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Volume 5
Chapter 216: Meteor
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It’s not just any kind of threat… it was an overbearing, domineering, and has an unfathomable amount of hatred in it.
Donar, knowing about Scion, wasn’t the important question but rather the ‘how’ of the sense of danger that Kladis felt in these words of a mere NPC.
Just how in the world can an NPC make him feel fear as if he was talking to a real person?
No, not only that. It felt like the rage and hate radiating in those eyes of him was real from the bottom of his heart.
Kladis stared at Donar’s eyes and couldn’t help the surging feeling of fear rise up in him.
Although this Real@D rendering of the Elder God was only white, blue, and few shallow colors, it was still enough to give him the ‘real person rendering’ effect as if they’re really talking face to face.
That said, now that he looked at him, Donar was rather taller than him.
Not only that, but his shoulders seems to be larger in a general sense of the term.
Donar was made with the strongest person in Terroa as a model and everyone knew that looking at his appearance right now, one would think instantly that he was a copycat of the physical being of Siva.
Meaning, since Donar seems to have a larger frame than Kladis, it means that Siva also was the same.
This thought alone was enough to make Kladis mad.
He was the acting Supreme Commander of the Blue Card Legion. It was his pride and his accomplishments were generally brighter and more widely known that the recently rising Siva ‘The Destroyer’ who just came from out of nowhere.
In physical aspects, Siva having a more intimidating body frame than Kladis…
His pride as a man was trampled!
Anger rose on his chest. Kladis had only felt fear and a clear sense of danger when face to face with Gats and aside from him, he had feared no one else.
Yet now, a mere NPC, just merely standing there after he had been threatened, made him so shaken to his core that he forgot to wear his poker face when he felt surprised by his words earlier.
The clear intent to “kill him” when it was spoken was there and this is what he found to be unforgivable.
“How dare you!” Kladis finally roared the words stuck on his chest and arrogantly raised a finger against Donar’s face. “You’re only an artificial lifeform from another plane! How dare you threaten me? My Legion is not something you can just threaten with words! I will do what I want… I will conquer every land I want…!! This city stood in the path of my glory so I will burn it down! Hah! What can you do? Oh, and yes, I will make all women obey me. Heh! Even that Scion! So what if she’s an Archmage? All women are the same. When they’re aroused, they will gladly open their legs to satisfy themselves! In fact… she even knelt down happily and smiled while accepting me inside her lovely and soft little mouth! Hahaha! If you have the strength to threaten me, then come fight me with all your intent! Let me check the strength of a God whether it’s real or a hoax! If you have the strength, make me kneel and beg to die… or else… I will savour that woman’s body scent as much as I want while I watch you grovel on the ground, dying!”
CRACK!
It was the sound of something snapping and whether it was the seemingly calm but furious Elder God or the enraged Kladis, none of the two adjutants behind the latter knew just where that sound came from.
And yet it was clear that Kladis, as soon as he spoke about Scion, slightly but visibly shuddered as the Elder God’s dark black eyes stilled and focused on him.
It was the look in the eyes of a person having a cold and pure desire to murder.
Like a dark and cold abyss of endless desire for murder, Kladis felt as if his soul was sucked in on that empty world of hate. And yet in that world made up of the fires of fury is a black burning blade that seems to repeatedly hack on sanity as if he was really dying.
It was only a moment and yet Kladis felt as if an entire year of life span had already been hacked off his soul.
Thank goodness that while he was staring at those pair of dark eyes, Donar took a step and moved his hand… a finger was pointed straight into his eyes…
And the words were uttered with the purest of his will to kill him: “Wait for me.”
The Real@D rendering was immediately cut after that and as soon as it did, they all heard something that came from the distant blackness.
UWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…!!!
It was the sound of a grating metallic cry almost the same cry as that of a Demon Colossus right after it morphed from being a warship.
And yet…
There was hatred, wrath, loathing… a sense of rage akin to a husband who saw his wife got raped while he was tied by barbwires… or the roar of a lion that saw his cub got eaten by a hungry tiger.
A shout of rage that cursed the heavens for its bland and uncaring eyes…
A roar of fervent frenzy devouring all sense of sanity…
That metallic roar from the distance 100% came from the approaching Akhenaton.
Everyone knew it was Akhenaton.
At that same moment, the female adjutant’s voice rang in horror: “Incoming projectile!”
D-DING!
A holo-panel popped out on Kladis’ vision indicating a labeled object with a hair-raising size and speed coming straight above them.
Kladis shouted, “Rewloola-2, intercept. Intercept!”
B-B-B-B-BOOM!! B-B-BOOM!
B-BOOM…!!
