The silver-rank monsters were low, flat, and dark-shelled, like scorpions. They lacked pincers, each instead boasting a trio of over-long scorpion tails that ended not in piercing barbs but raking claws. The tails could reach out twice the length of their bodies, which were roughly the size of a mattress.
They were not agile, but their raw speed was in the mid-range of silver rank, making them hard for Jason to pin down. Their hard shells made penetrating them difficult, so even if a hit landed, his special attacks only worked if damage got through. For this reason, he pulled his sword out rather than conjure his dagger.
The sword Gary made, Dread Salvation, was designed to help Jason in his most troubling fights. For every hit that landed, when the target was immune via impenetrable armour, the sword built up a charge of resonating-force. That damage type was ideally suited to getting through armour, doing extra damage and resonating through. Jason gave up the afflictions of his conjured dagger, but the numerous creatures were weak for silver-rank monsters.
Weak silver-rank fortitude was still silver-rank fortitude, however. It took every affliction he could lay on to deal with them, but his spells were fortunately much easier to land. With only a few ranged monsters spitting poison barbs or acidic bile, there was little to interrupt him.
Even with his sword, the trick was landing hits on the speeding swarms. Although their patterns were simple, their pace was a major threat to Jason. He faced them like a bullfighter. He took a number of brutal hits before he started to master the timing. The advantage of the burst attack nature of the creatures was that Jason had time to recover.
Now that he was solidly into the mid-range of bronze, his toughness was much improved. More effective was the increased power of Colin’s regeneration and the health drain of his Leech Bite special attack. His power to drain afflictions and convert them into stamina and mana kept him going when other parts of the Network’s forces were forced to bow out.
Jason was only part of the response team. Farrah’s peak bronze-rank speed attribute and sweeping attacks with her telescoping magma sword gave her the edge to sweep through whole clusters. Although her reflexes were up to the task, her mobility was lacking. The monsters were left trying to overwhelm her powerful armour. Like Jason, they were ill-suited to punching through a hard shell.
Jason and Farrah each had their own challenges to overcome in the fight. Farrah's challenge was to hold as much mana in reserve as she could to last out the fight. This meant largely sticking to her sword, but her immobility would sometimes lead multiple groups of the silver-rank monsters to converge. At that stage, she was forced to spend as little mana as she could fending them off as efficiently as possible with her costly powers.
The outworlders were used to being the stars of the show, but in this instance, it was the Network teams that were truly stepping up. Their disciplined, focus-fire attacks surprised Jason and Farrah with their effectiveness against the silver-rankers. Against the hordes of lower-ranked monsters, the Network’s tactics demonstrated why the organisation put so much stock in them. The hordes were swept away with an efficiency that neither Jason nor Farrah could have matched, even with their whole teams present.
Jason had his shredded combat armour pegged up on the rear deck of the houseboat, hosing off the blood. The monster blood was long gone, but Jason’s remained. It would disappear itself into rainbow smoke after being away from his body for an hour or so, but he’d rather have it gone from his outfit by then.
Ian and Erika found him, no shirt, hosing off the ragged remains of the outfit. The crest tattoo covering his back was in full display, as were his torso scars.
“I know girls like scars, Jason,” Erika said, her light tone not entirely masking her concern, “but that might be a bit much.”
“I know, right?” Jason replied. “I finally get some ab definition and it looks like someone scribbled all over them.”
“What’s that thing?” Ian asked, indicating the armour. “Is it the hide of some monster?”
“It’s made from monster hide,” Jason said. “It’s my armour. You’ve seen me wear it.”
“Wait,” Erika said. “That’s your armour?”
“Yep.”
“The armour you wear?”
“That’s how armour works.”
“It’s cut to ribbons,” she said.
“It was a rough one,” Jason acknowledged. “Farrah’s already meditating on it to consolidate her gains. I’ll join her once I’m done here.”
“Were you wearing the armour when that happened to it?” Ian asked.
“I'm fine,” Jason said. “Look at me; no new scars.”
“Isn’t armour meant to withstand attacks like that?”
“Yeah,” Jason said, “but so am I.”
Erika looked over her brother, who was, himself, dripping wet. The water at his bare feet was stained red.
“I’m not foolish enough to try and make you stop,” Erika said. “I don’t want Emi catching you all bloody and hurt, though.”
“Me either,” Jason said. “Not until she’s older, has essences of her own, and needs a lesson in the dangers of what I do. Shade is entertaining her at the other end of the boat.”
“Are you going to survive until Emi is that old?” Erika asked.
“This is the way I fight, Eri. It’s bloody and grim and you want no part of it.”
“But our daughter will,” Ian said.
“She won't fight like me,” Jason said. “I'll make sure her powers reward her attentiveness and quick-thinking. She'll be all about keeping herself and others safe.”
“I do like the sound of that,” Ian said. “The sound I like better is her finding a nice man to stay home and raise our grandkids while she’s a high-flying doctor, overpaid economic consultant or whatever else she wants.”
“You might find she’s better off in the other world,” Jason said. “All of you may be. The other world has its dangers, yes, but that danger is a known quantity. This world will soon be going through a period of upheaval and we don’t know what dangers we’ll be dealing with.
“Who knows,” Jason continued. “What I do may seem exciting, but maybe something else will capture her imagination.”
“More than being an interdimensional superhero,” Erika said. “Sure.”
“That’ll do,” Jason said, turning off the hose. “It took bit of a beating, so it probably won’t come right until tomorrow.”
“That thing self-repairs?” Ian asked.
“All good light armour fixes itself,” Jason said. “It costs more, but savings in avoided repairs more than pay it back. Heavy stuff is harder to make self-repair, and mine does operate faster than normal because it’s partly made from hydra skin.”
“Like the twelve tasks of Heracles hydra?”
“Heracles fought a river hydra,” Jason said. “My armour has marsh hydra skin, but they’re very similar breeds. A river hydra was actually the first monster I fought after coming back to Earth.”
“As I recall,” Ian said, “even Heracles had some trouble with that. It was one of the tasks that were discounted because he had help.”
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jason said. “I did it solo, so I guess Heracles is a scrub.”