The key change in the second stage of hordes is that the System allows them to bring in more troops after surviving for twelve hours on Idroa. To supplement this change, the portals release a lingering cloud of smoke that gives the hordes the opportunity to build up a fortress to hole up in. While the smoke suffocates and obscures attackers, the horde is given one Reducer artifact which allows them to mark an area for the System to thin the smoke.

As the second stage is a large step-up from the first stage, the System tends to wait until a settlement passes 12 000 citizens to enable it, but there are recorded cases where it enables it at lower citizen count so it’s ultimately up to the System’s volition.

Giada Marino - Scholar - Intricacies of the System

____

The ghastly black mantises cleaved through the battlefield, hacking men in half with every step. Although the elite fighters from the platoons raced to engage them, they mostly only slowed the monsters’ progress, failing to do lasting damage.

There were, however, exceptions to this rule, for one Harlan as he swung his runic warhammer in a sweeping blow. His opponent tried to step away but was pushed back by its kin crowding around it. The warhammer crashed into the black mantis and crunched through its abdomen. It gasped and flailed down, only to be crushed once more.

A second exception was a blonde spellcaster barraging a black mantis several strides away. It lacked the wings to bypass the human defenders between it and the spellcaster and so was helplessly ground down to a toasted heap of flesh.

Another was an artfully scarred man with lighter feet than even Silas’s. He bobbed and weaved about the mantis’s strikes with ease, thrusting into the same area each time. Eventually, its chitin cracked and his blade met flesh, allowing his poison to act. Sensing the snake-like tendril working up its body, coiling around its heart, the mantis flew into a frenzy and forced the scarred man into a frantic dance for ten heartbeats before collapsing.

Distinguished even amongst them, Silas operated at a higher level as he hunted down black mantises the same way they hunted men. Not only was he quick, but he was also precise with his movement, keeping himself from their sickles while simultaneously tearing them down. Some grew enraged at his arrogant display; others grew fearful and slipped away from the battlefield, sprinting back into the smoke.

It became clear near an hour later that the mantises would soon be crushed under the tide of human warriors. Only the dimmer ones fought on, but they too were swept through until splatters of red and green ichor covered the ground, broken bodies scattered across it. However, even as the battle was won, the war raged on as Silas heard muffled sounds of combat from the smoke through his ringing ears.

Having learnt from the week before about the mistake of leaving a weakened enemy breathing, the battered warriors spent little time celebrating as instead began preparing for the next fight. Silas was amongst them, brooding softly compared to those around him. He liberally applied the healing salves that he had slipped into his pockets before the war, finding them less effective than advertised but regardless welcome products. The men and women to his sides all used similar items, and those who lacked them unceremoniously tore them off their dead brethren’s bodies.

Still, while it healed Silas’s outer body, he couldn’t deny that he was utterly drained inside. Taken by the bloodthirsty spirit of war, he had fought more ferociously than others and it had taken its toll as he knew the next black mantis he engaged would rip him a new one: he was too sluggish and weary to dance around them now. Nevertheless, he could help out with the weaker mantis kin, the green ones, whose weakness he could abuse to good effect.

Finally, they entered the smokescreen in swaying rows, keeping vigilant as they stalked the noise. Although heart-wrenchingly tense, it wasn’t a long walk, and they quickly reached the area where the smoke thinned to a low mist’s consistency. Silas’s heart dropped as he spotted rows of mantises protecting a fortress half-built. Broad blocks of stone had been stacked and stuck with magic, with gleaming metal covering its most critical regions. It was an intimidating sight, to say the least.

Still, not that it was a hopeless case, simply an arduous one. The members of the 1st platoon, easily distinguished by their overwhelming auras, led the humans as they valiantly threw themselves into enemy lines, already soaked in green. As Silas continued to scan the battlefield, he noticed something peculiar and pointed it out to Harlan: Floyd, the strongest man in New Derby and apparently the one atop the council, was duelling the biggest black mantis he had seen. This was a strange sight as there was an empty circle around them as if no one else dared encroach on their fight.

Harlan’s helmet muffled his voice. “Floyd’s a Champion: that’s his skill, to pull any opponent he wants into a duel with him. No one can break their arena until either he succumbs or breaks the spell.”

That was all he got from Harlan as the platoons, alongside the company men who had joined them, sprinted into the fray, leaving only the stragglers to observe in fear and shame. Silas kept with the stragglers, the ones who baulked at the sights in front of them, but he felt no shame as his eyes were glued on Floyd.

