Warbreaker's Risk: A LitRPG Apocalypse Adventure (The Connected System Book 2), page 12
Now the middle school was gone as if it had never existed.
Not even a pit where the foundation had been.
Just sloping grass, edged in trees.
Loch could see the flat area that had been the playground, parking lot and regulation baseball field with a smaller field down another smaller slope. None of the dugouts or fencing were there. The playground equipment gone.
Just grass.
And a giant creature at the ball field.
It was the size of an elephant. Maybe bigger, definitely longer. Covered in thick fur. Four short legs supported the heavy looking body, a large head with little neck. A giant horn grew out of the middle of the head. The creature, too far away to use Evaluate on, moved slowly through the field. The wind shifted, the creature’s head turning to look their way as it caught their scent.
“Let’s get moving,” Loch said, putting his hand on Piper’s shoulder to gently push her.
He watched the creature, which didn’t seem to care about them.
It put its head back down, chewing on the grass.
Loch could see two more, smaller ones, moving in the lower field.
Chapter Fourteen
The gas station was gone. A house about a half mile down from it was still intact.
Loch had thought about staying in one of the houses before the gas station. One of Piper’s classmates had lived there. They hadn’t seen any evidence of anyone occupying the house when they had slowly walked past. But it was too close to the school for Loch’s taste, especially with those monsters down in the fields.
They hadn’t seemed interested in Loch and his group, but they could have changed their minds, or something else in the area might be more interested. Or something would be interested in those creatures.
Either way, Loch wanted to be further away before stopping for the night.
The gas station was at the top of the hill, what the locals had called the Ridge. Route 4 sloped down from that point. They had traveled down a couple of houses, almost to the recreation fields on the left. Two soccer fields and a baseball field, and a playground out back.
As they walked past the fields, they could see a small herd of deer-like creatures grazing on the grass. The same shape as a deer, a little bigger and bulkier, but the antlers were vastly different. These were sized like moose, large, feet spreading out past the body. There were a couple of dozen that Loch could see, a couple with an even larger spread of antlers. Those stopped their grazing, looking at Loch and the others.
The alphas. The herd leaders.
Gray Moon Deer Alpha
Evaluate gave off a feeling of being roughly equal to Loch, at least the alphas. The others were a little less. There was a lot of meat on the animals. They’d have to come back here to hunt.
The house they chose for the night was just a little further down from the rec fields. An old farmhouse with an attached garage. He didn’t want to lug the shopping carts into the house, so he had been choosing places with garages. Like the previous nights, he stayed in the garage, letting the others take the beds and couches. They raided the house of all they could grab, not finding much that was useful.
Loch pushed for an early morning start, wanting to get to the camp at the churches as soon as possible. They could drop off the supplies, see who was at the camp, get updated and give updates, get some sleep, and the next morning head for their house. It wasn’t that far from the churches. Could probably make it in a day.
With renewed vigor, the group set off.
It was far easier pushing the carts downhill and simple enough to keep them from going too fast. The road was pitted and cracked, missing large pieces of asphalt with other chunks pushed up, but was passable. No direct straight line, they had to weave around the potholes and new mounds. Sometimes their line of sight was blocked, sending a reluctant Cerie up higher to scout and make sure nothing was waiting in ambush.
They passed by the storage facility, which Loch was surprised was still existing. Another place they’d have to come back and raid. Sadly, the greenhouse and garden right before the town dump was gone. Replaced by a lot of trees. Loch had hoped to find some seeds or plants they could use. The dump itself was up a driveway with a hill blocking the view. Loch had no desire at that point to go explore the dump, which was also where all the townspeople's recycling went. There could potentially be some useful Resources, a big empty clearing, or even monsters. Maybe a Dungeon.
He was leaning toward monsters.
Or a large monster.
Just looking up the road at the hill, Loch could feel something waiting.
What that was, he didn’t know.
There was no emotion to the feeling, just a presence.
Something was at the old town dump.
They’d have to find out what it was sooner rather than later. There were woods behind the dump, private land that connected the rec fields to the state park. Vast woods to hunt and find Resources. And they couldn’t live this close to such an unknown.
“What is that?” he asked Cerie.
She looked at him, confused, flying closer to the entrance to the dump’s drive.
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a presence,” Loch said, looking at the others. None of them seemed to sense it.
“I don’t know how else to describe it.”
“It could be any number of things,” Cerie said after looking up the drive for a while. “A very high-level beast or even an Invader. There could be a Dungeon or spawn field, maybe even a high-end Resource. It is odd that only you can sense it.”
“Do we check it out?” Harper asked, a little too eager.
“No. Same reason as the cemetery by the school. This is close to the camp, so we will have to investigate soon, but first, get the supplies to the survivors.”
Loch lingered as the others started walking again. The presence was almost calling to him.
He shook his head, having to force himself to walk away. He badly wanted to know what was waiting over the hill.
He didn’t get far before stopping again.
The state park, Northwood Meadows, was small, the open parking lot near the road with a long dirt road down into the acreage with the pond and walking trails. Loch and family had walked those trails dozens, maybe even hundreds, of times. It was a favorite place to go. Nothing had changed from what Loch could see.
