The motorcycle revved and vibrated as Adam pushed it hard. A display stayed in front of him without obscuring his view of the roads. It showed what was happening in the territory under attack as he traveled.

Frustration filled him at the amount of time it was taking to travel this far out. Without the portals to move through the territory, getting to an under-attack area was more trouble than he previously considered. Fortunately, they had made sure to space the borders with lookout towers, each were always manned with a sniper and support person. With the range of the most recent version of their rifles, the distance between them wasn't a problem. There were a few hundred of the towers set up.

They also had barracks for reinforcements set up outside any habitat for alien monsters they were able to ride. In their raids, they had captured 15 different types of monsters that invaders used as mounts. With twelve species, they had figured out how to control them, while two they were still working to understand. The last monster race was underground tunnel diggers. The humans would never be able to ride them underground. Due to the damage that they could cause by digging under the base, it had been decided to put down those monsters to prevent potential trouble.

Since Tennessee had so much farmland, it had been helpful that they had found and rescued so many people used to working with animals. The information Adam had learned about classes inside Cruxannith's memories had shown them how to get basic beast handler classes. The low leveled people they found or rescued had been easier to guide onto the path.

A growl came from Adam's throat as he watched the display showing his people under attack. He had underestimated the size of the Drathan's floating base. He had thought that it covered the area defended by three of their lookout towers, but it had ended up large enough to cover five. It was miles in length and width.

From the top of the base came winged beasts with riders. The mounts looked like enlarged geckos, ten feet long. Their front legs were proportionally smaller and attached to wings that reached their back legs. The creatures looked like they'd be light and nimble without riders, although they almost labored while carrying the Drathan.

Lashtam's explanation had explained that the Drathan were one of those most difficult races to face. Their physical traits were at the top of all races. They possessed an inherent strength and toughness that few other races could match. However, the weird part of the race was that even though they naturally were physically superior to others, they focused on magic and magical classes.

According to Lashtam, all their people used magic. They had ways to protect themselves with elemental spells. Their strength and speed received boosts through skills instead of enhanced stats. Even their tanks and defenders relied on magic, similar to the Wood Elves that Adam had fought at the beginning. Barriers of all elements had been discovered to protect themselves.

Adding all those abilities to their already prodigious physical traits and they were difficult to bring down without superior numbers and weapons. Plus, since they all relied on spells, their range for attacks tended to be universally further than physically focused classes.

Fortunately, their ridden beasts were not nearly as durable.

Adam had watched the chaos of those dragon-like creatures flying around while their riders cast spells on the humans and towers below. Attacks from above gave them a huge advantage in most fights. Of course, the lookout towers had the power to confront the winged beasts.

Dozens of the winged geckos flew down, but before they were closed enough to attack, enhanced bullets began taking them out. The snipers didn't need fatal shots, just close enough to off balance the flyers.

A shot to the wing or side would tip them midair, often dropping the Drathan from their backs, though not always. At the least, when the mounts were thrown off their course, they would need time to steady themselves. This allowed the gunmen to take a second shot.

Drathan and the beasts who fell would land with enough force that they wouldn't get back up again, or a group of mounts humans would surround them for the kill. The human's defenses were well thought out and clearly unexpected by the Drathan.

Unfortunately, it wasn't all victories, which was when Adam's blood began to boil.

The initial confusion caused by being shot down took the Drathan time to figure out, but they soon discovered that the seemingly invisible attacks were coming from the towers. They also realized that only one attack came from each at a time.

The sky attackers would form into groups. Then instead of individuals diving to attack, they would attack the towers with more people than could be shot down at once. The snipers were trying to hold on, but two of the towers were down and the other three were close to falling from the damage of the Drathan spells.

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The surprise at having their mounts thrown off also caused the more powerful Drathan to intentionally drop from high up, relying on spells to slow them before impacting the ground or to protect them when they hit. Once on the ground, their natural defenses and spells proved challenging for the groups of humans to damage through.

The advantage had begun on the humans' side, but now it was in the process of switching. Adam could only grind his teeth as he hurried to help.

***

When Adam finally got to the battlefield, it was too spread out for him to have the usual impact when he engaged. Instead of an army of enemies, they were spread out over miles. The humans and their own beasts couldn't cover it all. While it was inconvenient to Adam, he would just need to be methodical. And as fast as possible.

The smallest of the Drathan were over six and a half feet tall. They were enormous, with charcoal gray skin and short beige hair on their heads. They wore no armor since, according to Lashtam, their skin was as tough as most crafting materials. There were thick cracks throughout their skin, with a glow colored by the element they wielded. Some glowed blue, others orange, yellow, red, or purple. It almost looked like a log left in a fire for too long.

