Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 91: Lightning Punishment

“RETREAT!” Zac unhesitantly roared as he saw the insane amount of wolves approaching. If he had to guess he would say that the System crammed 20-30 waves worth of wolves into one.

The demons immediately complied and moved down from the wall to a far lower one roughly 50 meters further in. It could barely be called a wall, not even reaching three meters in height, and was rather a purchase to gain a bit better vantage when fighting. The wall wasn’t made to physically rebuff enemies, but rather it was there as a line of demarcation, showing where the Town Defense Array would cover.

Soon only Zac, Ogras and his two confidantes were holding off the remaining metallic beasts as the rest had moved back to safety.

Ogras looked a bit hesitant as he turned to Zac.

“Are you sure about this?”

In response Zac only nodded and took out a blue glass ball out of his pouch, not stopping his attacks with his other hand. The glass ball crackled with lightning, as though a thunderstorm was caught and crammed inside the bauble.

“Alright. See you on the other side friend,” Ogras said with a solemn expression as he nodded to the other two demons. They rapidly moved backward, leaving Zac alone in the crack facing a sea of wolves.

Soon after the last three demons were inside the defensive array flickered into being, covering the inner area of Port Atwood. Zac instead moved out toward the incoming waves. Some of the metallic beasts charged after him, while some tried to claw their way into the array.

As Zac pushed forward he started to infuse the glass ball with cosmic energy, making the thunder inside flit about more and more erratically. After roughly two minutes a large part of Zac’s remaining cosmic energy was consumed, but finally a change happened in the ball. It was as though it had reached critical mass, and started to absorb a huge amount of cosmic energy from the environment itself.

The ball started to flow in the air on its own, and Zac’s both hands were freed to protect the device. It would take a few more minutes before it was ready. He stayed put and mindlessly killed any wolf that came close, and he was surprised to see that he recognized many of the wolf-types from things he had fought during the past weeks.

It was like the System had summoned an all-star combination of the wolf-waves for the 719th assault. Zac was pelted by all types of attacks, but luckily his E-Grade robe protected him from most of it. As he fought the sky started to darken, and ominous rumblings echoed out through the island. A huge bolt of lightning flashed, and suddenly the hovering ball next to Zac was gone. He knew his mission was completed and started to bolt toward the protective array with full speed, not caring about the wolves anymore.

As he ran the battlefield turned almost pitch black from huge dark clouds that amassed with impossible speed, and then all hell broke loose. Huge pillars of lightning slammed into the ground all around the area, frying any unlucky wolf that was too close. But that was only the start as the chaos kept intensifying.

The area was blasted with such an amount of lightning bolts that the whole southern tip of the island was brightly lit up. The ground crackled and exploded at every place the bolts landed, completely destroying any wolf corpses or fortifications strewn about. In some areas the lightning was so intense that they started to spread along the ground, creating what looked like lakes made out of lightning. These lakes kept expanding, creating a field of death for anything caught inside.

Zac desperately ran toward safety, shocked about the efficacy of the device. It sounded mighty from the description when he bought it for 3 000 000 Nexus Coins, but he hadn’t expected it to be of this scale. Of course, something like this would only work on dumb beasts who refused to flee. The area of attack even spread toward the array, and lightning bolts slammed into the shield every now and then, making it light up.

The ball Zac used was actually a purely offensive array that he bought as preparation for the monster wave called [E-Grade Medium Scale Lightning Punishment Array]. Different from the offensive capabilities of the Town Array it was a one-time usage attack. It was an array that consumed itself to summon the monstrous cloud in the sky that would rain death and destruction over the area.

It was Zac’s ace in the hole that he had hoped to keep until the last wave, and finish it off with a bang. But he immediately knew there was no way for them to manually kill the endless amount of wolves that spawned out of the wave, especially not with the wall in shambles. They would have been tired out then overrun from the numbers.

An acute sense of danger warned Zac, who immediately used [Loamwalker] to move away as far as possible. Soon after he heard the ground explode behind him from a lightning bolt, but he didn’t bother turning around. He was closing in on the safety of the array.

The lightning actually kept increasing, and Zac was forced to keep dodging the bolts. But even with his movement skill he didn’t came out unscathed as the lightning ran along the ground between two nearby bolt, shocking Zac on the way.

His world turned white for a second and he stumbled, but he shook himself awake and continued. It felt like he was cooked from inside, and the pain was even worse than the black lightning arcs that the main branch demons used. He was forced to eat a few more secondary blasts of lightning before he finally threw himself through the array and fell down panting.

