Chapter 241: Chapter 235: You Know Nothing of My Power
「Three months later.」
Black Stone Gobi. Sand and dust filled the sky.
A spider-type killer lay motionless behind a sand dune, like a lifeless rock.
Its observation module was locked firmly onto a patch of ground several hundred meters away that was continuously bulging upward.
A muffled tremor came from underground.
A nearly twenty-meter-long Rock Armor Earth Dragon burst out of the ground.
This particular dragon was quite cunning; it had slipped away from several previous ambushes.
But now, it was starving.
For the past three months, anytime it dared to show its head, it was met with a saturation strike from the sky.
Its eyes were bloodshot as it frantically clawed at the surrounding rocks, trying to find even a scrap of leftovers.
In the sky, two Storm Falcons that had been lying in wait immediately dove down.
The dragon roared instinctively, and a thick layer of rock armor instantly condensed around its body.
The Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets mounted on the Storm Falcons’ underbellies dropped, precisely locking onto the enemy.
A flash of iridescent light passed.
The seemingly indestructible rock shield turned into a translucent, fragile white crystal the moment of contact.
The kinetic warhead that followed shattered it like a piece of glass, piercing straight through the dragon’s back!
A muffled explosion reverberated inside the great beast.
Grievously wounded, the dragon desperately clawed at the ground, trying to burrow back underground to save its life.
Unfortunately, the distant Inferno Mechs gave it no chance.
One after another, Red Lotus Magic Missiles rained down from above in a series of precision strikes.
A Demon Eye II-model flying fortress also approached rapidly, spewing beams of light.
A few seconds later, the armor-broken dragon was blown into several pieces, completely and utterly dead.
In the distance, two PX-1 Mass-Production Models strode forward with heavy steps, preparing to retrieve usable materials.
"Seventh Squad reporting, target eliminated."
A Pacifista transmitted the battle report back to the main workshop in real-time via the Celestial Eye network.
As more and more Rock Armor Earth Dragons were unable to remain underground, this coordinated tactic had been executed many times in the Black Stone Gobi.
Suddenly, without any warning, the ground began to heave violently, like boiling water!
This was no ordinary dragon emerging from the earth.
The entire gravitational field of the Black Stone Gobi fell into chaos at that moment.
A Demon Eye III-model, scouting from high above, broadcast an alert to all nearby Golems!
"Warning! High-energy Magic Power reaction detected. Reading: 5820!"
The ground collapsed with a deafening roar!
A massive whirlpool of quicksand over fifty meters in diameter tore open the earth from thin air.
BOOM!
A dark-gold behemoth, over thirty meters long, burst from the surface, wrapped in a sky-blotting sandstorm!
The edge of each of its scales shimmered with a tangible halo of Magic Power, and the spines on its back, several meters long, resembled a row of inverted, sharp horse-chopping sabers.
It was the leader, the strongest of the Rock Armor Earth Dragons!
The moment it appeared, its dark-gold, vertical pupils locked onto the Storm Falcons in mid-air.
Its massive maw opened, and an ochre beam of light erupted forth.
The nearest Storm Falcon, along with its outer AT Field, had half of its body instantly vaporized into nothingness by the beam.
The other had just pulled up half a fuselage when a second beam swept past, causing it to detonate in mid-air.
The Demon Eye II flying fortress circling at low altitude was swatted out of the sky by the mountain-like tail like a fly, turning into a fireball of scrap metal.
The leader roared at the sky.
Rings of visible gravitational waves crushed everything in their path.
The two Pacifistas in the direct path couldn’t even make an evasive maneuver. Their armor twisted and buckled under the terrifying gravitational pressure, and their internal Energy Storage burst on the spot.
The 10 spider-type killers patrolling the periphery were crushed into piles of spare parts by the gravity alone.
Five kilometers away, the three Inferno Mechs finally achieved fire-control lock.
Thirty-six Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets were unleashed in a single volley!
But the leader showed no intention of dodging.
A thick armor of flowing gravel, like liquid waves, materialized over its dark-gold scales.
The armor-piercing bullets struck the gravel armor, managing only to crystallize it to a depth of half a meter—less than a third of its total thickness.
The faint amount of radiation was completely unable to penetrate its dual defense of insanely thick Magic Power and gravel, and was washed away by the flowing sand in an instant.
Immediately after, the leader stomped the ground with its massive, powerful leg!
The stomp blasted a deathly-white shockwave through the air.
Five kilometers away, three hundred-meter-long rock spears abruptly jutted out from the ground.
