39 Weird Corrupted Barbarians

It has been two hours since the battle started and yeah, it's still as chaotic as before. All sorts of Augmented Skills were still flying around though it's already a bit less than before.

The grounds surrounding the Heavenly Lightning Tribe were already littered with corpses both of barbarians and Wild Beasts.

And even now, the Dark Beastmasters were still nowhere to be seen. Those cunning freaks letting this world's denizens fight each other, dwindling their numbers.

And because of how disunited this world is, they could just sit back and relax while sending sweet words to unsatisfied barbarian tribes to corrupt them and fight in their stead.

Now even without Raiden's explanation, his plan to unify this world first before dealing with these invaders was already appealing to me.

They needed to come together to deal with these guys or else the world would just head towards its doom through its own denizens' hands.

I need to have a lengthy talk with him when this is all over. I want to know all or some of his plans so I can have a clearer picture of how he will deal with them and also give my own input if possible. Like how the Principal let me in on his thoughts about the Pocket Dimension, I can help Raiden think and plan out this World's future.

"General, we need you to send some troops."

The messenger uttered hurriedly. Looks like he rushed here to my side to deliver the message. The other General that was sent here with me at the Western side died. On how he died, I don't know, looks like he took the frontline and was ganged up by a group of Corrupted Barbarians lying in wait to ambush him. They're not like the Wild Beasts who were controlled after all, they could still think by themselves.

I looked at Ophelia who was resting. The Orb was on its cooldown again so we're back at taking a defensive stance. Compared to the 300 troops near us which were already down to half of their original numbers, our casualties only numbered less than 30. It was certainly impressive but losing 30, I wouldn't say I'm okay with that.

"Ophelia, what do you think?"

"General, it's not wise to send them without Enhancement, I suggest we finish up here then move everyone to aid them."

As the battle went on longer, they all got accustomed to the Corrupted Barbarians and the Thornhogs. Those who were attacking us earlier were already wiped out. Now we're fighting fresh enemies from the other battlefields that were performing well.

Due to that, these messengers kept on coming to me to ask for aid for the other battlefields but yeah, the reason why we were performing well was the Orb of Enhancement. If I sent a platoon, without Enhancement, they'll only be a little organized than most barbarians fighting on our side and without the support of a leader like Ophelia, they'll be overwhelmed.

"Just wait for a bit. We'll finish up here before aiding them."

I answered the messenger, taking up Ophelia's suggestion.

Erin and Avelin were also resting beside me. They stopped talking and just saved up their energies to keep up with me during my walks through the battlefield.

There was a time when I was also ambushed by a group of Corrupted Barbarians but these two swiftly dealt with them and I only saw their bodies falling to the ground, lifeless.

It was during one hour into the battle when a system message appeared that I already maxed out the Support Character System. It's already at Level 5 and 100%.

I really power-leveled it during this battle. Just from how many I was supporting all at once, I received a lot of experience points. I got 2.4 Strength and Endurance from leveling my system from Level 3 to 5. Ah, my Intelligence attribute also got an increase of 0.7 points. It might look little considering I got 3 Strength and 1.5 Endurance from advancing to Augmented Realm but only this system gave out an increase on that hard to raise attribute.

Due to that increase in Intelligence, I felt my control on the inherent energy increased and that resulted in a reduced time to channel the Brute Energy needed to activate the Orb to cover more than 100 barbarians.

But because I'm not at the World of System, there's no way I could upgrade my System to put me in Adept-class. I'll ask Yuko back on Earth if I can ride on her connection to that world to upgrade my System. I still don't know if that will work but it's worth a try.

Lastly, the continuous use of Physique Boost proved to be effective as well, the container was enlarged again, now the experience sat at 60%. I proved that the increase in Intelligence Attribute was really affecting our unique Abilities that was awakened by being exposed to Psyche Energy.

I remembered Raiden thanking me for that Support Bonus which increased his Intelligence to 0.2. He said it improved his Temporal Acceleration. Now, because that Support Bonus increased again thanks to leveling my System, both Yuko and Raiden got another 0.2 Intelligence points to all of my Supported Individuals.

I'm sure Yuko's Foresight will also get an improvement because of the added 0.4 Intelligence.

I took this time of rest to check my stats again and yeah, I was satisfied when I looked at it.

It grew again, decreasing the gap between me and the Heroes.

[Physique Cultivation: 1st Stage Augmented Realm (48%)

Strength: 15.8(22.4)(1.0)

Endurance: 10.1(15.1)(0.5)

Intelligence: 3.8(3.9)]

When the cooldown ended I stood up once again and activated the Orb of Enhancement.

This time we'll finish on this side, there's only a few of them left but there's a group of Corrupted Barbarians that was proven to be difficult to deal with according to Ophelia. They were composed of a Saint Realm and 4 Augmented Realms. If I could describe how difficult they were to deal with, the 5 of them were identical but their Augmented Skills were all different from each other.

Are they quintuplets or it's some kind of Augmented Skill that made them all look like each other?

Err... Ophelia only described them and only now will I seek them to end that troublesome group. That group was the leader of the enemies sent here before we wiped out the first wave completely.

I'll have to see them with my own eyes to determine the peculiarity of that group.

After instructing the enhanced platoons to swiftly end the enemies, we followed Ophelia to the frontline.

Just by stepping in front, we were already assaulted by a number of Thornhogs and Corrupted Barbarians, but the three ladies dealt with them and all I had to do was to occasionally shoot Physique Boost to them. 

Well, even if someone got past them, my current strength could deal with enemies below Saint Realm, whether corrupted or not.

Having both the System and Physique Cultivation, my stats were naturally higher than a barbarian who only relied on Physique Cultivation.

"General, it's them."

After a while, the attacks died down. Or those eyeing us got scared so they changed their targets.

Ophelia then pointed somewhere. I followed it and saw a group of Corrupted Barbarians standing together, they were identical like how she described them. And they're all standing with different weird poses. They all looked like a group of costumed heroes from a Super Sentai show.

So there were these kinds of barbarians as well. Weirdos aren't unique on Earth.

"They're weird even for a barbarian."

I heard Erin mutter at my side.

"Don't they get tired posing like that? And why are they just standing there?"

Avelin also commented.

"That's just how they are, I already fought them twice and I still couldn't get used to the way they fight."

Ophelia detailed her experience with them. The Saint Realm is just a 1st Stage but because of the corruption, he's as strong as a 3rd Stage Saint Realm. She could beat him because of the enhancement from the Orb but yeah, with the other four added, it's hard for her to keep up with their different Augmented Skills.

Like I planned to do, I looked at them and observed the inherent energy surrounding them. I focused my attention to see if there's something off. Since Augmented Skills were just a repurposed clump of condensed Brute Energy, illusion skills like Erin's Shadow Concealment could be detected by me if I observe carefully.

As soon as I focused my gaze on them, the one in the middle turned to us and straightened his weird pose, he pointed at us and the four at his side immediately rushed towards us.

"Ophelia, Erin and Avelin, hold them off for me. I'll try to dispel the Augmented Skill covering them."

Like I thought, it's some sort of Augmented Skill that made them look identical.

Ah. With the denseness of the compressed Brute Energy covering them, it's an upgraded Augmented Skill, a Halo.

The three beside me nodded and met the four rushing towards us.

I'm going to try something new again. I felt the container inside me already reached a certain size that it will be possible to create another type of skill using the stabilized energy stored inside it. But yeah it will be a one-off skill that needs to use more stabilized energy than what was used on Physique or Psyche Boost.