Chapter 150: Nothing Is Impossible
Kalli was sorting through her store, looking for anything that could serve as artillery, when the sound of the tower sirens caused her to run outside to see what had happened.
Everything looked fine in the feed from the cameras at the walls, and still looked fine when she checked the courtyard.
Then, she looked up.
There were flying monsters coming their way, the motion highlighted by the triple moons.
They looked almost like birds, but they had two long tentacles hanging down from their bodies, and an extra set of limbs.
Change of plans.
Filter the search results by anti-aircraft capability.
[ We can still do this. We have a System Shop, and we just gained thousands of points. There has to be something that can stop an invasion from the air.
I refuse to believe that even an Epic Grade invasion can’t be stopped with enough cheating. ]
Her hands were shaking so badly with nerves that it took her three attempts to punch in the search. There weren’t many options on the list, but what was there was beautiful.
{Standard Air Defence Battery} high explosive plasma charges, auto-tracking up to Mach 4.5, 2 mana per shot. Must be hard mounted within a Level 1 or higher facility.
2000 points.
Kalli waved to one of the children who was out delivering cookers full of food for the heroes.
"Let the heroes know that I’m working on the air defence, and I’ll be on the roof of the dorm building."
There was an elevator that ran all the way to the roof, and it was tall enough to shoot at nearly everything. The top of the apartment towers would be best, as they were taller.
But that would mean drawing enemy fire toward the apartments.
Kalli moved to the patio on top of her dorm building, and briefly lamented that she hadn’t picked someone else’s dorm to be the source of the gunfire.
But she wasn’t going to waste any more time.
{Standard Air Defence Battery} purchased.
Kalli hopped into the gunner’s position, and watched as a heads-up display appeared in front of her, marking targeting points, leading the incoming monsters.
With dual control sticks, the setup reminded her a lot of space combat Sims in her past life, which she was never particularly interested in, and certainly didn’t have the space to play in her apartment.
But she did at least understand how they worked.
She buckled herself tightly to the seat and deftly spun the turret to one of the green crosshatch areas and squeezed the triggers.
The battery pulsed with energy, and a hundred-metre bloom of blinding light appeared in the sky, wiping out a whole sector of the flying monsters.
[ Holy crap! Is that what anti-aircraft guns can do? If we can aim these at the ground, wouldn’t they be as good as artillery?
No time for that. I only have enough mana for one shot every three seconds after I run out, so I need to make the best of this.
I hope that they appreciate how much this is going to suck. ]
Kalli targeted groups that were far enough apart that there wasn’t any overlap, and the charges travelled too fast for the naked eye to track. Certainly, fast enough that the enemy couldn’t dodge it.
The shots exploded among the flying monstrosities, until the gun was empty and so was Kalli’s mana.
The monsters in the air began to regroup, forming clusters to encircle and dive bomb her position. But that was only making them better targets for her gun. If she had backup, or more mana, it would have been an absolute slaughter.
{Quest Complete} {Hero of Marimgar} Nightmare Difficulty. Score 1,000 or more kills in the next 12 hours.
{Points Awarded}
{Coordinator Kallista De Marimgar added to the Prize Pool}
She was so deeply engrossed in trying to track the rapid swooping of the packs that one shot every three seconds was pushing her targeting skills as much as her mana pool.
Her mind focused on nothing but the display in front of her, and the incoming target warnings, Kalli didn’t even notice when a squad from the heroes joined her and began shooting down the creatures that got too close.
"COORDINATOR!"
"KALLI"
"WE NEED AMMO"
That one got her attention, and Kalli absently dropped a half dozen cases of ammunition behind her as she continued to track and fire. They could pick them up and match them to their weapons as they needed.
The flying monster were filling the skies now, and the ships in the bay were beginning to fire on them as well, the massive defensive weapons batteries of the Kalkan Fleet’s Arks clearing kilometre long lines in the force.
Compared to the firepower of those ships, their Fort was an absolute joke.
But they were intended to mine asteroids and defend against fast-moving debris in space, so they needed to be powerful. The problem was, they weren’t designed for sustained use.
{Quest Complete} {Hero of Marimgar} Nightmare Difficulty. Score 1,000 or more kills in the next 12 hours.
{Points Awarded}
Kalli frowned as she realized that the quest had completed again.
She hadn’t realized that it was a repeatable quest, but it appeared that she was getting an award for every thousand of the flying creatures she killed.
From the ground, the roof of the dorm building looked like a living nightmare.
Plasma explosions bloomed all around them, crippled creatures fell from the sky to be hacked apart by the residents on the ground, and a mist of deep crimson blood had soaked the entire building.
There was a gap in the airborne attack, so Kalli spun her guns toward the north, where the largest packs of Flatfoot were.
The first shot burst into their ranks two hundred metres from the walls, and a massive crater appeared in the ground where the enemies vanished.
"Yeah, that might not be a great idea. Too much property damage," she muttered to herself.
The sound of laughter nearly made her jump out of her own skin, and she belatedly realized that an entire team had come to save her while she was locked in some sort of battle trance.
That didn’t seem like her, but there was no time to question it, and she was exhausted.
"If you have mana, take the guns and target anything in the air. The range is ten thousand metres. Don’t aim at the ground unless it’s an emergency."
In an attempt to be dignified, she unbuckled the harness, and then promptly fell out of the seat as her legs proved too unsteady to support her.
So much for looking impressive.