Six of the Drathan were on the ground attacking a group of 40 humans and beasts from the Sentinel Army to get to the tower behind them. The sniper in it wasn't able to help while targeting the winged beasts that circled.

The airborne invaders were flying in a formation. At intervals, two would dive at the tower, releasing magic spells. A protector had managed to get into the tower along with the sniper and support. He would coordinate with the gunman by using his own skills to try to block the spells while the sniper shot at the enemies.

Many of the spells had been aimed at the bottom half of the tower. The protector didn't have the range on his skills to block that far down, but the attackers had to get closer to aim that low. The sniper had the range on his rifle to hit them almost anywhere they were, but he couldn't shoot very quickly due to heat, explosive force, and reloading. When the enemies came closer, the support member in the tower was able to use a lesser powered rapid-fire gun. He was burning through the ammo trying to keep the flyers away.

Once more Adam was pushing his motorcycle as hard as possible to get to the fights. On the way there he had taken out three isolated Drathan, but now he needed to prioritize keeping that tower up.

The most frustrating part of this battle was how spaced out everything was. The Drathan were hard to kill, which made the fights slow and painful, but spending chunks of minutes between each encounter was the worst.

As Adam watched on a display, he saw that the protectors in the groups of Sentinels were already knocked away or staggered. The Drathan were steadily approaching the tower and the Sentinels that were still standing wouldn't be able to hold them back.

If only Adam could get his motorcycle to move faster. In a normal fight the enemies were closer together, or there were environmental obstructions that required them to come within range of his [Gladiator's Approach] to attack him. It meant he could teleport to his opponents to reach them.

While on the motorcycle he could drive fast, but it would just crash if he teleported off it. That would slow down his momentum and require him to get back to the bike when he needed to move on. It was a matter of speed from a distance versus close-range movement.

Adam leaned down in the seat trying to streamline his posture to get every ounce of speed out of his ride as he could. The war hammer was in his hand, held behind him to prevent it from causing drag.

As he approached, he watched one Drathan release a flame from his hand. The flame reached about twenty feet, was narrow, but it persisted as he moved his hand from one side of the humans to another. Shouts went out and some Sentinels dove backwards or sideways to avoid it.

Another Drathan manifested a gray liquid ball in his hand, which he threw into the path of the flame. Upon contact it ignited and burst, spraying flaming materials on the humans. Shouts became screams as skin and clothing caught fire. Men were dragged backwards towards two healers in the rear of the group while the men struggled to get out of burning armor. The gaps created by the flames forced all the Sentinels to retreat closer to the tower.

There was a lot of damage by the time Adam reached them. He still wasn't in range to attack, but he let loose a roar, [Incapacitating Shout], in the hopes that it would get the enemy's attention.

Drathan eyes snapped to him, but only the closest two seemed to have been caught within the stun range of the pseudo-skill. It did buy him a few seconds though. He lowered his hammer on the right side.

Magical barriers appeared around two of Drathan, one made from wind and another from gray liquid. The flamethrower skill was activated at him, but Adam thought his bike could handle the heat since it was made to resist himself.

As Adam drove through the six invaders, his hammer took out the legs of three. They were upended and fell forward. Unfortunately, Adam also clipped the wind barrier with the side of his bike and careened at an angle away from them.

Once more he roared as he stomped a foot into the ground and slightly lifted the bike to let his momentum spin him back towards them. It slowed his inertia down too much. If only he could maintain his speed while teleporting.

Then an idea hit Adam. Something he hadn't thought to try before. Most people's charge skills would propel their bodies forward. The skills triggered on themselves but like a truck carrying cargo, everything supported by them would move with them.

When he used the [Gladiator's Approach] pseudo-skill, similar to charge skills, it wasn't just his body that moved. If it had been, then he would appear without a weapon and clothes. That meant what he carried traveled with him.

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Adam lowered the motorcycle and once more sped at the group of Drathan. Even though the motorcycle wheel continued to spin when he lifted it, the traction and momentum were lost and had to be regained when he dropped it back to the ground. It allowed him to keep moving but with hitches and time lost. He would feel the motorcycle rev and then catch on the ground, jerking him forward.

Taking another pass at them, Adam used [Kinetic Impact] on his hammer and angled his path towards the middle of the Drathan. The invaders had learned from his last attack. A barrier sprang up in front of him as attacks were launched at where he was about to be.

Dispelling his [Kinetic Impact], Adam instead used [Arc Shockwave] before colliding with the barrier. An explosion of force spread out from him instantly, breaking the barrier, blowing away the incoming spells, and knocking all the Drathan away. The Drathan were caught by surprise. Their hefty frames prevented them from moving very far, but they were still separated and unbalanced.

