Explorer of Edregon

The two days leading up to the battle for wave six were just about the busiest Vin had ever seen from Terra. Now that he had made up his mind about going elsewhere for the battle, and John’s Doom Watch was no longer telling him that everything was guaranteed to be destroyed, it was like new life had been shot into the citizens of Terra. Where everyone once had grim, dark faces as they’d done what they could to prepare for the upcoming annihilation, now there was a glimmer of real hope. Based on the amount of dread John was sensing, it was still going to be quite the battle with some serious losses at stake, but no longer was it a confirmed loss before anyone had even drawn their weapons.

Without knowing precisely what it was that would be coming for him soon enough, Vin didn’t really know how to prepare for whatever he’d be facing. Instead, he devoted his time to Terra instead. If he and his friends couldn’t be there to help fend off the massive wave of monsters, at the very least they could help get the town ready to fight in their absence.

Scule worked overtime with Bill, both of them drinking the alchemist equivalent of coffee to remove such pitiful requirements as sleep as they toiled tirelessly in the labs, churning out as many potions as they could for the warriors of Terra. Shia and Mary didn’t have time to finish the creation of a new magic plant like the council wanted, so instead, Shia worked with Alice to grow swaths of jagged, barbed vines across the battlefield that would help hamstring the monsters and slow them down. Alka got in some last-minute training with her newest wave of Slayers, bringing the total number of Slayers Terra had up to a whopping thirty-six with this latest batch. It certainly didn’t hurt that both her old guard and new guard, the Slayers from the third and fourth waves of Earthers, all now held the Epic Monster Slayer title from their time spent battling the massive ring of flesh that had threatened to crush the town during the battle for wave five. It was quite a load off Vin’s mind to know that if another epic monster did in fact make itself known during this upcoming battle, at least there would be people well equipped to handle it amongst Terra’s defenders.

Lumel managed to confirm that there was no way she’d be able to tap into the Gods’ working in the Underside in order to trigger its failsafe as a last resort, but that didn’t come as much of a surprise. As good a mage as she was, she was only in her second prestige. Learning from the Gods’ magic was one thing, but interacting and even influencing it was quite another.

Vin’s own time was spent whipping together a few more simple artifacts to help prepare Abby and her guards. One of the areas Terra was weakest was the fact that they had no real defenses against aerial monsters other than ranged combat classes. A large handful of monsters capable of flight had bypassed the wall entirely during the last battle, and it had been up to Abby and her Guards to hunt through town and take them down. With that in mind, he spent his remaining time before the battle churning out a dozen new enchanted badges for the guards. Eight more badges of Sense Life, two of Sense Death, and two of Sense Magic. Abby had been relieved when he explained his plan to her, and she’d specifically requested that he go heavier on the Sense Life artifacts, as those were the most useful for the Guards detecting where people in need of rescue were or if something was sneaking up on them.

Recreating artifacts he’d already made in the past was a lot easier than trying to do it again for the first time, but Vin was still rather impressed with how many he actually managed to make in the hours leading up to the battle for wave six. Terra supplied the badges and Scule supplied the gemstones, so all he needed was to carefully imbue the runic formation into the prepared badges. He even managed to make Jess’ day by bringing the separate badges and gemstones to her when he needed someone to attach them. Like Thomas had said, the town was severely lacking in gemstones, which meant the crafter wasn’t able to level up her class nearly as quickly as she would have liked.

Eventually, all of the preparation came to an end. John wasn’t able to pinpoint precisely when the battle was going to occur, or when whatever was going to come for Vin would make itself known, but he was able to narrow it down to a rough span of a few hours. As much as Vin wanted to stay up on the wall and act as a source of inspiration for the nervous Earthers, he knew their best chance of survival required him to be far, far away from Terra entirely.

“Good luck with the battle,” Vin said, shaking Spur’s hand as he prepared to head out. His entire team, the Worldwalkers, as the rumor mill was already spreading around town, stood behind him, prepared for just about anything. In front of him stood the rest of the council with Golrim, Myers, and Mei, the town’s Strategist, within their midst.

“Good luck not dying,” Spur grinned, nodding toward Mei as she stepped forward. “And don’t worry too much about us. Like Phil mentioned the other day, Mei here has spent nearly the entire time from the last wave until now running drills with our combat classes. Terra’s going to be moving like a well-oiled machine. If anything, I’m a bit bummed you’ll miss it.”

“We’re in a better position than ever before,” Mei said, giving him a confident smile that spoke volumes as she shook his hand as well. “I appreciate you stepping in and saving us from the last epic monster, but we’ll be able to handle our own this time around.”

“Just be careful,” Vin said, focusing on that dangerous tickle he felt in the back of his mind. Not very long ago, he’d gotten a cold sweat and the understanding that something was coming, and it hadn’t taken him long to realize it was his Epic Monster Slayer title warning him about an upcoming epic monster that would soon be manifesting. The entirety of the new and old guard of Slayers experiencing the same unnerving feeling confirmed it, and as much as it made Vin glad they had an early warning system independent of John’s Capstone for the largest of threats, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that Terra would be facing down an epic monster in their absence was a tough pill to swallow.

“You wouldn’t have heard, but Mei achieved her first prestige a few weeks back, and is well on her way toward her second,” Golrim chimed in, laying a proud hand on the woman’s shoulder. “She’s good, even compared to the Strategists we had working for the king back on my old world. We’ll be fine.”

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“With how much sleep my crafters gave up over the past few weeks, we better be,” Witherson grumbled, looking like she herself hadn’t slept herself in a few days. “Good luck out there, Vin.”

