John checked his clock. 11:58, only 2 more minutes before the attack would start. He was once again on Magoi’s boat, just east of Thorne’s main barrier. With him were only his elementals and the High Fateweaver. Everyone else he had sent out to create a siege ring around the barrier. One with inherent structural weaknesses that made it very easy to break through at a certain point.

The plan for the transition from Phase 3 to 4 was simple. Collide, or whatever the greater collective should be called, would win today’s battle. There was just no second guessing it. He had brought literally everyone strong in his guild, with the exception of Eliza who was still at home and trying to figure out how to manifest her aura outside of sitting in a meditative position.

The defeated enemies would then flee through that structural opening and find their way through NYC hindered just enough to not raise suspicion amongst most of them. Basically: win and allow an ordered retreat of the enemy. Very simple in execution.

At least with how the deck was stacked in John’s favour. With the enemy commander secretly supporting him, the only thing that could have made this anything but a show match would have been intervention by a strong third party. There was just one factor that couldn’t be accounted for quite as easily and that was Tilgun.

‘I am almost certain he won’t do anything,’ John thought, ‘but I best take care of it.’ That was the logic for why he attacked from the water, so he had an opportunity to talk to the higher dragon right away.

The phone in his hand vibrated as the silent alarm rang.

Scarlett: Have fun.

“Here we go!” Magoi announced, activating the engine and thus putting the whole boat into motion. From inside their current barrier, they saw the real port outside its boundaries. It was a mundane image, one which was replaced as they began to shift into the barrier of Thorne’s headquarters. “You want to ride the rest of the way?”

“Nah, I am good with the stretch from the island to here that I was in control of,” he answered and waited. John liked the visual effect of slipping from one barrier into the other. It was as if a soap bubble was bursting around them in slow motion. Shrinking drops of the old view masked the new one until only the new reality remained and John looked at the giant tower and the industry blocks that surrounded it like lesser spires.

Turning to Magoi, the top-hat-wearing, raptor-faced Fateweaver looking back with interest, John promised, “After today, your part in this whole affair is over.” He gave him a wide smile. “You can take your wife on all the dates you want then.”

“And she deserves all of them,” Magoi pointed out. “Did you ever hear the saying ‘All men marry upwards’?”

“I didn’t and I don’t know if I agree with that,” the Gamer was a bit of a mood kill. “Although I can certainly say I feel that way even without being married.”

“It is a stupid saying, maybe ‘happy wife – happy life’ is better for what I was trying to say?” Magoi attempted a second time as they closed in on the pier.

“Oh, I can wholeheartedly agree to that one,” John nodded. “Again, even without being married.”

“Now, if only my son had as much luck with the ladies as you do.” Magoi took his hands off the wheel for a moment to throw them into the air, “Where are my grandkids, Magnus!” The man wasn’t around to answer his nagging old man. Even if he had been, the answer would have been very short and logical. Magoi preferred to just giggle to himself.

“Well, I asked him if he wanted to go out drinking sometime before this war went down,” John commented. “So now that we are in the final stages of ending it, guess we can think about me playing wingman again. Wonder if I should give Maximillian a call.”

“Between you two, Magnus would be the odd one out,” Magoi complained. “That’s like a group of chicks consisting of a supermodel, a self-made CEO and a somewhat pretty farm girl.”

“Oy, that’s your son you are talking about,” John suddenly wondered how his own father talked about him and that was not a pleasant question to ask himself seeing how he had last seen his father when he was a self-exiled, video gaming virgin.

“My son who still hasn’t given me grandchildren!” Magoi reiterated his earlier point.

John hesitated for a second. “…You know, I am not sure I like that nagging parent side of yours.”

“Good thing you are not my girlfriendless son then,” the High Fateweaver joked. “But it’s fine, I will kick around another 20 years, he should be able to do something in that time. Being part of one of the new upcoming organizations on the global stage should certainly raise his attractiveness a bit.”

“Wait a second… you made that deal with me just for your children?” John suddenly realized.

“What, you thought old me who is richer than the Rockefellers would go about conquering a continent out of good fun?” Magoi asked. “Well, you would partly be right, that does sound like fun – I could use the extra Abysspedia entrances. Giving my family a secure employment future is a big point though. The Magus family should always have friends in high places.”

“Thanks for putting your trust in me of all people then,” the Gamer said and lowered his head as a genuine gesture of his gratitude.

“Awww, stop, you are making me blush,” it was Magoi’s turn to ruin the mood. “Anyway, get off my boat. I should keep the barrier under my control, right?”

“Right, they should smash their way out with physical force,” John affirmed, then he jumped over the railing of the ship. A silver aura encapsulated his pants and left a trail behind him like the sparks of a firework as he used Arcane Comet to fly over the little gap between the ship and the dock.

The sound of alarm horns rung through the barrier. John saw buildings in the distance that were being sealed with large metal curtains, turned into impromptu fortresses, and robot limbed soldiers swarmed about the place. It was only a matter of minutes before they would have spotted John and formed a unit to eliminate him.

“Tilgun? Are you sleeping?” John addressed the higher dragon. It was a somewhat silly question, as his head lay on all four of his hands opposite of where John had just jumped onto land.

However, he got an answer anyway. “I am, I am trying to, rather,” he grumbled, opening one of his eyes a little bit to look at John annoyedly. “Can you do conquest more quietly? You are being an inconvenience right now.” Yawning, he pulled one of his hands out from underneath his chin and raised it above John, “If you weren’t who you were, I might squash you like a bug right now.”

“So, you won’t get in my way then?” the Gamer made sure.

