Chapter 36 : Coordinated Assault(Part 1)
Day 102 - Dawn
The alarm jolted me awake at 5:47 AM.
Not the normal System notification chime, a blaring emergency siren that Dr. Chen had programmed into our detection network. The kind of alarm that meant something catastrophic was happening.
I rolled out of bed, already reaching for my armor. Through Battlefield Awareness, I could feel the compound erupting into controlled chaos, people moving to stations, weapons being distributed, tactical squads assembling.
Maya burst through my door without knocking. "Seventeen rifts. All at once. Dawn exactly."
I froze, one arm through my chest plate.
"What?"
"Seventeen simultaneous rift formations across Seattle." Her face was pale. "Dr. Chen says it's impossible. The probability of natural synchronization is astronomical. Someone or something triggered them deliberately."
My blood ran cold. Seventeen rifts meant seventeen battles. Even with the Pacific West Alliance, we didn't have enough forces to handle that many simultaneously.
"Classifications?" I asked, finishing with my armor and grabbing my weapons.
"Still analyzing, but..." Maya's expression darkened. "Three of them are reading Tier-6. Extinction-class threats."
Three Tier-6 enemies. At the same time.
During the Integration, a single Tier-5 boss had killed dozens. Tier-6 was exponentially worse,entities that could level city blocks, that required coordinated assault from hundreds of fighters.
And we had three of them.
"Invoke the alliance," I said immediately, heading for the door. "Emergency mutual defense clause. Get Marcus Wu, Torres, and Elder Zhao on comms now. We need every fighter they can spare."
"Already done," Maya said, falling into step beside me. "Wu's responding with a hundred fighters. Torres is sending thirty. Zhao's mobilizing fifty. They're en route now, but..."
"But it'll take them time to arrive," I finished.
"How long until the first Tier-6 emerges?"
"Dr. Chen estimates ten minutes. Maybe less."
We reached the command center at a dead sprint. The holographic displays showed a nightmare,seventeen red markers spread across Seattle like a disease, three of them pulsing with ominous energy signatures that dwarfed anything I'd seen before.
Lucas was already there, his precognitive abilities clearly having warned him. General Cross stood beside him, fully armored, radiating controlled violence.
"Tactical assessment," I said, my Strategic Mind already processing combat scenarios.
Dr. Chen pulled up the data. "Tier-6 Alpha: Green Lake waterfront, 1.2 miles from here. Classified as 'Void Drake', dimensional dragon variant. Tier-6 Beta: University District, 3 miles north. Unknown classification, energy readings suggest crystalline composition. Tier-6 Gamma: Downtown waterfront, 4 miles south. Minimal data, but thermal signatures indicate extreme heat-based entity."
"And the fourteen smaller rifts?" Cross asked.
"Tier-3 through Tier-5, scattered across our territory." Dr. Chen's fingers flew across her interface. "If we ignore them to focus on the Tier-6 threats, they'll spawn enough creatures to overrun civilian zones."
A perfect tactical nightmare. Too many threats, not enough forces, and no good options.
"We split our forces," I decided. "Three primary assault groups for the Tier-6 threats. Smaller squads handle the minor rifts. Rotate forces as battles conclude." I turned to Lucas. "You take Beta at the University.
Cross takes Gamma downtown. I'll handle Alpha at the waterfront."
"That leaves you facing the closest Tier-6 with minimal support," Maya objected.
"No." I activated Tactical Link, feeling the familiar rush as my awareness expanded. "I'll have the alliance reinforcements. Wu's hundred fighters arrive in twenty minutes, they'll join me at Alpha. Torres's team can reinforce Lucas. Zhao's forces support Cross."
Through the command interface, I could see our total available forces: 465 Green Lake Alliance members, minus civilians, medical staff, and essential personnel. That left maybe 300 combat-capable fighters.
Against seventeen rifts and three Tier-6 monsters.
We were going to lose people today.
"Deploy all combat squads," I ordered.
"Tactical Link active for all three primary groups. I'll coordinate overall strategy while managing Alpha directly. Lucas, Cross, you have tactical autonomy for your battles, but I need constant status updates."
