The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

I continued staring at the massive super fortress in front of us. I had no sense of time in this place, but at least a day had passed. I kept trying to come up with a way to go about this fight, where I wouldn't be immediately put at a disadvantage. Clarissa and her two minions didn't have any good ideas, this was all on me.

"We go big," I finally said. Clarissa looked at me.

"Big?" she asked.

"Big. Buy thousands upon thousands of Magnite plates with interlocking mechanisms at a distance. Then push the massive super structure forward. We leave a front bunker open I can fire straight ahead from, strengthen up the rear, flanks, and sides. We go right in, and then I begin unleashing once we get in close. Cut our way to the center," I replied.

"How big?" Clarissa asked me.

"I have a couple billion points saved up. I can buy quite a bit. We make a giant cone frame, then lock in the plates. Do a small cone, then another, then another, as big as possible. Since we will be going in one direction, and everything moves the same speed in this place, it will be simple enough to make a super structure to get in close without being blown apart," I explained.

"Angled joints, with a hole to put a small rod through. Turning or twisting, has a high chance of putting on stress, but what about angular momentum. How fast can the entire object move? If everything is stuck going at the same speed and you move your arm, is your arm going faster?" Clarissa asked me. That was a good question.

"We will find out. It doesn't matter how slow it is, as long as it moves forward. The more damage it takes, and losses to the structure, the faster it will go. In fact we should build two. Get one moving forward in front of us to hit the fortress, then have a second to slam into the rear of the first. All the debris will provide cover as well for me to defeat the golems, box drones, and turrets."

The more I discussed the idea, the more I liked it. It wouldn't be simple to pull off, but since we had a portable store, it was possible. "The super bombs? Put those in the cones?" Clarissa asked. I shook my head. She might be good at managing, but she was no fighter. That question made it clear.

"No. I will clear a path forward, with all of you right behind me. Once we get to the central chamber, we activate the bombs there to destroy any reflective surface the sphere might be using. The real question is if I should target the golems and other nearby defenses before moving on the sphere. While it didn't bring in support last time, getting surrounded would be bad," I replied.

Normally when fighting a summoner type monster, you go for the summoner, not the minions. But I was less sure in this case. I hadn't fought a high-level summoner monster that impressed me so far. The sphere was a different story. It could use more advanced tactics. It had intelligence. Not the mindless intelligence of the monsters of the System. Even the higher-level monsters were only so adaptable.

We were far enough away from the fortress to begin work, without worry. Clarissa was already purchasing away and directing her two minions to set up the first cone. She was working from the inside to the outside, which made sense so we could test that the entire thing could be moved.

While she didn't have an engineering background, she was no slouch in terms of visualizing, each piece that she needed. The frame came togeather with zig-zag connectors that then had a threaded rod placed through them, with nuts to hold them relatively in place. This kind of construction wouldn't hold up well to a large impact, but the cones were meant to shatter to provide cover.

The outside portions of the frame had guide rails, which Magnite sheets were purchased for. The highest level material from the System. It should be able to reduce the impact of a single blow from a level 7 beam attack enough that it wouldn't over penetrate beyond a single layer of the cone.

Clarissa gave me the rod for the portable store once it came time to purchase the sheets. The tip of the cone would be open so I would be able to see where I was directing it and fire beam attacks. I was patting myself for coming up with this idea.

We built cone after cone, working incredibly efficiently. Five layers, then ten layers, then twenty layers. Once the first massive cone structure was complete, we began on the second one behind the first. Cone after cone part was purchased. For the second cone, it was only fifteen layers, but it had a second cone on the back, forming a diamond shape.

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

It took about a day to finish the second cone, or diamond now. We had three days total before Clarissa's team started making return portals in an attempt to reach us. We all had enough stats to go without sleep, having rested right before this attack.

"What do you think?" Clarissa asked me, as I looked over everything one last time.

"More, we need even more," I said heavily, while looking at the fortress in the distance.

