It was a test. A test of the burgeoning city they were building. They’d overcome the first Siege Wave by the skin of their teeth. With a second wave imminent, the question would be asked if they could do it again, all while missing a crucial part of their overall strength.

  To say Rory wasn’t a little bit nervous would be a lie.

  “I shouldn’t be feeling any nerves, right?” Rory asked the snake that was currently wrapped around his torso like an excessively gaudy scarf. “Without the Chosen Bane, it should be a breeze. I definitely haven’t made some critical mistake somewhere, right?”

  Eia flicked her tongue at his nose; Rory almost swore he saw her roll her eyes at him.

  “Yeah, easy for you to say, you glutton. You spend all day eating other monsters.”

  Rory examined her, sighing as he did.

  Level 55. It was unbelievable that she reached the halfway point of tier five in only two years since she’d hatched. Reaching tier six had taken around six years for him and Apostolos, give or take a few months that he’d lost track of. In fairness, her egg, core, whatever it technically was considered, had come from a powerful Territory Alpha that had explicitly been-

  Gestating? Creating? They’re not technically related. Raising?

  -raising her for the point of having help; therefore, it was unlikely she would ever be anything but a strong monster.

  Add in the Living Rune he’d effectively grafted into her very being, and it wasn’t surprising she was advancing so quickly. Hell, given that she came from a tier five progenitor at the minimum, she would likely reach tier five as her species’s baseline level, even without hunting as proactively as she did.

  Either way.

  As things were going, she’d probably reach A7 around the same time he did, given he was a little over 50% through A6 in eight or so years.

  I really should have done a better job keeping track of the passage of time.

  Eia flicked his nose again with her forked tongue, eliciting an amused chuckle from Rory.

  “Yeah, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t appreciate how quickly you’re growing. I wish the kids took more after your ambition.”

  It was a conversation he’d had with Apostolos. While Rory knew he wasn’t being fair to the kids, it did tweak to him that only one had reached A4 in the year they’d been here, that being Violet. Of course, he had higher hopes for Marcie and Manda, who seemed interested in being ‘combat’ types, so they’d hopefully grow faster as well.

  The issue was that Rory felt they didn’t have an excuse, given he wasn’t a combat type.

  A tongue flicking his nose caused him to sigh and shake his head.

  “You’re right. I never took myself as the ambitious type, so I don’t feel like I’m holding them to overly high expectations. Clearly, that isn’t the case.”

  Another tongue flick.

  “Yeah, I know I’m projecting. I want them to grow faster so I can grow faster. But I need at least a few to be up to the challenge of caring for things while I’m gone.”

  Another tongue flick.

  “While we’re gone.” Rory corrected. He’d gotten a distinct impression recently that Eia was restless, and for good reasons, too. As a mid-tier five monster, she’d reached the nearby area’s top of the food chain. Only one monster in the relative vicinity still outranked her: the Territory Alpha. The Tyrant of Earth and Scales, he’d only spotted it three times in the years since his first initial encounter with it. The most recent, only several months back, had shown that it had plateaued at level 65 -the same as before. For whatever reason, it had seemingly stalled out, given when he’d first seen the Tyrant of Earth and Scales, it had already been level 61, with barely any growth since.

  Rory had at least one idea as to why. The territory it lorded over was seemingly maxed out with tier-five monsters. Unless it tried to expand its territory or pushed into the more dangerous forests further out, the Ascension Energy it could realistically gain was massively limited.

  Of course, this meant that eventually, if the Tyrant of Earth and Scales wasn’t dealt with, it could turn its sights to Ehkorrus as it sought prey worth hunting. A mid-tier-six was already a threatening foe, but a mid-tier-six Territory Alpha would be akin to a regular low-tier seven monster.

  Priorities Rory.

  Dealing with the Tyrant of Earth and Scales was for Future Rory to handle, given he was positive current Rory would be eaten alive even if he brought Apostolos and Eia as backup.

