At the shores, a major war was ongoing as the robotic forces built by Techno were raging against the invading forces. It had been on the backfoot as it had been acting under autonomous command until a few minutes ago. Now the army was actually being pushed back.
In the distance, the American military was already gathering as large transport vehicles were arriving and massive artillery and weaponry was being dropped off. The location they came from, a very large hidden platform going into the digital world and out. This wasn’t a small local armed forces, this was a huge regional force rapidly mobilizing and coming in and out from other states into this one.
It was taking a matter of seconds to digitalize several tanks and for them to be transported to the other platform that was closeby. It is not like the estimate of transporting heroes from north america to south with an estimate of roughly one to two minutes to move their massive load of biological energy.
Most people don’t use biological energies so it wasn’t hard for the AI and the digital realm to pass their data and life force into and out a different exit at much faster speeds. With the AI from the digital realm actually working with them, this process accelerated quite quickly since her core AI system was constantly growing better as she gathered the tiny fragments throughout the internet.
On the flagship among the large crafts, the general groaned as the ship shook as it defended against enemy fire.
“Why the hell is the attack so much more violent than projected!! Techno should be occupied!” The general shouted.
The crew were working hard until he heard someone shout from a station to his left, behind him. He turned and saw the man slowly turn to him, pale.
“What happened?” the general asked.
“W… we finally got the life sign monitoring chip signals from those thrown in… Disaster has not moved from its impact zone and three of our allies have already been confirmed dead.” He said
Very suddenly the ship went silent as everyone looked at the man who had delivered the report.
The general literally rushed over and pushed the man out of the way to confirm it but as it said, each of the remaining supervillains were clearly marked while three dulled points were stuck in place. Eight of them moved about as they and the heroes battled but one was firmly in place and that was Disaster who was stuck unable to heal his muscles and cover his skeleton.
“How the hell are the American heroes fighting outnumbered and winning! Wait! Hyper and Toxic Angel were killed!! That means Mephesto is free to fight!!” He roared.
“Sir… wasn’t he fighting two at a time?” One of the higher ranks asked.
“Yes… their orders were to retrieve our lord’s remaining bone fragment inside him and they were both designed to counter Mephesto’s powers, especially Toxic Angel who was directly created from cloning his daughter who constantly used holy magic which counters his demon powers.” the general said with a scowl but then thought of something and his eyes widened. “FUCK!! Techno is free from his opponent! That is why the attack suddenly got so much more vicious!” he roared.
“What do we do sir?” One of them asked.
“Start the contingency and release the jamming signal.” He said.
“That will cut our ability to communicate, sir!” One of them said.
“We need to make the robot's go wild, they do immense damage to themselves when their control signal is cut off so do it!” He ordered.
Before that, a message went out moments before the jamming signal was activated from all the main ships.
It covered a huge range and it blocked the propagation of signals but what they expected didn’t happen.
The robot's stopped for a moment before a very scary thing happened. They began to gather.
Unlike previous attacks which actually did result in machines going wild after losing the signal and method to identify friend and foe, these were designed differently.
They began to connect and transform and caused the attack unit to shout and the soldiers started to try to back away because it was all turning into a giant machine and as the first one took shape, they all felt cold as barrels appeared. Soon hundreds of these machines appeared and without warning, these barrels suddenly released torrents of flame towards the ground.
The american union army did not advance but just keep gathering as they focused on the air while these machines of genocide walked towards the shore leaving a burning landscape in their wake.
“What do we do sir?” One of the union army soldiers asked as they tested the signals and could not get across.
“This was expected, send messengers throughout all units, aim for the flying units and keep them from attacking ground units as much as possible.” he ordered.
Soon every tank and land to air defense system began to target the flying targets.
As soon as the army started to attack, one of the soldiers in the attack force mothership received a report from another of the ships. “General! One of the other ships has just identified these robot’s power source!” He shouted.
Feeling some hope, knowing the energy source, the general turned, “What is it?” he asked.
“It is heatwave’s plasma cluster! The ones from the experimental power source technology that he can produce like his own abilities basic capacity. It seems Techno finally found a material that could support plasma clusters!” They exclaimed.
The General’s face instantly dropped because that was bad.
Heatwave’s power originally was limited to purely absorbing sunlight, that was it, however it contained a special capacity to revive him as long as he was under sunlight even if his clusters were destroyed or removed because his body's biology ran on solar energy. When his body finally filled up and he forced more energy into it, this eventually triggered a chain reaction that gathered all that power into a spark. This is common knowledge at this point. These sparks could grow and at max they would explode but each explosion purified the energy and produced more sparks. After spark is a cluster, because it was a cluster of sparks but once a cluster exploded, it transformed the form of energy into one of higher purity.
