258 Field testing 2

Standing in the middle of a desolate plaza, a creature which defied all logic was busy devouring a tower made out of flesh eating fungus and the former residents of the city. The elder (as its kind had been named by the less intelligent beings of the planet) was an amalgamation of constantly decaying flesh and tentacles, cybernetic implants and strange rune formations which pulsed in different colours while it continued to devour the pile of flesh as something entered its sphere of detection. Collecting a mass of its slithering tentacles, the elder pointed towards the general direction of the annoyances, the elder formulated its spell and prepared to erase them all, but then they completely disappeared, then a fraction of a second later some sort of projectile tore right through several buildings before tearing straight through the elder's defensive barrier, carving out a large part of its flesh.

[Good effect on target, starting the cooling cycle.]

Observing the impact through a drone downlink, Phillipa was already in the progress of relocating while cooling down her rifle, suddenly switching over from her full on sprint to a slide as the elder's 'annihilating ray' passed right over her head.

[I need cover!]

[On it.]

As the elder once more targeted Phillipa something strange happened. First, a series of strong gravitational waves tore through the deserted city, cracking glass and collapsing buildings, then a split second later the elder was caught in a gravity field unable to move.

[Signature locked, incoming.]

[IMI CONFIRMS: TWO STAGE GRAVITATIONAL COMPRESSION SCRIPT ONLINE, DISPERSING TARGET.]

With a sudden generation of negative gravity in the centre of the elder, its ridiculously sturdy body was torn in large chunks before the second part of Dax's spell was enacted.

[DISPERSION CONFIRMED, NOW ANNIHILATING TARGET.]

While Dax closed his fist, the elder how had been ripped apart only a fraction of a second ago was now violently compressed, the sound of bones getting ground up was clearly audible even several city blocks away as the 5 metre tall creature was compressed down to the size of a basketball.

[That won't kill it! Phi hit it again!]

Having fought the elders numerous times already, Dax knew full well that the creature was absurdly tenacious, simply getting torn apart and compressed with over 50 G's of force was not enough to kill it, at most Dax had just made it angrier than it already was.

But still, Dax had managed to keep the elder from targeting Phillipa while she waited for her Lazarus type 19 mana powered anti barrier rifle to cool down.

(Eat this, you fucking freak.)

[Looks like we really pissed it of… Change manoeuvre pattern, go to delta 5.]

Taking full advantage of the newly created sightlines, Dax popped out of cover without even looking in the direction of the elder as he fired his flechette launcher. Unfortunately, the elder clearly saw the projectile coming, forcing Dax to detonate the shell early

But that was still within the margin or error.

As the elder was showered in fragments which jammed its protective barrier and temporarily blinded it, Lux who had so far been waiting for her chance sprung into action. Taking advantage of the short window where the elder's barrier was down, Lux collected mana into her legs, stomping the left one it into the ground, creating a shockwave which cracked apart the cobblestone next to her before it shot off towards the elder like a hail of buckshot from a shotgun while the wave of mana which spread out when her right foot hit the ground created ramp right in front of her that she jumped from, closing on on the elder as attitude control thrusters on her 5th generation manatech amour lit up and steered her past one of the elder's tentacles which had been aiming for her.

"You're mine, shitface!"

Cleaving down and to the left using her brand new sword, Lux barely felt any resistance as she cut through the elder's body and severed a large chunk of its tentacles at the same time as another one of Phillipa's shoots whizzed right past her head, nailing the elder's core once more while Lux landed on the other side of the elder while collecting a large amount of mana in her free hand which she was currently pointed at the elder.

"Now do me a favour and die!"

Clearly sensing danger from the amount of mana Lux had just generated, the elder hastily formed a defensive barrier which only managed to cover the direction Lux was in, but of course, Lux had already predicted that.

"Psyche~"

(Reading too much into the moves of your opponent is a clear sign of a rank amateur. Well, when you're basically immortal and invincible at the same time, the basics would rust somewhat... )

Instead of an offensive spell, Lux created a dome of golden crystals which surrounded the elder, leaving only a single small gap on the opposed side of the elder right as Dax emerged out of cover once more. Hitting the figurative and literal bullseye, the 50 millimetre flechette round detonated using its impact fuse, lighting up with enough force to level an entire city block, with all of the explosive force being contained within the barrier Lux had created.

