Power like nothing he'd ever felt surged through Gauss's body.
With the Ironscale Bloodline awakened, even his flesh seemed strengthened on every front.
"So this is… a dragon's power?"
The text that had flashed a moment ago crossed his mind.
"Dragon" was a broad concept. In this world, dragons weren't a single creature but an enormous, complex family of species.
At the top sat the strongest—and relatively few—true dragons. Whether chromatic, metallic, or stranger kinds, they possessed great intellect, long lives, and overwhelming power.
As they aged they only grew stronger—body, force, spellcraft, and armor all climbing—apex beings on the pyramid.
Below true dragons were drakes, lesser dragons, and all manner of dragon-blooded beings. Among humans alone there were half-dragons, dragonborn, and sorcerers of the draconic bloodline.
It seemed his racial trait was evolving in that direction…
After savoring the change, Gauss looked around. Everything had happened in a lightning flash; the flames of Burning Hands still rolled along the parapet. The air was thick with the strange, savory scent of scorched protein. The bear-fiend he'd just downed smelled especially rich—first roasted, then finished by a volley of Magic Missiles, its flesh blown into fist-sized chunks perfectly seared, the char and meat aromas mixing in mouth-watering waves.
The smell bored into his nose; his throat bobbed twice on its own, and a fierce urge to eat rose in his gut. He stared at the scattered chunks—until a sharp explosion snapped him out of it. He shook his head hard, startled to feel how off he was.
Gauss, Gauss—now's not the time to think about food.
He glanced at the mana-claw on his hand and the power roaring through his veins and realized the Ironscale state hadn't only given him strength; it carried the instinct of a dominant predator beneath it. In plain terms, in this mode his brain had started growing biceps.
Luckily his INT was high enough. After that brief lapse, reason crushed the bestial impulse.
"Rrraaah!!"
A roar behind him—another bear-fiend vaulted the wall and lunged from the rear. Its huge paw, wrapped in force, tore the air as it hammered for the back of Gauss's head. For something so big, its timing was needle-precise, catching the split second of Gauss's distraction.
But it still underestimated his new reaction speed and combat sense.
Before, Gauss would have dodged, opened distance, and countered. Now he had a new option. Power boiling in him—and a hunting urge held down by reason—drove him to a different choice. He didn't even turn fully; he just stamped once.
Crack!
The packed earth underfoot fractured. Ironscale's explosive strength spun him with near-savage speed; the Omni-Armor, now sheathed in fine energy scales and twisted into a dragon-claw, met the bear-fiend's palm head-on.
Whump!
It boomed like two boulders colliding. Gauss didn't budge. The two-to-three-meter brute howled in pain, stumbling back; the hand that could crush rock had hit a wall of steel, bones numbed to the shoulder.
A ragged, bloody hole tore open in the coarse, hardened paw, and blood dripped off the clawed scales to spatter the stones.
"My strength really is that high," Gauss thought, startled by the defense and power of his new state. He'd been ambushed and hadn't even gone full burst—he'd simply met it on instinct. Mana was part of it, too. He felt the ward's magic pouring out, understood—his force wasn't just muscle and bone; braided with the Omni-Armor, magic shoved it higher.
In short, this wasn't mere bodywork anymore—it was a budding magus-martial form.
Thought snapped back to the fight. With its blow broken, the bear-fiend's size became a liability; recoil left it wide open. Gauss didn't hesitate. He surged forward, giving it no time to reset. In its widening eyes his right hand flashed—fingers curled, claw-tips razor-bright—
Rip!
His hand plunged into its chest like a trident through tofu.
Squelch!
He yanked his arm free, a massive, still-beating heart clenched in his claw. Feeling its hot, slick weight, he pressed his mouth into a line and dropped it into his pouch.
The roar died in the bear-fiend's throat. Disbelief faded from its huge eyes, their light went out, and it crashed backward.
[Bear-Fiend Slain ×1]
Another point banked. Gauss looked at the foe laid low in a few breaths and felt the Ironscale's might even more keenly.
Same blue-tier as Ghoul Form, but where Ghoul Form boosted speed and casting far higher, Ironscale gave him raw power and stamina—at lower overall cost, too. It didn't drain him just by being on.
He glanced farther along the wall. Soldiers were locked in close combat with climbers. He flicked his left hand; Firebolts snapped out from the white staff, neatly dropping small fry. Even if the casting boost wasn't Ghoul Form level, magic flowed easier with Ironscale active.
The clay spiders bounded ahead, joining in. Together they cleared the parapet. Exhausted soldiers slumped against the merlons, turning to see who'd helped them—only to face a man walking out of the firelight with a body sheathed in glowing scales and a single dragon-claw for a hand. A feral aura rolled off him. Anyone caught by those eyes flinched away from the stare—like facing not a man but a humanoid drake.
Each step left a shallow print; blood still dripped off the claw to patter on the charred stone, loud in the momentary lull.
"Any injuries?" he asked. The human voice loosened knotted shoulders; awe and gratitude replaced raw fear.
"Th-thank you, sir!" a sergeant managed, voice rough.
Gauss dipped his chin and looked past him. Monsters had flooded into the camp. Adventurers arriving from elsewhere were fighting toe-to-toe amid the burning shanties.
Outside, elites had closed with several powerful figures. Night was black, but Ironscale's dark-sight and heat-sense painted it bright—he saw it all. The picture wasn't good. Elites made up a larger slice of the attackers; under their lead, the usual riffraff hit far harder.
