142 Chapter 142: The Northern Fortress (2/2)
The officers weren't the only ones talking. I could overhear the common rank and file soldiers chatting to each other, trying to ease themselves before the big fight. Even though they knew most of them wouldn't survive this conflict, they were still trying to keep the atmosphere light-hearted, bantering and bragging to each other.
What interested me wasn't the details of their banter, however, but the intelligence I could gather. So the monsters were all coming from the north, and they were clumped up together in a single mass. That sounded pretty…
…good.
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An idea forming in my head, I hurried toward the northern portion of the base. None of the soldiers were paying any attention to me. Why would they? They dismissed me as a civilian, and one of the sergeants even called out to me as I strode past him.
”Hey, kid! The evacuation is that way! Hurry up! The transports are leaving!”
”Sorry, sarge! I forgot something!”
As he had no authority over me, the sergeant couldn't order me to leave my stuff behind, and he shook his head with a sigh, relenting. I nodded my thanks and continued toward the northern section of the camp, where several towers stood proudly. Summoning Cygnus, I soared to the highest building and landed on its rooftop, getting a bird's eye view of the approaching monsters.
The soldiers were right. A massed horde of monsters clustered together in a single coherent formation, all marching forward toward a particular destination. I didn't know if the fortress was their goal, but they were certainly headed in our direction.
And after they took the military camp, they would most likely proceed onward in a straight line. Doing a 180, I saw the familiar silhouette of Jing Tian City in the distance.
”Don't tell me their destination is Jing Tian City?”
Pushing up my glasses as I turned around to study the monsters, I noted that they were still some distance away. At their current speed, they would reach us in forty-five minutes, maybe forty.
Good. More than enough time.
”Scorpio.”
Summoning my Constellation spirit, I had him perch on the rooftop. Grinning, I jabbed a finger at the approaching horde of monsters.
”Start casting Antares. We're going to give them a nasty surprise.”
Scorpio nodded, and his stinger began gathering massive amounts of mana. Without any monsters to attack me at the moment, I could help Scorpio cast his spell undisturbed, and within fifteen minutes, it was done. Glancing at the immense amount of mana accumulated at the front of his stinger, I nodded in satisfaction.
”All right, Scorpio! Fire off the Antares! Annihilate that monster horde!”
Scorpio acknowledged with a cheerful nod, his mental acknowledgement pinging the back of my mind. Shifting around to gain an optimal angle, he pointed his stinger toward the center of the approaching horde of three thousand monsters and unleashed the red, purple and bluish-white ball of mana into a single tremendous torrent of destructive energy that seared through the military camp, leaving a scorched trail in the forest, before slamming into the middle of the monster army.
The entire horde vanished in a gigantic explosion. A mushroom cloud billowed upward, expanding ravenously as it swallowed up shrieking and roaring monsters, incinerating them instantly. Stretching to about three miles wide in diameter, it mercilessly devoured every trace of the monster horde, wiping them out in a colossal conflagration that left a molten crater in the forest.
The monster horde as well as the forest they were traversing simply ceased to exist.
”HOLY FUCK!”
”What the hell?!”
”What's going on!?”
Below, the soldiers were making a ruckus when they saw the monster horde obliterated from a single spell. Granted, it was a spell of mass destruction that took an ungodly amount of time to cast, but its effects were sure and true. There was no trace of even the three rank B monsters that commanded the army of terrifying creatures bent on invading Jing Tian City and slaughtering it.
”Did you see that?!”
”Where did that spell come from?!”
”Who cast it!?”
Whoops. Time to go. I was about to turn and jump off the tower and into a waiting Cygnus when someone appeared right in front of me.
”It was you, huh?”
He was a military officer. Spotting the star epaulet on his uniform, I could guess that he was a general, the overall commander of the Northern Fortress. A second later, a few colonels and majors joined him, their weapons at the ready, but the general raised his hand and had them lower their weapons.
”You are…that kid from Jing Tian Academy.”
I gulped. ”Yes, sir.”
He sighed and scratched his head, turning to survey the massive destruction I had wrought, then turned to me.
”Don't get me wrong, kid. I'm grateful to you, but…next time you fire off a nuke from the premises of my base, could you at least let me know beforehand?”
”…will do, sir.” If there was a next time, that is. I sincerely hoped there wouldn't. It certainly wasn't fun to have a horde of thousands of high ranking monsters marching toward your city everyday. ”Um…do you mind if I leave now?”
”Hmm…”
The general stared at me intently, stroking his chin. Then he grinned.
”Before that, do you mind writing a report? I need to submit something to my bosses, after all.” He grimaced. ”I don't know if they're going to just accept that a kid not under my command just nuke an entire army of three thousand monsters into oblivion.”
”…right.”
”Colonel Tai, help the kid write his report.”
A colonel standing next to the general snapped off a salute.
”Yes, sir!” he then turned toward me. ”If you don't mind following me to my office we can get started immediately.”
Left without much of a choice, I followed him.