Looking down Route 4, he couldn’t quite see the churches but could see the small hill that rose up to the town hall. The churches were just beyond. So close.
“What are those?” Davis asked. “They weren’t there before.”
He was pointing to some of the trees around the parking lot. The asphalt had been torn up, some of it missing, other pieces pushed up, and large cracks crisscrossing the lot. A couple of the trees that had been on the grassy island in the middle of the lot had fallen over.
But the trees along the edges, those were tall and thick, full of large birds.
They looked like eagles or hawks. Loch could never tell the difference between the two. All sat at the ends of the branches, not weighing them down, which was odd. The size of the birds, with them right at the end, the branches should have been bending. The trees hadn’t grown in size, their limbs not getting any thicker.
The birds were all brightly colored, their feathers almost shining in the sun’s light. Reds, oranges, and yellows. Different shades. Each bird seemed to blend multiple shades. Some brighter on one end, others more evenly blended. No bird was entirely one color. All the eyes watched Loch and the others.
“Keep moving,” he said. “But slowly.”
One of the birds let out a screech. A horrible sound. Very loud, piercing through his body, making Loch wince.
He didn’t know where it came from as it was lost in the responding screeches of all the others. Dozens of birds, all making noise. Loch had to let go of the cart’s handle, covering his ears to block out the sound.
Not in time with each other, the birds continued their cacophony of sound. It hammered at Loch and the others. They grew brighter with each screech.
The first one, followed by others, stood up on the branches, wings spreading, still screeching. Smoke curled up from the branches around them, leaves blackening. They grew so bright that Loch had to look away.
The screeching changed.
Not as many individuals.
It was hard to tell, they had been so off from each other, so many overlapping, it had been one large mess. It was still loud, still piercing, but not as many. The noise grew louder, fewer conflicting with each other. But there was more power to the noise.
Loch forced himself to look at the glowing brightness over the meadow parking lot. More smoke rose from the trees, the light more bearable to look at, only because there were fewer. Still bright, but the spots had grown bigger. There were fewer birds and fewer individual shapes. What remained had gotten bigger.
Instead of dozens, Loch could make out six bright shapes.
The shading of the individual birds had now meshed, becoming a larger pattern. Where it hadn’t made sense before, now it did. Each bird had been part of the whole. More smoke rose from around the birds, and leaves fell to the ground. The brightness dimmed.
Loch blinked rapidly, vaguely bird-shaped spots in his vision. When it cleared, he used Evaluate.
Sunrise Swarm Phoenix
“Cerie?”
“I do not know this particular creature,” she said, eyes glowing green. “But a Phoenix is a fire-based monster. They are typically much larger and able to burn themselves out in a powerful attack only to respawn in a much weaker form.”
The Swarm Phoenix didn’t give off a powerful feel. Not equal to Loch, maybe around Harper or Piper’s levels. Higher than the Millmans.
“Are they aggressive?”
“Not normally.”
Loch watched as six became three.
The screeches were loud, causing them all to wince.
The screeching had knocked a point or two off his Health with each one, his natural Regeneration countering it almost immediately. For whatever reason, not that he was going to complain, the Phoenix’s attack hadn’t put them into combat. Most likely just a warning, not an actual attack. The Phoenix would want a way to ward off potential predators without causing aggro.
With the three Phoenix, the screech was knocking more points off.
Three became two, one of them splitting to merge with the others.
More smoke rose from the trees.
The birds still didn’t attack.
They felt stronger. Not quite Loch’s Level, but closer.
Slowly the edge of the Meadows approached. Loch could see the gate at the end of the snowmobile trail, trees thick on that side. Soon they’d be out of the Phoenix’s sight.
Eyes tracked each other’s movements. Loch and his group watched the two Phoenix, and the birds watched Loch and the others. The birds didn’t move, content to let Loch and the group leave.
He saw the arrow, cutting through the air quickly, a black line heading straight for the left Phoenix, arcing high into the air to come down straight for the bird. There was no time to turn around to see where it had come from. Somewhere behind, that was all he knew. A great distance to shoot that far and fast.
There was nothing Loch could do.
No time to try to stop the arrow.
Not even any time to shout a warning.
The arrow struck the bird in the shoulder, where wing met body, burst into a bright spot of flame before turning to ash.
It screeched, not the piercing one of before, but one of pain.
That one screech was the signal.
The other Phoenix leaped off the branch, smoke trailing it as it streaked across the parking lot, shape lost in the blur of bright light like flames. The one large shape turned into many small ones, dozens of streaking vaguely bird-shaped bolts of flame.
Everyone else was slow to react. They heard the arrow slicing through the air, turning that way. The screech brought them back around to face the streaking birds. Loch was the only one to react.
Activating Windstep, he rushed in front of them. Aura of Attack spread out over the group, Loch setting his feet into Defensive Stance. He raised his arm, Activating Bulwark, causing the shield to spread out as wide as he could get it, the green color of the translucent shield barely noticeable.
