Chapter 234: Toilers, Talented, and the Transcendent

“Down!”

Harrison dropped low as a fire spewed out, burning away swathes of monsters.

“On your left!”

Another voice called out, Flair’s turn to move out of the way, diving to the right as Jharrel shot past him, skewering a monster.

“Damn things just don’t stop,” Flair muttered, striking a monster as he activated Flame Chariot a moment after.

War had come to Ehkorrus.

Three weeks prior, Flair and the rest of their group had been going about life as usual throughout the volcano they had called home for some time now, when suddenly a messenger from Ehkorrus had appeared, relaying the details. A near peer to the Lord Founder, the Bird, had come for a fight, planning to take advantage of the looming wave one hundred. They’d been recalled to Ehkorrus, as day by day, citizens were shipped out from where they’d just come.

That had been a month prior, and the fateful day had arrived.

And Founders above, was it unlike any battle or wave Flair had experienced before. In the past, the monsters had come as a horde, like a mass of violence that posed danger through sheer numbers.

Now? They’d been organized ; the one responsible could be seen just by looking up to the sky, the world trembling as they collided.

Beams of light and projected weapons crashed into each other, a constant explosive force that, had it not been occurring overhead, would have torn apart the opposing forces faster than either side could.

Down on the ground, tens of thousands of wild monsters were supported by thousands of armored elite monsters, which in turn were supported by humans and those who looked like humans. Siege weapons had been raining down fire and magical chaos toward Ehkorrus, the magical defenses stopping the projectiles, physical or magical, from ever making it past the walls.

But just the fact that they were facing a wave in which the enemy was unleashing siege weapons was a stark contrast.

Yet when it came to siege weapons, a savage grin appeared on Flair’s face, because Ehkorrus wasn’t one to be bested in that department. Plantlife throughout their walls returned fire, blasting beams of red, silver, or even golden energy back, weaponizing starlight, sunlight, or renewal energy.

Which was swell, but it wasn’t even the most impressive display.

That went to the gunners . Platforms raised above the walls and oversized crossbow-like things had been constructed. Empyrion Casters was what they’d been nicknamed, after the fallen Khan of Blue Lightning; they’d light up with electricity before launching metal rods with the sort of fury one would expect from a peak-tier seven or maybe even a tier eight. They had another name, one that Flair had overheard from the Chief Protector.

Rail Gun.

Each time they charged up, the resulting explosive force slew all but the most durable and strongest of monsters, and even then, they were horribly maimed and made far easier to dispatch.

Thoom. Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

“Brilliant incoming,” Morales called from nearby. “That’s on you, boss man.”

“Thanks,” Flair shouted back, scanning the battlefield before finding the monster that Morales had spotted.

Oh, that was the other part of the problem. The ‘Brilliance Touched.’ They weren’t quite to the level of an Alpha variant monster, but when even an average equal-level monster wasn’t something anyone other than the talented faced, the fact that they were a step above regular monsters made it that much more difficult.

Leaving it to people like Flair to handle.

The monster in question looked like a cross between a monkey with a pig’s face, wearing light armor, and carrying rudimentary sickles.

Tsk.

Launching himself toward the monster, each of his steps was accompanied by a tiny magical circle surrounding his foot strike, cutting the excess fire in return for greater speed, something only possible after years of training in the mountains and the Lord Founder’s clear directions.

A name to the ugly face, Flair unleashed a raging torrent of fire from only a few feet away, bathing the monster in raging fires that would hopefully reduce the monster to ash.

Luck was not on his side.

Bursting free from the fire, ablaze but alive, the Swinekis charged Flair.

Damn Brilliance.

The Brilliant-touched monsters, aside from being stronger on average, also seemed to have a natural resistance to light and heat-based concepts.

I can only imagine how the Chief Protector is faring.

Chastising himself for not starting with one of his newest skills, Flair suddenly pressed his aura against that of the swinekis, before tearing the resistance straight from the monster.

No longer protected, Flair unleashed another torrent of fire, as the monster was burnt to ash.

Better.

