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Chapter 18: Demon Commander
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Flight Armor... it can only be equipped and unequipped.
The disadvantage of it was that it was an [armor] and so, aside from a very few numbers of equipments that can be used under it, its overall defensive capabilities are almost negligible for it was only as strong as a C-Rank equipment.
Nevertheless, its flight speed was first class and is a level or two higher than its alternate, the Mechanical Wing Set or the so called [Flight Wings].
But at this moment, even after he had his Dragunov in its [disintegrated state] and the Flight Armor on its full speed, he was still unable to get away from the horde of monsters following him.
"I wish I had the control of the Flight Wings and the Speed of the Flight Armor together..."
Siva was gritting his teeth, Eibon and Steve in his hands, he was firing shots one after another if even one of the monsters got close to him and wanted him eaten alive.
Mind-rending sounds of jaws snapping together as if biting air could be heard whenever he manages to narrowly escape the large maws of the monsters he dodged. The angry roars of the second monster inline would echo right after it, then the call for food of the ones far behind would resound just after.
Siva turned around and smiled on what he saw on the furthest distance behind the horde of monsters.
Though the Demons numbered greatly and the sum total of their three warships' worth of alien personnel was twice as many as the monsters' combined, they are still being pushed back into a disarrayed state as their formations were broken and their ranks fell with the vicious nature of the monsters fused with their size.
"My problem is how to lure the commander."
The first part of the reckless plan was successful and thus, he voiced his concerns over their radio line.
"Their flanks are broken, what's the situation of the smokes screen?"
Right after he spoke, Volt replied, "It's been freed and it's turning out as you've said..."
"Yeah," Thorn's voice said. "I thought you were just spouting nonsense but I have to admit, this plan might actually work."
Siva felt relieved as he heard the reports. He twisted around as he dodged another maw that gnawed at the previous location where he had just been. He shot out six bullets and towards the monster's left eye but the monster only felt like there were flies flying around it as the bullets bounced off its thick scales.
When he saw this, Siva clicked his tongue and made a scan of the area. The Auricle's scan spanned the immediate 500m area around him and a small 3D rendering of a location close to his displayed a fog-covered area.
He ticked his tongue again as he kicked the air to speed up, using the trees and the forest as covers with utmost precision in the coordination of his mind and body to dodge the obstructions.
"The commander has yet to make an appearance. I don't think I can hold any longer here as well. The plan depends on whether the commander will endure his men being hunted down by the monsters or not. If it appears in person to hunt me down, then..." Siva closed his eyes and a flash of determination appeared on his expression. "This sacrifice and gamble would be all worth it."
The communication line was silent. Thorn and Volt had to agree that this reckless plan depended on the commander's AI algorithms.
If it was able to determine the plan, then it will be all in vain but if it thinks that killing the witnesses to the existence of their company was a priority, then it will see that this horde of monsters was a trap and will do all it takes for it to kill the three.
Siva was gambling on the latter. While he was able to kill all of these monsters if the Commander did indeed makes it appearance, it will also give him the chance to snatch an ambush when its guard is down.
If all goes according to the best scenario they had in mind, then they will get their hands on some monster resources while also obtaining a Black Ball.
Siva was willing to take the risk.
"The wind's picking up." Thorn's voice rang. "It's all going according to your predictions. The Plasma Smoke Screen is not going beyond the timberline because of the humidity in the forest. The wind above and the ones passing through the forest are also helping in dispersing our screen..."
The area scan on Siva's vision displayed the location where the fog was moving. It covered a distance of fifty meters and is still expanding as the bombs that Thorn and Volt planted on many locations were all timed to explode in an orderly fashion to make sure that a significant area of the forest will be covered.
Gradually, the screen had reached the location of Siva and the demons and at this point, Siva had to use all his might just to dodge every attack that the monsters are throwing at him.
Ten seconds felt triple of that time. He could feel his heartbeat rising in a critical rate, he was sweating, his pulse irregularly throbbing in his arms.
The three warships continued to pour in its aliens as the monsters went on to pursue their missing meal.
Siva looked up towards the northern horizon. Now, he could see the three warships from the distance and that was enough to make him throw the third of his three last Plasma Smoke Screen Grenades.
He activated the five seconds timer and then sped off towards the warships. The monsters still behind him, he let the fog of cold silvery white plasma screen follow him from behind.
"To use the same tactic as before..." Siva smiled bitterly as he focused his attention on the three warships as well as the monsters coming from behind. He had used this same tactic before, although indirectly, when he fought against Karim's ambush team back in Brighton Forest.
