The Systemic Lands (Dark Progressive LITRPG)

I felt the energy in the environment change and then everything went white for a brief moment. The sphere had launched an all-out attack at the same time. The frames holding the plates togeather were blown apart. The beam attacks slowing down their advance. The cone in front of us lost several layers, they broke apart, and the cone began to turn slightly. Thankfully it had enough mass, that it kept going the direction I had originally sent it out at.

I adjusted the diamond's trajectory to follow behind it. I noted the cube shaped drones, moving into flanking positions, like I had predicted. The cone in front of us was being absolutely shredded, but still holding togeather. By the time we had crossed half of the effective range of the fortress in about a minute, about a third of the front cone had been completely destroyed, with another third heavily damaged.

Magnite plates were flying everywhere, and my guess was correct. The beam attacks would over penetrate the first one, but stop on the second, damaging it heavily. I poked my head out of the tip of the diamond and began firing combination beam attacks to create an annihilation effect. There was damage, but it was limited. I kept firing relentlessly. I was never more grateful than this moment, that I didn't have to make hand signs or say anything.

The large cube drones with four cannons took ten beam attacks to break apart and have them stop working. They were the only things I could target at the moment, since the cone in front of us was blocking my vision. Each of my beam attacks used 400 energy, and 800 energy for an annihilation effect from the Radiant Beam and the Void Beam.

My accuracy was on point as well. The drones were the size of buildings, so it was easy enough to land a hit on them, even if it wasn't in the center. My experience coming into play for targeting monsters moving about at range. They did tried to alter their movements, but there just wasn't enough distance to make it worthwhile, since I was still able to land attacks on them. Their size was a hinderance.

The first cone impacted the massive fortress. The rods holding the frame togeather snapped if they weren't already blasted apart and the cone broke apart. Air Burst. I moved out of the front of the diamond as the sphere still hadn't managed to focus fire on me. It was attacking everything within range. The diamond was slowed down behind me, I didn't want it impacting that hard now that we had closed the distance. It needed to be a bunker for Clarissa and her two minions, along with the super bombs they had.

If we hadn't gone with this plan, I would have been instantly killed. As I kept unleashing beam attacks constantly at any target I spotted, I estimated that the sphere was outputting millions of energy worth of beam attacks every second.

I weaved through the large amount of flying debris, spinning about while aiming directly in front of me at the fortress, focusing on the golems and the turrets now. I had taken out 8 of the 12 drones and damaged 2 more. I had wanted to get them all, but once the cone impacted, there was just too much debris on the sides, which was exactly what I wanted. It was providing very necessary cover.

Taking out the drones had used up around 70,000 energy, and I had another 220,000 left. The Air Bursts from earlier had used up the other 10,000 from my reserves. I noted my combination beam attacks did little against the turrets. I focused my beam attacks on the golems instead.

I reached one of the platforms extending away from the main body of the fortress. I twisted the top of one of the bombs I had with me and tossed it into the opening of one of the turrets. I kept firing beam attacks the entire time. If I saw something I used my skills. The turret exploded, the bomb had been enough to take it out from the inside. They were slow to turn and most of the beam attacks from the enemies was directed away from the fortress, probably to avoid friendly fire.

Reaching a second turret, I tossed in another bomb, and kept moving. The diamond impacted the station. The front portion crumpled slightly, but it wasn't being targeted down. There was still a massive cloud of debris around it. I saw one of the drones and hit it several times in rapid succession. Its four turrets stopped firing as it broke apart and drifted away.

I cleared out one arm, of turrets and golems and moved onto the next. There were four arms extending around where the diamond had impacted the fortress. I needed to clear them first before we tried to enter.

Clarissa and her two minions were exiting the diamond onto the fortress and creating a defensive position. They were to prep one of the super bombs and send it into one of the fortress openings first. That should take out any traps or nasty surprises the sphere had set up.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

The entire outside was a death trap. It was obvious that the inside would be an even greater death trap. One thing I had learned from the towers, was that death traps were not fun. I could deal with them, but that would be the absolute last decision possible. Better to send in one of our super-bombs in first and blow everything away that the sphere had set up.

There was also a small bit of hope that such an explosion would disrupt its command and control ability, but we weren't counting on that. A beam attack grazed my helmet just as I finished clearing the second arm. The surrounding debris was rapidly being cleared out and was dispersing. I noted Clarissa was sending out more plates from her position on the fortress, while her minions covered her position.

