Maxine was filled with anger as she sat waiting in the crowded warehouse for the briefing to start. There were at least five hundred essence cultivators present, but unfortunately alittle more than half were at the copper stage. However that wasn't the reason why Maxine was angry. It was because Alice was sitting next with Maxine and the rest of the group with a somewhat smug look on her face. Maxwell didn't look any happier about this situation than Maxine did. The only consolation was that Alice was going to use a bow which would put her alittle further away from the fighting.
Maxine wanted to throw Alice into a portal to the shadow world until the fighting was over, but stopped herself when she found out that Alice was being paid $7,000 to participated in this battle. If society didn't crumble, Alice would need that money for her education, if she was going to college. Apparently all of the essence cultivators present were being paid to participate and were being paid based off of their cultivation. She figured out that for every rank of copper stage that someone had that they would get an additional $1,000 and $10,000 for each rank into bronze. She did some quick math in her head and realized that she should get over $200,000 for being here. Unfortunately when Maxine brought this up, they wouldn't increase Maxine's wage even after they confirmed the level of her cultivation. This only added on to her anger.
Maxine tried some breathing exercises to calm down as she tried to go over the Flowing Blade technique in her head. There had been over nine separate moves. When the user reaches mastery, the individual moves can literately shift fluidly from one move to the next. Maxine had only managed to move fluidly from the first move all the way to the third without any difficulty, but that was her limit. Even so, it was still far superior to her own self-taught blade skills since each following move increased the force of the next strike by an additional 30% of the first strike without heavily draining her essence. It helped her understand how to reduce the drain of essence when using her Crescent Moon Blitz.
Maxine smiled as she remembered Silky's reaction to seeing the dragon that Maxine created. Silky had shouted excitedly and ran around the dragon multiple times before trying to climb up onto it's back. The sound of Silky's joyful laughter while the dragon was flying her around had been more precious than gold.
Maxine was pulled out of her own thoughts by the arrival of General Cullen. It was the first time she had actually seen him. He is a balding and somewhat fat man. However Maxine didn't feel concerned when she saw his eyes sweep over the essence cultivators present since there was no malice in his eyes.
"Let me start off by thanking you all for coming. I know many of you are not particularly fond of the military at the moment," General Cullen said, "I hate how I am forced to ask so many of you young people to fight, but our options are limited and I will do my best to limit the losses on our side. Now with that out of the way, I will start with our battle plan. It is a simple strategy. To start, artillery and aerial units will bombard the still forming essence beast horde. The essence beast horde should either charge in retaliation at the source of the attack or scatter. If they charge, we will continue to bombard them until they get into range of mounted heavy machineguns. Once they do, the heavy machineguns will unleash a heavy barrage on the charging essence beasts from an elevated position. You essence cultivators are to eliminate any essence beasts that get past the heavy weapons barrage and to work as a group to eliminate the leader of this horde if necessary. However I am confident that action will not be needed. We have recently acquired tanks equiped with railguns to specifically eliminate the foul beast at a distance. Any questions?"
"What kind of essence beast is the leader of the essence beast horde?" Maxine asked. General Cullen gestured towards one of his subordinates and an image of a red four-tailed fox surrounded by various other essence beasts was projected on the wall beside him. Oh, great. A fox-type. Those things are smarter than most other essence beasts. Strong or fast essence beasts are something that I can deal with, but smart ones are the worst. However against the kind of firepower that General Cullen has brought to bare, it shouldn't be a problem. Even if it is a problem, my Shadow Wolves can tear it to pieces. Although I have never seen a fox-type essence beast with multiple tails before. I wonder what abilities it has.
"Did that answer your question, Miss Levings?" General Cullen asked.
"Yes, thank you," Maxine replied.
"Now if there is nothing else," General Cullen paused for a few moments to give anyone else a chance to ask a question before he continued, "I suggest that all of you form squads no larger than eight people with those that you are familiar with. Once you have sorted yourselves out, go to Seargent Higgs to get assigned your place in our defensive line. I wish you all luck."
Maxine quickly got up at the same time as Patrick and the others and went to Seargent Higgs to get assigned their spot in the defensive line and were given a earpeice for communication purposes. They had been assigned to one of the centermost groups and their group had been designated as Red 1. Maxine didn't like the fact that they were going to face the bulk of any charging essence beasts. However if things went poorly, she could always throw everyone in her group into a portal to the shadow world and use the shadow clone she left at home to return back to her house with everyone.
