Operation SkyFall IX
It didn’t take long for Mrs Jane to find Osho.
Seeing his body hanging limply on the tree branch, she montarily feared the worst, but she quickly realized, to her relief, that the boy was just unconscious.
It wasn’t too surprising. It was already a miracle he stayed conscious long enough to give Gale the order to lead the Harbinger away from them, and speaking of...
’’Crazy kid." She mumbled with a faint smile. She jumped on the branch and unceremoniously tossed him over her shoulder before hopping down.
After that rain of lightning, she nor the other Experts were unscathed in any way as her clothes were ripped in many places, and a good chunk of her skin was badly charred. But she didn’t seem to care as her attention was on Osho.
She took him to the clearing where they originally started fighting the Harbinger, the place now nothing more than a desolate wasteland as large craters and fissures filled the surroundings. Needless to say, the damage was extre.
As soon as she appeared, the three remaining Experts and soldiers surrounded him.
"Crazy kid," Simon said as soon as she laid him down, and she looked at him strangely.
"... What?" The older man asked with confusion.
"Nothing. I just had a similar sentint." Mrs Jane mumbled. At that mont, Haggai went over and squatted next to Osho before poking his cheek.
"Hm..." She humd thoughtfully, and everyone stared at her warily. They all knew her strange tendencies.
"Interesting." She mumbled before turning to the Citadel Lord.
"I want to study him." She said flatly, and they all sighed, clearly having expected such a request.
"Let’s... talk about it another ti." The man said tiredly. Whether from Haggai’s antics or the battle that had just ensued, it was hard to say.
At that mont, sothing fast suddenly entered their range of perception, and they all tensed up and readied themselves. However, they cald down as soon as they saw the cause.
It was Gale. The bird flew down and ignored the rest of them as he landed on Osho’s chest. Compared to a few minutes ago, the bird looked a lot more haggard and exhausted. His feathers had dimd, and the markings on his body no longer looked as prominent, yet there was an air of satisfaction to his movents.
As soon as he touched down on his chest, he lay down and closed his eyes, quickly falling asleep.
Everyone stared at the scene with so relief, glad that both Gale and Osho were fine, just tired.
Well, Osho definitely took so damage, but nothing life-threatening.
It was at that mont that faint whistling sounds caught everyone’s attention, and they all turned just in ti to see three black dots in the distance. Upon closer inspection, they quickly realized they were planes.
"Seems like Plan C has begun," the Citadel Lord muttered to himself.
___
"Sir, the Harbinger isn’t healing!" A handler exclaid, and everyone imdiately focused on the creature that was falling out of the sky.
Indeed, Gale’s attack had left a large hole in its abdon, one that wasn’t imdiately closing like before.
’I see. Did it sacrifice its regeneration in exchange for being able to resist the bloodline suppression?’ Major Thompson almost imdiately put two and two together and realized what the creature had done, and he had to admit, that was pretty scary.
He’d heard of certain creatures being able to sacrifice certain things like skills and abilities in exchange for sothing else of equal value. It was extrely rare, rare enough for him to not imagine anything being able to do such a thing until it did, and had it been under any other circumstances, they most likely would have been screwed, because as they all just witnessed, the Harbinger going all out makes it being unable to regenerate almost irrelevant.
Luckily, they had an even greater monster on their side.
"Sir, the planes will arrive in approximately one minute, and the artillery shells are set to land at a similar ETA." A handler said, and Major Thompson nodded.
Plan C was fairly simple.
If all else failed, throw every bit of firepower they had at the Harbinger for as long as possible and hope it dies.
It was a crude plan, but considering the circumstances, it was the best they had at the mont, and Major Thompson had a feeling this would actually work.
Gale’s final attack could only be described as debilitating as very few creatures could get a hole put through them and co out unscathed. The Harbinger, even without its regeneration, was far from fragile, but Gale was no different from an armor-piercing round in that mont as all his accumulated montum along with his powerful beak and body, coupled with the magical augntation, made him more than enough to deal such a harrowing wound.
