Swoop
Swissh, swass, swishh~... splish splñish- splassshh...
From the side of Elena's formation, a halberd slashing and sweeping through enemies sounded incessant. As she brandished her weapon, there were dozens trying to catch her and tackle her whenever there was a chance, and there were many good chances. Even with her group having seemingly seamless protection and their every attack killing 2 or more enemies, they resisted for over 10 minutes without any problem, and only some of them had to change their first layer of defense from their shield tools.
But even as Elena swung her Mortal halberd nonstop, the splashing noises of countless bodies turning into blood, cut and mangled to death with a mere swing of its halberd head were many and louder. The laurel formation never stopped moving. Unlike the semi-square formation, moving through the battlefield and turning the excited enemy cultivators into a cowardly stagnance. From attacking them without stopping, their assaults were only once every ten seconds or more.
The laurel formation was making a massacre, and many turned their backs on it to attack the semi-square formation, but they were more prepared to defend. While the laurel formation had Elena slaughtering anything that moved, even a tiny blade of grass drifting from a nearby student fighting off another idiotic bunch, it would become small pieces of grass and powerlessly fly through the air until they became bloodied and accompanied the corpses on the ground.
The semi-square formation was resisting. It had multiple array formations, small and ‘vulnerable’ enough to give the enemy the sensation they could always break it as long as they kept bashing it despite the losses. But the semi-square formation always held, despite not having any Crabstynian realm nor a strong leader to guide and support them. Little by little, the mob was soon ‘controlled’ by the 2 formations. One led the lamb left and right, slowly pushing them backwards, and the other kept them at ray without stepping back a muscle.
Several half hours went by, and the battle became increasingly tense and more bloody as time passed, becoming stagnant and seemingly reaching a modus operand after so long. Elena and her laurel formation would be attacked from 3 different directions by long-distance attacks consisting of Power Energy or techniques. But they were useless, and they could at most eat away the array formation’s source. The assaulting enemy cultivators would charge at her and tire them as much as possible, dealing as many heavy hits as possible.
Over the last minutes, both formations were having it more difficult. Elena’s laurel formation was continuously stumbling left, right, and back and forth. They were pushed melee by the still too-many enemy cultivators and could only strike back while their shields couldn’t hold for more than 10 minutes. Thus, in just another half an hour, they lost a few shield layers and getting into real trouble.
Even with the great killing they were making of the unprepared and inexperienced tens of thousands of Ashes Soul realm cultivators, it was much too impossible to reduce that number for even a fourth. Only a few thousand had been butchered as they charged towards the 2 formations, and the latter annihilated the former. That was the only way for the students to take their lives, at least efficiently, without wasting their Power Energy and draining their mentality too much.
Clank, splunk- pa pam pam. Cloonk~...
“Team leader, my shield layers are all gone!!” One team member of Elena’s Crystal Fist Team yelled, shouting back, whereas Elena’s bloodied face stared back at him. Her eyes showed preoccupation but were also enough for the team member to feel ‘sheltered’ in some way and continue the killing and defending. Elena looked at the rest of her team members with her and the Sub Students.
The latter were the most tired but weren’t fearful or panicky. Elena had to admit that, even as the club chooses too few every month and year, they did so damn well. As she bent her back a little to catch her breath, more than half her reserves gone and continuing to diminish, she stood straight back up and looked at the night sky with closed eyes. Even as it was cold and fresh, she felt as if warmth was flooding within the skin of her face, and she lowered it to look at the enemies below.
Her face, slightly less bloody around her eyelids and cheeks right below them, looked notably pale under the starlight. Her brown eyes were an exemplary depiction of slaughter as their killing intent went through air and space to instantly lunge at her enemies.
“CHARGE!” Her face scrunched up as she roughly shouted this order, her voice so overbearing it made her enemies’ legs tremble as her people were emboldened the shit out of theirs! With their shield tools expanding in mechanical motions before throwing them away, her formation took a polearm of their choosing, exhaustively covering their bodies with all the Power Energy they had left before grabbing a circular knife with the handle at their palms and the blade bent before their knuckles.
