Chapter 938: Reclamation Effort

The next day, exactly as Max had predicted, the attacks by the wandering groups began. There were two versions of these attacks: the Challenges and the outright attacks on the camps.

The first was by groups that had split off from villages further out, so they were confident in their leadership.

The second was by nomadic groups who hadn't been able to secure a safe spot since the floods. They were desperate for a place with food and dry ground, but they didn't have a strong enough leader to take it in a challenge.

They knew that the others would challenge them for leadership, but their plan was to simply let them have the leadership role if they were capable and then join whatever group came to challenge them.

There was strength in numbers, and they were the numbers.

The very first attack of the morning was a raid by a large group of nomads, attempting to take one of the camps in the south back from the Hunters.

It was a good choice for nomads looking to settle, with large amounts of flat ground surrounding it and a small pack of the largemouth beasts which pollinated the Myceloid trees living in the woods nearby.

It had everything they could want, but the defenders weren't going to fall that easily. The Androids had plenty of data on defensive fights, and once the horde started to charge, the defenders quickly cut them down.

Only minutes after the first group's failed attempt, the second fight of the day began. A five-metre-tall Myceloid leading a very tough-looking group of warriors walked right up to one of the camps and demanded that the camp's leader come out for a "right proper whooping."

That had the strategy team laughing way harder than they should have, but at least the Huntress who was challenged was taking it seriously.

The challenger was right to have confidence. There was a good chance that they would have beaten most of the warriors who were guarding the camps before the Hunters arrived.

Unfortunately for them, the first five Champions were all expert duellists, and the fight was not destined to go his way.

"Look, I think he's going to disengage. That's a new behaviour for them." Nico noted after the challenger lost an arm and stepped back to the edge of the circle while giving the area a searching look for ways out.

"Didn't they say that the challenges were to the death? I wonder if that's only when we challenge them?" Khan pondered.

But as they watched, one of the Myceloids grew another twenty centimetres, then pushed the defeated warrior to his knees and cut his head off.

"Oh, I get it. He wasn't looking for a way out. He was looking for a successor once he realized he lost. One last act of looking out for his group." Khan realized.

Getting the wrong successor would doom the group even more thoroughly than losing their first leader, so the practice made good sense, and the Huntresses watching in the strategy room were quietly thankful to the camp Champion for not pushing her advantage and killing him before they could gain that information.

After that, the movement in the forests really picked up. But mostly, the Myceloids were just circling, looking for the right time and spot to attack.

Within an hour, the mental tension that Max could sense in the region was rapidly reaching the breaking point, and another attack was inevitable.

Every group of Myceloids was after the same thing, and a few skirmishes had already started between the circling groups, but the next major fight was a surprise challenge from a lone Myceloid, half again as large as the other Champions.

He marched right up to the first camp reclaimed and stuck his sword into the ground.

"Come out here and fight." He yelled.

"You're going to challenge for my camp alone?" Huntress Darla laughed.

"Who cares about your camp? Get out here and fight." The huge Myceloid demanded.

Lilith, on the strategy team, looked at the others with a confused frown. "Does that mean that it's not a challenge?"

Nico shrugged. "Probably? I'm not sure if there's a difference, though."

She had a point. Nobody knew what the protocol was for 'just a fight' except the Myceloids themselves. But if he had challenged Darla, he must have seen her duel the camp leader and decided that she was the strongest of the Champions in the region.

The Huntress stepped out of the camp with a Myceloid axe in either hand of her hunter suit, and her opponent smiled.

"Good, you're not just a coward picking on the weak." He announced, then charged forward with a mismatched pair of weapons: a large blade and an axe.

Their blades clashed together in a field of sparks as the two brutal fighters tried to get an early advantage.

Over and over, they matched blades, with neither giving any ground, until a lucky stroke from the Myceloid took the head off of one of Darla's axes.

She swatted the next blow away and took out another sword, one of her own, to continue the fight, but she had been momentarily forced onto the defensive, and her opponent was starting to get worked up for the battle to come.

Now, they were using matched weapon sets, and even the drone footage clearly showed the excitement on the Myceloid's face.

Over and over, they traded blows without really attempting to press their opponent when they made minor mistakes, making Nico sigh in frustration.

"They're not even trying to kill each other. They're just fighting for the sake of fighting." She complained.

"I think that is the point. He wanted a fight, and she was happy to give it to him. The question is how it ends."

The spectacle was gathering quite the crowd, hundreds of them in fact, as multiple groups stopped to watch the two Champions go at it.

They fought all through the morning and into the afternoon before a brutal overhand chop by Darla shattered both of their swords and left the Myceloid with a deep gash down his chest.

Darla paused as the champion stepped back and dug another weapon from the churned earth around them.

It had been left behind after the defence battle, and it was already cracked when he got it.

The Myceloid threw down the weapon in disgust and sighed.

"We will have to finish this later after I bust the face of those shoddy blacksmiths." He declared.

"Come back any time. I'll be here until I pick a better camp." Darla agreed, then looked out at the crowd.

"Alright, who is next? You'd better bring more spare weapons if you don't have better blacksmiths."