Abyssal border wall protocol: Ch 14 (rough draft) (Patreon)

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Chapter 14: First Road Marker

I had no fucking clue what had been dragging metal across the road, and I’m sure I did not want to know either. It hadn’t bothered me, so I didn’t bother it, whatever it was. None of my business.

I had reached the 48 prescribed miles sometime around 5:30. My body ached from sitting all night on high alert. From my house to the bridge was about twenty miles, so through the night I had gone another twenty-eight. The system notified me when I reached the target miles.

System notice:

Distance traveled: 48 miles.

Monster spawn reset.

Not the most talkative answer, but hell, I could barely read it; I was so tired. I pulled the farm wagon over to the side of the road, unhitched River, and passed out on the bench. 

Snap. 

“Ahhhh!” I shot up. “What, where?” I nearly rolled off the wagon bench. 

I saw River and Strider hitched to the side of the road. They looked at me, like, why the hell are you acting crazy?

Then the memories came back. The bridge, the town, and the night of travel. “Shit, what time… Oh… fudge.” I checked the system clock, and it was 10:30 a.m. Five hours of sleep that I needed, but I only had an hour and a half to get ready for whatever monster the system sent my way.

System menu:Countdown: 01:29:14

“System,” I said, throat dry. “Did the forty-eight miles reset the spawn?” I wanted to make sure.

System help answer:Distance requirement met.Daily distance requirement reset confirmed.

Current spawn localization:Centered on the current abyssal border warrior location at the time of the next incursion.

Monster count progression:Reset to base allocation for the current local progression band.

Current next incursion:One abyssal incursion monster.Spawn window: Noon.

I read it twice because my brain was full of the mud of sleep.

“One, right, okay. Okay. One monster between levels 1 and 10. Great.” I said. Taking in the bright world around me. 

I was in a gravel pullout on the side of an old county road, one of those wide spots made for tractors, cattle trailers, and people who needed to check a loose strap before half their load became everyone else’s problem. The wagon sat with one wheel in the gravel and one close to the grass. River and Strider were tied to a fence post near a barbed wire line that ran along a pasture. The fence was old cedar and rusted wire.

Beyond the fence, cattle stood scattered through yellow grass and low weeds, watching me like I was the morning entertainment. A few had drifted toward an irrigation ditch that cut along the edge of the pasture. The ditch still held water, silver under the fake daylight, moving slowly through mud and grass roots. A windmill stood past it, spinning lazily, though I doubted it produced electricity. Farther out, the land opened wide into pale fields, broken farm roads, long fence lines, and the empty shapes of barns and ranch houses.

Behind me, the valley stretched back toward the bridge, town, and home. I could not see any of it from here, of course, but I could feel it in the road behind me. Forty-eight miles of asphalt, bridge steel, bad men, dead farms, one level-seven murder dog, and whatever had dragged metal across the road in the dark. The old world was still there in pieces. Mailboxes. Fence gates. Road signs. Irrigation pipes. A plastic feed bucket rolling in the wind. Ordinary things left lying around after all the ordinary people had been taken, killed, or scared into hiding.

Ahead and east, the land rose.

That was what caught my attention after the panic settled. The open valley did not last forever. Past the pasture and a few scattered ranch houses, the road bent toward darker ground where hills folded together, and the first real pines stood in thick patches. Higher up, the mountains climbed under the strange sky, blue and black in the distance, with pale rock showing through places where trees thinned out. It looked like a shelter from here. It also looked like the kind of place a person could vanish and never be found again.

A green road sign stood twenty yards ahead, tilted sideways from an old impact. One arrow pointed along the paved county road, north through more pasture and scattered houses. The other pointed east, toward a narrower road that climbed into the trees. The sign had a name on it, some little backroad name I had known my whole life, except now it felt wrong to use. That name belonged to maps, summer drives, fishing trips, and people arguing about gas prices. This place belonged to the System now, so in my head, I called it East Ridge Road and left it at that.

The paved road would be easier on River and the wagon. Flat enough. Wide enough. Bridges, signs, farms, maybe wells and supplies. It also meant people. Roadblocks. Men like Dale. Men worse than Dale, potentially. Every desperate bastard with a cart, a truck that no longer ran, or a knife on a stick would think the same thing I had thought. Roads were movement. Movement was life.

The road into the pines was a different kind of problem. Dirt fire roads. Logging cuts. Washed-out turns. Rocks big enough to break a wheel. Grades that might make River hate me with her whole horse soul. No easy maps. No guarantee the wagon could make it ten miles, let alone the 48 I needed to each day.

