"So the lightning eagle really became a legend?" Adam mumbled, shaking as he felt the unique pressure of Ceres and remembered how the eagle had treated the Questing Beast.
As he said so, lightning began to strike the barrier encapsulating the mountain base. However, the barrier held up. For a moment, Adam dared to have doubts, but then he witnessed a scene that had struck fear into anyone who saw it during the battle of Delta.
Churning in the clouds, a terrifying tornado took shape and quickly extended its funnel down toward the magic barrier. Following the descent of the glowing eagle, a massive amount of clouds descended into the tornado.
Like the black finger of a deity, coming down to crush a lowly mortal, the clouds became the Finger of God. Where Ceres ripped into the barrier, a bright light flashed as it looked like all the lightning charge was sucked from the surrounding thunderstorm and concentrated into a single point.
The discharge was nothing short of an explosion, as the lightning strike blew away the barrier and struck the crown of the mountain. The tip of the mountain base ripped apart, sending massive boulders down the slopes.
Moments after they saw it, a shockwave almost threw them off their feet and and the sound of the explosion almost deafened them. The whole surrounding shock, causing landslides and rockfall everywhere.
The broken barrier that lit up in a pale green, before it disintegrated before their eyes. A single, concentrated hit from the legend had brought the seemingly insurmountable defense. But the party didn't get a moment to take a breath.
The original plan was for Ceres to take down the barrier and the turrets, to give them the chance to break through the gates using their strongest attacks, however, before they could start charging toward the mountain base, anticipating that Ceres would take town the turrets next, a ray of sunlight descended from the dark clouds.
Maybe a ray of sunlight was too benign a description. A concentrated plasma beam, bright like the sun, shot out from the dark clouds. The massive beam descended onto the area of the entrance and the turrets. Slack-jawed, the party watched as the turrets and gates were disintegrated under the relentless radiation of light.
An area the size of several football fields had been cleansed from existence, turned into a smoldering
circle of ashes and embers. Mike's heart raced in shock and then in surprise. he took a deep breath as he realized what had happened.
The Parrot of Doom had not come alone. Bringing along the Nightmare Centipede hidden in the clouds above, there were two beasts of the Beasts of Calamity present. Seth had actually sent Puffles along with Ceres to help them!
"What in the world was that?! Can Ceres do that?" Adam exclaimed, his voice several pitches higher than usual. While the members of Minas Mar were quickly able to recognize Puffles Attack, the people from Thres had no idea about Puffles or the Beasts of Calamity.
"Don't worry, that's Puffles, the Mighty, the pet of the Tower Master. It seems like Seth sent us a little more reinforcements than we asked for," Mike hurriedly explained. "Come on, now we have to hurry if we still want to go through with the plan!" the champion urged Adam and his men.
The gate was already down, allowing them to conserve their power. This was the moment to strike. Shaking their heads to get out of the stupor, Adam and his men belatedly followed after the party from Minas Mar.
...
The whole mountain shook, interrupting her restless sleep. The painkillers couldn't stop the nightmares, so she was glad about the interruption. Opening her eyes, the vision augmentations sprang into action, scanning the small cell she was held in.
Small, light blue circles emphasized the small cracks that had formed across the walls of her prison, while the cybernetic feature fed loads of information back to her brain. Meg raised her head from the pillow to look through the small, barred window in the metal door.
She could see the ceiling of the corridor outside and the enhanced zoom of her right eye allowed her to make out the same cracks as insider her cell. something must have struck the base. Something extremely powerful. Maybe this was her chance? Their chance.
Meg Huffin had a hard time estimating how long she had been stuck in this place. Ever since she was caught by bandits, her live had turned into an odyssey that dropped her from one tragedy to the next.
The only short pause she was allowed was the time she spent with the other victims of the cybernetic experiment, after she was "refused entry" to Emerald City. In that group, not everyone had the same symptoms and ailment, but they all had to do with an experiment to fuse humans and machines.
Like Meg, the group was made up of the few people that managed to escaped thanks to the lightning bird and keep their mind despite the horrifying tortures of their experiments and ongoing ailments, like Meg's progressing transformation into a bio-mechanical robot.
At this point, her whole right arm has turned, not even showing a sign of normal skin. The infection had wandered up her shoulder and recently transformed her right eye. Thinking back to that made her shudder.
She would have probably ripped out her own eye if she had not already been a captive in this place when it happened. They had strapped her to a gurney and regularly pumped her full of sedatives to allow the transformation to progress.
Her right hand grated as she balled it into a fist with all her strength, thinking back to that. It was a few weeks after she joined the group, surviving in vicinity of Emerald City, that they were attacked by powerful players and captured to be brought here.
Once again, she was subjected to human experimentation concerning her being turned into a machine. For better or worse, she counted as a precious specimen this time, so her treatment was significantly better than at the first place. She even got painkillers, so she was able to relax on rare occasions.
Although these people kept claiming they wanted to help them, Meg had her doubts. Who would literally kidnap people and keep them locked up to help them? They dangled the bait of suppressant in front of them, but so far, all they did was watch her and the others slowly turn further and further. If anything, they only made the process less painful.
Not that she complained about being free of pain, it was a nice break, but this was not the place she wanted to spend the rest of the time she had as a human. Who knew what would happen to her once the transformation reached her brain?
She doubted she was the only one with that opinion. She didn't get to meet the others often, but judging by how well she knew them, she doubted they believed anything these guys said.
Focusing on the sound she picked up with her right ear, which had also experienced enhancements, she was able to make out the positions of the guards in the vicinity. As she thought, the guys usually making sure they didn't do anything funny, had rushed to whatever was going on outside.
With a split-second decision, her clenched fist rammed into the metal door of her cell, leaving a small dent. Dust fell from the ceiling every time she punched the door.
"Meg, what are you doing?!" the hushed call came from the door on the opposite side of the hallway.
"Something is attacking the base, didn't you notice? This is our chance to get out of here," Meg said, similarly hushed. The other had an even better hearing than hers. A short silence followed.
"If you managed to open your door, please don't forget me in here."
"Don't worry, if I get out of here, I will make sure to take everyone along."