The Power of Ten, Book Five: Versatile Wizardry

Yes, the shots could be dodged, and the Aquatics were not slow. If they were in motion, naturally accuracy suffered, and evasive movements worked against them as easily as they might a true magical archer.

However, they were also dealing with magically-enhanced aim and shooters who had been drilled rigorously on what to do in such circumstances.

Evasive tactics generally only worked against whatever shooter you were trying to avoid. The snipers on overwatch and neighboring shooters could often pick off the bouncy-bouncy types.

The other thing to do was charge into close range, a tactic usually seen as suicidal by Humans, and simply dump the shots in at a range where the creature naturally thought its scales and toughness would last long enough to rip a Human apart.

The Aquatics had their own varieties of ranged attacks, but they found dealing with the firearms very strange, and the snipers gave them conniption fits. Their own shooters, slingers, and hurlers hanging back to wield magic or hurl missiles were often picked off before they could toss their first or second attacks as watching eyes located them, and the snipers hunted for them to get the right angle.

The first display of the Gatlings, mounted up in a chokepoint, was a gut-smashing success, ripping through over two dozen Tigerfins in only a breath, reducing them to ripped chum in just seconds of sustained fire. The gunners there moved like experts who’d had a dozen hours and more of firing scenarios drilled into them, not wasting ammunition while working the angles and the enemy. They swept and scythed fire as needed to do the job, driving numbers of the Aquatics this way or that into other fire engagements, or simply pinned them down until a fireteam could flank them and wipe them out.

Illusionary training grounds allowed for unlimited ammo expenditure, after all. The gunners and feeders really did have dozens of hours of firing experience behind them all, just like the fireteams and squads did.

The best part of it all was Mana conservation. With the bullets delivering spells internally, the mages didn’t have to expend Adept and higher spells, and were fully capable of relying on Novice-tier spells to bring down enemies. That naturally meant those higher-tier spells were totally available when needed against the tougher enemies, Swarms of stuff were flooding into an area, or nasty spell effects needed to be Countered and overcome.

It was incredibly easy to Cast Novice spells compared to the other kinds, and tying the reflex to squeezing the trigger was almost autonomic after a certain point. Point and shoot, point and shoot. Just don’t miss, and everything was golden.

The range was also a key point, too. Some spells did have longer ranges, but they didn’t have the speed of bullets or their accuracy at distance. Three hundred yards was a long way to toss lesser spells, especially in a complex environment, and mages were practically guaranteed to miss an aware moving target out there, who could literally watch the spells coming and avoid them.

Not so the bullets, which simply moved too fast and smacked them down.

There was a mention by Frankie, one of the snipers, that some of the Aquatics, generally the smarter, faster, and magic-using ones, seemed to be aware of anything aiming at them, and hunted cover before he could shoot them.

-They’re timesighting you, Insight bonuses. Like a magical danger sense alerting them to deadly intent,- I /informed the shooters. -How do we address being discovered by magical senses?-

-Non-Detection or Astral Ward!- a score of voices /chimed up instantly.

-And what do we Infuse to get such protection on ourselves?- I /pressed further.

-An Amulet or a Ring!- was the quick follow-up.

-Huh. I wonder what four elite shooters were moved up in the queue because they made Sniper and got their Amulets...- I /wondered aloud, and good-natured ribbing of the snipers broke out everywhere. Every Artificer wore one for just that sort of use, and I had had them empower them for just this sort of purpose, so why not use them?

The snipers muttered together and conferred over their targets, working together with some of the forward shooters to pick out prey.

The cracks of the bullets weren’t there, Silenced at their muzzles. I felt their thoughts as Frankie and Jimbo worked. Some finger-long shells inside Cyclonic shells zipped out like 2000 fps wasps, and something’s head went splat in the distance.

Congrats went out to the spotters for setting up the shot, a few more rounds headed out that way to prompt its bodyguards to abandon cover and bounce right into a salvo from the ready fireteam there.

I felt the brush in the mindscape, and the warning went out. A Psychic creature was out there, probably some form of mertaur. The Scions of the Abyss were the most infamous Psychic Beasts here in the Atlantic, Krakenoids having the lower body of a squid and an upper body vaguely humanoid, known for their callous domination of other species through their intelligence and natural Psychic powers.

Also, yes, the tentacled fuckers liked to eat Human brains, and mind-ream Humans into being slaves and spies.

They were in the Bestiary of Aquatic Species, but weren’t normally seen unless there was a major push or outright war. Mermaids or Sirens were more common, famous for compelling Humans to walk into the water and drown themselves with singing or mind-reaming.

The Marks really helped. They operated on a different level than Psychic Magic, meaning they couldn’t be readily intercepted (although they could be sensed), and they also bypassed playing tricks with Sound Magic. It was also very easy to see someone being affected with mind-fuckery in the Markspace and then respond in real life.

The best response was a bullet in the skull of the responsible party, of course, but I’d also planted more than a dozen Darts in Aquatic skulls for exactly that reason.