A series of exploding sounds of cannons came from the hovering battleship a distance ahead of Apus Epirus. In just a moment, over a hundred cannon fires were heard from all the mid-ranged Tier-3 artillery cannons mounted on its hull and the fleet that hovered around it.
The smile of confidence on Kladis broadened as he thought of the specks of the cannons his Rewloola and the fleet’s warships has.
“Heh. Even a Tier-4 defensive hull with shields will not last under that kind of bombardment.”
But not even a moment after his confident thought on his mind had been uttered, the male adjutant on his left yelled his own report.
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“The missile is not stopping sir!”
“What?!”
Right after that, the female adjutant reported, “Eight seconds until visual! Its target is the Rewloola!!”
In his mind, Kladis subconsciously counted the seconds but somewhere in his heart, he was puzzled as to what kind of missile wouldn’t explode from the many Tier-3 shells of a battleship.
Seven seconds…
Six…
Why are the seconds ticking so fast?!
Kladis’ mind reeled. Holding back right now is a great mistake, “Fire the BM Cannons! Do not conserve your ammunitions! All fleet warships, fire at will!”
BOOOOM!
………BOOOOM!
……………BOOOOM…!!
Following his command, a series of loud and blinding red cannon shots were released from the Rewloola-Class battleship and the warships of the fleet.
Long and thunderous shots were fired and the noise of it echoed slower and encompassed a wider range and area than that of the normal cannon shots.
Even with their distance of a few kilometers from the battleship, the sound of the cannons still continues to echo.
The normal artillery cannons had bright white lights when fired but the Bloody Mary Cannons aren’t only bigger cannons, but they are also special cannons that housed a special kind of ammo, thus its name.
In the dark distant skies blanketed by the Eternal Night Curse, bright red explosions rung as it hit the projectile launched from Akhenaton and this created a lasting shadow on everyone’s eyesight.
“My god…”
“What was that?”
“Is that a…”
“How can something be that big?!”
Every soldier and member of the Blue Card Legion on their castle wall were all attracted by the explosions of the cannons from the Rewloola.
The Alexandrian Users and NPCs were all naturally attracted to that direction as well.
In the curtain of starless darkness, a series of bright red explosions were seen behind the cluster of the clouds that was devoid of reflection. Behind them, a clear large shadow, larger than the explosions, was clearly outlined on those bright red flames.
Four seconds…
……………BOOOOOOM…!!
………BOOOOOOM!
…BOOOOOOM!
BOOM!
The detonations of the Bloody Mary Cannons created a sight of a straight red line firing at that falling object.
Three seconds…
By now, that giant object was burning in bright yellow and red flames and its surface was also beginning to split apart into smaller burning parts.
Two seconds…
One…
A moment of silence engulfed the hearts of the spectators. The clouds curtaining the falling object were beginning to think out!
It was a meteor falling from the heavens!
“By the gods!”
“This is… this is…!!”
“It’s Armageddon!”
“Oh… dear god!”
“Protect the city!”
~~HUMMMMM!
Without warning, the now illuminated dark grey clouds parted as the wind screamed and trembled in terror 1km away from the Rewloola Battleship.
From the parted clouds, a burning meteor with smaller balls of fires around it was descending from the pitch black sky with pure and unhindered destructive intent!
Kladis’ eyes went wide as he gasped a mouthful of air.
Clearly, not only him, but everyone in the wall of the Apus Epirus recognized that 1km-sized meteor.
It’s… one of the nine islands!
When this point was raised in their hearts, Kladis’ mind reeled as he ordered in reflex.
“All ships in the fleet, don’t let that thing hit the Rewloola! Fire! FIRE…!!! Rewloola, don’t just stand there, get out of that damn place!!!”
Following the commands, all cannons continued to fire at the descending island.
Chunks continued to part off from the island but although it was already reduced into 70% of its former size, it was still large enough and is falling fast enough to scare this soul out of everybody.
But was it easy to burn an island with a massive size of 1km in diameter into smithereens? It was one thing to easily burn a city erected atop that island but to burn an entire island and turn it into burned coal in the sky wasn’t easy.
Everyone in the surroundings were clear now of one very important and frightening thing:
At this very day, one of the legendary Rewloola Battleships of the Blue Card Legion… will fall.
“Evade! Evade!”
The captain of the Rewloola-Class Battleship yelled until his lungs no longer had air and his throat is filled with lines and lines of blood vessels.
But no matter how much he screamed, a battleship is a heavyweight of a warship, its main point was its heavy artillery and its absolute defense.
Agility and speed… was the least of its concern.
“Noooo!!” Kladis yelled in horror as he watched the desperately escaping Rewloola Battleship kept on firing its cannons.
He braced himself at the shock of seeing of a miniscule battleship meet the meteor head on.