"Understood," Lucas said.
"Acknowledged," Cross rumbled.
I pulled up the deployment interface, my Strategic Mind working overtime to optimize force distribution. Battlefield Awareness fed me real-time data on every fighter's position, readiness, equipment status.
"Maya, you're with me at Alpha. Lisa, establish medical triage points at all three Tier-6 sites. Dr. Chen, maintain overwatch and feed me dimensional stability data. If these rifts start cascading..."
"You'll know immediately," she confirmed.
The first rift erupted.
Through Battlefield Awareness, I felt it, a massive distortion in reality at the Green Lake waterfront. The Tier-6 Alpha had arrived.
[DIMENSIONAL RIFT DETECTED]
[THREAT CLASSIFICATION: TIER-6 EXTINCTION EVENT]
[ENTITY: VOID DRAKE]
[LEVEL: 28]
[RECOMMENDATION: EVACUATE AREA IMMEDIATELY]
"All forces, move out!" I commanded. "This is what we trained for. Stay coordinated, follow tactical guidance, and we all go home alive."
I just hoped that wasn't a lie.
6:15 AM - Green Lake Waterfront
The Void Drake was beautiful in the way that natural disasters are beautiful, awe-inspiring, terrible, and utterly wrong.
It had emerged from a rift the size of a building, a serpentine creature easily sixty feet long. But calling it a dragon was misleading. Its body seemed to exist partially outside normal space, edges that blurred and shifted, scales that reflected impossible colors, eyes that showed glimpses of void between stars.
Where it moved, reality itself damaged. The ground beneath its claws cracked not from weight but from dimensional stress. The air around it shimmered with Void energy that made my System interface glitch just looking at it.
[VOID DRAKE - LEVEL 28]
[HP: 15,000/15,000]
[ABILITIES: VOID BREATH, DIMENSIONAL FLIGHT, ADAPTIVE REGENERATION, REALITY DISTORTION]
[WARNING: TIER-6 ENTITIES POSSESS ZONE CONTROL ABILITIES]
[CASUALTY PROJECTION: 60-80% WITHOUT COORDINATED ASSAULT]
Sixty to eighty percent casualties. The System was predicting we'd lose more than half our fighters.
Not acceptable.
I had 140 Green Lake fighters assembled, every combat-capable person who could reach the waterfront in time. They spread out in tactical formation, weapons ready, abilities primed. Through Tactical Link, I could feel their fear, their determination, their trust in my coordination.
The pressure of that trust was crushing.
"Ranged fighters, suppression fire!" I commanded through the Link. "Don't try to hurt it, just get its attention. Melee fighters, defensive perimeter. Mages, begin charging ultimate abilities. We hit it with everything once the alliance reinforcements arrive."
Arrows, bullets, and minor spells lanced toward the Void Drake. Most deflected off its reality-distorting aura, but a few struck home, dealing negligible damage.
The Drake's head swiveled toward us with predatory focus.
"SCATTER!" I screamed through the Link.
Its mouth opened, revealing not a throat but a glimpse of absolute nothing, the void between dimensions. Void Breath erupted in a cone of nonexistence.
My Tactical Overlord abilities went into overdrive. Through Battlefield Awareness, I could see the attack's trajectory, predict its spread pattern, calculate who was in danger.
Forty-three fighters in the kill zone.
"NORTH GROUPS, DIVE RIGHT! SOUTH GROUPS, SHIELD WALL!" The commands came faster than thought, pushed through Tactical Link directly into their minds.
The fighters moved with inhuman synchronization. North groups threw themselves sideways just as Void Breath passed through where they'd been standing.
South groups raised their System-enhanced shields in a coordinated wall.
The Void Breath hit the shield wall like a tsunami of erasure.
Six shields shattered instantly. Three fighters screamed as their arms simply ceased to exist, not burned or destroyed, but unmade at a fundamental level. Two more vanished entirely, erased from reality.
But thirty-eight survived who shouldn't have.