The number of points she was burning through was not small. Each Magnite plate cost 100,000 points. She was throwing three plates a second. In a single minute, that it took for me to clear an arm of the fortress and move onto the next one, she had burned around 18,000,000 points. She had spent over a billion points and I had spent around two billion in preparation for the assault.

It was pay to win. A portable store truly was an incredibly broken item to have in terms of defense. One could just throw up more and more barriers to block attacks. While the sphere had an overwhelming amount of fire power, I was clearing out a safe area on one side of the fortress.

I took out a tenth drone, there were two remaining, unless the sphere had hidden more inside the fortress. Making assumptions was dangerous, but I hadn't seen any as I began clearing a third platform extending away from the fortress itself. My orientation was screwed up completely in this three dimensional battle, but I kept firing annihilation beam attacks at golems and drones.

I took a beam attack that had over penetrated one of the Magnite plates to the left leg. It burnt a small hole into my leg, but it didn't go all the way through.

"EEEK!" There was a loud screeching noise. Clarissa's control over sound energy was nowhere close to mine. But it didn't need to be good, just enough to warn me that a super bomb had been activated. One of the many weapon projects Clarissa had developed over the years in preparation for another Divine Empress.

I moved onto the fourth arm. The diamond was half destroyed, especially the rear, since the other turrets resting on the arms of the fortress could get a better angle on it. Just as I began taking out the turrets, I felt a surge of energy and the entire fortress shifted slightly.

Clarissa and her minions had created a plug for the entrance they had put the super bomb through. Using more focused bombs to create divots to create a location they could rapidly build a doorway. The portable store really was the most overpowered and broken item in existence. While one couldn't get regenerations from it, I was going to be saving up a trillion points to buy one for sure after seeing this nonsense.

I finished the fourth arm and retreated to Clarissa's position as she kept sending out more Magnite plates. The temporary doorway they had made had taken a lot of damage and was partially melted, but the inside of the fortress was much worse.

"Arms are clear, any interior defenses?" I quickly asked. I was down to around 120,000 energy. That wasn't good, but hopefully it would be enough.

"Nothing for the first portion. But we didn't go deep. It was straight for quite a ways, so we chucked the bomb into it once we saw a large group of golems at the end," Clarissa replied, even while purchasing more plates to throw out. A drone circled into view, and I quickly took it out. There should only be one left.

The super-bombs were enchanted heavily and were not easily destroyed. They were meant to take some very heavy punishment before breaking apart. It was a shame we only had two and one had been used up. The cost to build one, was priceless, since it required a lot of level 6 crafting crystals to create a level 7 enchantment. Each outer portion had multiple level 7 enchantments as well as the interior components.

The price of a single super-bomb was technically priceless, since only myself or Michelle were qualified to get those crafting crystals. The fact that Clarissa had managed to get two super-bombs made me guess that Michelle was in contact with her to trade in some way. Exchange crafting crystals for more than the points they were worth.

"I will lead the way," I said, and Clarissa nodded. I entered the half-melted tunnel into the interior of the fortress. She left multiple plates behind us floating in the center of the passage. They would clutter it up, making it much harder to transverse and provide a distraction if anything pursued us. They would also provide a path for when we needed to retreat.

I had cleared out the arms around the diamond, so we had a chance of leaving, if the attacks didn't stop even if the sphere was defeated. It was an unlikely outcome, but it was worth the energy expenditure to clear out the golems and the use of some small bombs to create a viable escape route, or a place of retreat.

If I didn't win the first assault, we weren't going to leave. Just pull back and hunker down if possible. While the sphere had massive, long range beam attacks, using them would just destroy its own fortress and use up energy.

The super-bomb had done a lot of damage, but this place was incredibly sturdy. The amount of energy in the walls would put it around level 8 or 9 type of environment. It was sturdier than the block construction the sphere had used previously. Also, now that I had a chance to focus, the energy in the environment was the same as I had felt before. This was definitely the sphere and not something else.

We had survived the initial assault. Now all that was left was to survive the interior of this fortress, find the sphere, and defeat it. I could still hear the slight burr of the beam attacks from outside the fortress, but they were quickly dwindling. The battle had been a fairly quiet one with how much fire power was being thrown about, but that was probably due to the energy or the atmosphere of this place.