Chapter 232 Volume IV - Chapter 77: In the Battlefield
I saw the mocking smile on the robot's pilot's face, and then I heard him muttering something to the soldier he was killing.
I couldn't hear what he was saying because I was too far away, but when I saw the eyes of the dwarf with a hole in his body widen, I knew that what he was saying was not good.
I clicked my tongue, gritted my teeth, and started running toward the enemy.
The pilot, in the meantime, pulled his arm out of the dwarf's body, then kicked his fallen body like it was nothing, sending him flying back meters. Then he saw me and smiled once again.
I gripped my sword, blurred by the first phase of the Ambiguous Flow, with both hands, while sending a tiny ball of flames at him.
When the tiny ball suddenly expanded in front of the pilot's eyes, creating a flash, I swung my sword at it.
Nevertheless, the pilot shielded his arm as if he was not the least bit affected by the tiny ball of flame I had used as a flash. My sword met a shield that appeared on this arm... then bounced back.
The robot's other arm seized the opportunity and moved quickly. He tried to pierce a hole in my chest, just like he had just done to the dwarf.
My balance was thrown off by my sword bouncing backward. My movement was limited and if I did nothing, my fate would be the same as the dwarf lying a few meters away with a hole in his chest.
Time seemed to slow down. The world literally stopped spinning. Yet the sharp, jagged thorn-like weapon approaching me didn't seem to be affected.
He was fast.
So fast that I understood why the dwarf earlier had struggled against him. If I fought him normally, I would never stand a chance. That's exactly why I had to stop thinking. I had to act on my reflexes, my instincts.
Because if my thinking went beyond a few seconds, a few milliseconds, it would be too late.
Even now I was in the face of death.
So, just like I said, I stopped thinking and went completely with the flow. I did the first thing that came to my mind without hesitating a bit.
I strained all my muscles and bent down as fast as I could, so fast that even I didn't realize how suddenly I was bending down.
It worked, though. The spiky pointed arm slid over me and through my hair, practically stroking it. If I had moved just a few seconds later, I would now have a hole in my head, not in my chest.
Yet here I was, barely alive.
So I did the first thing that came to my mind once again. I released my left hand holding the sword from its hilt and placed my palm against the robot's belly.
A strong gust of wind, reminiscent of a hurricane, suddenly wrapped around my hand and unleashed its full pressure on the robot, knocking it off its feet.
I used Ice Thorns, raising countless thorns from behind the enemy as it was going over its back, just like before.
I didn't stop, I created pillars of flame rising from all sides and supported them with my wind.
The pillars all converged right above the robot and poured down on it. The winds that supported them also put enormous pressure on it. The ice spikes also entered the robot's back, they couldn't reach too deep because they were blocked by the robot's armor. Nevertheless, they pinned it to the ground.
The pilot panicked at what had happened in seconds, trying to quickly get his downed exoskeleton-like robot back on its feet, but the flames and winds prevented him from doing so. The ice spikes fixed on his back were another problem.
I let go of my sword, and as it turned to dust with a blue glow in the air, another glow appeared on my other side and turned into something long: a rifle.
I gripped the rifle, pressed the barrel against the cockpit window, and squeezed the trigger as the flames broke each of the shields protecting the pilot, one by one, with the support of the winds.
A blue sphere-shaped thing began to form in the cavity of the rifle's body, and as I held down the trigger it grew... and grew and grew.
When the last shield protecting the cockpit was broken by the flames and pressure, I met the eyes of the dwarf, who was struggling desperately to move the robot.
He stopped struggling. His eyes widened as if he had seen a demon, terrified. He realized that the only thing between him and the barrel of the rifle pointed at him was the cockpit window, and he stiffened.
I smiled, squinted my eyes, and whispered.
"Bye."
I pulled the trigger.
The blue sphere in the barrel of the rifle was suddenly sucked into the barrel as if vacuumed. Then a laser-like line, almost ten centimeters wide, shot into the cockpit.
The glass shattered instantly. The bullet of pure energy pierced the dwarf's brain. Not only that, it pierced the back of the cockpit and exited the back of the robot, dampening into the ground.
The dwarf now had a huge hole in his head. He had died so fast that he didn't even have time to scream.
