There was no time to waste, and TJ activated Divine Transformation. With his current Attributes, could keep the Skill up for four and a half hours, so he did the first thing that he, Stanton, and Lailani had planned. He laid on the ground just behind the ditch and wall that they'd excavated just an hour before. As another tripping hazard and, hopefully, something that'd draw the attention and ire of hundreds of monsters, he'd keep the initial wave from gaining the walls. That first charge was the most important, and if he could keep one of the two large, previously breached ramparts from being overrun just as the assault began, it would be enough for the first step.
Behind him, Participants hustled to fight off the thousands of enemies that needed to attack the fort in the next two minutes. They didn't have even that long to wait as the first javelinas and coyotes burst forward. The coyotes didn't struggle with the trench and barricade, simply leaping over. Fortunately, many of the pigs struggled to leap so adroitly. Many tumbled and fell as their hooves caught in the loose mud comprising the walls. Beyond that, there was TJ. He wasn't going to use his MP just yet, instead focusing himself on only striking with his jaws and coils for now. As the coyotes entered his range, he needed to do something or else they'd rip into him or ignore him.
With a hissing roar, TJ snapped out and caught a coyote's front legs in his jaws. He merely ground his jaws down and snapped both at once. The creature crippled, there was no need for him to pay it any more attention. More than killing them, he needed to slow the monsters. Since most of the monsters that'd reached him were coyotes, his foot-thick body thrashing with his over 400 Strength was more than enough to snap legs like twigs and spines like kindling. The agonized squeals of the wendigo-raised coyotes filled the air, punctuated with the thuds of his body smashing against the ground again and again.
Dozens of jaws and hundreds of teeth fought to pierce his scales, but the fast, intelligent coyotes lacked the strength to do more than lightly bruise him. TJ moved over like a rolling pin, tripping dozens of his assailants while squishing more. As the first of the javelinas crested the little hill, they charged down on him. Their tusks managed to pierce his skin, but only barely. With Divine Authority and Storm Soul, he recovered 1710 HP an hour or almost 30 HP a minute. His total trickled down, but nothing frightening yet. TJ continued to indulge the animalistic rage that'd built inside him for the entirety of the Tutorial.
For the first time in a long while, TJ fully let himself go. Instead of relying on one of his other additional Skills, he let his body, strengthened by Divine Authority and Primal Savagery, be his weapon. Everything that approached was smashed by his body or ripped into pieces by his jaws. Mud coated his body and served as another layer of defense. Like an implacable monster, TJ shredded every single creature that approached.
When he started to feel real pain, TJ pulled himself from his inhuman frenzy. Several Gila Monstrosities were latched onto him at various places, and though their poison seemed to be something he could resist as a coatl, their jaws were strong enough to push their teeth into his flesh. He roared in response to the monsters' arrival, at the presence of creatures challenging his sovereignty. Even so, he refrained from using any Skills, instead changing from his mindless destruction. With three swift snaps of his jaws, he decapitated the Gila Monstrosities that were gnawing on him.
As he reared up to look at the fort's current state, TJ was interrupted. A flurry of spears launched from near and far, all focused on his head. Most clattered off his scales, and one came dangerously close to his eye. Two, evidently from the damned long-ranged pukwudgies, pierced into his throat and made him gag. Fortunately, the spears only got an inch or two into his flesh. His breath wheezed, but he would survive. TJ turned and whipped his tail through a small battalion of pukwudgies. They went flying, bones cracking, and TJ made his retreat.
He'd slowed well over half of the monsters that'd approached from this direction, and behind him, the defenders were easily holding their position. Axes, spears, and clubs were the most frequent weapons lashing out at pukwudgies. Unfortunately, even on this face, the occasional hit from a monster was enough to merit the defender being pulled back from the wall. Screams of terror, rage, and agony filled the air, and TJ launched himself over the frontmost wall of monsters trying to scale the shoddily repaired wall.
In the air, TJ released Divine Transformation and pushed himself further into the fort. He landed without much trouble well within the bounds of safety and checked the timer until wave 3.
27:32
"How's it only been three minutes?" TJ asked aloud. Then, refocusing himself, he hopped onto the grocery store's roof to look at the walls. As soon as he went up, Angelo hopped next to him and began pumping some healing into him. As the Disciple Medic healed him, TJ first looked at his resources to evaluate what he was going to do moving forward.
Health Points (HP): 2017/2890
Mana Points (MP): 2710/2790
Stamina: 1768/2570
That wasn't as bad as he'd thought it might be. The care he'd taken to preserve his MP would allow him to go a little wild for a little while, but he needed to reserve himself for the beginning of wave 3. There wasn't anything to do about his Stamina, but he was holding steady. TJ pulled his attention back to the walls as Angelo pushed his HP nearly to full.
Stanton's bulwark was holding steady, though it seemed to be struggling. Just when TJ considered going
to support them, Rebekkah stepped forward from the back lines and covered her fists with flames. Then, darting forward, she smashed through three of the pukwudgies that'd gained the walls. Each punch flared with light and drove the monsters back. Surprisingly, Leilani's wall showed no signs of struggle, every defender fighting hard. TJ noticed that the rain on her wall glowed a faint, lively green. The humans in that rain didn't tire and their wounds visibly healed as they fought.
Then there was the fourth wall, unmanned by a Copper, sandwiched between TJ and Stanton.