The three Inferno launch platforms were instantly impaled, hoisted into the air, and exploded!
The entire exchange took less than twenty seconds.
Seventh Squad was annihilated.
The leader stomped on the wreckage of a Pacifista and let out a deafening roar, its dark-gold, vertical pupils filled with a shockingly humanlike tyranny.
...
「Zone 18 Main Workshop, Command Room.」
On the sand table, the blue lights representing Seventh Squad went dark all at once.
Allen had just walked in when he received the news, his gaze turning ice-cold.
’Three Inferno Mechs, two Storm Falcons, two Pacifistas, plus the basic loadout of ammunition and other Reconnaissance Golems...’
He was quickly doing the math in his head.
’Fantastic. Over a hundred thousand Low-Level Magic Stones’ worth of assets, all vaporized in twenty seconds.’
Jarvis’s voice echoed in the room:
"Commander, Seventh Squad has been annihilated. Enemy identified: Rock Armor Earth Dragon leader. Its body is covered by a high-density, earth-elemental, polymerized layer of flowing sand. Conventional-yield Crystal Armor-Piercing Bullets are unable to penetrate its defenses."
"I saw," Allen said, taking a deep breath to suppress the ache in his heart.
For the past three months, ten hunting squads had been conducting a sweeping purge of the Black Stone Gobi.
The ordinary Rock Armor Earth Dragons had been hunted down to single digits. They all hid underground like turtles in their shells, eventually forced to the surface by hunger, where they became living targets.
The tactic had been a great success, and he had anticipated that the leader would eventually lash out like a cornered beast.
But he truly hadn’t expected the beast’s counterattack to be so ferocious.
"5850... That’s the peak destructive power of a Second-level Wizard."
Allen pulled up the combat recording, his eyes fixed on the leader’s flowing sand defense.
"The Magic Power condensation is extremely high. The crystallization radiation from the armor-piercing bullets isn’t enough; it’s washed away by the dragon’s own Magic Power before it can take effect."
He closed the recording, stood up, and walked straight toward the special weapons vault deep underground.
"If a conventional yield isn’t enough, then it’s time for something unconventional."
The heavy doors slowly opened.
On a platform lay a cylindrical metal column five meters tall.
The surface of the column was covered in a dense array of red Runes, which pulsed with an unsettling light.
"Weapon codename: ’Big Boy’," Jarvis announced at the opportune moment.
"Internal contents: five tons of high-purity Crystallization Seed Ore. Outer layer is stacked with thirty-six Crystal Amplification Arrays. Theoretical absolute kill radius: two kilometers. The central Crystallization Field’s intensity is sufficient to instantly destroy a Second-level Wizard’s Magic Shield."
This was the ultimate weapon Allen had poured money into for the past three months. The five tons of Crystallization Seed Ore alone were worth one hundred thousand.
"Load it onto the back-mounted hardpoint of Freedom Gundam Unit-01," Allen commanded.
He watched the dragon leader still strutting about triumphantly on the screen and straightened his cuffs.
"These unproductive beasts have no respect for the fruits of another’s labor."
’So what if your species is wiped out? How dare you come out and bully my precious Golems!’
A viciousness crept into Allen’s voice. ’If you don’t want to stay quietly underground, then just die.’
He turned and walked toward the hangar.
"Jarvis."
["At your service, Commander."]
"Cease all conventional hunting operations. All hunting squads are to withdraw. Redeploy all four patrolling Freedom Gundams to its location."
"Freedom Gundam Unit-01 and Unit-02, prepare for launch."
In Workshop Assembly Area 3, the massive metal dome rumbled open.
Two eighteen-meter-tall Freedom Gundams stood silently.
Their blue-and-white frames, bathed in the dark red light filtering through the dome, reflected a cold and deadly metallic sheen.
Allen closed his eyes, his Spiritual Power extending like a tidal wave as he instantly activated the [Cluster Link Technique].
With his current Spiritual Power, he could maintain absolute, zero-lag control over the units within a three-hundred-kilometer radius.
SWOOSH—
The ghostly blue electronic eyes of the two Steel Giants lit up simultaneously.
"Freedom Gundam self-check complete. Ready for deployment."
Allen swept his hands forward.
"Target: Black Stone Gobi."
The wing-like Floating Cannons on the Freedom Gundams’ backs fully deployed, and the anti-gravity flight Rune Arrays powered up to maximum.
BOOM!
A violent stream of blue particles erupted!
The Steel Giants launched straight up from within the workshop, instantly breaking the sound barrier and leaving two straight white contrails across the sky.
