Kyle cracked his hands as he surveyed the landing site. A plush toy with a human hand still attached peeked out from below the slab of concrete, but he paid it no mind, instead focusing on the battle.
Already the drop-troopers were spreading across the city, taking advantage of the surprise attack to storm the city. Kyle too, kicked into action, targeting the nearest cannons with his drop squad that accompanied him. His helmet continuously blurted out radio communications from various ADCON squads.
[Anti-air cannon 44B taken out.]
[Heavy resistance at Sector 2A. Requesting backup.]
[Advancing towards walls now. Neutralising enemies.]
The trained ADCON drop-troopers were the cream of the crop, filtered from the tens of thousands of soldiers and recruit that Kyle had received over the last month or so. Only those who could survive plummeting more than five hundred meters in a padded metal coffin was chosen, the pods built on short notice thanks to Hayden.
As such, the remnants of the industrialist soldiers were no match, caught off-guard by the sudden drop attack. Kyle did not blame them – he had chosen to attack in an hour when no one expected it in broad daylight. Have to move fast.
“Kill anyone who fights back. No prisoners.” Kyle ordered the drop-troopers, none of whom baulked at the order. Urban combat was a disaster, and all of them knew how bad it could get after having fought through the streets of Tenar. Every human was a possible enemy, and none of them was about to let themselves get backstabbed.
He sprinted down the streets as more and more drop pods began to land all around him in various locations, creating localised battle zones that forced Harrison’s troops to spread out even more. Kyle exploited the gap and rushed the largest emplacement nearby.
The anti-air cannon was guarded by more than two dozen soldiers, an assembly point for Harrison’s forces. However, Kyle did not care about strategy nor tact, quickly charging head-on and using his Version 0 exosuit to deflect the incoming gunfire.
Penchant for Violence!
Kyle became a veritable storm of death, mowing down the soldiers with his heavy variant rifle and warhammer in a brutal combination of close combat, shredding through all of them in a single instant. The EXP he gained from the kills was now barely a drop in the ocean, the next level up far away. The ADCON troopers who followed him barely had to do anything with Kyle this strong, instead focusing on capturing the anti-air cannon.
Instead of aiming the cannon upwards, the ADCON troopers swung the cannon down and aimed it right at the walls, where other artillery cannons were mounted. “Take them down!”
Harrison’s wall guards were taken by surprise when the anti-air cannons within the city began to blast at them instead, chipping off the top of the walls and damaging the emplacements.
“Nox, Feldon, push up the troops now!”
[On it!]
The main attacking force of ADCON began to push forwards towards the walls of Utul from the front, war machines and wagons rolling in while hovercrafts escorted them from above. Kyle’s diversionary tactic was working, forcing the military to split their resources to defend the city from the drop-troopers as well.
Kyle and the ADCON troopers continued their rampage, blasting through the various districts. However, Harrison’s forces mobilised quickly, immediately deploying reserves to stem the damage.
As professional as the drop-troopers were, they were unable to fight against such overwhelming numbers. Only three hundred of them had dropped into the city, including Kyle, while they were up against close to a division’s worth of soldiers.
Instead of clashing head-on, it became a guerrilla fight, with each ADCON squad hiding in the depths of the mountain city, picking advantageous fights and ambushing soldiers who strayed too far away from their reinforcement allies.
It was only Kyle’s squad that continued unhindered, pushing all the way through to the factory zone. Kyle was aiming at neutralising the military production capability of Harrison’s forces. Even if he did not capture Utul today, he would ensure their resupply strength would be heavily diminished.
Unsurprisingly, Kyle began to face more and more resistance the further he pushed into the factory zone. Soon, even his exosuit could not keep up with the constant barrage of pellets and high explosives, with even mortars and cannons being used against him. War machines blasted his position as he took cover in a bombed-out factory, hiding behind the husks of brick walls along with his ADCON squad.
The firefight was furious, the air continuously filled with pellets, the loud rumbling sound of the warmachine’s engine and the screams of fallen soldiers. Kyle continuously fired back, keeping his ADCON soldiers alive as much as possible. He could not save everyone, but Kyle wasn’t about to let his precious trained soldiers go to waste if he could help it.
“Sir, that warmachine got us pinned down!” An ADCON soldier yelled to Kyle, who nodded as he dropped his heavy-variant rifle.
Aero-Shoes!
Grabbing his warhammer instead, Kyle rushed out in the midst of the gunfire, moving fast in the heavy exosuit. The speed caught the soldiers off-guard, them half expecting the heavy armour to be lumbering and slow.
The warmachine began to spew out a torrent of liquid flame, intent on coating Kyle, but instead Kyle leapt forward, lifting his warhammer high over the sea of fire before landing on the top of the warmachine.
With a roar, Kyle slammed the warhammer as hard as he could, the impact and the arcia skill reverberating and cracking the internal engravings in a single hit. The warmachine faltered as the vibration caused the liquid to leak and catch fire, setting the interior ablaze while the crew screamed and scrambled to get out of the cabin, their skin already melting from the third-degree burns.
