They boarded the transport helicopter together and strapped themselves in, Beta team had been reinforced by four new fighters and Beta 2 had been promoted to team leader, Einherjar’s teams 5 and 12 were also following them, each one in a modified V-22 Osprey, the three helicopters lifted from the ground and quickly achieved incredibly speed as they proceeded to the destinations.

“What is the mission again?” He asked Erick at his side “I don’t know I suppose Beta 2 is gonna explain it right now” right when they finished speaking Beta 2 released his straps and walked to the center of the helicopter “Ok soldiers we are going to Philadelphia, it is the last big city needed to conquer Pennsylvania and unite New Jersey, New York and Virginia, it is essential to the government’s plans ” “Then why haven’t they conquered it already?”

“They tried, the general send a few thousand troops there together with Team 4, they took over the City core and more than half of the 39 nodes but they were attacked by a variety of creatures, while they were fighting back we suddenly lost communications” “What kind of creatures?” “Well, mostly goblins but there were a few stalkers, a pretty big group of wargs, some carnivorous plants and a group of earth bears, according to our information a Hobgoblin warchief managed to control most of the creatures into a coordinated attack and forced the general to retreat before we lost communications”

“And what’s the situation now?” “We aren’t really sure, we know we lost all but 5 nodes but our surveillance system doesn’t see any of the creatures out on the streets, we will be dropping down troops at every known node our own Beta team will make the droop at the city core In the university of Pennsylvania, eliminate any resistance we find and capture the city as fast as we can, your own helmets should have received the mission information so take your time analyzing it, we will be there in about 20 minutes.”

Reading the information he received on his helmet’s visor he became interested in the hobgoblin warchief and its ability to use strange letters in place of spells to attack, he suppose the creature could make for a good fight being a level 14 boss but all else would pose little to no danger to the team much less to him and Erick, if the fool didn’t decide to act like a hero and make trouble for them all it should be easy.

Spending the rest of the time quiet he made sure to check all his gear was in order, checking his rifle, handgun and the new blades he put them back into place and checked his supplies, four magazines of armor piercing bullets, another two magazines of exploding bullets and a magazine of high explosive incendiary bullets for his riffle, he had given up on normal rounds, for his handgun he picked 2 boxes of exploding bullets and 2 boxes of R.I.P bullets, it should be enough to handle everything he encounters.

“Alright people we are here!” Beta 3 and 4 controled the autocannons to watch the ground as the helicopter actually hovered above the Blanch P. Levy park and dropped down from ropes, a meaningless action as it turned out because no creature showed up to attack them, Beta 1 and 2 were the first to come down and they lifted their riffles to give cover as the other Einherjar climbed down as well, he touched down on the grass and looked around but, outside of a few patches of grass or trees marked by blood there was nothing important around.

They advanced in a coordinated manner, running through the woodland walk at a very fast pace, the city core was actually located inside the Penn Law building, getting to the front door they stopped, hiding behind cover “Ok people we assume the creatures are inside so be prepared for some close quarters action, we will separate into two teams of 10, Beta 3 will be point man for team B while I will lead Team A, Siegfried can you go with them?” “Of course Beta 2” “Very well then, I will enter through the front entrance while team B will circle around and try to surprise them by entering from the second floor are we clear?” “Yes sir”

Without caring much either way he followed Beta 2 inside, Beta 9 was their point man, holding a shotgun on his shoulder the man advanced inside the building and proceeded towards Golkin’s hall, the city core was supposed to be at the auditorium there, as Beta 9 turned corners carefully he walked around calmly, the building was nearly destroyed with claw marks, burns and blood everywhere, if there was a single piece of furniture left intact they would be lucky.

Their advance was slow but steady as Beta 2 and 9 cleared rooms carefully and the others gave cover, eventually he got feed up with it “Why the hell are you still slicing the pizza, there is nothing here” both of them turned his way and looked at him “Its… slicing the pie” “I know I just prefer pizza” Ignoring the Einherjar he just walked ahead, manifesting a thick string, almost like a rope, he twisted it around itself until it formed a 1,5 meter wide disk, making two more disks he layered them on top of each other and used them as a shield as he walked ahead, although it wouldn’t stop a bullet it would weaken it enough to make even a piercing sniper round useless against his armor.

No longer bothering with the Einherjar’s time consuming method he quickly arrived at the auditorium, it’s doors were ripped off its hinges and a huge pool of blood spread all around the entrance dripping down the stairs, pieces of a destroyed wall blocked the way and he easily jumped over them to see the red city core floating alone in the center of the room, claw marks and bullet holes were everywhere.

Manifesting he dragged one of the biggest pieces of rubble with him as he touched the glowing ball and sat down on top of it, entering the room Beta 2 said “You shouldn’t be wasting mana like that” “How much mana do you have?” “one hundred seventy-five why?” he looked at his own mana [1143 / 1212] by using his free attribute point from level 4 to increase his wisdom he actually gained 100 mana points, he snorted in amusement at having wasted just short of half Beta 2’s mana on useless thing, not that he cared, his own recovery rate was abnormally high so he would be back to full in a couple of minutes anyway.

