SLV Chapter 19: An Unexpected Gain!
April 12
Was Fortune trying to go and collect the source stones?
But frightened to do so?
"Awooo! Arwoof!"
Every time she retreated from the doorway, Fortune would glance at Lin En and bark once more.
In truth, Fortune going out carried essentially no real danger.
Her frame was small, and the skeleton horde had never treated her as a primary target.
Watching Fortune go back and forth like this, Lin En thought it over, then released Milya from his arms.
The next time Fortune reached the doorway, he moved suddenly and gave her a firm push straight out the door.
Fortune, by reflex, started moving toward the distant source stones the moment her paws hit the ground outside.
"Woof!"
After trotting a short distance, she realized something was wrong and stopped, turning back to bark at Lin En once.
"Go on, Fortune!"
Lin En called out to her.
Already outside, Fortune finally committed to the first step and moved toward the skeletal remains lying beyond the skeleton perimeter.
Just how fast could a three-legged she-wolf actually run?
Lin En was about to find out.
At first, Fortune was extremely cautious, moving very slowly.
Her eyes weren't on the path at all. They were fixed entirely on the glowing skeletons that hovered just nearby.
Three legs made for slower going, and she stumbled and fell several times on top of that but once Fortune seemed to grasp that the glowing skeletons truly weren't targeting her, her speed rose sharply and with each run she grew smoother and more confident.
By now she looked to Lin En very much like something skimming low over the ground at considerable speed.
"Three more to go!"
Lin En counted the source stones while watching Fortune's figure.
He saw her come sprinting back with another stone in her jaws.
Lin En immediately pulled the last sand cake from the clay pot to use as a mid-run reward.
Fortune spat out the source stone and tore into the cake at once.
"She needs to go faster. I'm worried she won't make it in time."
Lin En looked toward the distance. To the east, the first pale light of dawn was already visible.
Afraid all the effort might be wasted, he simply pried Fortune's jaws open and shoved the entire cake deep into her throat.
"Awoo!"
Fortune licked her lips and blinked, looking slightly dazed.
There was definitely a cake inside her now, but it had happened so fast it barely registered.
"Go on, Fortune. When it's light out I'll give you meat!"
Lin En called after her. Fortune, apparently understanding, set off again without the slightest hesitation.
At last, the final three source stones were in hand.
Lin En wasted no more time. He climbed onto the wooden table and looked out through the ventilation gap.
The number of glowing skeletons clawing up from the sand had dropped sharply.
That was the sign. The blood moon was nearing its end, and the skeleton horde was about to break apart.
"Just a little longer. One last step."
Lin En forced the impulse down. He had to be absolutely certain that during the gap when one sand spirit arrow tower went offline, not a single thing could go wrong then the point of light appeared again but when Lin En saw the direction that glowing arrow was coming from, his heart lurched.
The arrow landed squarely on one of the sand spirit arrow towers.
The tower shuddered, and sand cascaded down its sides but that was the extent of it. The damage was not severe enough to put the tower fully out of action.
"That was close! I didn't think the skeleton archer would actually land a hit!"
He looked back out toward the distant wilderness.
The horizon had lit up with a streak of red dawn and in that dawn light, far across the desert, a lone column of smoke was rising.
Had another city-state fallen?
A jolt of alarm went through him.
Only undead breaching the inner city and causing widespread chaos would produce a fire large enough to send up a column of smoke that clear and tall.
He had speculated about it before, but he hadn't expected things to be this severe. The blood moon had caused an entire city-state to fall but there was no time to dwell on it.
The glowing skeletons had stopped emerging from the sand. Only those already on the surface continued pressing forward out of sheer momentum.
Once the sun had fully cleared the sand-line on the horizon, this horde would dive back into the wilderness in an instant.
Lin En burst out of the shack and ran for the damaged sand spirit arrow tower.
In one motion, he yanked the source energy obelisk free from inside.
The moment he did, the suppressed skeleton horde surged forward in a furious counterattack.
Lin En pulled back immediately, keeping the distance safe at all times.
He made it back to the shack door cradling the source energy obelisk in his arms, and only then did he see the skeleton tide's advance slow to something barely held in check.
The remaining arrow tower and the mechanism tower were pouring sand arrows out without pause, but with the skeleton numbers thinned, accuracy had fallen off considerably from before.
The firepower had diminished significantly.
If he had attempted the upgrade earlier in a moment of rashness, while glowing skeletons were still pouring out of the ground in a steady stream to replenish the tide, the situation would have reversed instantly. Both he and Milya would have been placed in mortal danger.
With a thought, the Slaveowner's Manual turned in his mind.
The page at the very center appeared. Fifty source stones poured into the obelisk, and the rune charged to completion in an instant.
Both of Lin En's hands blazed once more with that deep blue light.
