MischievousMuffin
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Incremental Torture - Chapter 73
🕑 Added 2024-07-03 14:07:46 +0000 UTCDealing with the combined force of the endless worms and the vicious armoured moles was a real struggle. However, every time Evelyn felt herself faltering she would have a peek at her menu and the numbers would give her a fresh burst of energy.
Her stars were increasing with every monster they defeated and a few minutes ago her income had ticked over, giving her enough essence to purchase the building for the bank outright. Ten times over.
Essence: 54358969『+54097920 / 5:55:13 hours』
~~ Stars ~~
Grey: 67
White: 22
* Inventory *
*Skill Synthesis*
*Class*
*Crafting*
*Guilds*
*Property*
【OVERCOME】
She had done a double take when she saw the number, because she thought she miscounted the number of digits, but no. Her income was in the tens of millions. She would have enough for the second ascension in just two or three days, which seemed ridiculous. Had the tower made an error when letting her get the skills she had?
Galactic Expansion was doing too much work.
Then again Evelyn was never one to complain about a free lunch. While her new income was a shock, she was more than happy to sit back and let the essence flow.
Though she had little time to think about the implications as another mole leapt over the battlements and threw itself at her. A whirling dervish of steel claws and a hefty swing of Spinebreaker followed, then after the rest of the guild joined the fray it was a matter of seconds before the mole lay dead and defeated.
Not everyone was faring as well as Defiance. All along the wall similar scenes were playing out. Some groups of Haven’s defenders were holding back the onslaught, standing strong against the subterranean terrors. Other stragglers and lone fighters weren’t faring so well however.
In many places the walls had been dissolved by the constant flow of the worm’s sticky goo and then battered open by the ensuing charge of the armoured moles.
While the nearby defenders were able to cover these gaps somewhat, they weren’t able to stop every monster from pushing onward and plenty had made it into the city of Haven proper. It wasn’t a complete disaster - everyone in Haven was a competent enough fighter, having made it past the 15th Floor - but those who chose to stay within were far weaker and struggled to take down even the worms while fighting in groups.
The moles were causing untold devastation. Buildings lay wrecked, reduced to piles of rubble from the destructive charges of the blind beasts. There were bodies littered everywhere, the undeniable proof that while the tower wanted them to grow, it would spare no effort in putting them through lethal hardship to trigger it.
“I just received a lot more essence. Like, a LOT more,” said Evelyn. “I think I should go around and claim more of the wall, especially the broken sections. I could repair them and then perhaps install some of the automated defences we’ve avoided so far. It would help to keep the monsters at bay. There’s no point in us holding out here alone if the city is destroyed behind us.”
“Go for it darlin’. Your daddy can tank for us while you’re gone. These monsters aren’t much of a threat to us yet. I also think it’s a great idea to deny as much ownership of the city to Kyron, Alice and the other guilds and major players as possible. This little game is just the beginning of something bigger, I just know it.”
“We founded this guild for many reasons, my little menace. For you it might just have been a way to keep all your friends and family in one place, but speaking plainly, I desire power. This tower is a fertile new field ripe for the harvest. Kayla is right. Don’t let the others pull the rug out from underneath us. We can hold out without you for a while, so just grab as much as you can and don’t even think about returning unless we send a message in the guild chat.”
“I just arrived the other day my dear so I’m not as sure of my goals as Kayla and your father, but I do think it’s necessary to plug the leaks in the wall. We can all handle ourselves.”
With everyone not only agreeing but even coercing her into following up on her suggestion, Evelyn had no choice but to head out.
Walking down the wall to the end of their current ‘outpost’ took her five minutes. The golden phoenix banner fluttered in the breeze, unblemished amidst the chaos of the World Event. It was resonant with their guild’s name and ethos, to stand tall while others faltered and fell.
Just a minute later she reached the end of the wall. In front of her was a hole, caused by the passing of an armoured mole. On the ground below there were a few mangled corpses, the fallen defenders who had failed to hold the line.
“Poor people. As much as I’ve come to thrive in this environment, I empathise with those who must have hated the climb up to Haven. Struggling so much just to be slain when you think you’ve finally found a safe respite from the horror.”
However, Evelyn didn’t spend too much time mourning the dead. She had little to spare and needed to get to work. Focusing on the people who still needed her to be a bastion against the invasion was a more pertinent use of her time and essence.
Would you like to claim this section of Haven’s Wall? You must pay a fee to repair it upfront.
Y [250,000 + 72,000] / N
Evelyn tapped on yes and immediately the brick and mortar beneath her feet began to shift. Dust and debris vanished and cracked and broken slabs put themselves back together before laying themselves down one by one to rebuild the wall from the ground up.
