The Great Raid: A LitRPG Adventure (Tower of Power Book 4) Read online

  THE GREAT RAID

  TOWER OF POWER SERIES

  BY IVAN KAL

  Copyright © 2020 by Ivan Kal

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

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  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  INTERLUDE I

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  INTERLUDE II

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  PROLOGUE

  Time had no meaning.

  There was no thought.

  Only darkness as she slept.

  Until an instant, a waking moment.

  Her mind awoke from its slumber, slowly, as slow as the birth of a star.

  There was only pain at first, and exhaustion unlike anything she had ever felt, and loneliness. A part of her was missing. He was no longer there, he who had given of himself to give birth to her, who had been her constant companion for time beyond counting. Memories came, and she remembered. A battle against their enemies, her decision. Panic seeped into her mind as memories provided no answers. Panic that he was gone, and that she was for the first time in her life alone. She reached for her power, and found only agony. She blacked out, darkness covering all of her faculties. But as soon as she recovered, she tried again, trying to fight through the pain. Every time she tried to reach for her power, she found nothing but hurt. She did not know for how long she had attempted it, but eventually she learned: her power was beyond her.

  But the pain she felt as she tried to reach her power was nothing compared to the possibility that he was gone. The mere thought that she could be without him was agonizing. And then she noticed something…a tiny trace, a connection. Weak and weathered, but there, and she recognized him. She rejoiced, and instinctively her mind tried to call to him, only for her to regret it again. She could do nothing—she was trapped inside her own mind—and yet a part of her realized that this was a preferable fate to death.

  She had never really considered death, never feared it, even though she had felt it through their connection. She remembered the sorrow when he lost his mate, she remembered the feelings of tiny beings being snuffed out of existence, but to her it meant little. She was unique, a being unlike any before her nor since. She was Moirai, and death was nothing before her.

  As time continued on she realized that she could feel parts of her body, but she couldn’t even move them. With her only being able to think, she turned to considering her situation. She was alive, but hurt, enough so that she couldn’t reach out with her mind to him, that she could do nothing more than confirm that he was alive. Injured enough that her power was being denied her. It left her with little to do.

  But she had survived, and if she was alive, she would recover. He would not have abandoned her, which meant that she had to be somewhere safe, somewhere where she had the time to heal. As she realized this, she also remembered the second person to whom her mind and body were linked. Thinking was still hard, but she tried it anyway, searching for the pathways that connected her brain to the implants attached to her mind. Sending a message to her would be the best way to let him know that she was still here, that she was recovering. But Moirai could not find them anywhere.

  And then, as she looked for the things that were supposed to be there, she found something else.

  A net of tiny tubes, leading out and into her. They connected to her body and to her spirit, so many of them that it boggled even her mind. Millions…no, billions, even more. She couldn’t count them. Every tube was feeding her something, a thing that she would’ve recognized anywhere. She knew it by many names—energy, power, magic—but the first name she had known it by was Sha, the building block of reality. She realized what was happening instantly. The power was feeding into her, healing her. Looking at it, she found the dark spots, parts of her that were so damaged that she hadn’t even realized that she couldn’t sense them.

  Her injuries were greater than even she had assumed. She was barely alive. She was being helped, the energy helping her to heal, but Moirai was not one to sit quietly and let others do the work for her. She studied the connections. The tubes connecting to her led to something, and she wanted to know what. Every tube gave her only a tiny portion of energy, but together it was a massive amount. She did not know what that meant, but she was going to find out. Countless periods of time passed; for her, it was of little concern. Moirai had never been like him or her, and time did not pass for her as it did for them. For all she knew, she could’ve spent centuries or millennia studying the little tubes, but she had a singular mind. Too, in many ways, even despite her advanced age, Moirai was still a child. A being that had no one other like her. The only ones who came close were the kind of her parent, the great Araxi, but even it could not understand what Moirai truly was. And how could it, when Moirai didn’t even understand herself?

  As time went by, she gained insight, gained knowledge that many of the tubes led to living things, tiny beings that fed tiny portions of energy to her. Eventually she realized that some tubes would feed her a larger portion in a burst, then grow silent for a while before they started feeding her again, only this time the energy feeling slightly different. She didn’t understand everything, but she did gain some insight.

  They were giving her energy, but she was giving them something in return. She could feel the parts of her that were still asleep, working even while dreaming. She did not know what it was that she provided them, but it had to be substantial. After all, just her dreams were powerful enough to give birth to entire worlds.

