Chapter 57: Book 2 Chapter 12 – Fortress Assault Begins

It was a fun evening, and the Hart family were all sleeping curled up on the same bed now. Jake enjoyed his position and especially his pillows: Berri’s massive chest. But it was time to get up. It was a couple hours before dawn, and they had to make for Roseburg to lead a massive assault against thousands of outsiders.

They also had to do it with an enemy in their midst, which would be exhausting. Still, Ira was on the lookout, and Jake would have the [Arcane Eye] trained on the woman as much as possible. Jake would also keep spells in his runic ‘bubbles’ to counter or otherwise trap them with little more than a thought, should they open themselves up to Jake’s retaliation by springing their own trap or attack.

Jake just had to clear something up real quick with a mental conversation with the demoness first.

“I hate to have to ask this, but… Are you doing strange experiments with my body?”

Jake could just feel the mirth radiating over their bond, [Why, whatever do you mean, Husband?] Fhesiah giggled, and he just rolled his eyes. [In all seriousness, I know how you feel about this subject. You definitely wouldn’t want me changing your body without getting your permission first, yes? I have been practicing my skill, but I have been absolutely putting things back exactly how they were when I started. Ophelia allowed me to practice on her body, as well. I would never take risks with my precious husband’s body, rest assured that I am not playing around. I am preparing a surprise, and I will present it to you for your approval once it is fully ready. Can you trust me?]

Jake trusted her, but the odd episodes were just hard to reconcile in his mind. “But what about…”

Fhesiah snorted, [Your rod grew on its own, your race gradually improving towards Tier 2. You got a little taller, too, didn’t you notice? Your Divine Hearth core is doing even more to your body than the Hearth Core in Tier 0. I promise you, I didn’t play with your precious rod any more than usual. Why would I make it bigger? I have already crafted myself for it to fit just how I wanted it. I can just make the sheathe smaller, after all. 

When I laughed at you considering yourself a human like Antonius, you should understand why it was funny to me. You only need to look at yourself with your Arcane Eye to see that comparing yourself to him as if you were the same is a laughable joke. I was hoping you would realize this for yourself, but you are on a completely different level from them. You’re about as close to a human as Ophelia is, now. Just because you look similar on the outside, does not mean you are not different. Antonius would be hard-pressed to give you more than a flesh wound now, even if you were not wearing armor.]

Jake had noticed getting slightly taller, and wasn’t sure what to make of it. So far, it was like the cuffs of his pants didn’t reach, and even his sleeves were just a little short on a sweater he had, similar to what happened when he received growth spurts while growing up. Perhaps Ophelia was growing as well, otherwise he would have noticed no longer being eye to eye when standing up. Luckily, it wasn’t yet enough to require him to need new armor, but he imagined in a month or two he may need to have it modified in some way, if they didn’t simply need a new suit by then anyway.

He had noticed that while looking at the others in the battlegroup with Arcane Eye that he was on a completely different level. Even the caster’s magical auras within their bodies were barely pervasive; the energies mainly concentrated on their chests. Of course, Jake’s mana was concentrated there too, but like his enchanted items, his entire body was filled with solid magical energy. Combined with Divine Reinforcement, Jake was in fact quite sturdy, even without armor. Thinking back to the gnolls he fought, Jake could almost fight them without armor now and come out unscathed.

Thinking back to his preparations, Jake was starting to feel that he was getting powerful. Now that Fhesiah’s hearth was bound and nearly every skill of his was level two and some nearing level 3 of Tier 1, and he had his technique, he was nearing the jack of all trades level. Except unlike his summoner in the game, he could fight admirably in melee as well.

He couldn’t compete with any of his girls in melee, the ‘fight’ with Ophelia last night being mainly a fist fight with attributes only, and her not using her winged movement until that surprise in the end. Also, he got the feeling she sort of “let him” win, or at least made the fight about strength only rather than out-skilling him. But he could hold his own against his girls. His stats would improve once again once Berri reached bond level 5 and was in love with Jake and Jake with her, allowing her hearth to be bound as well. 

Jake wasn’t really sure what might be holding Berri back in regards to the bond itself, or if the problem was him. Jake already thought of her as an important family member, and loved having her around. She was also an important member of their team.

Berri was a bright spot in their lives, always bringing her positive attitude to everything they did. Still, there was something strange going on with her, as he noticed almost every time she was going to move forward in understanding or caring about others, her emotions would become turbulent and she would slump back into the apathetic attitude.