  Have at least one or two people with Gem Crafting and Inscription skills. Continue to establish and improve the city as I push toward A7. Face down the Chosen Bane for the final time in tier-six. Reach A7. Then, I can try to deal with the Tyrant of Earth and Scales. And once that’s done…. It’s time to see what else is out there.

  In the past, clearing the third floor of the Maw would have been on his agenda, but knowing how large the third floor was, alongside the fact that some of the areas were ruled by what were probably high-tier-six Territory Alphas, that would be something to consider for A7 when he returned from wherever the wanderlust took him.

  “M-Mr. Rory?” Rory heard a voice approaching from directly behind him. Turning around, Rory saw Violet waving at him from his perch against their tertiary wall.

  “Ah, I take it everyone is settled in?”

  “Yes,” Violet said with a nod, clearly nervous but trying to hide it. “And I relayed the instructions that they’re to break the glass in case of emergency.”

  Rory nodded along. He’d taken his last rendition of a railgun and stored it within a visible glass box for them if things turned out hairier than expected. In truth, it had been several years since he’d spared much of any thoughts on his old railguns. Sure, they still could dish out far more firepower than he could, but it was no longer the unimaginable gap it had once been. He could realistically see a world in which improving his projection magic, alongside the boost from reaching tier seven, would be enough to match his railguns on his own, at least in short bursts.

  Getting ahead of myself.

  “How are you feeling?” Rory asked, knowing damn well how she was feeling.

  “N-nervous,” Violet said, doing her best to smile through it. “I’ve never faced a tier-five monster unless you count Eia.”

  “I don’t,” Rory said with a snort. “But you won’t be doing the real fighting. If anything, I shouldn’t be doing much fighting myself.”

  The last year of working on their walls hadn’t been for shits and giggles. The question would ultimately be just how well they performed in reality and outside of simple theory.

  “So, we’re just here to…watch?”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” Rory said with a shrug, playing up the ‘mysterious master’ persona he’d been having fun with over the last year. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”

  Rory smirked as he saw Violet’s eyes widen. As he spoke, monsters began to pour out from the forest, the timing almost impossibly perfect.

  Mainly because the timing was too perfect. Invisible to Violet, Rory had his Sovereign Interface open and floating, watching the map of their surroundings as monsters were tracked the moment they entered their claimed space.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Nifty, if I say so myself.

  “C’mon.” Rory prompted as he jumped over the wall, waiting for Violet to scramble up the side before joining him over the edge. Walking briskly, they reached the second wall, repeating the process before finally summiting the third wall to take in the sight beyond.

  It was… well, a massacre.

  “Wow,” Violet said, eyes like saucers.

  Hot damn, I do good work.

  Hundreds of monsters were decimated as bursts of sunlight blasted out from the wall like a traveling shockwave. The monsters, level fifty-two six-legged salamanders, were incinerated with no hope of getting close. It was unfortunate for them that they were already prone to heat and fire-based attacks, and the walls did exactly such damage.

  Seeing the carnage, what nerves Rory had felt earlier were swept away.

  “How does that work?” Violet asked, still in awe at the carnage.

  “Interconnected systems all working together,” Rory answered reflexively, recalling weeks of thought on the planning involved. “Each wall can act as an amplifier for the next, in either direction. While a wall is untouched, it can be set to disable defensive inscriptions and instead swap to amplifying the next wall, which can also do the same, and amplifying an amplifier-”

  “Exponential growth,” Violet answered.

  “Correct. Also involved are a metric shi- crap load of Sunlight Gems that convert neutral aspect Pneuma into solar aspect Pneuma. Combine that with some of the settlement traits that partially attune us toward solar and stellar energies and combine that with prototype Aural Conduits, which use the abundance of sunlight to store it within. You’ve got a recipe for some serious firepower.”

  Rory’s inspiration came from his former background in physiology, where he saw how a body worked with interconnected systems to create an overall operation greater than the sum of its parts. A defensive construct was great, but what if you could supercharge that defensive construct with energies that were also supercharged?