Even while observing the process with her mana sense she couldn’t see a whiff of magic or any similar form of energy at work. Whatever the tower was doing to repair the wall was beyond her understanding.
The final brick fell into place on the battlements and then from nowhere, a huge banner bearing the golden phoenix unfurled down the wall, marking this section as the territory of their guild. However, her job was not finished.
Property Management
Haven’s Wall - Section 14
[SELL CLAIM]
>Defences< | Upgrades
Ballista - 650,000
Cannon - 985,000
Moat - 1,050,000
Anti-Climb Spikes - 1,225,000
Arcane Flamethrower - 2,300,000
Sentinel - 4,850,000
There were a plethora of options available to purchase to defend the walls. Evelyn didn’t need to guess at most of their functions as the other guilds and challengers had already put them to use across the city. Most of them were simple.
A ballista was exactly what it sounded like - a huge crossbow that fired thick iron bolts. It had enough penetrating power and force to deal a minor blow to the worms but utterly failed to pierce the armoured hide of the moles. That was where the cannons shined.
Or rather, boomed. The explosive artillery fired weighty cannonballs that were able to stop the moles mid charge and leave a nasty dent in their metal plating, occasionally piercing through if it hit a weak spot.
The moats were largely ineffective, but that wasn’t an inherent fault of their design. Rather, in order to be a true blockade the moat would need to encircle Haven in its entirety, something that wasn’t possible unless every single section of the wall had one. The major guilds had invested in them but the stragglers and solo fighters didn’t have as much spending power.
It was a long term work that would benefit everyone in the coming hours of the World Event, so she hoped that there would be a way to push the construction.
There were very few sections where anti-climb spikes had been installed, and the reason for that was clear. They weren’t great at preventing the moles from climbing up the walls since their claws had enough reach to avoid them.
However, that wasn’t to say they were useless. The worms took plenty of damage crawling through the field of sharp iron, though the goo that was left in their wake dulled the points and rendered them far less damaging for the next monster to arrive.
When it came to the last two options Evelyn was far less sure of what they did. The Arcane Flamethrower seemed like it would be obvious, but she knew the tower and there had been too many times where she believed she knew what she was getting into, only for a situation to get flipped on its head and sweep her feet from under her.
A bit of an overzealous worry considering that all the defences were designed to help them, not hinder them. However, the last thing she wanted was to have something as lethal as a flamethrower backfire and end up burning her allies to a crisp instead of their shared enemies.
The final option was more vague. While the name - Sentinel - gave a small hint as to what it might be or do, until she decided to purchase one Evelyn wouldn’t have the full picture.
And so she did just that.
With fifty-four million essence to spare, she could justify the purchase. In fact she went ahead and bought all of the defences, bar the flamethrower, for this section of the wall.
It was just a little too far for their group to cover with their own strength and spreading themselves wider might work fine against the current enemies but would bite them in the ass if more powerful monsters started to appear.
The moat beneath the wall extended out from their existing outpost, filling with murky water from an unknown source until it formed an aqueous barrier against any incursions. Spikes poked out from the wall, spaced at regular intervals across and up the length of the masonry.
A huge wooden ballista built itself from the ground up. Well, the floor of the wall wasn’t exactly the ground but it was close enough. The cannon just materialised from thin air, occupying a space beside the ballista. It was gunmetal grey in colour and huge, bigger than Evelyn herself. From watching the other guilds operate the defences, she knew that they could be automated.
Although it would place a constant drain on the shared guild essence fund, she figured it was worth putting into action. She had enough to spare and if it started to become too much then she could always put it on hold.
Last but not least, the purchase she had been waiting for arrived. It took a lot longer than the other pieces of the defence and at first Evelyn wondered if the tower had scammed her.
Then she saw it. At first it was just a little glint of silver in the sky, hard to see in the black of night but for the moonbeams reflecting off of it.
However it rapidly descended, so fast that Evelyn had no time at all to react before it smashed into the battlements, a polished suit of silver knight’s armour wielding a mighty two handed sword. Smashed perhaps was the wrong word, as it actually landed in a perfect superhero landing without making a dent on the masonry.
The sentient armour stood up and took a defensive position between the cannon and the ballista with its sword pointing into the wall and hands resting atop the pommel.
Evelyn would need to see the Sentinel in action to be able to judge its strength, but for the price tag she hoped it would be able to hold its own against one of the worms at the very least. Perhaps with the added support of the cannon and ballista it might even be able to bring down one of the armoured moles or whatever lay in store for them next.
