“So, what’s our game plan?” Elise asked as she stepped outside and began floating again. Whirlwinds in an enclosed space with lots of light and fragile items didn’t make for good visitor etiquette, so she walked inside.

“I’ll let you guys deal with it, unless I see something of lvl12 or higher.” Thomas said. “Selecting this species didn’t remove my experience-reducing tattoo, so I’ll only fight high-level mobs if it’s not an all hands on deck or a swarm situation. If that’s okay with you guys.”

“It is to me. I’ll need to practise my new skills anyway.” I said. “If I don’t use my Phantom Phalanx every chance I’ll get, it will never become useful.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Ben asked me. “I mean; these were the monsters that…”

“Don’t worry. Those memories are a lifetime ago.” I assured him. “And while I have no acid resistance, I think I’m still more resilient than you fleshy people in that regard. Cobalt isn’t that vulnerable to corrosion.”

“Well then, lead the way.” Ben awkwardly chuckled.

“We better be careful.” Thomas said. “We fought the Krutnik in the tunnels before, where they were always bottlenecked. They couldn’t burrow through the solid rock and couldn’t swarm us from all sides at once. They might be a lot more dangerous in this open environment.”

“Over there. They appeared in that field, but haven’t yet spawned their smaller ones.” Martha said. “Try not to destroy the field while you fight them, please.”

I looked at the hulking figures in the distance, wandering around on a square field of ploughed grounds with neat rows of some kind of alien produce. The fields were set out oddly, near-perfect squares surrounded by large swaths of meadow. There were random ruin walls scattered around here too, this whole rural area randomly littered with remnants of an urban area with the occasional building still standing. The fields were set out in a way that they weren't blocked or cut through by the ruins.

Either way, the spread-out design resulted in the Krutnik lingering in this one acre, instead of spreading out. I could see one of the ruined acres in the distance, but the other acres around it were still looking pristine.

These were not the Krutnik we fought before. We faced Gatherers as big as ponies but stupid and not meant for combat, and Young Reavers the size of wolves. These Juvenile Krutnik Reavers were a lot bigger, standing as tall as a mule and twice as broad. There were five of them, shambling about aimlessly without crossing the arbitrary borders of the one acre they were ruining.

Juvenile Krutnik Reaver, lvl10.

From all the insectoid life forms that aren’t sentient or behemoth size, the civilised lands don’t fear any the way they fear the Krutnik. These bugs are nigh impossible to exterminate entirely, rapidly numbering into the millions if allowed to fester in the deep wilds and always having at least a few subterranean colonies deep down that are overlooked by even the most capable bug-hunters. Meaning that if these creatures ever plague a planet, they will always plague a planet!

The Reavers are the poster children of this loathed and feared species, as they are the first and most numerous wave to appear in a cityscape and start killing! Literally thousands of these critters pour out of the ground in mere minutes and indiscriminately kill anything that moves! With a carapace strong enough to block small arms and acidic spit to deal with barriers and flanking foes, the local law enforcers rarely stand a chance against these beasts before the military shows up. Though a bit smaller and weaker compared to the light tanks that are true Reavers, these teens are a still force to be reckoned with!

“Thomas, stay behind with Martha and Tolley. You can intervene from this distance if needed. Can you watch Cuddles, too? I don’t think he’s going to be very useful against bigger and heavily armoured enemies.” Elise said. “Darryl, in front. Alexa, stay near him. I’ll take the right and Ben takes the left. We try to take out at least the nearest one before the others reach us, remember to rely on Darryl for their acid spit. Everyone clear?”

Everyone nodded and I jogged ahead. The Krutnik spotted us, and growled aggressively as they slowly meandered towards us.

I threw my spear like a javelin and it flew with more accuracy than ever before. Seems like my martial proficiency skill for spears also applied to javelins, or at least for spears used as such, allowing me to aim properly and hit something for once. Nice!

The spear found its way into the Reaver’s shoulder and was deflected by its aerodynamic carapace, but one of the three spears of light struck it hard against the leg and another bit into a joint. The Reaver grunted, but its health barely dipped. I activated my gloves and my spear reappeared in my hand. The Reaver spat at me, but I long since got used to that trick. The acid splattered against my shield, I popped it into my inventory and pulled it back out clean as a whistle without stopping.

Three seconds later I stood before the creature, and hit the brakes just a moment before it would reach me. The Reaver, whose head barely came to my non-existent belly button for all of its massive size and girth, charged into me with the intent to topple me, and I heard its skull crack on my immovable shield supported by my Stalwart Protector skill. A ten second Dazed status appeared above its head.

I didn’t have fond memories of these guys, but oddly enough I found that I missed this. Compared to the Vespa? I was much better suited to fight these kind of enemies. Simple frontliners that ran headfirst into my most effective defensive skill were nice.

I twirled my spear and raised my arm for a downward strike, and stabbed down into the crevice between its skull and chest plates. The Krutnik grunted through the daze as ichor began to pour from its neck and I jammed the spear in a bit further before I began to jiggle it.

Next to me, Elise rose in the air and now swooped down on the Krutnik to my right with incredible speed, landing just in front of it and bringing down her bat on its head with the momentum of a hero’s landing behind it. The carapace seemed to be a good insulator against the electricity that trailed behind her strike, but that hardly mattered when she shattered its skull in one hit.

Ben jumped on the back of the Krutnik in front of me and stabbed his backstabbing dagger through two of its plates, reducing the already half-dead bug to a sliver of health. He left his dagger where it was and jumped off, running towards a third Reaver rushing towards us.

I kicked the dazed and dying Reaver in the face, and it fell backwards. That one would bleed out even if I didn’t finish it now, so I ran after Ben. There was another Reaver hot on the tail of the nearest one, so he could use the help.

