With wave after wave of rucar drones and warriors poured out of the temporary dungeon whose blue swirling vortex stood in the distance, Moyo sat on the crystal wall, hands folded and repeating the same command with the fusion of his intent and willpower of the titan that helped him acquire his latest skill voice of the titan,

“hold”

That single word locked down all insects in the vicinity of bastion, slapping the, down with an unseen force, like the aether supporting them in the air suddenly grew arms and crushed them to the ground, to the waiting arms of the army of bastion. The sentinels had been equipped with new weapons, most used blunt weapons such as hammers and morning stars, coupled with their force cores, they left devastating damages in their wake. The storm bringers channeled the dark storms overhead, dropping bolts after bolts of lightning on the hordes of insects that appeared, they had been doing it all day long and even now, as the midday sun burned in the sky, Moyo had no plan of stepping in through the portal to take out the wave boss.

He had given the issue a thought and had decided, he wanted everyone strong enough to hold down the fort in his eventual departure. The crisis was a good training ground for all of bastion to get stronger, without him they should be able to crush monsters between the levels of 50 to 100. While not all of them could reach advocate, a sizeable number of them should, Annika and the council had to enter the realm of experts before the thirty days were over, with enough experts protecting bastion, should any faction try to seize his domain, thinking it would meet nothing less than initiates or an acolyte or two, Moyo wanted the forces of bastion to come down on them like a mountain, crush them to dust and erase them from the surface of earth, until humanity could defend itself, bastion would act as the mountain to shield and protect them.

As the current horde was neutralized, Annika appeared before him with a clasp of thunder, grinning to him in delight,

“65” she said,

“Impressive acolyte, the rest?” he asked,

“Idris is 63, Ayo 61, josh 55 and the lowest in the army is 40” she reported,

Moyo nodded satisfied, it was progress, and he would keep looking out for them till they could stand on their own in the yellow zone. Then after that, perhaps he’d send the council into the green zones, see where they can help out while he ventured into the red zone, a feeling of thrill went through his body, he had less than two years till the level cap on earth surpasses the 150 mark, he might as well take advantage of it, getting to the cap so when the real high tiered monsters arrive, he would be on level playing ground with them. Closing his eyes and breathing as he let his willpower recover, watching in preparation as the next horde screeched out of the portal, Annika asked a question,

“can you hold back all but four rucar?, no weight or whatever it is you’re doing on them, the rest you can hold on to” she said,

Moyo blinked at her in confusion for a few seconds till what she was implying dawned on him,

“You want you and the council to duel one on one, save Mrs. Martha of course” he said,

“Well, yh, I’ve always wanted to see what we could do individually” she replied,

Moyo glanced down at them, seeing Idris, Ayo and josh conversing with themselves,

“Are they aware of this plan?” he asked,

“Who did you think sent me to come meet you?” she replied,

He glanced down again to see them waving eagerly at him, thinking carefully, the rucar swarm were level 80 at least, could a bunch of level 60 humans beat them?, snorting to himself, that was why he was here, he would let them battle to their hearts content, but should any of the insects come close to ending their lives he would crush it out of existence. Nodding to them, Moyo held down the swarm and letting four pass through undeterred, watching as Annika jumped down and took a battle stance, the rest followed suit, Moyo crossed his arms and watched.

Idris was the first to move, eating up the space between and his target in seconds, his crystal gauntlets glittering in the sun, Annika followed with a lightning step as she reached her target immediately, Ayo blazed with the power of the sun, her bow glowing as she knocked four arrows at once and shot them all at the third rucar insect, josh hefted his war hammer and with a bellow shot forward also at the last insect. Idris went all out with the insect, trading blows and dodging its poisonous spit, his hits pushing the insect back but barely cracking its carapace, he weathered the hits of the insect who used its mandibles to try to cut him in half but only meeting his iron skin while Idris used the opportunity to lay in punches that rang out.

Annika was a moving whirlwind, dancing round her foe as she jabbed with her spear that kept shooting lightning at the rucar. With a move that seemed perfectly practiced, she dodged a mandible bite, twisting behind the rucar and instead of striking its body with lightning, she took out its wings with one strike, the insect falling to the ground with a screech. From that point on it had no hope against her, despite its level, turns out rucar flesh was a good conductor of electricity as Annika grabbed the insect from the back and with a shout, she channeled lightning from her body into the insect through the injuries she made on its back, the rucar froze for a minute as it got electrocuted, screeching till smoke came out of every hole in its body till it caught fire and she threw the burnt carcass to the ground.

