Weapons of Mass Destruction

Chapter 569: Hunt continues

The third beast I managed to detect is the Stormscale Basilisk. It is serpentine, as the name implies, and it’s about the size of a building, and yet it’s impressively fast despite its mass.

Its serpentine form carves through the forest, shimmering scales flashing with every movement. Each motion tears into the earth, splintering roots and crushing the undergrowth beneath its weight.

Trees bend and snap as its coiling body smashes through them, sending broken trunks to the ground. Lightning crackles along its hide, leaping outward to strike nearby branches in sharp, blinding arcs that always seem to reach farther than they ordinarily should. Leaves shrivel and blacken, with their edges curling from the raw force of the lightning surging through the air.

The ground trembles as if nature itself were being torn apart. And the beast is currently fighting.

Explosions of fire, mana projectiles, trees bending and trying to hold it, ground around it moving to grab it. There is also a huge golem made of earth in its path, and around that golem, black smoke surrounds it.

Sophie, Gareth, Savant, and Klara are there, fighting it, along with a bunch of guys I do not recognize, but judging by their mana signature, they must be Hell difficulty at the very least.

A burst of orange light suppresses the lightning and attempts to poison the beast. Sophie and Blackie controlling her golem. Gareth, with a silver crown over his head, enduring the incredible attacks of the beast. And Klara, clad in armor, lashes out at the beast with a big axe coated in sticky red light. Every time she cuts into the beast, some of that red light, smoke, or whatever it is, remains and lingers in the wound until the Basilisk envelopes itself in a burst of lightning to burn it away.

Sophie immediately reaches out to me through the link and shouts, (Donʼt look into its eyes!)

Just in time, I look away.

The Stormscale Basilisk destroys the trees in its path, throws aside the golem, and charges at me only to be stopped by Gareth, who stands in its way, silver armor and huge shield in his hand, blocking the lightning. The Basilisk tries to strike him, but a silver bubble surrounds Gareth. The beast crashes against it, and instead of breaking or pushing him away, the building sized beast bounces back.

It attacks again with the same result, and the barrier refuses to budge an inch, though it doesn’t seem to make sense. It should be torn from the ground and tossed aside with Gareth inside.

(It has some sort of mana based poison that spreads through its gaze, causing your own mana to paralyze you. And it can do the same thing with its domain to a lesser extent,) Sophie explains.

Klara approaches the beast from the side and leaps onto its back, swinging her ax as she does. All the lightning crackling there channels a path through her armor, and several arcs of lightning lance through the blade of the ax, heating its surface and causing the metal to glow red from the heat. The red-haired woman swings it down, only to make the huge beast spring forward, crashing through a number of trees until it finally shakes her off.

Sophieʼs mana rises up, and the trees around us bend, extending their branches and trying to grab the beast or slow it down. Her golem shrinks, the dirt falling to the ground, as it abandons its rough humanoid shape into the form of a snake that slithers toward the Basilisk.

The golem coils around the Basilisk, which keeps moving, tearing up chunks of earth in its rage, as it opens its mouth to release a powerful, stream-like barrage of lightning that sets the surrounding trees on fire and carves chunks out of the ground.

Savant places himself in the beast’s path, surrounding himself in the orange light of his domain, and lifts his sword. The broken blade glows with the same orange light as it extends, radiating increasing levels of mana. The light around Savant expands, forcing Klara, Gareth, and the others to move back as it collides with the beastʼs domain. Lightning crackles and fractures upon reaching deep into [Dawn].

I could join in and get the last attack. I could probably just hunt the other beasts in the meantime and let the others do all the work, just to killsteal this one later.

But at the same time, I know Lissandra is watching, and this is not what she had in mind. Even if I did take first place with that strategy, she would not accept it.

I know because, in this, our thinking is the same.

Just as Iʼm about to leave, I detect a presence.

Tacita appears out of thin air, standing within Savantʼs [Dawn].

She smiles widely, untouched by the orange mana radiation that once seemed to cause her so much trouble. Her modified field shields her, countering its effects.

Savant detects her and shifts his body, moving with incredible speed for a moment, just fast enough to counter.

But Tacita accelerates further, circling him with a playful grace that feels almost taunting. Her dagger flashes several times.

Savant loses one of his legs below the knee and is about to lose his arm at the shoulder, but he shifts, and her dagger sinks into his forearm, unable to pierce the bone. Iʼm sure that bone is not the same as other pieces of his body.

[Dawn] shrinks, and he changes frequency. Just a moment is enough for him to grasp Tacitaʼs field, and with an incredible show of skill, he modifies his domain on the spot to counter her.

But Tacita knows it as well; as a final goodbye, she stabs her dagger with a green blade into his side and slaps him across the face before disappearing.

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The Stormscale Basilisk seizes the opportunity, and its lightning presses against the weakened [Dawn] and almost hits Savant, who just barely manages to absorb part of the attack, before Gareth’s silver bubble surrounds him, deflecting the rest.

Gareth groans and rushes against the beast in tandem with Sophieʼs golem, which begins to grow in size as they charge.

I track the shifting air and glance to my left just in time as Tacita appears nearby.

Noticing that I’m looking exactly where she planned to appear, she falters briefly, then shakes her head and disappears.

