World Keeper-Chapter 1243: SCRU Debut

Lifre’s brows were furrowed in frustration, gazing out into the distance as a trio of serpentine monsters rushed towards the solar system that she had moved to protect. Energy distorted around the trio as they flew through space, causing Lifre to purse her lips.

This monster group had already destroyed two other inhabited planets in the last three days. Each time, its ability to distort energy around it made it impossible to detect with deep space scanners. The only reason that they found them this time was an anonymous tip that made its way to Olympus.

Still, Lifre was thinking how she was going to fight these creatures. Since they distorted all four primary energies around their bodies, the special martial arts she knew wouldn’t work on them. She couldn’t even shrink them down with the Absurdity of Fate to make them more manageable.

If I was still a god, I could use my divine armaments, but I haven’t managed to work out an Origin power that will let me manifest items from stories yet. Lifre had still been waiting for her world to completely integrate the void power that she had absorbed from the book-shaped beast, which would open the door to a large number of abilities for her to use.

Looking at the powers I have access to now, none of them have enough offensive power to take out a monster of this scale. Of course, she still had access to the Saint Energies that she trained before ascending to an Origin, but those were primarily useful in group battles.

Am I really going to have to just brute force this one? Wait, I’m not even a slime anymore! I can’t omnom them to death! Lifre’s eyes went wide with despair, realizing that she had inadvertently lost her favorite way of dealing with troublesome entities. First order of business when I unlock my story powers, find a way to make myself a slime again!

As she thought about this, the three serpents were rapidly charging closer. Realizing that she had no other option but to resort to pure, brute force, Lifre’s body began to expand at an incredible pace. From less than one and a half meters tall, she quickly grew to a height of a hundred thousand kilometers, clenching her fists.

Of course, the serpents were still larger than her, but that wasn’t a problem. She was currently large enough to inflict substantial injuries on them with purely her normal attacks. Thus, she extended one arm out to the side, her hand turning into a black blade that extended for tens of thousands of kilometers. fгeewёbnoѵel.cσm

This fight’s going to be annoying. She thought to herself, charging forward to meet the trio of serpents. The closer she was to the solar system, the more likely the shockwaves of the battle would impact them, or one of the monsters might sneak past her to attack. At least if she took the initiative to charge out to greet them, she was giving herself more wiggle room.

The three serpents, meanwhile, seemed surprised to see an enemy charging out at them. Without delay, Lifre slashed her sword at two of the monsters, causing it to instantaneously grow by hundreds of times to reach them before returning to normal. With her strike, she managed to slice both monsters in half, stalling their progress.

Unfortunately, these monsters were energy bodies, meaning that even cutting them in half was no significant loss for them. Their bodies merged back together in under a second, while the third lunged towards her, its jaw wide open to try and take a bite out of her arm.

To Lifre’s surprise, she saw only a single health bar appear after damaging two monsters. This meant either that she had not inflicted a single point of damage by bisecting one of the creatures, or these were all one creature with three linked bodies. Naturally, the latter was far more likely, since otherwise that meant that even severe physical damage had no guarantee to inflict any harm.

Lifre pursed her lips, spinning her body to bring her arm away from the lunging serpent. At the same time, a black spike extended from her elbow, piercing back into the monster’s head. Sure enough, the single health bar showed a very minor dip.

That explains why there are three monsters traveling together, at least. I thought that they were a family group or something. She thought to herself, though knew that this could perhaps be even more troublesome, depending on the intelligence of these creatures. If they were smart enough, they would have left one body as far away as they could, ensuring that they wouldn’t be entirely wiped out, even if all three bodies here were killed.

As she finished her spinning attack, Lifre saw that the other two bodies were already charging at her again, mouths wide open. However, before they could reach her, two giant arrows appeared seemingly out of nowhere, piercing each of their bodies. Surprised, Lifre glanced behind herself with her World Sight, and spotted over a hundred figures floating in the air back at the edge of the solar system.

At the front of the pack was a halfling girl holding a golden longbow, her eyes shining brightly. Now we’re talking! Lifre grinned, her body seeming to ‘pop’ and reveal her much smaller figure, which teleported back to the group.

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Before any of them could question her actions, Lifre clapped her hands together, creating three clusters of light around her. Each light spread out, forming a giant pillar hundreds of kilometers tall, as if carved out of glowing stone. Bathed in the light of these pillars, the hundred combatants felt newfound strength flowing through their bodies.

At the same time, Lifre explained the special traits of these monsters, the fact that they were one linked entity, and how they distorted any primary energy around their bodies. The gathered combatants were surprised, but quickly adjusted and prepared for combat.

