The limited numbers, the power differentials, and the confined space of battlefields in the Abyss usually ant that warfare in the magical world took place between a dozen or maybe a few hundred individuals at once. To date, the only battle with thousands involved that John had partaken in had been during the Five Days War against a faction whose doctrine was uniquely focused on large, decently equipped numbers. Since then, the largest gathered army he had seen had been that of the Golden Rose, although the invasion force of the Lake Alliance may have been similar in its overall capacity.
Therefore, seeing about a thousand guards in ten square formations was still an impressive sight to John. Sure, them being NPCs with the intellect of an average house fly made it less intimidating, but an army was an army and the order, if nothing else, was awe-inspiring. Although the armour they wore was fundantally the sa as that of the guard that had jailed them, their variety of helts covered the entire head. All of them were the exact sa size and build. It was the peak of lazy set design. It also helped cent the organized feeling of an army.
“What level are we looking at?” tra asked, while she and John stood at the top of the hill. They hadn’t entered the aggro range of the army yet and so the NPCs just stood there like pillars, waiting for sothing to set them off.
“Exactly 50, universally,” the Gar responded. What would have been the strongest army in the real world was just another dungeon encounter for them. “Looks like a good place to let loose, Miss Breaker of Armies. Maybe you can finally show that Entropy Arena.”
“Do you want to be out of commission for two weeks?” she asked and looked around. “Plus, there is no salt water around.”
“Maybe you won’t need it anymore? That was an aspect of Tiamat, after all.”
tra hesitated, her face turning blank. “Could be that I can’t even use it anymore,” she realized. “That power was granted by Mother Chaos.” Pleadingly, she looked at John. “Can you get Undine over here?”
Nodding, the Gar reached out to his abysstide elental. A short ntal conversation ensued, ending with Undine suddenly appearing next to him. tra raised an eyebrow. “We are doing nothing unusual for the next three days, the teleport cooldown doesn’t matter,” he explained. Realistically, there was actually sothing on Monday that his paranoia demanded he kept the cooldowns ready for. Soothing an antsy tra was of a much higher priority than his overinflated sense of caution.
Creating a puddle of saltwater for the ancient weapon to stand in only took about two minutes of digging and conjuring. It didn’t have to be deep or large, which made John wonder what exactly the delineating requirents for the Stat boost of Tiamat’s Scale had been. At which level of salinity did the water count as salt water?
John had no ti to consider this and other questions. Instead, he watched tra’s expression go from blank, to concentrated, to desperate, in the span of several seconds. “Yeah, no, it’s gone,” she finally exclaid with a long sigh.
He hated that one of the first things he thought when hearing that was: ‘So I’ll never get to see that power in action. Annoying.’ The tactless curiosity was swiftly pushed aside by the concerned lover. “You doing fine?”
“Honestly, it should bother the least of these changes,” the First or Wrath said and reached up to her ears. “I rarely needed to use that power. It just… feels like I cut sothing out of my life.” She swung the halberd back on her shoulder and stepped out of the puddle. “No use crying about it. Ultimately, I needed to separate myself from Mother, right?”
“Yeah,” John agreed in an unhappy tone.
tra punched him on the shoulder and smiled. “Don’t get sad for , misery ain’t my style. Plus…,” she directed her eyes back to the army, “…I got a lot of opportunities to work through this.”
With those words, the ancient weapon began her march down the hill. Undine and John stood still where they were, only watching as the Astrotium plates surfaced on tra’s skin. The clothes she wore were automatically transported to John’s inventory before they could be torn by the transformation.
Segnt for segnt, the lead-like tal appeared, covering every bit of her in an armour whose appearance instinctively invoked a malicious feeling. Red lines appeared all over the dark grey tal, interrupting the tiny gaps between the individual segnts. Spikes, large enough to be a deterrent to any grappling attempts, appeared over her joints. Especially pronounced were those on her shoulders, transforming any tackle into a deadly skewer. Previously, such thorns would also have appeared on her head, but only a stylized encasing of her new wolf ears was visible there now. Her tail turned from gold into a plain grey, the fur consolidating into several thick strands. The claws of her gauntlets were more pronounced than before. The red additions and modular design gave the armour an almost futuristic look.