There, Farid, Connor, Sarah, Peter, and Molly fought desperately. Sarah fought decisively, though not so flashily as she had before. Everyone knew that if they exhausted themselves completely for this second wave, then they'd absolutely die on the third. Even so, they needed to not die on this second wave, so everyone was fighting to understand what the lines they needed to stay within were. The lynchpin of their defence was Molly.
Instead of maintaining a position on the wall and holding monsters back from it, Molly was a constantly moving menace. Whenever a pukwudgie raised its spear to throw at a Disciple, Molly was there ripping its throat out. Whenever a Gila Monstrosity began tearing into the walls to expose them to other monsters, Molly was on top of it, savaging it to death. Whenever a defender flagged, about to die, Molly was there to cover for their exhausted weakness.
TJ forced himself to ignore the several unmoving bodies sitting in the middle of the fort. Instead, he shouted to Stanton, "Elites?"
"I've killed two wendigos!" He replied. "Sight on one raven!"
"Two Chindis here!" Lailani declared. "No view of anything, but I feel two Ravens in the clouds!"
As soon as she said it, TJ felt stupid. He extended his consciousness to the clouds above him and felt the two ravens there. With a rictus of a grin, he clapped his hands together, and in the skies, the clouds did the same. The fragile ravens disappeared once, twice, three times as they used their strange teleportation ability, but on TJ's fourth attack, there was no more they could do. Their twisted bodies fell unceremoniously from the sky. TJ didn't pay them any mind.
"That's six down! At least four more, maybe six!"
"Five more!" Seth shouted out as he shot an explosive bolt into a cluster of javelinas gathering themselves to charge down a wall. Two exploded as Seth continued to shoot an individual dead with each bolt. "Three wendigos, one each of the others! Not sure where the Chindi is, but all three wendigos are there and the raven just retreated to the trees!"
"Lailani, you're on the Chindi!" TJ screamed as he turned to look at the little pack of wendigos. While he looked, Stanton raised his gun and Suzie transformed into a .50 cal. He sighted down her for a moment before squeezing a single shot off that blew the head off of one of the Elites immediately.
"I got the highest level one. Now I'll find the raven!" Stanton shouted. "You take care of those two!"
TJ didn't complain or say anything more, instead just running off the roof and pushing himself forward with the wind once again. The hundreds of crumpled bodies underneath him didn't matter. Only the two monsters over there.
While still airborne, TJ activated Divine Transformation as he Appraised the two Elites.
Wendigo, 21
Wendigo, 19
That wendigo being over level 20 was worrisome. TJ could kill it, for sure, but he wanted to keep as much of himself in reserve as possible. There was a possible solution that wouldn't cost too much though… Without thinking harder about it, TJ strengthened Divine Transformation with Manifestation, drawing half of the cost for the Skill from the storm overhead. It would still last for another nine hours, and he didn't think the Boss was going to give them that long to recover. All of his Attributes surged, and TJ ignored the frost coating the flaming-eyed monsters. One tried to say something in warning to him, to screech some idiocy, but his life was at stake, Junior's freedom was in jeopardy. There wasn't a damned thing they could say that would stop him.
TJ focused his attack on the weaker one first. The frost that coated his face threatened his vision, but TJ ducked low and caught a leg in his jaws. As he lifted the wendigo up, its claws sought his eyes. He whipped it down onto the ground. It sunk a couple inches into the muddy earth. The coatl dove down, but instead of opening his jaws to the claws that were looking to find his brain, he curved to the side and caught the head of the higher-leveled wendigo in his maw.
It immediately tried to do something, but TJ didn't wait. It blew frigid air down his throat, but he merely continued biting down. With over 500 points in Strength, the wendigo's bones creaked and tried to resist, but it was mere seconds later that its spine cracked and the creature was decapitated. The weaker one turned to try to flee, and TJ spat the other skull out, accelerating the missile to the speed of a bullet. When it hit the other wendigo's spine, it blew straight through. With its spine as the only thing holding the skeletal creature together, it fell prostrate and TJ gave it no time to devour a corpse to survive. Seizing the monster's upper body in his jaws, TJ hurled the thing back towards the fort as he stopped drawing on the Storm's power through Divine Manifestation.
"Pull!" He warned Stanton, and before the Elite was halfway to the fort, its head exploded in a puff of blue flame and bone shrapnel. As he retreated back to the fort, TJ couldn't feel the Raven Mocker flying anywhere, and the mostly exterminated army of monsters was trying to pull back. Though exhausted, the defenders of Pine showed no quarter. Dozens more pukwudgies and coyotes fell at the assault of hardened, truly spent fighters. Just as soon as the creatures escaped, the defenders sagged to the ground. Mud, blood, viscera, rain, sweat, tears, and more covered every defender, conscious or not, living or dead.
TJ looked at the Disciples. He didn't want to, but he had to ask.
"How many dead?"
"Another eight." Laura replied, blood covering her hands, arms, and legs. She didn't react to the crimson stains, simply sitting on the ground in numb, possibly defeated exhaustion.
"We're down to 78." TJ muttered.
"Yeah." Laura whispered. "122 of all the people in here have died. The worst is yet to come. Have we hardened ourselves enough? Or will this crucible leave none of us alive?"
TJ didn't have a response, simply checking the System's timer for how long remained, and seeing that it was a mere 22 minutes, he swiftly pushed himself into Meditation. After all, the third wave was about to arrive.