"HEALERS TO CASUALTY POINTS
ALPHA-3 AND ALPHA-7!" I commanded.
"MAGES, STATUS ON ULTIMATE ABILITIES?"
"Seventy percent charged," came the coordinated response through the Link.
Not enough. We needed those alliance reinforcements.
The Void Drake launched itself into the air, its Dimensional Flight ability allowing it to phase partially out of normal space. Arrows and spells passed harmlessly through its ghostly form.
Then it solidified directly above our densest formation and descended like a meteor.
"DISPERSE FORMATION OMEGA!" I commanded.
The fighters scattered in a pre-programmed pattern, one we'd drilled dozens of times.
Instead of a cluster, they spread into a circular formation that minimized the Drake's impact zone while maintaining firing angles.
The Drake crashed into empty ground, its reality-distorting aura pulverizing concrete. But only empty ground.
"NOW! CONVERGING ASSAULT PATTERN!"
A hundred forty fighters attacked from all sides simultaneously. Coordinated, precise, each strike timed to flow with the others.
Tactical Link let me orchestrate them like a symphony of violence.
The Void Drake's HP dropped.
15,000 → 14,200 → 13,800 → 13,100
But then it triggered Adaptive Regeneration.
I watched in horror as its wounds closed, reality itself seeming to rewind around the creature.
13,100 → 14,800 → 15,000
It had healed 1,900 HP in seconds.
"FALL BACK TO SECONDARY POSITIONS!" I commanded. "REFORM DEFENSIVE LINE!"
We'd barely scratched it, and it could heal faster than we damaged it.
We needed the alliance. Now.
As if summoning them through sheer desperation, I felt new presences entering my Battlefield Awareness range.
Marcus Wu's Dragon Coalition had arrived.
6:32 AM - Alliance Coordination
One hundred fresh fighters poured into the battlefield with disciplined precision. Marcus Wu led them personally, his Level 16 aura blazing like a beacon.
Through Tactical Link, I immediately integrated them into my coordination network.
Wu's mind touched mine through the Link, and I felt his surprise at the depth of connection. Most tactical abilities offered surface-level communication. Tactical Overlord went deeper, shared awareness, coordinated thoughts, almost telepathic combat synchronization.
Impressive, Wu's thought echoed through the Link. No wonder you've survived this long.
Save the compliments, I thought back. I need your hundred fighters integrated into assault pattern Delta. Can your people handle complex coordination?
They're the best in San Francisco. Show me what you need.
I pushed the tactical plan directly into his mind through the Link, a three-phase assault that would exploit the Void Drake's recovery cycle. Phase One: Overwhelming burst damage to trigger Adaptive Regeneration.
Phase Two: Mana disruption to interrupt the healing. Phase Three: Coordinated ultimate abilities to destroy the mana core before it could regenerate again.
Risky, Wu acknowledged. If Phase Two fails, we're exposed during our ultimate ability charges.
You have a better plan?
No. Let's do it.
I expanded Tactical Link to its maximum capacity, incorporating all 240 fighters into a single coordinated consciousness. The mental strain was enormous, my Strategic Mind processing hundreds of variables per second, Battlefield Awareness tracking every position, Command Aura amplifying everyone's combat effectiveness.
But it worked.
"ALL FORCES, PHASE ONE: ALPHA STRIKE PATTERN!"
Two hundred forty fighters attacked as one organism. Ranged fighters unleashed every damaging ability simultaneously. Melee fighters struck in perfectly timed combinations that exploited micro-openings in the Drake's defenses. Mages channeled destructive spells with synchronized timing that created cascading elemental reactions.
The Void Drake's HP plummeted.
15,000 → 12,800 → 10,200 → 8,600 → 7,100
The Drake roared, a sound that shattered windows three blocks away, and triggered Adaptive Regeneration.
"PHASE TWO: MANA DISRUPTION, NOW!"
Our specialized mana-disruption fighters, only twelve total across both alliances, unleashed their abilities simultaneously.
Disruption fields overlapped, creating a zone where mana couldn't flow properly.
The Void Drake's regeneration stuttered.