“Waaah!” Huaaah!” - “Huuuh!” - “Grwaaaaarrh!!”
Stomp- stomp stomp… Phhshk, crreeshhk, ckrsheerr… Swish swish- cla- kuuh~ cuuh~ splash.
Elena’s formation dispersed. She stepped forwards until she was at the front of the laurel formation and faced, killed, and sent many pieces of bodies flying away every few seconds. By the time she was fighting for over a minute, she and her group began charging in random directions without much protection. Meanwhile, the shield tools they had thrown off were doing their own disorder and indiscriminate murder.
When they expanded their main structure like a mechanical, advanced device, they became as tall as a person, and as wide as half a person. When thrown into the enemy cultivators atop their heads, they suddenly revealed tiny, curved blades as they began gyrating. However, they also took out some extremely thin whips. Each whip was about 16 meters long, and they were beheading the most people while the knives injured them at most.
The group went in random directions, starting with a detour to the left, creating a slim line within the mob and leaving corpses on the ground behind. They weren’t being followed nor pursued by those they left alive - most. Instead, the enemy cultivators watched as Elena’s group penetrated through the mob like an arrow through a thin water-screen.
But after another half an hour, Elena led her group straight to the other group, still in formation. Her people were overly tired, and though they’d massacred ⅓ of the enemies they had killed so far before, even she had much less Power Energy stored than before. Her Sub Students weren’t so injured, but some of her team members received heavy injuries to keep them but were still safe. She had her left hand bloody, not necessarily from her enemies.
At the start of the entire massacre, when they entered the entrapment, Elena had used her left fist to send formidable waves of Power Energy, directly stunning and halting some enemies in the air or land alike. She was unharmed whenever she did, but when she and her group started charging nonstop, it all took a turn for the worst.
During the first few minutes of using her right arm to brandish her halberd and her left arm to swing her fist around and kill alike, her left arm was punctured by many tools and slashed a few times. Only after she started individually using her left fist to attack like a fish searching bread crumbs was she no longer vulnerable to their attacks, and her left arm was bloodying itself from the enemy cultivators around.
Whooooooooshhh… whoooshh~~...
“!!” Elena’s eyes widened as she charged towards the semi-square formation. The reaction from the enemy was different. They looked in the direction of the sound of a large number of figures floating through the sky, coming here and some Fauna flying, gratitude and gladness filling their bodies and hearts. “They’re here!” - “Boss has come back. They will protect us!” - “WAAAH! Trap them, trap them back!” - “Don’t let them get away, kiiiiiilll!!!”
“...” - “...” - “...” Elean looked at her group just as they ran, her head turning left and right and her people nodding at her in seriousness. She and her team directly began running, no longer bothering to kill any more bags of flesh and bones. She took the lead as her halberd faced the front, spearheading to the semi-square formation with more velocity than before!
“Noo! AAaaaggh-AAAH!” - “No! Don’t! Let! The- nooo!” - “Hurry, they are coming! Trap theeeem!!”
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The enemy cultivators grew restless, seeing the increased speed of Elena’s group, and became anxious. They were too useless! And they recognized this, so they wanted nothing more but to let their bosses have an easier time getting these peoples’ heads served on a plate for them to take them off!
… On the other hand, on the side of the protective array formation, where Elena’s group had stepped in. A group of a few thousand halted in midair, looking at the light green barrier with scrutiny. And from the few thousand, all were Crabstynian realm cultivators, but only a few rode their Fauna in the air.
At this moment, an aged person from their lot said after seemingly finished examining the array formation. “It is breakable! Focusing on a single point will create a hole, but we must prepare attacks to follow as we enter it. That way, it won’t repair itself as we go through it, and we won’t have to worry about the others not having enough workforce to break it soon enough. Start… right there! This array formation has a kind of self-sustainability, but it has a huge flaw here.”
The aged man pointed at the entrance Elena’s group used to step in, and the others all nodded. Those riding on their Fauna crossed their arms and watched as the rest began employing their Power Energy. In these reinforcements, there were leaders of First Step organizations. But each was only so ‘advanced’ as their leaders were at the middle stages of the Crabstynian realm at best. And the other higher-ups, second in command, were at the early stages.
