“All aerial units have been tagged with your Chain Lightning. Thunder Ram Demon Keyrin, please proceed with the next stage of your attack before you retreat to rest.” The System noted as Keyrin dodged around the ranged attacks from the combination of Dragon Devils and Dragonlites.
Simultaneously, the Clay Dragon, as well as the Mousefolks on top of it, took the opportunity to take down as many enemies while they were distracted by Keyrin’s appearance and they were rather successful. This made the Horde needing to spread their offensive powers into two despite having a majority in numbers.
Unfortunately, the Giants continued their rampaging charge thereby destroying quite a number of barricades including some of the Sherman Tanks EX. Nevertheless, the Dark Templars within them were not waiting around to perish by being squashed from the Giants’ assault.
With the Sherman Tank EX’s new and improved ejection seats, the Dark Templars were able to exit from the side of the tanks, more often than not, in the nick of time before getting pulverised from the Giants’ smashes.
And that was not the end of their tanks.
“Even in death, our Shermies will still serve the greater good!” Dark Templar Commander Zieg shouted, giving the Dark Templars the signal for the next step in shoring up their defence against the raging Giants.
“Hear me, oh vessel of destruction! You who have served and protected us in times of need! We request thy service a final time!” Squad Leader for Tank S-4 exclaimed as he cut his wrist with a sacrificial dagger and threw blood on the destroyed tank debris while his dark templar mates were distracting the Giants as best they could.
The blood served as a conduit of the Dark Templar’s demonic beliefs and powers to the shattered tank pieces. Instead of summoning a demon with just a blood sacrifice, they were using the broken tank parts as the catalyst.
A purplish red ritual circle shone beneath the tank debris, and from a distance, the same phenomenon appeared on several other destroyed tanks.
The other squad leaders were also doing the same. A violent vibration occurred beneath the tanks, and soon, all of the parts were consumed by the ritual circle.
The Giants were neither blind nor stupid, they recognised those ritual circles could prove a major threat and knew the caster should be annihilated as soon as possible. Meanwhile, the remaining Sherman Tanks had to protect their brethren until they were finished with the ritual.
With the increasing threat of the giants crushing their clubs and swords, there was no need to fire long-distance shots anymore due to the threats coming ever closer. So, Lord Wolte took the opportunity to spit his current tank cannon barrel onto the road and forcefully emerged a double-barrel from within him.
“FEEL THE PAIN!” Lord Wolte shouted as he fired at the nearest Giant who seemed too keen on intercepting his minion’s ritual summoning. The all new cannon barrels were shorter yet bigger, allowing him to shoot out bigger rounds at a faster rate. It also gave him the satisfaction to be a badass, and in turn, increased the morale of the surrounding troops too.
Having the support of a rapid fire tank was surely comforting.
Before the Giant could react, he had been gifted two large holes in his chest from the impact and fell to the ground gasping for air, unable to move and bleeding to death.
“We shall bless thine name Lord Wolte for granting us this sacrificial lamb to test out your powers! Shermie, the Fourth, go forth and consume the Giant!” The Squad leader hailed his creation as the tank parts reemerged as broken as before but with one distinct difference. The debris was moving as a whole towards the wounded Giant.
Only demons with vast amounts of knowledge would be able to discern what kind of monsters hid under the appearance of this debris. They were slimes hiding under the crevices of the tank part or as Lord Wolte had nicknamed them, Sher Slimes.
These Sher Slimes were not the ordinary kind of slimes at all. It would have been pointless to summon the sort that even Level 1 Adventurers could kill to gain experience or harvest their slime cores to sell for money. No, these were particularly special kinds of slimes. Upon contacting the wounded Giant, the Sher Slimes consumed the Giant’s psyche by entering its orifices and wounds.
The more complicated the species was, the easier it was for the Sher Slimes to infiltrate as it feasted on fear and other emotions. Eventually, it took control of the Giant and equipped it with Tank Parts too.
What could be more dubious than a Giant turned Cyborg with Tank parts assimilated into its body? A Dark Templar having direct control over the slime’s movement. As long as the Squad Leader continued to stand and survive, these Sher Slimes would be the new line of defence against the Giants. And the more Giants they felled, the more there would be for other slimes. (But that was a rare probability since the Dark Templar Squad Leaders did a hasty summon.)
Using the blood of the Giant as ammunition, shots mixed with blood and slime were released out of the tank’s broken barrel killing the other Giants too. The other Giants were shocked by the transformation, as there should not be many things able to possess them due to their innate magical resistance.
But they failed to understand that this was no magic brainwashing them. Rather, it was a parasitic monster taking over their central nerve system.
Earl Barbatos saw the dreadful transformation of his soldiers and demanded the rest to take them down before they were taken out.
This new development provided some breathing space for Qiu Yue as it allowed the Red Panda to move her hand away from the brooding Pandjilla.
Ironically, this scenario enabled the Pandjilla to gather more energy from the surroundings. As demons (both land and flying) fell into the sea, the Deep Ones had started to feed the Pandjilla with everything they caught. Since their Lord and Saviour, Shadow Dagen was currently full thanks to feasting on the giant flowery turtle, it was a perfect time to cultivate the Pandjilla to an even scarier force to reckon with. If one would go down to the bottom of the ocean, he might also hear some light snoring.
Although Pandjilla was just a clay monster per se, its magical runes allowed it to slowly disintegrate every demon unlucky enough to enter the deadly sea and those ‘nutrients’ were stored in its clay-like plates for later use.
In the meantime, Keyrin was running around the skies along with the Clay Dragon despite the System’s notice that he should proceed to the next attack. This was mainly because he was desperately trying to search for the commander hiding in all of these aerial units.
Keyrin wanted to make sure that Marquis Forenus died from the attack because once the Thunder Ram Demon proceeded with his attack, he ‘had’ to retreat according to the ‘summon’ support that Yun had made for the cultivators’ accomplishment of the objective.
“There! I finally found you!” Keyrin dodged yet another attack while he made eye contact with a stout Dragonlite armoured figure with two pairs of dark orange wings. The System had also pinged, confirming that it was Marquis Forenus based on Moloch’s previous memory.
It was finally time to unleash the hammering flashes of judgement against these trespassers.
Judgement Storm.
