Chapter 50

An aerial battle was taking place high above the city. There were flashes lights above the mountain and gun fires coming from magitech ships. Each time the great obelisk glowed, a beam of light shot out from one of the stone statues surrounding the temple.

Oftentimes magitech ships would block the light beams with barriers, but occasionally, one would come crashing down after an explosion.

I couldn't tell who was winning from afar but debris were falling through the clouds and cannon blasts were landing on the barrier covering the mountain. Still, the barrier stood unwavering. This was the secondary barrier, of course.

Winged beasts were also giving those smaller magitech airships quite the hard time. They simply couldn't outmaneuver the winged beasts zipping around. In any case, those winged beasts probably had outstanding abilities and traits to perform such feats. They were too far to see clearly so I couldn't check their status or anything. If I had to guess, they were at least level 40 and above, and since I was told they were elites, perhaps level 50 and above.

To think they are actually capable at fighting unlike those moles...

At the same time, a grand battle was also taking place outside of the city. Three rows of heavy tanks laid siege on the city of Vera. Actually, the tanks I had destroyed underground were more like armored vehicles compared to these ones. These heavy tanks had single long barrels and the main body was twice the size. From just a visual estimate, there were only about thirty of these metallic beasts on the battlefield. Given how slowly they moved, they were likely transported via underground tunnels and only driven onto the surface not long ago.

Aren't they overdoing this a bit? Are there any beastfolks or fey beings capable of destroying even one of them? This is a bit harsh, isn't it?

Supporting these heavy tanks were mostly regular soldiers. They were equipped with rifles, bows, or crossbows and took cover behind the heavy tanks as they inched closer to the city wall. Barrages from cannons and ballista barely dented the tanks. Soldiers who weren't able to hide behind tanks laid low in ditches resulted from collapsed shallow tunnels.

In addition to heavy tanks, there were also at least a hundred regular tanks, the same ones I saw in the underground tunnels earlier. These ones weren't as imperishable as those heavy tanks. Two cannon shots when aimed at their vulnerable points would destroy them.

The strange part was that there was no air support for either side. Two dimensional battles were simpler anyway. It seemed everyone capable of aerial battle were pre-occupied. Or perhaps, the magitech airships were from the reptilians and they had no plan to directly assist the humans.

Either way, the situation was looking very bad.

I have to do something about these tanks before the city defense completely fails. The beastfolk soldiers probably have their hands full fighting in the tunnels under the city as well.

Should I try using poisonous gas right now? Ehh...

The tanks often had to go around these depressions or sink holes caused by collapsed tunnels. If they fell into one of them, they would be rendered inoperable. And as I made that observation, one tank fell through. Apparently, someone had collapsed a tunnel beneath it. Either that or the tank was too heavy to be supporting structures.

One down.

Right now, I was laying low within an area with tall grasses. Trees were few and sparse in between which was why the tanks were able to pass without much issues.

Most of this region had my clones spread out. Even when they were crushed, they wouldn't die easily.

Alright, let's give it a try. Let's hope rain doesn't come too soon. I would hate that if they got washed.

Since I knew where my clones were, I instructed the ones near the enemy forces to produce huge amounts of poisonous gases. Should the gases be too heavy, they would seep into the tunnels through collapsed tunnels before spreading further. And, since I had |enhanced resistances| trait, there was no complications for me.  

Unleash the poison! Mwuahahahaha!

I shouted gleefully in my mind.

Ideally I wanted to use [absorption] on all the pitiful victims but that was too risky. If lucky, that |reaper| trait might claim some spiritual stats. I never asked how efficient this trait was but it shouldn't be more efficient than [absorption], right? In the first place, poison should have negated most if not all of |reaper| trait. 

Wait a second, wait a second!

A brilliant idea just came to me.

What if I release beneficial gases, like aromatic scents? Which I don't think I have. Then, |reaper| would work overtime to gather those delicious spiritual stats for me.

