Hundreds of soldiers swarm around us, busy attaching all of our dropsuits. The hangar is full of launch tubes and all three hundred and sixty of our troops are getting ready to dive into hell.

  “You look just like Lee did before our first real dive.” Tien says, adjusting some of the straps on my suit.

  “Hmm, do I look like a dashing hero about to bravely save the day then?”

  She giggles. “You look like a complete idiot in way over your head, bolstered only by sheer willpower.”

  “So I am a super brave and foolish hero. At least my hair looks awesome.” I retort.

  “Yep.” She slaps me hard on the back. “Go get 'em, show those bastards what my boyo is made out of.”

  I half-salute, suppressing a laugh. It is hard to remember, but Tien is technically my superior officer, by several orders too. It's hard to remember that our mentors are literally some of the strongest beings in the universe when they are cracking jokes and eating copious amounts of biscuits.

  The time comes and we step into the launch tubes. They are much fancier than the ones on Tien’s dragon. Which makes sense, this entire battleship is state of the art.

  A message appears in my face with a bunch of data about our flightpath super boring stuff. It says we launch in precisely one minute, so I am left with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs and think of ways to tease Violet.

  The launch initiates and the world drops out from under me as I am rapidly accelerated to a nice and calm one kilometer per second.

  Hitting the atmosphere is like crashing into a solid wall as I suddenly start decelerating. A ball of fire encircles me, and I get quite warm. Good thing we have heat shields on, or I would be nought but ash by now.

  I can see several blurs of fire in the sky around me. It is impossible to tell who is who, being all wrapped in fire as they are. But it does look fucking awesome at least. I bet Violet is looking super cute too.

  The ground below comes into view and I repress a bit of terror. A large black castle-like structure stands tall, spiky towers jutting high into the sky. It looks like something straight out of a documentary about terrifying castle design. But the castle itself isn’t the scary part, it's what is in the castle.

  Tens of thousands of Orcs. Black armor gleaming, a mixture of swords, staffs, axes and all sorts of other weapons are held in their arms. Each sized to fit the massive ten meter bulk of the monsters. A single Orc by itself isn't that scary, you can easily get into its weak spots and slay it without much issue. The problem is when they start covering each other and you add mages into the mix. It is hard to land a clean hit while dodging fireballs and bolts of lightning capable of cooking you from the inside out.

  The area around the citadel is mostly clear, earlier forces having cleared away all the defenses in a bloody and gruesome battle.

  Unfortunately for us, our objective is to go into the citadel.

  We near the ground and I watch as [Orc Mage Lvl 250] pool energy into their staffs, staring upwards at the targets screaming through the air with a nice red bullseye. A wave of fire and death rises towards me and the others and I activate the jets on my dropsuit.

  My velocity halts and my descent stabilizes, then I am forced to weave in and out of fireballs large enough to obliterate buildings. The sounds of fire, chaos and high efficiency engines fill my ears as the others do similarly.

  After a grueling and terrifying several minutes, I touch down only a kilometer away from our target point. The ground buckles underneath my heavy dropsuit and I quickly detach it.

  I am immediately forced to Blink to the side as a fireball comes screaming towards me from the citadel. I start running towards our meetup point. One kilometer doesn't seem so bad, but when you factor in constantly dodging death raining from the skies, it is quite far.

  Thankfully I am a fairly small target in a large area, and I can easily perceive the attacks from quite far away. So I manage to make it there without any injuries. I immediately spot my squadmates, safe and sound. The same cannot be said for all members of our regiment though.

  “Alright everyone, gather up. Medics do your thing and mages keep those barriers up!” Stephen commands just as another fireball slams into our barriers. All us mages were given some fancy crystals that we can feed mana slowly into to power barriers and other stuff that needs lots of mana, super cool.

  Our dropsite is nestled in the shadow of a large rock that shields us from most attacks from the citadel. It is fairly close to the walls, so great for front liners. But it also gives our long-range mages some distance for safety and to cast larger spells.

  We all gather and Stephen does a headcount. A moment of silence hangs in the air when he says that three people are missing, and are not responding to their communicators.

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  But, our objective takes over and everyone moves into position. I find myself standing next to Violet, who is busy polishing her fancy new blade. “Hows it feel?”

  “Really nice! It feels much better than the standard one.” She turns and smiles at me, showing the blade to me. It has a really nice sheen, and I bet it can do a whole lot of damage. But I can’t help but stare at her lovely smile instead. “It is really pretty too, see how the light reflects across this part of the blade?” She spins it around a little bit.

  “It is pretty, but not nearly as much as you are.”

  She punches me in the shoulder, though quite gently, and quickly looks the other way. “Idiot.” She mumbles very cutely. It seems my technique worked, I shall have to take this into consideration when devising other tactics to make her get all flustered.

  I sigh and yawn. “Time to fight.”

  “Yeah, let's make that Matriarch regret messing with humanity.” She whispers, and I realize that I like the version of her that actually talks to me even more.

