The Author's Draft

Chapter 107 - 26: First Blood II

The ogre’s eyes went wide as Aiden twisted the longsword buried in its abdomen, channeling third-stage Sword Aura through the embedded blade. White lightning crackled along the steel, the cutting force shredding internal organs from the inside out.

Aiden wrenched the blade upward violently, tearing through the ogre’s stomach and into its ribcage. The creature’s mouth opened in a soundless scream, blood pouring over its lips, then its massive body went limp and collapsed forward.

**THUD!**

Three meters of dead weight hit the pavement, the impact sending vibrations through Aiden’s boots. He pulled his longsword free with a wet sound and immediately pivoted toward the nearest threat.

Behind him, Number One’s Gatling arm was still firing in controlled bursts.

**BRRRRT! BRRRRT!**

Hard-light rounds tore through a cluster of goblins trying to flank from behind an overturned car. Bodies exploded in sprays of green blood and viscera, the monsters shrieking as they died.

"Left side!" Callum shouted.

Aiden used Phantom Step to close the distance, his body blurring across fifteen meters in less than a heartbeat. His longsword came around in a horizontal slash that released visible Sword Aura, white lightning trailing the blade’s arc.

Five goblins died in one stroke, their bodies cleaved in half before they even registered his presence.

More portals were opening. Aiden’s qi perception picked up dozens of new hostile signatures manifesting across the surrounding blocks. The sky overhead was tearing itself apart, dimensional rifts spreading like cracks in glass.

"Aiden!" Callum’s voice cut through the chaos. "More coming from the east!"

Aiden turned and saw what his brother meant. Another wave of goblins was pouring from a fresh portal, maybe forty of them, and leading the charge were three Red Goblins, veteran warriors with B-rank equivalent cultivation bases and crude iron armor covering their chests.

Then the sound of engines cut through the screaming.

An armored van skidded around the corner, its reinforced plating scarred from previous battles. The vehicle’s rear doors burst open before it even stopped moving, and eight hunters piled out in practiced formation.

Government Hunters. London Branch, based on the emblems stitched onto their combat gear. Mix of B-rank and C-rank, standard-issue weapons, mana-enhanced armor that glowed faintly with defensive enchantments.

Their team leader was a broad-shouldered man in his forties wielding a tower shield and a short sword. He raised his shield and his voice boomed across the street. "Defensive line! Mages in back, tanks forward! Hold them here!"

The hunters deployed with military efficiency. Two B-rank Tanks took positions at the front, their shields locked together to form a barrier. Behind them, a fire mage and an ice mage began channeling spells while the remaining four hunters spread out to cover the flanks.

The goblin horde hit them like a green wave.

**CRASH!**

The first impact nearly buckled the defensive line. Goblins swarmed over the shields, stabbing with poisoned blades, clawing at gaps in armor, shrieking with bloodlust that made the air itself vibrate.

The fire mage released her spell. A column of flame erupted from her hands and washed over the front ranks of goblins, turning a dozen of them into screaming torches. The smell of burning flesh filled the air.

But the Red Goblins coordinated the assault with disturbing intelligence. They didn’t charge blindly. Instead, they directed the green goblins to attack in waves, using their bodies as shields while the veterans flanked around the sides.

This wasn’t a dungeon mob attack. This was military tactics.

One of the B-rank Tanks grunted as a goblin blade found the gap between his helmet and shoulder guard, opening a shallow cut that bled freely. "Shit!" He crushed the goblin’s skull with his shield bash, but two more immediately took its place.

The ice mage froze a cluster of goblins solid, their bodies locked in mid-attack, then a Red Goblin shattered them with a single club strike and kept charging.

"They’re too organized!" the team leader shouted. "Fall back to secondary positions!"

The hunters tried to retreat in formation, but the goblins pressed harder, sensing weakness. One of the C-rank hunters on the flank got separated from the group, and suddenly twenty goblins swarmed him like piranhas.

His barrier held for five seconds.

Then poisoned blades found the gaps. Throat. Armpits. Behind the knees. Places where armor couldn’t protect.

The hunter went down screaming, drowning in his own blood as the goblins stabbed again and again. His death was neither quick nor clean.

The fire mage saw him fall and her face went pale, but she kept casting. Flames erupted from her hands in desperate bursts, each spell draining her mana reserves visibly. Her movements were getting slower, her breathing labored.

A Red Goblin saw the opening and moved.

It was fast, B-rank physical enhancement making it blur across the distance. The veteran goblin got past the defensive line while the tanks were occupied and drove a rusted blade through the fire mage’s spine.

She gasped, her spell cutting off mid-cast, and collapsed forward. The Red Goblin yanked its blade free with a wet sound and turned toward its next target.

Seven hunters left. Then six, as another C-rank got overwhelmed by sheer numbers.

Aiden’s qi perception confirmed what he already knew. These weren’t dungeon monsters. They were soldiers from a war, trained and coordinated, and they were winning.

System notifications flashed across every awakened person’s vision simultaneously.

[DIMENSIONAL BARRIER COLLAPSE: COMPLETE]

[SECOND AWAKENING: INTERPLANETARY WAR COMMENCING]

[GOOD LUCK]

That was it. No tactical updates. No warnings. No instructions. The system had facilitated the dimensional collapse and planetary evolution, but it wasn’t coordinating human defense or tracking battlefield status.

It wasn’t humanity’s ally. Just the mechanism through which Stage 2 evolution happened.

More portals tore open across London’s skyline. Through each one, armies poured through in organized formations. Not just goblins now, but orcs in heavy armor, ogres wielding massive weapons, creatures Aiden didn’t recognize moving with predatory grace.

His qi perception swept outward and confirmed his mother’s signature inside the Safe Zone barriers three blocks south. She’d made it. She was safe.

That knowledge let him focus entirely on the fight.

"Cal!" Aiden shouted over the chaos. "Ammunition check!"

Callum’s HUD flashed in his peripheral vision, the numbers updating in real-time. "Sixty-seven percent ammo, seventy-one percent power reserves!"

Number One couldn’t sustain Gatling fire indefinitely. The hard-light rounds drained power with every burst, and Callum only had six hours total summon time before the cooldown hit.

They needed to be smart about this.

"Switch to controlled bursts!" Aiden ordered. "Save ammunition for when we really need it!"

Callum adjusted immediately. Number One’s Gatling arm stopped its sustained fire and shifted to short, precise bursts. The robot deployed its hard-light blade and moved into close combat, cutting through goblins with mechanical efficiency while conserving ammunition.

**SLASH! SLASH!**

Two goblins fell, their bodies cleaved cleanly. Number One’s shield came up to block an incoming attack, then the robot drove forward with a shield bash that caved in a goblin’s chest with an audible crunch.

A Red Goblin veteran broke through the chaos and charged at Callum, recognizing the Summoner as the priority target. Its blade came up, aimed at his throat, moving with B-rank speed.