"More?" she looked at me.

"This stuff isn't enchanted. If those golems are the same as last time, they will carved through the defenses quickly. They will focus fire. Let's make stacks of plates, we will send them in first, absorbing more of the attacks. We won't be able to make cover once we are under attack, so better to go all out right now," I explained.

We couldn't take half measures. The amount of fire coming our way would be immense. If the sphere managed to concentrate fire in specific locations, we would be in trouble. We needed as much debris once we started our attack. There was no use having a super health insurance policy right now if we didn't win. This was all or nothing.

"We only have so much time Michael," Clarissa told me, and I nodded.

"I know, but once the fighting starts, it is going to go quickly. We need as much cover as possible for our assault. I need the cover." I took over purchasing the metal plates again. Four large plates about the size of a large door, in stacks of 100, held togeather by a thin cup shaped frame.

The idea being the fame would break apart once hit, and the plates would spread out like chaff, absorbing the massive amount of beam attacks we would receive. I was kind of surprised the sphere had not responded yet to all our building, but we were a decent distance away and it might not even notice us with all the background energy.

Even visually, the rainbow background hurt my eyes and my energy sense was like static for the most part. Whatever this place was, it wasn't the best hiding place for the sphere. We might not even be strong enough for it to notice.

Regardless, I was happy we had the time to build up a plan of attack. Making the stacks of plates was much simpler than building the cones. I purchased as quickly as possible while Clarissa and her minions got to work making sure they were all placed togeather correctly.

In total there would be 24 stacks of plates. I would get them moving in the direction of the fortress, the first cone, and then the second. The cones would take longer to build up speed to the maximum of this place. That was why we had stopped adding on more cone layers. Mass was a factor in relation to speed. I could use my skill Air Burst to help out, getting everything up to speed more quickly.

Once the second cone was halfway there, the first stacks of plates would enter the effective range of the fortress and the defenses. I wasn't sure about the exact range, but I had a fairly good estimate based on the last time we had fought the sphere.

In terms of overall size, I had to put the first cone at about a twentieth the size of the fortress. And I was going to be the main offense. While Clarissa and her two minions had the super bombs and their skills, they wouldn't be able to play a role taking out the vast number of defenses arrayed against us. We also had to commit once we attacked.

Retreating would be far worse than attacking. We had to take out the sphere, otherwise we would be screwed. I might be able to escape if I had enough energy to create counter attacks to shield myself, but even that was highly questionable.

The number of beam attacks that the sphere would be able to leverage would be immense, if it wasn't killed off. That was why we had to win no matter what. Escape wasn't a feasible option. I also didn't have a second idea on how to get close. Once this cone idea was used, the sphere would figure out a counter measure most likely, if we didn't kill it off.

It was a shame we weren't able to make them drills, but angular momentum slowed down their forward speed. The larger the angular momentum, the slower the cones would travel. That was why we went with cones, not drills. The fortress structure wouldn't be damaged that much by the impacts. The impacts were only meant to create more chaos and break apart the cones to create cover for me to fight with.

Clarissa, Conner, and Gregor all took cover in the diamond, entering from the front. The back had a metal plug that could be pushed out as an escape hatch. I got to work pushing the stacks of metal plates forward, going clockwise around the first cone. Once the plates were sent forward, I then went into the first cone, and put myself in the center. I used Air Burst, several times, which helped get the cone up to speed.

I then sent to the rear diamond and did the same thing. The first cone, veered slightly, which meant I couldn't see all the way towards the fortress. I adjusted the diamond's course to follow it. We were going to impact slightly off center, but were still on target. Visualizing the stacks of plates in my head, about half of them would miss.

The tension increased as we got closer to the fortress waiting for it to respond to our attack. If the attacks were stronger than I thought, they would over penetrate massively, and we could be cut to shreds. If the sphere was smart enough, it would ignore the chaos we were unleashing and focus solely on killing me.