He began picking up the copper ingots one by one, watching them dissolve like liquid and pour themselves into the source energy obelisk in a torrent.
Almost there!
Faster!
Lin En's chest was tight with urgency. He watched the glow on the horizon growing stronger by the moment.
The skeleton archer was still out there in the wilderness. The instant the sun rose fully, it would plunge back underground and everything he had worked for through the entire night would be wasted.
A night of hard fighting had left Lin En's eyes red. He fixed his gaze on the distant shape beside the boulder, on the skeleton archer, on that glowing source energy bow.
By now the growing daylight had begun to dull the skeletons' green glow considerably but the deep blue radiance of the source energy bow still blazed clearly.
Lin En could lock onto it without effort then, finally!
The entire camel-load of copper ingots was spent. The upgraded source energy obelisk was larger than before, its patterns more intricate, its hollow internal structure stranger and more elaborate.
Lin En drove the upgraded obelisk into the open ground in front of the shack in one forceful thrust.
Partly to save time, partly to place it where its extended range could cover as much ground beyond the oasis's edge as possible.
Twenty source stones went in.
Lin En felt the sand beneath his feet tremble, and from the base of the obelisk a tower erupted straight upward.
The speed was like lava blasting from a volcanic vent, and in what felt like a single heartbeat it had risen to at least five meters.
The Sand Spirit Sniper Tower!
He established the connection immediately.
Only then did Lin En notice what set the sniper tower apart.
Its method of operation was entirely different from the arrow tower and the mechanism tower.
It aimed first. Then it charged. Then it fired.
Against a moving target, hitting accurately would be nearly impossible without his direct control but fortunately, that skeleton archer hadn't moved a single step. The problem didn't apply.
The sniper tower locked onto the skeleton in the extreme distance in an instant.
A five-hundred percent increase in range made the target trivially easy to reach.
Targeting complete. The pale blue orb at the tower's peak began to pulse.
A sand arrow gathered inside the aperture at the top.
The arrow was extraordinarily long, closer in size to a spear.
The charging speed was also much slower than Lin En had expected and the glow on the horizon was growing brighter and brighter. He could already see the edge of the blazing red sun then, in a single blink of an eye, the sun leapt free of the sand-line entirely!
"No!"
Lin En's heart seized, and at the same moment the skeletons seemed to answer some unseen call, breaking apart rapidly and retreating toward the wilderness.
The green light on their bodies was completely washed out by the red of the rising sun.
Lin En could no longer make out the skeleton archer itself. All he could see was the still-radiant glow of the source energy bow.
The deep blue light had already begun sinking, dropping fast, as though the skeleton archer was plunging back into the sand below!
Whoosh!
At that instant, a tremendous sound of something tearing through air erupted beside his ear.
The sniper sand arrow streaked straight toward that distant deep blue glow.
The pupils of Lin En's narrowed eyes dilated in an instant.
At the exact moment the sand arrow landed, the blazing light of the source energy bow went out simultaneously.
Gone.
The deep blue light had vanished.
Had he been one step too late after all?
"Even if it's over, I need to know for certain. What if?"
The distance was enormous. What if he had simply misjudged from here?
The evidence seemed clear enough. The bow's light going dark meant it had gone back underground with the skeleton archer but Lin En refused to accept it and pulled the Bactrian camel out anyway.
The camel had the strongest nerves of anyone here, had slept through the whole night, and was the most energetic of them all right now.
The skeleton tide had already receded. Only scattered skeletal remains and glinting source stones covered the ground in every direction.
Lin En mounted the camel and raced toward the spot where the sniper sand arrow had landed.
"If only I'd had one extra source energy obelisk. Just one more!"
He pushed toward the boulder, his mood dark with frustration.
He had thought his progress was fast enough. But how fast was fast enough?
Still not fast enough.
With more preparation, he wouldn't have needed to scramble in those final desperate seconds. He could have built the sniper tower at his leisure and taken the shot without any pressure.
At last he reached the boulder.
Lin En's eyes swept the sand with little hope.
The desert wind had picked up, and the surface of the sand sea was rolling in gentle dune-like waves.
Through the shifting layers of sand, something pale and stark suddenly entered his field of view.
A bleached skeletal frame and right beside it, unmistakably, a longbow of exceptional and intricate craftsmanship.
It was just no longer radiating that deep blue glow he had imagined it would hold.
Lin En's dull, tired eyes snapped wide open in an instant.
"It hit. The shot landed."
And when he looked more carefully at the skeleton, he noticed something else unusual.
The skeleton's chest cavity had been completely obliterated. Clearly the work of the sniper sand arrow and hanging from the skeleton's hip bone was a cloth pouch.
A single glance told him it had a quality of ancient craftsmanship about it.
Lin En's eyebrow went up.
"There's even an unexpected bonus?"
[NEXT CHAPTER]