Chapter 25: This Is Not a Game

Kain POV

The ugly, lumbering figure dragged itself out of the ocean with all the ceremony of a bloated slug with feet. It looked like a softshell tortoise and a whale had a baby, only it was a mottled greige-brown, and about the size of a large minibus. Nobody yet knew what it was, only that the feeling it gave off was one of menace and intense pressure. It was like the creature was trying to supress the whole group of combatants, both the humans and the marine life they’d been fighting, with the sheer force of its presence.

Kain was displeased to admit it was kind of working.

The only people who had no reaction were the sheltered. Even the quiet dagger wielder had frozen in spot, and Kain was pretty sure that guy was either on leave from active service, or a war vet.

The creature and the crowd were locked in a strange stalemate. Neither side moving to attack or retreat. The atmosphere held in a strange deadlock until some guy broke the silence.

“What is that?”

The stalemate broke, and the creature attacked. It stomped down once, hard, and the ground rippled, shattering the borders between many of the tide pools and causing a lot of people to stumble or fall. While the ripple itself hadn’t been huge, having the literal floor fall out from under a person made for an incredibly unstable experience.

“Sand dolphin. Level 7,” the woman wielding a large hammer had shouted over her shoulder. Kain didn’t know the young woman’s name, but everybody who’d been fighting for a while had witnessed her skill in action. It was something she called Identify.

She had been using that skill on and off every time a new or interesting creature showed up. Apparently, it let her see the species and level of creatures within a certain range of power to her, it even told her when a species didn’t yet have a name. So far, she hadn’t been wrong, which made Kain very worried.

Until now the highest level of creature she had identified was Level 4. It had taken three people to fight it. Two of them at Level 2, plus the woman herself. She was a Level 3 hammer-wielder. Even with three people and a weapon it had still taken an effort to bring that thing down. Before it had been stopped it had even managed to injure someone and the whole farming operation had nearly disbanded as a result.

While some people had left, a lot of people hadn’t been willing to give up on such a lucrative location – both materially and in levels. A lot of those same people, Kain included, were regretting that decision now, as he tried to escape the Level 7’s area of influence.

He should’ve known the conditions were too good to be true, and left while he was ahead. Sure, he’d managed to get couple levels and a System reward of his own. However, none of that was worth his life.

Why had he just assumed that Level 4 would be the most dangerous creature that would enter the area? Oh, right. Because a small part of him had been like that kid. Treating this like a game, assuming there were zones where boss monsters or creatures of too high a level wouldn’t show up. Somewhere between his first level up and claiming his reward, he’d forgotten this was real life.

Then the sand dolphin shrieked, a low, resonant, drone that warbled in the air and sent the small hairs on the back of Kain’s neck standing on end.

Time to flee, Kain thought. He tried to run, but whatever Skill was in use was still hampering movement. The strapped sandals he was wearing had begun to chafe against his damp skin, and he was starting to feel the exhaustion of over an hour of exertion piling up.

Just when the ground settled enough for him to try to run again, the creature stomped once more.

The earth rippled, the ground beneath him roiled, and Kain went down. Him and most other people. He had only made it to the edge of the area, but it appeared he wasn’t going to be making it any farther as a second, then a third smaller, though no less ugly sand dolphin flanked the first one.

They wasted no time as before the ground had even settled they were shooting jets of water from their beaks, aiming for the edges of the group, and cutting inwards.

“Level 4 and Level 4,” the hammer wielding woman called. Her voice wavered as she shuffled inwards, bunching up with everyone else between the seawall and the shoreline where the three dolphins had corralled them.

The water jets were short lived but powerful. While not as overwhelming as their larger companion’s earth stomp area-of-effect attack, they were still dangerous.

A few people were hit by the streams of water. One was blasted into the seawall behind them, and the other found their arm shredded off as they had tried to drop to the ground but weren’t fast enough to completely escape the violent stream. They’d been midway down and off balance when the attack clipped them, sending them flying back with such force that they tumbled several times over the craggy, wet ground and didn’t move again. Kain had no idea if they were still alive, but he knew they wouldn’t be for long if they didn’t get immediate medical attention for the blood loss.

Even the other aquatic beasts and animals hadn’t been spared from the dolphins’ tyranny. A large number of them had fled into the ocean, or were cowering in the tide pools they’d so confidently leapt from before. Others were crushed when the earth had roiled, or trampled by the rushing humans.

The sudden, violent wave of deaths brought about a stark realization in every person on that beach: They were trapped, they were outmatched, and if they wanted any chance at survival, they’d need to fight.

In one instant, everything stopped. Those trying to flee halted their attempts. Even the aggressive ocean life seemed to shift focus, from survival to solidarity. Then, by unspoken agreement, everything attacked.

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It was an orderless, chaotic mob of people. Some hurled stones or shells, others went in with fists and feet. More than one yelled war cries that might have been mistaken for shrieks of terror or desperation, as they threw themselves bodily at the ugly beasts that had boxed them in.

A few people with Skills did some damage, and the group actually managed to knock down the Level 4 sand dolphin on the left, but mostly they just served as a nuisance and a distraction. A couple dozen untrained individuals, armed mostly with baseball bats, hockey sticks, and one kid’s cast-iron frying pan, did not make a proper fighting force. People died. A lot of people died.

This was not a game. It had never been one. The battle became a slaughter, and the beach a horror scene that Kain knew would revisit him in his nightmares for years to come.

Only four people on that beach had actual weapons. The war vet in his late thirties. The guy had the look of someone who’d seen too much and decided to substitute therapy with violence. He’d been quiet and efficient, fighting in his own pocket of beach, but Kain was certain he’d killed more creatures than anyone else.