One thing Adam learned from the first fight against an organized monster force: melee engagement is key against all Rift threats. The fact that both the Alfari and the Gobzkin employed the same fighting styles was no mere coincidence.
Two fantasy races, powered by both Runes and supernatural strength, meant that conventional firearms and even regular blazers had little effect against medium-level enemies and above. This was a logic that would exist in tactical games, where tank melee units could sponge all manner of ranged damage without faltering. This logic was not used in modern Earth tactics and was the very reason civilization crumbled on D-Day.
Therefore, reformation was needed, as melee combat and tactics proved more efficient than anyone would think.
"Maintain formation. Move behind the Ward line. On my signal, you retreat to give way for fire support."
Adam took command as the ten Alfari warriors, backed by over 40 students, engaged in a melee confrontation with the Gobzkin front line, maintaining a flow of attack and defense, preventing the smaller Gobs from overrunning the ten Alfari elites.
Adam's Golem Suplex from before had significantly weakened the Gobzkin vanguard, killing eight Gorks, the Gobzkin Brutes, who were immensely resistant to ranged damage. While twelve of the Gorks remained, there were now more gaps in their line, enough for those with good aim, positioned above the factory building, to start scoring hits.
Professor Anthony Hendrick, along with some of the men and women in the shelter, reinforced the roof with firearms from the factory's armory. Under Buzz's command, they aimed to deter attackers from the sides, anticipating a dangerous situation if the front-line fighters were flanked.
But the true MVPs of the fight were the Alfari spear warriors, who displayed incredible combat prowess and contended on equal footing with the Gobzkin Brutes, pushing them back in one-on-one combat despite the size difference. While the average Alfari male was no more than an inch taller than his Human counterpart, a size and weight class that would typically prove problematic against the Brutes, the spear warriors still held their ground, their power beyond ordinary.
They aimed their spears and stabbed; around each weapon, an aura of light emerged, multiplying the stab tenfold across a wide range. Unavoidable, unblockable, and very lethal in their own right. The warriors were ten in number, but when they attacked, they were like a hundred, thanks to their specially made runic artifact, no doubt crafted by the Elden Lord/Runesmith, Lord Kaimu.
Speaking of which, Lord Kaimu was in his own epic confrontation with the Gobzkin Prince, trying his best to contain the Ogni, who purposely jumped into the Human lines in order to obliterate their defense. However, the existence of Lord Kaimu was the equalizer needed to remedy the problem, and with both high power and skill, Lord Kaimu managed to drive away the Gobzkin Prince from the main fight.
The Lord and Prince fight was too high-level for anyone around them; it became a natural disaster as Gobzkins, Humans, and Alfari alike would simply give way when the two powerhouses clashed. Their speed was difficult to track with the naked eye, and their attacks shook the ground from their sheer force.
But they weren't the only heavy hitters in this fight, as there was the heaviest hitter of them all: the Gigant.
After the powerful suplex, neither Adam nor the Gigant had fully recovered yet. Adam used a large amount of his mental power to manipulate and maintain the Earthen Golem, whereas the Gigant, gravely injured from a massive fall, seemed to be trying to stand up, yet remained worried about the massive golem that had fought it, actively looking around for it.
Luckily, the Gigant had a pea brain and didn't realize that the Golem was the bit of broken earth and dirt that was currently beneath it, so it was standing guard, thinking that the Golem was going to ambush it. It was a classic and a welcome situation; once big bullies are put in their place, they become cowardly, and that's what the Gigant was right now: the perfect chance for Adam to bide his time and recover his power.
But that wasn't something he would be able to solve easily. After all, he was in the middle of a fight, and he was the least effective person in melee, given that he was a Sorcerer, as far from a Warrior as one could be. So instead of resting, Adam called Earth Spikes whenever a group of Gobs managed to climb over the factory's walls and attempted to flank the defenders.
As for the defenders themselves—the group of students backed up by anyone willing to fight from the shelter's population—exhaustion began to pile up, and because Adam hadn't accounted for it, casualties began to occur.
Seven men died from javelins, two from excessive bleeding, and one student was bested in a fight against a Hobgob and lost his head, completely decapitated.
"MOTTO! MOTTO EXP!! MAITO MAX!"
And there was Kave, the madman who wielded an Alfari two-handed saber and immersed himself in the blood of the Gobzkin, leaving the formation multiple times to swipe and kill Gobs as if he were in a hack-and-slash game, before Adam would shout at him.
"Adamu-kun! KENJUTSU SUKILLU, GETTO!"
Yet at some point, Kave proudly announced, while raising his sword, that he had gained a Kenjutsu (Swordsmanship) Skill. As Adam observed him fight, there was a clear improvement in how he handled the sword; he became able to take on Gobs and even solo a Hobgob on his own without fire support.
Moreover, Kave was constantly switching to the bone knife with the Slaying rune to strike down the opponents against whom he was having trouble. Adam had heard from him about his rune, which amplified damage against disadvantaged opponents, but as he saw it, if that rune were on the sword instead, it would be an unstoppable killing machine.
Either way, the defense held and showed promise at last, as both Humans and Alfari cooperated and covered one another's weaknesses. Lord Kaimu's Serai even moved above the defense line, and the servants aboard started blasting their light bolts against the completely vulnerable back of the Gobzkin force. Adam had made the wise choice of retreating both the Alfari and Human defenses five feet behind the initial lines to make the Gobzkin front line lose footing over the piling bodies of the dead.