Before leaving as well, I send a message to Sophie, (Jean is approaching from your right and will be here in a few minutes. On your left is the Chinese tournament winner, but she’ll arrive after Jean.)

After delivering the message, I teleport away into the air and use kinetic energy to fly higher.

So that means that the Nightshade Stalker, Witherclaw, and Onyxscale Hydra, for which I have something prepared, remain. Killing two out of the five Special grade beasts should get me first place, combined with all the other kills. But there is also a chance someone will killsteal the Stormscale Basilisk and another beast and push for the 1st spot.

My decision not to killsteal the Basilisk only puts more pressure on me, but Iʼm sure I know how Lissandra would feel about that.

I boost myself to the ground where I estimate the first floating island will crash.

The first attendee I meet is some Hell difficulty guy; he turns his gun and points it at me. It reminds me of a sniper rifle, made out of materials I recognize as endurium and arcanadium. I also sense a bit of voidsteel, likely used for the bullets.

I wonder what he’s using to replace gunpowder. Or, for that matter, if he even needs it? If he has telekinesis, he can make it bounce inside the rifle or store momentum to launch the bullet at speed. Maybe there is some inscription that handles the acceleration. Kinetic energy could work here, too, or even some kind of fire skill that would serve to create a small explosion.

I shake my head to put these thoughts away and say, ”The floating island will fall soon. I would leave this area if I were you.”

He follows my finger as I point at the island.

”It seems like it,” he says. ”I have noticed that fucked-up amount of mana up there. Someone pulled some crazy shit up there…”

Before he can finish, I teleport away.

Moving forward, I come across a pair who feel like they are from Easy difficulty. They don’t even notice me before I teleport them away.

I dash further to the right between the trees and boost myself onto a branch. A Hell difficulty kid, around 15 years old, notices my movement as I pass through the leaves. He shoots lightning at me, and I swing my hand, deflecting the lightning with a barrier I quickly create around my hand, and make it hit the nearby tree.

Before he can do anything else, I punch him in the belly to break his concentration and then teleport him away.

I continue doing so for the next 10 minutes, cleaning the area of everyone I can, and only then do I lift back up into the air.

Just then, the first floating island plummets, not gradually, but instantly, like a dropped stone. Whatever kept it aloft is gone, taking all the support systems with it, including the fail safes and backup mechanisms.

Even from here, I can see the monstrous pull on the surrounding mana from the islandʼs center, the black spear already on the brink of destabilization.

The sky rumbles with the weight of what’s coming. The floating island, vast enough to hold a city, begins to fall in a sudden, violent plunge. The sheer pull distorts the wind, sending shockwaves outward and bending the clouds around it as if the sky itself were being torn open.

From below, it looks like the sky is collapsing.

The forest on top of the island writhes as the falling mass picks up speed. Trees sway violently, some are uprooted in their entirety, their massive trunks flung into the air like twigs caught in a storm. The ruins, weathered stone structures half-buried in moss, begin to fall apart, the force of the fall shaking them apart before they even reach the ground.

And then there are the beasts. Tens of thousands of them.

Some leap from the edges, trying to escape. Beasts of all kinds, including serpentine, winged, and phantom abominations, all desperately seek the sky. Others, either too stubborn or too oblivious, remain on the island, roaring, screeching, and howling.

As the island plummets closer, the pressure of the air around me changes, so intense that it feels as if the atmosphere itself is being crushed beneath its weight. The ground below begins to react, tremors rippling through the area even before the island reaches it.

Then there is the impact. The ground erupts on contact, in an explosion of dirt, stone, and raw energy blasting into the sky like a volcanic eruption. A shockwave filled with debris erupts outward, leveling everything near the impact.

Trees find themselves obliterated, their remains scattered into the wind in clouds of splinters, leaving a significant portion of the forest altered in an instant.

In addition to the beasts on top of the island, more on the ground find themselves caught in the destruction, reduced to nothing as the sheer force of the impact tears through them. Those lucky or unlucky enough to survive are thrown through the air, with their bodies broken and limbs twisted.

And at the center of it all, the remains of the floating island lie half buried in the ruined landscape, shrouded by a massive dust cloud.

It looks like itʼs all over, but deep within the shattered ruins, something stirs.

At the islandʼs core, the black spear finally destabilizes.

For a brief moment, everything goes silent, even the screeches of the beasts around it are cut off.

Then it erupts. The blinding white light fills the ruins, followed by a massive mana disruption pulse tearing through the forest. Everything within a mile or more is affected. Magic flickers and dies. Inscriptions collapse.

Another shockwave hits, a violent blast rips outward, sending debris in every direction. The nearby beasts that survived the impact are flung like ragdolls. Chunks of rock the size of buildings are sent flying through the air, crashing into the trees of the forest and rolling still further. Some even fly through the air and fall into the sea, sending geysers of water erupting into the air.

The heatwave follows, a wave of searing air that scorches the land and ignites portions of the forest. The following implosion pulls everything into a vortex of crushing force. Dust, flames, even the very air twists and vanishes, pulled into the vacuum.

For a moment, there is again nothing but silence. Then comes the final release. A concussive blast that carves out a deep, empty crater where the ruins once stood.

And the hunt continues.