-Find the Psychic!- Briggs /ordered calmly, and shouted warnings went out audibly and over coms to the neighboring sections of the Boonies, spreading quickly even as the raiding mentalist felt the rapidly rising awareness and hungry minds looking for them, and rapidly withdrew their influence.

-Sound Mage says they are out in the water three hundred meters from the edge of the Boonies!- Team Four’s coms guy /informed us.

Sama pointed her mental finger for my benefit. I invoked the basic Sound Magic to Hear Everything, and focused out into the waters in the area indicated.

A lot of heartbeats out there. I sifted through those that belonged to warriors or physical species, and the ones croaking or rumbling aloud, disregarding all of those and narrowing my target down.

A cold, steady heartbeat of a creature that was saying nothing, yet was encircled by and being attended to by things with stronger beats seemed like just the thing.

I flicked up a flight of thirteen Shards, Red through Smoky, aimed at that heartbeat as I Weaponized the damn things into short javelins of Force Energy, and let fly.

They moved even faster than bullets, streaking out to the full distance and plunging into the waters like a double-colored rainbow.

I heard them impact instantly, aware of the sound before it reached me, the pulse of the heart going wild and frantic exactly once before it was abruptly blown apart by the plunging energies turning the chest of the recipient into goo.

Also, the screams of thousands of Aquatics when the Psychic died was pretty telling. They made great targets while the Psychic was in its death throes, and they were mowed down across the Boonies as they twitched and tried to recover from their commander dying so abruptly.

Coms and Markspace agreed it had probably been an Abyssal Scion, as a lesser species wouldn’t have had so much reach and probably would have come much closer and revealed itself in its enthusiasm to kill. This one had been searching for a Human to take over and been alarmed at the awareness that had rippled out so quickly once it did so, retreating to consider a new method instead of straight-out trying to force a mind-ream.

Only things that cared about their own lives acted that way, and the lower-rank Creatures didn’t have the freedom of thought to do that.

Probably would make a good Baneskull, too, but honestly, any of the Great Warrior-class or better Creatures would work just fine, too, and we were making sure to salvage all of them.

Cantrip Vivic Darts from the wizards were discreetly setting the corpses of all the dead Aquatics on fire around us, everyone being very eager to upgrade their Stars. The constant fighting was more than enough to supply just about everyone through Tier-5 if they kept at it. Slowly agglomerating Eggs for Soul Gems for Tier-6 was happening, too.

Still, we had to be careful. We sold a lot fewer corpses than other sections did and people had noticed, but we also had a lot less mess to clean up, so it was kind of a wash. When intense fighting in other areas was finished, it was normally a stinking, gory mess, but not the KIA zone!

There were definitely some bloody messes after the Gatlings chopped swarms of the creatures into chum, however. Quite impressive, really.

Sama was coolly showing all the teams what was involved with being a master gunfighter. How to hold a rifle, stepping while remaining in control, aim and shoot, shoot, shoot with incredible accuracy and precision, she was always aware of her surroundings. She was textbook precision without giving up any of her sliding lightfoot or bouncing agility on demand.

She could also literally pour shells into her magazines to reload them using her Vajra, and change them so fast the clicks of drop and reload seemed simultaneous.

When the Aquatics managed to get closer to her and she dropped her Rifle and fast-drew a Pistol, booming off six rounds so fast it sounded like one long shot, that was always impressive, too.

Tremble was right there keeping the Rifle floating until Sama could grab it again, too. Sama’s and Briggs’ Firearms were naturally running Main-Gauche off Tremble and Endure, after all.

Sama was definitely grinning and enjoying herself, using her Vajra’s touch-teke to empty the guns and reload the shells by literally slamming all six in at once with her bare palm; precise, perfect, and fast. Infinite Ammo was something they’d add after they’d gotten all the design work done.

Briggs’s dual-barreled over/under Shotgun model was a little bit different. He had both heavy shot and slug magazines, alternating between them depending on what he was fighting. Stuff without a hard carapace got the nihilor shots to the head or chest, the stronger creatures got the slugs which left the yawning holes in them. The slugs also had a longer range, so he was running through them more quickly, although the chain of booms when he came into a horde of the weaker creatures would fill the air with fury quickly enough.

Naturally, neither of them was worried about coming to close-quarters at all. They both had their Morphed Weapons hanging at their belts or backs, and they could bring up Soul-claws at will which more than matched anything they bothered to go up against otherwise. I saw Briggs crush the skull of a Mako Finman with one punch, and Sama tear open some sort of shrimp-creature that thought it had a fast attack. The thing had a thrusting claw-strike that actually popped with steam, which Sama chopped off in mid-strike as it stabbed past her ear, and then her Gold-wrapped cleaver-fingers were up inside its head and jutting out the chitin there.

Mmm. Yes, it’s hard to hit something which has dodged you before your punch has even begun, even if it’s literally eyeblink-fast. It was like she’d fought things like that before, or something.

There were still spells going off here and there, mostly as AoE’s to sweep away swathes of stuff. But for the most part, the booms and cracks delivered the minor spells internally, and Tier-5 Novice magic was doing the job.

It was nice to see, and I had no doubt the military officers above were watching all this alertly, wondering just what kind of weapons Briggs and Sama had thought up.