Despite the Conquistador’s better judgment, he let the prototype go as is for now. A total of twenty-four were built in the following hours, with a giant slew of bolts to go with them. His forces were equipped and ready, though he would only bring six of those ranged monsters with him. His subjects needed the men more than him, seeing as how none of them would be able to defend themselves to any kind of assault.
So, he gathered a lot of the regular monsters to come with him along with his blessed soldier. While this might be an error in judgment, he did have a good reason for doing so: the Usurper’s forces elites. They were far beyond what he was capable of taking down, and horde tactics were not the best means to counter them. He needed to be protected more than anyone else, seeing as how important he was to everything and everyone.
That was why he had a single wagon coming with him to act as both the storage and getaway vehicle for any attackers. He had his blessed soldier up in the sky to act as the scout to ensure that they didn’t get ambushed out in the streets. Hence, why he had most of the monsters in front of him and to the side of his wagon. By having them act as his human shields, that would give him enough time to escape no matter who or what came after him.
The group kept on going down the stone streets with no problem. In fact, the Conquistador had to admit that he was rather tempted to stop by some of the random buildings to try to find people and monsters to bring under his control, but that would take time and effort that he needed to deal with whatever dangers came their way. That could be something he did after they finished securing the warehouse and getting back to base.
However, that was where everything immediately went wrong. As they were heading forward to their target, something exploded. A gigantic, loud boom erupted throughout the settlement, causing the very ground to shake and the air to tremble from the shockwave. The wagon nearly tipped over and all of his soldiers were knocked to the ground. His blessed soldier fell to the ground, disorientated from everything that had happened.
He himself barely stayed conscious as the ripples still continued to flow through his body. However, he did not do so. He barely managed to stay awake and conscious due to the overwhelming willpower, which had him stagger back up and turn towards the source.
His eyes widened in fear as he looked at the gigantic white cloud that towered up in the sky. That was a gigantic explosion, one strong enough to create a huge plume of smoke. That had to be something related to the snow powder, which meant… No!
“Move! Move move move! We have to get to the warehouse now!”
With that, he rushed towards the cache of snow powder with every single last one of his soldiers. Everyone moved along with him at high speed, as fast as they could. He made sure every single last one of his men did not fall behind, as this was ultimately a situation of high importance.
Maybe he’d be wrong! Perhaps the snow powder would be safe, perhaps this was merely another place in question! Maybe there’d be some samples left over that he could make use of or something, anything but losing all the precious powder for future weapons!
When they arrived at the target destination, his hopes were destroyed in an instant. There was no warehouse, no building, nothing. No, the only thing present was a large swarm of ice that covered the area, bits of wood and stone scattered across, and light coverings of black sand over the ground.
At that, he couldn’t help his eyes from bulging out in complete shock. What? What was this? How the hell was everything gone?! Did the Usurper’s forces come in and destroy this area? But what would be the point of depriving this place of snow powder? According to his secretary, the only application of snow powder was to be used for the creation of glass. Why would they do something so destructive for no reason at all?
He tried to understand, but he couldn’t. No, this couldn’t be the work of the Usurper’s army. After all, there was far too little reason to destroy the warehouse.
So, the question is: who? What would they gain from depriving this place of the snow powder?! All of this made no sense! Who, what, why?! What was there to gain from all this?!
Who was responsible for ruining his dreams of arquebuses and cannons?!
He turned over to his blessed soldier, sending a mental message demanding information. The soldier had to have seen someone, anyone, come to this area and cause the explosion, right? If there was ice still present in the area, that meant more than ever that this sabotage had to be recent.
However, all hopes were dashed as his blessed soldier returned a verdict, one that stated that there were no human beings spotted. Rather, the only report given was the mass amount of monsters converging onto their position right now. Though, they weren’t similar to the same forces he had fought earlier with that unstoppable monstrosity. No, these seemed like the run-of-the-mill monsters he had faced beforehand in each of the buildings.
However, that wasn’t all. A report of two armored figures heading towards his location, using the rooftops and the buildings as launch pads to reach the warehouse. Whatever the case, this gigantic explosion had caught the attention of two elites and a gigantic swarm of monsters.
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The latter were something he could deal with. The former? He had absolutely no idea at all, that was something that would either be make or break. He wanted to flee and run away, head back to the base to have a defense ready for whatever was to come.
So that was what he did. He got every last one of his soldiers to start moving out, getting away from the blast radius as fast as possible. The last thing he needed at this point was to get all of his soldiers killed and his wagon destroyed.