Plasma cluster was third level and the one which gave Heatwave a blooming causing his body to be able to produce and control electromagnetic fields which allow him to shape his controlled flames. That said, plasma is a very pure energy and it's been decades since he has advanced beyond plasma yet only now it seems they obtained technological capacity to control this power.
“That’s bad! Plasma flames are beyond the soldier's armor heat resistance ability!” The general exclaimed.
Sweat gathered on the general’s head.
“Sir… d-do we retreat?” One of the soldiers asked.
“Retreat? Do you think the lord will accept retreat!! Bring out all the Buster Cannons! Channel 60% of the power to the cannon! Destroy those robot's and let their own internal energy blow up in their faces! Move air units into defensive barrier form in front of the enemy ground unit and separate them from our ground units so that the explosion will backfire against the enemy! All land units are to retreat to the water edge and await the fall of the enemy defense system!” the captain ordered.
“Do we drop the jamming?” one of them asked.
“Yes! Once the cannons are out. Hopefully it will cause them to return to their original programming as well and start to break up.” he shouted.
Very quickly things began to work as they used different methods to pass the message to the other ships and soon everyone heard loud noises.
On the land, the army was shocked as the flagships began to open and reveal the barrel of a huge cannon.
“Shit! They are already bringing out their cannons.” one of the soldiers exclaimed.
All the cannons aimed at the robot's and just before the charging started, the jamming ended.
“Sir! The jamming signals have turned off!” One of the soldiers exclaimed as they started to receive signals once more.
The general frowned and looked at the robot's,
“They are trying to get them to break down maybe.” He said and sneered.
The reaction couldn’t have been different, all the robot’s eyes shined as they connected back to Techno and instantly they began to change how they moved and synchronized. Instead of just shooting waves of fire, they began to activate electromagnetic systems which concentrated the fire and blasted balls of flames with dangerous lethality.
At the same time, the movement of the fliers changed as they circled around over the water and their form changed as they opened up and began to project energie barriers. They lined up along the entire coast forming a massive barrier and moved up covering the coast and pushing the flames back and effectively protecting the landing troops.
Because of this, weapons, flames or whatever shot could not break and the fliers were basically pushing forward until it was close to the robot's and started to push them back even.
“If it's like that then they could literally steamroll everything.” the general muttered in disgust.
At that moment, the cannons on the ships were starting to release a bright light and blasted a massive wave of shots that crossed the barrier and exploded behind it.
It smashed into all the robot's closest causing huge damage and moments later, massive secondary explosions came as the plasma clusters powering them lost their stability and exploded.
When the series of shockwaves stopped, the enemy cheered as almost a quarter of the robot's were destroyed and half of the surviving ones were damaged.
What no one expected was that all of the robot's rushed forward, damaged or not, and slammed against the barrier.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“What is going on?” The soldiers began to mutter until they saw the lights within the robot's brighten and they had time to shout before every last one focused, catalyzed and concentrated the power of the clusters and exploded in a much more dangerous fashion along the entire barrier.
The barrier warped intensely compared to the first explosions and cracks appeared all over as it just barely held up.
All the ships began to rapidly heat up, making some of their drivers shout as several had to eject because the heat was likely to explode the ship or burn them alive.
On the flagships, they cheered despite so much damage to their fleet just to land. “Now all that is left is the ground forces.” the general said laughing as the sensors began to scan and pinpoint, at a distance, different targets that no longer had defense against their fighters and land units.
“Let’s show them to fear the master!” he shouted.
The order to advance was instantly given as the flag ships began to prepare to release even more ground and sky fighters.
That said, they forgot one very important tibid of information. Techno had no one to hold him in Richmond.
How fast was a modern fighter, in the 21st century they were already capable of hitting mach 1 and with Techno at the helm, he had created casual high speed transport vehicles like the buses that took the students to mexico.
What did that mean for techno’s personal morphing tech that he battled with.
High in the sky, he glared down at the fleet as his mech assumed the same beam shape it had assumed to kill Mad Tiger.
“This time, no one will land.” He said as a bright shine came down from above as his satellite beam came crashing down and slammed into him and was concentrated even more before blasting.
Before anyone or anything could react. That beam smashed into the flagship. The barrier instantly activated but in moments it was overwhelmed and like a hot knife through but, crossed the entire ship.
Techno widened the lens causing the beam to widen and rip the entire ship in half before the beam died.
The flagship maintained air for only a moment after it came crashing down as critical systems began to explode, especially the immensely damaged engine and power system.