Congratulations, Loki from U.S. army guild has conquered the city core + 500 XP

Using his communicator he called “Hey Sieg, get over here there is nothing in this damn building” soon enough another 11 men entered the room, looking around at team A sitting around the auditorium, Erick approached him and asked loudly “Where the hell are the monsters?” but he shook his head “I have a better question, with all this blood and fighting where the hell are the bodies?” “Another undead thing you think?” “Who knows they could have been eaten by a flying pink unicorn for all I know” “You know what’s amusing? I honestly wouldn’t be surprised if that was the case, this world has gone crazy”

Quietly watching his mana he saw it recover four points in a minute, then five points each minute for the next four minutes and finally four points again, doing the math in his head he could recover 288 points in an hour by just sitting down, 4.8 point in a minute and 0,08 points per second “Hey Sieg, how much mana do you have?” “320 why?” “Just curious” so he could recover just short of Erick’s entire mana in a single hour, cool.

Manifesting a single normal sized string he slowly manipulated it trying to figure out how much mana it consumed when Beta 2 called over the common channel “This is Beta team, Teams 4 and 12 what’s your situation?” “This is team 4 We have safely captures the nodes Beta 2, there was no resistance” “This is team 12, the situation is the same” “What about corpses did you find any?” “No” “A lot of blood and signs of fighting but no bodies” “Very well keep me informed”

“Captain, I got in contact with the rest of the soldiers, all units have faced no resistance and successfully seized their nodes” “Then why isn’t the city under our complete control yet? What the hell is going on?” Beta 2 appeared to doze off for a while but he saw a slight blue light in his visor, catching on quickly he too opened a city map marked with all nodes and the city core starting to comb over it trying to find something they missed.

“Wait, why the hell isn’t there a node at Fairmount Park?” he asked out loud “There can’t be a node everywhere Loki, other important places also don’t have one” “yeah but none of them are as big as freaking Fairmount park” Beta 2 focused on him “You’re right, it’s a long shoot but worth looking at command could have missed it in their search, now wait a moment” touching his helmet Beta 2 received a call from the soldiers and transmitted it to the common channel.

“Beta team this is first sergeant Guerrero we got something on Jefferson Station” “What is it First sergeant?” “it’s some kind of hole in the line’s wall, it’s big enough for a person to fit in easily and there is blood around it’s edges” “Understood First sergeant Guerrero, Beta team is the closest to your location, secure the entrance and wait for us to arrive, the rest of the Einherjar meet us at the station as soon as you can.”

Getting up and adjusting his weapon Beta 2 ordered “You heard the man people get moving!” “What about Fairmount Park?” “Loki, it’s a good shoot and we will have to check it latter but Jefferson Station takes priority” they all left the building much faster than they came in, following his lead once again curling his ropes in the form of shields as they started to walk to the new target he stopped.

“I could go check it out on my own” “Loki there is no reason for you to advance alone” “What, you guys got Sieg he can handle those creatures almost as well as I can, besides it’s not like I am gonna get killed by some hobgoblin, those corrupted bull we had to face after that zombie fest in the first mission are just about the worst thing that came out of this wave and even they couldn’t hurt me” “Fine, do as you wish”

Nodding towards Erick he left the team, taking the 34th street straight towards the park caring little for defense or wariness besides keeping his makeshift rope shield in front of him as he pulled himself on top of a roof and started running, thankfully there were no flying monsters anywhere in sight and he could move as he wished the shield ended up simply breaking the harsh wind coming his way.

When he got to the park he didn’t find anything out of place, “Control can you get another image of Fairmount Park for me? I just know there is something wrong here” “Sending you the images now Loky” “Thanks” opening his images he started to search from the center of the park, zooming in really close he spent a whole 20 minutes looking but finally found what he thought were traces of blood and drag marks but couldn’t really be sure.

Following the river he made way towards what he saw on the image “Loky this is Beta 2, we arrived at Jefferson Station, we will wait for the rest of the Einherjar to arrive before moving to explore the opening” “Why wait so long you guys got the armor and Sieg” “After Beta 1’s death I am not taking any chances” “Ok good look with that”

When he arrived nearby the location he quickly found more traces of dragging and blood on the ground, following more or less their direction he found what looked like a rabbit hole but moved on, then he found another, and another one, covering a range of two kilometers he found twenty seven holes randomly spread and in three of them he saw signs of blood.

“Oh there is something here alright I just don’t know what yet” following the direction where the holes increased in number he started to walk, paying attention so he wouldn’t miss anything, eventually he found what he was looking for, bellow some bushes there was a hole slightly bigger than average and an abandoned child shoe close by.

Engaging his night vision he came closer and laid down, he could actually squeeze his entire body inside the hole but didn’t bother with it seeing the hole was a little over a meter deep and then there was some strange thing blocking the way further, Materializing once again, he put all his concentration on the spell thinking about his anger at the children’s shoe, at his pain when he killed the undead mage and knew what was gonna happen, at his mother still missing and at spiders, he never forgot to think about spiders, linking the giant invisible hand’s movements with his own right arm he closed his fist and punched the ground.

The blow fuelled by so many of his emotions was devastating, it was as loud as a bomb and shook the ground making it cave in about half a meter all around the hole, adding his frustration at having to repeat the action he struck again, even stronger this time, the ground finally gave way around him and he fell.