All the detriments of keeping his summons permanently out were now reduced further, and even Fhesiah earned the energy hunger ability, propelling both her cultivation and counteracting Jake’s loss in mana regeneration. Her body would draw in more energies that she didn’t need and would otherwise harm her cultivation, but these energies were filtered through the hearth and sent to Jake rather than absorbed directly by her [Spiritual Sea]. She could much more reliably absorb the kill energy, as well.

Jake and his party geared up and got ready. All of their equipment now held the maximum number of runewords Jake could currently enchant, and the effect was becoming quite large. As long as the item was powerful enough to hold the enchantment, he could keep adding runes for more effects, though at only three at a time per skill level, the effects he could add would be minor. 

Still, Jake knew they would be due for new equipment soon, as the drakescale equipment could only barely hold the last three. Jake thought that for the next set, Ophelia and Berri themselves would craft it, finally reaching their needs for equipment with their own skill levels.

They departed for Roseburg, and met up with Antonius and Alisara. Jake sent Alisara a party invite through his menu, this being unnecessary for his bonded permanent summons are permanently added to Jake’s, and they joined the much larger [Battlegroup] that Antonius had set up.

He cast his old buffs on her, of Haste, Protection, and Bolster. While the spells had merged and had been made into a summon-only spell, Jake could still use the old versions of them, just like Ophelia could still use Spear of Hestia and so on.

Alisara flexed her hands and arms, and then gave Jake a sidelong look. “These buffs are amazing, but how come I feel like something’s missing over what the other girls received?”

Jake somehow smiled, keeping himself from wincing. When the buffs latched on to Alisara, he could feel that something was different just from that alone. Most likely, it was like he was buffing only the body. The increased perception speed of Haste or some of the increased stats of Bolster were not reaching the so-called puppet-master, which he supposed was a good thing. In addition, Divine Reinforcement could not target anyone but himself and his summons, so at least he could use that in his defense for buffing her less. 

“The best buffs are summoner and summon only. So, unless you were willing to bind yourself to me…”

Alisara laughed, but shook her head. “My, how forward of you, Jake. I’ll pass, for now. We’ll see what the future holds…” 

Jake was put in yet another group meant for the leadership to communicate. They passed out a sort of headset that fit into his ear, allowing them to communicate up to one hundred kilometers.  Jake was relieved to see that Alisara did not receive one, and all of those joining passed his and Ira’s inspection.   

Jake hinted to Antonius to keep a few battlegroups in reserve to respond to changes the outsiders make. This was to head off ambushes or the ‘not random’ random events that seemed to occur anytime they were working together to close rifts. Antonius agreed, and even left a battlegroup back at the command center that would be ready to rally to new rifts and other attacks on cities that might occur across the globe.     

There were over four hundred adventurers participating in the event one way or another, and about a dozen healer types that joined as noncombatants that would be protected by a dozen initiated that did not fit into any battlegroup. A dozen rifts had spawned all within a day’s horse ride from the [Fortress Assault] and clearing them would be paramount to making sure the assault could be successful, and that creature spawns didn’t build up into an assault that could destroy Roseburg itself.

The levels of the battlegroups varied, with less than a third reaching the level 21 to 24 range. From what Jake could tell, the other large portion of members besides his battlegroup sat in the 18 to 20 range, a common bottleneck as leveling began to take much longer. They would systematically clear the [Rifts], then assault the main challenge with an appropriate number of members. They would do this while another battlegroup would wait in backup in case something else occurred. To start, they would still clear more than one rift at a time, but they would not split their forces to assault them all simultaneously. 

Jake mounted up on Berri in his basket, and the battlegroups moved out. Jake’s party and battlegroup would clear two rifts and wait on updates on the various rift closures before beginning their major assault, but also Jake had other plans and brought the medical staff and their protection along. They headed off towards the first rift, and cleared out the first camps with relative ease. If the camp’s creatures were any indication of what they would face, and they usually were, the first rift would involve giant spiders the size of horses. They had created nests in the trees, and there were hundreds of them that were no trouble to clear out with fire and a defensive formation among the warriors.

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They arrived at the rift, and found that instead of waves of enemies it was a giant nest within a valley filled with trees. Jake was able to test out his technique state here, [Runebound: Aegis]. Runes lit up on blue his armor, and he switched his Champion’s staff runes over to match, the prismatic hexagons shifting to a buffing and healing focus.

