The Original Beefcake

"...wie Glas zerspringt der Himmel, Sterne fallen überall…." Music hammered in Marcus's ears and a tree trunk exploded in front of him. His body moved mechanically, his mind was occupied with more difficult things.

Force. What is force? Mathematically it is mass multiplied by acceleration, Marcus knew enough about physics to be aware of that. Fundamentally it describes a change of motion of an object, a rocket accelerating towards the sky for example. But it works the other way around too, like a car crashing into a wall. Now, his own abilities of course cheat physics and produce a certain amount of force based on the application.

The thing was, he didn't change the mass of his target. This meant all he did was to manipulate the acceleration of physical objects. It was ironic to Marcus that at its core the Titan was closest to the Accelerator class. Two classes that looked nothing alike. Accelerators were racing around the battlefield, cutting stuff apart faster than the eye can see. The Titan on the other hand moved painfully slow and threw powerful attacks at pedestrian speeds. Both manipulated acceleration, but in very different ways.

His failure to make Impulse Wave work the way he wanted had caused a serious crisis in his understanding of his own class. Unexpectedly, he had found himself in the same situation as Kim, who had started to doubt his own vision of the Paladin after Light's Mercy had been discovered. Marcus knew there was more to Impulse Wave, a more profound application than just supercharging Impulse Hammer.

Shen had given him advice about his fourth ability and Marcus had tried to understand what he was meant to do. But by all means, he saw no answer. His abilities were all about explosive acceleration and deceleration, that made them so powerful. Impulse Hammer can rip somebody apart, Carapace can stop attacks or at least counter them a fraction of a second later, and his Impulse Wave can flatten a house. What was he missing? Marcus' mind was going in endless circles.

"...Marcus! MARCUS!" Grace shouted. Marcus turned around and took off his headphones. "I said this is enough, you can stop," she said, and Marcus gave her a thumbs up. He stepped back from the next tree and walked back to the leading truck. They had been on the target planet for two days and progress had been slow. The path to their goal was heavily forested and they had to forcefully make a path. Because he had the most endurance and a very fitting ability it fell to Marcus to blow up large trees, while the others cleaned up behind him.

He looked up and furrowed his brows at the sight of the mountain range in the distance. Tall, snow covered peaks reached up to the clouds and their goal was in the middle of that mess. He followed the truck as it moved forward until another set of tall trees made them stop. Rinse and repeat.

It took them four days to reach the highlands and everybody was eager to finally get to the ruins. With no roads, the trucks followed the natural flow of the terrain and they slowly increased their altitude over many hours. They finally met the natives, that is the local monster population. Several times they were raided by small groups of weird monsters. They weren't much bigger than a large dog, but they had long fur and sharp tusks that protruded out of the thick fur. Their heads were hidden behind a curtain of hair and beady little eyes glared hungrily at their prey.

The most unusual part of those monsters were their feet. Their four strong legs ended in what could easily be described as six fingered hands with sharp claws. They used these hands to move quickly and safely over the dangerous terrain in the mountain and Marcus had seen one of them, basically hanging 90° from a rock wall without falling. Candis had named them Gropers, which became their official name in the monster index. The Gropers weren't that dangerous, at least not to a raid of their level. Most of the time they saved ammo and let the melee classes take care of them.

It had gotten cold. The higher they moved the lower the temperature fell. Eventually snow started to fall and slowed them down even more. Still, with every passing hour they came closer and closer to the estimated location of the ruins. "The longer we are driving up these mountains the more I wonder who would build any kind of installation in this kind of environment," Marcus said, and Grace agreed with a nod. She was steering the truck through the dangerous area and Marcus could see the tension in her face.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

"I agree, such a location would be extremely uncommon for a dwelling. Unless, the goal was from the start to hide away in a hard to reach location," Bianca offered as explanation, and Marcus gave her a smile. Today, he was driving with truck two and enjoyed the banter with the scientists in the truck. "Well, we are about to find out. According to the navigation system we are only three kilometers away," Grace said, and cheering filled the truck.

