251 Overkill?

Standing nearly a mile in the sky, Elizabeth's genocidal smile was missed by millions of fodder Devils below her as they wouldn't be able to perceive the way in which they died when she pulled the trigger. Firing a single round shot thousands of pellets from a shell and each of those thousand pellets traced impossible trajectories as they bounced from target to target, thousands more of every living thing with sub-Core Stage Cultivation Bases.

"Veridis," Elizabeth called again, this time allowing her Dawnbringer pistol to transform into a P90-like submachine gun.

[Status

Name: Veridis Blood Armament

Spirit Grade: A

Intelligence: +1,750,000

Description: Currently set to the Tertiary State of the Blood Armament's four available, Veridis takes on the form of a special fully automatic submachine gun. Its effects have improved after evolving to gain a Quaternary State and are further boosted by the Tier 1 Enhancement of Deceleration inscribed by its user.

Principle Effect: Time-type enchantments on magical bullets have their effects improved by 100%.

Secondary Effect: Enables Burst Mode, where any State of Dawnbringer shoots thrice without a recoil penalty. Burst firing speed is entirely dependent on the user's Intelligence Stat.

Tertiary Effect: Transforms Dawnbringer into the Marigold. The Marigold has a special Full Auto Mode with a 50% faster firing-rate than the Base Dawnbringer.

Quaternary Effect: Transforms Dawnbringer into Veridis. Veridis and higher State transformations of Dawnbringer can split into gun arrays that are able to increase shooting volume in exchange for shot penetration and strength. Gun Array Size for Veridis remains locked at 100 separate parts.

Quinary Effect: Transforms Dawnbringer into Juniper. Juniper is capable of shooting higher caliber bullets and has the special property of boosting ammo bonuses. Current Ammo Bonus Effect is 300%.

Tier 1 Enhancement of Deceleration: Every bullet shot from the Blood Armament passes by a special temporal field inscribed within the barrel of the gun that is capable of decelerating the rate of time about the bullet; thereby increasing it's exit velocity tremendously. Deceleration Rate Effect increases bullet speed by a factor of five.

Special Effect: Can evolve or devolve between States through its Master's will.]

Unfortunately for the Opal Devils, Elizabeth felt that the starting rate of her massacre was too slow. The Opal Devil's Subdimension held billions of denizens and the time she had to cause as much destruction as possible was quickly running out as Nascent Stage Opal Devils were fast approaching.

Since Elizabeth couldn't care less about her surroundings, she was able to let loose unlike during her fight with Xiang Moxie. Thus, as the killing rampage crescendoed in intensity, so too did Elizabeth's manic display of Skills.

Following a teleportation to bring her to an even higher altitude, Elizabeth chanted, "Chaos Control! Dark Thunder Annihilation!"

[Skills:

Name: Chaos Control

Spirit Grade: Incomprehensible to the user

Cultivated Abilities: Dark Thunder Annihilation (Cost: 1,000 Core Qi), Indistinguishable Heavenly Body (Cost: 2,000 Core Qi), Grandmist Overdrive (Cost: 5,000 Core Qi per minute)

Description: Sourced from the creator of the Chaos Requiem technique, Chaos Control allows Spirit Realm Cultivators the ability to make use of Grandmist Qi in battle.

Name: Dark Thunder Annihilation

Description: Darkness gives form while thunder supplies the power. Dark Thunder Annihilation spawns a hundred extremely compact Dark Thunder-imbued Qi projectiles that can be launched manually or shot out of Gun Armaments.

Primary Effect: Dark Thunder projectiles create Blood Moon explosions that retain chaotic thunder for several seconds before dissipation. Basic Blood Moon explosions form half-kilometer-wide death zones for all entities below the Core Refinement Stage.

Secondary Effect: Dark Thunder projectiles have the ability to fuse and compact to create even more devastating ballistic prowess. Fused Dark Thunder projectiles can form Super Blood Moon explosions, after fusing a maximum of five projectiles together.]

As nearly a third of her total Core Qi reserves evaporated to Grandmist-augmented spheres of Dark Thunder, the atmosphere around Elizabeth was subverted. Just as the first salvo of Dark Thunder was being chambered into Elizabeth's Vadis Blood Armament, the last of her original party crossed over to watch on.

After the first "basic" Dark Thunder round was shot, Liam had the cheek to whistle and quip, "I thought we were the ones facing an apocalypse."

To the Core Stage human Cultivators, the discharge of Elizabeth's shotgun almost progressed in slow motion. As one bright black orb of lightning split into ten thousand, following what would usually be an impractically large spread; literally covering dozens of kilometers.

The Blood Moon explosion from the full bullet would have only a half-kilometer wide area, but that was beyond overkill for the Foundation Stage and Mortal Realm fodder still around. Thus, while the bullet's potency was split into ten thousand for each pellet fired from Vadis, it's reach increased more than a thousand-fold.

