Monsters swarmed the hill, their numbers far larger than the last time they had used this strategy against Chernobyl. Traps were triggered, causing oil fires with water to boil and cook the monsters attacking. Avatars lined the hill, firing down at the monsters and obliterating them.

The Avatars were excellent at monster cleanup, though the traps were beginning to fail. Too many monsters died on the hill at once, and there wasn't enough time for the flames to spread across their bodies. Several layers of various dead monsters were smothering the fire, though flickers of flame could still be clearly seen as it slowly spread across the corpses.

Monsters crawled over their comrade's dead bodies, doing everything in their power to attack their new target. They weren't smart enough to dodge or stay out of the turrets' line of sight. Even if they were, the horde was so dense that their movement was restricted anyways.

Teresa sat back and watched as they killed two birds with one stone. Mordecai was taking careful shots from a long distance, targeting the turrets of the Avatars along the top of the hill. In Teresa's opinion, Mordecai was the most threatening in the entire army. Ezio may have his nuclear <Embers>, but Mordecai could shoot someone from a remarkable distance. He might not be nearly as great when it came to crowd control, but if there was a single target he wanted taken care of, he could do it.

It made her glad he didn't actually shoot her in Arconette.

"What's the plan?" Preston asked, the party all grouped together now.

"I'm not sure, I still need to talk with Ezio and Nikolas. Take the chance to focus on recovery." Teresa replied as she began to walk towards the two. She opened her full status screen, checking to see how everything was looking.

Status:

Name: Teresa

Race: Human (Earth)

Level: 61 (F+) (45%)

Class: Jack Of All Trades lv 8 (F+) (148%)

Secondary Class: Scavenger lv 4 (F-) (11%)

HP: (1244/1515)

Stamina: (1130/1515)

Mana: (541/1550)

Strength: 96

Fortitude: 96

Endurance: 96

Vitality: 96

Agility: 96

Intelligence: 103

Wisdom: 98

Perception: 96

Unallocated Points: 0

<Skills> {

<Translate: lv 17 (96%)>

<Mana Control: lv 22 (75%)>

<Healing Touch: lv 18 (3%)>

<Facilitated Restoration: lv 22 (9%)>

<Identify: lv 16 (90%)>

<Totem Of Life: lv 8 (15%)>

<Magic Wellspring: lv 20 (33%)>

<Embers: lv 23 (1%)>

<Dash: lv 21 (80%)>

<Intuitive Aim: lv 16 (56%)>

<Purify: lv 10 (4%)>

<Inventory: lv 23 (2%)>

<Appraise: lv 16 (27%)>

<Sturdy Outer Shell: lv 18 (11%)>

<Monster Hunt: lv 7 (51%)>

<Extract Core: lv 14 (33%)>

<Skittish Looter: lv 7 (7%)>

<Retaliate: lv 9 (87%)>

<Quiet Looter: lv 3 (64%)>

<Suffocate: lv 13 (2%)>

<Descale: lv 0 (0%)>

}

<Titles> {

<System Newcomer>

<Tutorial: Power Hungry>

<Tutorial: Full Completionist>

<Tutorial: Level Pioneer>

<Slayer 2>

<Tutorial: Boss Killer>

<Ambassador Of The Mall>

}

Looking over her stats let Teresa know what skills she was using. <Retaliate> had barely been used, same thing with <Purify>. She rarely used <Purify>, as <Facilitated Restoration> was enough to deal with the radiation most of the time. Then again, it wouldn't be possible if Teresa didn't have <Purify>. Otherwise, there were a few skills she would need to spend a class level up on soon.

She had been informed that skills capped out at level 25, but their level cap could be increased with a class level up. It meant she wouldn't get a new skill, but things like <Embers> or <Mana Control> would be able to continue leveling beyond that point. Additionally, Teresa was extremely close to a class level again, which she was looking forward to.

"What's the plan?" Teresa asked as she approached Nikolas and Ezio, repeating exactly what Preston had said.

"Wait and see." Ezio answered. "Ideally we want to push in at the same time as the monsters, then Chernobyl will be fighting two battles on its home turf. Alternatively, we can wait until the monsters are taken care of. I've never seen an Avatar run out of ammo before, but it should be possible."

"Going with the monsters would be too chaotic, I'm in favor of waiting. Mordecai is targeting the Avatars on the hill. The monsters are gaining ground and it's actually going in their favor. Once they're gone, we can go into the access tunnels with a bit of force and go from there." Nikolas said.

"Should we be worried about the Avatars?" Teresa asked. "They're killing a lot of monsters, do they get experience the same way we do?"

