Tristan

Two. Weeks.

That was how long the preparation had taken.

Well, I said "preparation" when I really meant "waiting, sitting around with our thumbs up our asses," especially in the latter half of that span of time. Because holy hell, the Fomorians had taken their sweet time getting here.

Training, planning, planting mines, precasting spells, crafting gear … of that that had been done in a matter of days, and any additional preparations that could be made had also been completed … I genuinely had no idea how everyone had been able to resist the urge to keep screwing with the plan with an abundance of time to do just that.

But I guessed that was why I wasn't in charge. Incidentally, the same went for Mia, who'd been all but crawling up the walls after a week.

Though the thing that made things so much worse than in the World Boss battles was that we didn't actually have concrete knowledge of when the Fomorians would show up, the way we'd had with the big monsters of the sixth challenge. It was seriously fucking stressful to not just be anticipating a problem you knew was coming, but also never being able to relax, safe in the knowledge that the issue was still a while off.

Thankfully, the Fomorians had done us the courtesy of making a ton of noise with loud marching music that was likely meant to be intimidating … but the fifth challenge had made most of us pretty familiar with Aztec death whistles; compared to that, this was nothing.

I kept staring towards the portal, a gash in reality almost a kilometer wide, revealing the world on the other side, mountainous terrain with a large lake, hell, a titanic lake, about two kilometers beyond the gate, while the land on "our" side was a large sea of grass … used to be, at any rate, before it had all been mowed down to feed the horses, or simply to avoid it getting in the way. Also, having everything flattened and the ground torn up everywhere meant the places that had been monkeyed with were far less obvious.

Granted, mines in the tall grass would have been downright diabolical, but sticking to just those in the current circumstances of supernatural malfeasance had been decreed to be a mistake.

That was when the first of the Fomorian forces turned around the final bend in the mountains and became visible for the first time. And it was immediately obvious that these guys were a cut above anything we'd seen thus far. At least in terms of appearance.

A wall of shields, tower shields so tall that the "tower" part could almost be taken literally, led the way, the simultaneous steps of thousands of gigantic monstrous humanoids almost like thunder now that there wasn't a mountain in the way.

Behind it, the heads of more Fomorians rose, some unnaturally tall even for them, others, riding on bizarre horse creatures that looked as though they had been skinned alive, red muscle and exposed white bone combined with eyes like orbs of polished obsidian, a grizzly sight that I could tell made quite a few people uncomfortable. And even further back, the tops of enormous engines of war peeked up, titanic trebuchets and other things I couldn't even adequately describe, barely visible.

And on our side, we had Genghis Khan's cavalry in the center, waiting to be unleashed, with Sundiata's army wielding largely modern weapons set up on the hill behind them, while Charlemagne's forces were a combination of the remnants of Europe's armies, also wielding firearms, and survivors with combat Skills suitable to medieval weaponry, equipped to the gills with magical gear. They were split into two, forming the wings.

Finally, the Americans weren't even visible to the Fomorians just yet, having dug in on two parallel lines, one on either side of the portal.

Man … if it weren't for the fact that Genghis Khan could prevent friendly fire issues, this would be a shitshow of epic proportions. But we did. And being able to pour fire from literally hundreds of machine guns into the fray while others were tearing the Fomorians aside in melee … even if all the bullets achieved was distractions, it would still be one hell of an advantage. And I could see plenty of Fomorians who, upon skimming the results of [Inspect], should be vulnerable to bullets.

And like that, we waited, in near-total silence. A little conversation, the odd snort of a horse, and in the distance, a soft "clack" as one of the artillery pieces was reaimed …

But the artillery stayed quiet. Because while the Fomorians were in range, opening this battle at this point would likely turn it into an artillery duel through the portal, a long range fight with the gate itself being a no man's land covered in shell craters that would massively benefit the Fomorians, who'd doubtlessly have shorter supply lines, and time would be on their side in general, as the longer this battle lasted, the better they'd figure out just what we were all about.

Besides, while our technological artillery was far more versatile and almost certainly longer ranged as well, its advantage in terms of attack power was likely quite a bit smaller, not to mention how much tougher the enemy was compared to the humans it had traditionally been fired at.