They got into a transport truck that had a heavy machinegun mount on the top of it and they were taken to the battleground. When Maxine and the others arrived, Maxine noticed that they were assembling in an open field facing a large forested area. Several watch towers had been constructed and had multiple heavy machineguns mounted onto them. She saw several armored personel carriers lined upe beside what she could only assume were the railgun tanks. The railguns mounted on the tanks weren't as large as she had anticipated, but still she had a feeling that they would be lethal if one shot a round at her. She saw several mortar teams as well setting up behind the line of armored personel carriers and tanks.
After admiring the assembled forces for a moment, Maxine and the others got into position. Once they were in position, Maxine could finally estimate how far away the forest was from the front line. It was alittle over 2 miles away, but with how fast some essence beasts were, it would take only a handful to seconds for them to traverse that distance. However the essence beasts were over 10 miles away and that would take the weakest members of the essence beast hored a few minutes to traverse. That would give the artillery, tanks and mortar teams plenty of time to thin out their numbers with a few volleys before the machine guns got to work.
"Artillery bombardment commencing in T-minus five minutes. If you are not in position, get in it now," Sergeant Higgs said through the ear piece.
Maxine turned to face everyone as she formed her essence armor while focusing on not bringing out her Shadow's Embrace armor and said, "Meagan please make sure Alice stays next to you at all times. Me and the boys will handling the essence beasts in close quarters combat."
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Meagan chuckled for a moment before she answered, "Maxwell already asked me to earlier."
"Good," Maxine said, "If she gets into any danger or injured, Maxwell won't be able to focus on fighting essence beasts and that could get him killed." However that was just an excuse.
"I know that," Meagan answered.
"I can take care of myself," Alice announced, but the looks everyone gave her said they believed otherwise.
"Guys look alive. We don't know if the essence beasts will attack us before we have a chance to hit them with artillery," Maxine said as she looked towards the forest. However she wasn't that conerned about the essence beasts charging at them ahead of time. Her Shadow Woves had already confirmed that the essence beast horde hadn't moved, but there was no sign of the Four-Tailed Fox. She assumed that it was hiding amongst the essence beasts.
After what seemed like an hour, Sergeant Higgs said via the ear piece, "Commencing the bombardment in five, four, three, two, one."
Maxine heard the thundering of heavy artillery cannons firing in the distance behind her as well as the explosions at the impact points and almost immediately, she heard the angry roars of the essence beasts. A few minutes later at the instant that the essence beasts appeared at the tree line, the mortar teams and heavy machine guns rained death towards the essence beasts.
Maxine immediately noticed that the essence beasts in the lead were copper stage with only a few bronze stage essence beasts mixed in. However she noticed that the number of essence beasts was nowhere near the amount that she had predicted would arrive. Please let it be that the artillery was way more effective than I thought. She extended out her spiritual sense to confirm it. Unfortunately, she was wrong. The bulk of the bronze stage essence beasts were circling around away from the weapons barrage while the copper stage ones were charging forward. Damn it! I was afraid this would happen. It was obvious that the Four-Tailed Fox was an intelligent member of it's species.
Maxine immediately ordered her Shadow Wolves to intercept those essence beasts and had her wolf girl shadow clone ride on top of one of them on the chance that her Shadow Wolves were seen. She had been surprised that they hadn't been discovered yet.
Maxine's Shadow Wolves quickly caught up to the essence beast horde and started to tear it to pieces, but she could no longer pay attention to that since the first essence beasts managed to get through the heavy weapons barrage. It wasn't a problem at first as she started to casually hack any essence beasts that got into her range while Meagan and Alice fired steel arrows one after the other. Unfortunately more and more essence beasts got through and Maxine and the others were forced to take it more seriously. After she started using the Flowing Water Blade technique it became much easier.
"Red group, the last of the essence beast vanguard has broken the treeline. Finish those essence beasts off and redeply to the south. A portion of the essence beast horde is attempting to flank us," Sergeant Higgs said through the ear piece. That isn't a flanking group. That's the main force. This 'vanguard' is nothing but a distraction. However Maxine smiled to herself knowing full well that her Shadow Wolves would tear those essence beasts to pieces.