The union general looked very high up and still didn’t see anything, not even a speck but very quickly another light, like a new sun blooming, started to ship and crashed down into another of the major ships.
“It’s Techno!” He roared. “Push back men! Don’t let a single one of these mother fuckers through! Today we have the utmost advantage!” the general roared.
The platform releasing troops also regained its capacity as signal jamming was no longer affecting it and at this moment a new weapon appeared and the general grinned as he saw it.
He quickly jumped into command personally as the tank that appeared moved off the platform.
His chest began to glow as his skin became slightly transparent and veins became visible. This weapon was made for special energies and this general had something of the sort. It reached his hand and pumped into the barrel that began to shine a golden aura.
The barrel aimed at a concentration of enemy soldiers and fired.
It hit the surviving barrier but when it hit, an explosion a full level stronger than the plasma explosion from the robot's slammed into the barrier putting even more stress on it.
More and more of these weapons started to appear and soldiers with energy based abilities began to gather and channel what they could in groups. If it was a strong person like the general, they could even do it themselves and it began to blast the barriers.
The enemy ship that survived was calling out.
“Focus all shield power to the top!” one captain said.
Moments later the space beam smashed down on them as all the barriers focused on the impact zone rocking the entire ship as the shield generator massively overheated until it exploded inside the ship and the beam cleaved through it.
Very soon the barrier protecting the ground units began to crumble and the attacks could no longer be held back.
Techno noticed and sent a new order to his facilities and to the horror of the enemy, new robot's, no different from the first, began to appear but they immediately began to combine into the lumbering giants and they glared at the coast from afar as they began to gather fire balls.
Energy shots, flame eruptions and satellite beams, once Techno arrived, for the first time, the Oceania army was effectively repelled in its entirety with the only successful invasion party being the 12 super villains who were falling.
***
In one of the battlefields, Time Tempest glared at Chasm Might, his pulsing aura beating like a drum as injuries he sustained healed at a visible rate. This was something Chasm Might never could achieve before and was never one of his innate abilities.
Blood Power, however, was his body's life force infused into a violently energetic power source. With enough life force to make an immense amount of life essence, the result caused Chasm Might to develop something akin to higher speed regeneration.
“What the fuck did you do to get that sort of healing ability?” Tempest said coldly.
“Nothing a body can’t naturally do when you are at our level of power.” Chasm Might said with a cold laugh.
Moments later the two once more crashed like two celestial bodies. The serious fight between hero level threats took no consideration for their surroundings, they never could.
Within the surroundings however, the children and official heroes monitored the movement of the battles and once they moved to another area, they moved in quickly.
“Go go! They’ve transitioned towards the northern area, this area had a lot of traffic before. Based on reports, not everyone got into the bunkers!” One braveman said.
Among the people, Lola had joined and she was looking around before she closed her eyes and nodes of devil essence appeared as they changed into over 100 imps.
“Spread out and sense for human life signatures.”
The imps spread out quickly with the wind around them seemingly helping them.
She was fused with Yez and was in the air while trying to sense the life signs and soon she got a signal from one of her summoned devils and quickly flew over.
“Over here!” She shouted and began to look at the mess of the buildings before going to the top most block and throwing it off and slowly removing the largest and most dangerous parts.
Others quickly arrived and helped and rescued people buried. Others kept watch and warned everyone if the danger was approaching again. Soon they cleared the building and a warning came and everyone quickly cleared out just as Chasm Might crashed through a building and slammed into the ground before flipping to his feet just as Time Tempest arrived punching.
They both rocketed up into the air once more.
Lola looked with a frown at the intensity, it was nothing any of the children had ever made any of the heroes fight like. Even the most serious spars had never gotten even close and it showed the immense gap between the 3000 stat and the 10000s that heroes had.
In the air, Chasm Might was frowning at the healing speed that Time Tempest was achieving. “His new regeneration feels like he is literally rewinding the damage off himself.”
“Move.”
Suddenly Chasm Might heard a voice through the communicator and Mephesto appeared before Time Tempest covered in a black mist and his red eyes glowing. The huge sword in his hand glowed with a demonic red glow.
Time Tempest barely had time to look before the sword came and a massive explosion came before a massive sword slash cleaved into the ground.
In the air, Time Tempest was cross armed with the sword embedded into his arm.
“AHHH! YOU PIECE OF SHIT!” he roared. The slash energy had gone through him and behind him but he was still whole because he instantly started to heal. “How did you escape Hyper and Toxic Angel?” Time Tempest said coldly.
“Who needs to escape when I can kill them off.” Mephesto said.