And thus, we'd let them get close, pass through the portal, and then start attacking while they were in the middle of traversing the chokepoint.

Besides, while modern, and by that I meant World War I and beyond, battlefields were chaotic messes of falling artillery and scattered positions, battles that lasted for days, weeks, or months with frontlines that spanned for countless kilometers, these guys would likely be expecting a more "traditional" fight.

See, we weren't lined up here waiting to spring a trap … we were just waiting for them to show up to the field of battle so we could slaughter each other like civilized people.

Sure, various missiles would start flying the very instant they could reach their intended targets, but the main forces would march towards each other until they finally clashed. That seemed to be what they expected.

In the next world, Fomorians continued to pour from the mountain pass, splitting around the lake, half passing on either side, a black tide rolling across the landscape … actually, we should have just ambushed them over there, do our best to recreate the battle of Lake Trasimene, with us playing the role of the Carthaginians.

Then again, as well as the mountains and the lakeside path might function as chokeholds, the portal would be far, far, better. For one, there was very little chance of some errant Skill reshaping that to negate our advantage the way a geo- or hydrokinetic ability might do to the environment.

Suddenly, I felt one of my pre-cast spells snap out of existence, almost immediately followed by a series of small explosions just outside the portal.

"There go the mines," Fionn observed, even as a second, and then a third wave of whatever had been wrecking our traps swept out, crushing our various "party favors" like ants beneath a steamroller.

Still, we waited. Because the loss of mines and precast spells, while unfortunate, had been expected.

The first of the Fomorians stepped through the gateway between worlds, an act that felt like it should have been momentous, or at least intimidating, but we'd been around so many portals that it was almost mundane. The thing to pay attention to here was the way their formation was tightening up as it passed through …

"Wait for it …" Genghis Khan's voice sounded in my ear, clearly audible despite him speaking in a low tone and being nearly a kilometer away.

Several thousand Fomorians had already passed through by now, and we still weren't doing anything. But once again, there was a good reason why I wasn't in charge, because I would have pulled the trigger already.

I began counting the group already through.

Twenty thousand and climbing.

Come on, come on … actually, shut up, me.

I closed my eyes, briefly, taking a deep breath, trying to calm my nerves, only to suddenly have my newly found "serenity" shattered by the thundering of artillery.

When I looked out at the world once again, I was treated to a vision of hell.

Dozens of shells had hammered into the portal, the densest group of Fomorians, airburst munitions showering them with white-hot fragments, while incendiary projectiles coated other areas in flaming, sticky napalm.

Of course, the latter was extinguished for absolutely no apparent reason a moment later, and many of the former were knocked out of the air by invisible forces … disappointing, as far as the opening salvo went.

I began to pour mana into [Firestorm], a combination of [Century Storm], [Catalyze] focused on cracking the water into oxygen and hydrogen, and [Sparkshower] to create a supremely nasty spell that first created a rainstorm, from which lightning soon create two gasses that would explode in exactly that combination, a combination that the sparks would ignite a moment later, for a nigh-endless chain of explosions that would tear the enemy formation apart.

Casting that previously, or even preparing it, might have been noticed, but now that the opening salvo had been fired … yeah, time to go hog wild with my magic, massively boosted by [Focussed Approach] as I dropped a second storm on a different part of the formation.

The Fomorians began to charge, some formations carried forward on invisible wings, others seeming to blur as some kind of temporal field triggered, others still beginning to simply run at a pace that should be impossible at their size, with their armor …

And then, I made what would likely be my most significant contribution to this battle. I cast [Restoration of the Old].

Because I'd figured out how to weaponize the Skill and managed to convince Charlemagne and Joseph that it was worth the time and material investment needed to make it happen.

Well, the Emperor of Frankia had needed convincing, Joseph's response to my request had been rather more supportive.

It was a very simple concept. Make defenses/traps, stomp them flat, reduce them to splinters, and grind them into the dirt, then leave them there. Until they were needed. Then … then I'd pop them back out of the ground at the best possible moment, just as I was doing now.

And it wasn't like there was anything the Fomorians could do against it with their trap-destroying Skills. This stuff was already broken. What more was there left to do?

