Chapter 386 - 375: Ammo Count
Chapter 386: Chapter 375: Ammo Count
In the distance, Griffin and the surviving apprentices, having just escaped the academy grounds, turned to look back, only to witness a scene of utter despair.
The dark red Steel Giant was snatched up like a toy by the monster—which had already swelled to nearly a hundred meters tall—and then viciously slammed into the ground.
’Did he fail?’
’Even the boss’s strongest creation couldn’t stand up to the nigh-immortal might of a Bloodline Wizard?’
Despair, like the ceaseless, bitter winds of the Frost Wind Plane, instantly pierced through each of their hearts.
「A hundred kilometers away, in Cybertron’s central control room.」
Allen calmly watched the red numerals on the screen, which displayed the Cyclops’s armor integrity continuing to drop from 61%. A faint ripple of emotion stirred in his ice-blue eyes.
The "Strongest Shield" he had single-handedly forged was seemingly being torn to shreds.
’The Bloodline Wizard’s abilities have indeed surpassed the data models, but a Wizard’s battle isn’t ultimately decided by who has the stronger punch.’
He issued a short, clear command.
"Cyclops, execute Contingency Plan Four. Deploy Earth Vein Anchors, assume defensive posture."
...
「On the ruins of the Glacial Academy.」
Just as Herman was about to press his attack, the dark red Golem abruptly scrambled to its feet, bent its knees slightly, and braced itself in a low, stable stance.
In the next moment, the two Earth Vein Anchors on the Cyclops’s back erupted with a deafening roar!
BOOM! BOOM!
The two massive metal anchors drove deep into the frozen earth, piercing through layers of rock to lock onto a surging node of Earth Vein Magic Power deep within the planet’s crust.
An immense, invisible torrent of Magic Power, like an ocean tide being drawn in by a great whale, surged furiously up the anchors and into the three Earth Core Furnaces within the Cyclops’s chest cavity!
VMMMM—
The output of the three furnaces instantly skyrocketed exponentially. The red light that had been glowing from the fissures in its chest abruptly flared into a blinding, incandescent white!
"Super AT Force Field, deploy at full power!"
A brilliant golden film of light erupted from the Cyclops, blooming outward like a giant, inverted golden lotus.
Herman, who was charging in to stomp his foe, collided head-on with the suddenly erupting defensive Force Field. His massive, hundred-meter-tall body was forcefully thrown back dozens of meters!
"What?!" The cruel smile on Herman’s face froze.
He steadied himself and let out a sky-shaking roar. Clenching both fists, wreathed in black-and-red Magic Power that seemed to tear at space itself, he smashed them violently against the golden wall of the Force Field!
DOOOM—!!!
A dull thud resonated, as if a great bell had been struck at the very center of the world.
Dense ripples of energy exploded outward from the point where Herman’s fists met the Force Field. The physical impact, powerful enough to shatter mountains, was completely nullified.
The luminous barrier trembled violently but did not break.
A vast amount of Earth Vein Magic Power was pouring in ceaselessly, instantly repairing any damage.
Herman went berserk, raining down punch after punch!
DONG! DONG! DONG! DONG!
It was as if he were hammering on a great, unbreakable bell; all he accomplished was making the golden light ripple more violently. It was utterly useless.
Inside the Force Field, the Cyclops slowly straightened. From behind the golden film of light, its massive One-Eyed Crystal Stone calmly regarded the furious giant outside.
Gravity Control: Activated!
Hundredfold Gravity!
Outside the Force Field, Herman felt the air around him instantly turn as thick and heavy as mercury. Each time he lifted his arm, it felt as though he were shouldering a mountain range.
The Cyclops didn’t need to win.
It only needed to hold him off.
Because the true killing blow was never meant to come from it.
At the very moment Herman was pinned down, a hundred kilometers from the Glacial Academy, the Golem Legion that had descended with Cybertron finally bared its deadliest fangs on the ice plains.
Among them, one hundred "Inferno" long-range launch platforms had not advanced with the main force.
Now, in perfect unison, they raised their twelve-tube missile launchers. The angle of every launcher was precisely calculated, all of them simultaneously locking onto the coordinates one hundred kilometers away.
"Red Lotus-II, full barrage launch!"
FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH FWOOSH—
The earth trembled.
Over twelve hundred guided Magic Missiles, trailing dark red contrails, soared into the sky at the exact same moment.
They traced graceful parabolic arcs across the sky as their guidance Runes activated one by one, forming a magnificent red meteor shower that spanned the horizon as it streaked toward the cloud-shrouded academy.
「Meanwhile, above the Glacial Academy.」
The gray clouds were torn asunder by swarms of approaching figures.