Taking a savage satisfaction in burning the monster to ash, Flair wasn’t the only one with the same savage smiles. The last time they’d faced such an imminent threat had been the Fall of Ehkorrus, when even if it wasn’t outwardly said, many had felt as if they were marching to their deaths.

Now?

Now they were pissed . Some cocky ass bird had decided to try to lord over them.

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Man, if only I got to see it myself.

He’d heard that the Bird had appeared in a brilliant sunbeam, spouting off some spiel about being their new lord, blah, blah, blah.

And then the Lord Founder had bitch slapped the cocky cock out of the sky.

A glance upward, and Flair was filled with immense pride as he watched the Lord Founder clashing against the Bird. They were only a tier above him, sure, but it wasn’t just a tier. They were transcendental; they existed at a higher echelon of power.

One day. One day, I want to be like that.

Hell, even the fact that the Lord Founder was battling in the sky above was literal proof. That wasn’t just something you could ‘do’ because you were tier eight.

Thoom. Thoom. Thoom.

Three electrical blue discharges fired off, another round of barrage from a nearby Empyrion Caster. A glance caused Flair to do a double-take; Lady Roxy herself was manning the weapon. At a glance, he could tell she had already reached tier seven, but only by a hop, skip, and a jump.

She’s going to catch up to even me at this rate.

Whatever the case may be, when even the Lord Founder’s beloved daughter was in the fight, manning their heavy weaponry from the front line, there was no doubt in Flair’s mind.

This wasn’t the Fall of Ehkorrus.

This was its rise.

“I offer you a chance to surrender,” Kai spoke as she faced her opponents, two near-humans and a monster that looked like a cross between an ape and a crab.

“The Brilliant Lord knows no defeat,” One of her opponents said, shaking his head. “Those who resist will be cut down, so that only a strong new crop may be born.”

“Then so be it,” Kai Rong nodded.

Hands raised, rings began to circle her as she prepared herself for what had to be done.

She’d fought plenty of peers before, sparring to rather brutal conclusions at times.

She’d kill monsters before.

But she’d never killed people before.

If she were fighting on her own behalf, maybe that reality would have weighed on her, shaken her resolve.

But she was not fighting on her behalf.

She was Kai Rong, the True Head of the Rong clan, the first attendants of the Lord Founder, and Guardians of Cruor-Shu.

A chance to surrender had been given, and a chance to surrender had been ignored. Now there was only duty.

Pneuma flowed not through her veins, but through spirit-ways, the pathways through her body that existed on a spiritual level as much as they did physically. Her body responded as power surged through her, a slight shimmer in the air above her skin as moisture evaporated from her own heat.

The monster attacked first, darting forward as its hairs turned brittle and hard like the shell of a crustacean.

It didn’t matter, not when her Cinnabar-form arm struck out, the fist striking with several echoes’ worth of power and blowing a hole straight through its chest. The monster wasn’t instantly dead, apparently lacking a heart where one would expect. Even missing the monster’s vital organs, it fell to the ground, thrashing as its natural vitality as a tier seven tried to recover from the damage.

The second attacker, a woman who almost looked human, opened her mouth, a shrill shriek that could have blown her eardrums out and disoriented her.

Assuming Kai Rong had a regular body. Her body, having subsumed her spirit, was far tougher than most, even without an excess durability investment.

The attack ended up backfiring when, having expected Kai Rong to be disoriented, she shot forward, a bluish-green knife slashing toward her neck. When Kai Rong’s Cinnbarbar-enforced fist struck, the woman was unable to react in time after committing to her own attack, even if she had been fast enough. Kai's fist struck true, slamming into the not-quite-human’s nose.

And then her entire head exploded in a shower of gore.

Not very durable.

The not-humans seemed to have a lower base durability than a human, in return for… having voice powers?

Her hypothesis was proven correct when the third attacker, a man, barked out a deep booming basso. Where the woman’s shriek had been meant to pop her eardrums, the booming basso seemed to be attacking her squishier internal organs directly.

Again, not that it mattered against Kai Rong. Seeing the attack incoming, Kai Ron swapped her stance from Reeds to Roots, her durability boosted as the sound shattered against her like a wind against an ancient oak’s side.