The shield dome erected by the Shield Mages met the meteor, an ear-deafening explosion detonated on the immediate vicinity of the battleship, along with the echoing screams of the poor personnel still trapped in that once magnificent piece of proud technology.
BOOOOOOMMMMM!!!
Its shields were bent and it collapsed without much resistance, like a folding umbrella meeting a category-5 hurricane from behind.
None of the people on the ship could survive.
The meteor crushed the Rewloola Battleship and it burned and crumbled like burnt charcoal under the crushing pressure upon impact.
Though the meteor had already crushed the Rewloola and two other warships that was close to it, along with around 20+ Cyclones, its momentum didn’t stop and it went to crash down at the ground.
A loud explosion occurred, a mountain of debris flew off to the sky and damaged the nearest escaping warships and also destroyed the unlucky Cyclones that couldn’t get away in time.
The massive wave reached the castle and the sound of the exploding impact reached their ears before the dust clouds that it entailed traveled to their location.
“Damn it! GOOOD DAAAAMMMNNN IIIIIIT!” Kladis was so enraged that he was screaming and punching the merlon in front of him. “Fuck you. Fuck you! FUCK YOUUUUUUU!!!”
His expression showed how furious he was and he also screamed at the sky… at that visible glow of an image.
Now that the clouds had parted, everyone could now see that single deity demanding their attention, a single entity that had the right, in this eternal darkness, to have his own light.
It was high up in the sky, 6km away…
It was looking down on them…
Surrounded by faintly glowing discernible islands the same size as it…
A golden staff in hand and a body made of gold, as if saying that it was indeed a deity that warranted the perfected symbol as the [gold], and wasn’t an ancient warship created using very mysterious methods and made up of mysterious materials…
This is the personification of the Ancient Emperor that rejected the Gods and was cursed by them in the end.
“Akhenaton…” Kladis hissed in anger. “Donar!!”
The silence of the surroundings was ear-piercing and it added more dread to the things that just transpired.
From the distance, they could see the still burning remains of the fallen island and the screaming wind around it washed away the smoke and clouds, only to reveal the desolated aftermath of throwing a meteor.
The forest and the lands were burned. A crater lay there, its mouth still burning with the embers of a fallen piece of land.
Kladis glanced at it and his heart ached severely at the thought that one of his Rewloola-Class Battleships that cost more than four billion Zentra… is now gone underneath those rubbles and burning debris of a once grand island.
He looked up again and then hissed, “Fire the longhorns and target that abomination in the sky.”
“S-Sir?” the two were still aghast and was clearly still in great shock from seeing a battleship got taken out of their forces without much of a resistance.
“I said… FIRE THE LONGHORNS! DO IT NOW!!!”
The enraged Kladis yelled and he yelled at the female NPC Adjutant.
But while this order was given, the left male adjutant who just now recovered and checked his panel, voiced a report in complete horror.
His face was pale white from shock and awe.
“Sir, two more projectiles are com—”
“What?! Two more?!”
The adjutant wasn’t even finished when Kladis cried his surprise, “—ming!! Size… 1km in diameter! It’s another meteor!”
“God damn it, full back! All ships, evasive maneuvers!”
Kladis looked up to Akhenaton and, true enough, his eyes went wide as he saw two islands getting larger and larger heading towards them.
“Raise the shields! Full effect! Take out those meteors before it hits us!”
****
Meanwhile in the Akhenaton…
Siva’s rage was burning and just as he was finished throwing the third island down, his voice rang inside the all-viewing sphere.
“Marshall, you can start firing.”
On the Real@D rendering of the mustached D’Catch, he saluted, “Hai. Leave it to me” and then a series of cannon fires were heard right after it.
Cannons pointed down at a height of 10km. Small and lower in tier as their cannons and limited in distance they may seem, they were still in a higher sky than the targets… so not only their targets’ upper hulls bare, their cannon fires are also going to be affected by the pull of gravity, lessening their effects.
Theirs, however, will only carry more weight and destructive effect on The Legion’s fleet.
Adding to that, standard firing-range doesn’t matter.
With just a little computation, their mid-level cannons will even reach long-range without much influence on its destructive effect.
*****
The falling meteor was fast but the bullets propelled by cannon fires were even faster.
Before the second moment that the dispersing of the forces of the Blue Card Legion was completed, the cannon fires from high in the sky had already reached the ranks of The Legion’s fleet.
The shields erected by the mages on the deck shook and trembled, the loud explosions of the cannon fires were all dispersed and neutralized by the barriers.
But although it was strong, the bombardment still took out a few Cyclones who were flying around their main warships.
Kladis ordered, “Scatter formation. All Cyclones climb up and intercept the enemy from the sides and rear!”
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One devastating attack after another…
The Legion suddenly finds itself on a bind!
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Next chapter: A stunning development!