Constant explosions rang out for a solid 15 minutes as every one of the howitzers unloaded shell after shell in a hailstorm of gunpowder and fury down onto the waves of Undead. With each explosion, the ground was torn asunder.
From my vantage point, I could hear and even track the whizzing shells as they flew by in wide arcs before slamming into the ground and blowing up chunks of terrain, along with scattering fragments of undead corpses every which way.
Even so, by the time I gave the cease-fire notice, not even an eighth of the theorized army had been obliterated. That was the problem with firing explosive shells into a crowd like this; modern tech simply couldn’t guarantee a 100% kill rate, and with numerous different races of undead present, there was no doubt going to be something in the ranks that could stop these kinds of attacks.
And that was exactly what I was seeing; as the dust cleared, what I first examined was the casualty rate, and although it was relatively high, numbering in the tens of thousands, the damage wasn’t nearly enough to halt the forward progression of the horde.
To make matters worse, as the dust cleared and revealed hundreds of sickly green barriers conjured by several shamans, I knew that my plan was coming along nicely.
The entire point of the Artillery bombardment wasn’t to wipe out as many of the monsters as possible; no, it was to show the Military Officials and higher-ups in the government how useless their weapons were in this new world.
The sooner I could do it, the less headaches I would have when making my moves in the future. Bearing that thought in mind, I took to the comms again.
(Hero-Squad Mages, pick your targets and open fire.) with zero emotion in my voice and a perfectly level-headed tone, I, too, went on the offensive since I was TECHNICALLY considered a mage.
Wearing a smirk under my helmet, I crouched low and jumped up with enough force in my legs to center all eyes on me from the spectators.
That’s right, spectators.
Draven never anticipated that I would completely throw caution to the wind and pull something behind the scenes, and the hundreds of micro-drones disguised as bugs flying around the battlefield were a prime example of this fact.
Updat𝓮d fr𝙤m ƒгeeweɓn૦vel.com.
Not only was I recording everything from any angle I could think of, but after building an extensive infrastructure, I was in the middle of producing the Very First Mass Scale live stream in this Timeline.
"First Act: Storm of Spikes." Ensuring my voice came through clearly on the feed, which was being broadcast not only online but on every major news outlet worldwide, I activated my Geomancy Talent and used one of my newest skills in tandem with Dust Manipulation.
Of course, the skill wasn’t named as I had said; no, that was me being flashy. Its true name was Geomancy- Mass Geo-Spike, and it was one of the Skills I had unlocked by reaching Beta-Rank with my Sub-Talent.
Forming my hands into claws, I spun in the air, reached toward my pillar, and made a tearing motion, which in turn caused the pillar to instantly shatter into its base form, a hell of a lot of dirt.
From there, as if it were a living being, the dirt flew up and cycled around me in the form of a massive Cyclone.
’In the immediate vicinity, 85% are Squire-Grade, non-rank fodder, with 10 percent being Knight, and a paltry 5 percent are Death Knight-Grade.’ Slowly drifting toward the ground from over 300 feet in the air and surrounded by a cyclone of dirt, I analyzed everything coming out of the gate in those few seconds.
’The Death Knights are the largest threat to the other squads and should be the primary targets of the backline, considering they appear to be, for the most part, Shamans and Necromancers. Taking them out first will cut the time of this battle by more than half.’
((Jesus, be more flashy much Nexus,)) Brenden’s voice over the private comms snapped me out of my thoughts, and I quickly realized that the Cyclone around me had not only picked up speed but grown by three sizes, rivaling that of an F4 Tornado.
((I get its called a Storm, but shit man, chill out,)) He continued, and I could hear the jealousy in his voice, something I found amusing because, for years, it was me who was jealous of his Talent.
((Yeah, yeah,)) Rolling my eyes, I slashed at the air with my arms, forcing the Cyclone to expand from my position as the dirt started solidifying into thousands of arm-length cylindrical spikes.
It was by no means an easy feat to control this many projectiles; that was why, through my extensive training, I had realized the best way to do so was to add some form of rotation, so by combining Mass Geo-Spike with Dust Manipulation, I was able to get all of the spikes moving in the same direction around me, thus the tornado.
The First Act, as I called it, was my opener and primary method of causing mass destruction in a short time; thus, as I rotated within the center of the Spike tornado, I kept tabs on the horde as it rushed in my direction.
My being nearly at the Peak of Beta-Rank, combined with the scale of my attack, could only mean one thing…I was about to unleash havoc on the battlefield with only one attack…and so…I did.
Finishing one last rotation to build up kinetic energy, I twisted my body. I snapped my left arm outward, dispersing the dust manipulation and sending the thousands of spikes hurling like high-speed javelins directly at the horde.
With their lack of intelligence, not one of the Squire or Knight-Grade undead halted their movements and instead rushed forward upon seeing me appear in the sky, which would be the last thing they saw.
Over a thousand spikes cut through the horde like missiles shot at point-blank range, blasting through them like a bowling ball through pins.
Heads and chests exploded into fragments, bones and flesh were sent flying in every direction, and by the time the spikes finally lost their momentum, they had nearly made it to the gates before falling to the ground, having been stopped by the body of a final undead.
((Show off….I could do that, too)) Landing on the ground in a very superhero fashion, I couldn’t help but snort upon hearing my brother’s sarcastic remark.