Stepping on the robot's chest, I threw myself backward, standing on two legs a few meters away from it.
The columns of flames dissolved into the atmosphere, and the winds that had prevented the robot from standing up were cut off. The systems holding the robot up shut down and the huge piece of metal just fell noisily to the ground.
I won. I... I did it.
My celebration didn't last long, though. The sky suddenly turned blue, followed by an extremely loud noise that echoed through the area, and thick bolts of lightning exploded a few hundred meters away from me.
The northern army had begun to resort to dangerous runes when they realized they were having difficulty defending the road.
Yet this was not the thought that suddenly came to me.
The battle was still raging.
What I had achieved was so small in the grand scheme of things that it could easily be overlooked.
I looked at the soldiers fighting around me, they didn't even see me. When they were fighting the robot, they had completely ignored us because they didn't want to be caught between us. Now they were so focused on their own lives, on their own goals, that they didn't even realize who the victor was.
I took a deep breath and looked up at the gray sky.
I could feel it, the Spiritual Ascension was at its limits. My mana wasn't too low, but if I kept fighting like this, it wouldn't be long before it was exhausted. There wasn't a spot on my body that didn't ache.
I looked at the grenades I had on me, the rifle I had been given.
I hadn't used any of them yet, up to this point I had wanted to fight with my own means and I had done so. Now, maybe it was a better idea to use them.
I narrowed my eyes, pushed the Spiritual Ascension a little harder so that Sith could continue to protect me, and ran toward the ranks of the allied soldiers.
No, I didn't run, I was just changing positions so that I could use my rifle and other equipment in a more efficient way.
Still, I made sure to kill all the enemy soldiers I saw on the way.
In this way, as I approached our ranks, which were still being pushed back, the amount of fire on me was greatly reduced. When I entered one of the trenches, each of the dwarves on either side of me turned to me in surprise.
I ignored all of them. I was here to take a wide view of the area and pick my next target.
Soon enough, I spotted one.
A soldier and a robotic-looking enemy were clashing, both seemingly damaged. The only difference was that this dwarf was not overly oriented toward physical blows like him. On the contrary, flashes of lightning were constantly appearing on his metal body and he was performing different attacks. Like unleashing lightning bolts on his opponent that shot out of him.
I leaned my rifle on the trench, put his back against my shoulder, and looked down the sights.
I didn't have access to the AVRES because I didn't have the helmet, so I didn't have sight support. Everything was completely up to me.
I took a deep breath, watched every movement of the constantly shifting robot, and focused.
Sounds diminished, and other things in my field of vision became insignificant. The robot's presence became more distinct, its movements even clearer.
I pressed the trigger.
As the rifle slowly charged, I watched every movement of both the robot and the allied soldier, trying to anticipate their next move.
Finally, when the robot pressed its right foot to the ground and extended its left arm to the dwarf, I pulled the trigger.
The barrel of the rifle rose up, and just like before, a thick beam shot out of the end of the rifle and flew at the robot.
In all the confusion, the energy beam hit the robot's left shoulder and pierced through it.
Both the robot's pilot and the dwarf stood dumbfounded while the robot's arm fell to the ground, dangling from the main body.
The dwarf, though surprised, was no fool. He quickly used this opportunity to his advantage. He drew two bombs from his waist, placed them just inside the robot's opened left shoulder, and leaped backward.
The robot exploded noisily only two seconds later. The dwarf glanced briefly where I was, then shook his head slightly and looked for a new target. I did the same.
Seconds passed in this way, seconds each time I found a new target and killed it with my rifle... then minutes. We kept getting pushed back until, finally, we had to change cover, because the enemy was getting too close to us.
This was where the real trouble started.
With only a few meters between us and our new trenches, the ground suddenly shook violently. A white light covered the whole area as if a new sun was rising on my left. At the same time, a noise echoed from behind me, ringing in my ears as if it was shaking the whole world, and I reflexively looked behind me.
I saw a dwarf, a dwarf walking slowly through the enemy ranks. Black armor covered his body, a broad smile was on his face, and his left hand was pointing toward my left side.
All this commotion was caused by a huge, white energy beam emanating from his left palm, on which were several complex runes with strange symbols.
A death ray that widened as it advanced, reaching almost four meters wide by the time it reached our ranks, and it went on and on.
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