Chapter 408 - 397: Hunting Demons in the Fog
Unlike the crushing victory in the third defense zone, the battle in the eighth had fallen into a bizarre stalemate.
Though also a King of Heart-eaters, this one was far more difficult to deal with.
It didn’t burst from the water as the other had, announcing its presence with a heaven-shaking roar.
On the contrary, like a drop of ink in clear water, it silently merged its Magic Power with the environment.
The air humidity in a radius of dozens of kilometers skyrocketed.
A vast, dense fog rapidly condensed over the sea’s surface. In just a few dozen seconds, visibility plummeted from several kilometers to less than ten meters.
[WARNING. Strong Magic Power interference detected in the target area. Optical and Magic Power detection system accuracy decreased by 41%.]
Inside the Cybertron command center, Jarvis issued an alert.
This King of Heart-eaters actually understood tactics!
It chose not to charge the defensive line directly. Instead, it slipped into the shallows near the coast, its massive body stirring the currents as its deep blue Magic Power detonated from beneath the waves!
"BOOM—!"
A terrifying wall of water over ten meters high, like a giant, open hand, slammed down on the Golem Legion’s position on the coastline!
Cyclops No. 2 immediately deployed its Super AT Force Field. The golden, hemispherical shield, like an impenetrable barrier, absorbed the core impact of the tsunami.
But the waves that spilled over the sides still washed away the frontline positions.
Dozens of Spider Slayers were sent tumbling by the violent torrent, and the once-orderly fire formation was thrown into chaos.
"ROAR!"
A low roar echoed from deep within the mist. The cunning King of Heart-eaters completely avoided a direct confrontation with the Cyclops. It used the cover of the sea to dart through the shallows, sometimes diving deep, other times bursting forth to unleash massive waves and harass the line.
Taking advantage of the moment the Golem Legion was distracted by the tsunami, thousands of low-level Heart-eaters, like fish in a tide, actually broke through the first line of fire!
"Attack! Attack!"
The Royal Army Commander on the second defensive line behind them let out a hoarse shout.
The Spirit Mages hurriedly gathered motes of colored light, hurling them at the ones that had slipped through.
However, everyone’s heart sank.
This was different.
Completely different from the news of victory they had heard earlier.
It seemed the Wizard’s Steel Giant was being countered by the sea.
「Inside Cybertron.」
Allen stared at the fog-shrouded, chaotic battlefield on the screen, his face expressionless.
"Commander, should we dispatch the Storm Falcon squadrons for a low-altitude hunt? Or should we have Gabriel intervene?" Jarvis proposed alternative plans.
"No need." Allen tapped a finger gently on the armrest. "It likes to play in the water. Then let’s take its water away."
"Have Cyclops No. 2 drive the sea back."
[Command confirmed.]
「At the eighth defense zone’s coastline.」
Under the astonished and uncertain gazes of countless Royal Army soldiers, the dark red colossus that had only been defending passively finally moved.
Cyclops No. 2 walked out from behind the chaotic formation. It ignored the surging waves crashing against its legs, each step leaving a SIZZLING, steaming, scorched footprint on the waterlogged beach.
It walked to the very edge of the coastline.
Then, as everyone watched, the two enormous Earth Vein Anchors on its back shot out!
BOOM!!
Spiral drills tore through the water-soaked bedrock, and the twenty-five-meter-long anchors plunged deep into the foundation beneath the shoreline.
[Earth Vein Anchors connection successful.]
[Earth Vein synchronization system, power at 100%... 200%... 300%!]
[Reversing output of the Anti-Gravity Rune Array. Initiating terrain reconstruction!]
The earth began to groan as if under an unbearable load.
With Cyclops No. 2 as the epicenter, a brutal, titanic force from deep within the planet’s core forcibly lifted the entire ten-kilometer stretch of coastline!
The sea retreated at a visible rate.
The area that was once shallow sea became a sloping, wet patch of land.
One meter, two meters, three meters...