Within the Citadel, not on the walls but deeper within, nurous massive artillery cannons that looked no different from the main guns you’d find on a battleship erged from the ground, each of them looking quite futuristic and having the functions to back up that appearance.
Each of them had already unleashed a powerful Salvo of special rounds that were shot out using a mixture of magnetic and mana-powered propulsion. The guns had been slowly tracking the movents of the Harbinger and adjusting themselves to ensure that they wouldn’t miss.
Moreover, they were all humming with energy as they were preparing to unleash another Salvo.
At the sa ti, in the direction each of them was aiming, 5 planes that looked a lot like a certain Stealth Bomber from pre-mana earth flew towards where the Harbinger had been downed.
To be clear, none of them made a sound. The whistling noise the people on the ground heard was from the incoming artillery shells. Also, the only reason they could see the planes was because they weren’t the target.
"Target locked." In the leading Aircraft, the Pilot’s targeting system locking onto the struggling figure of the Harbinger.
His teammates also said sothing similar and the pilot looked at a tir which read 00:05. Five seconds until the artillery shells landed.
The mont it hit zero, the Pilot spoke.
"Release." Each plane flicked a switch and opened its Bombay doors at the sa ti and simultaneously released their payload.
Not even a mont later, the Artillery shells arrived.
The Harbinger looked up with rage and despair as about a dozen special rounds impacted its position. However, instead of thunderous explosions, massive beams of plasma erupted from the impacted position and went upwards.
The plasma didn’t get a chance to subside before the payload from the planes also landed, and these ones exploded, but not normally.
Each explosion was black and expanded into dark spheres. The combined detonation created a sphere that was several hundred ters in diater, but before it could proceed any further, the sphere suddenly began to implode, allowing the massive crater left behind to be visible for a brief mont before it exploded again, this ti with far more power than before.
The explosion could be seen for quite a distance, but they weren’t playing when they said they would throw everything at it, as not long after the secondary explosion subsided, the next Salvo of artillery rounds landed with those pillars of plasma, and not long after, the sa thing happened again, and again, and again.
The instant even a small but of energy was detected from the Harbinger, it was bombarded rcilessly.
The onslaught continued for almost ten minutes before finally stopping, and at the sa ti, a palpable change occurred.
The feeling of wrongness that seed to perate with the Harbinger’s existence slowly dwindled before coming to a stop, and everyone watched as the dark clouds started to dissipate. Not just dwindle, but truly dissipated as their source stopped supplying them.
Within the massive crater left by the unholy assault, a small figure shifted around for a bit before growing still, then it slowly began to flake until it was reduced to ashes.
Back at the wall, Fredrick had been fighting for so long that he’d lost count of how many creatures he had killed. His Mana was starting to bottom out and his spear had broken a while ago. To say he was moving on hopes and prayers would be an understatent.
At the sa ti, Ellie had covered herself and the mbers of her group in a crystal do that was quickly coming undone under the assault of nurous beasts.
Her guard was outside, killing off as many beasts as possible, but he too was at his limit.
She smiled weakly at the others.
"Heh, I’d say we did okay, no?" She said with forced humor, and the others who had varying levels of injuries just sighed.
But just as suddenly, the attacks ca to a stop.
Fredrick blinked as he swung his arm that was coated in water to make it sharp like a blade, but it hit nothing.
He blinked a few tis as he slowly ca out of his battle-frenzy. He looked around, and to his amazent, the beasts were retreating. Moreover, none of them looked insane anymore, just... tired.
In fact, it was only the stronger beasts that managed to retreat, as many of the weaker ones just dropped dead on the spot.
Ellie’s barrier also gave out at that mont as she dropped to her knees, gasping for breath. But there were no beasts waiting for the barrier to drop so they could devour her. Moreover...
’Is that... sunlight?’ She fell on her back and stared straight up. Her vision was blurry from the Mana loss, but there was no mistake about it. She could see the sun.
’It’s over... we did it.’ Her vision started to darken as she slowly lost consciousness, but not before thinking.
’Good on you... Osho.’
It was an arduous battle, with more than a few casualties.
But in the end, the humans once more ca out on top.
Reviews
All reviews (0)