Just before Kyle could relax, a sudden explosive screamed towards him, forcing him to jump off the warmachine and roll to the side of a factory. Instead of recovering to a standing position, his instincts continued screaming at him, before the entire wall backing him burst apart, a large metallic leg the size of a tree slamming into him and sending him flying into the air.
Kyle gagged as his body crashed into a pile of stone debris, the Version 0 exosuit clearly dented from the strong impact that came out of nowhere. He glanced at his attacker, his mouth nearly agape as he watched a twenty-meter tall mech clamber out from the factory, tearing apart the roof and walls with brute strength.
“What the fuck is that?” The ADCON troopers were equally shocked, immediately shooting at the mech. The mech barely registered the pellets pinging off its tough armour, instead standing up to its full height as it was fully deployed, towering over Kyle. At its feet, dozens of researchers scrambled away, slinking into the underground shelters.
Kyle would have called it a mech, but the shape and design of it hardly fit the Galactic Era’s idea of a mech. Instead, Kyle noticed that it looked like a cybernetic war form that had a crude human interface attached to it. The entire centre of the mech was exposed with wires along with its interlocking ribcage-like metal frame., though most of the wires were already cut off. Doesn’t look like a weak point.
He could clearly see a central sphere-like dome in the middle of the frame, where the silhouette of a man was controlling the entire mech with what seemed like a makeshift neural helmet hijacking the control system of the entire thing. Kyle shrugged off the impact, standing back up and immediately jumping out of the way as the mech’s large arm swooped across where he had just been standing.
Kyle began dodging as fast as he could, noticing that even with his Penchant of Violence and Aero Shoes, he did not have the speed to avoid incoming hits easily. The moment Kyle entered within range of the mech, a sickening black fog began to spurt out from hidden nozzles in the mech. Agent Black!
Kyle and the ADCON troopers immediately activated their filters in the helmet, already prepared for the chemical attack. He was aware that Harrison would have chemical weapons thanks to Nox informing him about who produced Agent Black in the first place. Kyle could not remove his exosuit now, lest he wanted his skin to be eroded by the chemical agent.
Brandishing his trusty warhammer and rushing forwards in a head-on attack, he sidestepped clumsy attempts of the mech to hit him, the arms moving far too slow now to matter.
Charging right at the base of the mech’s legs and weaving through the incoming fists, Kyle swung the warhammer as hard as he could, slamming it right into the joints of the feet. While the hit rang true, the warhammer did not damage the joint as much as Kyle would have expected.
Backing off slightly and dancing across the battlefield, Kyle examined the mech, who continued to try and grab him. Interesting that this mech has no direct weapons at all. This doesn’t look like a Galactic Era creation. The design choice is weird as well. It is as though it was designed to be big for no other purpose than being big…
A series of explosions suddenly erupted across the mech’s chest piece, blasting it apart slightly and exposing the sphere. The anti-air cannons had a clear line of signs to the obvious metallic giant standing above the factories now.
While the mech was slightly distracted, Kyle decided to target the human sphere directly, running up a pile of debris and leaping onto isolated pillars in order to make it up. He ran along the collapsed corridors of second floors as the mech smashed everything around, killing both friend and foe alike.
Finally reaching a good height, Kyle sprinted and leapt onto the centre of the mech, using his free hand to catch onto the ribcage-like frame before pulling himself up into the slightly damaged centre. Immediately identifying the neural link, he used his hands and ripped out the wires, disconnecting the control of the mech in an instant and powering down the mech.
The mech turned off halfway through an attack, causing it to falter and stumble, crashing to the ground in a loud impact, cratering the ground. Kyle braced himself, holding on tightly to the frame as the crash rattled his bones. As soon as the human sphere’s exit door popped out, Kyle was already ready, lunging at the pilot who tried to exit and grabbing him by the throat.
Instead, Kyle was blasted back by an unknown repulsive force as Harrison stood out of the sphere, wearing a golden exosuit that was clearly fully functioning. “Didn’t expect us common folk to know how to use your stuff? You transcendents are not the only ones who know the truth of this world!”
Kyle’s eyes widened as he recognised the exosuit to be of Galactic Era technology, complete with its exotics and weaponry. Harrison flicked his own arm, triggering a blade coated with energy before charging at Kyle, fighting in the chest cavity of the fallen mech.
The tight quarters barely allowed Kyle to dodge and avoid the swings, forcing him to parry with his warhammer. However, his handle started to show signs of wear and tear as the high temperature of the energy blade began to sear its way through the shaft.
Kyle could hardly keep up with the blazing strength and speed of the Galactic Era exosuit, the technology overpowering his stats. His exosuit began to creak at the seams as he suffered yet another kick from Harrison, slamming him into the side of the metal frames, his leg dented in. He was now at a complete loss at how to deal with Harrison, though he continually kept an eye out for any hints.
