Chapter 310: Phase One Is Over [Bonus - ]
There was a very specific reason why Hog... a standard territory troop without a Hero title had managed to rise from a basic guard to the supreme Troop Commander of The Unmovable Wall within less than two years of service under Lord Sky.
It was all because of his ancestral Family Secret Technique: Muscle Ignition...
By forcibly igniting and burning the high-density muscle tissue that made up their physical bodies, his bloodline could temporarily force their nervous systems into a state of ’Flow’!
Because the brain was forced to operate at maximum emergency thresholds to compensate for the rapid tissue burning, all mental limiters were completely shattered.
His neural reflexes, physical strength, and movement speed were boosted past human limits... boosting his core Strength and Speed stats by hundreds of points in game terms.
Standing in his wiry steam-emitting state, Hog’s mind entered a state of hyper-acute clarity.
He analyzed every single inch of Brida’s posture... her collarbone, her floating ribs, her liver, her solar plexus, and her temples.
STEP!
Hog took a sharp step back, venting another cloud of white steam, and launched a devastating lightning-fast combination of bare-knuckle strikes that completely threw caution, defense, and self-preservation to the wind.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
A rain of punches rained down upon Brida’s body.
Hog’s fists turned into continuous blinding blurs of blood-red mana.
He struck her jaw.
BANG!
Her ribs...
BANG!
Her solar plexus...
BANG!
Her throat and her temple in a fraction of a second.
BANG! BANG!
’BURN!’ Hog screamed frantically in his internal thoughts, burning more and more of his vital muscle tissue with every blow! ’BURN IT ALL! HIGHER OUTPUT! MORE SPEED! DESTROY HER!’
HISSSSSSS!
Thick clouds of burning steam and friction-heat erupted from his knuckles as he drove his entire body forward, coiling his right hip for the final devastating finisher.
"DIEEEE!" Hog bellowed at the top of his lungs!
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Hana’s final full-power straight punch slammed directly into the center of Brida’s stomach!
The resulting explosion was catastrophic as a fifty-foot shockwave of compressed air, shattered dirt, and red-hot energy erupted from the point of impact.
The wind pressure blasted outward across the clearing, violently throwing nearby wounded soldiers and debris flying through the air like dry leaves.
A thick opaque cloud of white steam and brown dust enveloped both combatants.
Hog staggered backward two paces with his chest heaving as he gasped for air.
"Hah... Hah... Hah..."
His wiry body was trembling violently, his arms completely drained of strength, and his skin covered in severe third-degree friction burns from his own technique.
His muscle mass had been burned down to thirty percent of its original volume.
He looked into the settling dust, a triumphant exhausted smirk spreading across his bleeding lips.
’There’s no way...’ Hog thought, his chest rising and falling as he wiped sweat from his eye. ’There is no physical way any human... any Hero... could survive that combination. Her internal organs have to be completely liquidized.’
Slowly... the thick steam and dust dispersed in the morning wind.
Hog’s triumphant smirk completely froze.
Standing in the exact same position she had been in when she took that single step backward... was Brida.
Her hair was completely untouched by the heat.
Her tunic was intact.
She stood with her arms hanging casually at her sides, looking down at her own stomach where Hog’s final fist had landed, then looked up at Hog with a thoughtful approving nod.
"Whew..." Brida remarked casually, her voice sounding completely relaxed and unbothered. "That was quite a very big combination!"
Brida reached down, gently patting the fabric over her stomach with her hand.
In her thoughts, Brida offered a quiet honest evaluation of the attack.
’Honestly...’ Brida thought inwardly, her eyes gleaming with genuine respect, ’...if I didn’t possess my passive [Unyielding Bedrock Body], those rapid strikes would have actually broken a couple of my ribs and bruised my liver. That technique of his is genuinely impressive for a guy like him.’
...But then again, she did possess [Unyielding Bedrock Body].
Her Vitality and adamantine bone density had absorbed ninety-nine percent of the force, rendering his burning muscle combination completely useless against her physical core.
So really, all Hog could blame was his own terrible luck for going up against a Grand Titan Bastion.