At that moment, Tempest felt danger and turned to find a fist glowing with the force of all three energies that connected with a sickening crunch and he was sent flying.
Chasm Might and Mephesto stood there and he looked at Mephesto, “Are you fine? You fought two?” he asked.
“Your disciple helped… I’ll explain later.” Mephesto replied.
Chasm Might’s face at mention of Robin made him shocked but he nodded and looked at Time Tempest who was holding his face that was wiggling as it reformed his skull.
“What is his deal?” Mephesto asked.
“He gained cellular regeneration powers while healing. It’s like he rewinds damage off his body now. Any damage takes at most 10 seconds to heal.” He said.
“Have you tried dismemberment?” Mephesto asked.
“Yes… his skeleton was reinforced as well making breaking bones a much harder task. If I had not discovered my new powers, I would literally be punching a steel post unable to bend it.” He said.
“Then we aim for beheading.” Mephesto said.
“Fine with me.” He said.
On the ground Time Tempest looked up at the two who glared at him. “It's the same configuration but it is infinitely more dangerous than years ago, even last year they needed 5 heroes and that brat to beat me down. What happened last year.” He muttered and tried to connect to the fleet. What shocked him was he heard a momentary scream before static.
A scowl appeared on his face as he looked towards where disaster was but under no circumstance did he see that giant stand up after his initial transformation and the bright glow.
“Looks like I need to figure out how to escape instead… it's too dangerous to remain if Mephesto can solo two threats designed for him. Chasm Might is also too dangerous, my bones were reinforced, almost triple their original density but he is breaking my bones left and right, if I wasn’t healing so fast I would definitely be dead now.” He thought and got up.
In his mind, he had the imprinted mission and the names and powers of each one and then grinned as he thought it would be a good idea to maybe intrude on the other fights.
His eyes narrowed at the thought of one of the weakest American union heroes. “At least one person needs to retire or die, then I can escape through the time stream again even if it locks my capacity again.” He muttered.
At the moment his ears caught the roar of a dragon and knew where his target was just as the two in front of him attacked with intent to kill and maim him.
He had to instantly go on the defensive and definitely had to dodge Mephesto because his sword was too dangerous if it hit his neck. He definitely would get decapitated and he did not want to find out if he could regrow lost limbs from his neck down.
As such, he defended and fought back where he could while guiding his thrown trajectory.
***
Robin did not let up after leaving Mephesto.
“Miss America, Vibrate, Sir Vincent, Server Admin, Esper, Bookkeeper and Blue Phoenix still need help…” Robin said as he looked from the roof of a highrise building and could see the exploding landscape all over the city as shockwaves arrived constantly.
It was even possible to see the massive bone dragon from here as well and he was worried for the aged necromancer. Despite the gamer space having a great capacity to heal and his body has healed after using a lot of potential, aging is difficult to push back forever.
That said, he turned to the air battle on the south side. Blue Phoenix’s wings and flames were scattered a lot as the enemy savagely chopped his constantly regrowing flame limbs.
He was clearly having the most difficulty despite not being the most dangerous enemy while Miss America had the most dangerous enemy but was in far better condition especially because of her immense invulnerability few things could actually hurt her.
Robin looked towards the area with the most disturbance, buildings were literally levitating and psychic fields were making things strange around Esper.
“I don’t think I could enter his fight even if I wanted to.” Robin said and focused on Blue Phoenix then.
The enemy had a sort of transformation ability but it was very twisted. Basically his entire body could transform into blades at any point. It is very similar to the man he had cured with the wild horn growth except with blades. He could transform any part of his body into a blade and he could release blades from any point of his body. That was why Blue Phoenix was having so much trouble. Any point he attacked would suddenly jab a blade through his feet or wings.
Although he could regenerate, Blue Phoenix has explained once that healing too much drains his stamina.
It was even worse because this madman was actually very skilled with the sword to the point that his raw physical brute power could generate vacuum blades which were very difficult to dodge since they expanded in length with distance.
It was the famous flying blade cut seen in cartoons and animations.
Based on this Robin also assumed this guy had bones made of steel or even harder because if Blue Phoenix chose to take a blade, he could easily break bones, taking so many such hits would have killed this man several times already because Blue Phoenix has one of the deadliest physical strength.
Robin jumped down the building and flew through the city close to the ground approaching the battlefield while constantly watching. As with Mephesto and Techno’s fight, the guy was high speed, except for exceptionally tanky foes, most people at this stage would at least have some level of superspeed or else they would be quickly beaten.
When he reached an acceptable range that his perception could reach he extended his psychic energy to try and grasp and continue to change the tide of this battle.