13:00 AT, Day Thirty Nine | Grassland-Jungle Biome Border

  “Is everyone ready for this?” Ray asks, looking super cute in her fancy new mk5 ghostsuit. This one is even more sneaky, those snowy klackers don't stand a chance against her. Though I don't know if it was a good idea to put her in charge of the entire special ops corps. Oh well, what could possibly go wrong?

  “Let's go for it, darling. Show those little snowflakes that we mean business.” I remark.

  “Good point. Let's burn their little snow castles to the ground, the good old fashioned way.” She smiles a very wonderful and evil smile. “With explosives.” She activates her ghostsuit and disappears, fading into the background as if she was never there.

  “Pro luce lunae!” The soldiers chant, charging into the jungle of horrors. I follow just behind, heading up a squad of great-level infantry. For some reason, I have been trusted with commanding troops mid-battle. Something which has historically never gone wrong.

  The moment our forces step into the tree line, the air erupts into gunfire. “In the trees!” someone shouts, just as hundreds of soldiers descend from the trees, somehow having evaded our sensors.

  I expand my perception field and track about three hundred enemies, to our five hundred. But as I watch, they are absolutely slaughtering our troops. Each one easily takes out 5 of our frontline infantry before dying.

  All of the soldiers that they kill collapse screaming and scratching at themselves. It must be some sort of poison coating their blades. At least we finally know the source of the terrors, and if we can get a sample we might be able to analyze it to treat our mentally wounded beings. Which would be a massive boon to our numbers.

  I charge in, charging my spear with a {Lightning Bolt} and crash into a group with a mighty explosion. Seven of them fall beneath my spear. The back half of our forces – the stronger ones – start getting in and similar sights can be seen.

  Explosions shake in the trees, likely from Ray and her squad.

  It is quite rough, but we manage to finish them off. We call in reinforcements and replenish our numbers quickly. Then, we march forwards into the jungle. It is hard work to cut through all the trees to make way for our convoys. But we get it done.

  We are constantly being ambushed and we lose tons of troops. But the part about having an army with no actual deaths is that you can just keep them pouring through. We are using a similar assault strategy along the entire border of the jungle desert and snowy forest. The idea is to spread them thin or force them to give up ground.

  That is not to say it has been easy going. Every encounter is accompanied with hundreds of losses, we have had to start keeping a larger force. They may be small in number, but they appear to be much stronger in general. Plus they have the home territory and stealth advantages.

  Despite all of that, we manage to make it to the first fort in the jungle, aptly named Fort Greed. We are slightly ahead of schedule, since Ray and I are paired together. After all, no pests are going to stand in the way of the Moonlight Duo.

  As far as forts go, it is mostly normal. Although the clearing where it rests is quite small. Which makes it hard to siege with artillery. There also seem to have been reinforcements to its shields – a mk5 tech. Unfortunately for the game masters, we have a ton of super uber geniuses. So we have managed to engineer a way around the new shields. Mk5 tech are all prototypes still, and prototypes always have flaws.

  Just as our main force pierces into the clearing, six large electrically charged spikes go soaring for the shields. They are intercepted mid-air by our ghostsuit units and they kamikaze the spikes into the shields, piercing them. There are thick cables trailing from the spikes, which are now embedded in the walls. So, naturally we brought a portable fusion reactor with us. Well to be technical, it isn't a portable reactor by design. But we made it work, as we do.

  Massive amounts of energy flow through the cables and right into the spikes. The shield briefly turns white, and then shatters into a million tiny pieces. A special upgrade to prevent it overloading into a fusion bomb. The scientists apparently didn't like the fact that we turned defensive shields into a weapon.

  The moment the shield shatters, a volley of projectiles are launched across the ramparts. “Everyone, helmets up now!” I command, having anticipated such an attack. Everyone quickly engages their helmets just as the gas lands. It would kill anything exposed to it by slowly corroding away any metallic compounds, like blood. Several of the machines around us corrode a bit, until it hits the special underlayer we installed.

  I step forward from the clearing edge and gingerly walk towards the battlements. Several enemy soldiers appear on the battlements and try to shoot at me, but I merely step out of the way. Such slow projectiles cannot make it past my inae field at this point. Not with all the training I have done with Ray and Rigar.

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  I simply move my way to the wall, not even rushing. Once I reach it, I use an explosive charge to go right through it. Ray suddenly appears beside me, her blades looking like they are starving. She charges into the hole and cuts down several defenders in moments.

  Not to be outclassed, I quickly move in and cause havoc of my own. Between flight and the sheer damage my new spear allows, they do not stand a chance.

  Ray and I waltz in, almost hand in hand. We systematically disassemble all of the defenders. That is, until we reach the core of the fort.

