Chapter 216: Day 505 (2) – Sky Worms

Chapter 216: Day 505 (2) – Sky Worms

I began to make out the monsters in more detail. Segmented gray and red worms about twice the height of a human, with spikes coming off their backs, pincers at the front like an ant for their mouth with a circular maw of teeth, bat wings, and a wicked looking double edged blade at the end of their tail. There were ten of them and they gave off the impression of a level 4 monster.

You don’t look like something out of a nightmare without being a level 4 monster. It was a small thing I noted, that the monster types had moved from more animal types to more crazy things at level 4. Flying worms, this was going to be unpleasant

“The City Shield?” The General asked me. I shook my head.

“I want to see their attacks before and after. Once they launch their first attacks, activate it. Everyone give me room,” I said. Clarissa was already moving with her cluster of guards back to my house. The General nodded at me and moved away with his command staff. A lot of the nearby soldiers gave me room as I stood in the middle of the store pillars with Naran.

The monsters were rapidly closing in on the plaza. What was their behavior? Would they go after the strongest, weakest? Or some other priority targeting?

The flying worms broke formation to spread out, just above the height of the Airship Port, which was ten stories tall. A volley of arrows was fired from the top of the Airship Port at one of the monster worms. It spun in the air and the arrows were scattered away from it. Some sort of air defense skill.The debut release of this chapter happened at Ñòv€l-B1n.

Two worms came in at the flanks of the Airship Port. It was fast what happened next, the worms bloated up and burst of air was shot out of their mouths. From what I could make out from the plaza, the balls of airs burst apart into blades. Body parts of the archers were scattered about, along with debris from the building. Pained screams sounded out.

A few seconds later a hum sounded out from everywhere, all at once. I could feel in my very bones began to rise up across the city. From how uncomfortable the soldiers appeared it wasn’t just me. I felt like the air was being sucked right out of my chest as the city lost color. Everything moved into grayscale and the hum disappeared.

A massive glowing white dome surrounded the city, stretching far up into the air. While I could recover my breath and the feeling went away, the monsters were much more heavily affected, losing speed, dropping down closer to the ground. Their red bands, ribs, body structure, was still red. Another data point to contemplate later. Now I needed to figure out how to kill them.

A few more fired off air bursts, but the power was less than what it had been on top of the tower. Instead of killing multiple people at once, people were shredded apart one at time. I noted the summons that had been prepared had all dusted when the city shield activated.

I could hear pained screams not that I focused on it, from where the summoners were at. Note to self, the City Shield doesn’t play nicely with summons. I kicked off the ground to the side and back to my original position, confirming that I hadn’t been affected beyond the initial activation of the City Shield. I was fine and unaffected apart from the world losing color.

One of the monsters came swooping down at me. I bent my legs. “Straight up!” I called to Naran. This was the only move we had practiced for aerial battles to gain height. He was racing in front of me. I leapt up. Naran leapt up after, underneath me. I went up about two stories, when his shoulder’s hit my feet. I bent my legs and jumped off him to gain more height.

The flying worm was about twenty feet from me, or six meters. The worm expanded in preparation for its attack. “Air Burst.” I dodged mid-air as it fired its attack at me. Acid Shot x2.

The worms tried to spin, but it was too late. Some of the acid hit it. While its spin did send a much of my attack back outwards, the amount that had gotten through ruined its wings. The monster plummeted to the ground.

“BEHIND!” I heard Naran shout. I noted another monster moving in below me at an angle as well, cutting off that direction of escape. My hands were quickly making the hand signs needed. My long hours of practicing them paying off, since I didn’t have to think about activating the skill, only my direction.

“You were right,” she said. I tried to wave my hand to indicate that it didn’t matter, but just wiggled my bleeding stump splattering her with blood accidentally. Oops. She just calmly wiped the blood off her face. Naran raced into the building as it shook again. I got a mental alert the building was taking damage. Thank you for the obvious Almighty System.

“You alright?” Naran asked. I had dropped my arm in the plaza when I had been hit by the air burst attack. I held back from making a joke about needing a hand. He really wanted to know if I was combat capable.

“Not really. Going to need a regeneration. What is the monster count?” I asked.

“Three dead, two wounded with arrows and force bombs, five no injuries,” Naran said. Better than I thought, but much worse that I was hoping for. I had downed the one Naran had killed. I killed a second a the cost of my arm. The third was lured to the ground by me and Naran killed the monster with wicked sword swing.

He took two swords from a guard. At least he put one blade in a sheathe at his side and didn’t try to duel wield. Dual wielding was impractical, even with a high Body stat. One could easily be out of position and not have the right angle or leverage. Also had to be sure not to accidentally collide the blades. It was a technique that required a lot of practice, not something to use on a whim.

The building shook again. The wall near the doorway began to crumble. I could see the fear on everyone’s face, even Clarissa who was frowning. Welcome to the joy of level 4 monsters.

“Cover my back, I am racing for the pillars,” I said. There really wasn’t another option as my stump continued to bleed. I needed to hurry up. I had about 200 energy to work with at the moment. Damn, it hurt. I wiped my tears away with my left hand, not accidentally trying to use my bloody stump again.

“Got it,” Naran said. I nodded at him and then raced out of the building as it shook again.

There were three worm monsters swooping about in front of my home. I zig zag and put eyes on the other four. One of them broke off to chase after me. There was screaming and shouting coming from all over. The bell had stopped ringing.

I noted General Smith come out of the RMPF HQ across the plaza with several people who appeared to be familiar. That clever man, he was earning his salary. I had thought these people were at the gates, but he had kept them back at the plaza.

That was smart. The walls and gates could hold for a bit, and he could direct all his firepower to those areas directly from the plaza. A land based attack might only come from direction and there already people at each gate. It hadn’t been known that the City Shield would impact summons, so it made sense to keep the firepower back in reserve where the communication hub was located.

I altered my trajectory towards the group, still zig zagging. All four people in front of the General acted at the same time. Motes of light began to gather.

“Radiant Beam!”

“Radiant Beam!”

“Radiant Beam!”

“Radiant Beam!”