If I knew the enemy were going to be passing through a specific place, and had the time to set something like this up, the only way the enemy could avoid it would be by going elsewhere.

Buuuuuut … there was only a single connection point between worlds. So what were they to do?

Pitfall traps re-dug themselves, rows of sharpened stakes leapt out of the dirt all over the place, and most importantly, the vast citadel that Joseph had raised with his Skill right in the middle of the enemy force, trapping many within, and totally fouling the shot of the various siege equipment now on the far side of the construction.

Oh, and after a quick brainstorming session with some of the Marines, we'd wound up wiring the whole thing with high explosives. Not only could that thing be taken back down in an instant if it became a problem for us, but if the Fomorians decided to retreat into it … God, I hoped they tried that.

Overall, the tactics used here were simple and the exact same as the original, borrowed in a way that could be described as downright lazy.

Though still considerably younger than any of the ancients, it was still very much historic, having been stolen from one Shaka Zulu, legendary king of the Zulu people, and it was very simple.

Known as the Bull's Horns, it involved splitting up one's army into three parts: the "chest," which functioned as the main attacking force, which was also where the enemy would be attacking unless they deliberately went for the "horns," which were the second portion, flanking forces meant to attack the enemy's sides, threatening encirclement.

And the third group, the "loins," were the reserve, comprised of enough forces to make a difference when they attacked, but not so many that their absence would cause actual trouble up until the point where they actually engaged, long into the battle, when everyone would already be exhausted. That was when the loins would tear the enemy formation apart, fresh and raring to go.

Fionn was actually the one who'd dredged up this particular bit of history, and Charlemagne had been rather offended at the final portion of the tactic.

Overall, in this situation, Genghis Khan's forces were heading straight in, though it would be a lot more "hit and run" than was the standard for the Bull's Horns tactic, while the Americans were working as a very static "horns."

And finally, as for the reserves that would hopefully land the coup de grace, that would be the Fianna and Arthur, ready to attack via one of my portals when the time came.

***

Dietrich

Even with the roar of firearms and artillery in the distance, and a truly absurd amount of magic crackling back and forth overhead, he couldn't help but be reminded of the old days. Back when a battle to the death had been a once-a-year event, rather than something that happened every few days at the very least.

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A Fomorian's blade, a sword more like a meatcleaver than a regular weapon flashed through the air in an instant, only to bounce of Mimung with a loud "clang" and plunge into the dirt, only for its wielder to collapse to the ground as Dietrich kicked out the monster's knee, and finally, removed his opponent's head with a single, smooth, swing … only to have to immediately throw himself to the side when the next one lashed out at him, a titanic warhammer sending stone shards spraying everywhere.

All it took was a single strike to decapitate the weapon, leaving the Fomorian stunned for a brief moment before Dietrich cut off his leg. And then he did it three more times before the limb stopped regenerating and he could reach the fallen foe's throat.

Two more then decided to practically jump on him, the first almost immediately falling apart, bisected by an instinctive use [Sword Art: Giantsplitter], then launched himself at the second.

This time, he found himself in slightly more trouble than usual, the giant in question having managed to figure out how to properly fight someone far smaller than him.

Normally, despite the almost absurd range advantage, most giants tended to have a shocking amount of trouble hitting a human who actively tried to get inside their guard.

This one, on the other hand, had armored his shins and fought by kicking as much as anything else, and Dietrich found himself doing nothing but dodging for almost two minutes before managing to drive Mimung through the steel plate and sever several massive blood vessels that were in the same spot on the giant as they were on a human.

But in that time, he'd found himself well and truly surrounded, hemmed in in a way he'd been fighting to avoid since the very start.

Mimung plunged into the dirt at his feet before he swept the blade through the ground edge-on, powered by [Titan Strike] to hurl several tons of earth and rock into the Fomorians to his left.

Through them, in fact, turning most into paste and leaving those who lived crippled, a carpet of the dead and dying covered the area he now sprinted into as he swung Mimung in a wide arc, parallel to the ground, casting [Spatial Divide].

The Skill might be possible to be blocked from being established, but once it had been fully created, it was absolute, only limited by its duration, unbreakable by all forces save Excalibur.

And then he leaped atop it.