If the exosuit is from the same time period as the ones I found in the dungeon and the Culdao Peaks, it’s impossible for the battery to have survived this long. Kyle fought back harder than ever, using every moment to examine and decipher the inner workings of the exosuit. He could not believe that Harrison knew how to generate and recharge electrical batteries of the Galactic Era, when electricity had not yet been exploited on an industrial scale in the region.
Soon, he finally found a hint, a glint of an arcia crystal embedded into the back of the exosuit. He’s using arcia energy as a power source!
Negation Field.
The golden exosuit suddenly faltered, the arcia crystal’s power output dropping rapidly as Harrison immediately became locked, his limbs no longer having the strength to fight through the suspension and hydraulic systems. “What…? What did you do?!”
“Didn’t you know how to use our stuff?” Kyle smirked as he could still move in his heavy exosuit, the Negation Field being targeted only on Harrison. He quickly disabled the exosuit by ripping out the spine, damaging the control system. The golden exosuit hissed as Harrison flopped out of it, dragged out by Kyle’s hand on his neck.
“Don’t worry; I won’t kill you. We have a lot to talk about.”
Instead of being afraid, Harrison’s grin only got wider. “You can talk to me after you get through him.”
“Who?”
“Me.” A voice suddenly appeared behind Kyle, prompting him to swing violently behind him. Instead, his hand was caught by a tight grip from an old bald man wearing what seemed to be a pure red robe. His eyes glistened with energy, and arcia energy seemed to ripple underneath his skin.
Kyle quickly attempted to spin his body outwards to kick, but the old man immediately twisted Kyle’s arm into an arm lock. The strength was overwhelming, unlike anything Kyle had experienced so far in this world.
Harrison laughed at the sight of Kyle squirming and attempting to break free. “That’s right, Kris Greyborn. This mage is going to kill you!”
However, the old man suddenly extended his hand towards Harrison’s face, the engravings on his palm lighting up and shooting forward a bolt of pure arcia. The bolt instantly tore through Harrison’s face and head, killing him immediately.
Did he cast arcia energy through my Negation Field? Kyle knew the skill was still active but did not expect there to be people who could ignore the effects of the skill.
“I detest those who try to use me. His survival was not part of the deal anyway. But there is one more thing I detest. Heretics who use the name of my Goddess in vain, spreading false lies to others and misleading them. Are you a heretic?”
M.G.Driver
TL;DR Hiatus from now till 16th October 2022
Discord and Patreon members would have known about this from July, so I apologize for the lack of information thus far.
My wedding ceremony has always be slated to be on 22nd September, and originally I thought I could handle doing daily chapters up to that point. I have already been married for two years, and originally planned not to have a wedding.
Unfortunately, both relatives, family and friends have put consistent pressure on what i personally consider banal stuff, basically non-stop stress for virtually no reason other than 'oh my god you haven't done anything' like relax, all i got left is choosing a song, and it's done, easy.
Regardless, this means I cannot upload chapters to scribblehub for the next month. Right after my wedding I am going on a honeymoon, one of my first trips since COVID began and some quality time with my wife. Having written 5k-6k words per day starting from 1st april until 1st July, I had been on quite a streak, which allowed me to build 200 chapters in less than half a year.
The pace was fine, but the Royal Road incident was a double whammy.
During this period, I don't expect to reply anywhere else other than Discord, so you can stay in contact with me there.
I will still endeavour to have book 2 out by 22nd September (e.g all scribblehub chapters replaced). The new book 2 rewrite should have about up to ten more new chapters of content to better soldify Harrison, Mornero and the devestating outcome of the war. Desham would have proper effects and consequences, and Kyle would have been seen to have a much better grasp or 'control' of the situation, where he profits off the misery.
I think the main reason for the burnout or the high drop rate of book 2 is all due to the numerous number of setbacks, as well as Kyle's continued personal intervention. I aim to reduce his personal battles, increase delegation, and show his direct impact on the Versian economy even in the pre-war phase.
The entire sequence of the war would be overhauled as well, but for this coming week I'm aiming to focus on Chapter 70 - 120 for cleanup.
After my honeymoon, I do not forsee any further complications, and will strive to maintain daily chapters once again. It's been a month since the RoyalRoad incident, and theoretically I should have gotten 'over it', but emotions aren't that easy, isn't it?
Anyway, I've been comissioning art for Black Market in preparation for its amazon debut next year. Here are some of the work-in-progress art.
If you're an artist as well, feel free to draw any fanart of Black Market. Regardless of the quality of your art, I will feature your art in relevant chapters etc including your social links. If you're looking for comissioned work, I'm open to discussion as well, just ping me on Discord.
Also, I'm looking for translators that are willing to translate Black Market into other languages. I am willing to support with raw chapters as well as HQ cover art and such. If you're interested, please drop by my discord, or drop me an email at [email protected]
Thank you all for reading. With the completion of the siege of Utul, we now return to Raktor for the final showdown between the Seven Snakes and the Ardent Cretins (after i return from my honeymoon)
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