Chapter 7-188: Charnel Charcoal Pit (1/2)

I always had stuff to shoot, given the range I could plink stuff at, and salvoes of Darts were reaching out constantly at range, sometimes split up, sometimes as a Ray, Chained, or Split, whatever was needed to inflict maximum carnage.

I was judicious and spare on using up Slots, as there were a bunch of Cultivators trapped on the island right over there who needed to die. I wasn’t sure if they realized what a pickle they were in, as they simply watched the carnage from afar, as if it didn’t matter to them what was happening.

I found that pretty funny, but just kept up with my zapping and Chaining, while the lads all concentrated on finishing stuff, and Sama, Briggs, Master Fred, and the Mick focused on keeping violent personal attention focused on themselves and their Fast-Healing Health.

This was a big, big nom-nom Karma harvest, and even if we couldn’t quite get to looting everything properly, it was a slaughter with a lot of threats coming from all directions, forcing everyone to stay on their toes at all times. Burning frozen shots were going off constantly, Guns were roaring, flaming Spirit beasts were bellowing and dying, and Karmic Hauls were spiking nicely.

A shindig like this was plenty enough to get someone to Ten, given the size and danger level of all the creatures we were butchering. By unspoken agreement, Sama and Briggs had the Shooters working with them, while The Mick, Sir Pellier, Helix, Father Bower, and Master Fred were focused with me, with Master Fred and The Mick drawing attention while the rest of us did fire support.

Given my range, I had absolutely no problem supporting Sama and Briggs, either, and so anything big coming in got softened up hard before it could reach them.

The most popular Buff I was handing out was Arrowflight.

This was a ten-minute Buff that doubled the base damage of ranged weapon fire. Everyone shooting had Profound Weapons, so they were all doing 3-21 or 4-24 base damage already, and doubling that meant their shotguns and rifles hit like cannons. It was designed for use in mass combat, but mass slaughter was certainly worth using it on, and when particularly large numbers of creatures came in, it was easy to drop it on them, and immediately double every shooter’s damage output, to murderous results.

It was a common spell to be Sieged, given you constantly wanted it up in a battlefield situation, but that was another Rep Count thing...

I Summoned up a Mass Phantom Servants, Shaped up some obsidian knives and lots of jars for them, and set them to carving out the Cores of the dead and collecting blood and hearts, since we were way too busy to do so ourselves. Sleipner’s side car was getting full, and the contents had to be Itemized repeatedly, such a horrible situation to have...

The carnage and killing frenzy was affecting the Qi, making the incoming creatures even crazier, while to us it simply stank even worse. They raged against one another, then realized tasty magic-using folk were over here, came our way for a delightful meal, and ended up power comps and stuff.

Vivus was soon blazing everywhere, and warring trails of burning blood, black volcanic rock, and vivisized whiteness were crawling and competing everywhere. There were mounds of large bodies everywhere, frozen, shattered, burning, hacked, shot, sliced, and chopped. Phantasmal figures were crawling over the dead, jars of blood were being carted away on Disks into a cave over there, and our haul was getting more and more massive.

Alas, we couldn’t keep all the meat... which didn’t mean I didn’t keep large amounts from here and there, label them clearly, and bundle them up for transport, la la la. Sama and Briggs gave me knowing smirks at that behavior, as it was only in keeping with a proper Power of Ten gamer to Loot Everything, and a Summoner marshalling an army of Disks and Servants was like the perfect means to do so!

Higher Tier Servants could also be imbued with Skill Ranks, and while they weren’t as good as pure Butchery, someone’s Heal, Survival, and Alchemy Ranks could all be used to speed up harvesting of the dead, too, for the rare moments of downtime

I was spending more Valences on our loot than on our killing. Given that everyone else was also killing, that was par for the course.

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“Calling it!” Briggs announced, as Endure came down, and a tiger the size of an elephant, its chest already bearing a dark circle of hoarfrost from a passing Dartray, found its massive head getting slammed to the bloody, burning black ground in midleap by a Hammer moving way too fast for something that heavy. “It’s time to go!”

Sama’s reply was a whole lot of swearing, and she leapt into a bunch of meter-long crimson ants, looking totally annoyed that her fun was being interrupted. Bits and pieces of chopped insects exploded in all directions as her Cleave Train tore through them, and their swarming tactics just resulted in the whole mass of them dying explosively before they realized they should be fleeing instead of fighting.

The Shooters backed away to our treasure cave, while Phantasmal Servants bundled up jars and Exsanguinating Tubes, others hastily carved the last of the Cores out of the bigger dead things they hadn’t gotten to, and I started nonstop shooting Vivic Darts all over the place to really clean the place up.

The incoming Qi was making the vivus really blaze up, consuming it even faster as it devoured the Qi-heavy corpses, and exacerbating the nasty situation the Cultivators had found themselves in. Whole sections of the incoming Qi flows were instead being converted back into hostile mana, flowing into the ground outside their harvesting Formation, helping strangle and isolate it even more.

It was some really Good work, if I did say so myself.

Everyone pulled back, covering for one another, the torrent of fire never letting up. Chainrays arced every which way, finishing shots doing their job afterwards as we pulled into the cave.

“Sama and I are going to stay here,” Briggs announced, and nobody really said anything to that. They were both Sustained, and as the vivus was cleaning heaps of blood and gore off of them even now, they both looked excited, hale, and ready to go for another twelve hours.

“We’ll be back at Dusk Renewal. I put a Seal up on the rim. If there’s any problems, you go up there and I can pull you out, and that’s where we’ll insert when we return.”

Sama glanced at the Holo as she sent a Sharding out to smoothly remove the head of an incoming eight-foot scarlet mantis from its neck. “Got it!”

Unless something huge came up, that wasn’t going to happen, and if something huge came up, they were just going to run like hell, probably to a much more distant evac point.

Valences burned as Tapestries reduced loot to a wall hanging, stacks of jars and bundles of body parts became Itemized scrolls, and then I Mass Reduced everyone here, swept them all up into my Teleport, and we were out of there.