Three Cars and a military truck soon drove toward the gates of the Grand Escape, with the humans in the cars while the demons hid within the tarp of the truck, their heads cowled just in case.
Zac sat in the passenger seat while Joanna was driving. Ogras was the only demon not hidden away in the truck, and he sat in the back seat as well. Shadows had gathered around him, making his features indistinct without drawing attention to itself.
“Who are you?” the guard captain said with a frown when he saw the odd procession.
“We bring news to his Excellency Thanso,” Joanna said without missing a beat. “The natives are amassing for an assault.”
The guard’s brows rose in surprise, but they soon furrowed again as he took a second look at Joanna and Zac who calmly looked right ahead. But Zac was starting to get a bad feeling when no answer was forthcoming.
“A-“ was all that escaped the guard’s mouth before he and the other four gatemen had their necks cracked by shadowy tendrils that somehow had reached the guards from the odd shadow appendage that usually stayed within Ogras’ metal casing.
Zac quickly looked around, and when he saw there was no traffic in the area he pointed out two fingers from the window, and the next moment a Valkyrie jumped out of the car behind. She rushed over to the dead guards who were still held upright by Ogras’ shadows and touched them for a few seconds each before running back to the car.
Zac nodded toward Joanna and she sped off, leaving the corpses of the five guards frozen solid. They knew that little stunt wouldn’t buy a lot of time, but a minute or two was all they needed. The town wasn’t very big, and they already knew where they needed to go since Thanso was always holed up in his palace, mostly occupied with cultivating or torturing his poor slaves.
The convoy sped through the town at a breakneck pace as it was only a matter of time before the corpses of the guards would be noticed. Interestingly enough the hurry of their group seemed to lessen suspicion rather than the opposite. The people on the street seemed to be under the impression that they were hurrying along on official business and quickly got out of the way.
But even though they drove as fast as they could Zac was able to see the type of town the invaders had built. The Grand Escape was a completely alien settlement, just like Azh’Rodum on his island, and all the architecture was foreign.
But the interesting design choices weren’t what garnered Zac’s attention. It was the copious amount of slaves that hurried along the sides with their heads held down. Most were barely clothed even though winter was coming, and he couldn’t spot anyone without a fresh set of wounds.
It was easy to see the utter disdain the Ez’Mahal had for the native slaves, and they were treated worse than cattle. There were also a huge amount of brothels, with chained girls listlessly standing in the windows, their eyes devoid of emotion.
A fire raged in Zac’s chest, and he wanted to jump out of the car swinging. The Valkyries in the car looked even worse and it was as though their fury would set the car on fire.
“They’ll pay,” Zac simply said as his eyes moved away from the road and toward the castle in the distance.
“What’s our strategy?” Joanna said from the driver’s seat.
“If the gate is open drive straight through it. If it’s closed, then I’ll open it. Afterward, we kill every soldier we can see,” Zac simply said drawing quick nods from the others.
The town wasn’t very large, and it took just a few minutes to drive straight through the main street to the palace.
“No array,” the Valkyrie sitting next to Ogras noted as her eyes had a golden glow.
The Valkyries had proven more versatile than Alea had made it sound like, and the abilities they possessed were far more diverse than he expected. They did all have spear-related classes, but many possessed their own niche abilities that rounded out the 100 woman squad.
“Head right in,” Zac said with an emotionless voice, his axe already lying in his lap.
A few guards made to stop them, but they were ripped apart by shadows before they could even voice a complaint. The group of vehicles easily entered the large square in front of the palace and leisurely stopped in a line as everyone got out. Zac had already ripped apart the robe Ez’Mahal robe he had covered his real gear with, disgusted with even pretending to be part of this debased force.
A red blaring light suddenly exploded in the sky above the castle, and soldiers almost immediately flooded toward them from every direction. They were all wearing livery with two insignias; one for the Ez’Mahal Confederation, and one for whatever aristocratic family Thanso belonged to.
Zac breathed out in relief when he saw that it was only well-trained soldiers who had moved to intercept them. The intelligence packet mentioned that these people used human wave tactics, sending throngs of slaves to their deaths to tire out their enemies. But luckily it looked like the innermost core of the Incursion was guarded by elites instead, enabling Zac and the others to fight without any compunctions.
“Lay down your weapons immediately,” a guard captain shouted, but Zac simply hurled a large rock from his Cosmos Sack at him.
The captain was not bad, and a shield rose in front of him lightning-quick. But the force of the rock was massive, and he was thrown backward ten meters even though the rock disintegrated before it could harm him.
The guards stared with wide mouths at Zac, and the next moment shields and other protections covered the wide array of soldiers. There were roughly 800 people in front of them, and more were joining every minute.
Worse yet was that all of them were very strong, and a few of the soldiers might even have reached E-Rank, though barely.
“Attack,” Zac simply said as he started to throw out fractal blades.
It looked like the strongest people of the incursion still weren’t around, so Zac wanted to take the opportunity to thin out the numbers to lessen the pressure on his strike team. Not that he needed a reason since he was still completely infuriated after seeing the misery these people had brought upon Earth’s citizens.
Five blades imbued with the Dao quickly soared toward the defensive line, ready to cut the army to pieces.
“WHO DARES ATTACK LORD THANSO’S MANOR?” an enraged voice suffused with power echoed across the square, and a wiry man holding a spear jumped out from a window.
The man was clearly one of the stronger combatants of the force, and he even managed to destroy two of the fractal blades before they could wreak havoc on the army.
