Chapter 457 - Far Future Ch. 167 – Hunting the Hunters (1/2)

Not a thousand of them, I judged. The true elites would come in as the numbers dwindled, with the very best not coming in until two thousand or less remained.

”Now, you all are the prey,” I whispered, but my voice carried to everyone. ”You cannot survive if they all do. Therefore, they must die. They will reap, there is no need for you to do so anymore. They are going to kill you all, unless you kill them back. There are one thousand of them.

”They will not kill one another until all of you are dead. You can only do the same if you want to live.

”You hunt the strong now. You cannot do it alone.

”They will kill some of you. You cannot stop them. You are the weak, and they are the strong.

”If they chose to kill you, your greatest weapon is your spite. Block them, hold them, even for a second, and the murderous bastards beside you will finish the job.

”If you kill one, congratulations. Chop off their head, tie it to your belt. You are now a preferred target. The rest of you, stay close to anyone who has a head. The masters will flock to them, preferring to kill them. Pick your own target as they do, and try to live.

”There is no need to turn on those next to you. The drow will do the slaughter now. It is time for your last clawing attempt to live, and if you fail, to try to bring your killer down with you.

”Best of luck. Go get some allies. Group one, with her.” Celestia walked off towards the cellulocusts. ”Group two, with her.” Jensa headed off towards the Kundi Queen. ”Group three, with her.” Keva headed off for the shoggoth, who, unlike the vast majority of its spawn, was intelligent and could understand Aklo. ”I will see you in the thousand. If you get there, I heartily recommend you kneel down and get the Hell out of here as fast as you can.”

A hundred or so gladiators followed each of the girls, the first time we'd really split up, leaving me alone, standing there with Chalice.

I turned towards the nearest edge of the arena, and I'm sure many drow in the crowd were leering and shouting and pointing when they saw me moving to intercept at least one of the incoming gladiators.

The four of us had definitely garnered a bunch of attention. Doubtless we were all favored targets for the more arrogant of the gladiators, and that was going to get a bunch of them dead before they realized they should be focused on taking out the weaker survivors.

Some infighting was already occurring in the weaker units, as they finished off their wounded or the weakest among themselves, trying to get that survivor counter down faster, faster, faster, not realizing they were making the job of the drow that much easier.

The girls would be working with the three swarm generators, who were definitely powerful creatures and thus would be targets for glory, attracting attention. They wouldn't expect help from any of the creatures, but it was just a way to gather the drow and have a nasty creature who wouldn't attack them occupying a vector.

The fight was entering its second to last endgame. The true entertainment was just beginning.

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The average incoming Drow was an Elf/10, Melee/10, Psi/3, with Scout and Assassin Levels to keep them busy when they weren't in the arena preening for the crowds. They didn't dare use their psi actively for fear of losing their souls and causing Warp incursions, but they had powerful psionic Feats to boost themselves passively, Psychic-powered Gear operating off a powerful foundation, and naturally their own biosciences and alchemy to draw on.

They had Dex scores of 30 at a minimum, ranging up to 40 for the true post-Ten elites. They were fiendishly intelligent and calculating, going for the 30 Int to supplement their finesse-style dodging style. Partial Psychic armor would add at least 8 DR of protection. Force fields or Cha-based psychic fields would add deflection bonuses of +5 or higher. Wired Reflexes, combat logic boosters, cognition amplifiers, and the like would add another +5 or more.

Their Soak would be maxed out and over 200. Their Health would be similarly boosted to the 150 range, seemingly delicate and lithe bodies charged by psi and harder to hew into then ironwood.

That was a tremendous amount of punishment they could take, even before any blood-drinking Weapons or nanite-healing was figured in.

They were Finesse fighters, and would be using armor-ignoring weapons of preternatural sharpness. Unless your armor was Energized, they'd cut through it like tofu, and then Sneak Attack damage, crits, and rending attacks would rip you apart... if the weapons weren't poisoned with stuff that could make rocks bleed.

With a dodge-based AC of 40+, the average combatant here was going to find it nigh-impossible to hit them, and if the drow fought defensively, most of the elites here, too. This was their home ground, they were Geared to kill upon it, and there was precious little except one another that they feared inside it.

It was going to be a slaughter, of beings who had just fought their hearts out, and were truly the strongest and best of the survivors.

But they were also wounded, tired, and not geared or equipped to take the drow on.

Except for me and my girls. They were definitely not ready for us, and Hags disliked us some bouncy-bouncy Finesse-fighting types. They were not going to have fun trying to cut through Nog Energized Armor, Crystal Shield DR, and DR 10-12/Holy Silver, they were not. If they could hit our 50+ dodgy AC, anyways, learning how it felt to strike at a ghost flowing through your strikes...

My first opponent looked like a Noble Champion, one of the smaller houses, an elite duelist and assassin who looked down on all of lesser status, which included pretty much all aliens, and definitely included breshkt.