308 Chapter 308: Back to the Stone Age

The Gorgons emerged en masse, advancing toward our position and intensifying their petrification spells. Despite the protection that their visors afforded, more mercenaries were succumbing to their terrifying effects.

The defensive runes embedded into their visors (and my glasses) weren't totally foolproof. For one thing, magical runes were completely useless unless you fed them mana. The normal spirit arrays and formations often drew power from a tremendous mana generator. Otherwise it wasn't practical lugging around what we informally termed as "spirited engraved gear." We couldn't provide our own equipment with a constant supply of mana 24/7, after all. Or we would end up exhausting ourselves terribly.

They had their uses, like now, for example. But these Gorgons were rank B monsters. They had an enormous amount of mana, and coupled with their potent petrification spells, they could cause the poor mercenaries to run out of mana before long.

Fortunately, the mercenaries had their own solutions. An entire platoon concentrated fire on one Gorgon who was stupid enough to advance toward them without cover. Despite its relatively high rank and tenacity, even the Fiend-class monster succumbed to mass las-fire, toppling over with a screech as its body was riddled with cauterized craters.

Even before the first Gorgon was taken down by focused fire, I was already taking aim and launching arrows of my own, the azure projectiles detonating against them. To my satisfaction, a few of them were blown off their feet and sent crashing, but I realized to my dismay that only one of them had actually died from my bombardment.

The rest of them were slowly rising to their feet, singed, but otherwise not grievously hurt. Before they could fully recover, an inferno washed over them, immolating quite a few of them. One was reduced to cinders, its pitiful cry fading away in the roar of the crackling flames, while the others rolled away, desperately extinguishing the fire with their mana.

"Whoa!"

Dong Fang Yue Chu jumped back when one of the Gorgons whipped its serpent-like arm at him. The end of the arm was filled with venomous claws that were shaped like fangs. Fortunately, before the claws could reach him, Harrison Reed obliterated it with a holy spell, causing the Gorgon to withdraw its ruined appendage with a shrill shriek.

Then Theodore descended upon the Gorgon, swinging his thunder hammer to pulverize it under his sheer weight and force. The poor thing just vanished in a shower of blood, the snakes hissing wildly as they convulsed from the lethal electricity.

Another Gorgon that was nearby lashed out at the crouching Theodore, but my arrow struck its head and sent it toppling over. The snakes that composed its hair writhed wildly, but they turned into ash as Dong Fang Yue Chu incinerated it.

Theodore then straightened up and swung his hammer horizontally, keeping a few of the Gorgons at bay. My arrow blew up the head of one whose hair-snakes were lunging to bite the big guy with their venomous fangs. Theodore nodded gratefully at me before he smashed his hammer into the ground, generating deadly voltages of electricity that stunned a group of Gorgons. While they were trembling from the paralyzing currents, Harrison stepped forward and completed the casting of his spell.

"Holy Judgement."

The entire place was enveloped in golden mana that seared through the screaming monsters before destroying one of them. The rest collapsed, badly hurt, but credit to rank B monsters, they were tenacious.

"We're lucky," Harrison remarked. Yue Chu and I glanced at him in surprise. "Even though Gorgons are usually rank B, these monsters are clearly still not…fully developed yet. Their offensive powers and spells might be rank B, but they lack the endurance of a Fiend-class monster. They are dying too easily."

"You're kidding, right?!" Yue Chu yelled. "You call this dying too easily?!"

"I, for one, am grateful that they are falling to our attacks more easily than a normal rank B monster," Theodore said as he hammered another Gorgon. To his dismay, it didn't die, and he was forced to blast it with a lightning bolt when the snakes that were its hair reared up to strike at him. Despite the electrocution, the Gorgon wouldn't stay down, its arm whipping out to score a poisonous bite…or would have if Theodore didn't whack it away with his hammer. "I don't think we'll be able to handle normal rank B monsters, especially when there's this many of them. They are already deadly enough. Maybe they are somewhere between rank B and rank C."

"The ranks are meaningless," I reminded him. "They are at best an estimate for a monster's danger level, but they are not absolute. Just because a monster is ranked F doesn't mean it's not dangerous at all, and even rank A monsters still have certain vulnerabilities that we can exploit. It's not always set in stone."