Lifre, watching the group charge forward under the light of her Pillar of Support, then stretched a hand out towards the serpents. Black chains shot out of her hands, traversing the space to sink into their bodies. I deny your recovery!

These were the Saint Energies that Lifre had honed prior to her ascension. Pillar of Support allowed her to create numerous pillars, linking them to multiple allies to provide a variety of effects. Currently, the hundred-man army was benefiting from increased speed, strength, and energy regeneration.

Ultimate Denial, meanwhile, allowed her to designate a single trait of her enemies, severely weakening it. Both energies, however, had the same drawback. As long as she was channeling them, she couldn’t directly enter the fight herself. If the energy flow of the two energies were disturbed by combat, they would directly dissolve.

Of course, she could have created an avatar to fight in her stead under normal conditions. At the current moment, however, that was not an option. She was already stretching herself thin with all of the avatars fighting in various areas, and didn’t have enough focus to create another one for combat.

Still, this group of a hundred fighters were able to display far greater strength under the effects of her pillars. More importantly, it seemed that they were used to fighting together against massive enemies, each of their attacks large enough to cleave planets in half.

Individually, Lifre was confident that she could take on any one of them, but as a unit, she had to admit that their firepower was superior. And, honestly? She was happy about that! She let out a mental sigh of relief, knowing that her workload would become a lot lighter over the next few days. Maybe I can finally focus on getting those powers developed.

Thelsa looked on with determination, watching the battle reports coming in. Because of the number of active reports, the first SCRU deployment had been split into five groups for the main law worlds, and two for the Lorek and Spica group.

Three of these groups went to support current battles where Lifre was actively participating, while the others went to fight on their own. One group in particular showed the most promise, and had been designated Response Group One, led by the top ranked player of the Tower of Chaos, Thessa Grid.

Unlike most players, she didn’t boost her level in a large number of classes to reach the top. Instead, she focused purely on two classes, Archer and Guard. She hadn’t developed legends for any other classes, leaving a few at the five hundred benchmark such as Perfect Self and Perfect Soul. However, both her Archer and Guard classes were over level fifteen-hundred each.

Naturally, Thelsa was well aware of Thessa’s reputation, seen as a guardian deity of Fyor, a Goddess of Archery that had been active for roughly the same amount of time as Thelsa herself. She had helped resolve numerous calamities not only in Fyor, but even in other worlds, such as the first Geer invasion of Deckan.

Now, she had earned her spot as the leader of the first response unit. As for her brother, he was in the lower end of the rankings, unable to truly show his power against enemies of the same level. Instead, Theon could only display substantial effect when facing an enemy far more powerful than himself.

While this was a great asset in a fight against extremely powerful monsters, it often led to problems in the Tower of Chaos, as the lower the difference was between him and the enemy, the less effect his divine domain had. This often led to him being eliminated, and needing to start over from the beginning.

Still, she was able to put the two of them in the same group, due to their sibling relationship. They had worked together for centuries, and could easily coordinate to make the most of their powers.

As she was thinking about this, her lips twitched. The first casualties from the assault teams started to appear. Three names in the second team had gone red, indicating that they were awaiting respawn within the Tower of Chaos. This was what had delayed their deployment so much, waiting for Blank to finish his respawn system.

With a small sigh, Thelsa typed in the command to begin the respawn process. It would take a little while for them to appear, as the energy to recreate their bodies had to be gathered first. During this time, Thelsa did her best to monitor the situation on the battlefields, ensuring that there weren’t any other problems that she needed to concern herself with.

Thankfully, she soon received a report that Thessa’s team had successfully slain their target. With a nod, Thelsa spoke into the communication channel. “For now, your team is on standby. Move to your designated territories, and await future deployment orders. Until then, you are free to train or relax.”

Each SCRU member had been given their own copy of Towers of Chaos, linked with their system profile, to enable them to train without needing to return to their headquarters. At the same time, this game had been linked with the warning system Thelsa had worked to prepare, calling players out of their training when it was time to deploy.

As each team reported the success of their missions, Thelsa repeated her orders, before finally leaning back and letting out a sigh of relief. On average, there are five reports every hour at the current pace. They won’t have long to rest in between fights, but they can extend that time considerably within Towers of Chaos.

She had already planned around needing to further split the groups into teams of fifty, ten, or even five, depending on the number of active reports. Hopefully, this process should last long enough to find a more effective countermeasure, or to recruit more members to expand our ranks.