End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2), John Gold [ebook reader online txt] 📗

The huge chimeric dogs are twice the size of a grown man at the withers and move in packs. Two groups, ten in each, circle around to either side of the forest.

Undead, Lesser Hound of Death, Level 577, local boss

The problem arises when three of the dogs leap out of the forest right onto our plateau. I immediately squish two of them with dwarf hammers; Fem takes out the third. I wouldn’t have been able to do anything since the creature was already on top of the seal. I didn’t want to kill the victims before I had to or find myself hit with the blow, so Fem’s assistance came just in time. She used quadruple amplification to take out the third dog in less than a minute.

“Sagie, it’s getting pretty bad around here. We were dealing with the little stuff before, but there are local bosses now. The undead are switching up their tactics, too, so it’s time to go.”

“I know.”

Two more dogs run up, this time from the second pack. How much health must they have to survive a meteor strike on a burning forest? I have no mana left after my last attack. The undead are wearing us down.

The first problem is that it starts to rain, washing away the seal. The second is that our misgivings were right on the money.

Undead, Irhan the Great, Level 515, raid boss

The giant centipede crawls up from underground, about thirty meters long and ten meters tall. In close combat, it shoots meter-long bone needles right out of its body. I can feel the aura of death from where we are, and it’s flanked by an escort of a dozen bears the size of the hounds of death. They’re even covered in spiked bone armor.

“Sagie, can you kill all that?”

“I think so.”

“Next question: is it worth it? We still haven’t seen a lich or a necromancer. That means we’ll have a necromancer to deal with once we take care of the raid boss, and I don’t see any point in risking that. We don’t have much of a shot at taking out a lich.

“Makes sense. Okay, let’s get out. We’re done here.”

There are twelve hours left until the end of the trial. We spend the time running around the edge of the location, killing everything in our path. I really do need Fem’s help. I’m already up to Level 106, my scalable items are giving my intellect a huge boost, and my spells are doing me a lot of damage. Dragon breath spread over the maximum area is a scary thing. It feels like you’re standing in hell’s oven, as the earth crackles, bodies crumple underfoot, and I’m there, dress, wig, staff, and all. Hell’s little girl! That’s how we get out of an ambush we come across at one point. Everything gets harder and harder, and we meet a string of local bosses near the end.

Undead, Mole Cricket, Level 562, local boss

 They look like the flying cows from our village, only these are dead and have wings like houseflies. They chase us onto a rocky plateau, where we turn and fight. I get them burning nicely to start off. Then, there’s my dwarf hammer. Once I knock them out of the sky, Fem cuts them up. I burn their bodies to make sure maggots don’t give us any problems to wrap things up.

Fem was right: I could sense that our opponents had a strategy. As soon as we had cut down most of the undead in an area, local bosses appeared. When they were gone, raid bosses took their place. Presumably, necromancers would be next.

Undead, Iridium Spy, Level 533, raid boss

The spider-like monster has a face on its torso and little hands at the end of each of its five legs. Oh, how we run! It chases us around the entire location, until the portal finally opens and the trial is over. Level 116 is my personal reward.

***

Urius paced his office in expectation. The judges were about to walk in and let him know how things had gone, and he was nervous about the chairman of the league’s new quest.

When everyone was back, Urius got down to business.

“We don’t have much time. The candidates are waiting out in the hall. How many survived?”

“A total of forty-eight from the first and third groups. The second was wiped out completely, while there are just five left from the fourth group.”

“Just the problematic part of the group?”

“Yes. Both of the geniuses headed off to the other end of the location and terrorized the undead there, shooting meteors, fire storms, and tornados. There’s practically nothing left of the forest. The three killers weren’t able to come to an agreement, so they chopped up the rest of the group in the ravine and went to work on the undead.”

“How did the kids stay alive?”

“I wouldn’t have wanted to go near them, myself. The fire was that bad. Both kids headed to a hill and worked from there, killing so many they summoned two raid bosses. The third crawled out because of the killers.”

The order for the League of Hunters had come in less than twelve hours before as a result of what the five problems had done.

“We have a new order from the same client: clear the undead captains out of the dwarf foothills. The problem group can deal with that. If they can’t, we’ll send in everyone else who survived. If they are killed, we’ll do it ourselves. Oh, and if everybody dies, we’ll pick the best and make them Hunters.”

Two weeks prior, back when the undead first invaded, the league had received an order asking them to collect information about the strength and tactics of the undead in Ovidius. They had decided to use that for