At that time, he relied to the monsters' numbers and aggressiveness to provide him an opening to take down all of his opponents.
Now, he was also using that opportunity to bring down a really strong opponent.
Commanders... they're really strong NPC bosses.
They are comparable to Fledgling Dragons in strength and all of the accounts of players who managed to fight one all had to spend an enormous amount of time and resources just to defeat one.
In fact, with Siva's past records and comparisons, to fight and actually defeat one with the way he is was really impossible. His only chance of winning against one would be to use this trick or else, he can't win.
As he neared the warships, the fog also began to spread a little more.
The grenade he left behind exploded and a new area with fog layers also spread wide in his location.
In front of him, he saw a group of alien hunters; two with three arms and then four with an appearance that resembled a humanoid mastiff. It had fangs of a sabretooth tiger, claws of a panther, and a lithe body that resembled the nimbleness of a cheetah.
As soon as Siva and the four of those alien hunters made eye contact, Siva felt that his sense of dread from these aliens was renewed again. He had to stop and change approach or else he would surely die.
ROAR!
Behind him, a roaring A-Rank 'Vajra' rushed forth and tumbled down the trees that stand in its way towards Siva. The trees crashed down, Siva dodged. It then followed and leaped with a gaping mouth that easily spanned five meters wide to devour Siva.
His heart sunk as he felt cold water splashed all over his body. Siva's first and only instinctual reflex at that moment was to drop down and actually stare straight at the wide open mouth.
At that moment, his mind became as clear as day.
"I'm not dying here!" he roared and with a flash of a bright bluish white light, his guns vanished as he summoned a jet black sword. It was the Black Ender, a Dragon Sword, the only one of its kind...
Along with the summoning of the sword on his right hand, the left hand also summoned another weapon, one with a golden hue.
With a core heart imbued by a golden color, the MOD shined with a resplendent glow as it shimmered along with the golden hammer and body. The MOD was in this shining state because of the presence of its arch enemy... the Demons.
This is the Mjolnir, the hammer of gods.
In his hand, it weighs just about a kilo now because of adding more than 80 stat points to his Weight Limits.
The amount of weight he can tolerate whenever wearing equipment had increased significantly and thus he was able to wield it so easily.
Siva didn't waste any moment as he threw the Mjolnir towards the mouth of the monster. The monster's right sabretooth was hit with the hammer and with a CRACK sound following after, the tooth snapped near the root and the mouth closed off, its attack halted, and the monster loudly howled in pain.
It stumbled upfront, its two front legs carrying its body's weight. The golden hammer fell and hit the jaw, the monster let out another howl of pain as its entire mouth was smashed towards the ground.
Its body trembled and Siva took this chance to take it down in one go.
With a swift move, he dashed towards the monster's left eye and stabbed the Black Ender, twisting it, its blood splashing all over him as he activated its grind effect that minced its innards and brain.
Everything happened in but three seconds' time.
The monsters following behind the Vajra roared as they took this chance to close in. The two Lapis Lazulis that was supposed to lead the group were lost in the fog of plasma screen, battling the aliens that Siva led on their direction.
As soon as the monsters roared, the two stopped attacking the aliens around them, looked up, and then rushed towards the location of where the lower monsters have seen their prey.
Siva's expression sunk as the Auricle Scan expanding two kilometers wide pictured out the location of the two separated Lapis Lazuli that is now going towards his direction.
Out of all the monsters present, he was especially watchful of these two because they are the strongest.
He once again looked at the direction of the three warships. The front most ship was different than the three because it had smaller wings on either side of its body. It can even be said that it was a flagship.
The flagship became the lead and the two others as the base. In that triangle formation, the lead ship had stopped pouring in its alien personnel and just then began to morph its body.
OMMMMMMM~!!
A loud buzzing sound came from the flagship, the air around it trembled and its image shook. A sensation that could cause one's skin to twitch spread all over the forest as the rattling wind make all his hairs stood on end like a cold breath of demise.
"What's happening?"
"The ship's changing..."
"It's morphing."
Following Siva's reaction, Volt and Thorn who were watching from their respective locations could also feel the same feeling of danger coming from the morphing flagship.
In the air, the ship's lower fin-like protrusions made a joint as the end part balled up then separated into four parts, forming a giant's hand.
The tail end retracted into the body as it separated, creating the knee, while the entire ship itself began to stand to make shape with the morphing form.
And just as it was about to finish its morphing, the ship seemingly lost all flight abilities as it fell on the forest floor, creating a tremor that spread for a wide area scattering dust clouds, rattling the air, and also sending a quake reaching Siva from two 200m away.
