Chapter 18-465: Fiery Consequences (2/2)

Sama was in charge of the chasers.

The undead could only run, which made them totally vulnerable to sniping. Furthermore, there weren’t all that many openings in the walls that repeated every couple hundred meters or more, staggered endlessly across the miles. The undead would form running steps, those in front stopping to form steps or ladders for those behind, done so smoothly it looked like a movie clip as they bent down atop one another, or the largest ones stretched out and formed unmoving ramps as other undead raced over them.

Those were just clusters and places to Kill Them All to us.

Sama was moving at speed, outrunning the undead who, although tireless, couldn’t sprint, and although quicker than a normal human with their Corpsecrafted energy, didn’t have lightfoot.

More importantly, they couldn’t outrun a bullet, arrow, or spell.

We had Teleported in a mere ten miles from the edge of the new Deadzone, deployed across a fifty-mile front, and we were going to kill absolutely everything now on its way back to that Deadzone across that arc, and chase down everything between us and it.

Constructs were big blinking lights that the Melees turned to address, Forsaken who could use Baneskulls and Slaughter with two active Banes taking the lead in getting rid of them.

There was a lot of Reserve Casting and Sieged magic going off, the occasional Cast spell used for finishing blows or to soften something up from range. Kickers were blazing with additional damage, and there was nonstop death raining down from the skies as we chased, caught, killed, and kept chasing.

I was dominating and clearing a huge area in the middle because I could, exploding undead erupting beneath me and around me as I flew past. Those ramps of undead clearing the walls were just convenient focuses for Bursting Shards, turning into new pyres of undead, and the bigger Bone Walkers and Corpse Gargants and similar things made from agglomerated long-dead were just nice big fat targets.

Pointedly, there was nothing at all incorporeal surviving within my range, and I was flying fast, looking to kill as many incorps as I could, leaving the hapless undead on the ground for those slower and without the raw killing energy I wielded.

Lightfooters sped through and past the undead, striking them down, moving from Construct to Construct to hack them apart as Sama called targets across a massive area with ease and aplomb. They brought down Gunsleds, Tanks, A-A Guns, and Gunpoints, as well as sorted out the cogmen, gearhounds, and other mechanical things that were watching all this undead activity without comprehension, but still obeyed their orders to attack the living and defend themselves.

Behind us, the undead were running between lines of the living, and dying from the combination of Cleaves and Attacks of Opportunity generated by either running past waiting defenders, or charging a ready person. The bigger and tougher stuff was softened up on the approach as it was painted in higher colors, and generally didn’t reach the Melee lines too intact. The stuff that made it past the spread-out men ended up as target practice for the clean-up shooters on overwatch.

Briggs was right there in the fighting, but he was ‘ahead’ of the line, out in the oncoming undead, pounding his way through them like a boat through the surf. Endure was moving so fast all you saw was burning undead flying away about him and the Hammer flickering on one side, then the other of him. He was moving from one tough undead to the next with speed and precision, making sure mass didn’t break the line in his area, totally unworried about being swarmed and overwhelmed.

The undead couldn’t stop to pile onto him; they had to keep moving, see.

Sama was racing from Construct to Construct, treating them like breakable toys, and if that involved flipping a tank over on its side so Tremble could scream along its underside and set necroic-Possessed steel alight, that’s what she happily did.

The undead did shoot their necroarms if we got ahead of them, and some could shoot on the run, too, although it was kind of hard.

I had a full Bullet Ward and Protection from Missiles going on around me, just in case, although I actually wasn’t worried. I had enough immaterial defenses around me that bullets basically flew in every direction except straight at me most of the time. Furthermore, I was really hard to see and didn’t stay in line of sight long... nor did I leave many shooters behind me to take shots at me, as I prioritized getting rid of them.

Still, it was the incorps who were my main targets, and they naturally moved faster than the undead on the ground. I did, too, quickly outpacing most of the attack line as I ravaged the lines of undead below and around me, pressing forwards to catch up to the undead who weren’t fleeing from me and the True Death I was bringing and the vivus in the air and the shaking air lighting up with anathemic Light and all the stars and moonlight pouring down from above...

No, no, they were just trying to move as quickly as possible because they had to, yuppers.

The ten miles to the new Deadzone passed in only ten minutes for me. Nobody tried to pace me... the job was to kill everything they could, not race on ahead. Even Legion and Shvuaghn were doing Firewall Sweeps through undead ramps, not bothering to keep up with me, fully aware that in eradication of areas, I was pretty much the Empress and it wasn’t worth even talking about.

Of course, right there at the edge of the Deadzone, the undead ran into another problem, and that was the fact that there was a massive amount of them already built up right there at the edge. As in, all those retreating undead slowed down and kind of stopped once they got inside the required area, while other undead from deeper in were advancing to the edge to meet them. The slow relay of what was going on went in for hundreds of miles from dead to Congregant to Minister to Bishop to Cardinals to the Hierophant Shroudlord, and then slowly came back with new orders on what to do.

In the meantime, I hit that line of defense with quite literally everything I could, since it was literally PACKED with targets.

Widened Pyroclasms went out, and circles a thousand feet across were emptied of the chaff undead. One volley of Shards arced between the Congregants on the ground who survived that spell, and another one between all the incorps in the sky, who, all being Congregants, also survived the simple explosion of fire that absolutely eradicated tens of thousands of extremely tough Corpsecrafted and enhanced undead who nevertheless couldn’t survive the sheer amount of Kickers I had on my spells.

Then I Linejumped a thousand feet north and repeated the process.