“Just focus on making sure we have a town to come back to once we fight off whatever wants to eat me for breakfast,” Vin laughed, waving as he turned and began running south with his team at his side. His dramatic exit was only slightly ruined by the fact that he had to pause to grab Lumel and hoist her up onto his back before they took off, and he could actually feel the pulmon’s face burning as she pressed it into his back while they ran.

“We have got to figure out a method of travel that’s less embarrassing,” Lumel muttered into his shoulder as they ran, earning a laugh from the rest of the team that just made her blush all the harder.

“As funny as this always is to see, she’s not wrong,” Shia admitted, petting Blossom as the cat galloped along beneath her. “Maybe I can ask Erik about copying Blossom’s golem function into a new artifact. I’ve looked into it myself, but I can honestly say I don’t understand in the slightest how my master managed to put this staff together the way he did. Honestly, it might even be beyond Erik as well.”

“Actually, I never stopped to think about it before, but now that you mention it…” Vin thought back to everything he knew about the staff as they ran, wondering just how many different magical effects were packed into it. It had the ability to transform into a semi-autonomous cat construct, was an additional mana reserve for Shia to tap into when needed, and was even somehow designed to make the tier 4 Living Giant spell easier to cast. On top of which, it acted as a powerful conduit for Shia to cast Rapid Growth upon, and she’d explained the spell was far easier to cast and more powerful when cast upon the staff. “How is that thing only a lesser artifact?”

“You’d have to ask my master,” Shia shrugged, smiling fondly as she continued stroking Blossom’s head.

When it came to the matter of facing off against whatever impending threat would soon be approaching, the team had spent a good chunk of time strategizing where they wanted to be when it finally arrived. The most important thing was that they didn’t want to be even remotely close to anyone who might get caught up in the battle, which narrowed down their options rather thoroughly. Vin also didn’t want to set up in any fragments with adjacent fragments they’d yet to explore, to remove the chance of unexpected variables intervening, which narrowed down their choices even further. In the end, there was only one fragment that fit the bill.

“Still not a fan, but not nearly as bad as the Crater,” Shia decided as they stood in the dead center of the red desert, watching a small gust of wind carrying sand across the crimson dunes. The red desert directly to the south of the Earthers’ fragment was the perfect choice. The poor nomads who had once lived here had scattered and were long gone, and the fragment didn’t seem to have monsters other than the large elite frogs that spent most of their time pretending to be oases and preying on unsuspecting travelers.

“Maybe whatever is coming for Vin will pass out from the heat before it gets here,” Scule offered, thanking Shia as she gave him a hit from the waterskin. “I’m just praying it’s something my poisons will work against. So help me if you’ve angered a golem of all things, I’m gonna be pissed.”

“I don’t think it’s going to be the librarian,” Vin admitted, shielding his eyes from the scorching sun as he scanned the dunes, waiting for something to crest one of them and reveal itself. “With her emotions locked away or gone or whatever she did to herself, I don’t think she’s even capable of holding a grudge. If I didn’t know whatever threat was coming was strong enough to destroy all of Terra, I’d assume it was the ranker king coming to settle the score as that feels the most likely, but I don’t think even he is powerful enough to flatten a whole town on his own. My greatest fear…” Vin shuddered at the memory of the piercing, massive eyes of the Worldeater as they met his own, the mountain range-sized monster slowly turning and beginning to make its way towards him from within the dark depths of the sky fragment. “…My greatest fear is the Worldeater coming for us. If that happens… there won’t even be a fight. We will die.”

“Then I suppose let’s hope it’s not that!” Alka said, laughing as she held her blade at the ready.

The team stood there within the sands, passing around the waterskin under the shade of a tree Shia had magically grown ahead of time to make their wait more bearable. After she’d finished growing living barbed-wire around Terra, Shia had run down to their planned battle site and gotten to work terraforming a solid acre of it into a lush, green oasis. Fighting in a desert would severely weaken her, but with grass and trees to rely on, the Druid’s strength wouldn’t be quite so hindered.

It was a shame John hadn’t been able to more accurately predict whenever this threat was going to arrive, as it was all Vin could do to keep himself from tapping his foot as they just stood there, waiting for the inevitable. For all they knew the battle for wave six was happening at this very moment, and here they all were, a handful of Terra’s strongest and most versatile combatants, standing around and doing nothing.

“I know it’s hard, but it would be worse if we were in Terra,” Lumel reassured him, giving him a small smile as she squeezed his arm. “Without having to worry about collateral damage, we can go all out.”

“Smite me, it’s here!” Scule suddenly shouted, pointing off toward one of the nearby dunes as he whipped out his blowgun.

A few hundred feet away, stepping a the red dune and beginning to make his way toward them, was none other than the ranker king himself. The man looked far more haggard than he’d been the last time Vin had seen him, with torn, charred clothing and burn marks all over his body. His right hand was still missing, but it had been replaced with what looked like a solid fist cast out of gray metal that Vin could only assume was the same dense metal as what they used in their prisons. A material strong enough even his golem arm hadn’t been able to dent it. Yet even in his horrible condition, there was something about his expression that sent a chill down Vin’s spine the moment he saw the man's face.

For the very first time he could remember, the ranker king was smiling as he laid eyes on Vin and his team and came to a stop at the edge of their oasis.

“Explorer!” he shouted, his voice booming over the desert sands and seeming to shake the individual grains as it passed. His eyes never once left Vin’s own as he raised his left hand and pointed directly at him. “Our fight is not yet finished!”