Hmmm... Then again, I don't know the efficiency of it. Never mind, it's too complicated. Back to the poison!

Instead of worrying about useless things, I headed towards the nearest hidden entrance into an underground location noted on the maps. They couldn't possibly have broken into all them used for the magic formations. Not all of these locations were connected, at least not directly.

My job was only to clear out the enemies as much as I could.

I was small and some good distance away from the main battleground. No one paid attention to the nimble me.

After pressing two hidden pressure plates, an entrance opened. Upon entering, I carefully closed it so others wouldn't discover this place.

The stairway was long and narrow, descending at least twenty meters below ground. The interior of this place was dimly illuminated with magic crystals. These were the standard crystals that continuously shone as long as even a tiny bit of mana was present.

Quite the useful tool I must say.

It was as if I was exploring an ancient ruin made of stones. At the bottom of the stairs, I touched a pressure plate on the wall and inserted a bit of my mana to open a sliding stone door.

My goodness, I don't have time for this kind of stuff.

As I continued down various passages, and passing through a few hidden doors, I prepared my poison darts for the incoming solo battle. There was no doubt in my mind that I was considered and treated as an elite soldier!

Voices could be heard and ground trembled from moving mechanical gears below where I was. Normally, I remained hovering or flying but sometimes it was hard to tell where the enemies were so I had to feel the vibrations with my body.

This maze looks annoying on map. It's more annoying to be in it in person. Ugh! Those beastfolks had too much spare time to be able to prepare something sophisticated like this.  

Really though, even with a map, some people would get lost in it. For example, there were unsuspecting soldiers in the next room on the other side of this hidden door that I was about to pass through. Whether they were friend or foe, I didn't know but I was prepared. Poisonous needles and darts were on the ready.

I pushed a pressure plate next to the wall.  

Kuhhh. As it was sliding open, I quickly snuck through.

Humans.

In a flash, I silenced them with lethal doses of poison before they could ready themselves for a counterattack. There weren't that many of them and it looked like they were just exploring this place. Only two of them had magitech rifles equipped while others had swords.

"Huh, this rifle doesn't need a mana core, does it? A different model? It kind of look like one used by that hunter."

I looked around but couldn't find a mana core anywhere. However, there was a crystal installed in the rifles that worked similar like the magic crystals used for lighting. It absorbed mana from the surrounding and converted into small bursts of energy. I tested it a bit after temporarily returning to my original size. The result noted was that the penetrative power was weak.

Useless. I guess I'll loot these crystals.

After using [absorption] on their remains and the magic crystals, I followed the path where the soldiers came from. Luckily, they didn't bother closing any doors as they explored. This made things a bit easier for me to trace their paths back to their starting point. It took me some time, but eventually I managed to reach a vast circular tunnel. At the centre was a railroad track and to my right came a familiar humming noise. From what I could tell, this tunnel was definitely wide enough for those heavy tanks to be transported.

Anyway, I kept to the side and headed toward where the noise was coming from. Soldiers came either on foot or on small carts that ran on the railroad powered by mana cores. Whenever I saw one, I followed the usual protocol.

Free mana cores! Why not?

Along the tunnel, there were also doorways connected to parallel tunnels.

I don't know how long I've been down here but I seriously need to reach the enemy camp...

At the end of this tunnel was a huge tunnel boring machine. No surprise there. Back in my previous world, I had seen these types being used everywhere. Well, not personally up close. They simply weren't operated by people unlike the ones in this world. Here, the debris from the tunnel digging were used to pave a flat bottom to allow railroad to be set. Remaining debris were being carried by those carts to some distant location and possibly adjacent tunnels.

The whole tunnel digging procedure was actually fairly quiet since they likely used magic to prevent the likelihood of being detected by the beastfolks.

Time to cause some damages. I don't know how far this one is going, but if more of these penetrate or get too close to the inner city, we're done.

Thankfully, these machines here seemed were fairly simple in design. Simple sabotage work should be easy for me.