Once the helt closed completely, the green of her eyes turned into a light that flowed behind her movents, its brightness showcasing that her powers were active. Any attempt from any ally to help would now deactivate them, leaving her without her anger-fuelled Stat boosts.
“I know none of you actually exist,” the Breaker of Armies’ voice reverberated tallically from her helt, “yet I will gladly guide you to the afterlife.”
One aggressive step forward, and tra dug her feet into the side of the hill. Rex Magnar scread with lust for slaughter, extended behind its wielder as she charged forwards. With each step she picked up more speed, until the light of her eyes left behind a verdant streak.
Even if the NPCs had any thought in their artificial heads, they would have been unable to raise their shields in ti. The square regint in the center of the five in the front row was blasted apart like a piece of driftwood hit by a bullet. Bodies flew upwards in a manner that objects of that weight shouldn’t have. The ones that managed to keep standing were, without doubt, worse off.
tra whirled her weapon around, effortlessly cutting through armour, flesh and bone, like it was all nothing more than water – a simple obstacle that slowed her swing down. Without regard for their life, the NPCs sward towards her location, each of the regints moving to encircle her position and then gradually dissolving to throw more people at her.
John and Undine retreated, not wanting to set off any people to attack them instead. It shouldn’t have counted to disabling tra’s ability, since they were different enemies entirely. More important than that was to leave the First of Wrath to have her fun.
Had it not been for the fact that the guards despawned shortly after getting killed, a behaviour inconsistent from the rest of this artificial Adventure, the ancient weapon would have been surrounded by mountains of corpses within a couple of minutes.
With imnse brutality, she sliced and cleaved apart her enemies. No sword even touched her armour to test its ttle. The Breaker of Armies moved too fast. Surrounded on all sides, the swings of her halberd cleared the space around her. In a lull in the steady combat, shorter than a second, she drew her arm back and tossed Rex Magnar. Charged up lightning was released from the weapon as it cut a bloody trench through the mass of bodies.
The tide of bodies from all other directions did not let up. Not that tra had ever needed a weapon to defend herself. Hurling her fist at the first guard that stepped up to her, she caved the helt in. One movent flowed into the next, the excess force of the punch transforming into the turn of a roundhouse kick, going into a backwards elbow and from there into a flying knee. If the force of the attack didn’t make each delivery lethal, the sharp features of her armour most certainly did.
Deadly as she remained with hands and feet, she could not kill the enemies faster than they charged at her with her limbs alone. Before the horde could collapse on her, she vanished. The air where she had been was torn open, the portal collapsing after she erged next to Rex Magnar. Loaded with magic, the halberd had torn open the portal for her monts before it landed.
tra was now to the right of the gathered army on the wavy landscape, and like the mindless drones they were, all of them chased after her. All formations were broken now, too many had been lost already.
The previous engagent had resembled a at grinder. tra standing her ground to a one-directional assault was like watching a conveyer belt of the damned. Raised swords fell, raised shields were cleaved, moving bodies stopped, the First of Wrath never stopped. Fury directed by will ended one NPC after the other with savage grace, until the last had their spine separated from their hips in a final swing.
‘I do kind of care about the setting,’ the Gar thought, while turning around. In the graveyard they had left behind, the mausoleum quivered. Once, twice, three tis, then the entire stone structure on the surface exploded and a massive zombie burst out, screaming, “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR!”
Drawing a cloud of rock dust after him, the absolute giant of an undead man trampled over the graveyard. Even Romulus would have looked small next to the being, who was remarkably well-preserved. His build was that of a truly powerful man, not the lean, muscular appearance superhumans often assud, but one whose limbs and gut were covered in a layer of fat, elevating the already broad build to truly hulking levels. A gash across the chest showed how the creature may have died, tattered armour still clad his legs, and the red eyes in the bloodless skull glowed red.
The monstrosity was level 460, the sa as John currently. It also reminded him a lot of one of his favourite champions in League of Legends, Sion, but that was neither here nor there. Important was only that he stayed where he was, while this unit of an undead made his way towards him.
Only to abruptly stop when Rex Magnar ca flying towards him.
The zombie warrior crossed his arms in defence. While the spear tip of the halberd still managed to penetrate the lifeless flesh, it did not do so with the ease it had torn through the armour. tra ca right after her weapon, but was surprised by the zombie fully ignoring the weapon stuck in his arm and instead raising both his hands, bringing them down just in ti to hamr the flying First of Wrath into the ground.