  Then, countless ages later, something changed. She felt a new tube attach itself to her, and energy that was strikingly familiar start to flow into her. For a moment she thought that it was he, returned to her, but then she realized that it was not. The energy tasted like his progeny, yet it did not match what she remembered of his daughter. It was someone new.

  Moirai felt resonance with the en
ergy. It was not his, but it was close enough. She tried to touch her power, to reach out and call to him, but pain stopped her always. Still, she was Moirai, and just like her other half, she could be very stubborn.

  Moirai set her mind to a singular purpose: to touch a piece of her power. The pain was everything, but her will was not to be denied. She was Moirai, and the very fabric of existence bent at her will. A tiny amount of pain was nothing compared to that. As the pain grew, as her world shrunk, she felt something give, and then there it was—a piece of her power, returned to her. She rejoiced, tried to use it to tell her other part that she was here, that she was awake, but the power was merely a tiny sliver of what was needed.

  Seeing that she had no choice, she turned to the progeny instead. With the tiny piece of power she had won she reached out, following the energy coming down through the tube and saw the world through his eyes. The images were blurry, the sound muffled, but she saw a life. She saw fights, some dangerous, other not. She saw the progeny speak with her, and she rejoiced, her glowing form making Moirai feel safe. But no matter what she tried, no one heard her cries. She saw him come to speak with his progeny, and she screamed for him to hear her, yet he never did.

  And so she resigned herself to a slow recovery. She had won a piece of her power, and she had a window into the world. For now, it was enough.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Morgan sat high up in the tree, surrounded by green leaves, standing on a thick gray branch. He kept his attention on the ground, waiting for his opponent. The forest was silent—the only sound was the gentle whispering of the leaves swaying in the wind. But Morgan had different ways of detection available to him. One of his oldest skills was his Life Sense, which allowed him to perceive forms of life around him, let him see a glow of life energy around people. A powerful skill, but one that wouldn’t help him much now. He was in a forest, surrounded by life, which obscured his sight. It prevented him from discerning different shapes and lifeforms. So he kept that skill disabled. Thankfully, he had one more detection skill—Nature Seismic Sense. It was, as the name implied, a skill that allowed him to sense seismic activity, vibrations in the earth. The limiting factor was that he could only use it through nature, or rather plants and their roots. Thankfully he was in a forest, surrounded by trees that had their roots spreading deep into the ground.

  He put the palm of his right hand on the trunk of the tree he was standing on, activated his skill, and then he saw. It felt as if another sense had just opened up, and quickly a “map” of his surroundings formed inside his mind. He felt the tiny movements of insects beneath the ground, of small critters, but he focused and excluded such small signatures from his sense. He was looking for something a bit larger. Then, after a few minutes of scanning, something large walked into his range. Morgan smiled as he saw something large and heavy trying to move slowly, stealthily. If the level of his skill was lower, perhaps he would’ve disregarded the signature as an animal, but Morgan had been using his Nature Seismic Sense constantly for the last four months—and had leveled it up significantly.

  His opponent was coming his way, so Morgan prepared the trap. Slowly, silently, he reached to his right thigh and pulled out a small weapon from its holster. He pushed the barrel down, opening it and then reached to his lower back where his satchel was secured. He grabbed an item from one of the sections inside and pulled it out. The small wooden canister was bullet shaped, brown, with a black line going around its body, indicating what was stored inside. Morgan slotted the canister into the barrel and then pulled it closed. The launcher was simple, a forearm-length round barrel with a small handle and trigger. Morgan had designed and built it with the help of his friend from the Last Vanguard team, Gravough, a dwarvar who specialized in artifice and the making of weapons. Gravough focused on explosives, while Morgan had turned in another direction. With his mastery of plants, Morgan had been able to create many different types ammunition for his own grenades. Before they’d started training for the Tower, Morgan would simply throw his grenades, but the last four months had been all about streamlining their builds and focusing.

  Morgan’s launcher was spring operated, and—most importantly for him—light. Gravough had a grenade launcher of his own, but his monstrosity was far too heavy for Morgan to use without weighing himself down too much. His one-handed launcher didn’t have the same range as Gravough’s, but it was enough for Morgan. Its range was greater than Morgan had imagined when they’d decided on going with a spring-based firing system, and with the materials available on this world it was actually fairly powerful. The dark-iron spring was capable of launching his grenades fast and far.

