Leveling up the World

Chapter 984: Attack on Campus

At seven minutes to three in the morning, the power in the entire campus was cut off. The outage was of massive scope, engulfing the whole state and slightly beyond. A few minutes later, unmarked military choppers approached the area. Mixed with the sound of their propeller blades were threads of music urging everyone to fall asleep. The order was more powerful than any drug, instantly making any non-awakened doze off almost on the spot. Those with a bit of resistance, and even awakened, felt a wave of tiredness sweep through them, as if their body suddenly realized it hadn’t slept for days.

Several dozen men leaped off the choppers. All of them were dressed in black clothes made of strengthened combat fabrics. Each one of them, without exception, was an awakened with actual skills. The way they moved left little reason for doubt.

“Attack or athletics,” Dallion whispered, shrouded in Jenna’s void matter. “Maybe guard as well.”

“I don’t like this,” Alien grunted. “Giving up magic is a shit move.”

“It’s not like you have where to pull it from.”

Emergency lights were still present within the buildings, but the energy output of the generators powering them was so insignificant that even a half-decent illusion wouldn’t hold for long. Katka’s bullets were an option, though not against so many enemies at once.

The attacking force assembled in groups of five. Some of them rushed into the dorm buildings, while others took control of the parking lot.

“Someone with experience is leading them,” Dallion said. “Cutting off our means of escape, then heading to get us. They probably have some music skill countermeasures as well.”

“Why do you think that?” Jenna asked.

More choppers landed, forming a large perimeter round the entire college campus. Each of them was loaded with dozen-person squads. While awakened, they didn’t seem to have retained any of their skills. For all intents and purposes, they merely had vastly improved speed and strength. Dallion had been worried about their perception capabilities, but by the looks of it, his fears were overblown. If nothing else, they weren’t able to see through a shroud of darkness less than three hundred feet away.

“Is Katka’s group set?” Dallion asked.

“She’ll be there,” Jenna replied. “I’ll make sure.”

“Will you be alright?”

Even without looking, Dallion could feel the emanations of the smile.

“The watchers won’t risk going after me,” the girl avoided the question. “I’m not sure we’ll be able to help you after this, though. The network doesn’t want to start a war, either.”

“I know.”

The drawback of a stalemate was that neither side could go too far. The “watchers” had tipped their hand, inconveniencing the void network. Even so, Dallion couldn’t expect them to openly ally with him. In the best of possible options, it was going to be a temporary alliance—he planned to go back. They didn’t.

As the final two choppers landed, Dallion concentrated on them in search of possible targets. Battle strategy suggested that the most capable troops would be sent to where he was believed to be. No one would waste competent forces in reserve, which meant that those in the back line would be the least capable on the scene. Also, there was a high probability that one of the choppers was for evac only. After half a minute of searching, Dallion was proven right.

The medevac chopper seemed no different from all the rest, with the exception that it carried no combat-oriented people. In fact, the only person who emerged didn’t have combat gear, but a casual uniform matching the dark green uniform the others had. To some degree, it was ironic that the colors chosen were those of Felygn, although it was more likely to be a coincidence.

“That one,” Dallion whispered.

“It won’t be easy getting there,” Alien added.

“It’s no different than any of the rest. We’ll just take a bit longer getting there.”

A loud bang sounded as a flash of purple light came from Dallion’s former dormitory building. Someone had triggered one of Alien’s magic traps. The spells were more flash and light than anything else—there was only so much someone could do using batteries as a power source. Still, the attackers didn’t know that, and after what had happened in Centennial, none of them were willing to risk it.

Masses of reserves rushed forward, as all attention was focused on the buildings.

“Now,” Dallion whispered and dashed forward.

Jenna and Alien clung close to him, doing their best to keep up. The distance from their hiding spot to the chopper in question was less than half a mile, which made it on the verge of their physical endurance. Even so, they gritted their teeth in an attempt to keep up. Simultaneously, another group of people did the same, sprinting to the same target. Dallion couldn’t see beneath the veil of voide, but he didn’t need to—Nox made it clear by clawing the fabric of his shirt in the appropriate direction.

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You really like sharpening your claws, don’t you, buddy? Dallion laughed internally.

While everyone was focused on the far greater commotion over a mile away, Dallion put his skills to use.

There were a total of four people at the chopper: two pilots and two medical staff.

Waiting for the last moment to break out of the shadow, Dallion opened the pilot’s door and hit the person inside on the side of the neck. Startled, the other turned to see what was going on. Since he had taken his comm helmet off, fortunately for Dallion, all he could do to raise the alarm was to shout, which is what he tried to do.

“He’s—” a word managed to leave the man’s lips. Without hesitating, Dallion used his music skills to utter an opposite sound, negating it. After that, he proceeded to knock the man out as well.

In the section behind, Alien slid the door open and cast several bolts of lightning to instantly immobilize the remaining occupants. Done, he dropped two small objects on the chopper floor, which quickly changed into car batteries.

