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Lili, busy placing the last chunks of bait near the tunnel entrances, heard the deafening roar of the approaching horde.
"They're coming! They're here!" she shrieked, scrambling back to August's side and desperately clutching the oversized Kevlar helt he had given her.
The horde surged forward at frightening speed, pouring into the vast cavern on the seventh floor. Peering over the ledge, Lili saw a sea of glowing red eyes fixed entirely on the buzzing drones.
"August, are we starting?" Lili asked, her voice shaking as she stared down at the swirling mass of monsters.
"Not yet. Stragglers are still filing in."
August kept the drones hovering just out of reach. It didn't take long. Once eighty to ninety percent of the horde he had drawn in was packed inside the cavern, and the tunnel entrances had gone quiet, he knew the trap was set.
"DISAPPEAR!"
August didn't waste ti shouting. Instead, he relayed the command through a portable loudspeaker Lili had set up on the cliffside, and the chanized voice thundered through the cavern.
The mont the echo faded, the space around August twisted violently.
Three hundred spatial portals tore open at once. Row upon row of modern assault rifles erged, their sleek, deadly barrels extending outward. It was a massive upgrade from the handguns.
Lili stared in awe at the overwhelming density of the heavy ordnance.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Muzzle flashes illuminated the dark ledge. The deafening crack of supersonic rounds shattered the air.
Roooooar!
A chorus of agonized shrieks rose from the basin below. This was not a battle. It was a slaughter.
The brutality of the scene left Lili frozen in place. She had thought his earlier barrage was impressive, but this was sothing else entirely. It was a relentless storm of lead, pinning the horde down beneath a barrage of inescapable suppressive fire.
But the Dungeon was not so easily crushed. A handful of small, hyper-agile monsters used the massive Orc carcasses as shields. Taking cover behind them, they scrambled up the cliff face and charged straight at August.
"Those are Speed Rats!" Lili yelled, instantly recognizing the threats.
"Trying to close the gap?" August sneered. "Wishful thinking."
He hadn't expected the Dungeon to spawn variants smart enough to use tactical cover. As the surviving rats breached the ledge, August barked an order.
"Lili, cover your ears!"
"Y-Yes!" Crouching behind the ballistic shields, she clamped her hands tightly over her ears.
The Speed Rats made one last desperate charge, closing to within fifteen ters. A few more leaps, and their claws would have torn out his throat.
Instead, a heavy chanical hum vibrated through the air.
A massive cannon barrel—dwarfing the assault rifles—thrust out from a spatial distortion right above August's head. Already wearing his tactical headset, August glared at the dood beasts with cold apathy.
The blast that followed made the gunfire sound like firecrackers. A deafening roar ripped through the cavern.
BOOOOOOOOM!
The shockwave ripped through the air. The charging monsters, along with a huge section of the stone ledge, were obliterated in an instant, leaving behind a smoking crater.
The concussive blast left Lili breathless. Her jaw dropped, her mind blanking out. She thought the bullet storm was his ace in the hole. Instead, he just casually deployed a weapon of mass destruction, deleting the monsters and reshaping the terrain with a single shot.
Her ears were ringing with a high-pitched whine. The close-range overpressure felt strong enough to burst her eardrums. Even with her hands clamped tightly over her ears and her enhanced Supporter stats, the raw kinetic shockwave rattled her bones.
Down in the basin, the surviving monsters froze and stared up at the smoking cannon barrel. In the face of modern artillery, their thick hides and primal fury ant nothing.
"Not bad," August muttered, analyzing the crater.
"The high-explosive round vaporized them so thoroughly that only the Magic Stones survived. A bit overkill for the upper floors."
August glanced at the glowing-red tank barrel with a hint of regret. The main gun of a modern battle tank was absurdly powerful—easily matching the destructive output of a Level 4 or Level 5 Mage. And that was just standard high-explosive ammo. He hadn't even loaded armor-piercing fin-stabilized discarding sabot rounds or shrapnel shells yet. Standard ordnance was more than enough to turn them into mist.
"I need to recalibrate my target priorities," he decided.
—•——•——•——•——•——•—
anwhile, the assault rifle barrage hadn't stopped.
August was employing a three-stage rolling volley. The first wave fired, then instantly retreated into the [Spatial Backpack] to auto-reload. The second wave imdiately phased in to maintain suppressive fire, followed by the third wave.
By rotating in staggered sequence, he eliminated reload downti and maintained a continuous wall of lead.
However, the sustained fire made August realize a flaw in his setup: he didn't have enough rifles deployed. Firing three hundred guns simultaneously looked spectacular, but there were still minor blind spots in the coverage.
To effectively carpet-bomb a cavern the size of Babel's plaza, he needed to deploy at least a thousand, maybe ten thousand barrels at once.
While August ntally critiqued his own loadout, the onlookers were experiencing a very different reality.
For adventurers used to fighting with swords and spears, the slaughter unfolding before them felt like a waking nightmare. The relentless chanized barrage and the earth-shaking blast of the tank cannon shattered their understanding of combat. The scene burned itself into their minds, impossible to forget.
Hidden in the tunnels, the veteran adventurers swallowed hard, their eyes wide with dread and awe.
Was this the wrath of God?
Their presence didn't escape Lili. She knew the scum of Orario too well. Catching movent in the peripheral tunnels, she tugged on August's sleeve.
"August, other Adventurers are watching us," Lili warned, her voice tight with anxiety.
The slaughter alone was terrifying, but Lili knew human greed was even worse. Once thousands of Magic Stones started covering the ground, she feared the veteran parties would rush in and snatch their loot. One should never underestimate how little morality an adventurer could have.
"Ignore them," August replied coldly, keeping his focus on the horde.
He had already accounted for adventurers-killing scum. Even if the mages in those parties tried to pick him off with spells, his heavy ballistic shields would absorb the first impact and buy him enough ti to react. And if they really dared to press him? He had not even dipped into his supply of suicide drones yet.
A swarm of explosive drones sent into the tunnels would be enough to wipe out a group of Level 1 or Level 2 adventurers.
Let them watch.
...
Next Bonus, 200 PS!
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