I looked at the pasture, the mountain road, the wagon, and the countdown.

“One monster first,” I said. “Existential travel planning after lunch.”

River lifted her head from the grass.

“Yeah, let’s get you both taken care of first.” I brushed them, got them water, and filled their muzzle bags with animal pellet feed.

Skill increased:Animal Handling: Level 20, Apprentice.

Third Technique unlocked: Long Road Rhythm.

Technique description:Familiar animals under your handling can travel longer distances with reduced fatigue when guided through a steady pace, proper rest intervals, calm command rhythm, load awareness, and terrain reading. Road wear from harness strain, hoof impact, fear exhaustion, uneven footing, and prolonged travel is reduced. The effect strengthens when combined with Riding, Wagoner, Steady Lead, and practiced care.

The technique settled into me slowly and heavily, deeper than Calming Presence and steadier than Steady Lead. It did not make River tireless. It did not turn Strider into some magic warhorse that could run all night and ask for breakfast afterward. It taught me where the road was taking them, where it was hardest on them.

I could feel it in the little things now.

The way River’s shoulder worked under the harness. The drag in the cart wheels when the gravel softened near the ditch. The way Strider’s stride shortened when the road climbed too long. The small difference between a horse being scared and a horse spending its strength faster than it could afford.

“Oh,” I said, looking between them. “So, the skill is telling me I have been riding you two like an idiot.”

River flicked one ear.

“Fair,” I said, going and getting myself a quick snack and a gulp of water. Then I secured my weapons: hatchet, bow and quiver, and naginata. “Okay, where the hell am I going to stand my ground?” 

I clipped the barbed wire and let River and Strider wander into the field with the cows so they could drink and be near other animals should the worst happen. I knew with my level, skill, and the bond we had, they would come if I called now. 

“I need to see about upgrading Strider and River. But that’s for after my Noon date.” I set about the task of re-securing what I had in the wagon and making sure I had a platform to stand on. 

It was the only elevated position I would get, and I needed to make the most of it. 

The wagon was high enough that I could see over the fence line, the ditch, the road, and most of the pasture. It was also old, loaded down, and built for hauling feed, fence posts, and farm junk, so trusting it as a fighting platform felt like a good way to meet Old Man Tom in the afterlife and have him call me an idiot.

I shifted two boxes of tools to one side, moved the food crate under the bench, and wedged the long poles, so I had room to stand without tripping. The naginata lay beside my right boot. Old Bessy rested against the wagon rail. My bow was in my hands.

The quiver hung over my back with sixteen arrows in it. Six broadheads. Ten practice tips. Fewer than I wanted, given how often the system kept throwing things for me to shoot in front of me.

That was becoming a theme. I still had the twenty-four arrows I had found in the hardware store packed away in the wagon, most with practice tips and a few bare shafts that would need heads before I trusted them for anything serious. The box of broad heads would fix that. I needed to add them to the quiver, but that would have to wait.

I looked toward the pasture.

River and Strider had drifted toward the cattle near the irrigation ditch. River had her head down in the grass. Strider stood near her, ears moving, watching me and the road. The cows seemed fine with them. One old black cow stared at me with the flat calm of an animal that had seen men make bad choices around fences for years.

“Good,” I said. “Stay over there. Eat grass. Be normal.”

The countdown reached five minutes.

I drank water, swallowed the last of a cracker, and checked the road again. It ran straight for maybe seventy yards before bending around a low rise and a leaning fence. The asphalt was cracked, with grass pushing through the seams. A dead pickup sat half in the ditch on the far side, nose down, tailgate open, old feed sacks in the back; those would go in the wagon after the fight.

The countdown reached ten seconds.

I drew an arrow.

3…

2…

1…

The air folded fifty yards ahead of me.

For half a second, it looked like a pile of green-black branches had landed in the middle of the road. Then the pile unfolded. Joint by joint. Long rear legs bent under a narrow body. A hard chest rose above a thin abdomen. Two forelimbs folded tight against its front, long and curved like sickles. Its head turned toward me, triangular and slick under the System light.

Monster Spawned:Abyssal Reed Mantis.Monster Level: 6.XP Value: 60.

I stared at it.

“Of course,” I said. “One monster, and it still comes with deadly farm equipment attached.”

The mantis clicked.

The sound was thin and dry, like fingernails tapping glass. Its body lowered. The rear legs compressed.

Monster Reading pressed a warning through me.

It Jumped.

I released.

Focused Shot narrowed the distance to one joint on one rear leg. Power Increase pushed through the bow. The arrow snapped across the distance and punched through the mantis’s left rear leg just above the bend.