Its edge was literally a tear in reality itself, anything that came in contact with it would find anything above and anything below continuing to move forward but no longer connected, bisected by an immeasurably sharp blade, while its side was infinitely durable, the small slice of impossibility providing support for anything that may come to rest atop it … it was also insanely slippery, purely by virtue of its perfect smoothness, to the point where staying on one's feet required actual, supernatural Skills. Skills he had, so it was no problem for him, but anyone else who joined him up here would likely have a hard time keeping upright.

Dietrich seemed to hover there in the air, standing on apparently nothing, and made a "come at me" gesture.

And come at him the Fomorians did … until the first few bisected themselves upon his projection, followed by several more as the ones behind them kept pushing while entirely unaware of what lay ahead, blood flowing over the top of [Spatial Divide] and making the whole thing vastly more slippery than it already was, to the point where Dietrich had to take an unnaturally wide stance that prioritized stability over everything else.

It wasn't something he'd normally dare try in a fight, but for all that the surface he was standing on was giving him trouble, it'd give everyone else infinitely more.

Not to mention that the bigger you were, the harder you fell, as handily demonstrated by the first Fomorian who decided to "take the leap" and jump atop the platform … only for his feet to fly out from under him as he went toppling back and crushed several of his comrades.

Dietrich could feel the corners of his lips quirk up. Perhaps he should have tried this approach from the start …

***

Miller

At the start of this fight, he'd opted to go with a sword rather than a gun simply because there was only so much ammunition he could carry with him, as opposed to a sword that should be usable for much longer.

But he'd still taken a sidearm, just because he could … though he had no idea where it was now, it having been left behind somewhere in the battlefield at his back after one of the countless times a near miss had managed to tear his armor but not actually hurt him, soemthing that had happened so often he'd have long since been fighting in his birthday suit if it hadn't been for [Equipment Maintenance] fixing it up anytime it was damaged.

But for all that he'd taken some cosmetic damage and injuries, none of the enemies who'd managed to injure him had survived to regret it.

Keep going, keep attacking, until these bastards finally realized the error of their ways and backed. The Fuck. OFF!

Miller wiped at his face with the back of his hand, trying to remove as much of the blood covering him as possible. That was the serious issue with these fuckers, they were so big and barely armored that any time one went down, they covered half the battlefield in vital fluids … granted, that usually wasn't a problem, but winding up with that crap in your eyes could get you killed if it happened at the wrong time.

A massive halberd slashed through the air at him, and Miller imposed his sword, only to be sent flying by a combination of sheer power and some kind of supernatural ability that hurled him skyward.

Oh.

Well, at least he had an entirely new way to have a go at the enemy.

He slashed a spell out of the air before it could slam into his torso, then reached into one of the few pocket that had survived thus far to pull out a grenade, fired off a [Thunderous Glare] to fry an enemy balista that was being set up in a place where it could target the human armies, and hurled the grenade straight into the densest formation of Fomorians he could reach.

And then he repeated that a few times before he finally crashed into the ground almost two hundred meters away, the people there thankfully having moved out of the way before he fell on someone.

In the meanwhile, on the other side, a particularly large specimen stepped out ahead of the others, and began shouting in what was either shockingly perfect English, or something that was perfectly translated into it.

"Come on! Whichever of you maggots is in charge, fight me! Face the [Champion's Challenge]!"

Miller could practically hear the record scratch as the battle came to a screeching halt, the magical energy emanating from the Fomorian holding back both sides, preventing them from engaging in combat while reaching towards … well, he couldn't exactly see the whole affair, but he could sense it, and it seemed … if he was honest, it seemed genuinely confused.

And then, he began to laugh. The chaos in their chain of command was so bad that it had even managed to bamboozle the System itself.

"Well, I'm the oldest," Miller called out in a mock-jovial tone, hurrying forward before the Skill decided to grab onto someone less capable of defending themselves.

Granted, in this lifetime, he was nowhere near the rank of king, general, khan, or even emperor … but he was the oldest of them all, having lived throughout the ages, mastering countless weapons, learning countless techniques, growing ever more lethal with every lifetime.

That should qualify him as a target for that Skill, or at least that was the hope.

