ACC Chapter 37 Earth Unleashed

"I don't know. First off, head for The Wall. We need answers. This situation is highly unusual. Not to mention the fact that the gravity, magnetic force and spiritual energy are all in chaos."

The factory's engines altered their trajectory and we started moving towards the direction of the city.

I retracted my emerald aura, sat down onto the edge and crossed my legs beneath me. That had been a tiring experience.

That sand worm... I hadn't managed to glean much from its appearance, only the fact that it was somehow weaker than me. It wasn't a biological entity... More like a sandstorm given life. Such beings... I had never seen one. Though, they were probably akin to sentient AIs.

"Such a being has never been observed before. And judging by the chaos within the particles, this planet must have changed dramatically in the last few minutes, or still changing." Spoke Angelo within the robot standing beside me.

An explosion of sand rippled out below us, attracting both our attentions. Sand rose high as something snaked beneath it, only for its passage to leave behind a long jagged crack that swallowed sand into its bowels, exposing a reddish hue deep within.

"Magma? And a fault line? What is happening here? According to all my data a fault line shouldn't exist here! That thing is far too humongous! Is the planet being destroyed?!" Shouted out Angelo with more emotion than any of his previous words.

Even I was shocked by the sheer magnitude of the fault line. My brows furrowed as I gazed down at it. This had just become a problem, a massive one at that. What was happening to the planet.

"There it is!" Angelo said with a dramatic edge to his voice, causing me to cast my gaze below within the sand, where sand dust was rising upwards as a massive horde of beasts, those that lived within this desert, sprinted beside the fault line, only to shift directions when a geyser of molten metal sprayed out so high that its height even rivaled that of the flying factory!

Abruptly, I stood up. My core had managed to replenish the energy reserves I had consumed previously. Now, it was time I defended against this force of nature.

As globes of hot lava left smokey trails within the air, scattering in every direction, I raised a massive construct, made of my aura above my body. It was an emerald green amalgam that looked like tangled roots.

When the first globe of lava landed upon the greenish construct, I winced. The heavy attunement of spiritual energy within the lava burned through some of my aura. And by the time it cooled, settling within, a hole had been been dug into the aura construct.

”Spiritual energy has attuned everything it seems." Spoke Angelo as he gazed upwards while more sprays were blocked and cooled upon reacting with my aura, becoming nothing more than rocks. But I could still feel the potent earth attribute spiritual energy they were emanating.

"The plan to irradiate the entire planet with spiritual energy has backfired on us." I said while drawing my aura back into myself, dropping off all the rock down below.

-----

"Shit!" A curse escaped my lips as I beheld the chaos ahead. The distance had grown massively, between the previous location of the factory, and The Wall.

But right now, I lacked the time to ponder on the implications since there was an emergency ahead.

I leaped off the factory and teleported. Two jumps brought me before the city, which was now spotting several massive breaches within my direction, not to mention the fault line that had run straight through it, separating it down the middle.

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A man sped up towards me, riding a cloud of sand and stopped just a few meters away. Sweat beaded his brows, and blood, plus sand and something purple, coated his long robed outfit. It had been brown once upon a time, but now, it had become covered in a melange of other colors and material.

"Honored sir! We need your help on the other side. A Nascent Soul demon is tying down the city lord!"

With a blink, I vanished to appear at the other side of the city, where something dark and large, with eight legs was stamping through a cloud of dust.

Eight purple eyes, each large enough to match half of my height rotated to me the moment I appeared. After all, I had activated my aura the moment I had appeared, producing massive logs of wood that I hurled towards the beast.

Then the slits that had been all over its exoskeleton opened, exposing small mouths complete with teeth.

Then white strings were explosively released, racing towards each and every log.

Before they could make impact though, they wove themselves into a massive silky platform, which captured each and every log, and with a slight tug by the spider, their ends, still connected to the small mouths tensed, before the teeth severed the threads, causing the platform to to be hurled away.

"It wasn't even taking me seriously. Mr. Mumaso, I believe this is the first time we have met."

A man, having flown from under the spider, clad in a full-body brown armor with segmented plates that were held together by thin strings of brown colored spiritual energy, no doubt earth attuned.

When the scale sized pieces making up his helm disassembled themselves, revealing his dark skin complexion, a match for my very own, I was somewhat surprised.

With a few micro seconds of sifting through all the information stored away within my brain, I finally put a name on the face.

"Mr, Ade I believe. What are you doing here in the middle east, and a city lord no less." There was no surprise, just genuine curiosity within my tone.

Though the both of us were speaking, we still kept over 90% of our attention on the spider. Though, it seemed to have paused, probably contemplating fight or flight. If it had been a normal Nascent Soul, like Mr. Ade here, meeting two Demons at the same level as him, he would have opted to flee without a second thought. But for demons, their combat power alone allowed them to take on multiple human foes at the same level as them.

"Well, I was transferred over by the new President."

Livia... Of course she would do that. Even though most of the cities were constructed by the individual states themselves, technically, they were all under the Federation, which had the leeway to appoint whatever city lord they wanted.

(Humans, I need to stalk up on food. Get out of my way!)

"Pal, haven't you witnessed how the planet has become chaotic? If you dawdle here, you might lose your life." A tired sigh escaped Ade's lips as once again, the helm enclosed his face.

With a thought, I too activated my symbiote, enclosing myself in my living wooden armor.

It seemed that a continuation of the altercation was about to commence. But I didn't have time, so with a thought, I split off four pieces from the armor, which with just a command, morphed into wooden stakes.

With a gesture, I launched them, and they multiplied within the air, though with each new stake shrinking to the point where each and every one of them became a needle.

With a blur of motion, they vanished, with each appearing right before a tiny mouth of the spider demon's carapace.

It tried to push them away with a pulse of its aura, which only managed to slow them down enough for the mouths to close.

-----

A few minutes later, I was above, on top of the wall, seated and looking at the chaos on the horizon, where a thunderstorm, probably a mutated one, just like that sentient sandstorm, was raging, warring with a creature of lava that had just crawled out of the massive fault line.

The spider had retreated in defeat and people were being led into shuttles that were heading up into space.

"Earth has evolved."

"And now, we are back to being somewhere in the middle of the food chain, not at the top as we have always been."

"Its debatable, Mr. Mumaso, whether we were ever on the top. After all, there are demons."

"So, Mr. Ade, what information have those people within the shuttles brought back?"

"All of humanity is being evacuated towards the Defiant, the city with the Heavenly Pillar, though now, it does not reach the heavens. Hahahaha..."

I chuckled with him at the joke.

"...and what of the world? Have there been any satellite imagery?"

A sigh from his lips, one heavily steeped with awe perked me up.

"Its better if you just see it for yourself."

After speaking, his divine sense sent a query to link up with mine, which I accepted, leading to the transmission of images and videos.

Just the first image alone made me gasp. It was one with Jupiter and Earth side by side.

"We have somehow even gained rings by attracting those rocks in the asteroid belt." Ade's voice was an echo in my mind as I took in the information he had just delivered.