Chapter -2147483635 (The Force of Gravity)

  Ada estimated it was just past midnight when she located the lightly fortified encampment, and [Soul Bond] was definitely pointing directly into the structure. She needed a plan.

  The area around the fort had been cleared of trees, and there was a wall of logs around the perimeter atop an earthen embankment. From her distant position, she could see several light sources, including one elevated at the nearest corner, which she guessed meant there was a guard tower. Ada could now see perfectly well in the dark, minus any colors, but her vision had a distance limitation which she assumed was related to the skill’s level.

  After a few minutes of brainstorming, Ada managed to come up with a few plans, each of them their own sort of bad. The first plan was probably the worst, which involved walking up to the wall and asking about the Ranger team. The second involved attacking outright. Her third idea was to try and capture someone outside the walls and steal their equipment, then attempt to infiltrate. Instead of any of these options, Ada decided to climb a tree in order to watch and learn what she could.

  Ada took her sword, dulled the edge slightly, and then wrapped it around her forearm. For her shield, she held it over her shoulders and attached it to her back. She then formed the tips of her fingers into claws, and scaled a tree at the edge of the cleared area with ease, being careful to stay on the far side from the palisade. At around 15 meters up, the tree started to sway under her weight, and she decided that was high enough, found a branch large enough to hold her, and sat, watching and waiting.

  Sentinel Gravity was bored. She’d been stationed at the frontline command fort for the past month with very little to do. The war of reclamation of the Wood Dwarf lands was going well, with only minimal aggression from the occasional Orc clans popping out from seemingly nowhere at random. The leadership had recently started using conscripted adventurers to track down and infiltrate the tunnels used by the Orcs, which, for the most part, was working. The classers tended to have a wider variety in their skills compared to the standard rank and file legionaries, which made them well suited to the irregular combat in the underground tunnels. Unfortunately, an entire cohort made up of these conscripts had gone missing while still on the move to the frontlines, and Gravity had been sent to look into the issue.

  So far, the assignment had been exceptionally boring, involving spending most of her days flying around in a grid search pattern, looking for signs of the missing group, and she was now relaxing after another long day of the same. Whatever had happened to the group, all trace of them had simply vanished at some point along their travel from the muster point out to the dwarven territories.

  As she had for most days in the past several weeks, she woke before dawn, and was preparing to head out for the next grid location to once again begin a search pattern in the new zone, grumbling to herself the whole time, when she spotted a dot on the horizon in the direction of one of the closer Empire cities. Gravity couldn’t remember the name of the backwater city, and frankly couldn’t be bothered to care.

  There had been rapid expansion into the lands formerly held by the shimagu parasites, and then the Empire had almost immediately declared a war of liberation against the Dwarven faction, citing a lack of any attempt to restore the Wood Dwarves to their destroyed homeland. All this meant that there were a plethora of new settlements that had rapidly grown into cities as the humans expanded to fill the new lands at the south and west of the Empire. Their legions had reached the mountains belonging to the dwarves less than 100 years after defeating the Shimagu.

  While Sentinel Gravity spent time reminiscing on days past, the dot grew larger. The vague shape of a person was now evident. A few seconds later, the sentinel was able to identify the man.

  [Laborer - Lvl 273]

  Gravity smiled. Whatever message was so important that such a high level courier was coming to deliver, it would mean that her day was about to become a lot more interesting.

  High in her tree, Ada kept her vigil through the night and could now see the subtle glow in the sky announcing pre-dawn. She was about to jump down to walk up and knock on the gate when she spotted something odd happen to the guard on the nearest tower. One moment, the man was standing and looking around, and the next, he had dropped out of sight.

  Ada decided that she likely wouldn’t get a better opportunity, and climbed down from her tree, taking care to make as little noise as she could manage. Once again on the ground, Ada looked around at the walls of the fortifications, but couldn’t see anyone else within sight, either. Shrugging, she took off running for the wall.

  At the wall, Ada once again formed her fingertips into climbing claws and scaled the wooden fortification with ease, and pulled herself up and over the edge. There, she found the guard laying in a crumpled heap, as if a marionette that had had its strings cut. Ada approached the man, and discovered fresh trails of blood leaking from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. Unsure what to make of this, she moved to the edge of the raised platform to look out over the encampment.

  Bodies.

  There were dozens upon dozens of bodies strewn about the camp, seeming to have simply dropped wherever they had been just moments before. Ada stood and then stepped off the raised guard stand, falling nearly six meters to the ground and landing with a loud thud. She then looked around, trying to decide which way to go and start looking for Alex and the other rangers. Drawing her sword from where it had been wrapped around her arm, Ada stalked through the camp, searching for any sign of life.

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  It was eerily silent, and the tall woman found the entire situation increasingly disquieting. She could feel that her friend was still alive, as the still active [Soul Bond] link gently guided her toward the center.

  Sentinel Gravity soared through the air with a stupid grin on her face. She’d received the absolute best news that morning. One of the ranger teams had somehow stumbled into the missing soldiers she’d been tasked with locating, and it seemed they had turned deserter. Gravity wasn’t surprised. Adventurers tended to be the independent sort, and conscripting them for military service seemed like a supremely stupid idea, with mass desertion being only a matter of time. When the majority of your conscripts were used to facing monstrous creatures, the threat of death for disobeying orders only got you so far.

  After around an hour of travel, she reached the city the [Courier] had identified as Odessos and continued past it, following the road east. In a matter of minutes, she could see it. A few miles off the road to the north, a clearing in the forest contained a standard Legion palisade fortification.

  Thinking about the best way to make her entrance, Gravity decided on her signature attack that had led to her moniker: [High Velocity Impact]. It wasn’t a single skill, exactly, but creative applications of a couple different ones. She angled her flight path upward and began gaining additional altitude.

  Once she was reasonably confident she’d aimed properly, she cut off all of the force pushing herself forward, then reversed her weight reducing gravity manipulation, instead increasing her weight. At the same time, she formed a shield at her feet that would redirect the incoming force away from her ankles and back out into the impact site.

  Ada stalked through the camp, trying to locate Alex. She was nearing what she thought was likely the command tent, as it was considerably larger than all the rest she’d passed, when she felt a sudden increase in weight upon her shoulders.

  The next several moments were a blur as she crumpled to the ground, folding in on herself like an accordion. An accordion which was then driven into the earth as several thousands of kilograms smashed into her from above.

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  Based on the world from the original work by Selkie Myth

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  1 - Oathbound Healer -

  2 - Adventures in the Argo -

  3 - Ranger's Dawn -

  4 - Beyond the Wall -

  5 - Moonveiled Journeys -

  6 - Immortal Moments -

  7 - Return to Remus -

  8 - New Horizons -

  9 - Gladiator Gauntlet -

  10 - Under Ashen Skies -

  11 - Mandate of Heaven -

  12 - The Phoenix Peaks -

  13 - Moonfall -