“Just make it quick,” Tilgun decided, then raised his head a little bit. “And here come even more annoyances…” Following the maw of souls’ gaze, John saw the expected greeting committee of twenty armed, robotically enhanced soldiers running their way. “…I don’t have patience for people fighting right next to my ear.”

John was suddenly accelerated to absurd levels, along with a sharp pain in his back and a drop of a fair bit of health. Like a bowling ball, he crashed into the oncoming battalion, finding himself with a dizzy head, stopped on top of three of them.

‘One time, the one time I don’t activate Mana Protection because I think this is going to be easy I get flicked by a giant, arrogant water serpent,’ John thought as he put on the skill just in time to see a bunch of bullets bounce off the blue shell and deal minimal damage to his mana. Given enough time and ammunition, they would break through. John didn’t plan to give them any of the former, neither did Salamander.

In a wave of fire, she appeared. “I am ready to…!” she began and then watched the enemies around them as they ran around in a panic, their clothes set aflame. “Seriously? That was an opening attack!” she complained as the people started jumping into the water to save themselves. John did the poor souls that his impact had left on the floor the favour and gave Undine some mana to put them out.

Between the two scarred elementals and John’s suit, the few people of the attacking group that weren’t knocked out or on fire realized who they were dealing with and dropped their weapons.

“Smart guys,” John complimented them, then noticed some boobs amongst the crowd, “and girls.”

“Please don’t hurt us!” one of them asked.

Pinching the bridge of his nose, with his right hand, which soon became blue from Undine spreading over it, John mumbled, “Seriously, just how bad were the times before I came along that EVERYBODY thinks I will do something terrible?” He looked at them. “Do I have the reputation of hurting my captives?”

“You execute your prisoners!” one of them threw at him.

“No, I have people that are prisoners that lead slave trading rings or other terribly unjust operations sentenced to death by a code of laws I wrote in a team with other people based on modern western constitutions,” he corrected. “Damn propaganda everywhere… just sit over there and keep your weapons on a nice pile and I guarantee you will get a fair trial when this whole thing is over.” They obeyed, not that they had any real choice if they wanted to live, and as a reward John left them a campfire.

From there on it was a set of one-sided engagements barely worth the mention outside of the time it wasted for him. The soldiers of Thorne were well-organized, which was good because it meant that John could reason with them quite easily. Once he had shown them that fighting him was absolutely futile, he could handily persuade them to do as that first group and just drop their weapons.

People from smaller organizations were somewhat similar; however, a few of them died because they were just too stubborn. They thought if they just ganged up on John and kept hitting him they would hurt him at some point. Because they were right, they would manage to do that if he didn’t fight back, John had no other choice but to retaliate. He tried to measure his punches, but that only meant so much.

A punch, a Shardbound, an earth-spike, a whip of water, a dicing wind or a blast of fire, no matter the attack given enough iterations in the chaos of battle, some of them had to hit vital areas. Because of that, he left some corpses on his path, some snapped necks, holes where hearts should be, or split skulls. Every time John wished they had known when to stop. These people didn’t have to die.

Unlike the lot that cast their loyalties with Bearings. John had absolutely no idea what drug these people were jacked on, but it must have made them crave death with a passion. There was no reasoning, no words to be heard. From the moment they saw John or any other enemy, they were locked on and didn’t let up.

In the corner of his left eye, John caught a movement. He turned just in time to see someone dropping down on him from a nearby ceiling, wielding a giant axe. ‘So slow,’ John thought, knocking the weapon to the side with Purgatory and then catching the man by the throat.

He struggled in his grip like a spastic throwing a tantrum. Hands and feet clashed against Mana Protection uselessly and bloody foam gathered on his mouth. His eyes looked like they would pop out of his head at any moment and John wasn’t even squeezing yet.

That was the state most of them were in and that was the best he found them in. There were a few who didn’t even try to attack John, they were just suicidal, falling off buildings, others attacked allies and enemies alike.

‘Is Bearings getting that desperate?’ John asked himself.

‘Men who blow their load early…,’ Siena whispered into his spirit as she eviscerated another man who charged at John. “…often try whatever they can to get their pride back,’ she finished the sentence out loud, throwing her hand to the side to clean the blood off her claws.

‘The attackers at our base didn’t behave this illogically,’ Undine continued on as the whole think tank analysed this.

‘Yeah, they were all like POW-POW-POW!’ Sylph added, ‘but they weren’t like this, they were just – like – super aggressive and all in our faces and stuff and they wanted to fight but they didn’t bleed in the mouth or anything.’

‘I-I guess Bearings is mixing an experimental formula in with the old ones?’ Gnome presented the logical conclusion.

‘Sick fuck,’ Salamander presented the final commentary on the matter.

John conjured a Shardbound and had it fly through the man’s head, putting him out of his misery as quickly as was possible. He dropped the corpse like a sack of potatoes and went on his way. He would give them a proper funeral pyre later, out of respect for life itself, but for the person he just killed, John wasn’t quite as sure he would be able to raise the same level of decency. People that worked for Bearings seemed to be the worst of the bunch.

‘Flies always find the biggest pile of shit around,’ John thought as he made his way to the central building. ‘But it’s not all that surprising, we have made it a point of policy to blow out all their facilities.’ Bearings’ power center was actually located to the north-west of the Big Apple. In a three-day campaign, Rave, Nia and Beatrice had rooted out every single facility they could find.

Regardless of how this war went over, Bearings was finished as a force in the region. After today, the same could be said for Thorne though. As far as John’s goals for this campaign went, he had reached them already. If Scarlett wanted to betray him, her last chance would come in the form of that tower bearing a giant version of the cable-thorn wreath that was the company’s emblem.

John’s feeling regarding Scarlett hadn’t changed, so he trusted she wouldn’t do anything to harm him out of sheer self-preservation, if nothing else.