33 Chapter 33: Black Ops

While Jess slept, Vulcan and his sentries stood guard all night. The only problem that happened was when a large group of carnivorous bats swooped down and tried picking them off one by one. Using his night vision to spot them, the sentries shot them down from the sky using energy blasts. Other than that, nothing else tried approaching their group.

To get his mind off the conversation from earlier, Vulcan trained up his fighting skills. It was calming and allowed him to clear his mind, or in his case, multiple minds. When the sun broke through the horizon, Jess woke up to find Vulcan striking a high kick pose with the sun behind him. She rubbed her eyes to wake up and soon joined him for a bit of practice.

Interested in the fighting techniques, she asked him to teach her. He welcomed her for a bit of sparring. When they were finally satisfied, they packed up and left the camp.

During the hike up the mountain, they eventually ran into a problem. The trail leading up ended, and they had to begin climbing the steep cliff. It really wasn't a problem since they all had above superhuman strength at this point. They eventually reached an open area to group back up. Vulcan looked over the side they just climbed up and saw Jess still making her way up with the other sentries.

"Your doing great Jess, just a couple more hours and you'll get up here," he said, as he let out a mocking laugh at her reaction.

"Stop being such a prick and give me hand, will you?" She responded, holding up her hand for him to help her. Just as he was lifting her up, her eyes went wide.

"Look out!!" She screamed as something behind him struck him hard, sending him flying over the edge. Since she had been holding onto him, they both went freefalling down the mountain. While in mid-air, he grabbed onto her as he took out a spear and stabbed it into the side of the cliff. The spear groaned under the pressure of their fall, but eventually slowed down their fall to a complete stop.

Looking upwards, he saw the sentries had made it to the top and identified his assailant. A rock golem, it had camouflaged with the terrain and hurled a boulder at him while he wasn't looking.

"I got an idea, you ready?" He said, looking at Jess. She nodded in response, and he uncurled his arm holding onto her, lining up his throw, and flung her straight to the top. Watching from his sentries' point of view let him know that it worked, and she had joined the fight. He could then focus on getting up there as well.

Getting a good grip and foothold, he readied his stance and began crawling upwards. His strength and speed tore through the rock easily as he carved a straight path to the top. Scanning the rock golem let him know it was a low silver-ranked beast. Placing his palms out, he shot a large beam at the golem. The energy melted the rock and turned it into lava immediately. It then collapsed into a pile of rocks.

Everyone's guard got lowered, but not before the rocks began to collect themselves again and this time replacing the melted rocks with different ones.

"You're a golem for crying out loud, you need to destroy its core!" Explained Jess. He then got another idea; together with his sentries, they extended their palms and sent waves of energy blasts throughout its body. About sixty percent of its massive body was melted, and yet he didn't receive a notification that it was dead. Once again, it began to regenerate.

He was getting a bit impatient, so he allowed his new trump card to be used. Getting back on its feet again, the rock golem growled a loud, angered roar. But once it was done, a large hole got blasted right through the center of its chest. Looking at where its chest used to be, the golem looked up curiously where the attack came from. But all his attackers in front were standing still and hadn't used their previous attack to harm him.

Bang. Another object hit him in his shoulder and tore all the rock clean off. Bang. His hand got destroyed. Bang. Now his right leg, and it began to happen all over its body. The last part was his head, and it also was destroyed by the mysterious attacker. Vulcan finally got the kill notification.

Meanwhile, Jess was wondering what had happened. It didn't take long for her to get her answer as Vulcan and the sentries turned towards the left.

Uncloaking their invisibility mode, the 25 sentries that were once transparent now showed themselves in their full gear. They wore metal backpacks on their backs while holding a long futuristic sniper rifle. Vulcan went the extra step just like he had done with his gothic armor for Dark Sentry.

These sentries wore steel armor with green camo colors and a black visor helmet. He got the inspiration from the 41st clone trooper Ranger platoon armor from Star Wars. Just to make them look extra cool, he made them salute.

Jess had eyes wide open in awe, she didn't even know all these sentries were nearby at all. Only when they revealed themselves did she know that they were the ones who had taken down the rock golem in their place.

"Who are these guys? They look completely different than your regular other copies, and what are those things they're carrying?" Jess asked curiously.

"These are my special unit commando sentries. Their weapons are a sort of long-range weapon. Think of it similar to a crossbow but far more powerful, as you witnessed," he explained as he let her hold the weapon."You look through this little scope to aim the shot," he added.

Jess was without words. There were trinkets that allowed one to look far away, but they cost a bunch of coins and weren't as advanced as this thing.

"Can I take a shot?" she asked, looking up at him. He agreed and even helped her with how to hold the weapon. Once she took the first shot, her face was perplexed. When it fired, the recoil made her move a little, but the fact that it made no sound whatsoever surprised her.

Seeing her expression, Vulcan explained some of the inner workings of the weapon. Her face beamed up in excitement.

"You think I can have one of these!?" she asked, getting excited about the new tech.

"Sure, but you'll have to go through some training before I'll let you use them," he said as he took the sniper back from her. She felt disappointed that she couldn't use the new weapon at the moment.

"Now that you're caught up with things, these guys are going to help us out with our mission in more ways than you think," he said as two of the commando sentries grabbed onto him. She raised an eyebrow at this and then noticed the other sentries were holding onto their own commandos. It was her turn next, and just like the rest, she held on.

The commandos' backs then lit up with two propulsion flames, and they took off.

"Vulcan!" Jess screamed. He looked over to see her reaction to flying for the first time and found her grinning.

"Having fun!?" he asked as he raised his voice so she could hear him.

"I can wait for the new weapon, BUT you have to show me how to fly next. This is amazing!" she screamed in joy, her happiness even infecting him.

As they approached the top of the mountain, they spotted a wide ledge they could stop by. They didn't want to let the wyverns know they were approaching. Once they were dropped off, the commando sentries activated their cloaking powers and disappeared from sight. Their unit would post up in optimal locations to back up their group. The reason they hadn't joined up sooner was that they were surveying for hidden ore veins. Only about three veins were found, but they were of rank 1 metals. Later, they would go back and place Automaton factories in their place and build underground bunkers so they wouldn't be seen from humans in the area. In fact, with the new Jetpacks and cloaking ability he had now, he began to send out teams of commandos further into other places of Rodden, Oros, and Harrien Kingdom to build secret Automaton factories. No need to place all your eggs in one basket after all.

After some more climbing, a loud screech could be heard, reminding Vulcan of a pterodactyl. Taking cover behind a rock formation, he looked over and right on a large plateau was a group of wyverns of different sizes. In the far back against the mountain was an enormous entrance to a cavern. He didn't know if there would be more inside, but he had a strategy on how to deal with the situation. Probably around 20 of them, and each one not smaller than a horse. Just when he was going to explain his plan, a loud roar interrupted him. Looking back, a large neck first peered out of the cave, its head already bigger than the largest wyvern outside. Then came the wide wings and body. At first, he thought it was a dragon, but it clearly didn't have arms like a dragon; its arms were fused with its wings like the rest. Not to mention its scales were thick and glistening like a tank's armor plating. Was this the wyverns' leader? Just when he thought things couldn't get worse, it looked directly at him. Its slit eyes showing animosity towards him, and the next thing he knew, it opened its maw showing rows upon rows of sharp teeth. A bright flame let him know that it was charging an attack already.

"MOVE!" Seconds later, the rock formation they were hiding behind was engulfed in a scorching hot flame. Rock melted within seconds of the attack hitting it. Without their cover, they became exposed to all the wyverns.