“Go!”
With his command, all of his soldiers moved as a unit, some of them pushing the wagon forward and others standing guard for any monsters that came upon them. They were able to make a good amount of ground, at least until things went down for the worse.
His blessed soldier in the sky was tackled out of nowhere, flying through the air from the assault. Then the other armored soldier spotted earlier came and slammed into the ground right in front of him and his army, forming a crater that dug deep into the ground.
The bastard was dressed in full body armor, with the helmet reminiscent to that of an eagle. Their armor was made of some strange green-yellow metal, with the weapon itself being a giant double-headed battleaxe with what seemed to be a spike at the top. They had a strange red aura all around them, one evident of their true capabilities.
The enemy stood up to full height. The Conquistador had to crane his head up to see the full extent of this person. They towered above him and every single last one of his soldiers, and they seemed ready to strike at any second.
Their action was taken far before he could react in time. Their axe came swinging down onto one of his soldiers and in a single instant split the poor creature in half. His group didn’t even have the chance to react in time, as they proceeded to slash horizontally once more, splitting five more of his troops.
This obviously could not continue. He gritted his teeth before taking to the sky and giving his order.
“Men, open fire! Take the bastard down!”
The five crossbowmen he had packed with him launched their attacks, the bolts flying through the air and slamming into the bastard’s body. To his delight, they pierced right through the armor pieces and into the flesh, seeing as how there were blood trails starting to ooze out. However, all of that went to nothing as the bastard proceeded to growl and slash at the bolts with no signs of slowing down. Then, they started charging towards his crossbowmen, obviously ready to take out the soldiers that could actually do damage to him.
That certain wasn’t something he could allow. With a whistle, the remaining mobs all rushed down this bastard, intent on preventing him from getting any closer to the soldiers while they reloaded. The wave of flesh had enough mass to push the bastard back, but that certainly wasn’t going to be enough to stop them from swinging their axe around and culling the horde down bit by bit.
What a pain. Guess he’ll have to intervene in order to have success, then, huh?
Without a single bit of care, he launched a projectile right towards the bastard. His strike landed true, creating a giant explosion that killed a good amount of his soldiers. However, with that, he had done his job.
The enemy commander was severely injured from the impact. The armor was completely gone and there were multiple open wounds made from the blast zone. Something he was rather pleased by, as he had done something of chance for once.
Then the bastard turned towards her with clear anger in his face as those injuries began to regenerate. Flesh began to grow and sprout all over like grass, with muscle tissue melding with each other. Light pink smoke formed from the injuries, before he lifted a hand towards the Conquistador.
Whatever that was, he had no desire of getting involved. That was the clear sign of an incoming attack, the predictable move of someone launching a ranged attack to shoot him down from the sky. With that in mind, he swerved away with his flight powers, allowing the projectile to fly over his head.
A gigantic red lance shot out in an instant, with a red black trail following right behind. The shot went wide, but it kept on going until it got near the sky, to which it began to explode into a gigantic swarm of flame.
The Conquistador couldn’t allow himself to get surprised. No, he needed to focus on killing this bastard. He launched another blast, this time aiming towards the bastard’s head to finish him off here and now.
Unfortunately, he had made one single error: his men did not have enough power to really stop the enemy from escaping. While they could have stopped them from approaching the crossbow men due to their sheer mass, they hadn’t thought of holding onto the enemy. That gave them the chance to jump away from the incoming attack, which resulted in more of his men being killed in a second.
He cursed, before turning to ensure that he kept track of the bastard. They in return were ready to strike at him with their large axe, their knees bent down with pure power to ensure their jump had enough force to reach him. In that instant, he prepared to defend himself with his halberd, ready to possibly take damage if it meant killing this bastard and securing the divinity for himself.
At least, until another volley of crossbow bolts came flying through the air. Those shots weren’t as good as before, but it was certainly enough to distract the bastard for him to launch a projectile in a frenzy.
His shot wasn’t that accurate eight, but it was more than enough. He had been aiming for their head, but that strike slammed into their shoulder. It wasn’t as though any of that mattered, as the blast radius consumed the top half of the bastard, leaving them with just their legs.
With that, they began to fade into dust, leaving behind their divinity. The Conquistador couldn’t help but sneer as he started to float down towards this source of power. Well deserved and achieved, considering everything.
Maybe he wouldn’t need to run away from that horde after all.