By forming a covenant and setting a series of rules for him to be restricted by, his stats and abilities would be enhanced. In this case, he is restricted from casting offensive spells. In return, his ability to cast shields, heals, and buffs are greatly increased. He could cast control spells still, but they were severely reduced. His personal physical stats were also lowered, in favor of increasing his mana regeneration and output even further.

Jake became an amazing guardian for the battlegroup, rapidly casting runic or goddess-powered barriers and heals. The giant arachnid’s charges were often stopped with a well-placed barrier, and Jake would even add powerful strength buffs allowing various warriors to take advantage of the openings created. He even stopped an ambush where a trap-door spider tried to snag a mage from behind, covering them with a barrier long enough that Ophelia was able to arrive rapidly with her [Ride of the Valkyries] ability. 

Like a cavalry unit with a lance, she rode through the enemy ranks on her invisible mount and flanked enemies all over the battlefield. Her speedy charge often put down the giant arachnids in a single blow, and she racked up quite the kill count, even without needing to use her spears of hestia. She was fast in flight before, but the technique allowed her to change direction and increase speed much more rapidly, along with having nearly full control of her momentum. Most flyers would be stuck flying in a straight line, but she could both dodge and block attacks with ease.

Jake watched as Fhesiah danced through the enemies: literally, now. Her technique, [Dance of the Sun and Moon], both produced and controlled flames as she danced through enemies and cut them with her claw, or waved her large metallic fan. 

Her bloodline fully activated, her hands now could become draconic. She had ninja-like bracers that covered the top of her hand only, and she would mostly shift her mainhand to become the claws of dragons. It only cost a small amount of Qi and stirring her bloodline to shift once battle started, and then she had the piercing and crushing power in her hands of a dragon.

Fhesiah’s fan had two sides, a sun on one, and a moon on the other. The sun side would both push and spread the flames among the enemies, and her claw would reap those that would get close. Waving the fan on the moon side, the fan would pull the flames in, allowing her to send them out again as she danced around her enemies. This allowed her to reuse her flames without spending nearly as much of her Qi reserves on attacks.

Jake thought that this was related to the Sun and Moon dance itself, but Fhesiah stated that he had only seen her “sun dance” as of yet, and the fan just improved the rising and setting of the sun’s portion of the dance. When he asked about the moon dance, she cut off her thoughts and said: it was a surprise, she was still working on it and that he should look forward to it. The creation of the fan was a joint effort between the two of them, inscribing demonic runes that matched her dragon and dark kitsune flames, and some runes Jake did not yet understand, but Fhesiah did.

Watching Berri use her new technique was also a dance, but a very different one. Her body would bob and weave like a cobra and her hips swaying side to side, while her snake portion of the body would coil and twirl in every direction. It would cause utter chaos on the battlefield, as her large snake body sliced rapidly in different directions, and then her upper body would slingshot in a sudden direction so fast like the strike of a rattlesnake or viper, only instead of latching on with poisonous fangs, she would smash them with her giant club.

Not only that, but the hip swaying and snake moving would release a dark magical haze that would sap the energy of her opponents. She would add other dark magic spells to stack on top of these, and most enemies would become so weak that they could not possibly harm Berri through her [Armor of Faith] ability and her platemail armor, and even when they did it would be rapidly healed by her [Dark Siphon] or [Mace of Hestia] ability. 

When the boss arachnid emerged, larger than an elephant, the three girls made short work of it. Jake couldn’t help but feel like he was bound to three very violent women as they dismembered the creature with relative ease.

Ophelia hollered and cheered in victory as she came by Jake to talk about the fight. Fhesiah continued her dance, but with an extra swagger of her hips near him, for Jake. Berri made quick work in the cleaning of her metal caveman club, as well as approaching Jake for helping clean off her large amounts of armor. Jake wryly smiled at how the girls all sought out his attention after their wanton murder and destruction.

Jake deactivated his runebound ability, and the lit runes faded from his body and armor. The covenant required a deactivation period of about fifteen seconds, where he would still be limited by the covenant but receive none of the benefits. This was a near eternity in combat, and so Jake would have to plan around disengages or using a few of the caveats that enable him to work around the restrictions in order to safely deactivate the ability. 

In a team fight, Aegis was not overly restrictive as he would rely on the girls heavily for offense anyway, but his other two bound states would be taking a large risk in activating them if the enemy proved more difficult than expected.      

