Loading a one-hundred-and-fifty-.300 drum into the side of my rifle and nothing else, I slide the hammer on the opposite side back and then wait for birds. After hearing a number of other whistles from the others who had spent the last half-hour spreading out across the entrance of the caldera, I whistled back one short and sharp note before moving forward.
Even without direct sunlight the sky place was growing slowly brighter and brighter with the sky overhead. As the sky grew brighter the settlement started waking up and what started as around twenty patrolling goblins and hobs overall became thirty and then forty while we were getting into position. Soon they would start foraging and hunting for breakfast once at least half of the settlement was active.
When the caldera was half as bright as the rest of the world and there were around fifty goblins restlessly wandering about the waterway I was in position behind a granite boulder by the water. Since I could not properly bird call I could only wait for the others to notify me instead. When I received the twitters and warbles of my comrades, I stepped out from behind my boulder with my rifle raised.
Since this assignment was going to be a test for my newly balanced abilities, my gun was loaded with standard issue contribution bullets. I really only aimed to cull the older and weaker goblins, the ones who would be mechanically up and about first thing in the morning and the ones trusted with sentry duties. Most of the latter were on their way to sleep but a couple dozen of them were spreading out from the settlement.
Until I stepped out from behind my boulder and picked out the closest body in half a second. The second half was spent aiming and then firing. My first shot not only signaled the others to fire or push forward from their hiding places further behind but also ripped straight through the E grad goblin's chest and out of his back. The goblin crumpled like paper.
Around the stream on either side outside the settlement walls were a dozen goblins overall with as many more spread out across the remaining ground. The goblins away from the stream soon started dropping to several guns, arrows, and streaks of fire as the tankers and swordsmen ran out solely to draw attention to themselves. In the space of six seconds I fired fifteen rounds and all of the goblins around the water were down.
Now that the way was clear the other melee fighters started drawing in to the stream so the tankers could fight with one side unapproachable. I was heading out to the middle ground to draw out any ranged goblin fighters to pick off while the settlement was still gathering together. Mostly all that were showing up around the wall were the current and last sentry shifts.
Nobody hesitated in taking aim and firing as crude bows loosed arrows or spears were thrown into the air. Most of them never went much further than me and even the ones aimed at me hit everywhere around me but where I knelt out in the open. As the clinking and clattering of useless weapons sounded around me, I just counted my shots.
One trigger pull, two trigger pulls, three trigger pulls. Every number I counted up to eight was a goblin that tumbled from the rocky wall. By then the tankers had taken up position only a few yards behind me and the others were starting to come out of cover with the last floundering body.
From the ground on our side of the wall it was hard to see how much activity was taking place inside the settlement but even I could see that numerous bodies were gathering around the stream through the stream's opening in the wall. The big houses in the back were also active with a number of hobs and small bodies crowding every opening. However, no trolls or ogres showed themselves.
Once the first shot was fired all concepts of stealth had been thrown out the window so there was no way they did not know we were here. As I fought for a position at the top of the wall under a hail of rocks and spears and arrows, I did my best to ignore the hard pokes and prods from these weapons hitting my armored body and bouncing away.
When I got to the top, though, almost all eyes inside the settlement were on me while I blindly fired at the sources of the projectiles raining down around me. More than a few objects struck about my helmet and several arrows found purchase in my lesser protected sleeves or lower legs. Still, the more I squeezed the trigger the more the projectiles started to slowly thin out.
Finally, after the others had gotten into position behind the tankers at the waterside, multiple firearms began mowing down the front lines of the crowding goblins. Seeing this from wherever they were hiding, a roar suddenly thundered out from the back of the caldera. Seconds later, a large brownish orange body could be seen bursting through the side of the manor on the right.
More roars filled the air in answer and more third stage evolutions began coming out of hiding in similar fashion. Now that the big guys had showed up after we had gunned down nearly half of the goblins and hobs present the others stopped firing. Even the goblins stopped attacking, waiting on the support of their leaders to make a push.
Walking forward down the six-plus-foot pile of rocks I was being harassed on, I open my scuffed visor and yell as loud as I can in response to the roars of the settlement chiefs. Then, as the goblins started backing away and opening up for their leaders to pass, I put my empty rifle down and then started dropping the rest of my weapons. I felt like I had been challenged and now commanded everybody's attention.
As the first ogre to go berserk became the first enemy to reach me, I could not help but compare this seven-odd-foot tall hulking behemoth to the immature ogre from before my operations. It was bigger and heftier than the ogre who was not yet even seven feet tall but it seemed to move so much slower. Age and size really did matter.
Leaping forward with one fist drawn back in the same manner as the ogre attacking me, I meet his fist in the air with a one-ton haymaker of my own. Thanks to the shock absorbency of my combat suit gauntlets, I felt next to nothing. What I did feel was the rebound of force coupling with my punch to cave the ogre's much larger fist around my own.
As they staggered back with a partially crippled limb and I was shoved back from my own punch, the other ogre arrived leaping high into the air to pass over his companion. The trolls, though taller, were a little slower and still lumbering in from over a dozen yards behind. That was plenty of time for me to drop and roll to the side to evade the meteoric ogre,
Bouncing back up from my roll with my hands, I push myself off of the ground to the side and kick out to stomp both feet into the ogre's side as they stood up from their quaking stomp of a landing. The ogre's feet left the ground almost as soon as contact was made. They somersaulted once over a few yards of distance before crashing down and rolling further.
