We managed to find the entrance to the cave network leading to the interior of Mount Excalibur. It was fairly unguarded, probably because the Sagittaurs hadn't had the time to explore such a vast natural monument. The alien centaurs had taken up positions near the peak and upper reaches of the mountain and they probably didn't expect to be attacked from below.
That would prove to be their undoing.
The legion of knights hurried toward the entrance, using the trees as shelter to proceed unseen from the Sagittaurs still raining down devastating fire upon the Avalon armor from above. As we jogged inward, the cavern began splitting off to several pathways, and Johansson took charge, assigning squads to each point. He split up with Luther, leaving half of the Order under his right-hand man's charge.
Lin Xue, Shang Xiao and I formed our own three-man unit, not strictly under the authority of Lionel Johansson, but more as representatives of Sprue acting autonomously and independently (since this was my thing, and had nothing to do with the governments of Earth). We broke off with Johansson's legion fairly early and wounded through a narrow path that would be difficult for the heavily armored knights to get through. Nonetheless, Johansson ordered a squad to follow us, and I didn't mind, having fought alongside them during the vanquishing of the Knights of Romulus.
It didn't take us long before we encountered the enemy.
The first of the Sagittaurs loomed ahead, spinning around on all four legs when they heard us coming. They turned and fired with their crossbows, but their emerald bolts dissipated harmlessly against Aegis's…well, aegis.
"Fire at will!" The Knight-sergeant leading the squad snapped, and the knights behind me forced their way through to shoot. Explosive bolts hammered the vulnerable centaurs, none of the aliens protected by any form of body armor or energy shielding, and drilled deep within their midriffs or bodies before detonating in huge, messy sprays of flesh, bone and entrails, splashing blood across the obsidian rock of the mountain interior. The mini-missiles of the knights from Carmarthen might be archaic and brutal, but they were certainly effective and undeniably lethal.
That wasn't the only weapon they were packing.
With a battle cry, the knights of the Order charged, weathering the onslaught from the desperate shooting Sagittaurs. Aegis, at my command, soared ahead to provide them protection, but a few knights fell, their breastplates punctured by the energy bolts. Their armor crumpled, and their bodies blown apart by the violent bolts, they sagged against the walls, ruthlessly pushed or kicked aside by their comrades because they knew they couldn't afford to let their sacrifice be in vain.
Then the knights were in melee range.
It was a slaughter. Swords were activated, the long steel blades wreathed in disruptive fields and cleaving through muscle, flesh, fur and bone with equal ease. The Sagittaurs were butchered, limbs, heads and bodies flying apart in pieces, and blood cauterized by the heat of the energy fields. The alien centaurs couldn't bring their crossbows to bear in close quarters, and they were cut into pieces before they could counterattack.
I joined the fight.
To be fair, Lin Xue was also providing cover fire with her lightning gun, electrocuting Saggitaurs from afar under the cover of Aegis. She kept her distance, hanging back and sniping a Sagittaur here and there that had escaped the carnage and were pulling away to use their crossbows at range. Meanwhile, the knights continued to hack and slashed, and I found myself bereft of opponents. A Sagittaur tried to aim its crossbow at me at pointblank range, but a swing of Arondight amputated it, causing it to shriek in pain. I then twirled Arondight around and beheaded it mercilessly. Spinning the black sword, I stabbed a second Sagittaur as it tried to club me with its crossbow, and then yanked the blade up, slicing its chest, throat and head into two.
Beside me, Shang Xiao pummeled the Sagittaurs, his faculty of Strength markings highlighting his tanned skin with angry red tattoos. He laughed as he smashed a Sagittaur against the wall, reducing the poor alien into a bloody smear and a flattened pulp. Whirling around, he kicked a second Sagittaur with enough force to pulverize it from the sheer violence of the blow, leaving it little more than a bag of meat and broken bones.
"They might have advanced weapons, but they fold in close combat!" He chuckled before seizing the head of a third Sagittaur and crushing its skull. There was a wet crack before the alien centaur hung limply from his giant fist.
"Even so, it does not pay to underestimate the foe," the knight-sergeant warned, his blade still gleaming furiously with esoteric energies. He chopped a Sagittaur's hand off at the wrist, leaving the crossbow to clatter against the ground with the furry fingers still gripping the handle. The Sagittaur screamed and clutched at its stump, only for the knight-sergeant to obliterate its head with an elegant thrust.
The whole engagement took less than thirty seconds. Heaving, I looked around and saw that not one of the Sagittaurs had remained alive. We had lost a few knights from the initial salvo of Sagittaur overwatch, but other than that, the squad remained largely intact.
"Let's push on," I said. The knight-sergeant nodded.
"We still have a lot to clear ahead of us."
While we proceeded forward, I couldn't help but find myself drawn toward one of the more obscure corridors. The squad continued to split up, reinforced by a new platoon that was trickling in through the entrance. There were ten thousand knights, after all, and through communication links established over ancient technology, they were able to coordinate over the network and even establish a working holographic map pieced together from recordings and sensory data collected from all the knights inside the mountain.
The unexplored sections remained dark, though there was now a secure line of reinforcements flowing through the highlighted paths, redirected by Lionel Johansson and Rex Luther toward newly discovered corridors and paths. There were also enemy icons marked on the map, but most of them were swiftly eliminated, the symbols representing the Sagittaurs quickly winking out when the knights got in close.
Their crossbows might be powerful, but they were helpless against blades and close combat techniques.
I followed the highlighted route on my screen, winding through yet another undiscovered corridor. Even though the area ahead was unmapped, I had a reason for going down this path. Aegis and Arondight had picked up something ahead, and I was heading toward it without any hesitation.