Smoke was rising from his body, and the short hair that had grown out lately was singed clean off, once again turning him into a bald monk. After a few steadying breaths he got up and turned toward the battlefield. Now that he wasn’t running for his life he could actually properly inspect the lightning storm, and the sight was truly exceptional.

He felt it was a joke he considered Rydel’s final attack to be a punishment from heaven. This was what real heavenly thunder looked like. It was as though the god of thunder himself wanted to smite this whole part of the island out of existence as huge bolts unceasingly slammed into the ground.

He looked up and saw that the cloud was spread a bit further than he had hoped, and errant bolt kept slamming into the shield. He winced with every blast, as he knew that each time lightning struck the shield it cost him Nexus Crystals.

“Good hustle, human” Ogras said as he approached with his trademark half-smile. “I didn’t expect the lightning punishment to be this intense. It might be because there’s a Nexus Vein beneath the island.”

Zac nodded and brought out a canteen of water that he poured over himself, the water cooling his singed body.

“I’m not sure the crystals will last,” the demon then added with a low voice, his face turning somber. “The amount of lightning striking the shield is more than we expected.”

“Are the rods ready?” Zac asked in response.

The demon nodded and waved toward the small wall, that now was adorned with five-meter tall metal spears jutting out at some intervals, leading down into the ground. It was lightning rods they had asked the blacksmith create in case the lightning got out of control.

“Lower the power to the shield and it might last longer,” Zac sighed.

Ogras nodded and waved toward Janos, who still was managing the shield. He touched the large crystal ball and soon the shield dimmed somewhat.

“Move away from the wall!” Ogras shouted, and people spread out some distance from the wall.

Even with weakened energy output the shield defended against most of the lightning bolts. Every now and then a crack was blasted open, letting a few slip through. Luckily they harmlessly entered the rods, who pushed the lightning down into the ground, until the shield repaired itself again. However, it was clear that each rod would only be able to take one or two of these magical bolts of lightning, as they partly melted from a strike.

They didn’t have to worry about the metallic wolves outside either, as they had been the focus of the lighting since the start due to their composition. They were quickly reduced to molten pools of metal on the ground outside.

Finally, the lightning bolts started to subside and the skies cleared up with noticeable speed. Zac and Ogras finally dared to exit the shield to look at the result. They quickly moved up to the mostly ruined wall and surveyed the battlefield. Even Ogras looked shocked by what they saw. The scene was like something taken out of a horror story. Thousands upon thousands of mangled and burned carcasses covered the ground, which by itself was burnt and pocked.

Zac was surprised to see that only one pillar of light remained in the distance. Had the Lightning Punishment even destroyed the portals? As if sensing that the offensive array’s onslaught had ended the last incursion started pulsing and out walked a humongous beast. It was the 720th beast wave, and it was the complete opposite of the last one. As soon as the monstrous wolf walked out of the portal it winked out of existence.

The wolf looked abyssal with six pitch-black eyes and a much too large maw. It actually gave Zac the same vibes as the demonic beasts he had fought so far on the island and he turned toward Ogras and found him looking pale.

“E-Grade Fiendwolf,” Ogras exclaimed with some fear evident on his face.

“From your homeworld?” Zac asked, as Ogras clearly recognized the monster.

“No, but it lives within demon territory. They are extremely dangerous. Luckily there’s only one. Usually, they rove in large packs of thousands. Still, it’s going to be a tough fight. It’s evolved to E-rank, and possess at least one Dao Seed.”

The wolf started approaching and let out a demonic roar that echoed through the battlefield. The howl felt like a physical blow to Zac, and he saw that some bloody gashes actually appeared on Ogras who lost his balance.

The wolf swiped its claws toward the two, and even though there were two hundred meters between them Zac felt a terrifying sense of danger. He immediately grabbed the falling Ogras and unhesitantly jumped down from the wall.

As he landed he heard a swishing sound from above, and the next second the wall was simply blown away, cut into multiple pieces. A terrifying wave continued on and slammed into the shield, instantly destroying it.

“Dao of Sharpness…” Zac muttered, convinced that it should be the Dao Seed he had been trying to gain for so long. He realized the wave of destruction from the sharp claws felt very familiar, and he was sure that it had the added feeling of the Dao of Sharpness he once sensed in his first vision.

“Itʼs too strong. E-Rankers are simply different from us unevolved. We should give this one up, human,” Ogras muttered as he spat out some gravel from his mouth.

But Zac paid him no heed, as he stood up and glared at the last Wolf who stood between him and his goals.