Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
A scorched smell permeated in the air, and there was also the acrid smell of electrified air.
A great part of the forest had been destroyed as something with an overwhelming heat energy had ran rampant here, it had destroyed thousands of trees with extreme heat, leaving a trail of thick shock and heat, and everywhere ahead it was nothing but charred trees, and uneven explosive craters and at some areas, embers were still smoldering while thick smoke engulfed the entire scorched earth, like a gray snow.
At the edge of this scorched lands, the Black Forest were slowly recovering as the torn trees and plants were creaking and growing at a very visible speed. Yet their recovery were clearly impeded. Only the plants at the edge of the scorched earth were regrowing, while on the scorched lands itself, there were no signs of recovery.
The powerful life energies of the Black Forest were actually stopped by the powers of a Gorgonian Demon – The imperials had spent hundreds of years to actually ‘dig’ a spot out of the Black Forest to build Greenway, but a Lord class Gorgonian Demon could easily and permanently destroy a part of the Black Forest.
This revelation shocked Graeme who knew the Demons well.
Seeing the smoldering land that showed no signs of healing, the dark-skinned warrior had an unbelieving expression on his face, “I have left here for a long while now… the burnt black pines never regrew?”
“Is this situation unusual?” Hao Ren raised his eyebrows. He had thought that this was caused by the Gorgonian Demons, and was a normal scene in this world, but he never thought that even Graeme was surprised.
“Very unusual,” Graeme nodded, “While there were no Gorgonian Demons rampaging in the Black Forest before, the scholars had never stopped studying the two, and in theory the flames of the Gorgons would not be able to stop the Black Forest’s life energies, but this place had showed no signs of healing… Something is not right.”
And Lily, whose mind was ever filled with novel plots spoke, “Perhaps that Demon Lord even has a main character setting to him, and have some sort of territory ability.”
“What is that territory ability?” Graeme was totally confused, “Is it some sort of magic?”
“Ignore here, it is hot here and her mind is affected somewhat,” Hao Ren quickly pulled Lily aside, as he inspected the burnt land and looked for any traces or signs of the ‘Demon’.
“Well, we do have quite a few encounters with demons, but we are not so clear about the Gorgons, are they very territorial?”
This was not said on a whim, Hao Ren and his friends were familiar with the demons, and their encounters included playing Landlord, mahjong, having hotpot, barbecue and having the demon to carry cooking gas canisters. If it was about demons, Hao Ren was pretty sure he was at least a master on the subject.
“Territorial sense? They are not only strong, they are almost crazy on the matter, as long as they had marked their territory, aside from tearing it to pieces, you can forget about even taking the place back, and approaching that place is suicidal.”
As Graeme said he pulled out his weapon, it was that odd-looking metal truncheon while a faint, almost imperceptible glow appeared on his armor as dim light weaved about in the gaps of his armor. The short truncheon soon hummed as two one-meter long red beam appeared from both ends of the truncheon.
Hao Ren was still scouting for energy, and suddenly caught sight of the Broken Blade knight pulling out a twin light saber. Surprised by the sight, he blurted out, “Wait a minute, do you guys actually go may the force be with you before you fight?”
Graeme was tensed as he kept an eye out for hostiles and was thrown into confusion by Hao Ren’s sudden blurt. “What is the force? The only thing that is with us, is our knightly vows and the glory of Her Imperial Highness…”
“Oh, nothing, it’s just that your weapon will definitely throw everyone off.” Hao Ren immediately smiled to hide his awkwardness. “Say, you Broken Blades don’t usually team up with outsiders right?”
Graeme frowned as he did not understand why Hao Ren was interested in that, “The Broken Blades usually work in small teams, and very rarely with outsiders, anything?”
Hao Ren saw Graeme placed the twin light saber behind him as he bent down in a cautious posture and nodded, “No wonder, that weapon doesn’t look all that safe, anyone standing behind you would be stabbed when you retract your blades…”
Graeme felt like he would pretty much go crazy if he spoke any more with this weird person. What is the Basilica of the World Tree all about? Is everyone from there a lunatic?
And just as these thoughts flooded his mind, a sudden alarm gripped him.