Adam drove his foot down and lifted the front of the motorcycle slightly, but instead of spinning around or fulling breaking contact with his bike and the ground, this time he tried using [Gladiator's Approach].

Without any momentum loss, he appeared in front of a still standing Drathan. The Drathan didn't have time to react as the bike rammed his lower half and flipped him end over end into the air. Continuing in a straight line, Adam only turned his head and tried it again. His teleport into the back of another Drathan was instant, plowing that invader over.

Adam smiled wickedly. The image of putting a cow catcher or plow on the front of his bike filled his mind. He hoped the motorcycle would survive the impacts, since they were solid enough to jar even Adam. After a few seconds of speeding away to make sure there was enough time between his pseudo-skills, Adam once more used his teleport step. This time he raised the bike as he moved, bringing the spinning wheel into the face of a Drathan standing after being knocked down. The wheel, made with alien alloys and the rubber substitute, burned a strip into the skin of the invader and he bellowed.

The invaders were now separated, and the group of Sentinels had recovered. Those with ranged attacks cast them at the invaders while Adam teleported around. He swung his hammer into them. Sometimes he even swung the heavy-duty motorcycle.

Adam moved at a faster speed between them thanks to the power of his ride, which also made his own attacks more powerful and unpredictable. It helped him in the fight since he was struggling using his pseudo-skills frequently while also keeping [Soul and Body Shaping] constantly active to mitigate the pain and energy leakage.

After battering the Drathan repeatedly, seeing them struggle to recover from his attacks, Adam slid his hammer into its harness and pulled out the sword he had killed the first Drathan with. When they expected him to teleport, he would instead drive to them and stab into the eyes or neck. When they tried to defend against that, he would teleport or use [Arc Shockwave] to throw them off balance.

Adam was able to kill four of them quickly, and the other humans had rushed forward to finish the last two. With a wave towards the Sentinels, Adam sped off to find the next land bound group he could attack.

***

For the next two hours, Adam rushed around trying to handle the ground bound invaders. There wasn't much he could do about those in the sky. He had tried using [Gladiator's Approach] to reach them, but they were always too far away.

At a fallen tower he grabbed rifles from the wreckage, but the knockback from the sniper gun without it being firmly set in its stand required two blood packs to heal from, while the rapid fire one had a minor bend in the barrel making it useless. Adam had even tried throwing corpses at the flying attackers, but those were easily dodged.

In the end Adam had to accept what he could do and just try to keep casualties low until their main army arrived.

"All units in the field," he called through the Rift Menu, "meet at tower 147."

Since the Drathan were targeting humans as well as the towers, it seemed like bringing everyone together would make it easier to both protect them and to consolidate the enemies. There had been a lot of casualties during the fights, and Adam was seething from it. However, unlike in the past when he fought, his stamina was greatly waning.

Adam could barely keep going. He had eaten all his snacks and consumed most of his blood packs. Activating [Soul and Body Shaping] for this long was impossible, so now he was using it in bursts, while his energy leaked out and his skin kept turning crispy from his own power.

Slowly the units in the area made their way to the tower that Adam had specified. They came in either as a rush, trying to stay ahead of whatever Drathan they were fighting, or in a slow-moving retreat to protect their backs.

While grouping up would help Adam with his goals, there was also the possibility that it was a mistake. The flyers kept targeting wherever multiple humans gathered.

"Sir!" saluted one of the soldiers who had arrived. "How should we handle this?"

"Tanks or defenders protect the tower. We need to make sure it doesn't fall," ordered Adam. Then he spoke directly to a unit commander. "See if we can get a few men with barriers or ranged shields into the tower to protect the gunmen. Try to get a few mages or archers up there for support too. I'll spread confusion on the land attackers."

The unit commanders took charge of their remaining troops, giving them more detailed commands to follow Adam's orders.

Spells continued to fall from above and in front of them. There were no less than twenty Drathan approaching the gathering humans. Adam positioned himself between their enemies and his allies. He didn't want to be too close to friendlies in case he chose to use [Arc Shockwave] to create space or to blow away incoming spells.

Occasionally a flying lizard and its rider would plummet, but by now the falling Drathan knew to protect themselves on the way down which added to the numbers they faced on the ground.

The invaders were slow and cautious as they grouped up, but they also snickered as they watched the humans scramble to deal with the situation. Adam's river boiled further, and he winced as his skin began to burn away. He took two deep breaths, fully filling and emptying his lungs.

"I'll cause some trouble," growled Adam to those behind him. "Casters, focus fire on a single one. Break through their shields. Anyone quick enough, get behind them for a sudden attack and then get back to safety."

"What will you be doing, sir?" asked a commander.

"Me? I'll be pissing off some invaders," said Adam, and then he was off.

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