A Black Market LitRPG

The hornet soared above Ocra, where the battle for the town was raging. Fighting in the streets spread like wildfire as Yual Dominion troops pushed in hard, ferried in by concealed boats that were only spotted at the last minute.

Right now, the Versian garrison was scrambling to defend every inch of the town as much as possible, but they were now being pressured on both sides, with half of the Raktor corps pushing in from the front as well.

Kyle had no time to get his heavy armour – two hours would be far too long. He could already tell this would be the key deciding battle for control of Ocra.

On the ground, the soldiers were locked in a perilous shoot-out, with the Versian garrison setting up rapid makeshift defences in the form of sandbags, crates and already torn-apart husks of arctech wagons. The armoured Yual knights stormed the districts as fast as they could, overwhelming the defenders and capturing as much territory as they could before the Garrison could fully mobilise to stem the flow.

The alleyways were filled with individual squads on both sides, battling for control in a gruesome battle. Casualties began to mount rapidly within the first ten minutes of the fight. Kyle spotted a good landing point, ordering the hornet to swoop in fast and hard. They nosedived through the air, Kyle no longer caring about the visible range of the hornet.

They streaked down towards a five-men Yual infantry squad who was cleaning up the alleyway, stabbing their bayonets into barely unconscious Versian soldiers that a concussion grenade had knocked out. With a leap, Kyle landed knee-first into one of the Yual soldiers, crushing his collarbone as the weight pummelled him into the ground.

“What the?!” None of them had been looking upwards, their attention now focused on Kyle, who was already moving, grabbing a bloodied repeater from the ground. He swung the barrel and aimed at the nearest soldier, pulling the trigger.

However, the repeater was damaged, prompting Kyle to quickly prop up the Yual soldier whom he had crushed, surprisingly still alive. Before the rest of the Yual squad could dwell on the hesitation of shooting their ally held hostage, Kyle mustered all his strength.

Penchant for Violence! Aero Shoes!

He launched the body of the hostage towards the squad, hurtling him at a surprising speed that caught them off-guard. The first soldier groaned as he caught the hostage in his hands while Kyle was already next to him, punching him in the face and grabbing the rifle in his hand.

My own factory’s rifle. Perfect. A few shots were fired at Kyle, but his keen eyes and high dexterity allowed him to spot their action before the shot was even fired, allowing him more time to react and avoid getting hit.

He also noticed that the soldiers were not armoured, unlike the arctech knights that had forced their way into the trenches earlier in the day. They were also not firing the rifle at the same speed as stated in the System message. They don’t even have enough MP to sustain less than a minute, so they have to pace themselves.

Kyle was not like them, however: his Arcian physique enabling to unleash a spray of high-speed pellets that blanketed the entire alleyway, killing the remainder of the squad in one fell swoop.

He finished off the first two Yual soldiers whom he had hit, before scouring the alleyway. It was now littered with bodies, giving him ample resources to find a way to intervene in the battle. I’ll need to stop the Yual Dominion from establishing a beachhead. Once they entrench themselves, it’s going to be nigh impossible for the Versian garrison to eke out a win.

Kyle quickly disguised himself in the same uniform as the Yual soldiers, ignoring the sticky feeling of the blood that drenched parts of it. Hiding the original body by tossing it through a building’s window, he aimed the repeater right at himself, firing three pellets at the parts that were bloodied, not even wincing as the pellet dug in deep into his flesh.

He then did not make a move, pretending to be unconscious in the alleyway while he waited, letting the blood slowly seep out from his wounds. Sure enough, another Yual dominion squad moved past the alleyway, the frontline within the city slowly shifting. They combed the squad, grimacing at the brutal sight before they noticed that Kyle was still alive.

“HEY, HEY! WE GOT ONE HERE; HE’S STILL BREATHING!”

“MEDIC! GET A MEDIC!”

Without any effort on his part, Kyle was soon ferried on a stretcher to the backline of the Yual Dominion forces, heading straight for the port where they had first landed. The logistics and supply chain were being set up there, with more and more boats dropping off crates.

He was carted into a medical tent, where there were already close to a hundred twenty others, all groaning and moaning in some form or another. Still gripping his rifle, Kyle peeked out from the corner of his eye, noticing the man on the makeshift bed next to him had his entire face burnt off, rendering him unable to speak.

Medics scrambled around the tent, delivering diluted health potions and anaesthesia to them as they slowly recovered. Kyle noticed that all of the people sent here were not armoured, being mere privates and recruits of the Raktor forces. It looks like they saved all the good potions for the higher ranks.

Soon, a medic approached to give him a diluted health potion. But before the medic could force Kyle’s mouth open, Kyle grabbed the medic’s wrist and crushed it. Twisting it into an arm lock, Kyle shot up from the bed while channelling the Necklace of Healing, the pellets being pushed out of his wounds automatically.

“Wha- GUAR-“ The medic could barely scream before his chin was slammed against the edge of the bed frame twice in rapid fashion, the brain jolt killing him immediately.

The fight was hardly noticed by most of the injured people, and even if they did they were too weak to shout for help. Kyle hastily searched the tent, tracing the arctech power lines that ran from the lanterns hung above, leading towards a portable generator outside, chock full of arcite fuel.