Birds slammed into the shield, bursting on impact. He could feel the heat through the thin energy. More got past, heat washing against him. He had to look away, closing his eyes against the wave of heat. Loch grunted in pain as flaming wings sliced across his body, hearing the screams from behind him. His girls.
The flaming birds spread out to the side, swooping back around.
The second Phoenix struck Loch’s shield, full-sized with its full weight.
He grunted, feet sliding across the cracked asphalt.
The bird’s weight lifted off the shield as it flew back into the air, circling around for another attack.
Cracks spread across the green energy of the shield, the edges looking ragged, bits of smoke drifting into the sky as the shield lost Spirit. It was thin, lighter than it had been, and it had been barely there. Loch shrunk the shield, it barely recovered any color or thickness, cracks still visible.
Bolts of silver energy shot out, missing the quick birds. They swerved and dipped, dodging the attacks from Piper’s wand. The Phoenix were fast, very fast, but the wand was slow. Still enough to keep the two birds from attacking again.
“I can’t get them,” Harper growled, cursing.
Loch wondered where she had learned that one from. Or had she invented it, like he used to have a habit of doing? Of all the things she picked up from him, it had to be that.
Pulling his arm back, Loch threw Onyx. The axe shrunk, spinning end over end. It slammed into the shoulder of a Phoenix, small bolts of lightning crackling around, fighting with the dancing flames of the bird. The axe disappeared, returning to Loch.
Both birds dove at the group, screeching, flames trailing behind.
Loch swung Onyx in front of him, Activating Thunderclap. The pressure wave slammed into the two Phoenix, flames bursting off them like feathers, and the birds’ dive stopped. They flew to the side, away from each other, circling back around, crossing past each other. Loch watched them, trying to track their movements.
“Piper!” Harper yelled, Loch forced himself not to look, focused on the birds. “Get up.”
“I need to draw!” Piper yelled back.
A bright burst of light shot past Loch. It slammed into the wing of a Phoenix, flames exploding out as the light continued through. The hole in the wing didn’t reform, little flames crackling around the large wound.
“So that’s what that does,” Davis said, amazed.
“What was that?” Peter asked, equally amazed.
“It’s called Light Spear,” Davis replied. “One of my new Class Abilities.”
The wounded Phoenix flew higher, drifting on the wind, one wing shaking. The other Phoenix dove to attack. It burst apart into dozens of smaller birds, the many spreading out and coming in wider.
Loch pushed Bulwark as wide as it would go, the cracks bigger, the color almost completely gone. He could feel the energy of the shield fading, his own Spirit reserves nearly drained. He’d been keeping Aura of Attack, Defensive Stance, and Bulwark Active.
He felt the many small birds breaking against his shield, each impact cracking it even more.
It broke apart, many small shards of green energy falling to the ground, becoming smokey drifts of energy. Loch yelled out, pain slamming into his mind, the backlash of the Ability breaking apart.
Birds slammed into his body, small impacts knocking him back, each feeling like a golf ball slamming into him. He felt the heat, not enough to burn, each like touching a hot pan and pulling the hand away. His armor protected most of his body, the others not so lucky.
The girls’ screams tore at him.
He heard some of the birds exploding, cut, or stabbed by the others.
The Phoenix reformed, smaller and not as bright. Each time it split, it lost more of itself. They could defeat it by wearing it out. Loch didn’t think that would work. They couldn’t outlast it.
He threw Onyx, another bolt trailing. His axe slammed into the unwounded Phoenix, Davis’s Light Spear striking the wounded one. It didn’t burst through the creature, barely leaving a mark, a small spot of black on the reddish-colored chest of the Phoenix.
Onyx returned, Loch throwing it again.
He aimed for where Davis’s spear had struck, the axe hitting the black mark, cutting into the Phoenix. It screeched in pain as Onyx disappeared.
Loch threw the axe again. It struck the Phoenix’s shoulder, knocking the bird off balance.
His head was pounding, barely able to concentrate on where to aim the throwing axe.
With a glance at his Status, Loch released his Abilities. He was almost out of Spirit.
Harper was throwing her knives, most of them missing. The projectiles weren’t fast, the Phoenix were easily able to dodge. The few that hit barely did any damage.
The fight with the Phoenix was taking longer than almost all the others they’d been in. It was moments of quick fighting followed by longer moments waiting for the circling birds to do something. He didn’t think the time they spent circling was allowing them to heal, hoping the in-combat rules applied. Unless they had some kind of natural healing Ability. Being somewhat made of flame and with the name Sunrise, Loch hoped it didn’t mean they used sunlight to heal. He could see the hole in the one Phoenix’s wing, see the blue sky through it. The wound didn’t appear to be closing, but the wound didn’t seem to hinder the bird’s flying.
Before he hadn’t come close to using up his Spirit. The boss fights in the Challenge Dungeon had taken longer but hadn’t required such a steady use of his Abilities.
He staggered a bit as the strength and power of the Abilities left him.
A Phoenix dove at him.
Loch tried to Activate Bulwark, but the shield did not appear. Pain flared through his head. Cerie had never mentioned Ability backlash. Something he’d have to ask about after the fight.