The wind created by the sudden fall cancelled the wind that came from behind Siva. The spreading smoke screen halted and began to spread in all directions and this made Siva feel panic.
"Not good."
After he exclaimed, a metallic roar could be heard from the distance as a gargantuan figure that stood around 400m high towered over the forest.
From his ears, Siva heard Volt exclaim in horror. "That is definitely a Colossus!"
"Siva, I think we better think of a plan-B at this point."
Following Volt was Thorn who was similarly panicking as he also stared at the roaring alien monster.
But Siva who was silent, although looking at the head of the demon that resembled human but was mixed with the face of an ape, was looking at the small figure standing at the head of the Colossus.
He couldn't help but smile. "That's our target."
As small as it was, Siva could feel that he and the figure was looking at each other. And that the fact he knew it despite the distance shows that there was an inevitable clash that's about to happen right now.
"There's no need for plan B." He said. "Just prepare to reinforce and keep to the details of the plan."
"Are you intending to fight that Colossus?" Asked Volt.
"No." Thorn was the one who replied. "I can see a figure standing at the head of the Colossus. I think that's our target there."
Siva didn't anything else. He leaped down the dead monster's head and then picked up the Mjolnir as he looked back towards the direction where the two Lapis Lazulis will be coming. Then, he looked back to the Colossus who made another roar that seems to indicate to the world that he had arrived.
He... the commander... of the Demon Horde...
The commander was looking down at him from the head of the Colossus with arms crossed and a body armor with a black cape that fluttered in the wind.
DANG-DANG!!! Two loud quakes cracked the land as the Colossus hammered the forest floor with its giant fists. It roared and then, with popping sounds, tiny holes from its shoulders and back protrusions opened up followed by bright yellowish orange lights that also began to get bigger.
From a head-sized ball of fire into a full meter ball of flaming plasma, the lights was then released and scattered in all directions from the Colossus.
"Goodness me!"
"Watch out!"
Volt and Thorn's frantic voices echoed as the plasma bursts that blasted like mortars in an arching way from the holes of the body of the Colossus devastated that area of the forest around it.
"This is the power of a Colossus..." Siva couldn't help but gasp cold air. He felt his throat dry up as he glanced just twenty meters away from him where a large burning area was left of where the plasma mortars from the Colossus had hit.
Looking up, he saw the Demon Commander looking at his direction. Seeing this, Siva poised as he braised himself. He was looking at the commander eye to eye and knew that, even though he was far away, the commander was on its last preparations for an attack.
The Colossus roared again and as its body was shrouded by thick black smokes from the attack it just made, its metallic roaring voice added more horror to its devastating might.
Not giving any time, Siva spoke hastily. "It's coming."
And right after he said those words, the commander of the horde standing at the head of the Colossus made a smile as it took a step, BOOM, and was almost a hundred meters away from where he was at in just an instant. Siva didn't have time to breathe as just on the third second did the commander already reached him like a looming black meteor.
Siva made a roundhouse turn and gave the demon commander a full swing blow of the hammer on his left hand.
A loud metallic BANG resounded as the commander used its right back hand to seemingly block the large and heavy golden hammer of the gods.
"Strong!" Siva exclaimed.
The tremor ran through his body and he felt like he had just hammered a one meter thick wall made up of pure metal that stood ten meters high. That one arm of the demon felt like it was an entire planet!
He didn't have time to be reacting this way as he did a swing with his right hand to follow up.
A black C-trail of sword light trailed off in the space of its arching motion and yet this, again, was blocked easily with just the commander's left back hand.
With the force of the commander's descent cancelled by the hammer blow, the slash that followed totally neutralized any other momentum that the commander had on his approach.
And yet, no matter how seemingly strong those two attacks were, they were still blocked easily without even any sort of momentum from its skinny body.
Siva and the demon eyed each other until on the next moment did the demon made a sneer.
"God." It said. Its voice was soft, placating, soothing, and was definitely made for a handsome man. And yet it betrayed its appearance that had a savage look in its eyes that cannot betray it bloodlust.
Siva hissed, "I am no god." And then, with a flash of light, his feet was equipped with the leg parts of the Dragunov as he motioned to jump back and then make a retreat towards the fog.
"I know you." The voice spoke again as it followed him to the fog. "You're a vessel... the Father knows so. He can feel those who are chosen as vessels of the damnable Gods."
With but a step, floating in midair, the demon made a BOOM that the air around him shattered.
He followed Siva into the fog.
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