Everyone began combining their Power Energy attacks on the same spot, bombarding the place until a fissure appeared, and the air was sucked in like crazy. But the smell from within assaulted them immediately. With disgusted faces and beginning to comprehend what kind of thing the Academy had done to their people startled them. But it also encouraged them to continue on this path. These students were becoming too overbearing! How dare they?!
Everyone could see with their eyes what was going on here. They just couldn’t tell what exactly had transpired. Their Spirit Sense couldn’t even go through that hole that was increasing in size the more the others bombarded it.
At last, the hole opened enough for the leaders’ Fauna to go through. After opening it a bit more while setting some tools and explosive talismans and devices around the barrier and away from the hole, they started to enter it at the fastest possible speed and orderly. It became clear these leaders were the reason those within could reach far into the Ashes Soul realm. If their bosses had been with them, Heian Ciemnosc and Elena wouldn’t have been so willing to face them.
After more than half their numbers went in, the hole showed signs of self-repairing, amazing the aged man who knew best of array formations from the whole reinforcements group. The devices, tools, and talismans started going off, forcing the array formation’s source to be consumed so as to not let more holes be created around its structure. With swiftness, the thousands of Crabstynian realm entered the cage to save their people and kill the Wrath Nihility Academy’s students.
“... Here they’re coming!”
… From the semi-square formation, one of the 4 at the front yelled to the rest, his words clear even amidst the clanking, metallic sounds, heavy gasps from their mouths, and the enemy's dying screams. The rest immediately nodded to each other as they silently communicated, their gazes telling the other that everything was in order and ready to be executed. Thus, the 4 at both sides’ rear began taking some stuff from their Covert Space bags.
Those were explosives, and each was good enough to kill any Ashes Soul realm in an area of 10 meters in diameter. However, they were tuned, and if powerfully thrown in a straight line with a detonation time so it could go off in midair, it would slimmer to 6 meters. But its length would be increased to 80 meters!
“Ready??” - “Ready!” - “Ready!” - “Ready!!”
While defending with one arm holding their shield tool, their other arm held what looked like a cannonball but had too soft a surface to be tied to a knife-like tip the size of one’s forearm. Their shield tools had between 3 to 1 layer left. They were in danger of becoming defenseless in the next several minutes.
The group’s leader nodded at them and looked at the front, calculating the time as Elena’svoice wouldn’t be heard even if she used whatever she had left of Power Energy storage. After his eyes suddenly widened and his pupils and irises shrunk, he shouted ferociously as his body pushed forward, holding one explosive himself as the one to his right covered his back. So did the one on his left, covered from behind by the one to that person’s left, the former holding another explosive.
The leader pushed the enemy back, and so did the other person, going from a semi-square to a semi-rectangle-shaped formation missing both shorter sides. The group’s leader then shouted after stabilizing his position in his line as the other person also stabilized his placement with the other line. He lowered his face, held the explosive with his whole left arm, and defended himself with the right, but still received a couple hits on his shield tool.
“Open it! Now!!” The leader shouted, his throat hoarse and seemingly angered. Following suit, several explosives were sent forward. The first ones were from the rear, were the Sub Students, and the weakest among all. They had less storage and less efficient Power Energy than Elena’s team members, so they were to send the first explosives without using too much of their Power Energy.
Swiiiiipp- phhshk~! Phhshk~! Phhshk~! Phhshk~!...
The explosives were thrown into the air, in a straight line and forwards, in the direction that one would need to run towards them without changing their angle for a moment. Only 10 explosives were in the group’s possession. They were tough and costly to make, after all. The first 2 explosives followed each other. One of the 2 overtook the other and penetrated the Power Energy-covered torsos from the front to the back of the enemy cultivators.
“Aah!” - “Aa-” - “Guwak!?” - “Haaaap!” The enemy cultivators weren’t expecting such a sudden death when their leaders were already around. Here, to save them! But they didn’t notice the thing that killed them not losing momentum, still streaking across the air and forming a trail of blood with flesh and intestines getting attached to the explosives’ structures.