  With his weapon ready, Morgan waited, and soon his opponent came into his sight. Borodar walked slowly, his large double-headed axe held in his hands, his head turning slowly, taking in his surroundings. Borodar looked the part of the classic barbarian, at least to Morgan. He had a large black beard, and his hair was pulled up in a topknot. Two red tattoo markings ran down his face, over his eyes. The rest of his body was likewise covered in tribal markings. He wore simple and light armor, a leather top that covered his upper torso and was secured with a single dark-iron pauldron on his right shoulder. On his waist he had a combat skirt, and sturdy boots completed his gear. While he looked like he wasn’t protected, Morgan knew better. Borodar had many skills and abilities that strengthened his skin, and the more damage he took, the stronger he became.

  Borodar was being careful, but he, like so many others, had made one big mistake.

  He forgot to look up.

  Morgan raised his launcher and aimed. He had no scope or any other aiming aid on his launcher, mostly because it wasn’t needed. His stats were high enough that he could aim well enough without such aides, and his grenades didn’t require a lot of precision. As soon as Borodar came close enough, Morgan fired. The spring released and the round snapped out of the barrel. Borodar heard the shot and turned around incredibly fast for a man of his size. Seeing the round flying toward him, he raised his weapon, blocking with the flat of the axe. The round hit the dark metal and shattered, and black smoke filled the area, engulfing Borodar whole.

  Morgan moved immediately. Turning and jumping, he activated his Phase Dash, and he floated through the air, his momentum preserved as all of his senses were shut down. While in his phasing ability, he wasn’t affected by anything, and so he couldn’t feel anything. His ability shut off on its own, and he found himself in the air between the trees. The advantage of creating an ability was that he didn’t need to make any conscious effort to use it. His body did so all on its own—or as Morgan suspected, his soul-implant did. It was like he created a set of actions that were bound to a single button, a macro. When he wanted to activate an ability, he pressed that mental button, and his body sprang into motion. The downside was that once an ability was created, it was set and couldn’t be changed unless he removed it, which cost a great deal of coin and resources.

  His Phase Dash moved him in the direction he was facing, activating and shutting down after he covered five meters of distance. He could’ve done so manually by using his Phase Shift skill, but that would’ve required him to focus on that skill and he had come to realize that splitting his attention so much in a battle was disadvantageous. There was a reason why many combat-oriented ascended relied more on abilities.

  As he left his phase, Morgan reached forward with his left hand for a branch in front of him. He was just a bit short, but thankfully his left arm wasn’t really an arm. Klyn, the symbiont that was Morgan’s left arm, elongated and grabbed the branch. Morgan swung beneath it and released, landing on another branch a bit further away. He holstered his launcher and turned around, looking at the ground covered with his smoke grenade. Only a few moments passed since Morgan hit Borodar, and just as he expected a blast of red haze exploded out of the smoke, hitting the tree where Morgan had been just a moment before. The heat strike cooked the leaves, making them shrivel and dry before bursting into ash, and t
he branch where he had been smoked and cracked, catching fire. One of Borodar’s aspects was Fire, but Borodar was more focused on its heat aspects, much like Morgan was focused on the life part of nature.

  The smoke parted, partially revealing Borodar, and Morgan took advantage. He focused his mind and used his Arcane Mark ability, causing a thin thread of his energy to snap at Borodar, marking him. Morgan immediately took cover behind the trunk, not wanting his opponent to see him.

  Then Morgan focused, and Klyn shifted. His hand split down the middle, the fingers blending together and elongating, one half downward and the other upward. His symbiont lost the skin coloration and turned dark red, and a few moments later Klyn morphed into a long bow, the material mimicking that of red wood, and a string that had more metallic properties grew out of the limb and tightened, drawing back. Morgan put his hand on it and pulled—his strength wasn’t all that impressive for people who existed here, but compared to those on Earth he was stronger than any human ever could be. Klyn was a living entity itself, too. Just as it could replicate the materials of a bow that Morgan had it consume, the limbs pulled back by themselves as well, helping him pull the bowstring. He had a few more ideas on how to improve the Klyn’s bow, but it was a work in progress.

  Concentrating, Morgan used his ability Exploding Arrow to craft an arrow out of the energy he pulled from his core. He used his metal aspect energy simply because he had found that it had more power. The ability allowed him to place an enchantment into an ordinary arrow, but he could also just create an energy arrow as well. That had been a new development, after he had experimented with consolidating and upgrading his abilities under his teacher’s guidance.

  With his arrow ready, he reached out to the tree he was sitting on and used his sense to pinpoint his opponent’s location. Borodar had moved out of the smoke cloud and was searching the tree tops, but he obviously didn’t know where Morgan was. Then, just as Morgan noticed Borodar looking in the wrong direction, he moved.