"Can you still fight?" Gauss's voice had deepened, a faint resonant hum threading it.
"Yes, sir!" The weary men pushed upright and gripped their weapons again.
"Then on me," he said.
In chaos like this, another blade mattered—and trained soldiers, organized, mattered more. "Yes, sir!" They could tell he was no ordinary—following him was safer than clumping up alone. They fell in without being told.
Gauss took point. The scaled ward-claw tore open lanes; his left hand snapped off Magic Missiles or Firebolts to pick distant threats and save beleaguered fighters. Before long he linked back up with Alia and Serandur. Thanks to their wards, they weren't wounded—only blood-spattered.
"Gauss, what is that?" Alia blinked at the scaled glow and the very not-normal dragon-claw. Minutes gone and he looked… different.
"Call it a special spell," he said, keeping it short. Serandur flicked his tongue, tasting his scent—ah. No wonder he'd caught a familiar-strange tang mid-fight—his captain's blood had leapt again. Whatever Gauss said, Serandur already had his answer. The aura pulled him close and pressed him down at once—his serpentfolk blood uneasy under the weight.
"Off the wall," Gauss told them. Without him noticing, a crowd had gathered at his back—soldiers, adventurers, and those swept up by momentum. "Good."
A moment later Andeni drifted down from above, breathing hard—she'd paid to hold the line. Her gaze paused on the claw, then slid away. "Rally with the main body."
They were tucked at a corner, out of step; the rest had already fallen back inside. Stay here, and they'd be an island—and drown. Even Gauss didn't want that. Killing monsters was for growing strong, and growing strong was for living better—he wasn't here to indulge slaughter for its own sake.
Under Gauss and Andeni, the makeshift column tore its way inward. Andeni hung overhead, baiting 5+ monsters; Gauss and the others took the near ones.
In the vanguard, he shredded lanes—some elites he tore in half outright. He drove forward; anything in the way yielded or died. The savage efficiency left the archers behind him gaping—he looked more like a monster than the ones he was killing. Even knowing he was on their side, they avoided his eyes—their bright, burning pressure was too much.
One, two—he lost count of his kills. The column punched a trench through the shanties and rejoined the main force in the center.
As they linked up, the line kept shrinking. Far behind, he glimpsed laborers, merchants, and carts slipping away. Gauss swung into his chocobo's saddle. Andeni dropped from the sky into the saddle's front and scanned.
"We have to be ready to retreat," she said quietly. From aloft she'd seen it: monsters still streaming out of the trees toward Outpost 11.
She didn't know why the garrison was so hollow—or why the numbers were so far off the norm—but this wasn't the time to ask.
With the camp's strength and half-built defenses, this island of an outpost could not hold. Maybe, if every last soul chose to die here, they might—maybe—hold it.
But the endless tide and the elites breaking through were shredding morale in real time.
Unless you surpassed tiers, an individual's valor only went so far. Worse, many suspected that President Ritchie's disappearance and the cavalry's ride to the Mist Trail meant command knew a siege was coming and pulled out. That killed the will to stand. Adventurers are mercenaries—you don't knit them into an army without a spine.
"Captain Firon orders a fighting withdrawal to the northwest gate!" a courier bawled, weaving through the crush on a lathered horse.
So they were abandoning Outpost 11. Gauss and his team traded looks—surprised at the decisiveness. Some would have run anyway; now at least the "flight" had a stamp on it. The officer who gave it would likely pay later; it took courage to make the call.
"Hyah!!"
As the human line fell back, the tide flowed forward. Goblins, kobolds, gnolls—everywhere. Torches lit, buildings kindled, the camp became flame and slaughter.
Construction takes sweat and time; destruction is easy. Shacks, stables, warehouses—the Association's placard—all burned. Heat shimmered the air; the black sky went ruddy and ill. Timber popped; roofs crashed. Fire, blood, and howls sent his blood thrumming again, and he had to clamp down hard on the heat under his skin.
"Move!"
They drove for the northwest gate. Chaos played everywhere. Stragglers got lost in the tide, cried out, and vanished under claws and blades.
Goblins screeched like over-amped lunatics, waving rusty steel and torches, hunting—killing as sport, smashing barrels, setting cloth alight, brawling each other over a shinier bit stripped off a corpse. The numbers were too many.
The only mercy: most noncombatants were already gone. While Gauss held the wall, others had started the evac. The unlucky who missed the word—fate. The monsters didn't press the pursuit either; they were busy looting and burning, like they were following orders.
That made it possible for the group to slip through the open west gate and out.
Gauss lowered his staff, face tight. He'd been snapping Firebolts the whole way, but against the total, his kills were a drop in the sea.
[Total Monsters Kill: 2875]
Four hundred more tonight—many thanks to the tireless clay spiders. Efficient, yes—but he wasn't pleased. Strictly speaking, this was his first real loss as an adventurer. But thinking it through—retreat was inevitable.
Even with Ironscale, there were monsters beyond elite in that tide—things he couldn't face yet. If not for a few master-rank captains holding the rear, the withdrawal wouldn't have been so clean.
Once again, he felt it—he still wasn't strong enough.
One consolation…
He glanced at his shaken but unhurt companions and let out a breath.
They were safe.
He turned to the red glare staining the night sky and drew in the cold air.
A setback doesn't matter.
He still had time to grow stronger.