He disconnected the power before ripping out the fuel and letting it leak. He fired the rifle shot at the fuel pack, igniting it and starting a fire that began to envelop the back of the medical tent. The injured that were placed the closest could not even move to avoid the lapping flames that began to sear their skins, their eyes only staring in horror at their impending death.

Kyle quickly moved through the area, trying to locate the ammunition storage again as the fire began to be more prominent, attracting the attention of the Yual forces.

“There’s a fire at the medical tent!”

“We don’t have the extinguishers with us!”

“Idiot, get the water from the river!”

While the soldiers began to panic, Kyle was already weaving through the port as quietly as he could, though he did not need to put in as much effort thanks to the loud explosions and gunfire erupting all over the city, creating a consistent din.

He soon reached the pier, where there was a constant stream of soldiers off-loading supplies from boats that were docked, creating a sort of ferry system between the temporary Yual military camp and here. If I can blow up the pier…

It would make it harder for the boats to dock, but what he truly needed was to sabotage their military supplies, even better if he destroyed their entire stock. For Kyle, it meant more than just stalling the war: it meant more money for the Seven Snakes as well, thanks to their factory being on contract to sell weapons.

And also increase my chances of selling weapons to the Versian military as well. Kyle focused on the task at hand, still looking for the storage area. He soon spotted a returning squad, asking for ammunition and being directed to a warehouse that had been occupied; Kyle recognised it as the place where he was originally captured and held prisoner by Masir and his gang.

Knowing the layout of the place well, he found a side entrance into the basement, allowing him to enter quietly. The makeshift gang cells at the bottom next to the arctech fuel generator were not cleared out yet, littered with maggot and fly-infested corpses of those who wronged Masir, though there were two Yual soldiers guarding.

Kyle did not bother with hiding too much – now that he was in the warehouse, he resorted to direct attacks, immediately rushing at the two soldiers and killing them with his bare hands. Grabbing their magazines, he ran out of the basement into the ground floor, where there were multiple platoons queuing up for their allocated weapons and ammunition.

He snuck around, avoiding the logistic workers who were sorting the crates of mortar ammunition. Kyle soon came across a machine gun, designed in a vastly different way from the one Hayden and the Versian military had, but still usable. It was the one that was intended to be mounted to a war machine or a defence emplacement, but Kyle had a better use for it.

Finding the matching canister of pellets, he loaded it up before hefting it with both hands, abandoning the rifle. A worker heard the loud metallic noise as the machine gun rattled loudly, prompting him to come over and check.

Before he even turned the corner, the familiar whirring sound of the machine gun ramping up as it guzzled its internal arcite fuel pack could be distinctly heard. In a sudden storm of bullets, the worker’s body was ripped apart into shreds, with the bullets slamming into the crates behind him that contained the mortar explosives.

In a flash, the crates combusted, creating a chain explosion that wreaked havoc through the entire warehouse. The shockwave hardly fazed Kyle as he took advantage of the disorientating surprise attack, launching his own hailstorm at the platoons queued up and mowing them down.

Even the armoured arctech knights could not fend against the machine gun, the penetrating power far too strong as it ripped holes in the metal, piercing their flesh while they scrambled for cover.

The explosion soon rocked the entire warehouse, eating away at the weak infrastructure made of rusted metal, a loud creaking sound being heard.

“Who the hell is attacking us?!”

“Shit, the place is about to collapse on us!”

“Get out of here, quick!”

The soldiers scrambled out of the obviously teetering warehouse. Still, Kyle did not leave just yet, quickly dropping the machine gun and grabbing a few more mortar projectiles from an unexploded crate as the residual fire of the first explosion raged around him.

Penchant for Violence! Hurling them as hard as he could, he slammed the mortar projectiles into the other crates, blowing apart the rifles and other weaponry to render them unusable.

The foundations of the warehouse begin to shake violently as the ensuing explosions rocked the rapidly weakening metal beams even more, indicating an imminent collapse. Kyle sprinted towards the river unarmed, dodging falling metal plates that threatened to slice him in half. He grabbed the arctech radio on his body, speaking rapidly to Feldon. “Can you pick me up at the pier?”

[I don’t think so! The area is too hot!]

“Then Sector 1A!”

[WHAT?!]

“Go there, now!”

Just as the warehouse exploded, Kyle made it out onto the road bordering the river, avoiding the brunt of it. But he was far from being scott-free, with three armoured knight squads already converging on him, the word spreading through the camp of an intruder.

“There’s the Versian spy! Capture him!”

A few shots aimed at maiming him were fired, prompting Kyle to instead jump into the surging river, plunging in and getting swept away downstream, easily evading the incoming gunfire. His body was twisted and turned as he knocked against the riverbed, tossed around for a few minutes by the swirling water while he held his breath.

Gasping for air the moment he broke to the surface, he quickly kicked as hard as he could, fighting against the current in order to push himself towards the shore. With a heavy pant, he finally made it, crawling out from the river with every hand grabbing on tight, clawing his way out of the wet mud onto the riverbank.

He had drifted far enough to avoid capture, allowing Feldon to quickly spot him and pick him up with the hornet again. “Boss, we’re running low on fuel. We won’t be able to stay airborne any longer!”

Kyle would have wanted to do more, but he could now only hope that the garrison of Ocra would be able to cling on longer than expected. “Head back. We’ve done all we could.”