Brida looked at Hog’s wiry steam-emitting frame, deciding to offer him a polite genuine compliment for his effort.
"You know, Hog..." Brida spoke loudly, trying her best to sound encouraging and respectful, "...your martial skills are actually really impressive! Those punches felt pretty nice, even though I didn’t really feel much of them at all! And honestly, I think that new, skinny wiry figure of yours looks way better than that oversized ugly muscle-mass you were carrying around earlier!"
"..."
Hog stood on the grass with his eye staring at her in total silence.
Brida genuinely wasn’t trying to be disrespectful.
In her mind, she was offering him sincere praise for his technique and complimenting his streamlined body...
...But because she said it with such casual unbothered honesty after tanking his ultimate combination without a scratch, her words sounded like the most brutal soul-crushing and condescending insult in the entire history of the Sovereign Realm.
CRACK!
Hog’s teeth gritted together so hard that blood trickled from his gums.
A wave of pure suicidal rage consumed his mind as his single eye ignited with a blinding white glare and he threw away every last drop of his self-preservation.
"I’LL KILL YOUUUUUU!" Hog roared out, his voice sounding completely insane.
BOOM!
Hog burned the very last ten percent of his remaining muscle tissue, accelerating across the dirt at maximum speed for one final desperate execution strike.
...However, Brida was completely prepared this time.
She didn’t stand there casually to tank the blow.
Her red eyes narrowed into sharp deadly slits as she dropped her hips into a low stable stance.
HUMMMMMMM!
A dense suffocating aura of pitch-black mana erupted from Brida’s core, wrapping tightly around her right fist like a heavy iron gauntlet.
She drew her right hand back to her hip, her muscles coiling with terrifying concentrated power.
Hog, charging forward at high speed, saw her black-fisted stance and instantly understood the nature of this final clash.
This was no longer a prolonged brawl.
This was a speed race...
This was a raw contest of execution speed... whoever landed their fist first would claim the opponent’s life!
Hana drove his right fist forward with his knuckles aiming straight for Brida’s throat...
...However, right as Hog’s fist reached within three inches of her skin—
SWISH!
Brida’s body blurred.
Out of nowhere, Brida moved at a speed that was easily several times faster than her usual movement.
Her physical form vanished from Hog’s field of vision, leaving behind a dark shadow residual in the air.
STEP!
Before Hog could even process where she had gone, Brida materialized directly behind his back.
’I haven’t used Full Counter yet...’ Brida thought. ’This is the perfect opportunity!’
All of the immense kinetic force, muscle ignition energy, and shockwave pressure that Hog had driven into her body during his entire five-punch combination had been absorbed and stored deep within Brida’s adamantine bones.
And now... she was releasing fifty percent of that accumulated energy outward in a single point-blank strike.
Brida drove her black-mana-coated right fist straight into the center of Hog’s spine.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A deafening concussive explosion erupted across the battlefield.
The incomprehensible force detonating from her fist didn’t just break bone... it completely pulverized physical matter.
Hog’s entire torso was instantly atomized into a blinding spray of red mist and shattered armor, the shockwave tearing a fifty-yard trench straight through the dirt behind him.
SWISH!
The red mist dispersed in the wind, leaving behind an empty cratered clearing.
Brida stood in the center of the crater, wiping her brow, and instead of feeling a single drop of remorse or sorrow for slaying the brave troop commander...
She threw her hands into the air and began hopping up and down on the grass like an excited child, shouting out with unbridled joy.
"FUCK YEAH! THAT felt amazing!"
Far across the field, on the high command deck of The Unmovable Wall...
Lord Sky stood frozen behind his disguise helmet with his throat thinning, his breath catching in his lungs as he watched Hog get atomized on his HUD interface.
"Dammit..." Sky cursed under his breath, his hands clenching into tight fists. "Hog... you fool..."
Sky reached for his comm-link, preparing to order the entire secondary legion of heavy knights to advance and lock down the frontline—
FWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOSH!
Suddenly, a colossal hurricane-force gust of wind struck the front of The Unmovable Wall!
