Outrage of the Ancients (LitRPG Apocalypse)

Tristan

When the barrier finally fell, it was almost anticlimactic, a barrage of magical and technological artillery hammering the now wide-open breach between worlds and wiping out the Fomorians who'd tried to "ambush" us from there. I took a moment to make sure that things were going well, then looked over the System window describing the final Challenge description.

Well, at least it was clear as to how this was going to go.

The "Seventh Challenge" wasn't actually a challenge at all, at least not in the way the System had previously used the term.

Instead, it had simply left us wide open to invasion from the Fomorian empire … which we'd already known the entire damn time.

And even so, the damn thing was still fucking with normal means of scrying, at least going by the fact that both Fionn and Merlin had said that, upon being able to learn more about what was coming, they would share any information gathered via supernatural means immediately.

As for me, the advancement to a new Challenge always coincided with the start of a new day as the System counted it, resetting all cooldowns, which obviously included [Akashic Retrieval].

So, two questions.

Are there any other enemies we need to worry about in the foreseeable future, besides the Fomorian empire?

Good to know. Focusing on the Fomorians until they were down for good was possible.

So … what are the numbers of the Fomorian armed forces, as detailed as possible without losing sight of the big picture?

Weeeeeeell … about as far from great as was possible, but also nowhere near as bad as feared.

And wasn't that a tenuous silver lining?

Never mind that said silver lining only existed because Fionn, in a moment of uncharacteristic pessimism, had reminded everyone that if these were the same Fomorians that had been confined to the realm of myth and legend even in his day, then they were truly ancient, having existed for millennia, with a population to match.

Of course, the "low" numbers of military members might not necessarily reflect the size of the population as a whole, but if they were an accurate indicator, then it seemed the fertility-reducing effects of long lifespans and ease of living had hit the empire hard.

Yet even so, being outnumbered ten to one, sixty to one counting the reserves and draftable population … winning was going to be a tall order, even discounting the fact that the Fomorians might have champions on their own.

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Proper champions.

Not that one guy who'd managed to hold up Arthur all of two seconds before getting torn apart thanks to Excalibur's ability to tell absolute defenses to fuck off.

Though considering that "champion's" shield had blocked a full-power attack from the surprisingly overpowered Galatine, wielded by the equally overpowered Arthur, that could have gone oh so much worse.

Ultimately, though, it had gone well, mostly because, well, he was King freaking Arthur, and the others were equally overpowered, each in their own right.

I returned my attention fully to the battle at hand … even if "battle" was overselling what was going on by a rather considerable margin.

The Fomorians had never gotten the chance to get their feet back under them since the opening strike, and Genghis Khan was currently in the process of punching two groups of cavalry through their "formation," which really was just a rag-tag collection of survivors, with artillery, both of the magical and technological variety, hammering the enemy whenever the horsemen weren't in the way.

Ten thousand, plus whatever reinforcements had arrived in the last twenty-two hours, slain without a single casualty on our end … a hundred times that to go. At the bare minimum.

The combined army of humanity was, by and large, made up of the remnants of the US military, Genghis Khan's horde, and a loose melange of various European armed forces collected and integrated by Charlemagne, one of his Skills bridging any language barriers that might crop up, and Sundiata's army.

On top of that, there were also various "independents" with Skills and Classes capable of making a difference and a desire to put an end to the System's mess once and for all.

And finally, quite a few military-adjacent civilians to help with logistics.

Sadly, we were going to be severely lacking in air cover. Between transport, logistical requirements, and the current state of munitions and spare parts for just about every kind of aircraft, it simply wasn't feasible to lug along more than a handful of helicopters and several trucks stuffed to the gills with drones.

That being said, the Americans had apparently also still had a few Davy Crockets lying around.

And no, I wasn't talking about the famous frontiersman.

Instead … well, these were Americans, they liked their big guns, and during the Cold War, they'd built the biggest guns, namely, nuclear fucking bazookas.

Twenty-one hundred, in fact.

Of course, they'd had a cute little flaw in the sense that the effective range of the weapon was actually shorter than the minimum safe distance, so … yeah. Safe to say there were plenty of reasons to never have used these beyond the danger of nuclear war.

Even so, the current situation was very different than back then, for starters, range- and accuracy-enhancing Skills to extend the distance from which the explosive could be hurled, while durability-boosting and radiation-resistance abilities would make it safe to be closer to the blast than previously.

Also, while the explosive equivalent of twenty tons of TNT was a lot, it might also be low enough to not trigger an Ascendant Capstone.

Of course, I knew quite a few people could survive that blast as long as they didn't get hit by it from point-blank range, so perhaps the protection wasn't needed … but at that point, harming a powerful opponent was also an achievement.

And as long as these were used judicously, they'd be a great addition to the army, and they'd certainly compensate for the minimal air support.

Ultimately … it would have to be enough.

Genghis Khan's forces were already in the other world, mopping up, but before Charlemagne could make this departure a big production, General Collins, the commander of the American contingent, chose to march through the gate.

Making a big declaration as the third of four to pass through would have felt a bit … pretentious, however, so I felt okay just flying through in falcon form without waiting on any kind of ceremony.

Thankfully, the portal had opened to a breadth of nearly a kilometer, so the passage was much easier than it would have been had we been stuck with the tiny portal that Arthur could force open.

I wound up circling overhead for a good thirty minutes as things got set up again, on the non-Earth side of the portal this time, and scouts were set up.

In a way, this entire situation reminded me of a dog chasing something it did not expect to catch, then actually managing to catch said thing and going, "well, now what do I do?"

I mean … yeah. The expectations had been for a pitched battle to occur at the portal, not, uh, what had actually happened.

Now we were in desperate need of a target.

Which target?

Why, the next one, of course.

And the one after that.

And so on, and so forth, all the while making sure not to do anything that would put us in a shitty position.

Hence, the scouts.

I was trying to help in my own right, looking around and then using my latest Skill to beam the information down to Mia's phone, but knowing what was important, and how to phrase things was something I was only sort of good at, and via second-hand information to boot. While I'd help as best I could, this was something best left to the professionals.

And then, one of Charlemagne's Skills passed along an interesting tidbit of information. A village had been found. A village not inhabited by Fomorian.

Well … that could be interesting.