He'd already closed around half the distance when an invisible hand grasped him around the waist and yanked him forward, while the clear space around his opponent doubled, forming an impromptu "arena," though those on the outside were busy continuing to slaughter each other.

Damn.

They needed to win this quickly, which meant he needed to finish this skirmish in as little time as possible.

Granted, with [Offensive Momentum] having built up to absurd heights, that should be possible … but one could always be faster.

Miller charged at the Fomorian, the giant's resplendent armor somehow both clean and free of scratches even long into the battle, and threw his sword.

Seemingly, the Fomorian responded by swatting the blade out of the sky, leaving himself open for an incredibly brief, crucial moment.

Drawing fully upon [Physical Limit Break], Miller leaped into the opening, straight at the bastard's face, their foreheads impacting with a loud thump, but before he could begin to fall back down to the ground, he lashed out, seizing ahold of an ear with each hand, used that to plant his feet on the giant's collarbones, reared back, and gave the so-called champion a nice and proper Glasgow Kiss.

This time, their foreheads hammered together with a tremendous crack, followed by the titanic boom of [Thunderous Glare] as he triggered it at point-blank range, firing the charge into the crater he'd left in the monster's face, where it burned through and exploded out of the back of his opponent's skull amidst a shower of charred brains and tiny bone fragments.

"Okay, now here's my challenge: whoever sent this poor bastard to his death, show yourself!" he shouted even while his opponent's smoking corpse was still in the process of falling over.

Of course, no one did, Miller didn't have a Skill towards that end … but it did provoke a reaction, as the enemy soldiers began to subconsciously turn, or even just start to turn, towards whichever officer had prompted that particular stunt. And that response, he could read.

He launched himself straight at the indicated Fomorian, and triggered [Clash], forcing them both to attack and strike at each other … except the monstrous leader was even weaker than the champion had been, at least in terms of direct combat power.

Holding off on rubbing his side, the site of the giant's club impacting sure to bruise, he flicked the blood off the blade with his other hand.

"Alright, who's next?"

He held the cold, dispassionate expression for one second, then another, before putting on the most bloodthirsty grin possible.

"Oh, all of you? Even better …"

That was when the Fomorian closest to him took a simple stumbling step back.

So Miller glared at him, lightning crackling in his eyes.

And the Fomorian ran.

Just one … the first of many.

Things were going better than they could have, but if they were going to win this, the Fomorians would have to break. And at least right where he was, that had been achieved.

Sure, only a tiny fraction of the enemy army would know what had caused that, but there was nothing rational about panic. They'd see others run, think there was a good reason for them to be running, and join in.

And from there, it was a simple matter of fanning the flames.

Miller reached down to his belt and pulled out his radio. His spare, to be precise, the other one having gotten ripped away at some point, and spoke five words.

"Get me a Davy Crocket."

***

Tristan

Zero point zero two kilotons.

One-eight-hundredth of the yield of the nuke that had wiped Hiroshima off the map.

That was basically nothing when compared to your typical nuclear blast, objectively speaking.

But it certainly felt like a hell of a lot more when it went off barely two kilometers from where I was standing, even with some Skill focusing the blast into the ranks of the enemy.

And to top it all off, Fomorians that had been marching through machine gun fire basically unharmed, and walking off artillery strikes, weren't going to be taken down by a simple explosion, even a big one.

All that being said, though, there was the physical impact, and then there was the psychological one.

Even though I could see a shocking number of ridiculously not-dead, or even injured, Fomorians, a lot of it likely down to [Ascendant Capstones], they'd spent a lot of time in this world of magic. They knew it took concentrated force to kill someone of a sufficiently high Level; simply throwing enough energy at them was unlikely to impossible to do the trick on its own.

So what incentive was there for them to develop or deploy something like a nuke, especially in the context of their general apparent lack of progress? I mean, it wasn't like they'd lobbed anything even remotely like it our way either …

The first troops began to withdraw into the citadel that had manifested right in front of the portal, an immediate and understandable response.

So, of course, the whole thing promptly blew up when the explosives built into the structure detonated, shattering every single load-bearing wall and column within the span of a millisecond.

Even with them still outnumbering us at least three to one, perhaps worse, they'd spent the entire battle being funneled through the portal and then squeezing past the citadel, all the while watching those in front of them get torn to shreds.