"Priority one alert," Aegis had said. "I detect a signature that has an about 99.97% probability of belonging to an ancient technological relic."
If that was true, then I had to prioritize acquiring it over everything else. To be honest, Johansson was doing a fine job of leading his legion, and the knights didn't actually need me to do anything. I was simply lending my assistance here and there, eliminating whatever enemies I came across, but in the bigger strategic picture, I was just one person. Or in a group of three, if you counted Lin Xue and Shang Xiao as part of my unit.
We hadn't been assigned a specific area to clear, and it was transparent that Johansson left it up to me, not wanting to trample upon my authority or anything. Valuing my autonomy, I hurried toward the interior of the cave, determined to do grab it before the Sagittaurs.
And the Sagittaurs numbered a lot. More so than I had been led to believe. The cave corridors were choked with them, the centaur aliens forming phalanxes and throwing out overlapping fields of fire with their laser crossbows. Emerald bolts hammered against the shimmering barrier that Aegis threw up to protect us, and while Lin Xue and the knights couldn't fire back from behind the energy wall, my hovering shield allowed us to advance inexorably upon their position.
"Stay back," I ordered the knights and gestured at the crackling barrier, where the emerald bolts dissipated harmlessly against. "There's no reason for you to recklessly throw your lives away. We'll get in close where our blades have maximum effect, and slaughter them up close."
"Understood, sir," the knight-sergeant said. I had found out that his name was Gawain. "We'll trust you to lead us forward."
"Yeah."
I patiently advanced under the protection of Aegis until the barrier was almost nearly touching the Sagittaurs. Knowing that it wouldn't be able to hurt them because I couldn't use the shield like a battering ram, I nodded to Aegis and deactivated her right after a vicious barrage. Just when the Sagittaurs halted firing to allow their weapons to cool down or recharge or whatever, I struck with Arondight. The black sword took off the head of the lead Sagittaur, sending it flying into its stunned comrades.
That was all the cue Gawain and his platoon of his knights needed.
With a bellow, the knights of the Order charged as one, their armored bodies colliding against the shellshocked Sagittaurs with the force of tanks. Trampling upon shrieking aliens, they swung their swords, axes, hammers and other weapons, power fields flaring to life along hafts and blades before cleaving the foul aliens apart. The Sagittaurs tried to parry with their crossbows, only for their weapons to be cut apart, and the hapless centaurs were butchered methodically and coldly.
I continued slashing and hacking with Arondight, the master crafted weapon allowing me to cut a bloody swathe through the mass of bodies. The Sagittaurs had thought to stand shoulder to shoulder so as to maximize the volume of fire they could pour upon their assailants. From the communication channels, I could hear that they were reaping a heavy toll upon Johansson's knights, though the venerable knight-general had adapted and was issuing new orders to adapt to the enemy's disciplined volleys of fire and herd tactics. I had no need of strategy because I had Aegis, but even so I knew how best to counter my foe's strength and bring my allies' specialization to the fore.
Starcraft 2 was a game of counters, after all. Positioning did matter, yeah, but in the end, it was all about countering your opponent's composition with your own. Anti-armor artillery shells from siege tanks against hordes of armored units as difficult to kill as roaches. Upgraded flamethrower units with bonus against light enemies against swarms of insect like hounds. Heavy bipedal walkers with dedicated antiair cannons against massive brood lords.
Similarly, all I had to do was get up close and tie the Sagittaurs in melee combat to deny them their shooting and slaughter them in the field of battle where they were weakest at. Not just Starcraft 2, but also that famous tabletop game set 40,000 years in the future. Except that future was now, and humanity was beset upon all sides by vicious alien enemies. It was time to purge the alien, the heretic and the mutant, and prove to the galaxy the supremacy of mankind!
"Would you shut up?" Lin Xue yelled into my ear. I realized I was laughing manically as I cut the Sagittaurs apart. "What the hell have you been blabbering about since earlier!? Did you go nuts from playing too many video games or something?!"
"Sorry." I calmed myself down, then reversed Arondight to stab a Sagittaur that was about to club me with its crossbow. As it fell limply, I sliced through its head and carried on the swing to decapitate a second Sagittaur with the same stroke.
There wasn't much for me to do. The knights of the Order had dealt with the majority of the enemy, leaving not many for us to deal with. As we advanced, I saw in my holographic map that I was near my objective.
In fact, it was in the next chamber.
"Knight-sergeant Gawain." I gestured him over. "You and your men continue down this path and see what's down there. I'll check this chamber. It doesn't seem like there are many enemies left, but I'm interested in finding out what the Sagittaurs are trying to do here."
"Understood, Commander." Gawain nodded. If he disapproved, I couldn't tell because of his helm. "Good fortune to you, sir."
"And you too. Happy hunting, sergeant."
Stomping on a groaning Sagittaur to finish it off, I then turned toward the chamber and cut the door open. Kicking the sliced halves of the door in, I stepped into the chamber and looked around warily for any sign of the enemy.
Just in time too, for I saw the blur of a massive figure moving toward me. I instinctively threw myself to the side in reflex, narrowly avoiding a gruesome death when a colossal maul pulverized the frame of the door and sent debris scattering. Outside, Lin Xue cried out and scampered away, but the blow had blocked my only path of exit, sealing me all alone inside the chamber with my assailant. With my allies trapped outside for the moment, it appeared that I had to deal with whatever threat had manifested all by myself.
"All right then," I said as I activated Arondight once more, the azure power field flaring to life and illuminating the dim chamber. "Let's do this."