Ayo danced with her foe from afar, her quiver kept on producing arrows after arrows as long as she still had mana in her core, using as much as six to seven arrows to pepper the insect at a time, each shot exploding on contact. Her due diligence to the task paid off as finally the carapace on the head of the insect cracked, immediately the atmosphere around her changed, Moyo squinted his eyes and focused his will of the titan on her. It was barely perceptible, but Moyo due to being an advocate could see it, a sort of burning presence stared down at the insect, somehow directing the arrows into the cracked spot on its skull, the arrows exploding all at once along with its head. Out of all of them, it seemed Ayo was the one whose willpower had grown the most, she must had been pouring points into it, Moyo would keep an eye on her growth.

Josh was by far the one who was having fun the most, his force core allowed him to push and slam the insect around in what looked like a bit of the power Moyo used when he activated his voice of the titan skill. His hammer flashed around as he slammed the insect in the opposite direction of wherever he used his force to push the insect, therefore the rucar soldier was caught between his force and the crushing body of its hammer. Continuing his attack while also dodging the deadly poison of the insect he hammered and pummeled at the insect till finally its carapace cracked. It was then his sentinel force path showed its terrifying ability, as his hammer landed again, Moyo watched as the insides of the insect became mush, the force josh projected over his hammer seeping into the insect and laying waste to it, the rucar hive soldier dropped to the ground dead.

Idris was the last to finish his battle, for some reason he decided to prolong the fight, fine with exchanging blows after blows with the insect. As the battered combatants got to the closing stages of their fight, the insect had a torn mandible and limbs, Idris sporting bruises al over his body, Idris roared. A dull yellow glow suffused his body and Moyo saw every injury heal up, Moyo sat up watching, could Idris had gotten a skill similar to his blood absorption?. Moyo watched as the arms of Idris began to glow with power and with a speed he hadn’t shown before, Idris stepped into the guard of the insect and laid to attacks that completely evaporated wherever they touched, the insect dropping to the ground dead.

The army of bastion roared, they had seen their leader do the unthinkable, with their skills they had laid waste to enemies with as much as twenty levels between them through skills. Moyo was a bit satisfied, he had no doubts that should it be a wyrm of that level or some other creature that weren’t from a hive, his squad would be demolished. The rucar were a hive race, therefore they depended on overwhelming power and not individual prowess, should his friends had found themselves in the midst of a swarm of level eighty rucar drones or soldiers, not even their bones would be left to bury.

Moyo stepped down from the wall, landing gracefully from the impossible height he previously was, smiling at his friends. Idris breathing heavily,

“What was that?” Moyo asked,

“Kinetic blast, an uncommon skill that lets me channel any injury or attack I take and lets me deal double the damage in return but eating through my endurance, can only use if for a few seconds” Idris explained,

“Well you did great, you all did great” Moyo said starting as he patted them, turning to the army arrayed behind them,

“This, this is what you can reach and surpass if you all but dedicate your entire self to getting stronger, our window of opportunity will soon start closing, I intend to drag you all to at least advocate level if not higher, the question is, do you want the power” he shouted as the army roared in reply, eyes bright,

“So finish this batch of pesky insects, rest, recuperate and prepare for the finale tomorrow!” he finished as they replied with their shouts,

Moyo turned back to his team,

“After this swarm has been dealt with, I intend to go face the boss, withdraw the troops into Ife proper and have Mrs. Martha lay traps to bring the insects down to ground level, guerrilla tactics to take them out in the maze, I should be done quickly unless another legendary monster’s waiting for me in there” he said,

“let’s not jump to conclusions” Idris said,

Moyo chuckled, watching as the troops of bastion laid waste to the current swarm of rucar insects,

“hopefully” he replied, dimension stepping towards the dungeon portal,

Standing in front of the portal, Moyo took a deep breathe and stepped through, appearing in a dense jungle with multitudes of rucar hive members flying around. All at once they noticed his arrival and swirled towards him to attack,

“hold” Moyo commanded, activating his voice of the titan skill,

Grasping the aether in the air, he used his will to sharpen them to edges and rained them down on the hive insects , shredding them to pieces. In that moment his instincts screamed in warning as Moyo withdrew dominion from his spatial rip and brought it up just in time to defend from a sharp black looking thorn that almost skewered him. Glancing at the direction the attack came from he extended his now advocate realm towards that direction, watching as it blasted out, passing through the jungle till it came in contact with something,

Something that had enough willpower to push back,

With part curiosity and part thrill Moyo blasted forward, weaving through the jungle, again another set of thorns shot towards him as he used dominion to again deflect them. He stopped where the resistance and saw nothing, glancing around with dominion tightly gripped in his hand. Setting his ream firmly around him, he waited for whatever had been shooting those thorns at him to make another move. He felt movement behind him turned in a blink, dominion intercepting the thorn with his realm locking onto the presence, channeling his willpower he activated his voice of the titan skill, holding the creature in place as he commanded it to freeze, a loud screech broke his willpower.