The monster sprang. The wounded leg ruined it.

It lurched forward five feet and skidded across the asphalt, one rear leg folding wrong under it. The hooked forelimbs swept out and cut through empty air. The arrow stayed in the leg, shaft shaking with each twitch.

I let out the breath I had been holding. “Okay. That helped.”

The mantis turned its head toward me again.

It could still move. The bad leg dragged, but the other legs worked. It came forward in short bursts, five feet at a time, low to the road, forelimbs folding and opening as it tested the space between us.

I looked down at the naginata.

Polearms: Level 1.

That sat wrong with me. I had been carrying the thing since day one. It had helped kill the hound brute. It was the weapon with the reach to keep claws, hooks, and everything else away from my skin. And it was still barely started. The skill needed to level; I needed it to level.

“Guess we fix that.” I slung the bow over my shoulder and picked up the naginata, infusing mana into it.

I stepped down from the wagon onto the gravel.

The mantis came faster.

Five feet.

Pause.

Five feet.

Each lunge was short now, but sharp. Its forelimbs struck in crossing cuts that reached farther than I liked. I planted the butt of the naginata against the gravel and held the blade forward.

The first strike came from my left.

I turned the shaft and caught the hooked limb before it reached my arm. The impact jolted through my hands. The mantis’s limb slid along the wood toward my fingers, scraping as it came.

I shoved the weapon sideways and stepped back. The hook missed my fingers by inches.

“Too close.” The next strike came low.

I blocked, stepped, and felt the shaft bend under the hit. The mantis moved wrong. Its damaged leg made every lunge uneven, and that made it harder to read. It did not fight like a person. It folded, snapped, stopped, and struck from angles that made my eyes want to follow the wrong part.

Monster Reading helped. Tension in the rear leg. Head still before the strike. Forelimb opening before the hook came.

I stepped right.

The hook cut through the space where my ribs had been.

I thrust.

The naginata point struck the mantis in the chest and skidded off a hard plate with a crack that ran up the shaft and into my palms.

“Armored, fuck!” I yelled. 

It lunged again.

I met it with the shaft across my body. One hook struck the wood. The other came under it. I twisted, shoved, and felt the lower hook tear through the edge of my shirt and scrape across my chest.

Heat opened across my skin.

I jumped back and glanced down. Shallow. Long and wet, but shallow. “Right,” I hissed. “No more letting that happen.” The mantis clicked and came after me.

I moved.

That was the part that kept catching me off guard. I moved, and my body answered like it had been waiting for permission. Body made the naginata lighter and put more power than I was used to in everything I did. Motion shortened the time between thought and footwork. Sense gave me distance and timing. Recovery kept the cut from stealing my breath or slowing me down too much. Will kept fear from taking over my hands and mind.

Before the System, I would have been dead. I knew that for damn sure. A monster like this would have covered the road, hooked me, and left me bleeding before I figured out which direction to run.

Now I could fight it. I could actually fight it.

I stepped into a gap, thrust, and caught the mantis along the side where two plates met. The blade slid in. Black-green fluid splashed across the road. The mantis jerked back, clicking hard enough that the sound rattled in my ears. “Tick-tivk-tick.”

“That cut.”

It struck with both forelimbs.

I stepped inside the first swing, slammed the shaft down, and caught the second hook. The impact forced me to one knee. Gravel bit through my pants. The mantis leaned over me, abdomen lifting.

I shoved up with everything I had. The Body Stars answered. The mantis staggered back.

I came up with it and drove the blade into the same side wound. Deeper this time. Then I ripped the naginata free and backed away before the hooks came around again.

I was breathing hard, but my lungs still worked. My arms shook from adrenaline, but they held. My legs had power left in them.

I thought about athletes then, because my brain apparently had time for that kind of stupidity during a knife-bug fight.

The top sprinters in the world had been fast before the System. What were they now? Maybe some Olympic sprinter had poured every Star into Motion and was already getting close to the speeds of the Flash or Superman. Maybe some gymnast was climbing a ruined apartment building like gravity had become a suggestion. Maybe some heavyweight lifter with Body Stars had started bench pressing trucks.

Heroic feats. That was what they would call it later, if there was a later.

Right now, mine was trying to keep a praying mantis from turning me into a roadside mess of diced meat cubes.

The mantis lowered itself.

Monster Reading kicked in. Now.

It lunged.

I stepped left and let the first hook pass in front of me. The second came low. I jumped over it, and for one wild second, I was above the cut with both boots off the road.

That should have been impossible. Then I landed, slid one foot in gravel, and kept the naginata between us. Mana rose in my chest.

