Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Integration initialization complete

Welcome to the Multiverse. Your home, Earth, was on a collision course with a large local gamma ray burst, it was due to arrive in exactly one Earth year. This would have been an extinction level event, and would have sterilized all life on your planet. As part of the Emergency Integration Protocol, The System, has intervened on your society's behalf to prevent this event from occurring. Please note, the seasons on your planet may have been affected, as your planet was moved further along its natural orbit of your parent star, as to avoid the collision in one year's time.

Earth is now Integrated with The System. Please note, many changes will occur. New dangers and threats will soon appear. At the end of this message, you will be given the chance to select a starting combat Class, and some among you may be granted the opportunity to change your race. These threats and dangers will be artificially limited for a period of 45 days, after which time, all restraints will be removed.

Fight, Survive, Grow, Evolve

"Well...I guess Spock wasn't kidding when he had told me that The System was intervening to save us. A gamma ray burst is seriously bad news, and the chance of getting hit by one that powerful is so astronomically low, that most people never considered it a viable threat." Drew said.

"What's that all about anyway?" Amber asked.

"Ah, it's a big beam of energy and radiation that scientists were still trying to pinpoint the origins of. The most widely accepted theories involved massive stars collapsing to form blackholes, or two super dense neutron stars merging and then collapsing to form a black hole. All that dense mass gets pulled in on itself, and then gets blasted out into space."

"Radiation sounds bad."

"It sounds like The System saved our bacon. Even though it sounds impossible, it sounds like Earth was picked up, and moved to a different point in its orbit around the sun. The notification said we could experience strange changes in the seasons. For all I know, it could technically be late spring or even summer right now. The weather is definitely going to get fucked up." Drew replied.

"If you say so dear. But what about the rest of the notification? The stuff about restraints?"

"I don't know, let's go find Spock."

The couple walked to the guest bedroom that Spock had just gotten back from the Kobinahs. Their house had arrived and was installed Sunday morning, so, once they had moved everything out, Spock had moved back into the guest bedroom. Although, it was probably better to say it was his bedroom now. The couple arrived at the door to his bedroom.

*KNOCK KNOCK*

"Hey Spock, The Descent is happening, can you wake up please?"

"One moment, Drew Wright. I'll be right out."

Less than a minute later, Spock opened the door and walked out to join the couple.

"Hey buddy, have you checked your notifications yet?"

"Indeed, I have."

"Greatttttt. Mind telling us what the deal is with restraints that it mentioned?"

"Of course. Typically, upon Integration, The System floods the world with mana, and other energies, which mutate animals into beasts, and rapidly increase their reproduction and growth rate. Additionally, other beasts that come from other planets, along with monsters, begin to spawn at a rapid pace. The System places restraints for a short time period to allow native beings and species to adjust to the highly increased danger."

"Yeah, alright, but what is it actually restraining? The reproduction rate or...?

"Negative. It's sectioning off portions of the planet. Only some sections will be capable of spawning higher leveled beasts and monsters, while most areas will be relatively safer as the spawned enemies will be of lower levels."

"When you're talking about lower and higher-level enemies, what type of levels are we talking about specifically?" Drew asked.

"Hmmmm. It varies. The common ones will be between level one and level ten. Those should be pretty much everywhere. Levels ten to twenty should be around, but are less common, and enemies at higher levels will either be rarer, or contained in secure locations until the restraints are lifted. Additionally, it prevents high level dungeons from spawning near large areas of civilization."

"...And how exactly would we determine which type of area we are currently ...hold up... one of my mental connections to my minions disappeared."

"That would mean it was likely destroyed."

"WHAT?!" Drew yelled.

He quickly pulled up his blinking notification icon.

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 0] has been slain

"Fuck, that's not good. Boo Bear, go get everyone up and moving. We're under attack." Drew said

"Shit. Okay." She said as she ran off.

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 0] has been slain

"Fuck, I just lost another one. It's the group in the forest, they're getting killed."

"Have you given them a command to defend themselves or attack targets not allied with you?"