“You’ve done this before?” Jenna asked, more than a bit alarmed.

“Lots,” the man admitted. “Not always to zap people, though. Is everything alright up there?”

“Getting there!” Dallion shouted as he whispered orders to the pilots. After ten seconds, he went through their pockets in search of papers. To little surprise, each of them had a pair of plastic cards of various colors. Unfortunately, all the cards had were photos and a series of numbers. “Damn it!”

Why couldn’t it ever be easy?

“We’re running out of time,” Alien urged.

In the distance, the commotion in the dorm room had started to die out. The squads had realized that the whole thing was a distraction and were communicating their findings on all channels. Dallion could hear the reports from the pilot’s headphones.

“Did it work?” Katka appeared near the chopper. She was accompanied by an old man—a linguistics professor at the college—who was shrouding her with his own veil of void. Based on his expression, and the emotions emanating from him, he didn’t approve of what was going on. Clearly, he didn’t have the authority to disobey Jenna’s orders.

“I’m getting there.” Dallion split into four instances as he searched through every section of the cockpit. “Jenna, you guys better go. No need to drag you down.”

As useful as void veils were, that wasn’t going to solve the problem. At best, it would grant him a few days, same as the escape from Centennial, before the watcher organization honed in on him again. If Dallion wanted to achieve his goals, he needed a long-term solution, even if it meant taking an increased number of risks.

The network had already done enough. They had helped him execute his plan as well as given him some rather valuable information. Most of all, they had told him where to look next.

“This is just like fighting the Azures,” Katka said as she joined Alien in the chopper.

“In what way?” the man asked.

“Lots of firepower, and no one knows what they are doing.”

“You forget I helped you win the war,” Dallion replied, going through the sheets of a clipboard.

“That’s not how the emperor saw things,” Alien noted. “He called you the most annoying pawn on the board.”

“Well, he’s not here now.” Dallion pulled out a sheet and tossed it to Alien.

“Let’s just hope you don’t fuck this up. Kat, how many rounds do you have?”

“Over a hundred,” the woman replied. “If it comes down to it, I could probably take out half.”

That sounded a bit like a boast. In any event, Dallion hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

A quarter of an hour later the operation came to an end. Power was restored to the grid, with no one being any wiser. The attempt to find and neutralize Dallion and the two mages had ended in utter failure. Somewhere within the organization, heads were going to roll. A vast amount of manpower and resources had been allocated to this simple task, and there was nothing to show for it. While the generator the group had used to escape had been found masked as a car, there was no sign of the targets. The only thing left behind were a few mage traps and a message warning the organization to back off. Writing analysis suggested that it had been written by Dallion.

Not a single person had been injured during the operation, including civilians. Dallion’s former roommate had been out partying and hadn’t been surprised by the storming of the room. Nonetheless, the Void Network had issued a protest to the organization. In turn, the watchers had accused them of aiding three dangerous non-affiliated and the overall stalemate was restored.

All choppers and military equipment had been flown back to their airfields, at which point any involved personnel had gone through an obligatory debriefing. Reports had been filed, electric grid usage remained constantly monitored, and everyone non-essential was flown back to their offices.

One of the people—a medical specialist, to be exact—was sent to New York. It wasn’t a mage or even someone with an active awakened skill, but his perception was much better than average to the point that he could see what lay beyond standard human perception. With the uneventful mission over, his orders were to return to his official job as head surgeon. What he didn’t know—what no one could suspect—was that he had made the trip with three additional pieces of hand luggage. He couldn’t find a reason why he had packed so heavily for the trip back, and no one checking him at the airport cared. It was only after the final luggage check at JFK Airport that he remembered—he hadn’t taken any hand luggage at all.

Meanwhile, Dallion, Katka, and Alien managed effortlessly to grab a cab in front of the airport and drive into the city.

“Back here again,” Katka said, looking out of the backseat window. “Never thought I’d be coming back here.”

“You’re from here?” Dallion asked.

“No. My aunt is. I used to visit a lot when I was a child. I found it okay, but my parents didn’t like it much.”

“We need to stop at a trash can.” Alien sounded exhausted. “I can’t hold the illusion for much longer.”

“Take us to a cheap hotel with internet,” Dallion told the driver using his music skills. “Dangerous is fine, but it must be clean.”

“Sure,” the man replied as he kept on driving, never having started the meter. “Should be there in forty minutes.”

“Make it an hour and you’ll get a tip.”

The comment was strange, leaving the false impression in the man that he had taken on a couple of tourists. There was no way he could refuse such a deal.

“Sure, sure.” He smiled. “Want to see some of the sights of New York?”

“Yes,” Dallion said. “The more the better.”

The truth was that he wasn’t going to look at anything. What he really wanted during this trip was to take a short nap.

Nox, watch out for me, he said mentally. If anything weird happens, splinter the cab.