Everyone had their limits.

Even the Fomorians.

They broke, and began to run … and all the projectiles and spells launched at their backs suddenly began to run into an invisible wall.

As expected.

After all, we knew our enemies had a general who could cover their retreat with an impenetrable shield spell, and would do so the moment they appeared to be losing, and there was a high probability, nay, near guarantee, that that particular general would be in charge of this army.

Running off at just that moment was a very powerful trick. When formations splintered and morale broke, that was when the casualties really ramped up. Being able to conduct an orderly retreat right at that point was an absurdly overpowered trick.

That being said, Excalibur ate "absolute" defenses for breakfast; that was literally what it was for, but the Fomorians probably knew about that, so Arthur had been rather publicly sent elsewhere, to use Excalibur in a way that would be obvious and then communicated to the forces here prior to engagement.

I opened a portal high overhead, above the portal and the shell of the shield, and our Sunday punch went through, with Arthur leading the charge, hurling Excalibur ahead of himself to shear through the shield and bisect the poor bastard it would up hitting, only for the blade to teleport straight back into his hand, just before he landed himself.

There was no real chance for the Fomorians to regain their composure, and with every passing second, their morale was setting ever greater records for being well and truly in the pits.

Talking with the fae had made it abundantly clear what awaited humanity if we let them win. There would be no mercy here. Anyone who survived to run here, we'd be facing in the future.

When considering that these were barely forty percent of their active military, never mind reserves and draftable population … yeah, civility had already been defenestrated nearly a month ago.

And that was where the third and final part of the tactic came in. You see, a certain British Admiral had finally managed to get his teleportation Skill to work, and figured out he could reach the other end of the portal the Fomorians would be fleeing through in time, and greet them with the finest battleship ever built, doing exactly what she meant to do, something she was unsurpassed in.

Shore bombardment.

This kind of engagement was something battleships had been the kings of even before the emergence of monsters.

They fired not expensive missiles but cheap shells, at a comparatively massive rate of fire, and with far deeper ammo reserves than any vessel that used missiles, not to mention that many such ships couldn't even reload their silos while underway.

***

Drake

This was bloody unsporting; it would be hard to find someone willing to argue that point.

But after everything they'd heard about these guys from the people who'd gone ahead and been fighting for weeks, it would be equally hard to find someone who'd claim they didn't deserve it.

Which had left them facing enemies who were well and truly fucked, staring down the guns of the Wisconsin while she concentrated her fire on the narrow corridor that was the portal, where they were concentrated and bunched up, while the CWIS guns normally meant to take down aircraft and missiles were turned on those who managed to get clear.

And as for anyone who managed to escape, that got tagged with [Target Tracker] so they could drop a shell on their head once the battle was won. After all, the range of the battleship's guns had been increased to the point where it defied belief.

What. A. Shitshow.

From the enemy perspective, that was.

Now, Admiral Francis Drake was no army officer, but his knowledge of naval tactics was still somewhat applicable to a land engagement. And that let him judge.

The Fomorians should have done a far better job guarding the chokepoint that was the portal; they should never have let themselves get caught in transit, they'd been far too confident in their regular tactic working and gotten utterly reamed when it had fallen short against Excalibur.

Not to mention that trying to use siege equipment through the portal like that, with the edges of the tear in space limiting their fields of fire to a downright painful degree … a child could have told them that was a bad idea.

Look, these guys were cold as ice when it came to losses, based on everything they knew, and they had the numbers to eat quite a few deaths before getting into trouble. Combine those two things, and they could have just sent a small group ahead to spring any potential traps and proceed from there.

Actually, they could have matched the United Army of Humanity, forced them to respond, and even if the leading force had been wiped out to a man, they'd still have a more than two-to-one numbers advantage over a force that would likely be nearly, or even completely, out of tricks.

Hell, they'd known teleportation was a thing; shouldn't they have taken some precautions in case someone struck at them from the rear? Granted, making [Sea of Dimensions] work had been incredibly difficult, perhaps playing games involving spatial travel was less easy, and its use a lot less likely than one might expect, but still … these blowhards hadn't fought an actual war in centuries, had they?

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