Chapter 153: Grid Tied
The Earth mage rushed off, and ten minutes later, Kalli saw the power output begin to spike a little bit higher.
It wasn’t quite as noticeable as the Air Defence Batteries, but it looked like the lasers were drawing about a megawatt each.
Then, the increase went to three, and four megawatts before stabilizing.
"Miss Kalli, we need more wire. Lots more wire," a runner shouted as he entered.
"On it. All of you, take them a roll. I don’t know how much they need to circle the base, I didn’t do the math. But three of them should get us close."
The rolls were taken out, and another runner came in with a huge smile on his face.
"Miss Kalli, the turrets now take ten mana per minute. That’s one sixth of what it used to take. One person can usually do it now, so everyone else is free to defend the walls."
"That is excellent news.
Let me know if anything changes, and make sure that the power lines run to all the turrets. We should have enough points soon to increase the number of laser turrets, and that will also help take the load off the defenders."
If they were going to have any hope of winning this trial, where they had to expand their territory, they needed to have at least enough defensive capability to hold the base without most of the heroes present.
Kalli looked out into the night, and noticed that while she had no issues seeing all the way to the wall, the kids were stumbling over rough spots in the ground.
Her night sight must have improved as she levelled up, and she simply hadn’t noticed because the moonlight was so bright to begin with.
The battle lit up the area, with plasma explosions overhead flashing like fireworks. They even made a similar noise, if you ignored the sizzling of partially vaporized monsters as they fell.
They were going to need a trauma counsellor after this.
Or a very large bottle of rum.
The requests for more wire stopped, and Kalli handed out more ammunition and bandages before going up to the dorms to hand out more quest completions.
They were all getting decent items from the mystery boxes, and even if it only gave them a small boost, it would matter later.
There were over a million enemies out there somewhere, and there was no way that they were going to be able to easily eliminate them all. At least, not easily, and not in the next twelve hours.
It seemed impossible that the fish men would continue to charge at the walls endlessly, though.
After taking such heavy casualties, they surely had to stop at some point to regroup and work on a strategy, right?
Kalli idly clicked through the turret camera feeds as she contemplated the options. She needed something for her hands to do, and a distraction from the battle that raged all around her building.
She couldn’t properly see it, she couldn’t properly take part in it. She was just stuck here, working logistics to supply those who could.
At the six-hour mark, there was a change in the battle outside.
Massive lances of light streaked across the sky and scoured the ground bare outside the base.
The Arks had left the water, and were now hovering high in the sky, unleashing their defensive weapons to scour the area clean.
{Marimgar Base, Marimgar Base. Does anyone read?} Kalli’s radio crackled.
{Go ahead, Kalkan Fleet.}
{We are requesting permission to land outside the base.}
{Permission granted. Please station yourselves on the ocean side of the town to avoid interrupting the firing lines or being swarmed by attackers.}
Not that there was a whole lot left to swarm them. One volley from their weapons was enough to kill hundreds of thousands of enemies, and the battle had taken a drastic turn for the better.
At least from Marimgar’s point of view.
The ships didn’t land immediately, they hovered overhead a bit longer, firing bursts of energy into the distance in wide dispersal patterns, eliminating entire swathes of enemies.
Then, they settled onto the open ground near the Academy’s north wall and waited.
"Boss, what’s next? There are no more enemies in sight, but we’ve still got six hours. Do we rest in place? Or should we send half of the heroes back to get food?"
Kalli shook her head. "No, stay there, and we will have the food sent to you. With six hours to go, there is a chance that we will be fighting until lunch, no matter what the trial looks like right now."
At first, nobody knew what had caused the Arks to decide to come ashore and land. But curiosity got the better of Kalli, and she eventually logged into the ship’s computers and learned the truth.
They had been under heavy attack by a group of powerful sea monsters for hours, and it had overdrawn their power supplies.
They couldn’t hold their space in the ocean, and with the Third Trial requiring them to hold territory, they had chosen to retreat onto shore rather than risk ending up with nothing. The quest hadn’t specified a timeline for the Trial, only a completion condition.
So, there was a real risk that if they flew away, or went somewhere remote, they might end up with nothing and a failing grade.
But if they helped Marimgar hold the region, they should get some sort of joint reward, as well as the quests that spawned in the Marimgar region.
They had killed many tens of thousands of monsters. The walls remained intact and unbreached. And finally, the Epic Grade Quest to survive the assault appeared to be going their way.
But the Arks had never been designed for continual output at that level, and their energy reserves were completely depleted, with their engines flashing red overheating warnings all through the ships.
So, they had to land and let the reactor cores cool. The barrage to clear the enemies from around the town had taken the last that they could give until then.