"That's a good point, they might be leveling up as we speak." Ezio said.

"Well the ones getting the experience are going to die anyways, Mordecai's disabling their tracks too isn't he? They're not going anywhere and that experience they're gaining is going to waste." Nikolas rebutted. "Unless the experience is shared amongst all of the Avatars somehow, but seeing how there is a wide variety in Avatar levels I do not believe that is the case."

"So you just want us to wait? You ask us to do that a lot, you're overly cautious." Ezio said.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

"Would you rather we climb the hill and get burnt to death by flaming oil?"

"We've got more monster lures, we can influence their direction and attack from where they're vulnerable."

"What are the pros and cons of both?" Teresa interjected. "If we push now, we get an advantage as Chernobyl's forces will be split, but then we're exposed to more immediate risk. If we wait, the monsters and the Avatars will wear down on each other, and when we do push our opponents will be weakened. However, then Chernobyl will be able to focus exclusively on us."

"What I'm hearing is that waiting holds less risk, why not take that route?" Nikolas asked.

"You're so risk averse-" Ezio started, but Teresa cut him off.

"If we wait, the Avatars might handle the threat much more effectively than we imagined. It also means we would have to push through the same spot the monsters attacked from, where Chernobyl's forces would already be concentrated. Additionally, we have to account for Angelo's party, who may try something while we're waiting."

"That… makes sense actually. When did you learn about military strategy?" Nikolas asked.

"I'm just trying to think of what I'd do if I was Angelo. I'd throw another monster lure at the army, diverting the monsters again. Then we'd be stuck in a game of monster lure hot potato until everyone gets wiped out or until we run out of monster lures. That's not to say the same thing couldn't happen if we infiltrated now." Teresa answered. "Now that I think of it, why are they still attacking us? Angelo's party, I mean. Farming the Contaminated Zone was already borderline impossible, now with so many Completionists dead it's definitely not an option."

"Maybe they're involved with the trafficking problem, it could all be connected, though I'm not sure how." Nikolas guessed.

"Regardless of why, they are a threat we have to consider. Teresa is right, if we stay here we are vulnerable to another ambush." Ezio said. "We have tanks and mages with <Stone Wall> that can manipulate the ground a bit. We might even be able to just toss some monster corpses on there and trigger the traps that way."

As he spoke, a loud metallic crash echoed out near the monster pileup. Something large had charged into the access tunnel, breaking it open. Monsters began to flood inside, while others began making it to the top of the hill. The Avatars positioned there were quickly overrun, and the swarm continued out of Teresa's line of sight. Gunfire behind the hill gunned down the monsters that far, though their numbers only seemed to increase as thousands approached.

"Let's get started on that." Teresa said, looking east along the hill. There weren't any monsters approaching from the east, as many had been routed south and then back north towards the singular point that was being overrun. "Can nuclear <Embers> glass the ground or something?"

"Actually, the ground would probably explode." Randall clarified. "Porous rock is full of air pockets and moisture, heat it up enough and it'll burst apart. With the oil in the pipes, you also might be able to burst those too with enough heat."

"I haven't noticed any bursting rocks so far and we've been pretty liberal with our use of <Embers>. Are you sure that would work?" Ezio asked.

"That's true, and I don't know why that's the case. It may mean this isn't possible." Randall admitted.

"No, it should work." Teresa said. "We still don't really understand how magic and science interact. We can hit a pile of wood with <Embers> and it won't catch fire, but it will still melt through. When we use <Embers> out here, we normally aren't targeting a single spot on the ground for an extended period of time."

"We're taking too long as it is talking about this. How confident are you that it will work?" Ezio asked.

"Not very, we may want to get the mages to all contribute." Randall answered. "How hot does your spell burn?"

"No idea, we haven't tested it."

"It beats sitting around. I've got about 550 Mana, I'll contribute with my own <Embers> as well." Teresa said. She took a Mana potion out of her <Inventory> and downed it, tossing the empty container back in storage. "Make that 650 Mana. We can try it without nuclear <Embers> first."

"Let's do that. If it shows promise, I'll use it. After that, I'll still have one more use of it available." Ezio said before barking out orders. Nikolas did the same.

Several mages lined up and began approaching the hill. At once, everyone activated <Embers> and targeted the ground, sending several continuous streams of fire towards a targeted section.

At first, nothing happened, but after a few seconds multiple loud pops could be heard under the sound of the flames. Pieces of rock were sent flying as the air inside was superheated. All around her, mages with lower Fortitude values began sweating profusely from the excessive heat in front of them as they methodically burnt away at the hill.