Allen’s aerial forces had arrived on the battlefield!
Five massive, hexagonal Hive motherships hovered high in the sky. From the dense array of apertures on their undersides, six thousand fist-sized Mad Bee Drones poured out like a swarm of locusts, instantly blanketing the sky.
Seventy-two Storm Falcon heavy bombers arranged themselves in an attack formation. Their ventral bomb bays opened in unison, and a black rain of aerial bombs dropped like hail.
Nine Freedom Gundams were dispersed throughout the airspace, the muzzles of their shoulder-mounted Titan’s Roar main cannons already gathering a terrifyingly bright energy.
「Higher still, thirty thousand meters up in the firmament.」
The main cannon of the "Sky Throne," the Light of Judgment, completed its second charging sequence. The Magic Power reading at its muzzle once again climbed steadily toward that terrifying number—6300!
And at an altitude of one thousand meters, Gabriel, which had been on standby, had at some point taken to the sky again.
In the four minutes since its power was depleted, it had quietly returned to the Sky Throne, whose Magic Power reserves were now pouring into its Magic Furnace like a deluge.
The faded Rune lines on its body lit up once more. It spread its eight wings, aimed its palms downward, and the familiar Angel’s Chant was ready to be unleashed.
Ground-to-air missiles, aerial drone swarms, mid-altitude bombing formations, low-altitude cannon arrays, high-altitude Magic Guide cannons, and ultra-high-altitude orbital strikes...
A three-dimensional web of firepower, covering the ground, air, and orbital space, had silently formed under the cold, unified command of Jarvis.
Every weapon’s targeting system converged on a single point.
One target.
The terrifying giant, still furiously hammering away at the golden Force Field, its body having now swelled to a height of one hundred and thirty meters.
The Cyclops seemed to sense what was coming. It abruptly shrank its AT Field from a five-hundred-meter radius to an area just thirty meters around itself.
Its massive single eye glanced one last time at its opponent from behind the Force Field.
Its gaze seemed to hold a trace... of pity.
The sky-filling barrage of Magic Missiles, having crossed a hundred kilometers, now arrived above the academy!
Allen issued the final command, consisting of just two words.
"Focus fire."
The next second.
The black cloud of steel formed by six thousand Mad Bee Drones dove down.
Seventy-two Storm Falcons dropped their entire payloads.
Nine thick beams from the Titan’s Roar cannons sliced into the center of the battlefield simultaneously from different angles.
Gabriel’s Angel’s Chant manifested as a spear of pure white, sacred light, lancing down from a thousand meters high.
The Sky Throne’s Light of Judgment, like the second finger of a god, descended vertically once more from the void thirty thousand meters above.
Everything converged on a single point in the exact same instant.
In that instant, the northern ice plains of the Frost Wind Plane became as bright as day.
There was no sequence, no progression.
Herman didn’t even have time to let out a single roar. His vision, his senses, his immortal body that grew stronger the more he fought—along with the ancient academy beneath his feet that had stood for nearly a thousand years, and the Earth Vein node hundreds of meters below it...
...were all simultaneously detonated in an oversaturated tide of destructive energy that defied all comprehension.
A chain reaction caused the force of the explosion to once again increase exponentially.
A mushroom cloud, so enormous it blotted out half the sky and was laced with ionized auroras and roiling clouds of magical dust, slowly rose from the coordinates, reaching for the heavens.
In Snow Rock City, eight hundred kilometers away, every Wizard, regardless of their power, felt a terrifying, world-shattering tremor coming from that direction at the exact same moment.
They rushed out of their rooms in horror and looked to the north.
The silently expanding mushroom cloud, and the half of the sky it dyed blood-red, would become a sight they would never forget for the rest of their lives.
「In Cybertron’s central control room.」
On the screen, the red high-threat target indicator for Herman, along with the entire Glacial Academy, completely vanished after a blinding flash of white light.
[Target completely erased on a material level.]
[Assessment: This saturation strike expended a total of 1,200 Red Lotus-II Magic Missiles, 720 aerial bombs of various models, 6,000 Mad Bee Drones... Total cost is approximately four million, three hundred thousand Magic Stones.]
Allen looked at the expenditure report, his face devoid of expression.
In his past life, there was a foreign general who conducted intensive artillery bombardments using an amount of ammunition that far exceeded conventional standards.
This kind of cost-be-damned saturation bombardment even sparked controversy back home over its exorbitant expense, and was later given a special moniker by war correspondents.
The Van Fleet Load.
Allen figured the amount of firepower he had just deployed could probably be called...
"The Academy-Leveling Load."