"No! Why would I ever even think about that. Never mind. I'm going to pull them back to the outer fence, I'll go climb the tower blind closest to them and see if I can see anything. Will you help Amber get everyone up and then come find me please?"

"Indeed." He said as he jogged outside.

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 0] has been slain

"Damnit!" He said to himself.

There was no time to think, he needed to get to work. Now. He relayed commands to the animal skeletons to attack as a group if they were attacked, and to regroup at the outer fence. To his three human skeletons, he sent commands to get to the top of the watchtowers near the outer fence, to alert him if they saw movement, and attack with the bows and arrows they'd been given if they had clear shots. He felt his minions’ mental connections confirm their orders as he neared the watchtower and began to pull out his lever action...

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 0] has been slain

...gun. Fuck. What was killing his critters so fast? He quickly climbed to the top of the watchtower, his gun in his hands as he peered out into the night. His minions hadn't gotten back to the outer fence yet. What the heck was going on? They weren't that far, so why was it taking so long to get back here. All he could see were trees, but his heightened hearing picked up movement past the tree line. Movement. A lot of movement, and... grunting? Wait, was that just a shriek? He wished he could see what was... Oh yeah! He could share their vision. He tried to find the thread of mental connection to Scolder...

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 0] has been slain

Damnit, that was five minions dead already! Focus, he needed to focus on Scolder's connection. He closed his eyes, and... there it was. It was slightly thicker than the rest of the floating strands running through his mind. He pushed on it and tried to focus on seeing through his minion's eyes. He got it! It was dark, his minion's dark vision seemed less clear than his own, or maybe its perception wasn't as good. Distance was difficult to figure out, and the edges of his vision were slightly blurry.

Scolder had several other minions near him, and they were all lunging and attacking... a group of somethings out there. His undead pig minions charged towards the figures, while the coyotes attempted to attack by going around to the figure’s sides or backs. Shit, there were a ton of those things out there, more than he could count, at least from Scolder's vision. He sent the command to pull back to the outer fence immediately, he couldn't afford to continue losing them, so he'd help pick some of the bastards off.

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 0] has been slain

The tree line exploded with movement, his animal minions, led by Scolder were dashing towards the outer fence. He sent the command to hold at the fence and turn to face the enemy when they got there. He was going to send them to attack when his enemies came. Hopefully, he could hold whatever was out there off until his group of friends and family arrived. The undead coyotes jumped and lunged over fallen logs and rocks, and sprinted through the tall grass to arrive first. The pigs were behind them, charging forward and through everything. However, it looked like they were getting caught on tree stumps or fallen branches.

One pig in particular seemed to be stuck on some brambles in the tall grass. Out of the darkness, the creatures ripped through the tree line. They were roughly humanoid in shape, but very short, maybe only three or four feet tall at most. Their bodies were slightly hunched over, with long arms, and short legs, their heads were angular, with large noses, long pointed ears, and a mouth full of pointed teeth. They were screeching, hooting, and hollering. Red, glowing eyes and...did they have green skin? Wait a minute... were these things actually fucking goblins?!

They kept bursting forward from the trees, how many of the fucking things were there?! Eight of them swarmed the skeletal pig, they were armed with crude clubs, axes, and daggers.

"REEEEEEEEEE"

Well, that explained where that awful shrieking had been coming from. The minion charged one of the goblins and gored it with its tusk, only for its own bones to start getting smashed apart by the creature with the club. He needed to start picking them off now, before they got to the line of defense held by his minions. But there were so many that he really didn't want to start blowing through his mana yet. Screw it, there were too many of them, he needed to at least sow some discord amongst them to hold them off. He focused and picked out several goblins that held clubs that were coming out of the trees like a plague of locusts. Corruption. Corruption those fucking things. Those clubs were too dangerous against his minions. He sent out ten casts of corruption, and then raised his finger and sent out a death toll to heal his poor hog minion.