[Good effect on primary target, let's keep going just like that.]

-

"... That's pretty brutal."

"I believe 'effective' would a better word in this situation, although its nothing out of the ordinary considering that those three are working together."

"To begin with that 'elder' thing never stood a chance, I just hope they leave enough of its corpse for us to analyse."

Watching the fight (read: execution) from Kingstead trough satellite feed, Alice, Lilly and Solaris witnessed the truly awesome power of the three hellwalkers could display when they were working together. Of course, this was nothing new for Ra and Mu, who had seen this song and dance (read: slaughter) before, more times than the two of them even bothered to count in fact.

"What surprises me the most is the fact that it has taken this long for Dax to kill one of those 'elders', looking at what has happened here before we arrived I find it strange has yet to wipe them out entirely…"

"That's easy enough for you to say... Besides, what the hell is that amour? It seems to be endlessly creating mana out of thin air."

Having watched the fight for a bit while she recognized some of the spell structures Dax was using, Solaris saw no possible explanation for what she was seeing other than mana being created on demand every single time Dax used a spell.

"That's right Solaris~ Dax's suit is able to replicate the exact circumstances under which mana is created deep within this planet, thus allowing this gift granting, omnipotent extra dimensional particle to be to invade this plane of existence on demand with only a relatively tiny amount of heat as a byproduct~"

Hearing Mu's explanation Solaris found herself at a momentary loss for words, Ra and Mu had not even been here for a week and after such a short amount of time, they had managed to bend mana to their control multiple magnitudes more effectively than the 25 archangel sanctuaries had managed in the roughly 10.000 years since the great calamity, even more fightingly the two Avoaxians seemed to have a perfect understanding of mana, they knew how it was created and where precisely it came from.

"You two really are scary…"

Stating her honest opinion, Solaris caught Mu off guard, but she quickly recovered to her usual smiling self.

"That's because this is what our race was made for, as such I take those words as a compliment."

"Made for?"

Seeing that Solaris was confused by that statement, together with Alice and Lilly that had both been listening in, Mu realized she had forgotten to explain what exactly she and her sister was.

"Ah, we never told you guys huh? Ra and I are Avoaxians, we're a race made by the same ancients forerunners that made the qitons, Dax's and Phillipa's race. While the qiton's are a race specialized for warfare, we Avoaxians are specialized for research and understanding knowledge, that's why we're Dax's 'sisters'."

-

[Hit it again!]

[Still charging, stand by.]

After trapping the elder inside Lux's barrier Dax had shot explosive round after explosive round into the barrier with no apparent effect, if anything it was only making the elder struggle even more as it trashed to escape from its enclosure which doubled as a kill zone.

[The barrier is breaking, spread out!]

[Go to redeployment, 44 03.]

While Phillipa and Lux scattered away from the elder, Dax crouched down and smashed his fist into the ground, injecting a large amount of mana into the ground which created a miniature earthquake while a series of 30 metre tall, 5 metres thick walls created a truly massive, city wide labyrinth. Right as the final walls had risen into the sky, the elder finally broke out of its prison, screaming out in fury with its inhumane voice. While the elder had finally managed to escape from the barrier, it was far from unharmed. Bleeding black goo all over the place, the elder had lost most of its mass initial and tentacles and something which started looking like a core of the creature had started becoming visible at the centre of its decaying body.

".... CzzzzqzOOOOoooOoRRRRre!…. NfffffkkseeeEEEEEeeee! EEDDDDDDDDDDDDzzzz!!!"

With its greatly reduced mass, the elder took a vaguely humanoid form with several heads, 2 torsos, 7 arms and legs made of slithering tentacles as a creepy looking two handed, heavily chipped sword emerged out of a red glow coming from its body.

[Oh fuck.]

Looking at the elder's sword which was filled with cybernetic components as well as complicated runes, Dax felt a cold sweat break out on his back.

[Dax do you know what that is?]

[Yeah, I was hit with a sword like that a while ago, after getting hit by it something started taking over my body, I had to run the connection to my body through ICI just to move and even that technique quickly started becoming ineffective. I do not recommend getting hit by that thing.]

[That sounds pleasant.]