≪ You have gained a New Skill! [Warfare] ≫
As a system pop-up flashed before his eyes, Adam's mind was flooded with more information than he thought possible regarding his situation.
It wasn't brand-new knowledge or a war encyclopedia installed in his brain; rather, it was a new sense of intuition, a higher degree of understanding, and enlightenment regarding strategy and warfare.
While he was a war gamer, Adam's style was one of the simplest, inferior to others who could exploit, hit-and-run, and employ all sorts of meta controls.
Adam was a boomer; in RTS terms, he was the kind of player who would rush a powerful economy and build a bigger army to overwhelm others with numbers.
It was today years old that he understood his shortcomings as a tactical leader. He started patching them as he gave commands, sectioning his force, identifying enemy weaknesses, ordering heavy fire support at specific sections, regulating defenders to avoid exhaustion, and even assigning Sergeant Elena, Officer Reeves, and Private Hammerhead to three leading positions where they would relay his commands and act independently if necessary.
Then and only then did the Gobs, as well as the Hobgobs, start showing signs of fear. The Hobgobs turned their whips and blades against the Gobs to prevent them from retreating.
Adam jumped down from his spot and picked up a scoped AR-15 lying nearby. He checked its chamber and magazine, finding himself with eight bullets—more than he needed.
Immediately, he climbed up an earthen platform he had made by bending earth and fixed the rifle on top of it before taking aim at the Hobgobs at the back of the horde, who were preventing the Gobs from escaping.
Adam made some calculations in his mind. The farthest Hobgob was around 200 feet away, so he had to use his Lv.2 Firearms skill to its best ability, stabilizing himself well before taking a shot.
Bang!
Among the many gunshots, his rifle's sound wasn't remarkable, but his precise aim found its target.
As the Hobgob's head exploded and its body crumbled on the ground, the Gobs it was driving panicked and started running. The other Hobgobs didn't notice it much, as it was the Hobgob at the back, but Adam's aim switched immediately to the second farthest one.
Bang! Bang!
His aim was slightly off, and the Hobgob noticed that a bullet had just bypassed its ear, but Adam put the next one in its chest, not aiming for the head as meticulously as before.
The second group of Gobs also started falling apart and running.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The fourth bullet put down a third Hobgob; subsequent shots took down a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh. Adam focused surgically on the Gobzkin right flank, causing their morale and chain of command to finally fracture as Gobs began to sneak away from the ranks.
Adam thought he had managed to lessen the number of enemies, but as soon as the Gobzkin's presence on that side diminished, the Gobzkin Gigant started moving once again, aiming to cover this flank by itself.
This wasn't good, as the Gigant seemed not to be holding back only because of the Golem, but because it didn't want to—or was ordered not to—interfere with the full force of the horde. Now, however, its presence was deemed necessary by whoever was commanding the Gobzkin.
Adam looked towards the fight between Lord Kaimu and the Gobzkin Prince, which had moved to a different area in the factory's yard, as the two elites were throwing heavy hits at one another without a care. Adam realized that it couldn't be the Prince organizing the horde, but rather something else, as the movements of the different types of Gobzkin were more organized than they should be.
He arrived at the obvious conclusion: there was a commanding Gobzkin lurking around, one able to coordinate and give commands, and one whose death would cause this delicate system to fall apart. And there was one type of Gobzkin missing from the scene, one that always existed among all medium- to large-sized Gobzkin groups: Shamans.
Adam immediately began forming a figure from earth, similar to the golem from before. With the command "Arise!", a new golem began forming, pushing Adam's mental strength to its limits.
A two-story-tall golem stood behind the defenders once again, with Adam on its shoulder. Once again, it stepped past the front line with ease, this time stepping on the Gobs beneath like ants.
Many tried to climb and attack it, but Adam was very careful; every step the golem took quaked and stomped the ground hard. It caused any Gobzkin to lose footing and fall. Finally, the Golem and the Gigant were once again standing face to face. The Gigant was more careful than before, now sizing up the Golem with obvious worry, while Adam checked the Gigant for weaknesses.
He was about to enter the Golem's head to prepare for the fight, but before he could, the Serai floated near him, and Kahori started calling:
"Benefactor! Benefactor!"
Adam turned, looking between her and the Golem with worry.
"What?" He asked.
"There is something I must tell you." She spoke with a determined voice.
"Can't it wait?" Adam asked, trying to get into the Golem's head as the Gigant widened its stance.
Kahori touched the translator rune on her necklace, fiddling with it, then turned to Adam, speaking without opening her mouth.
{ This way we can speak as you fight! }
Adam heard her voice, but it came from nowhere and everywhere all at once, startling him.
"What?" He asked with an obvious shiver.
{ It is another application of the Mind Rune, } she said, returning to the Serai's fortified area as it moved back. { There is something I must tell you. It will enable you to utilize the System to its full potential. }
Her words made Adam frown, but he still entered the Golem's head, closing it on himself. Surrounding himself with earth from every direction, Adam raised the Golem's fists and widened its stance, ready to face the Gigant, but still pondering Kahori's words.
"Fine, I'm all ears."