The screaming skull popped into existence beyond his pointer finger before shooting towards this minion. The skull, and the sound it made stopped the goblins in their tracks. They weren't expecting that. The spell hit the minion, and the bones that had fallen to the ground were pulled back into its frame, cracks were sealed, and bone dust reformed into new shards to fill in more of the damage it had taken. No time to wait, he needed to take advantage of their confusion now, before his line was overrun.

*BANG*

*CLICK*

*BANG*

*CLICK*

*BANG*

*CLICK*

He cycled through his 45-70 gov't lever action. Three shots, two hits. The targeted goblins' chests were blown out behind them as the large three hundred and twenty-five grain bullets hit them. They left a good-sized entrance wound, but the exit wound was where all the magic happened. 45-70 was limited to about three hundred yards worth of range at its maximum for a reliable and ethical kill, the goblins were only seventy-five yards away, well within his kill zone. With such a large, and heavy bullet, it tore through the ranks of the enemies, sending organs, bones, and skin blown out of their backs as nothing more than red mist and quarter sized chunks of flesh.

Of course, he was a dumbass and forgot to put on his ear protection, so his ears currently hurt like hell, especially with the repeated shots, but his body seemed to be handling it okay. It was most likely due to his massively increased vitality and toughness stats. He continued to throw lead down-range, but the goblins had finally figured out that they were under attack from a third party. It was a little late for the ones that were blown apart already. Their back lines were all fucked up as well. When the creatures had stopped their mindless assault from the trees, their comrades had continued full speed ahead, ramming into their compatriots and causing large numbers of them to become all bungled up on each other.

"REEEEEEEEEEEEEE"

Ohhhh, and there went the corruptions. Oversized black pustules erupted from the club holders' bodies, spewing black goo all over their friends. Chaos had been sown, but Drew wasn't done yet. He refused to lose momentum with this many enemies encroaching upon his property that held his friends and family. Six rounds and his lever gun clicked empty. He sent the command to the undead boars to charge the enemies backlines, while he sent Scolder and his pals out to harass the broken frontlines. He held the gun barrel down between his knees as he took bullets out of his spatial inventory to load them into its side gate. He cast corruption at a couple of the backline attackers that were fumbling over each other in their efforts to stand up. Drew extended his right pointer finger and sent a cast of death toll into the biggest enemy in the backline he could find.

It shrieked forward with its unearthly energy of green and purple light, before blasting into his target. Goblins were blown outwards and away from the target upon impact, like a bowling ball thrown at maximum strength striking the pins, they went flying in every direction. The skull of his spell used its jaws to bite his target in half horizontally, never even slowing in its speed. The spell continued back towards the backline of his enemy where it promptly exploded in a luminous green firework. The nearest trees didn't stand a chance as their midsections blew outwards in a shower of lumber and forearm length splinters.

His boar minions crashed into the recovering backline of green-skinned creatures, as his coyotes continued to rip and tear away at the throats of the quickly diminishing frontlines. There, the gun was finally reloaded with six more rounds.

*BANG*

*CLICK*

*BANG*

*CLICK*

Out of the darkness his bullets ripped, to the sound of the creatures...

"REEEEEEEEEEEE"

Yeah, whatever the fuck that was. The fucking things threw off his groove. The frontline was completely destroyed, he sent the coyotes the command to perform a pincer attack on the backline's eight o'clock position. They darted forward through the grass, as he emptied his gun again.

Your minion, [Skeletal Minion (Grade - F) - lvl 1] has been slain

Damnit, they had gotten one of the boars. The enemy had recovered, but at great cost. Bodies littered the open area directly in front of the forested grove. He double-checked his mana as he continued to reload the gun. Only forty-four mana points left. Damnit. He wouldn't cast anymore unless it was an emergency. The green skins line bore his wrath further as his bone hounds tore into their flank. More continued to come through the woods, but it was more of a trickle now, rather than the flood it was before. Still he wasn't sure how much longer he would be able to hold out, his mana was so low, and the reloading was taking a while. He'd lost seven minions so far, and that left him with 8 hogs, and 6 coyotes, plus Scolder. Only fifteen minions left to hold against so many of these blighted little shits.

"Hey there, handsome. Need some help?" Amber cracked a smile and winked at him.