Ezio activated his nuclear <Embers>, and the massive ocean of flames that produced added enough heat to the already boiling environment, causing several more porous rocks to burst into fragments. Teresa and the mages didn't stop their efforts, continuing to shoot fire at the hill in a concentrated spot.

From what Teresa could see with her Perception, Randall was absolutely right about the rocks bursting. However, it just meant that the ground was now covered in smaller pieces of debris. Is this actually going to do anyth-

BANG

Several mages screamed and fell to the floor as a massive explosion sent massive chunks of rock and metal everywhere. Their healing buffs kept them alive, and Teresa saw that the pipes containing the oil had burst. As most materials grew hotter, they had a tendency to expand. Heating a pipe full of oil had caused it to burst, as it had been predicted previously. However, what had not been predicted was the fire.

The oil was burning, causing numerous explosions throughout the entire hill. It was not a controlled burn that the traps were meant for, but an out of control inferno that ravaged the hill as if it were being bombarded by artillery weapons.

How the hell did that happen? Even if a trap malfunctioned from the heat, there shouldn't be that much fire. Oil that had been deep in the pipes were ignited, and the way it continued down the pipeline buried in the ground revealed some information.

Somehow, they had all set something on fire with <Embers> again, and it wasn't ethereal.

Several people had been knocked to the ground by the sheer force emitted from the explosions that were still continuing down the hill, blowing it apart from within. What had once been a hill tall enough to block large scale floods, there was now a scattered wasteland of molten metal and debris.

The army had been protected by a few well placed instances of <Light Shield>, but the hill was practically gone. A metal tunnel, or at least what had once been a metal tunnel, was exposed and blown apart.

Teresa could activate <Suffocate> and create a thin layer just over the top of the burning oil directly blocking their path. The lack of oxygen would extinguish the fire, but the oil would still be superheated and actual hell to walk through.

Everything had paused for a moment. Even the monsters seemed flabbergasted at the new development. The hill was simply gone, with explosions still making their way around the heart of the Contaminated Zone.

"Holy shit!" Randall exclaimed.

"I thought you said this would happen!" Teresa said, concentrating on her spell.

"I thought it would burst the pipes and cover the ground in an airtight layer that would prevent the traps from working properly, not that!"

"How do we get across?" Ezio asked. "We need to cool it off somehow. Burning or not, most of us can't walk through that. It's too hot."

The monster advance had halted, at least for a moment. Only those with a high Fortitude, those that could fly, and those immune to high temperatures dared to cross the raging inferno. Also the ones with no sense of self preservation, but they burnt up and accomplished nothing.

"Maybe we can wait it out now? I'm sure we just fucked a lot of Chernobyl's stuff up, I'm already getting notifications about Assembly Stations getting damaged." Teresa offered. She was getting drowned in System notifications, there were a lot of monsters and Avatars in those access tunnels.

"A fire like this is going to last a long time, maybe even days." Ezio said. "We have to do something now, the Avatars can likely cross this just fine. Our tactic worked too well."

"I got a class level up!" Clyde, one of the mages yelled.

"So did I." Noah said.

"Same here."

"That gave me a load of experience!"

Teresa checked her own status screen, ignoring the notifications. She had also gotten a class level up and a normal level up. She was now level 62. Blowing up the hill with monsters and Avatars inside gave loads of experience that was still slowly trickling in. It had to be split across every mage in the army, though even taking that into account it wasn't as much as she would have thought it would be.

"Someone has to have gotten something that could help deal with this." Ezio said, and Teresa checked her own new skill options to see if anything could help.

<Two Handed Weaponry: lv 0>

Type: Weapon Mastery

Learn the way of the brute, death to the enemy with an unstoppable force. Gain a minute understanding of two handed combat, carrying a two handed weapon will require significantly less effort outside of combat.

<Power Smash: lv 0>

Type: Combat Technique

Enhance the power of a single physical attack, smashing down upon your opponent by utilizing Stamina. Both body and weapon will be temporarily enhanced. Cooldown: 30 seconds.

<Commander: lv 0>

Type: Passive

You have been recognized as a figure of authority within your ranks. Orders given to allies will be understood faster, while hostile opponents will struggle to understand you.

Teresa definitely liked what she saw, but none of her choices were able to help in their current situation.

"I got nothing for this." She said, while several other mages looked at their notifications. "Someone else might."

"Don't select a skill yet!" Nikolas yelled out, stopping a few mages who were already browsing. Teresa smiled, knowing she was going to like what comes next.

She was about to see other people's skills.

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