They cleared out the second rift as well, this time it was Tier 1 kobolds. Larger than those of the previous tier, they also had a wider variety of types among them from mages, shamans and priests, as well as fully armored and otherwise equipped variants. 

Still, they hardly posed a challenge for their battlegroup, as aside from Jake’s group, the people meant for the [Fortress Assault] were among some of the best for their level. The [Sons of Rome] had some of their better groups, and a few of the other associated guilds had supplied their best among them to participate in the assault. After all, this was a large opportunity to gain a large amount of contribution points at once, and personal rewards for the victory were often tailored for them from [The Framework], earning equipment that fit their needs, or even valuable skills. In addition, an achievement like participating in this often improved your class choices for when you increased in tier.

After clearing the second rift, Jake had finally hit level 14. With it, he gained his first spell of this Tier aside from upgrades of the previous: [Summon Humanoid]. Jake had wondered why he hadn’t gained some of the other spells that he would expect from a normal Summoner’s toolkit, and learned that it was because they would be redundant to spells that he already knew, so the framework focused on what he needed when stuffing the information of the spell into his soul and mind. For example, most summoners would gain some spell that would heal their summons. But Jake didn’t, as he had already learned two alternatives.

[Summon Humanoid] would allow him to summon various creatures temporarily similar to the Summon Beast spell that he already has. While he wouldn’t be penalized as much, he would still be penalized for the spell not entirely matching his specialization. Probing the skill, he smiled as he spotted a few of his mainstays from his time in [The Labyrinth]. While he could gain more options by capturing and binding creatures or gaining magical templates for summons, it looked like he was given somewhat random options for what would be starters.  

They took a detour to what Jake considered near the center of the operations surrounding the [Fortress Assault]. There was a rocky hill that had a somewhat treacherous climb, and Jake decided that this would be perfect for his plans. Here, he would build a crude fortress while they waited on the other rifts to be cleared.

Luckily, Jake’s spell rods did not only need to be used by him. Ophelia was able to help with Jake flattening the top of the hill, as well as starting to place the stone. The stone grew from where he envisioned it as he channeled mana into the rod from several feet away, and what was produced was a rough and uneven-surfaced rock that was nearly a cubic foot every few seconds. Jake couldn’t really make flat surfaces without using other spell-rods to smoothen things out; he couldn’t just imagine precisely what he wanted to make as he conjured the stone. 

Within an hour, they had already produced a fortification that was quite impressive, complete with a path on top to walk on to rain ranged attacks on assaulters and at the four corners of the fort, large towers that contained ballistas at the top of them. With these, even the healers could help defend against an aerial assault. 

Jake had even enchanted the bolts, and should they hit they should pack a mean punch. Part of Jake wanted to make this fortress just as a test of his ability to construct. When they arrived at the new world, they would probably be helping various towns construct defenses and rebuilding. The other part wanted to protect the battlegroup from [Tartarus]’s machinations. If a new rift spawns, or creatures that have no business being near here showed up, then having these defenses as something to retreat to could save lives.  

While Jake was constructing his makeshift fortress, he had been listening to the result of other groups assaulting their own rifts using the headset. They had made quite a bit of progress, but one battlegroup had been set back by a stampede of creatures. Another battlegroup intervened to keep the losses minimal, but some had still died as a result. Their losses would prevent them from assaulting another rift after they completed this one, and so they would be relegated to guarding other groups for now. 

Only six rifts had been closed up to now. Antonius approached from where he had been walking up on the battlements Jake and Ophelia had made. He said, “This was quite something. While I hope that it doesn’t see any use, I know that’s wishful thinking. Can anyone use those spell rods? I think my guild would find those very useful for this Tier on other worlds.”

Jake gave Antonius the details on the rods, and Antonius offered to purchase them from Jake, even if their mages likely couldn’t create fortifications nearly as rapidly as him, the mana cost too high to sustain over large periods. Tier 2 Mage-types that specialized in earth could easily create similar, and was a common specialization. It was that any Tier 1 that could use mana could use it that made them useful to them. Jake was excited at the prospect of selling them, as they would help both those that used them, but also allow him to make funds while they were in transit to other worlds.

Jake looked over to Berri, who once again was killing time playing with birds, her mask currently removed. At the very least, she wasn’t getting into trouble. Jake was both looking forward to, and was a little worried about hearing what was on the girl’s mind once their bond improved just one more time. Just what was going on in that head of hers?

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