Buu- buutkk- BOOOOOOOOOM… bu- buutkkk- BOOOOOM… swiiiiiip… swiiiip… swiiiip…
And then, when every enemy cultivator was frowning and decided to get back to fighting for their fallen comrades and resolving to be the Wrath Nihiltiy Academy’s #1 enemy… The ‘tools’ suddenly exploded, creating an almost instantaneous area engulfed in flames. But the flames weren’t the problem, as anyone inside the explosions’ range became past charred meat and tiny traces of their bodies, be it Demon, Human, or Beast… it was the expansive waves from the explosion that terrified even the enemy cultivators hundreds of meters away.
Those standing just a couple meters away from the 6-meter-wide radius were immediately pushed back, their arms and legs limp as the side their bodies faced the explosion became a mess of tightly packed bones and flesh, for all and any organ became flat and adhered between their skin, veins and inside their bones. That is without speaking of the 10 meter radius that all enemy cultivators suffered the same fate, forming a space where only dirt without any grass remained.
Those directly just inches from the 6-meter-wide radius had most of their bodies ‘disappear’ as it had all become a slimmer structure, leaving only muscle and some flesh with bones embedded into them left behind. Their organs weren’t even existent anymore, turned into part of their flesh or muscle, as most of their blood was shitted out of their bodies in the direction of the explosion from the back of their heads to their heels.
That was just the first explosive that was also the slowest. Meanwhile, the fastest of the 2 continued to trek for another 40 meters before exploding, sending the next batch of the idiotic bunch to hell, and in between, still paralyzed from the first explosion.
BOOOOOOOOOM… BOOOOOOOOOM…
That was only the first of the 5 dual explosions the enemy cultivators and the group of students witnessed. Even they were left speechless and paused their fight for a second before resuming the killing. But the enemy cultivators had a notoriously harsh time trying to recompose. Yet, the group didn’t stop there and continued sending one batch of explosions after another.
The second dual explosions were sent several seconds after the first. But from then on, and due to the distance, the explosives were thrown every few and fewer seconds. The enemy cultivators had become crazy, just laughing and shaking their heads in a trice.
“Get away, get way, get away, get a- aaa- aaa- AAAWAY!” - “It’s com… it’s com- it’s coming here! IT’S COMING HERE!!” - “AAAAAAAH! Run, ruuun, noohooo, ruuun!” - “What the fuck is goooing ooon?! AAAH! Whyyyyyyy??!?!”
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh… Amidst the explosions and the disorder of the Ashes Soul realm cultivators, the enemy, their bosses finally arrived near and asked a bunch of enemy cultivators while looking at the faraway line of the mob completely extinguished and nobody daring to come closer. A young-looking man said while having seizures all over his body, looking with eyes upturned at one boss riding his Fauna.
“It’s the… it’s the Academy’s SSSS- Students, sir, they… they are trying to escape, we believe- we…”
“?!” The bosses frowned and traced the almost 20 meters-wide line within the entrapped mob, only to see the last explosion go off a few hundred meters away before suddenly being stepped on by a group of 12 hurrying with commendable speed towards the end of the ‘road’ towards the barrier’s wall.
Elena’s group was on their last to rush out of the barrier as the other 12 waiting for them resisted the crazed and savage enemy Ashes Soul realm cultivators. The sight left the bosses jealous… Gesturing towards the group of students, the Crabstynian realm cultivators got to work and floated towards them. But just as they commanded their Fauna to fly over to the enemy, their bodies halted, and their eyes suddenly widened.
… … … … A sort of presence made itself known, but judging from the looks of the other leaders and higher-ups floating there, only those with Fauna could feel it. Yet, that alone was sufficient to stop them and make cold sweat run down their backs.
Before they knew it, Elena’s group was just a dozen meters away from meeting face to face with the other group holding both lines as an exit out of the light green barrier… This cage… They were also now trapped in.
“!!!!”
…