After three minutes of killing essence beasts later, Maxine and the others ran towards the south as ordered and got ready to fight the essence beasts. Maxine extended her spiritual sense and discovered that the Four-Tailed Fox had abandoned the rest of the essence beasts to die to Maxine's Shadow Wolves. Strangely enough, it was charging towards the assembled essence cultivators. Is it suicidal? Unfortunately she was wrong as the Four-Tailed Fox stopped for a moment as it raised it's four tails. In an instant, four bolts of compressed essence formed at the tips of it's tails before being launched at four groups of essence cultivators and one of them was headed for Maxine's group.
Maxine unleashed the Crescent Moon Blitz and had all of the blades combine together moments before the two attacks made contact. The compressed essence bolt was split in half and the two pieces flew to either side of Maxine's group. When the two halves hit the ground, they exploded with enough force to easily destroy a tank. I might have survived that, but no one else wouldn't be able to. Maxine turned her head to look at the other groups that had been targeted. They didn't make it out as well as Maxine's had. The poor souls that had survived were missing limbs and were covered in severe burns. She heard someone vomitting behind her and looked to see that it was Alice.
"All groups stall for time while the railgun tanks get into position to open fire," Sergeant Higgs said through the ear piece, "Do not let it attack using it's tails again."
Maxine had already started to charge at the Four-Tailed Fox as Sergeant Higgs was giving the order. However the Four-Tailed Fox had focused it's eyes on Maxine. It had obviously determined that Maxine was the greatest threat as it started to form more of those compressed bolts of essence at the tips of it's tails. NOT GOOD! Maxine quickly readied a Crescent Moon Blitz on each of her Twilight Iron Blades. Sergeant Higgs was yelling from what Maxine could tell, but she wasn't paying attention to him. She had to concentrate on the Four-Tailed Fox to be able to either dodge it's attack. However to her horror, the four bolts of compressed essence merged together before it launched at her. Even though it drained Maxine's essence tremendously, she unleashed both of her Crescent Moon Blitz attacks and forced them both to merge together into a massive Crescent Moon Blade. As the two attacks collided. Maxine prepared to dodge if she had to. Unfortunately that proved impossible when the compressed bolt of essence separated into dozens of smaller bolts on contact with her Crescent Moon Blade. However her attack had only weakened slightly as it hurtled towards the Four-Tailed Fox.
Maxine couldn't pay attention to the path of her attack as she quickly slashed at the essence bolts that would definitely hit her. When one of her blades hit the closest essence bolt, it exploded and triggered the rest of them to detonate as well. She closed her eyes and screamed in pain as she was hit with the violent force of all of the essence bolts exploding at the same time. Even as she flew backwards, she realized something through the pain. God damn it. I am making a habit of getting injured when fighting essence beasts.
After hitting the ground and skidding to a stop, Maxine used her spiritual sense to see if her attack hit the Four-Tailed Fox, but she doubted it would be a direct hit. She was right. It had dodge it, but had still lost one of it's tails. She assessed her injuries and found out that was not as bad as she thought. There was nothing broken, but she had quite a few burns and bruises. It didn't matter as she quickly got to her feet and charged at it. She couldn't let it unleash another one of those attacks again. For some reason, the Four-Tailed Fox didn't try to use that attack again and started to flee. Huh? That's new. I have never seen an essence beast run before. Wow! It's fast! She couldn't keep up with it even though she was using the Phantasmal Steps of the Shadow Cat. It was doubly odd since it was the same level of cultivation as herself.
Maxine formed essence darts and fired them at the Four-Tailed Fox to force it to stop or slow down rather than injure it. Using this method she was quickly gaining on it. She could see the fear in it's eyes as it kept glancing back at her. However she nearly missteped and fell down due to surprise when she received a message from it via spiritual sense, "Please, I know my wrongs. Show mercy!" However her surprise quickly turned to rage.
"You killed too many essence cultivators and weakened our ability to defend ourselves. Even if I spared you, the rest of my race would not," Maxine replied to it coldly. In the next instant, an essence arrow hit it's hind quarters and exploded rendering it immobile. Nice shot, Meagan. Maxine didn't waste even an instant as she jumped into the air and slammed both of her Twilight Iron Blades brutally on it's neck.