7,100 → 8,300 → 9,100 → 9,400
It was still healing, but slower. Much slower.
"PHASE THREE: ULTIMATE ABILITIES, SYNCHRONIZED STRIKE ON MY MARK!"
Fifty fighters, every person capable of an ultimate-level ability, began charging. Through Tactical Link, I synchronized their timing, ensuring they'd all release within the same one-second window.
The Void Drake, sensing the threat, launched itself toward our ultimate ability users.
"DEFENSIVE TEAMS, INTERCEPT!"
Marcus Wu personally led the interception, his Dragon Coalition fighters forming a living wall between the Drake and our charging mages. The Drake's claws raked through their formation, killing three fighters instantly and wounding a dozen more.
But they held.
"ULTIMATE ABILITIES CHARGED! MARK!"
Fifty ultimate abilities released as one.
The Void Drake's reality-distorting aura met the concentrated assault, and shattered. Elemental explosions, kinetic lances, dimensional tears, and pure mana detonations converged on a single point: the Drake's mana core.
Through Battlefield Awareness, I watched the creature's internal structure fracture. Its HP didn't drop gradually, it plummeted.
9,400 → 6,200 → 2,800 → 900 → 0
But the mana core remained intact.
"WU! INFERNO LANCE, CENTER MASS!"
Marcus Wu, who'd been holding his ultimate ability in reserve, unleashed it. A spear of white-hot flame that burned reality itself lanced through the Void Drake's chest cavity.
The mana core shattered.
The Void Drake's death scream was a dimensional tear, a sound that existed in frequencies human ears weren't meant to perceive. Then it collapsed, its body degrading into Void energy that dissipated like smoke.
[VOID DRAKE DEFEATED]
[EXPERIENCE GAINED: 180,000]
[LEVEL UP! 16 → 17]
[BONUS: +15,000 ALLIANCE EXPERIENCE DISTRIBUTED]
[CASUALTIES: 7 KILLED, 23 WOUNDED]
[RIFT ESSENCE CRYSTAL OBTAINED]
Seven dead. Twenty-three wounded. Against a Tier-6 entity that should have killed sixty percent of our forces.
Through perfect coordination, we'd beaten the System's casualty projections by an order of magnitude.
"Healers, triage the wounded!" I commanded. "Perimeter teams, secure the area. We're not done, two more Tier-6 threats are still active."
Through my expanded awareness, I could feel the other battles raging. Lucas's team at the University was engaged with the crystalline entity. Cross's forces downtown were fighting desperately against the heat-based monster.
And both battles were going badly.
Marcus Wu approached, his expensive suit now torn and bloodstained, but his eyes were sharp with calculation.
"Remarkable coordination," he said. "I've never seen Tactical Link used with that level of precision. Most commanders can barely manage fifty fighters. You just orchestrated two hundred forty."
"We're not done," I said. "Lucas needs reinforcement at the University District. That crystalline entity is..."
My Battlefield Awareness suddenly screamed a warning.
At Cross's battle site downtown, something terrible had just happened. I felt the psychic echo of massive casualties, a wave of death that hit like a punch to the gut.
Eighteen people. Dead in an instant.
"Cross, status!" I commanded through the Link.
His response came through gritted teeth, pain and fury mixed together. Tier-6 Gamma is a Magma Colossus. Just wiped out my entire eastern flank with a lava eruption. I'm holding the line, but we're getting slaughtered.
Eighteen dead. And more dying by the second.
"Wu, take half your forces to support Lucas at the University," I decided instantly. "I'm taking my people to Cross. He's in trouble."Wu nodded without argument, he'd felt the casualties too through the extended Tactical Link. "Good luck, Commander."
I was already moving, Maya beside me, sixty of our fastest fighters following.
We had to get to Cross before more people died.
[END OF CHAPTER 36 PART 1]
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Current Status:
Ethan's Level: 17 (22% to 18)
Void Drake: DEFEATED
Casualties So Far: 7killed, 23 wounded (Void Drake battle)
Cross's Battle: 18 dead, situation critical
Lucas's Battle: Status unknown
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