it was meant to be.

Fucking hell.

My reaction to seeing that might not have been quite as volcanic as Arthur's, but it still pissed me off. Every time I learned more about these fuckers, I was feeling more and more justified in this war.

That was when I spotted the new group moving towards the site of the portal, obviously an army, made up of more Fomorians. Whether they were reinforcements or a direct response to the spoiling attack, I didn't know, and likely wouldn't find out anytime soon, but I didn't need to know to come up with a proper response.

Triggering [Spell Fusion], I combined [Century Storm], [Acid Rain], and [Catalyze] to create a massively nastier version of the usual caustic rain trick.

Would it necessarily kill them?

No.

Did it cost me anything to drop the storm on their head?

Also no.

I banked to the side and began my journey back as quickly as possible, a handful of energy beams flashing through the sky far behind me.

Huh. Apparently, they had some kind of ability to trace spells, but either said ability was highly inaccurate … or they were just shit shots in general.

As I neared the portal, I saw both Fionn and Arthur waiting for me, so I landed between them, transforming back into human form a split second before impact, stepped through, the portal slamming shut behind us when Excalibur was removed from the ground.

And then the System spoke yet again.

[Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 89 -> Sage of All, Archmage of History Lv. 90]

[Physical Limit Breaker gained]

Perfect. Apparently, I'd done some damage with that storm.

I mean, it wasn't like I hadn't known what the Skill did, considering how many people had also gotten the most likely final physical upgrade, but it was nice to have it for myself.

Quickly, I relayed the information I'd gathered, and that was that.

***

Fionn

It had been twelve hours since the first time they crossed between worlds, and things were getting interesting. And messy.

The Fomorian forces were slowly building up on the other side, far from reaching anything close to their former numbers, but with them being alert and aware of the threat, they were still an issue, and the probes through the portal were becoming more and more dangerous, so they'd stopped doing it. Though Arthur was still cleaving open the occasional gash to hurl through the odd spell, or get a glimpse at the buildup on the other side.

Unfortunately, attempting to use Tristan's portals to enter from a different angle had failed; apparently, they couldn't cross dimensions.

Although, actually …

He turned to Tristan while pulling out his phone and zooming in on the place he'd retrieved Diarmuid's spears all those months ago.

"How quickly can you get here?"

"An hour, maybe?" the young man replied, sounding curious, most likely wanting to know where this was going.

"And you have enough portal charges to experiment at least a little?"

"Yes?"

"Then please, head there, and open a portal to let us catch up once you've arrived, so we can open the portal to the Otherworld there."

Tristan nodded, summoned a portal, and vanished.

"What's the plan?" Arthur asked.

Fionn grinned. "Like I said, between the two of us, we can open a gate into the Otherworld, and even though the portals don't work between worlds, but as long as we can get over there, we should still be able to blindside them."

It took half an hour for Tristan to be able to reach the site in question from wherever his closest portal position had been, but then, a tear in space opened next to Fionn, and he stepped through with the British monarch, and exerted his own power to try and enter the otherworld here … and the System blocked his efforts, the opalescent barrier existing for a brief moment before Excalibur ripped it apart.

And this time, Tristan's attempts to open another portal to the sky above the former site of the Fomorian encampment opened.

So they did have another way to bombard them down there. Of course, at some point, they'd be able to counter it, or Tristan would run out of portals, but until then … oh, they'd do some damage.