Chapter 178: Countermeasures

“Harvey?” Tyler called from inside the house. The sound was muffled through the heavy garage door, so he set down the shotgun receiver he’d just cracked out of its mold before pushing his way inside.“Is everyone ready?” he replied, walking to the front door where his brother stood between Cash and Celeste.

“I don’t like that you think my squads are available at your beck and call,” Celeste sneered.

“Great to see you too!” Harvey smiled.

“Adrian might be a fan of your antics, but that doesn’t mean you can just send your brother to fetch him whenever you want.”

“Is that what I did?” Harvey chuckled. “You don’t have to come if you don’t want to. Tyler and I are happy to do your dirty work, even if that means we’re doing it alone. Just don’t get mad at us for trying to survive the week.”

Cash looked visibly uncomfortable standing beside his commanding officer, but didn’t say anything.

“Oh no, I’m coming, but first I’m going to show you all the work we’ve been doing to protect your family while you’ve been toying around in your garage,” Celeste replied, turning to walk down the walkway leading to the Thorne’s front door before Harvey had a chance to respond. Cash and Tyler both followed suit, leaving Harvey to hurriedly lock the door behind him. He was still wearing his street clothes, but with all his equipment stored in his spatial ring, he could gear up whenever he wanted.

Despite the short distance between his neighborhood and the front lines, Celeste led them to the church nestled in the heart of the neighborhood to make use of the teleporter. Harvey still marveled at the ornate mirror that transformed into a window overlooking the assembling army. The fact that a single step could take him miles away was one aspect of magic he still hadn’t fully wrapped his head around, and he wondered what it would take to create teleporters like this once they got back to Earth.

The odds of that return ever happening looked slimmer every day, but it didn’t stop him from dreaming of a world where a mirror could take him from California to Costa Rica whenever he wanted.

Stepping out into one of the bunkers arrayed near the front lines, Harvey paused at the unfamiliar sounds. Instead of the usual roars of lions and caws of war eagles, the air was filled with soft turtle-like coos and insectoid chittering.

Looking around, the usual array of divine beasts was nowhere to be found, replaced by van-sized beetles and bus-sized tortoises that barely fit through the gates. Instead of sandy-brown shells designed to blend in with the desert, their shells were made of glistening white marble, with golden rings lining the holes for their legs and head. Their leathery skin was ivory white, making them look less like living creatures and more like living statues.

The beetles, on the other hand, reflected a rainbow of color off their hard carapaces. Each was split down the middle, like two stained-glass windows depicting various acts of honor and sacrifice. The segments rose to reveal thin, crystalline wings that fluttered like a hummingbird's, too small for the insects to fly but powerful enough to disperse the glowing mist rising from vents on their backs.

Harvey instinctively covered his nose as a passing beetle blew a gust of mist in his direction, but was surprised to find it smelled sweet like a rose. Breathing it in reinvigorated his body, reminding him of the buffing censer smoke Cash created with his Profession skills.

“Cathedral beetles,” Celeste explained, taking a deep breath herself. “We’re going all in on establishing a defensive wall today, so we'd better hope the demons don’t decide to attack sooner than we expected.”

“Can they really hold up to what’s coming?” Harvey asked as he marveled at their intricately designed shells.

“They’re the best Heaven has to offer,” Cash replied. “Their shells can connect to form a sturdy wall, and the glass releases a holy aura that should weaken any demons that get close. The Marblebacks will be placed at regular intervals and act as a firing platform for the ranged beasts we summon tomorrow. They’re mostly defensive creatures, but those jaws can snap through anything dumb enough to walk in front of them.”

“I’ll make sure to admire them from behind then,” Harvey chuckled. “They’re beautiful creatures.”

“Yes, they are,” Celeste beamed.

“Captain,” Adrian called out, his gun slung over his shoulder. “Are we heading out?”

“I assume you’re not going to battle dressed like that, right?” Celeste asked Harvey.

“Definitely not.”

“Well, hurry up and get strapped in. We don’t have all day.”

Cash and Tyler moved over, taking pieces of his armor that appeared from his spatial ring and helping him suit up. “It’s not my fault! You’re the one who pulled me right in the middle of my project!”

It turned out that the rest of the squad still needed some time for final checks of their equipment, so Harvey wasn’t the last one ready to leave. Celeste had just taken the opportunity to jab at him. The angels all treated her like a loaded gun, a sentiment he should probably share considering he’d seen just how lethal she was in a fight, but the more he got to know her, the more she reminded him of Cleo.

Smart, but a little too sassy for her own good. Skilled, but obnoxiously arrogant. Developing a god complex was probably pretty easy when you were raised up to be one of God’s holy warriors, but Harvey had a hard time separating her from the faction she represented.