  “How long can it… work?” Violet asked, looking once more uncertain.

  “On full throttle? Roughly a week straight. While the Sunlight Gems and prototype Aural conduits reduce the Pneuma expenditure considerably, large-scale offensive magic such as this takes a lot of energy. Luckily, this won’t last more than a day.”

  Perhaps because of the influx of citizens, the sheer number of monsters streaming in was several times greater than even the last wave, thousands as per what his Sovereign Interface alerted him to. As things were going, they wouldn’t even breach the third wall, much less their secondary wall, which was also protected by Imp Constructs and the Solar Coils, which he’d also improved.

  Honestly, I might have to lower the output so that we can throw our weight around a bit.

  Looking down at Eia, still wrapped around his torso, he could tell she felt similar.

  How about thinning the herd out first, eh?

  Violet glanced around, looking at her Mr. Rory -Mr. Apostolos’s Master, the back of her mind, reminded her- and shuddered slightly.

  How can he be so… relaxed?

  She’d been informed as a tier-four, she’d be allowed near the battlefield, and nerves had been eating her up since. Seeing this, those nerves had been relaxed, only to be replaced with trepidation as she watched Mr. Rory.

  For the last year, outside of the few times he’d taken her hunting with him, she’d only interacted with him briefly, spending more time around her family or Apostolos. What she had seen was usually from a distance, the man out tinkering on the walls or working on some project within the forge.

  She hadn’t thought much of it then, but seeing the destruction on such a scale… It was hard to reconcile the image of a slightly aloof, somewhat unserious adult with the carnage of his own doing, a faint smile upon his face as he watched the massacre. Apostolos was supposed to be as strong as Mr. Rory. Still, she couldn’t imagine a world where he could casually set off such a slaughter. Sure, it wasn’t his power necessarily doing the slaughter, but it didn’t change that it was born from his magical and mundane skills alike.

  Turning her hand upward, tiny sparks began to flutter as she activated her Firefly skill, imagining what it would take to wreak the same havoc. Seeing it, Mr. Rory turned to face her.

  “Rearing to have a go at it yourself?”

  “What? No, uh, not quite.” Violet quickly answered, shaking her head at the misunderstanding. “Just imagining what it would take to do this myself.”

  “I’ve had similar thoughts.” Mr. Rory admitted. “I can’t help but wonder how my fellow founders would handle this situation.”

  Right. Mr. Rory isn’t alone.

  Somewhere out there, there were seven other monsters like him, in their own flavors of scary.

  Nearly half an hour passed before the number of monsters began to dwindle—only a few hundred remained as Mr. Rory unfolded his arms, glancing down at the monster snake Eia wrapped around his torso and arms.

  “Why don’t we stretch our legs- sorry, you don’t have legs -bodies out a bit?”

  The walls blasting out waves of incinerating sunlight finally began to slow, allowing the monsters to throw themselves against the unbudging walls helplessly.

  “I switched the walls to pure defense,” Mr. Rory said, facing Violet. “Feel free to rain down as much damage as you want on them. The wall will only blast out sunlight waves if they begin to pile too high, so you should be safe. Uh, don’t fall over, alright?”

  “What about you two?” Violet asked, already guessing what the answer would be.

  “Eia here is hungry from watching all that Ascension energy go to waste. As for me, I don’t often get hundreds of monsters of at least tier five offering themselves up as perfect test samples.”

  Violet was curious about what Mr. Rory meant by that, but it was too late to ask as he vaulted over the wall and into the battlefield. Instantly, the six-legged giant salamanders began to charge at him, driven mad by the coerced need to attack their home and watch their fellow monsters die by the thousands. Eia uncoiled from Mr. Rory, her scales hardening to crystals as she swiftly flowed between the salamanders, her body coiling around a helpless monster in the blink of an eye. Her strength, as great as it was, alongside her crystal scales, simply crushed their bodies, shattering them like broken toys before she moved on to her next victim, the salamanders unable to pin her down or even damage her through her immensely powerful scales.