The Reaver spat and Ben sidestepped the acid, his Rendering Blade drawing a deep gash in its left front leg as he ran past it. The Reaver staggered but kept running, and then it saw me. I stopped and raised my shield, and the Reaver swerved to the right to avoid a collision. Right, these buggers were smart enough to learn from the mistakes they saw their compatriots make, and thus never ran into my shield twice. Annoying. Still, with its wounded leg it failed to swerve in time, and I heard something shatter as two of its feet slammed into my shield.

I looked at the Reaver that came right after it, and this one hadn’t seen what happened to the first one. It roared and charged at me. Behind me, the other one slowed down and turned around.

They were clearly pack predators, because even with the first one’s limp and in the chaos of battle they synchronised their attack. The second one hit my shield at the very same time that the one at my back one lunged at me with its good front leg.

My mana pool halved itself as I focussed on the new skill in my hotbar, and a phantasmal copy of myself appeared right behind me. It didn’t have effects like Stalwart Protector, but when the Krutnik’s tibia crashed into its shield it struck a hardy resistance as if it was really me.

It was just the one projection right now, and always mirrored with its back to mine. The skill would eventually evolve into having a great many projections that would be able to move and even attack, even if they would never be as deadly as me or copy my skill effects, but right now it was still just a single static defensive illusion.

My illusion faded and I turned around. Behind me, Ben jumped onto the dazed charger I stopped dead in its tracks.

Alexa appeared right in front of me facing the Reaver, and took a pose with her right hand’s fingers making a V-shape around one eye while her left arm was straight pressed against her side and her legs spread into a V-shape with her torso turning about 20 degrees to the side and front so that her arse stuck out some.

I was about to ask her what she was doing, when she shouted “Star Struck!”. Her face flashed brightly enough to turn her silhouette into an afterimage burned into my retinas, and the flash was accompanied by an idol-like giggle that sounded like many gruelling hours of rehearsal had gone into it before it reached a pitch perfect cuteness. But it was off somehow, probably an edited recording of Alexa’s voice or something.

While I was just taken off-guard by the light, the Reaver was subjected to the full brunt and staggered backwards. It had been blinded for 20 seconds. This fight wouldn’t take that long.

I kicked its bad leg, and it immediately fell down. It tried to get back up again, but I stabbed it in the joint of the leg that I saw it was putting most of its weight on and it immediately fell down again. I brought up my foot and kicked down upon its head, relying on the kinetic force of my Spartan Kick empowered kicks over the thrusting edge of my spear that wasn’t very optimal against these heavily armoured foes. I kicked it again and again as it tried to squirm away, only for its head to be slammed into the ground with every impact.

My Foot Soldier skill jumped up to level 5 with the first kick, and then level 6 before the Reaver died. I only now noticed that I had been training this skill at all and that it granted me 25% more damage kicks for each skill level, meaning that I already kicked 2.5x harder than everyone else in my party.

My basic weapon skills like Thrust granted similar boons so my spear was deadlier, but still. These sandals and that skill were quite effective in filling a niche of bludgeoning damage and close range, and Spartan Kick allowed me to push enemies backwards into a more comfortable range for spears, so maybe I should focus more on developing them. Spartan Kick was an all or nothing effect directly tied to my sandals so I wasn’t going to be levelling that one, but Foot Soldier was a pretty good skill. Especially against small, low and heavily armoured enemies.

But, spear first. That was my class specialisation, after all.

I turned to the dazed one behind me, but Ben had already taken care of it. Backstabbing a Dazed creature was a lot easier than dealing with an actively angry and moving monster. And I already heard another loud thump a few seconds ago as if someone played a thunder SFX on maximum volume, Elise crash-landing into the last Reaver to once again take it out in one hit.

We looked at one another and there was just silence. Ben wanted to say something, but caught himself and held his tongue. But then.

“Well, that was easy.” Tolley said.

As Martha slapped him up the back of his head, the ground underneath us began to rumble loudly. Elise floated upwards while Ben and I cautiously moved away from the sinkhole appearing in the middle of the field. Martha groaned as more and more of her crops were sucked in, and Thomas shot a piece of ice into the air.

Four more Juvenile Reavers appeared, alongside an even larger creature. Where the Reavers were smooth, this thing was spiked like a post-apocalypse raider and its two front legs were long scythe-like blades that couldn’t be used for anything but killing and reaping wheat. The size of a sedan and armoured like a light tank, and on top of it all a mouthful of fangs could spin like a blender.

Krutnik Cleaver, lvl12.

From all the insectoid life forms that aren’t sentient or behemoth size, the civilised lands don’t fear any the way they fear the Krutnik. These bugs are nigh impossible to exterminate entirely, rapidly numbering into the millions if allowed to fester in the deep wilds and always having at least a few subterranean colonies deep down that are overlooked by even the most capable bug-hunters. Meaning that if these creatures ever plague a planet, they will always plague a planet!

Cleavers usually come up to the surface when the Reavers encounter no serious resistance but plenty of squishy lifeforms. Able to shrug off small arms and with arms that can chop through several torsos at once without getting stuck, Cleavers are the last thing that a panicking crowd of civilians wants to see! They carve through like farmers through wheat! Their real purpose is to clear paths through dense foliage and sometimes they even cut down some trees, but Krutnik are quite versatile in utilising the subspecies they’re born with for war and massacres!

Then Thomas’s Frosty Mortar fell from the sky onto the Cleaver and shattered into hundreds of sharp ice spikes. The impact and shrapnel made all the Krutnik lose their footing in their self-made antlion sand trap pit and they fell back or began to slide back into the hole. The rest of us didn’t need much more prompting to go onto the offensive, pouncing the staggered foes before they could recuperate.