The sudden atmospheric shockwave was so violent that it blew away the surrounding smoke, dust, and fire, blinding Sky’s gun crews and forcing his guards to shield their eyes.
By the time the dust cleared and Sky reopened his visor...
It was already too late.
Hovering fifty feet directly in the air above the upper gun decks... was Fenna.
The master sniper was suspended mid-air against the blue sky, her traveler’s cloak fluttering wildly in the wind.
Held in her hands was her massive, dark star-iron composite longbow, drawn all the way back to her ear, notched with dozens of sleek black homing arrows!
Behind her, a glowing blue [Multi-Shot Volley] spell was active!
’I’m within the boundary...’ Fenna thought, her eyes completely calm and focused behind her hood.
Lord Silas had given her an explicit instruction before the battle had started... she wasn’t allowed to simply shoot down the heavy cannons from the safety of the Blessed Land’s walls.
She had to advance across the field, cross the minimum distance boundary of three hundred yards from the enemy hull, and execute the strike in close quarters to maximize engagement metrics for the stream.
And she had reached the boundary.
THWIP-THWIP-THWIP-THWIP!
Fenna released the string!
Dozens of sleek black homing arrows shot forward through the air in a synchronized fan-shaped salvo, screaming straight toward the thirty heavy mana cannons mounted along the mobile fortress’s lower hull.
Seeing the incoming dark salvo...
"DIVINE AEGIS DOME!" Sky’s elite Hero shield-user screamed out, stepping to the front railing and slamming her tower shield down.
A massive, semi-transparent pink energy barrier expanded over the lower gun decks, seeking to intercept the arrows.
...However, Fenna’s arrows weren’t standard projectiles.
Inscribed onto the steel tips of every single arrow were [Armor-Piercing Runes] forged personally by Grand Runemaster Rowenna!
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The black arrows struck the pink barrier... and passed straight through the energy shield as if it were made of thin wet paper.
The armor-piercing runes completely bypassed fifty percent of the barrier’s energy density.
STAB! STAB! STAB!
All thirty black arrows embedded themselves directly into the breech chambers and mana-crystal loading arrays of the thirty heavy cannons!
An instant later...
BOOOOOOOOOOM! KABOOM! BOOOOOOOOM! BOOOOOOOOM!
A continuous chain explosion erupted across the entire lower hull of The Unmovable Wall!
All thirty heavy mana cannons exploded simultaneously.
Fireballs, melting steel, and detonating mana crystals tore through the lower gun ports, completely obliterating the mobile fortress’s primary siege artillery array in a single, magnificent inferno.
SWISH!
Fenna executed a breathtaking, flawless backward flip in mid-air, floating down from the sky like a leaf!
Gunnhild stepped forward below, catching Fenna smoothly in her arms.
Fenna adjusted her hood, looking over at Brida, and called out crisp orders.
"Mission accomplished! All cannons are destroyed! Let’s draw back!"
Brida, still grinning from her fistfight, nodded enthusiastically.
"Yeah! Let’s get out of here!"
Without wasting a single second, the forward strike team... Brida, Fenna, Gunnhild, Hilda, and Tasmin as well as Hilda turned on their heels, retreating across the field toward the open gates of the Blessed Land at high speed.
Brida’s armor as well as weapons floated through the air attaching themselves to her body making her smile.
Sky stood on his burning command deck, his face twisting in rage beneath his helmet.
"AFTER THEM!" Sky bellowed furiously into his comms. "DON’T LET THEM ESCAPE! ALL UNITS, PURSUE AND KILL—"
Before Sky’s surviving forces could even take three strides—
HUMMMMMMMMM!
High above the field, the divine mist covering the Blessed Land thinned down even further, pulling back to reveal the entire upper perimeter of the Steel-Weave walls.
Standing atop the obsidian battlements, line after line of archers, mages, and Magic Swordsmen led by Vala lowered their weapons, staring straight down at Sky’s army with cold intent.
Phase One was officially over.
The girls who had been waiting on the walls were finally making their move.
[Author’s Note]
I think that’s all the Bonus Chapters I’m owing you with one extra, Haah...