“I guess that’s my cue,” Ogras shrugged as shadows started to converge around him.
“You sure you can handle it?” Zac asked with some hesitation.
Ogras was pretty strong, but he was still only a peak F-Grade warrior. The other spear wielder had not just Evolved though, making Zac unsure whether Ogras could handle it.
“You forget, my restrictions are completely gone while these guys seem to still be lacking 30 to 20% of their strength. Besides, you should be able to feel that this guy is nothing special,” Ogras said as he disappeared.
Heavy thuds followed Ogras’ disappearance as Billy thundered toward a thick clump of warriors. His eyes were almost completely red in rage, and he bellowed on top of his lungs as he swung his club in a thundering horizontal swing.
A wave of destruction erupted from the club, and it was as though the air itself cracked and exploded. The energy wave moved quite quickly as it pushed across the square and hit the front lines of the soldiers. The first row of people was immediately turned to a bloody mess as they were flung high up in the air.
Even the following rows received gruesome wounds from the odd skill, many even dying. Between his huge frame and his devastating attack, Billy quickly became a target of the soldiers, and a storm of attacks sailed toward him almost immediately.
Billy’s eyes widened in alarm, but the next moment a thick golden shield enveloped him, protecting him from the attacks falling like rain. It was the Valkyrie’s that worked together to form a defensive barrier, and since it only needed to protect one man they were able to make it extremely sturdy.
The volume of attacks caused cracks continuously that allowed the occasional attack to slip through, but while Billy’s Endurance wasn’t the highest it was high enough to shrug off errant attacks. Emboldened by the protection he charged straight into the crumbling line of Ez’Mahal.
Furthermore, he wasn’t alone but closely followed by a group of bloodthirsty demons rushing in his wake like a pack of wolves. Each of them was the cream of the crop among the demons, and they were also temporarily lent the best gear Port Atwood had to offer. The combination boosted their lethality to new heights as they entered a pitched battle with the soldiers who had already been forced to taste Billy’s wrath.
They had all recently evolved, and they were extremely eager to start leveling again. Many of the demons had been stuck at the bottleneck for decades, and the possibility of finally moving forward again pumped their veins full of adrenaline. Besides, they desperately needed to rack up a mountain of contribution to get cultivation resources.
The E-Grade brought far greater power, but the cost of progression also multiplied manifold. There was not only the issue of needing higher-graded Crystals to cultivate, but the medicinal baths cost far more. They even needed to upgrade their gear, since their weapons and armor wouldn’t be able to stand the increased Cosmic Energy for long.
Zac kept his distance while shooting out a constant stream of fractal blades to cull the numbers and prevent the soldiers from organizing. Since he didn’t need to exert his full force he decided to experiment with the Dao of Rot, imbuing all his attacks with it.
Another benefit of the corrosive Dao started to show itself after he had shot a handful of attacks into the soldiers. The blades usually only managed to kill ten or so before they soldiers managed to exhaust the attack, but the Dao of Rot left a lingering effect.
Pockets of decay started to form on the battlefield due to the compounding strikes, and even soldiers who were not directly wounded started to show signs of weakness and nausea. Zac was elated by the results, but he still kept his eyes peeled. The main reason he hadn’t entered the thick of it was that he was still waiting for the leaders to make their move.
Suddenly a spike of danger made Zac quickly erect his defenses. The next moment an ocean of small needles tried to rip him apart. All of them were even smaller than a sewing needle, but they contained a massive amount of force.
The swirling leaves around him were ripped apart one by one, and Zac felt like he was standing in an ocean of irate wasps. But an effective Endurance of over a thousand proved it’s worth at this point, preventing the needles from causing anything more than light flesh wounds.
But Zac was a bit helpless in this situation since he had to block his eyes from being attacked. While his flesh was stronger than reinforced steel by this point the same thing couldn’t be said for his eyeballs, and he would likely go blind if one of the needles struck him. Out of better options, he activated the charge on his new robes, and the thousands of needles were immediately pushed back from a shield looking like a shimmering blue shell.
Zac quickly moved his fingers as he glared around, and soon spotted a suspicious person standing in an alley between two houses. He was far from the battle, and his eyes were trained right on Zac. But most importantly he was decked in extremely gaudy clothes, completely ruining his attempt of hiding. Zac growled as he activated [Loamwalker] and the next moment he was in front of him.
The man looked shocked, and an amulet quickly burst into light, forming a protective barrier around him. Zac only sneered as his axe fell down three times in rapid succession, breaking open the turtle shell. The next moment he richly decked man was grabbed by his throat. Alarm could be seen on his face as he the swarm of needles return to aid him.
But Zac simply used the man as a human shield, blocking the attempts to attack him once again. But he didn’t properly stop struggling until Zac tightened the grip to the point that his neck almost broke.
“Unhand the lord!” the wiry general shouted, but he was kept at bay by an ocean of shadow spears.
“If you harm me your pitiful planet will be eradicated!” the youth wheezed out through his teeth. “You’re just animals of lower bloodlines, know your place.”
Zac looked in the eyes of the man for a second, confused where he got this confidence from. In the end, he could only chalk it up to this idiot being too pampered throughout his life.
“You think you could come here and treat us like cattle?” Zac said, his voice echoing out through the square.
“Think again.”
The next moment a fountain of blood spurted in all directions as Zac directly ripped off Thanso’s head and slammed it down into the ground.