  My legs scream as I push them to the absolute limit. The towering gates of the citadel stand in front of me, only two kilometers away. Violet races just ahead of me and I watch her skillfully dodge a thrown rock.

  I smile, time to get to work.

  A small group of orcs stand in front of us, a dozen of them and all their towering glory. One of them spots us and their mages lock on, but they are too slow as we slip into their range.

  I Blink onto the back of an orc, attaching myself with a shard of earth that I stab deep into the monster. It roars its defiance and tries to shake me off, but I do not relent.

  I scramble up its back and slam my dagger right into the weak point between its helmet and shoulder. I send electricity surging through its body and can smell the familiar smell of smoke as whatever organic inner bits are cooked nice and good.

  The crack of a rifle sounds and one orc keels over and then explodes in a wave of blood. One of the orcs explodes in a column of light that vaporizes it instantly. Stephen and Moxie doing their work from afar. On cue Liv charges in, her taunt at full power as she attracts the attention from the rest of the monsters.

  I stab my dagger into my orc once again and strike the core. A cracking sound rings in my ears and then suddenly I am falling as the monster disintegrates beneath me.

  I land on my feet, coated in black blood and ash.

  Not far away, Violet’s blade takes on a shiny yellow glow and she launches herself straight at two orcs charging towards Liv. Her blade effortlessly goes through one, and her momentum carries her to slay the other.

  Does she really have to be such a showoff? I think we all get that she is a badass already.

  I laugh briefly and then Blink towards the next orc, it doesn't last long.

  The rest of the huge monsters fall under our attack. What was once a mortal enemy to us is now nothing more than run of the mill. Funny how much stronger we have gotten. It was only a few months ago that we nearly died fighting that orc in the arena.

  We quickly regroup and continue our push towards the gate. We encounter a few more groups, and they are slain with only a few minor injuries on our part. Which are quickly mended by the ever attentive Moxie.

  What was thought to be a rematch turns into a slaughter for our enemies.

  “We are detecting a presence on the other side of the gate, and it's a large one!” One of the majors shouts through the comms.

  We are only about a kilometer away from the gates as they start opening. They are thirty meters tall, and easily capable of fitting ten orcs abreast. The grating sound echoes for dozens of kilometers around.

  Out of the gates steps orcs. Not just a handful either. I quickly count about a thousand of them.

  “Seems like things are about to get fun.” Liv says just as the gates slam shut behind the orcs.

  “Indeed they are.” I reply with a smile on my face.

  “Alright people!” Stephen commands. “You all know what to do, show those bastards why they shouldn’t mess with humanity!”

  We run forward and come to a halt about five hundred meters away from the orcs, hiding behind a rock outcropping so they can’t see us. Moxie stands next to me, her hands visibly shaking. I can tell it is not from fear, but from excitement.

  “Moxie and Maka, you’re up.” Stephen walks over and pats her on the head. He smiles widely. “Give ‘em hell.”

  “Glad to, commander.” I smile widely and then we step out from behind the rock outcropping. The orcs immediately spot Moxie and I, but they won’t make it in time.

  I steady my legs and concentrate, focusing on my Essence of Magic skill. My body tenses up, but I force it to relax and settle into a calm state.

  I reach out for the well of mana within me, far larger than when I first became a Dragon Guard. I draw out three large strands of the mana into my hand and out in front of me. The bright blue mana blazes like a tiny star. It was much easier – and less painful – to do than before, it seems like the skill really made a big difference.

  I can feel a much larger amount of mana beside me as Moxie does the same. She has more mana than me though, so hers is easily five times the size. Not that size matters much, an explosion is an explosion after all.

  I form the concept of fire in my head. Thinking about how the heat is going to melt the orcs and utterly obliterate them in epic fashion. Spell hits them, they die. It is that simple.

  I shape the mana into a spearlike shape, and then release it straight towards the orcs. It crosses the distance in a few seconds, and then the world shakes. A massive cone of fire consumes the orcs.

  Dozens of the orcs are consumed in my blast, and I can feel the experience flooding into me. They scatter and panic. But just then, Moxie releases her own gathered mana.

  It hits far harder than mine.

  At least half the remaining orcs are completely vaporized in the initial explosion. And dozens more die due to the heat and shockwave of the blast. It is truly a beautiful sight.

  “Explosion!” Moxie shouts and I turn to see a massive grin on her face.

  “Explosion indeed!” I pat her on the head a few times.

  “Alright troops, move in!” Stephen says, cutting through the questions people are throwing at what the fuck just hit the orcs.

  Suffice to say, these grunt orcs don’t stand a chance under the power of three hundred and fifty really angry humans. Though I expect the ones inside are going to be a different story.

  Doesn't matter though, we will eradicate them, even if it is the last thing we do.

  [Scout has leveled up! Lvl 201 -> Lvl 209]

  [Mage has leveled up! Lvl 210 -> Lvl 221]

  [Average Level is now 215]

  [Lemon has leveled up! Lvl 182 -> Lvl 201]

  [Meditate has leveled up! Lvl 13 -> Lvl 17]

  Next Chapter: The Citadel

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