In the end, the entire coastline had been raised a full eight meters!
The sea receded with it. The shallows that had been deep enough to hide the King of Heart-eaters became a barren, exposed seabed.
The King of Heart-eaters, still swimming at high speed, didn’t even have time to register what was happening before it found itself beached.
Its enormous body thrashed on the slick mud and sand as it stared blankly at the ocean, which was now rapidly retreating hundreds of meters away.
"ROAR...?"
It let out a low, bewildered growl.
And directly in front of it, the dark red giant that had just forcibly demolished its home was striding slowly toward it.
One was the king of the deep sea, its body wreathed in condensing vapor and chilling frost.
The other was a colossus of the earth, its surface temperature exceeding a thousand degrees, radiating waves of searing heat.
When the two were less than five hundred meters apart, their domains of ice and fire collided violently.
At the intersection of extreme cold and extreme heat, a turbulent, sky-blotting curtain of white steam formed out of thin air.
On the second defensive line, the Commander and his soldiers instantly lost all visibility.
They couldn’t see a thing.
All they could see within the endless white mist ahead was, on one side, a deep, icy,幽 blue light, and on the other, a scorching, magma-like, dark red glow.
Where the two lights clashed, the steam boiled, like the dawn of creation in mythology.
Then, they heard the sounds.
The first sound.
"THUD—!"
It was an incredibly heavy, solid, muffled impact.
It was so heavy that the heart of every soldier on the wall skipped a beat. Their chests felt tight, and an ache seemed to run through their very bones.
That was the sound of the Cyclops’s fist hitting something.
The sound of hard bone colliding head-on with ultra-dense alloy pierced through the steam, making everyone’s eardrums ring.
The second sound.
"SCREEE—!!!!"
An ear-splitting, high-frequency shriek suddenly erupted!
The sound was like countless steel needles stabbing viciously into everyone’s cerebral cortex. Many soldiers clapped their hands over their ears in pain, but the sound seemed to ignore physical barriers, exploding directly in their minds.
Experienced Spirit Mages turned pale. They recognized it as the sound of annihilation and dissolution that an ultra-high-intensity energy shield makes when under sustained attack.
The third sound.
The defensive wall beneath their feet abruptly sank!
"RUMBLE!"
It wasn’t an illusion. It was a literal, physical sinking! The foundation of the entire wall segment had collapsed by half a foot!
"An earthquake! It’s an earthquake!" a young soldier shrieked in terror.
"Shut up!" The Commander gripped his reins tightly. He could feel that it wasn’t an earthquake. That terrifying pressure was coming from the center of that white mist ahead!
’That Iron Giant! It’s using some unknown power to alter the gravity of the entire battlefield!’
It was the Cyclops activating its regional gravity control mode. A Hundredfold Gravity field enveloped a five-hundred-meter radius, affecting even the foundations of the defensive wall.
Then came the fourth sound.
"Ghh... AAAAAHH—!!!"
A shrill, twisted wail, filled with endless agony and disbelief, pierced through the dense fog.
The sound belonged to no known language.
But on the wall, every veteran who had spent a lifetime fighting Heart-eaters understood it.
That was the voice of the King of Heart-eaters.
It was screaming.
It was shrieking in agony.
Across the entire wall, tens of thousands of Royal Army soldiers held their breath in unison.
For three hundred years, they had heard the savage howls of the Heart-eaters, their cruel roars, and the satisfied chewing sounds they made while devouring the Spirit Cores of their own kind.
But they had never heard a sound like this.
Fear, pain, and despair.
The Heart-eaters had always been the inflictors of fear, the predators at the top of the food chain, the three-hundred-year-long nightmare hanging over the Aiselan Kingdom.
Today was the first time.
The Hunter had become the prey.
The roiling steam finally began to show signs of dissipating.
A dark red, mountain-like silhouette was the first to emerge from the thinning mist.
And the other figure at its feet, in the deep crater crushed by the Hundredfold Gravity, had long since been reduced to a pile of mush.