Floyd’s opponent seemed to be the leader of the mantises as it was truly colossal compared to its kin, at least nine-feet tall, towering over its opponent and yet moving with uncharacteristic agility. Floyd side-swept his greatsword, and the mantis leapt over it, clearing the blade and coming down to cut his chest. It quickly darted back before he could catch it.

It was easy to guess how the fight had gone until now as the Champion was thick with crimson, armour cracked and in pieces, while the mantis looked unaffected by combat. In fact, Floyd’s condition looked so bad that it was a miracle he had yet to collapse, or at least broken the spell and let others help. If nothing else, it proved the Champion was ridiculously tough to remain standing after everything he’d been through, that and hard-headed.

Although Silas knew the duel was a car crash waiting to happen, he couldn’t keep his eyes off of it. The longer he watched, the better he understood the two combatants until he began to reliably predict their exchanges.

Here, Floyd would engage, as usual, and the mantis would let him as it knew he was in his death throes now. He would swing too wide or slash too high, always aiming for a critical hit, and the mantis would follow up with a smaller, safer hit before retreating. It was clearly as aware of his power as of his stupidity and likely understood one misstep could damn it.

Unable to passively watch the dumpster fire any longer, Silas jogged towards the duel, avoiding mantises as best he could. As he approached, he shouted hoarsely, “Strike its chest!”

Floyd either didn’t hear Silas over the tumult of shouting and screaming, or he didn’t care as he instead went for a big chop at its head, missing magnificently. In return, the mantis swept its arm against his chest and he tumbled back, swaying on his feet. But, as countless times before, he caught his balance and pulled forward.

“Its feet,” Silas shouted after watching the mantis’s actions. He didn’t think the mantis would use his information to its advantage because, as far as he had heard, the System didn’t translate horde speak.

Floyd instead lunged, thrusting his greatsword levelly like a thin rapier. The outcome was predictable, and the cruel and bloody pantomime continued.

“Its arm,” Silas yelled, inwardly giving up on the man - he seemed too deep in his death march to be helped.

Swinging for its shoulder, the Champion abruptly changed direction and pulled his blade lower, piercing through the mantis’s arm. The monster shrieked like a banshee and sprung away.

“Follow up,” Silas yelled, wondering if it had been a coincidence. “Down into its chest, now!”

The Champion chased and chopped lightly against its thorax.

“Duck. Drop the sword, roll!”

Floyd crouched under a decapitating blow. He released his sword and rolled in between the mantis’s walking legs. A second behind, the mantis stabbed its sickle into the ground where he had stood a moment ago, piercing deep into blood-stained mud. Realising its mistake, it tried to scamper away, but it was too late as Floyd slammed his fist against its abdomen. It shook from the blow and fearfully leapt away.

“Get your sword.”

The Champion rose, blood cascading down his horrific frame, and casually picked his greatsword up with one hand.

“Charge.”

He tore forward, flinging clumps of mud with each step.

“Swing chest into arm.”

He swept into its chest, missing, but carried the blow on to catch the mantis’s other arm. It toppled over, and he placed his foot over it.

“Thorax.”

Turning towards Silas, Floyd grinned, a flash of murky white on a canvas of red; the mantis struggled in vain under his thick leg. He raised his sword high, pausing briefly at its peak, then brought it low. The mantis’s head flew off with a spray of blood, rolling into the mud.

A wave of shock spread through the surrounding mantises as they witnessed their leader, who had dominated the fight, get felled in a matter of seconds, leaving them stunned. It took several heartbeats for them to recover and charge the bloody human in a frenzy, prepared to drown him in a wave of their bodies. But it was pointless as this was Floyd Godson, the Champion.

He severed multiple of them with each sweep, ignoring their blows wholeheartedly. He was an unstoppable force, and his victory catapulted the human army’s morale. Gallons of blood was spilt after that, but it was mostly green.

As such, two hours after the horde had touched down, New Derby emerged triumphant.

____

Champion (rare)

Unlock conditions: kill a higher-levelled enemy with a crowd watching. Have overwhelming strength and constitution relative to your race’s averages.

Abilities

Crowd’s Favourite - your attributes are increased by 1% for every allied organism directly watching you during a fight. This bonus can increase to 2% per spectator depending on how engaged they become.

Sacred Arena - choose an individual to duel. An unbreakable arena will form around the two of you. The enemy cannot escape the arena, and outsiders cannot directly interfere with your duel. Should you lose or forfeit the duel while in the Sacred Arena, you will immediately lose your class.

+15 strength, +15 constitution.

Champion is a direct upgrade of the uncommon class, Gladiator.

System