Chapter 476: Sowing Discord (1/2)
”How do things look with the Undead Incursion?” Zac asked after making sure that another molten ball wasn't coming their way. ”Have you found out how long until it activates?”
”... The array has already been activated,” the demon said after a brief hesitation. ”Half the sky of the main continent is reportedly covered with a green array.”
”WHAT?!” Zac almost roared, his eyes widening with shock. ”Since when?”
”Four days ago,” the demon sighed. ”But it is not converting the world as of yet, it is currently drawing energy from the planet. Your sister and the human champions have worked hard to slow it down for your return, but I am not sure how much time there is left. Lady Atwood will likely know more.”
“Ok, where is my sister right now?” Zac asked, his mind reeling after getting bombarded by a series of unwelcome news the past hour.
His miscalculation of the time he had remaining had caused massive repercussions for Earth, and he couldn't help but feel ashamed when he thought back to his meeting with Thea just before leaving for the tower. He could only pray that he had returned in time to set things right.
“She is fighting at Azh’Rodum,” Harvath said. “She is holding the invaders back with your swarm of flying machines.”
“My machines?” Zac repeated with confusion before he remembered the drones.
She had actually gained control of the drone swarms, which Zac guessed wasn’t surprising considering Jeeves. Some fear flickered in his heart, but he knew he couldn’t blame her for taking them out. If now was not the time to use it, then when? But another point of confusion suddenly entered his mind.
“Wait, Azh’Rodum? What are they doing so far inland?” Zac asked with a frown.
“We don’t know. They first tried bombarding us from a distance where we couldn’t retaliate, but our shields were too strong for those attacks. So two ships stayed outside this town while they prepared for a siege, while the largest ship sailed north,” the demon captain explained. “We believe they might be targeting the Vein through the mine.”
”Who went with her?” Zac asked.
”Most of the Valkyries, along with Ilvere and a squad of E-Grade demons. Azh'Rodum is not as strongly defended, and it is the gateway to the Nexus Vein, so most of our elites went there. Our task here is simply to hold out until you and the young lord returned, or until the threat inland was averted. The young master... Is he here?” Harvath asked as he looked around.
”Ogras is still in the Tower of Eternity, he is fine. I got a prompt that Port Atwood was under attack so I immediately returned. Ogras will return a bit later after he has dealt with some matters over there,” Zac explained as his mind went over the details.
Some things didn't make sense. His force had been in combat for over a day. Why hadn’t the system warned him? He also suddenly remembered the spike in levels for Thea and Billy roughly twelve hours ago in real-time.
”Are Billy and Thea on the island?” Zac asked.
”Yes, it was only thanks to them we managed to sink one of the ships before we were pushed back,” Harvath nodded, some respect shining in his eyes. ”They are currently on bed-rest. Janos had to hypnotize the big one to prevent him from running out and bashing the invaders with that nasty club of his. They will be fine in a week or two.”
Zac sighed in relief when hearing those two were fine. It looked like they actually had risked their lives to protect his people. But it made him all-the-more confused why the alert had only warned him just now.
“Did something change a few minutes ago?” Zac suddenly asked.
“A few minutes ago?” the demon repeated. “Nothing special has happened except our communications being blocked. They did also start shooting those massive balls at our shield recently. We can't see them any longer because of the flames, but the zealots set up large siege tools some distance from here.”
Zac slowly nodded in understanding. It seemed that the System only gave out a warning at the last moment, which was a valuable piece of information. He couldn’t rely on the System as a warning call to protect his home. This time he was lucky enough to be able to get back to town almost instantly, but that wouldn't always be the case.
He really needed to erect a more permanent protection that would withstand any threat on Earth.
”I can't see anything in front of me, what are they doing on the other side of the flames?” Zac finally asked.
”Our vision has been blocked for a while now as well. It's almost exclusively the Cultists who have set up camp outside. We received a report that the situation is almost the opposite at Azh'Rodum before we lost contact. There's almost only undead warriors up there.”
“I’ll deal with the attackers here before heading to Azh’Rodum,” Zac said. ”Try to find out if they've erected some sort of array anywhere. We need to break the arrays blocking our communications.”
With that, he simply jumped out from the wall and landed in a sea of flames that rose over a dozen meters into the air. He had just jumped twenty meters or so, but his vision was completely blocked in both directions, and he was forced to activate the Fragment of the coffin to not get burnt. A thought suddenly struck him and his Specialty Core activated.
The undead and the cultists might be working together on the surface, but things weren't very harmonious from the sound of it. Perhaps he could cause some confusion within their ranks with his alternate form while also letting his Hatchetman class rest for a bit. Both the main skills of Hatchetman were on cool-down, after all, along with [Hatchetman's Rage].
Granted, he was still pretty confident at defeating this army even with Hatchetman in a weakened state. His power had almost doubled in the ten short days since he left Earth, while the Invaders still should have some small restrictions to their power. Not only that, but he had also gone through all sorts of life-and-death encounters, sharpening his skills to the utmost.