Book 6 Chapter 32.8 - Overture
Arnobi stood up, looking at his own masterpiece with satisfaction, to the extent where he even gave Shiwa’s corpse a kick to make sure that he was completely dead. As for eyewitnesses, there shouldn’t be any, at the very least, there were none within his range of perception. All of the soldiers were frantically fighting against the mechanical bugs, constantly in danger of losing their lives, so where would they have the extra attention to spare for other things? The high energy light beams were impossible to avoid, they had to either dodge the instant they were targeted or use some highly reflective special steel plate to reflect them. Arnobi raised his head, looking around. There were still more than ten mechanical bugs scattered about, their power also declining sharply, only a single round of attacks was needed to completely wipe them out. This was precisely what he did. He changed magazines, jumped up, attacked, and then landed; the skies became clear once more.
A large half of the military base was destroyed, the soldiers that survived numbering over seventy. This meant that a third of the soldiers died in the surprise attack this time. According to the olden era federation’s standard, this level of casualties already exceeded the limits of what an army could accept. Meanwhile, this barely reached Arnobi’s limit. He could take a break from his responsibilities in battle and do some things he shouldn’t be doing, for example, ‘cleanly’ dealing with Shiwa, but right now, this was the defensive line he was in charge of. If too many people died, it would also affect O’Brien’s evaluation and confidence in him.
After giving these soldiers who gained renewed life after the disaster a look, Arnobi shouted ‘assemble’. Only after a moment had passed did the soldiers make their way out from their various hiding places and assemble before Arnobi. As the commander who had only just recently arrived in the base, Arnobi originally didn’t have much authority, but after fighting this battle, he now did. Regardless of who it was, anyone who could wipe out half of the mechanical bug swarms, would obtain authority. Right now, no one dared look down on this male who looked like an older teenager.
Arnobi laughed. He pointed towards the mechanical bug remains on the ground, and then said, “Do you all see? These are the enemies we will be facing in the future. Do you feel like it’s hard? It is hard! However, I can tell you all right now that it’ll be way fucking worse! These are only the advance scouting troops, the numbers of the regular army might be double that of today’s, maybe even several times that! Meanwhile, we need to hold this position for three days, only three days later will the equipment that can deal with these fellas be sent over. However! During these three days, as long as you all properly listen to me, I can guarantee that half of you will still be alive!”
These words were indeed effective. The soldiers gave each other a look, and then the eyes with which they looked at Arnobi became different. These types of battles, if half of them could continue living, it was already a result that wasn’t bad.
Arnobi was extremely satisfied with the respect everyone showed. This type of feeling of being focused upon by everyone was simply better than taking narcotics. However, before he properly sampled this feeling, a type of strange and weak feeling descended upon him, this feeling instantly covered his entire body.
This type of feeling, this type of feeling… Arnobi carefully searched for an adjective, finally finding a suitable analogy: it was like the feeling of a pure young lady facing a stranger who was about to enter her body, one of stimulation, danger, and despair.
Arnobi suddenly turned around. What met his eyes was an expanse of densely packed light specks. After fighting this battle, even without his brain to tell him, he knew what those flickering lights were. Those were high energy light beams that were about to fire, moreover the number in the thousands and tens of thousands!
“Damn it!” Arnobi screamed, instantly rushing out from the base. Immediately afterwards, countless high energy light beams completely drowned out this military base. Over a thousand miniature guided missiles followed the high energy light beams, world-shaking explosions instantly flattening this place. A several meters deep large crater was left behind in the original location, several hundred thousand tons of earth and stones flung into the sky, surging like a giant ocean wave, crashing down on Arnobi!
“Ah!!!” Arnobi’s shrill scream of despair was instantly drowned out by the earth.
What Arnobi said was completely correct, the first wave of over a hundred mechanical bugs was merely a scouting group, the true main army was still to come. Meanwhile, before setting off, O’Brien had specially reminded him that one outstanding characteristic of these mechanical enemies was their numbers. Only, Arnobi never expected the main army of mechanical bugs to arrive this quickly, fast to the point where he wasn’t even given time to prepare for the second wave. What he expected even less, were the mechanical bug swarm’s numbers! The main forces’ numbers weren’t several times or more than ten times greater, but rather hundreds of times greater!
Arnobi could easily wipe out an entire vanguard fleet of mechanical bugs, and he could lead seventy trained soldiers and ability users to face a swarm of around a thousand mechanical bugs, but tens of thousands, what kind of concept was tens of thousands?! When the numbers increased by another order of magnitude, things became completely different. A single Arnobi could deal with several hundred mechanical bugs, but before a swarm of tens of thousands of mechanical bugs, even if there were a hundred Arnobis, they still had to immediately run. The high energy light beams were so concentrated they were almost impossible to block, while when tens of thousands of mechanical bugs fired at a single target, there were completely no gaps in coverage.
The light specks in the sky rose and fell in succession like flickering stars, winding and snaking their way forward, the miniature guided missiles that were released producing blasts of smoke and dust. If one looked down on the great earth from above, they would see a wave of mud currently surging along the earth. Meanwhile, not even the rumbling explosion’s sounds could cover up the tens of thousands fine buzzing noises.
When the bug swarm left, the great earth was already changed beyond recognition, no more larger life forms in existence, at the very least, not within the mechanical bug swarm’s perception. When everything calmed down, a piece of the ruins left behind suddenly swelled up, Arnobi making his way out from crushed rocks. He staggered a few steps, and then fell back down, purple-black colored blood continuously gushing out from his mouth. He gave the sky a look, and then suddenly laughed hysterically, but the blood that surged from his mouth cut his laugh short. He struggled to his feet, body rocking back and forth as he walked in the Arthur Family’s direction. Drop after drop of blood fell from his body, drawing out a long trail of blood behind him.