Two kilometers from their target they left the trucks and the scientists behind and the raid team moved out to inspect the ruins. "I can't see a thing," Janette said, and her eyes moved over the terrain. "Given the amount of snowfall we see, it is possible the installation is covered by many meters of ice. We might have to drill down," Marcus replied, and Janette looked even unhappier. The cold really got her down, Marcus thought. They moved in a loose formation between snow, ice and rock and had their eyes on the surrounding mountains.

"You sure about going barefooted, Marcus? I know you are tough, but it is bloody cold," Alistair said, and looked at Marcus's bare feet. "It is okay. With my vitality barely any normal environment bothers me anymore. Besides, if I use my Burst too often my boots get torn apart. And I am not optimistic enough to believe we will be able to secure the ruins without a fight," he explained, and Alistair laughed. "In the long term I might ditch my whole armor. It just can't keep up with the damage I normally take," Marcus said, more to himself than to his friend.

Janette was upfront with her trusty railgun in hands. Her peerless eyes scanned the mountain sides, "There are some far away Groper groups, but nothing that could reach us in the next one or two hours." Marcus was happy the weather was clear today. An ambush in heavy snowfall was something he didn't want to repeat in this lifetime.

That was the time you and Janette nearly died, correct?

Yes. Wildlings ambushed us near a portal and we survived more through luck and willpower than through skill.

I see.

"We should be more or less above the ruins by now," Rita pointed out, and looked at a hand held device. "I can see something in front of us! Looks like… an ice cave? Maybe a tunnel?" Carlos reported, while he shielded his eyes against the glare of the snow. Marcus increased his speed and moved next to Janette, her eyes were focused on something in the ground. A very bad feeling started to grow in his stomach. They moved closer and indeed, a ten meter wide tunnel descended into the ice, in the middle of the snow field. "Janette, can you see something?" Alistair asked, from behind and the whole raid looked at her. "There is definitely something down there. It is big, no scratch that, it is huge. And it has a nasty aura, at least evolved… maybe worse," Janette said, over the com line.

Marcus' heartbeat rose from nervous to danger mode. He looked at the weirdly smooth walls of the tunnel and the word 'fire' found its way into his mind. "It knows we are here! It is coming out!" Janette shouted. "Spread out!" Came from Grace. The raid moved away from the tunnel entrance and dispersed over the area. Marcus stayed fairly close to the tunnel, that was his job. Janette ran far back, but her eyes never let go of the unseen enemy. "IT IS A WYRM!" She shouted over the com connection, and Marcus' eyes moved to Grace. He could see her tensing up, but her voice stayed calm, "Aim at the wings, we need to stop it from flying. They are extremely quick and-" whatever else she wanted to say was swallowed by the roaring of the emerging beast.

The massive body of the wyrm crawled out of the tunnel and unfolded to its full size. The giant reptile head, a long flexible neck, gigantic bat-like wings with sharp claws and a set of powerful hind legs were completed by a ten meters long tail covered in bone blades. The monster had no scales, but a thick, leathery hide in black and silver. The wyrm roared and a wave of dread rushed over the raid. While the body was lean it was basically all muscles, sinews and bones. In size alone it was larger than the two monstrous bulls, from a few days ago, put on top of each other.

For a moment everybody was frozen and the two melon sized, yellow reptile eyes observed their prey. Then it moved forward like an arrow, the head close to the ground and the powerful hind legs pushing the whole body forward at tremendous speed. The maw opened and it directly aimed at their back line. Marcus had no time to react as the beast shot passed him, but Grace had started to move even before the monster had lowered its head.

The veteran of the London wyrm raids jumped into the path of the monster and she wielded her glowing silver blade with both hands. Grace aimed at the right wing and her weapon cut through the incoming wing like butter. Thin bones, muscles and sinews were cut and the monster stopped its charge instantly. The neck bent and the head shot forward like a snake. Grace jumped high up and the sword-like teeth only hit the air.

For a second Marcus wanted to celebrate, but the damaged wing shot up and hit Grace in the middle of the air and the brutal impact catapulted her fifty meters over the snow field. She hit the snowy ground and rolled several times over before she stopped motionless. "Candis, take care of Grace. Marcus, engage. The rest keep moving and aim at the wings," Rita's voice was cold and professional. Marcus pushed his feet into the dense snow and Burst charged towards the back of the wyrm.