Snouts protruded from their faces, not as long as the Scyrrics', but the way their mouths opened into fangs felt unnatural, as though their jaws needed to be unhinged to bite. Eyes on either side of the faces rotated independently, allowing them to see in most directly.

Drathan didn't have tails or claws, but many of them could manifest weapons on their hands and arms using their skills. Glowing fist weapons, claws, or blades would appear and disappear as they confronted the humans in battle.

The first Drathan that Adam came upon was surrounded. There were corpses of six legged bears, the freaky jump-gliding monsters they had taken from the Scyrric, and humans spread around those fighting. The Drathan was wounded and leaking orange fluid from cuts, but he clearly wasn't ready to fall any time soon.

Those still fighting around him were trying to hem him in with swords and spears. They cautiously poked and thrust, but there was a fear of getting too close to the invader. A few spells would fly at him. Some would hit and others were dispersed by chucks of rock that would appear in front of the attacks.

Seeing the dead, Adam roared. He aimed his motorcycle at the hated invader. The Drathan's eyes locked onto him with a frown, but the expressions on the humans became more confident. They also backed up as far as they could.

One of the Drathan's eyes stayed watched Adam while the other one looked in confusion at the withdrawing humans.

As the Drathan squared his stance, preparing for Adam's rapid approach, Adam stood in the foot holds on his bike. He drew out his hammer with his right hand while steering with his left.

A smirk seemed to cross the Drathan's snout as it watched Adam. Then a shield of floating dirt and rocks manifested in front of him. Adam didn't bother worrying about it. He steered to the side of the invader, and as his hammer landed on the magical earth shield, he used [Explosive Strike].

The floating shield pieces became scattered debris, and the hammer passed through to land directly on the Drathan's chest. A crack sounded out, like when splitting a geode with a hammer. The Drathan tried to gasp but his chest didn't expand, causing him to choke.

His body was flung backwards, though it didn't move as fast as Adam was driving. Adam passed the invader as soon as he struck him. He dug one foot into the ground and lifted the bike to spin himself in place. Then he drove back to the Drathan, shocked that the invader was trying to stand up.

Orange was leaking from a series of cracks in the Drathan's chest, but he wasn't out of it. Until now, every enemy Adam hit with that much force would have disintegrated from the blow. The pain that Adam was feeling from his soul damage shouldn't have weakened him this much. The Drathan really were as tough as Lashtam said.

Adam didn't care though. His second pass was slower. Adam raised his hammer into the air and brought it down while using [Kinetic Impact].

The pseudo-skill blew the Drathan back into the ground, where in less than a second, he bounced up and down against the hammer. Then Adam leapt from the motorcycle and was upon the Drathan.

A two-handed downward hammer swing embedded the Drathan in the ground before he could respond. Then a hit to the invader's side rolled him over. Once the Drathan was on his stomach, Adam stepped on his back and pressed with his foot. His opponent flashed red, and Adam could feel the strength of the Drathan trying to push him back up.

A side swing clocked the Drathan's head, knocking it violented back and forth. The strength the Drathan used to push back against Adam's foot went away and Adam pushed his face into the ground.

Adam activated [Explosive Strike] repeatedly and hit the back of the neck until he heard another crack. He was sweating and panting from the repeated uses of his abilities, his mouth dry from the soul pain he felt. Still, there was no kill notification.

Adam cautiously flipped the Drathan over with his foot and two hate-filled eyes glared at him. Without speaking or removing his eyes from the Drathan, Adam gestured to one of the Sentinel Army troops who had a larger sword. The man threw it to him.

Once he caught the sword, Adam thrust it into the Drathan's eye.

Drathan "Winged Wrath [37]" slain. 8,925 XP gained.

Looking down at the corpse and thinking of the difficulty he had in beating it, Adam heaved for breath. He frowned and then looked back up to the spread-out fights. This one advance soldier had taken him more effort to kill than most of the bosses he had fought against. That didn't bode well for the rest of the Sentinels, and he couldn't expect Lucas to get here as fast as he had.

Swinging the sword around, it felt too light. Adam wasn't sure he'd get enough penetration against the Drathan's skin, but it would have to do for now. He regretted not getting his personal gear before leaving their HQ. His largest sword would make a better weapon against them than the hammer. The words of Carmichael talking about emotions and violence had been spot on.

With a frown, Adam jogged to his motorcycle. He stood it up and got back on. In the distance he could see one of the towers shaking and several Drathan fighting with dozens of humans around it.

Adam would need to figure out a better way to fight them, or more of his own soldiers would die. With [Body and Soul Shaping] reducing his leaking energy as much as possible, Adam sped off to the next fight.

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