  An old looking small man with black-gray hair sits in a chair. He seems to be asleep. A scythe is sitting on the ground next to him.

  So naturally, Ray walks up and gives him a slap on the face. I wish it was me instead though.

  The man awakes with a start, and immediately the air seems to get heavy. It fills with violence. I dash forward and yank Ray backwards, just as the man instantly gets to his feet and swings his scythe. It misses Ray’s beautiful neck by mere millimeters.

  “Gah, get off my lawn you whippersnappers!” The man shouts, “This is the territory of Vel, the famous gardener! All that enter must fall!”

  Ray and I burst out into laughter. But that just gives Vel a chance to swing the mighty scythe of his. I barely manage to avoid getting a haircut – a true tragedy that would be. After all, headrub quality is directly proportional to the amount of hair one has.

  I rush forward with my spear, only for Vel to spin his scythe in a gravity defying move and effortlessly deflect it. “You youngins, always so arrogant. Hows about I show you the ropes?”

  I take a step back, reeling from being deflected so easily. But Ray quickly tags in, her blades meeting Vel’s scythe over and over again. Yet somehow, he manages to deflect both, and even starts yawning. “For klacks sake, old man. What drugs are you on?”

  “It is called discipline, missy. You should try it sometime.” Vel replies.

  It seems that ‘missy’ was the wrong term to use. Ray seems to go into a berserk state. Her blades flash so fast that I hesitate to move in. I only manage to land a few strikes when I am sure she won't be in the way. But no matter how hard and often she hits, Vel does not falter. He must be a gardner of arrogant brats, not plants.

  Well, good thing we aren't arrogant. After all, we are the Moonlight Duo.

  I slip in behind Vel as he is distracted by Ray and manages to land a single blow. I am immediately countered and his scythe sends me flying into a wall, hard. The old man hits so klacking hard.

  Ray manages to land a few more hits, but gets countered in return. Both of us back off for a moment. Which was a bad idea, because Vel uses the opportunity to split his scythe into two smaller scythes. He twirls one in each hand like they are daggers, but much larger.

  “Just who the klack is this guy?” Ray exclaims, breathing heavily.

  “A very good gardener it seems.” I respond, brushing back a strand of her hair that came loose. She is super cute when she is being all violent.

  “You youngins ain' never seen real strength, have ya?” Vel says. “The real meaning of-” He is cut off as Ray activates her {Devouring Blades} and charges in. She goes right for his neck and in his speech, barely manages to block it.

  I take the opportunity and dash in, getting a devastating blow on his right knee. In short order, we dismantle the guy and he gets whisked off to respawn. “So, that is the strength of one of their core members.” I say, collapsing on the ground next to Ray.

  “Yeah. But he must've been the weakest. I would've expected more of a challenge. He might've been around Rigar’s level though, which is quite scary to think about.” She leans her head against my shoulder. A nice bit of relaxation after our battle.

  “Eh, no matter what comes next, we can tackle it. If not, then we just run away and throw a bunch of explosives behind us.” I grab a hold of Ray’s hand and start drawing small circles in her palm. It's quite relaxing, and her skin is super smooth and nice. I wish we could stay like this forever. Unfortunately, we have some trials to win and an empire to build.

  The rest of our forces finally enter the cleared out fort and we officially gain control of it. Then, we immediately take off into the sky. Ray insists on being held in my arms, which I can't really complain about. After all, she is super duper cute. Though she is quite annoying with how she tries to distract me with headrubs mid-flight.

  We successfully managed to acquire Fort Lust, Fort Wrath, Fort Sloth and Fort Envy. Each one of our parties only runs into minor difficulties. Which is quite concerning, that Vel was the only core member in a fort.

  Somehow they knew where Ray and I were going to attack. Plus, we still have no clue who the other two powerful core members are. That isn't even to mention Luna, who is a force to be reckoned with all by herself.

  But rather than think about that, I spend a lot of extra time floating about with Ray. Giving her lots of headpats and cuddles. It turns out there isn't anything that can interrupt such activities while you are flying through the air.

  We finally end the long day back at Arce Lunae. Our newly improved flight abilities actually make it quite quick to traverse the arena now. We don't have to sit in convoys for however many hours. Which is somewhat of a shame, as we lost a primary excuse for headrubs. But it means the headrub and cuddle time we do get can be back in a super cozy bed. After a nice long soak in the hot spring of course.

  I am certain that no matter what comes in the future, Ray and I shall conquer it together. After all, we are the Moonlight Duo, and luce lunae per aspera ad astra et ultra is the saying.

  So, bring it on.

  End of Chapter 132

  Next: Chapter 133 | Efficient Melting

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