Coming up running from my own landing, I find myself faced with to swinging and grasping limbs of two long-armed trolls. Ducking low and shifting sideways to slide under the first nine-foot troll's clubbing arm, I jump up immediately behind the arm to escape the reaching arms of the second troll's diving tackle. Twisting around in midair to face the ground, I fall with one knee aimed down toward the tackling troll's back.
Sadly, a ruined fist was not nearly enough to keep an ogre down and the first one I punched was soon back in the running. As soon as I landed driving my knee down into the middle of the troll's gray and fatty back there came a burning brown arms blurring in from the side. I barely had enough time to curl my arm up beside my head before a heavy forearm struck my suited arm and helmet.
Life had a funny way of suddenly turning around on you like that. One second you are the guy flipping people around like it was nothing and the next you were the one flying head over heels through the air. And then into a harsh pile of rocks.
Flopping limply down to the ground after the shock to the head I still received through my arm, I was suddenly reminded of my duel with Glaive white before a blur of color entered my periphery. Unlike last time I reflexively rolled to the side to mitigate some of the force of the kick. However, I was still rolled and back up the rock pile by the second ogre's kick.
"Fucking cheap shot!" I roar from the top of the pile once I come to a stop at an angle upside down in a partial handstand. Springing forward into a flipping ax kick as the second ogre pursues me up the pile, I snap the hinge of my knee closed at the end of my kick to slam the heel of my foot down on the top of the ogre's head. I flipped backward off of the ogre's fractured and bloody skull and the ogre tumbled down the pile.
Despite the high cost of one's life the other's had all regrouped together and the trolls were flanking the wounded ogre not far from the rock pile. Pointing at that ogre between the trolls, I crouch down and tense up my body for a full-power leap. When I finally released that tension, the rock pile shifted backward from the force of my leap and I was actually slowed from the lack of resistance.
However, instead of the ogre I called out I was taking a cheap shot of my own. Unaware of the fact that they were my true target, the troll on the left simply stood there and stared at me as I flew down through the air into a falling spear kick. Unlike the troll, though, the ogre who had been expecting to get attacked was ready to take action and struck.
The still functional fist of the ogre suddenly swing in from the side and caught me right in the stomach in midair, throwing me off to the side of the troll by ten yards. Then the trio started running in roaring and yelling as if they had already won. I had not stopped rolling yet, though, and even with my armor the ends of my ribs were aching from taking the edges of that giant fist.
When I finally did stop rolling, though, the ogre had already pulled ahead of his slower comrades and was jumping up to rain down on me like an ungodly hellfire. Instead, I hunkered down into a crouch as they reached the zenith of their jump before soaring up to meet them. Passing by the ogre a brief moment after they just started falling, I twist into a spinning kick as I come within reach that connects my shin across the ogre's unguarded chest.
Flipping backward and dropping like a rock in water as I was pushed back from my own kick, I watch the ogre land on its chest and face below before descending toward them with my knee aimed down. Once again, though, one of the others had to get in the way as the trolls caught up and prepared to intercept my falls.
Honestly, I freaked out. Taking a TROLL'S punch in midair like when the ogre had hit me would be completely different. It would not simply be a small part of my ribs hurting, all of my ribs would be broken.
Because of some reflex or instinct I was unaware of, I ended up hiking both knees up to my chest while throwing my head back to shift my body backwards. Leaning further back by adding the bend of my shoulders and chest behind my head, I end up using my chest as the rotation point for a back flip that raises my lower body above my upper's original position. Safely out of reach of the limbs swinging at me.
Coming out of my flip feeling like a million dollars that had been torn nearly in half, I throw my legs out below me to increase my downward momentum. Dropping onto the ogre's back even as they were picking themselves up, I hop up while drawing a fist back to punch a troll in the face. However, the trolls never really lost their balance.
Even though the one in front of me was swinging too slow to stop me from punching them, it was as soon as I was extending my arm and body into the punch when the other troll's backhand sweeps me out of the air. This had been a hasty and poorly grounded attack, but it connect with the strength and weight of a troll behind it. I somersaulted more than once before splashing into the stream.
After splashing around for a few moments I finally figured out which way was up and which way was down while the current gently pushed me beyond the wall. When I broke the surface, the ogre was already atop the wall looking for me and the trolls were slowly clambering over. Luckily, they did not stop to bother with my companions who were not a part of this.
My entire right side felt like I had been sat on by a brick wall and dragging myself out of the river was nearly impossible. Thankfully, I only had to pull myself half of the way up before a giant ogre hand grabbed my forearm and pulled me the rest of the way up. Then into the air. Then let go.
Unarmed as I was, I probably weighed about three hundred pounds with my armor and suit on. To an upper E ogre who was roughly as strong as I was, three hundred pounds was nothing. Three hundred pounds was just an interesting number to see how far it would go.
I went about twenty feet up in the air and as many yards back to crash down on my left side back behind the wall.
*