What would happen to Earth if the angels won? Their whole goal in coming was to gain another planet full of souls and supplies to feed Heaven’s ascension among the other factions of the multiverse, so were they planning on some sort of convert or die scenario for the rest of Earth’s inhabitants?

Part of Harvey really liked Celeste, but he couldn’t ignore the fact that she was always going to put Heaven first. Cash proved he cared more about people than politics, and until Celeste did the same, Harvey had to keep his distance.

The group moved toward the line of Cathedral beetles, walking through the healing haze. Celeste gently commanded the creatures to open a gap for them to walk through, and they lowered their shells to oblige.

“How close do we need to get?” Celeste asked.

“I’ll let you know,” Harvey replied.

“I’m going to need a better answer than that,” she retorted.

Harvey pointed at his eyes, showing her the glowing rings of tattooed steel that represented his ocular skill. She just scoffed, not saying anything else as they crept closer to the city.

The skies ahead were blissfully clear of brimfiends, and they couldn’t see any creatures out past the wall of swine. The decaying bodies of their wallbreakers sat plugging the holes they’d carved before, the ground beneath them stained red with pools of blood.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Looks like they’re still happy hunkering down,” Adrian said, using binoculars to survey the rubble.

“This should be close enough,” Harvey said, straining not to drop the heavy catapult onto the cracked asphalt below. His arrays had all faded, but his improved memory, courtesy of his heightened wisdom, helped him perfectly replicate the runes using Adaptive Inscription. Winching down the throwing arm, he conjured a Shattersmite Core with Echo Forge and infused it with his Architect of the Veils End Imprint.

“Everyone ready?” Harvey asked.

The group nodded, and he pulled the release.

The shattersmite core soared through the air, barely clearing the wall of gluthogs before detonating against the side of a 4-story building that one of the pigs was squeezed against. He wasn’t sure his payload was strong enough to topple the structure, but figured it couldn’t hurt to try.

The impact spread cracks through the concrete that were visible all the way out here, but it didn’t fall. Still, kill notifications for a single gluthog and a handful of brimfiends rolled in as he prepared his second shot.

A series of shrill chirps echoed over the gluthog wall, followed by dozens of answering calls rising up from somewhere in the distance.

“What is that?” Tyler exclaimed, pointing at a pack of dark figures climbing over the wall. Harvey didn’t waste any time looking as he sent another shattersmite core into the same building, but the reactions of the angels beside him suggested that whatever they were, it wasn’t good.

“Contact! Fire! Fire!” Celeste urged.

The sound of the building's collapse was drowned out by gunshots as the angels unloaded into the dark figures. Over a dozen kill notifications told him that destroying the structures was a good idea, and he strained to pick up the catapult to move in range of the next building. Before he could place it in his ring, he was forced to dive out of the way.

A raptor leaped onto the catapult, perching on the crossbar and snapping where his head had been just moments earlier. Crimson blood leaked from multiple holes in its ebony scales, but that didn’t seem to stop it from lunging through the air with its taloned feet aimed right for Harvey’s chest, releasing a guttural growl that vibrated through his helmet

Not expecting any demons to retaliate this fast, Harvey grabbed the first item he could find. Unbroken appeared in his hands just in time to catch the sharp talons as he was tackled to the ground. The shield wasn’t properly strapped to his arm, so all he could do was activate the burst of Heaven’s Wrath while straining to push the motorcycle-sized dinosaur off him. Its teeth were already wrapped around the rim of the shield when the holy flames sprayed into it. Harvey could feel the heat coming from its nostrils as the raptor yelped in pain, loosening its grip just enough for him to heave it back over his head.

In one swift motion, Harvey used Booster to blast himself upright and spin to face the creature as it used its long, prehensile tail to push back to its feet. Rupture appeared in his hand, loaded with five Heaven’s Wrath bullets packed with a heavy dose of his Architect of the Veils End. The dino lowered its head, getting a running start before leaping towards Harvey.

The shield being too cumbersome without being properly strapped on, he dropped it to the ground and returned to his roots. Coating his arm in Fangburner imbued with his Tempered Heart imprint, he let the lizard chomp down. Forgefire blasted out of the holes in the stony barrier where long fangs sank in, roasting the inside of the raptor’s mouth as he buried the barrel of his revolver right between the dino’s eyes.

Gasping for breath, Harvey frantically searched the swarm for Tyler. Surprisingly, he was holding his own. Two faceless teammates, each holding silver baseball bats, were fighting alongside him, batting away any dino that got too close. One was clearly using Tyler’s Fast Break skill to add bursts of explosive force to his strikes, while the other occasionally conjured baseballs using Perfect Pitch to follow up after Tyler knocked one off its feet. It was the first time Harvey had seen his brother use his new Championship Dynasty skill, and it seemed to be working well. Normally, Tyler wouldn’t be fast enough to contend with something as dextrous as the nightstalkers, but Harvey could see the glow of momentum he’d built with his Relentless Assault skill.