Moving as he suppressed his surprise, no being yet had proven strong enough to such, whatever this foe was, it was strong. As he got to the creature with one dimension step, Moyo became wary immediately. This rucar insect was in the form of a humanoid female, having arms instead of forelegs and human legs instead of hindlegs, her mouth was still a mandible and the usual insect compound eyes, her wings were pitch black compared to the reflective wings of the rucar insects he previously faced, above her head was her information,

At’ll Rucar swarm queen level 90

At’ll was a former rucar hive queen who after seeing a battle between two masters on her home attained semi-sentience. With such age against her sister hive queens, she decided to wage war on other hives, using her superior intellect to defeat them and absorb their hives into hers, she grew from a level forty hive queen to a level ninety swarm queen, advancing along the path of the merciless thorn in the archailect. Close to attaining sentience, she joined the multitudes of beings that joined Urguth in staging the rebellion against the archailect and seizing the nexus point, for that she was sentenced to becoming a wave boss, the archailect encourages you to dispense justice.

Moyo glanced through the message in a minute, his face darkening for two reasons, the first being that this queen right here was another co-conspirator of Urguth, it seemed the archailect had placed another in his path and for what reason Moyo wasn’t sure. The second was that she was not just any rucar hive queen, she controlled an entire planet of their specie, he could be looking at their supreme leader who was on the edge of attaining complete sentience. With one dimension step Moyo appeared behind At’ll, dominion coming down with his full willpower wrapped with intent sharpened to an edge, the queen deflected it on her hardened hand, producing a thorn from the same hand and shooting it at Moyo who dimension stepped out of the way.

Recalculating his movement as she gave a loud screech that seemed to tear into his mind, Moyos’ mental defenses crushed the attack to a pulp, leaving a slight headache behind as he saw the queen narrow her eyes in frustration, she had not been expecting him to survive the attack. Baring his teeth in a snarl, Moyo shot forward again while activating blade of the titan, she came close to blocking the attack, but whatever intent she felt behind that attack made her dodge the strike. The skill carved through the ground, ripping trees to pieces and leaving a small carving in the ground. At’ll took the chance to attack again, spewing poison all over Moyo, he felt the sting, the sizzle of his skin boiling, but his willpower of the titan never wavered, his titans’ wrath skill activating for the first time in a while to heal the injuries in a flash. The queen let out another loud screech, but this time Moyo was prepared, letting his mental defenses handle the attack despite his head banging from the attack, Moyo dimension stepped close to the queen before she could zip away, wrapping his realm around her along with activating its gravity attack power, but he knew that was not enough to hold down a rucar swarm queen, not one who had become leader of their entire species.

With his willpower and intent, he gathered everything he had despite the raging migraine pounding his head and ordered her,

“hold” he commanded,

Moyo could feel reality twist as the queen tried fighting his command, for the first time in as long as he could remember Moyo found himself struggling with his willpower to overcome another foe, a distant thought driving the chilling realization that had he not absorbed the essence of Urguth, he probably would have not been able to pit his willpower against hers, but he could, that was all that mattered. In that singular moment, Moyo drove dominion through her midsection and activating its gravity perk, turning the inside of At’ll to mush. Even with that, the swarm queen was able to pierce Moyo through the shoulder, narrowly missing his heart as his eyes widened in alarm. He pushed off the queen as her lower half fell off in a show of gore and black blood, pulling out the thorn and crashing to the ground as whatever poison was in the thorn tied rushing towards his heart.

His titans’ wrath body went to work immediately, eating up the poison and reinforcing his body as he spat out blood, kneeling on the ground. All it took from At’ll had been one attack, a blunt but stark reminder that he was nowhere strong enough to face true powers that be, something told him At’ll wasn’t a level 90 monster, she was way higher, the story didn’t add up. She had conquered an entire planet worth of queens and all she had to show for it was a level 90 advocate advancement?, Moyo wasn’t buying that, but it was a thought for later. As his body healed, he activated his greed of the titan skill, watching as a light green energy left the body of the now dead queen and enter him, he felt his willpower increase. The body of the queen also liquified at first before becoming energy and phasing into his body, notifications coming up as he breathed deeply.

Congratulations! You have slain the named monster known as At’ll the swarm queen of the rucar on the path of the merciless thorn!. For destroying a named creature, you get

+500 to all attributes Greater poison resistance 200 rare aether shards

Standing up and looking around, he could see the walls of the temporary dungeon cracking at its edges, in a flash he found himself back in front of the dungeon portal that closed. Turning to see Annika leading the rest of the team towards him, bastion stood in the distance still whole, save for a few cracks in the maze structure.

“How did it go?” she asked him,

Moyo stared at bastion, his mind already calculating the different angles the last wave would bring,

“We need to talk” he said...