"You're right," Theodore agreed as he tried to discourage another Gorgon from coming near. Fortunately, Yue Chu's flames and my arrows formed a makeshift barrier between him and his assailant while he was busily trying to finish off his current opponent. "But that doesn't stop me from wishing we were facing lower ranked monsters."

"On the other hand, rank B monsters don't usually gather in groups like this. They never emerge in such numbers." I pushed my glasses up my nose before loosing another volley of arrows that sliced off several snakes from the Gorgons' scalp. "They tend to be individualistic, and when too many of them gather, they'll end up fighting like…the Gyaragons."

That was when I remembered the blood-frenzied Gyaragons tearing into each other, almost heedless of the humans who assaulted them before Adam Lacroix arrived and they recognized the potent threat that he was. It was almost as if they were more concerned with killing each other than they were about the humans. It made sense – the rank A monsters were more of a threat toward each other than we were to them.

We were probably mosquitoes or flies to them. We were probably capable of killing them when their guard were down (just like how mosquitoes caused the deaths of humans by spreading deadly diseases such as malaria and Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever), but besides that we were just pests when compared to their more powerful brethren.

It was unusual to see so many Gorgons clumped up together and working in unison like this. Rank B monsters didn't normally cooperate without dissent.

"Oh, right. They evolved. They used to be Phantoms…or probably Banshees that evolved further into Gorgons after the virus." I nodded thoughtfully while releasing another arrow that detonated in their midst. That made more sense.

"No wonder they're so relatively weak when compared to other rank B monsters." Harrison was agreeing. "Well, I'm not complaining. We should use this to our advantage and wipe them out while they're still relatively weak. Otherwise, if they escape, the world will be in trouble when rank B monsters start cooperating with each other."

He then blasted another Gorgon with his holy spell, knocking it off its feet. The creature granted and lashed out with its flexible arm, but he smashed it with his gauntlets, shattering the fangs against gleaming metal. The Gorgon cried out in pain.

"This is taking too long, though," Yue Chu complained as he incinerated another Gorgon, but only after expending a lot of mana to do so. "At this rate, we'll never reach the civilians!"

"We'll have to do our best then and hope they survive until we reach them," Theodore replied grimly while crushing the skull of another Gorgon with his thunder hammer. I understood his point. There was nothing we could do. As if to illustrate his point, Theodore's victim snarled despite its deformed head and the snakes on its scalp snaked toward him.

Lightning surged from Theodore's body and electrocuted the snakes before they could reach within a hair's breadth of him (okay, I know I'm being ironic). The Gorgon hissed and took a step back, only for the big guy to smash his hammer into its face again. This time, its head was pulped into a shower of blood and brain matter.

I glanced at the mercenaries worriedly, only to feel a sense of relief. Even though they had taken substantial casualties, they were slowly but surely driving the Gorgons back. More than a score of them had fallen to the massed firepower, and even now the heavy weapons were being brough to bear. Plasma blasts enveloped the Gorgons, scorching them with the fury of a miniature star. Not even a rank B monster could withstand such awesome firepower, and they were being driven back. The petrified were being tended to by healers, who were casting restorative spells to lift the curse and return the victims back to normal.

There was little they could do for those already poisoned to death by the Gorgons' venomous claws, or the fangs of their hair-snakes, though. But I wasn't naïve enough to think every single one of us would walk away from such a dangerous mission alive.

"Hu…"

Taking a deep breath, I considered my options. We couldn't just allow ourselves to be pressed to the defensive. There had to be something I could do…a Constellation weapon or spirit I could summon to speed up the process. Yue Chu's words were borne out of frustration, but he had an excellent point. If we allowed ourselves to get bogged down here, it would take us forever to reach Troy and the civilians he and the surviving soldiers were escorting. Every second counted, and I recalled how Troy said that they had to move every now and then to escape monsters.

If we dawdled here for too long, then there would be more casualties. That said, I wasn't reckless enough to start yelling at the mercenaries or my friends, or impulsively attacking the Gorgons. Obviously that reason wasn't enough to increase casualties on our side. Already, the mercenaries had already suffered significant losses, and it would be unfair to ask anything more of them. They were clearly doing their best.

Rather than blame them, I should seek for a solution. That was how it worked in real life too. Instead of blaming other people for being weak, pathetic or incompetent, or whine about how you had to carry them (whether it was in a game or a group project in school or at work), you should identify the problem and come up with the solution. Throwing the blame around and looking for scapegoats solved absolutely nothing. If anything, it only exacerbated the problem, increased everyone's resentment toward you and thus affected their performance and morale even more, and made the workplace atmosphere even more toxic than before.