Celeste was a one-woman army, slashing open long wounds in the nightstalkers' sides as they dashed past her. For some reason, the bulk of the raptors seemed to be ignoring the angels, focusing instead on ripping apart Harvey’s catapult. Teeth weren’t exactly the bane of heavy steel frames, but the welds were shoddy enough that they’d already broken it beyond what could be easily repaired. With all of his other projects and less than a day before the assault arrived on his doorstep, Harvey wouldn’t have time to forge a new one.

“Everyone gather up on me!” Harvey screamed, shooting two of the raptors closest to his brother before straining to reload.

“What? Why?” Celeste shouted over the chaos.

“Just do it!” Cash shouted as he struggled to heal a bleeding wound in Adrian’s neck.

Harvey was surprised to hear his friend talking back to Celeste, but appreciated the help as the angel contingent slowly backed into a tight circle. Hoping that they were close enough, he poured his essence into Legacy’s Redoubt. He didn’t know what would happen if the steel walls were conjured halfway through someone’s body, so he prayed it would only cause the skill to fail rather than cut off a wing. Luckily, the bunker sprang up around them without bisecting any angels, letting Harvey breathe out a sigh of relief. A flood of mental energy roared into the bunker's crystal heart as he infused it with his tempered heart imprint. The retaliatory bursts of flame spouting anywhere the Nighstalkers poked through wouldn’t be as lethal as detonating the whole thing with the Architect of the Veils' End, but the squad needed time to regroup.

“What is this?” Celeste asked.

“Keep shooting!” Harvey replied as the first Raptors pounded into the side. One stuck its long neck through the thin window only to have Tyler’s bat crush it down, snapping its neck against the metal like he was breaking a stick over his knee. Blood began pooling at their feet, but they were all battle-hardened enough to ignore it as they continued shooting skills and bullets into the small horde of dinosaurs.

Only half turned their assault on the bunker, covering the rest as they tore the catapult apart and sprinted back towards the wall carrying metal beams like they were dogs playing fetch. Cash made use of the respite and healed the injured angels. They hadn’t lost a single one, but all had robes stained red with their own blood, as only Celeste shared the silver armor that protected Harvey and Tyler from the razor-sharp teeth and talons.

Once the pieces of the catapult were well out of reach, the rest of the nightstalkers, still clawing at the bunker, turned to run in unison, giving Harvey the opportunity to adjust his legacy infusion to completely overwhelm Legacy’s Redoubt and turn it into a frag grenade that tore apart the closest dinos. Blood sprayed in all directions, coating the asphalt in macabre streaks.

Tyler moved to chase down the fleeing demons, but stopped when a volley of mortarhorn bombardments came streaking through the air.

“Grah!” Tyler seethed, batting away the closest bomb, using all the momentum stored in his bat to completely transmute the infernal essence to the point that the bomb now soaring over the wall of swine looked like a miniature golden sun.

“Come back!” Harvey urged. “You’re not going to catch them.”

The squad turned to run, and Harvey was shocked to see Tyler zoom ahead despite starting well behind the rest of the group.

[I just hope he lives long enough to evolve that Mark he’s working on into an Imprint.]

Harvey could see the faint shimmer emanating from Tyler’s legs and wondered if he’d finally begin his Legacy. They didn’t stop running until they reached the wall of Marblebacks and Cathedral Beetles. The slow-moving creatures had finally nestled into place, creating an impressive facade of white marble and stained glass.

Luckily, none of the Nighstalkers had followed them across the battlefield, so the massive beetles had no problem clearing a path for them.

“Did anyone know they could do that?” Adrian panted.

“Do what?” Tyler snapped, clearly struggling to calm down with all the momentum built up inside his body.

“Ignore us and destroy the catapult,” Celeste explained. “Nighstalkers are normally too blood hungry to stay focused when there’s meat on the market.”

Radiant light burst from Harvey and Tyler’s weaves as they struggled to catch their breath, the glow from his brother much brighter than Harvey’s own. Two notifications appeared to say his Class had bumped up to Level 55, opening up another skill slot and pushing his Race to Level 52. Tyler had clearly gained a lot more, the glow bursting out of his legs still coalescing even as Harvey’s weave began to fade.

“It hurts,” he groaned through gritted teeth.

“Oh, come on! You’re fine,” Harvey mocked.

“Go easy on him,” Cash rebuked. “He’s getting a handful of levels and his first Mark all at the same time!”

“No, Harvey’s right,” Celeste added. “Toughen up, Tyler.”