I pulled it down my arms and into the weapon. The tip took the glow first, white-blue light crawling over the old sword blade. I held the mana there, pressed tight into the point.

Intent mattered. Trigger on impact. Detonate when buried.

The mantis tried to turn with me, but the wounded rear leg lagged behind. It clicked once, then lunged again.

I stepped into it.

The first hook came high. I ducked under it. The second came across my middle. I shoved the shaft into its path, felt the impact slam through my hands, then drove forward with my shoulder, hips, legs, and every Star I had bought with blood and bad sleep.

The mana-lit tip punched into the mantis’s abdomen. For half a breath, the glow vanished inside it.

Then the mana detonated. BOOM!

White-blue force burst through the monster’s body. Its abdomen split open with a wet crack. The back half buckled. Legs clawed at the road. One hook scraped sparks from the asphalt. The other opened and closed twice, then stopped.

I ripped the naginata free and backed away, keeping the point between us.

The mantis tried to rise. It failed. Black smoke crawled along its edges as the System started taking it apart.

XP Gained: 60 XP.

Monster slain:Abyssal Reed Mantis.Monster Level: 6.

Total XP: 409.

Skill increased:Polearms: Level 5, Novice.

First Technique unlocked:Charged Point Control.

Technique description:Improves distance management, thrust alignment, shaft blocking, recovery after impact, and control of the weapon’s effective line against enemies with shorter or irregular reach. When mana is infused into the weapon’s point, blade, or striking tip, this technique improves mana containment, trigger clarity, and detonation placement during thrusts. Effect strengthens when combined with Motion, Sense, Monster Reading, Infuse Mana, Mana Trigger, Mana Detonation, Mounted Combat, and repeated mana-infused weapon use.

The technique settled into my hands first.

Grip. Point. Line. Distance.

Then the mana part came after, strange and hot under my skin. The naginata changed in my mind. It was still Liz’s old staff with a cheap sword blade bolted to the end. It was also a line I could hold between me and anything trying to open me up. The point had become more than sharp metal. It was a place to store pressure.

A place to tell the mana to wait.

I lifted the blade and watched the last thread of white-blue light fade from the edge. Trigger on impact. Detonate when buried. I could now feel the impact it was taking on the naginata as well; the tip was slowly being blown apart each time I infused mana and had it detonate. If I kept going like this in a dozen or so more uses, the tip would be less tip and more jagged line. “Shit, just like snapping the tip off a pocketknife. 

“Okay,” I said, breathing hard. “So, the stick has a boom setting now. That feels safe. Going to need a file to keep the point, well, pointy.”

I stood there breathing hard, stomach burning, hands tight around the shaft. The smoke finished its job of erasing the monster.

In the road where it died, the system had left something behind. I walked over to where the carcass had been. The two curved claws that were as long as my arm lay in the road, along with the curved chest piece of its chitin armor. 

“The system left…Oh, so I guess the slug juice might have been a material.” I said. “Yeah. Still would pass that up; how would I have even collected it? Right into the shared storage space.” I said, summoning the closet and putting the items that the system had not dissolved into it.

The road went quiet after the mantis vanished. Wind moved through the pasture grass. The old feed sack in the dead pickup scraped against the wheel well. One of the cows bawled from the pasture, long and annoyed.

I looked toward River and Strider.

They stood near the ditch with the cattle, heads high, ears locked on me. River stamped once. Strider took two steps toward the fence.

I raised one hand. “River. Strider. Come on.”

I put Long Road Rhythm, Steady Lead, and Calming Presence into the words. The new technique blended with the command. Safe. Trust. Return.

River came first, walking through the clipped gap in the fence with care. Strider followed with his head high, because of course, he had to make an entrance even after watching me fight a giant grasshopper praying mantis thing in the road.

I met them halfway and rubbed River’s neck, then Strider’s.

“Good horses,” I said. “You stayed put. That was the whole job.”

River bumped my chest near the cut.

I sucked air through my nose. “Yeah, I know. I saw it too.”

I looked back at the empty road where the mantis had spawned.

Fifty yards away, and I had time to wound its leg. That was just one monster. It had still cut me and forced me to spend mana.  I might be able to handle two, but four- no, no. If the system sent four, I would die out here with a wagon full of good supplies and a very judgmental audience of cows.

I turned toward the mountains. The paved road ran north through pasture and old houses. The dirt road climbed east into pine and shadow.

“Can’t fight many of those Fu… fudging things,” I said. “So, I guess we have to travel. Come on, let's get hitched up and on the road again.”