And then a roundhouse kick delivered with a Cinnabar leg cleaved his head from his shoulders.

I doubt they were any kind of elite.

A tier seven was not a tier seven. In other words, it didn’t matter if two people had the same tier or even the same level; there could still be a gulf in skill and strength.

Of course, there were the crafting types, never bothering to pick up a sword or spear, metaphorically or literally, who never once actualized their combat-oriented attributes. Attributes were a bit like a new leather glove. Without use, it would be stiff and hard to draw anything from it, a hollow value of what it could actually represent. Cognition tended to be their best attribute, followed by durability, if they were more willing to take risks. Regardless, outside of the very rare capital A-Architect type who seemed to those focused enough and crazy enough to want to do everything, a crafter was the bottom of the barrel regarding fighting ability.

Combatants were split up differently. While there was no ‘official’ recognition or split between the echelons, there had been one classification that had been picking up steam, that being Toilers, Talented, and Transcendent , with each having their own ‘sub-classifications.’

Toilers were split between ‘Dreamers’ and the ‘Workers.’ Dreamers were the bottom of the rung combatants who would be better off taking a profession outside of battle or adventure, yet chose to continue because of ill-held dreams. Workers were those who were neither untalented nor talented, the absolute most common; they earned more credits than a similar capability crafter, but with the added risk of having to fight for a living.

The Talented were split into ‘Operatives,’ ‘The Proven’ –or just Proven for short– and Elites. Where it was accepted that Toilers could only punch down, sometimes even while in groups, the talented, starting with Operatives, could punch at their level . An operative was someone who could face a monster of equal level and have a better-than-even chance of victory. The Proven had quite literally proven themselves capable of consistently beating equal-level monsters and even monsters a level or even two above them.

Elites were those who could, depending on the type of monster, punch upwards to an entire bracket higher, three to four levels. All of that was to say, those rules only really applied at the early parts of a tier, where the gulf between monsters and enlightened attribute load hadn’t split too far apart from one another until the next tier brought them back together.

Finally, after the talented, where the transcendent, made up of one, technically two categories, Zennith, and the extra unofficial Founder s.

Those considered the Zennith were truly peerless, with an unmatched strength. For most of Ehkorrus, they believed that was the entirety of the Elite Four.

Kai didn’t agree.

To an outsider, it may have seemed like each member of the Elite Four was a level of power that stood at the Zennith, and once even Kai herself had felt similar. That had changed after years as a member of the Elite Four and years of sparring with her casual acquaintance, Flair, who still tended to assume they were friends for some reason.

During that time, she’d realized that the gulf between her and Flair, or Flair and Edward, or even Violet, was far less significant than the gulf even between Violet and Marcie, the widely accepted strongest and second strongest member of the Elite Four. If Kai Rong were to classify anybody at the Zennith, only the Chief Protector and Grinning Demon Marcie would match the description of what a true Zennith-level person was.

And then there was Founders. A single glance into the sky, watching the two Founders battling like gods above mere mortals, said all there was to be said.

And yet, even with the two near demi-god-like existences clashing overhead, they still had a part to play.

If they were defeated, walls breached, and their enemies pushed into the city itself, the sheer numbers of their opponents would overrun them. There would be nothing for the Lord Founder to do but surrender or flee, abandoning them, something no one saw as a possibility.

Of course, if the Lord Founder, in the unthinkable, fell, well, the unrestrained strength of a Brilliance Founder turned upon them would quickly swing the battle from a pitched engagement to a slaughter.

Kai Rong could not even imagine a world in which the Lord Founder would lose.

Thus, their victory depended on the people of Ehkorrus carrying their weight and making proud the work of the Lord Founder in guiding and preparing them.

So, whether it was the lowest of the Toilers, the most proficient of the Talented, or the heights of the Transcendent, they all had a part to play, regardless of where they fell along that scale.

With that reality accepted in her heart of hearts, Kai Rong found herself facing off against a myriad of monsters, ranging from mid-to-high tier.

This was a war.

A war they would win.

But only if they could prove themselves worthy.

Cycling energy through her body, Kai Rong launched herself into the pack of monsters,

The Rong will not falter in our duties to the Lord Founder today.