A pumlling of earth-shattering proportions followed. Size and speed were two things the hulk possessed and the barrage of flying fists drove tra deeper and deeper into the dirt, creating cracks all around them.
One punch sunk deeper than the others, the arm that was aid at the ground appearing next to the still lodged halberd, causing the monstrosity to punch itself. While a limb was far from a vital spot, especially on an undead, it bought tra enough ti to shoot out of her disadvantageous position and punch the enraged zombie in the jaw.
Too angry to spend any ti confused, the undead grabbed tra by the leg as his head was flying backwards. Imdiately he smashed her down on the floor. Equally furious, tra did what, given the size relations involved, boggled the mind and pulled back her lower body with such force that she lifted up the zombie hulk. One backwards roll was all she needed to slam the abomination on his own back.
The zombie let go. tra jumped on her feet faster than he did. Tearing Rex Magnar out of his arm, she distanced herself to strike with the long weapon. An arm swiping in her direction forced her to jump. Halfway on his feet, the zombie tried to tackle her while she was still in the air. Tearing a hole in the air under her, she managed to kick through, delivering a stomp to the undead’s shoulder that both elevated her higher and brought his charge to a stumbling stop.
tra landed on the broad back of the blue-skinned hulk. With the scream of a furious warlord, the undead warrior threw her off, straightening his back. All of the gashes across his body and his eyes intensified in their crimson glow.
On her feet a couple tres away, tra waited as the glowing warrior turned to her. There was a mont of silence and respect between them.
‘Is that actually just another NPC?’ John wondered at this point. ‘If it is, Gaia put way more work into it than the rest… Observe doesn’t imply anything else.’
The opponents got into battle stances. Both took one step. Then the fury of their souls translated into the raw aggression of carnage and they went at each other. Brutality and elegance found a terrifying equilibrium in the exchange of blows between the two veterans of war. Physically they were equally matched, wrath elevating them, and the hulk’s size eliminated the range disadvantage from a lack of weaponry.
However, Rex Magnar’s material and enchantnt gave tra a clear advantage. The prismatic weapon cut through the undead flesh, adding gashes to ancient scars. When tra realized the full width of the weapon's advantage, she threw it away.
The sound of drums and shredding guitars was raw jubilation, underlining the fight continuing as a flurry of clashing fists. Knuckles crashing, armour segnts rattling, flesh tearing, bones creaking, ground trembling, mouths screaming, pushing their tireless bodies to the very edge of their capability.
Then the zombie’s body broke.
The plated fist of tra slamd into the much larger one of the undead warrior; the shock of the impact rippled up the arm and blasted the bone out of the shoulder socket. The battle of endurance decided, tra gathered the last of her mana to reach through space once more and grab Rex Magnar by the hilt.
A dislodged arm did not an that the undead could no longer move his arm, but it did slow him enough that one side was now open enough for tra to prepare a devastating swing. John could see the weight of the weapon increasing via its enchantnts, while plasma and lightning crackled out from the spiked side of the head. Within a fraction of a second, the crackling ramped up to a propelling burst of energy, working along tra’s swing.
The zombie launched himself at tra one last ti, trying to deliver a punch with his good arm. re centitres before he could succeed, Rex Magnar severed the head from his shoulders. The dismbered skull went flying. The weapon slamd into the ground with such force that the battle-scarred graveyard turned into a crater of upturned soil.
John almost lost his balance from the tremors. Undine’s presence did not help. Massively distracting as it was after the intense battle, watching a sli girl in an earth quake was equally amusing and erotic. Her entire body jiggled, especially her large tits, and it just made for an all-around unusual sight.
When the tremors ended and the dust settled, John saw one silent tra stand over the disintegrating corpse of the zombie hulk. Segnts of her armour had been twisted and shoved out of their proper place, many gaps filled up with dirt that fell to the ground as she returned to her every day form, completely naked. Green eyes filled with various emotions, all of them positive, imdiately found John, while the Kingdom around them dissolved like the corpse had.
“Worked through your problems?” John shouted over.
“We are fucking - now,” she scread back and charged at him.
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