  As fast as Eia was at killing the monsters, she was limited to one at a time, unlike Mr. Rory. Floating knives rapidly formed into existence, forming a ring directly behind him. Pointing, a dagger would fly off, striking into the spongy flesh of a salamander or punching through an eye before exploding. Salamanders that drew too close were cut down as the blades automatically raced outward, cutting the monsters down before returning to their position in the ring-like formation behind him. If there was any hope of perhaps burning through the stockpile of knives, a new knife was projected within a second or two when a knife was used as explosive ammunition.

  Watching the Lord of Ehkorrus—for there was no more fitting description of the man given what she was watching—Violet was reminded of something Apostolos had told her one afternoon while helping her train her use of magic.

  “My Master may not always come across as serious, or even all there at times, but don’t be fooled. He’s always thinking and coming up with new ideas, which you won’t see the fruition of until months or even years later. I used to be afraid of the thought of surpassing him. I was his student once, and he raised me as a kid, so how could I not have been? Then, over the last few years, I realized I had made an error in my thinking. He may not be martially inclined like myself, or perhaps even like you, but don’t mistake that for a lack of ambition, ambition of his specific desires of imagination. He will see a goal through to the end, a focus that borders on obsessive.”

  “I’m thankful to him for allowing us to live here and taking care of us,” Violet answered truthfully. “I’m just not sure I see it. He’s a bit strange at times.”

  “That he is.” Apostolos had snorted, unable to hide his amusement. “Let me change direction. Who do you think is more powerful between us, given we’re both tier six?”

  Violet had spent several seconds considering the question. Apostolos had shown his capacity for freeform magic, his magical physique, which prevented physical injury until forced respawn, and his one-of-a-kind scythe. She was trying to think of what exactly Mr. Rory had to his advantage, with nothing springing to mind. As far as she understood, he was worse than Mr. Apostolos in every regard except for his unique ‘projection’ magic, as they’d all defaulted to naming it.

  “You.” Violet finally gave up trying to find a way for Mr. Rory to compete with Apostolos. And it wasn’t just because she may have had a crush on Apostolos either that she felt that way.

  “Well, you’d be shocked.” Apostolos snorted. “On paper, sure, I should have more things going for me. Take away his elements of preparation or such, and sure; I’d probably win sixty or seventy percent of the time.”

  “But?” Violet asked, knowing there was more to the answer.

  “But my master is never unprepared,” Apostolos said, pride in his voice. “He can instantly come up with ideas I would never think of. He saved my life doing exactly that. Most of my advantages are gained through his efforts; he paved the way for me to become the Chief Protector. This-” Apostolos raised his scythe slightly. “-his doing, he made it. My race change? His quick thinking. He will downplay himself, but never doubt him. Oh, and if you really want to see him flex his full capabilities? Wait until you see him fight while drawing up the strength of Ehkorrus.”

  Violet could only shake her head as the memory faded. Apostolos hadn’t been wrong. The number of knives had doubled, then tripled, finally quadrupling, around sixty knives orbiting him like a ball of blades. It wasn’t just knives either; he lashed out with thin wires that would crack through the air, the sound only arriving several cracks of the lashes later.

  There was nothing, absolutely nothing, anything could do against that. When only a few dozen monsters were left, a salamander from the forest emerged that towered above the others, spewing muddy slime like a dragon would fire, and it didn’t matter at all. Rather than posing a threat, hundreds of wires exploded outward from the ground, trapping the ‘boss’ of the wave like a bug in a spider web as the Lord of Ehkorrus stood before it, arms folded, and used it like a Guinee pig, nearly fifteen minutes passing before he finally put the poor thing out of its misery with a spear through its eye.

  And the entire time, he’d had a frown on his face like he was posed with nothing but an annoying math problem he was attempting to solve.

  Scary.

  That was all she could think of to describe the Lord of Ehkorrus.

  Scary.