Tzen leapt over a fallen log, crushing a footprint in the side of the wood as he drove himself forward, putting on every ounce of speed he could possibly manage.

One simple trick to winning every battle was overlooked by ‘wise’ men since time immemorial, and mastered only by the truly brilliant savants of warfare, and yet it was outlandishly obvious:

Only fight the battles you know you can win.

From what Tzen had seen, those monsters had his veterans outnumbered a thousand to one, at least. Veterans could fight long beyond the endurance of a normal man, but even they got tired.

One by one, they would have gotten dragged into the bloody dirt, and the overwhelming number advantage would swing even further in the monster’s favor.

If he’d stayed, they would inevitably get overwhelmed, and the story of Tzen Chu would end right there, an ignoble end, torn to shreds at the hands of drooling monsters.

As it was, there was no guarantee they would survive the night. the fast monsters caught Tzen’s company of mercenaries on either side, harrying them and slowing them down, while the flier that swooped above them further distracted the sages in their group, demanding an answer to their attacks, and leaving little energy to cover their flanks.

And yet, they were still alive, still moving.

This could only be the Malkenrovian’s doing. The heavy infantry that would catch up to them and lock them in place like a Krugor latching onto a guar’s neck had simply never arrived, allowing Tzen’s company to continue moving west, even harried as they were.

They were making good time due to Tzen’s quick decision to flee, and the fact that none of the hunters had less than four Breaks.

BOOM!

An explosion sounded behind them, and Marconen itself bucked up underneath them, anxious to join the fight. Whose side it was on, Tzen couldn’t say.

“Gods!” one of Tzen’s mercenaires shouted, looking over his shoulder at the battle raging behind them.

Tzen took a quick glance and spotted the sky torn apart by a sheet of writhing lightning, a cloud of dirt and ash rising into the air from some unseen explosion. Unseen, but not unfelt.

“If you’ve got time to gawk, you’ve got time to run!” Tzen said, smacking the man out of his stupor. Just because it looked like the end of the world over there didn’t mean they could stop running. Living came first.

One of the four legged creatures drew up beside Tzen, gnashing teeth aiming for his arm. Tzen leaned into the attack, shoving his forearm into the creature’s skull with enough force to snap off a tooth and cause the creature to tumble, dirt spraying as it plunged into the ground.

There was some kind of streak above them, and the ground in front of them exploded into shrapnel.

Tzen’s luck held strong, and his Abyssal steel chestplate caught the majority of the flying metal. Not everyone was so lucky, as one of the veterans beside him tumbled to the ground clutching his side.

Without stopping, Tzen grabbed the man’s arm and hauled him back to his feet, practically carrying him.

“What in the Abyss was that?”

“How am I supposed to know?”

“Keep running!”

What kind of thoughts does the man who stayed behind for us have? Tzen wondered to himself, glancing over his shoulder at the lightshow rising above the horizon. Somehow he couldn’t see the young man’s motives as altruistic.

***Calvin***

“AHAHAH!” Calvin cackled, wiping the blood from under his nose. This was absolutely delightful.

“You seem enthusiastic,” Ella muttered, sitting up and wiping dust off her metallic skin.

“Well, I haven’t had the opportunity to cut loose since Uleis,” Calvin said, rolling up his sleeves as he climbed back to his feet.

“Ever wonder if you should be cutting loose?” Ella asked. “You destroyed a city last time. I don’t think of myself as a particularly merciful person, but that kind of…”

“I don’t see any cities around here, do you?” Calvin asked.

“Fair enough,” Ella shrugged.

Let’s see, priority one, deal with the drone strikes, then the giant crabs, then…

Then we run, right? You weren’t planning on camping out here for the rest of your career, were you?

Sounds about right.

Visualize

Calvin brought up the fire wasp he’d created a long time ago. The one with the fire-worm glands and undifferentiated matter organs inside.

Can you modify this to take over the air?

Yeah, gimme a minute.

In front of Calvin’s eyes, the organs inside the wasp began shifting, moving around inside the creature, replacing its stomach and linking to the creature’s nervous system.

Just replace these tired old things with the enhanced CMC organs… Elliot muttered to himself as he shifted things around.

We’re gonna want this sphincter to be capable of high pressures, so we’ll go with a…

Calvin set the Drafting image aside, heading for a shattered portion of the wall and peeking over it, scanning the devastation in front of him.

A second wave of enemies was flooding out of the light-eating forest, trampling over their fallen bretheren in a mad dash to get to Calvin.

“How much time have we bought?” Calvin wondered aloud, already knowing it wasn’t enough.

“Like, two minutes?” Ella said, glancing at him askance.

“Sniper crew, get back to work, take targets as fast as the knick-knacks can cut you ammo.” the snipers controlled by Kurawe got back to throwing their rocks, leveraging their astronomical strength to punch holes in the charging creatures.

The brain crabs were hidden behind large moving walls of meat, but the larger ones with the magical artillery were rather exposed.

“And put some holes in those lumps on top of the big ones,” Calvin said, pointing. “That last attack was unpleasant.”

Apparently the big ones had little shield bearers riding on top of them. They blended seamlessly until fist sized rocks began cutting through the air toward their vulnerable organs.

Then the lankey creatures seemingly detached from their holsters, lifting large chiton shields up around the creature’s weapon, looking for all the world like a mobile fortress.

“Should we keep firing at them?” Kurawe-sniper asked.