[Cataclysm Chain Quest 1: Vymling Slayer

Spirit Grade Difficulty: A*

Objective 1) Kill 100,000 Vymlings (✔)

Objective 2) Kill 500,000 Vymlings, 10,000 Vymos (✔)

Objective 3) Kill 3,000,000 Vymlings, 50,000 Vymous, 1,000 Vymas (✔)

Objective 4) Kill 21,000,000 Vymlings, 300,000 Vymous, 5,000 Vymas, 100 Vymin (✔)

Objective 5) Kill 168,000,000 Vymlings, 2,100,000 Vymous, 30,000 Vymas, 500 Vymin, 10 Vymaous]

"Life Reversal," Elizabeth chanted as the oppressive aura of Entropy devoured all the newly formed Death Qi below her. In an instant, she more than recovered the thousand-plus Core Qi she had used and the onslaught continued.

Without her direct command, Jane took the left while Sun took the right. Liam took to the south while Elizabeth used her overwhelming Skills to eradicate the north.

As the mayhem continued to rise in intensity with the advent of Elizabeth's confidants, Xiang Moxie crossed the portal just in time to watch Elizabeth confront her first Vymaous Opal Devil. Elizabeth didn't even need to regroup as her firing spree continued seamlessly. The way in which she kicked the Core Level Opal Devil into oblivion looked effortless as she continued changing the landscape below with Dark Thunder Annihilation shotgun rounds.

Vymlings matured into Vymous at Level 11, then to Vymas at Level 21, Vymin at Level 31, and finally Vymaous at Level 41. And yet, she still managed to effortlessly decimate the first of the Core Level Devils in her path; this despite the fact that said first Vymaous was among the middle-ranking ones at Level 44.

To the left of Elizabeth's unstoppable massacre, the sudden emergence of a field of Yin and Ice several hundred square kilometers large indiscriminately turned the neutral dirt ground to tundra. Whereas Mortal and Foundation Level Devils died merely to their exposure to the frigid field, the newly arriving masses of Vymaous were skewered by ice-spears that could spawn from either the ground or air.

To the right, Sun, in all his subtlety, upheld the sanctity of Extreme Physicality Cultivators as he took a more "close combat" oriented approach. Of course, with his every punch and kick containing post-nuclear prowess, his rising kill count wasn't eclipsed by either Jane or Elizabeth. With his strength and speed, the aftermath of his assault looked less like a human's doing and that of a meteoric field.

Liam in the south was the least destructive to the environment as he primarily used his Understanding of Space to launch waves of compressed spatial blades. His approach, while being the least destructive, was arguably the most brutal as it left dismembered corpses littering the landscape before him, whereas the others at least completely annihilated their enemies. His path was the bloodiest by far.

Then, there was Tristan. As the only other Core Formation Stage individual aside from Elizabeth, it struck Xiang Moxie as odd when she didn't find him fighting at all. However, after closely evaluating his every move, she had solemnly taken him into consideration as yet another absurd anomaly amongst Earth's forces as his style of combat was strikingly similar to hers.

Tristan was by all accounts a specialist of the soul. Apparently, the only one among the group as Elizabeth was an allrounder, Jane focused on energy, Sun on physical strength, with Liam in between. Tristan didn't bother to waste an iota of Soul Force on the sub-Core Level fodder; instead, he launched assassination after assassination against only the highest Core Level Vymaous he could find, darting around his fellow peers' seemingly agreed-upon territories.

"You dare attack this early?" A gruff masculine voice boomed in everyone's ears from all directions.

"Ah, a challenge," Elizabeth nonchalantly said as she teleported away from an ambush concealed in warped space.

"As expected of our target," the voice returned. With palpable annoyance, a new type of Opal Devil emerged from the void, identified as the source of the voice as it continued, "You seem to be the most capable of the bunch."

[Status

Name: Unknown

Level: 56

Rank: Single Nascent Cultivator

Affection Rating: Irreconcilable Enemies

Description: Descending from a highly pure Opal Devil Bloodline, this Ancestor Opal Devil Duke has reached the height of his talent.]

"Hmm," Elizabeth raised a hand to her chin as she leaned in and verbally considered, "A normal Nascent Stage Opal Devil? I wonder how you compare to Moxie."

As five of her Dark Thunder Annihilation projectiles still remained hovering around her, Elizabeth fused and loaded them into her Magnolia Blood Armament after it reverted its transformation from Vadis.

After another teleportation, she had the pistol pointed right at the Ancestor Duke's chest at point-blank range before she pulled the trigger.

Boom!

A Super Blood Moon explosion normally would have been hazardous even for Core Refinement Stage Cultivators as it left a concentrated death zone for kilometers without end. However, as the energies that went into creating the Dark Thunder Annihilation Projectiles came from Elizabeth, the persistent miasma of gaseous Dark, Thunder, and Grandmist energies might as well have been colored winds to her.

"Bit of overkill, no?" Jane asked through voice transmission.

When the dust finally settled, it was revealed that not even the Peak Core Grade Artifacts and Armaments on the Ancestor Duke's body remained. Aside from Elizabeth, everything in a several-kilometer-wide bubble seemed to have been atomized.

"If I had known his Understanding of Energies was that poor, I wouldn't have wasted a fused Dark Thunder Annihilation bullet on him," Elizabeth regrettably retorted.

Unlike Xiang Moxie, the felled Ancestor Opal Devil Duke wasn't even able to dodge under Elizabeth's combined Grandmist, Space, and Spacetime Pressures. Had she known it would be so easy to land a hit, she wouldn't have wasted such precious ammunition.