Chapter 273 Volume IV - Chapter 120: The Changing Course of Battle
When I realized that the dwarf could withstand the enormous pressure with a small chance with his fourth barrier, with only a few centimeters between us, I tilted my head to the left against the spear and pulled my left hand to the right.
Just like the vacuum that formed on it, another vacuum formed, this time on my right side. The tip of the spear deflected and turned toward the second vacuum. The dwarf's eyes met mine just as his last remaining barrier was about to break.
Still, I took no chances. I focused on my own mana rather than the limitless mana of Sith and narrowed my eyes.
A blue glow added to the teal glow on the dwarf. Blue flames from nothingness surrounded him in an instant. When the last barrier was broken, it rushed at the dwarf with the vacuum.
The dwarf had lost all his speed because of the vacuum. So he was suspended in mid-air, as if floating, despite his great speed. Even the force of his attack was absorbed by the vacuum, not even a breeze hit my face.
Meanwhile, blue flames entered his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. As I literally burned him from the inside, the dwarf's screams were again lost in my vacuum and he died silently.
When the blue flames became the thing that killed him, I felt a warmth inside me that slowly faded away. It was what A New Beginning made me feel every time it was 'fed' something.
I let out a deep sigh, and when the vacuum finally disappeared, I slowly floated to the ground as the dwarf's burnt corpse fell to the ground.
I saw the enemy soldiers looking at me and the corpse in horror, and I noticed that the allies were grinning. I didn't pay much attention to them, though.
When I finally landed on the ground... everything was much worse than it had been.
The Southern soldiers were almost several times the number of Northern soldiers on the ground. Countless allies were being mercilessly slaughtered, screams filled my ears everywhere. Yet I did nothing. I just waited where I was, knowing that not a second was left.
Finally, indeed not a second later, something happened that one side of the field had been waiting for with all its being, and the other side could never have predicted.
The entire battlefield suddenly went rigid, as if time had frozen. The reason for this was that the mana density on the battlefield suddenly increased several times over.
Enemies' eyes widened, allies smiled, having been waiting for this since the previous night.
Suddenly the ground began to tremble, a light blue glow shimmered across the entire field and soared high into the sky.
As if a second sun had risen over the area, everything was illuminated with a magnificent glow, dazzling many.
Countless pillar-like structures suddenly emerged from the ground, and not only that, they shot up into the air. These pillars spread over the whole area and suddenly connected with each other. Countless lines joined with each other, forming a shape like a jigsaw puzzle.
"Wh- what?! What's happenin'!"
There were voices of surprise among the enemies, literally frozen in place as they tried to understand what had happened. As far as they knew, nothing like this was supposed to happen, which meant that the North Holar was up to something.
The huge rune rose higher and higher, all the mana in the area concentrated and concentrated on the rune, and after a while, it reached such a level that some could not contain themselves and began to vomit. Some even collapsed on the ground.
Meanwhile, the mountain, which was the goal of both sides, kept transferring and transferring mana to the rune.
A few of the southerners finally came to their senses, realized what was happening, and tried to run away or kill someone. For example, a dwarf not far from me chose the latter. Instead of running away, he chose to continue doing his job while everyone froze.
What he encountered was my sword. Confused by the amount of mana on the battlefield, he died before he even realized I was behind him. His eyes widened as his head left his body.
Soon after, the glow emanating from his rays suddenly increased many times over. All eyes were dazzled, and everyone was briefly blinded. A wave of energy that made my whole body tremble spread from the rune throughout the entire area. Yet it did nothing but make my body tremble, after all, I didn't have what it was aiming for.
What the rune was targeting were the specific runes that the Southerners used in their artificial intelligence system, as I had already told the old general. So when this wave of energy from the rune spread, that's when the real change on the battlefield happened.
All the armor of the southern soldiers trembled with sparks. Their screams of agony echoed across the field. Their armor, equipped with technology and runes, was the hardest hit by the wave. Yet the sparks were not enough to kill them, only a momentary shock.
What happened next changed the course of the war even more drastically.
The northern troops, waiting in aircraft above the clouds, fell like meteorites to the ground. All the units that had been hiding here and there sprang into motion, attacking the stunned soldiers, all their technology turned upside down.
Chaos once again dominated the whole area. The only difference... this time the dominant side had changed dramatically.
It was no longer the northerners who were being mercilessly slaughtered, but the southerners.
A smile appeared on my face. I joined the northerners, attacking every soldier I saw.
Again and again, my sword was soaked in blood. Heads were severed from bodies, countless people tasted death before they realized what had happened.
The smile never left my face. When I started killing weaklings who couldn't even move, rather than fighting a battle... I felt strange.
It was fun, much more fun than fighting.
At some point I seemed to hear a voice, a familiar voice echoing in my mind... but it quickly faded into the background, I couldn't even make out what it was saying.
The Southerners slowly began to wake up from their shock. It didn't take them long to realize that their AI and armor were not working, but they still chose not to stay where they were when they saw everyone around them being killed.
Now that the runes in their armor had stopped working, they were just normal dwarves with pieces of metal on them, no different from the humans in my old world, and that was... much more fun.
They were trying, struggling to survive. Yet the helplessness and terror they felt when they realized their powerlessness... was much more satisfying than killing people who were shocked and unresponsive.
"S- stop!"
I didn't stop, I walked up to a dwarf I had spotted and tore his left arm from his body. His scream echoed in the field, he held his left shoulder, which was bleeding constantly, with his right hand and looked at me with his old eyes.
I felt an even more intense warmth inside me, and I tore his other arm from his body.
He fell to the ground, stomping. He tried to crawl away from me, still refusing to die.
Even so, it wasn't long before he passed out from blood loss, so I moved on to a new dwarf without even checking that he was dead.
I moved deeper and deeper into the battlefield, killing and killing.
I kept hearing a shouting voice echoing in my mind, but I ignored it as much as possible because it was annoying.
Finally, I approached an area where the trees were slightly thicker.
I spotted another dwarf, a dwarf lying on the ground, his chest rising and falling.
My smile widened wider than ever. I slowly approached the dwarf on the ground. I didn't even care if he was an enemy or an ally, I didn't care. He was just... down, injured, weak, and helpless.
He was exactly the target I was looking for.
I got right up to him, and when I saw the huge burn mark on his chest, I had a funny idea.
I raised my sword, pointed it at his shoulder, and with my other hand I created a blue flame, I liked the idea that what he experienced before he died was what made him so helpless.
At the sound of the blue flame, the dwarf, his head turned to the side, slowly turned his eyes toward me.
Before he knew what was happening, I had drawn my sword to shock him, preparing to cut off his right arm, but just then... the whole world froze.
All sounds suddenly stopped, and an intense silence enveloped my body. My smile gradually faded from my face, and my eyes slowly widened.
My sword trembled in my hand, slipped through my fingers, and fell to the ground. All my muscles relaxed at once, and the blue flame in my other hand disappeared into the atmosphere.
"Oh... Aiden..."
The wounded dwarf finally spoke, his familiar voice entering my ears.
He looked at me with his slightly faded eyes. Those eyes, which before seemed to be a really dark shade of brown, were now slightly gray, losing focus.
His eyes slowly left my face and turned weakly toward the blue sky.
"Fuck... Ain't even night yet. I can't see the stars... Though, the sun was also a star... right...?"
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