The instinct of the veteran of countless of battles proved to be on point: He quickly yelled out a warning, before bursting into top speed as he leap aside at the very last moment and raised his light saber in a blocking stance!
Two dark red beams came screeching from afar the moment he acted, and one of it hit the spot he stood, and the ground sizzled, while the other was blocked by his light saber and the deflected beam hit black pine a distance away, tearing the tree in two.
And Hao Ren had also noticed the enemy’s movements before Graeme even shouted his warning. His shield system immediately activated and he raised his psionic pistol that he had earlier drew from his dimensional pocket, and fired three shots into the distance.
Three of the beams seemed to have hit something, as the seemingly empty space suddenly crystallized as an odd object floating in the air appeared and shattered into dust.
“Optical, magnetic, and heat combi-camouflage,” the MDT swiftly completed the analysis of the target, “But gravitation and data wave reading is effective! Detecting more targets, marking them now!”
A dozen of blurry red images suddenly appeared in Hao Ren’s vision and were rapidly approaching.
These were probably the splits that Graeme was talking about. They were fragments of the Gorgonian Demon and were a biological weapon.
And it actually had such powerful stealth ability? Why did Graeme not said anything about this?
Just as the question popped up in Hao Ren’s mind, Graeme yelled, “Damn! Something is wrong! This was not the enemy we ran into earlier! There’s another Gorgon Lord here!”
“Bloody hell, this is beyond wrong information!” Lily’s fur bristled as she yelled before sensing danger from the side, and without much thought, she immediately leaped up into a roundhouse kick and a crash later, a blurry silhouette was sent flying out of its camouflage as it flew in sparks and creaks before Hao Ren.
Even in human form, without her ears and tails, Lily’s strength was not to be underestimated.
“Watch out! There’s not only ranged units,” Vivian quickly warned everyone and at the same time, a ring of cackling lightning ‘Static Ring’ formed with her as the center, and shot out in all directions, and following that, blurry silhouettes formed around the figures hidden in the air.
The tiny sparks had covered their entire form and disrupted the ‘splits’ stealth ability.
Everyone had drawn their weapons and had unleashed their best magic and started fighting the revealed splits, and Hao Ren’s attention was caught by the split that Lily had kicked earlier.
The split had landed not too far away from him, and unlike the disintegrated first wave attackers, it was still rather intact, while there were obvious cracks in the middle, but its general form was still visible, and it looked like a curled up lobster that was engulfed in a rapidly weakening electricity. There was an obvious metal carapace covering the monster’s body, and the lower half had a few alloy limbs. There were a superheated light blade at the end of each limb, but yet there were no limbs for movement on the lower body, and only a few glowing circular devices at the bottom.
Hao Ren recalled the moment when Lily had sent the monster flying, and realized that the glowing circles were probably for levitation.
And as she looked at the metallic body covered in an electric cloud, Vivian could not help but mutter to herself, “Why this does not look… biological.”
The splits had both invisibility and high speed as a trait, plus the plasma cutters and laser attacks, that would have turned them into a lethal opponent against common soldiers, but thankfully, no one was a common soldier here, and even the weakest of Charlemagne’s guards could hold his ground against the Gorgonian fodders.
The glow of magic was blasted all across the scorched earth as they blocked the laser attacks, and the dancing enchanted blades formed an impenetrable wall. While they warded off the melee combat units using this momentary distraction, Vivian and Hao Ren alongside Lily swiftly took out every split on the field.
Rheia had not interfered at all, as she felt these ‘tiny things’ were not a threat, and with Lily taking them out without even transforming, she chose to stay out of the combat and focused her attention on answering the question on her workbook.
At that moment, Hao Ren heard a roar from above.
Graeme, who had just cut one of the splits into two with his lightsaber, immediately reacted, “It’s the Gorgon Lord! It’s here!”
Hao Ren quickly looked up, and saw a massive shadow floated up from the other end of the charred forest.
It was a manta-ray like behemoth, and it was at least three hundred meters wide. Its body was hidden within the clouds and lightning, and like those splits, it had a biological shape and structure, but it was totally made out of metal, and between the whirling metals, there were runes and energy currents flowing between them.
This was the “Gorgonian Demon”.