“Aim for the knees. If that doesn’t work, redirect your attention to the ones you can damage. The key here is slowing them down as much as possible.”

A deafening explosion rocked the battlefield only a dozen feet away or so. Calvin’s Beli Ma was fast, but not fast enough to stop the shrapnel from hitting him.

It might have had some effect though, because the steel fragments went through the soft tissues on the outside of his body rather than through his center.

“Ow,” Ella muttered, rubbing the metal skin over her arm, where the strike had created a blemish.

“You gotta wonder if this guy is designing his weapons to disable normal humans,” Calvin said, putting a finger through the hole in his shoulder and wiggling it around a bit until he felt the shard of metal.

There we go, Calvin thought, catching it with his fingernail and prying it out of the bone before flicking it off into the grass.

“Good thing there’s plenty of Warp in the air,” Calvin said, glancing at Ella, who was staring at the rich purple blood streaming from his shoulder.

“After the battle,” Calvin said sternly.

Ella pouted.

“I’m serious.”

“But it’s right there.” Ella said, pointing.

“I do not want to babysit you during a battle that may turn against us at any seconds.”

Ella heaved a sigh. “That makes sense.”

“Go murder something, get your mind off of it.”

How much do we have in the tank? Calvin wondered, feeling the Warp beginning to pick up on the wind, the invisible energy caressing his skin as thousands of creatures laid down their lives.

24/36 Warp remaining.

Not bad. Even as it closed the wounds in his arms and side, the Warp inside him didn’t go down. It was ticking slowly up.

I guess the question is, how do we get another Break without dying the instant we fall unconscious? Calvin was fairly sure if he wasn’t awake to respond to anything unexpected, One would find a way to kill him.

On the other hand… Calvin thought as he laid eyes on the shredded battlefield practically oozing Warp. It would be irresponsible of him not to take advantage of the opportunity laid out for him here.

Calvin also knew for a fact that One would reclaim the vast majority of the Warp after their battle was concluded, most likely giving a selection of elite units a powerful upgrade, allowing him to adapt them for the next battle.

Is there any way to prevent that? Is there any NEED to prevent that?

As far as he could see, if One wanted to Break elite units, it had the numbers to make enough corpses no matter if Calvin was fighting him or not, this rich battlefield was just icing on the cake as far as the creature was concerned.

But in war, one had to be as mean and ugly as possible, if the guy other guy had icing on his cake, steal it. Take the cake too, and shove it in his face. Then kick him in the balls.

Then steal his wife.

Poison the well. Calvin’s eyes widened.

He knew where and when One would put some elite units at this exact location to get Breaks. All he had to do was arrange for the battlefield to be ridiculously poisonous in about…half an hour or so from now.

Design’s done. Elliot interrupted Calvin’s musing.

Calvin brought the Visualize of the modified wasp to the forefront. It was subtly different from his previous firewasp in dozens of minor ways, but outwardly it looked the same.

I call them Air Superority Homing L…Damn, what’s a good L word?

You just want them to be called Assholes, right? Calvin thought.

No? Elliot said hesitantly. Anyway, the modifications are as such: this fucker can eat just about anything, turn it into undifferentiated matter, and use that to shit out one of three types of ordinance. Napalm, Crystal missiles, and Crystal shard bombs. I added a little extra grey matter hooked up to its new body functions, so control should come online quick.

If you these guys in their own slot, we should be able to refine the design further with Survival of the Fittest, but it’ll do for now, one way or the other.

The displacement of organs will lead to a modest decrease in flight speed, but with Atom Ant bolstering their abilities, anything short of a laser is gonna have a hard time hitting them.

That should take care of the drones, Calvin thought, looking up into the clear sky and seeing nothing.

Calvin held his hands out and cast the spell.

Calvinian Summoning.

Chimera

Atom Ant

…

23/54 Bent remaining

22/54 Bent remaining

21/54 Bent remaining

20/54 Bent remaining

19/54 Bent remaining

Calvin summoned hundreds of dog-sized wasps, each one several times stronger and faster than a mortal man.

The oversized insect’s mandible clicked together eagerly, anxious to deliver some hurt to unsuspecting enemies, lightly struggling against Calvin’s control over them.

If ever there was an insect that was a natural born asshole, it was the wasp.

Funny that you’re named after them, isn’t it? Elliot said, his voice oozing faux sincerity.

Eat the trees. Calvin ordered them, diverting his attention back to the Knick-knacks.

Dig me a tunnel to the center of that slaughter, Calvin thought, pointing toward the battlefield.

The spare knick-knacks began throwing dirt high into the air as they blazed through the topsoil.

What’s the best poison we’ve got? Calvin thought to himself, taking a mental tally of his components.

He needed something that would stick around for a day or so before dissipating. No sense killing all the creatures sucking in the warp only to have more come in and take that Warp.

Calvin created a poison capsule big enough to house a family of six, using the poison in his belt as a base, then adding a few nasty surprises suggested by Elliot. Once that was done, the Knick-knacks got to work burying it while Calvin’s new wasps – Assholes – busied themselves finalizing the deforestation of the area.

“Ravager, they’re getting awfully close to the wall,” A Kurawe-Sniper said, throwing another rock through a charging giant.

“Finally,” Ella said, pulling her flail out of the sash around her waist and jumping over the half-destroyed line of lumber.

I guess I need to get my hands dirty every now and then, Calvin thought as he followed.

Off in the distance, no one noticed as one of the giants dragged a handful of limp comrades into the deeper woods.