Chapter 1269 (2/2)

Bang!

“Ow! Fuck!” Again, the Bandit King stumbled backward while cursing. But Kiersty saw how his suddenly more powerful image had dispersed most of the force of the bullet. After using only a second to recover, the Bandit King turned and glared over to the side. Out of the tunnel to the Vipers' locker room walked Hank Howard. He idly spun his repeater in his left hand and his revolver in his right.

Behind him, the hunched form of the Dragon Broodmother Wivyana cantered forward with Alana upon her back. Alana shared a glance with Hank and frowned. “They broke the image shackle on Earth all in one go? Well then… I suppose there is no more reason to carefully suppress our own power.”

Chuckling, Hank Howard nodded. And immediately the image pressure rolling off both of them increased. Yet Kiersty couldn’t help but worry; although the two’s strength did jump upward a fair amount, it was only a small increase compared to how much the Nemesai improved. They perhaps now possessed half the strength of the Nemesai’s image.

The situation in the stands was becoming increasingly chaotic. People rushed toward the exits, but they skidded to a stop as bloodbeasts began to pour out and start to kill everyone in sight. Hundreds of people were helplessly cut to pieces before the crowd pushing behind them realized the danger. Some of the audience had enough strength to resist, but they were a minority.

Very few people seemed to have brought their weapons to the inaugural football game. Or if they did, they were content to protect themselves and their family while avoiding the bloodbeasts that sought out easier prey.

The Order Valorem guards quickly moved to help, but as they finally made a counter-attack, half of them were possessed by Straud and attacked their fellows in the back. The new ambush wounded the guards from the Order Valorem even further, but it wasn’t enough to stop the Order from acting. That situation gradually stabilized, because those who were possessed were basically just physical puppets, but the guards couldn’t get through the crowds to stem the tied of bloodbeasts rushing out into the stands.

Again and again, Kiersty used her will to hammer at the strange otherness in the air that prevented her from wielding Arbor’s power. But it seemed the other side really had been prepared for her. She could only bite her lip and produce a javelin from her interspatial ring.

“Still plan on hiding? Everyone should come out to play.” Straud glanced coolly over toward the Stallion’s locker room. After a few seconds passed, there was movement from within that area too.

A heavy iron square of a vehicle rolled slowly out of the tunnel. Standing on top of the vehicle with his arms crossed was someone who looked like a teenager, but wore a crown of jade. And that teenager was perhaps the owner the most potent image that Kiersty had felt today, aside from Straud himself and that figure that was conjured from the drop of blood.

To have another fighter who could stand against the Nemesai brought a surge of joy to Kiersty’s chest. It seemed that Zone 1 really had prepared everything for this day. The Jade Prince clenched his fists and looked coldly out at the assembled Nemesai. “Did you think I would allow you to simply run rampant in my Zone?”

There was the sound of engines engaging and the Jade Prince hopped down off of the heavy vehicle. There was a sound of locks disengaging and steam vented out through the breaks in the paneling along the iron square. Metal screeched against metal and the vehicle slowly unfolded on itself. The unfolding portions twisted and opened, revealing metallic hands. The treads that had carried the vehicle into the stadium bent and split to become legs. A hatch opened and a head slid upwards.

A humanoid mecha that was wreathed in venting steam slowly pressed its large steel hands into the ground and slowly straightened. Its limbs were covered with dense Engravings that pulsed with power. A portion of its back popped off and a large metal sword fell into its waiting hand. The sword was even more densely filled with Engravings than the mech itself, to the point that the sword seemed to constantly glow.

Ghost’s voice boomed out over the stadium. “Let’s see then which of our sides made better preparations then.”

The shoulders of Ghost’s mech opened and a dozen small and sleek drones shot outward into the sky. They rapidly twisted midair and shot out beams of energy toward the concentrating Winged Serpent who stood beneath its image of the stone wheel. But before the beams could land, Straud waved his hand and conjured a large crimson dome that protected the Winged Serpent. The beams shot by the drones caused the dome to flicker, but it quickly recovered its bright color after that attacks ran their course.

Across the stadium, the screams slowly transformed into sobbing and whimpers as more and more people were butchered by the bloodbeasts without the chance to resist. The Order Valorem guards were being slowly hemmed in by the bloodbeasts, but luckily almost a hundred of the ape variety of drone loped out of the locker room behind Ghost and leapt up to the stands. People noticed the reinforcements and hurried down to the lower portions of the stands. The bloodbeasts finally began to be beaten back.

On the ground, the individuals who possessed images powerful enough to near the image of Straud all lowered their heads and charged forward at the same moment. The light emanating from the grinding stone wheel that floated above the Winged Serpent’s head was growing larger every second.

And with the increase in the brightness, the scent of blood in the air grew positively stifling. Kiersty didn’t need a Skill to tell her that they needed to get to the Winged Serpent before it finished whatever it was doing.

“Ah… God will certainly love your passion…” Straud flexed his hands. The Nemesai moved to engage the group from Earth.

Tykes gave Kiersty a questioning look. Kiersty shook her head and gestured Tykes forward. With gleaming eyes, Tykes charged forward toward the Bandit King.