Instead of spending all that energy ponting fingers and railing at other people, invest that time and energy into doing something productive for once.

Taking a deep breath, I searched for the Constellation weapon that I had already created. Seeing the Gorgons, I suddenly remembered something. That was right. I might have something that was very appropriate for this situation. But because I had been calling the Gorgons…well, Gorgons, I almost forgot about it.

If I could just…

"Perseus!"

A glowing sword materialized in my right hand right after I dismissed Orion, its blade glowing in shades of gold and red. The gleaming blade caught the attention of the Gorgons, who instinctively recognized the threat. Hissing ferociously, they all slithered toward me.

"Richard!" Theodore shouted as he fought his way toward me, swinging his thunder hammer frantically. The mercenaries seized the lull in the assault to counterattack, shooting the Gorgons in the back, but the rank B monsters shrugged off their fire in their desperation to get to me.

"Oh no, you don't!" Yue Chu hollered as he conjured a fire wall between me and the approaching Gorgons. Even as they were set ablaze, the Gorgons were not discouraged, and they dragged their immolated bodies out of the inferno to whip their long arms at me.

Harrison blasted them away with his holy spells, but there were too many of them. He rushed forward, and I almost balked at the rare sight of him panicking.

Fortunately, I was able to wave him back.

"Don't worry! I've got this!"

"Huh? Really? Because from my vantage point, it doesn't seem that you do!"

I ignored him – the guy was sounding like Obi-wan Kenobi for some reason, you know, the usual banter with Anakin Skywalker before he fell to the Dark Side – and focused on completing my spell. Holding my glowing sword high up, I yelled out an incantation.

"Algol!"

A blinding flash filled the entire district, causing the humans to shield their eyes and duck down instinctively. Even as the lenses of my glasses darkened automatically to protect my vision, I was unable to see anything for just a few seconds.

Those few seconds passed, and my lenses lightened up, allowing me to see once again.

All the Gorgons were frozen solid. Well, not really. They were actually petrified, having turned into stone. Like ancient statues, they all stood immobile in the middle of what used to be a bustling district, their hideous faces entombed in masks of surprise.

"W…what did you do?" the mercenary lieutenant demanded, his jaw dropping. I shrugged as I lowered Perseus.

"I stoned them."

"Seriously?" Theodore gave me a sour look. "You're making jokes even under this sort of situation?"

It was precisely because it was this sort of situation that we needed a bit of humor, even if it was dark humor. Everyone needed to lighten up. I didn't say that, of course. Instead, I answered with a wide grin as I gestured at the petrified Gorgons.

"Yeah. Look at them! They are all stoned!"

Those cold stares again. Okay, maybe I was taking the joke too far. Turning serious, I cleared my throat and gave a proper reply this time.

"I reflected their petrification curse on them."

"You can do that?" Yue Chu blurted out in disbelief. He looked around, and buried his face in his palm when he realized how stupid his question sounded. "I mean, yeah, of course you can, but…how?"

"You called that sword Perseus." As always, Harrison was attentive to the minute details. No wonder he was such a great leader. He frowned, scratching his head. "I'm pretty sure that name has some sort of significance, but I can't remember…"

That wasn't unusual. This far in the future, in the thirtieth century, most people had long forgotten the ancient Greek myths and constellations. That was something that only I, a person who was transported from the twenty-first century to this era, was intimately familiar with. Not unless you had other astrological nerds hiding somewhere in the Federation despite the fad having died out centuries ago.

"Perseus is the Greek hero most famous for slaying the most notorious Gorgon, Medusa. He accomplished that by using his shield, which had been polished so cleanly that it was able to reflect her own gaze onto her…and thus cause her own petrification curse to rebound and turn her into stone. With that done, he then chopped off her head, and used it as his ultimate weapon."

"I've never heard that story before," Theodore confessed, scratching his head.

"Yeah, it's a very old story." I didn't elaborate further, especially when we were so short of time. "Anyway, we should get going before more monsters show up again."

Glancing at the corner of a building, where long shadows danced teasingly just out of our sight, and what suspiciously sounded like scrabbling of claws, the mercenaries nodded and began moving out without wasting any more time. After tending to their dead and wounded, of course.