Book 3 Chapter 19.3 - New Beginning
When Persephone finished packing and led her dozen or so subordinates into the north again, O'Brien had just broken through the Hebilu's final line of defense, breaking into the central zone of the forest.
Faced against these elite soldiers who swept through all of the Hebilu Tribe's soldiers, the easy battle they were expecting never happened. These Hebilu, both young and old, exploited every part of the terrain they could as they attacked O'Brien's troop night and day. They didn't fear death at all, and they were crafty enough as well. Their bodies' unique properties allowed them to hide in the surroundings all the way until they were extremely close before they would be detected. Meanwhile, the closer one approached the center of the forest, the more powerful the irregular radiation inside the forest would become, which greatly hindered everyone's perception abilities. Not even the specialized scout who was equipped with six levels of ability could sense more than a hundred meters of distance, and this distance was only getting shorter.
Soon after, another type of Hebilu weapon appeared, and it was precisely self-detonation. The younger Hebilu would ingest the crystals embedded on the weapons, sneak nearby O'Brien's troop, and then run at the troop full force. Their entire bodies would then become like bombs, fiercely exploding into energy particles that were several dozen times more powerful than normal heavy artillery. Each self-detonation attack would cause the protective cover produced by a team of Magic Domain users to fall apart. Even O'Brien, who had many ability strengthening equipment, could only take three or four self-detonation attacks in succession. However, his own protective cover definitely couldn't protect the entire small troop, and replenishing energy took time as well. For a normal magic user, this amount of time was a day, while O'Brien still needed at least six hours.
The Hebilu's appearance already toppled many people's general knowledge of life forms, and this was true for their children and elders as well. The weak Hebilu had practically no defensive ability, but they were extremely adept at hiding. In addition, their speeds were even much faster than that of the adults!
The Hebilu elders lost power and speed, but they seemed to have developed abilities similar to that of the Magic Domain. They could manipulate the energy crystals, burying them within tree trunks or flickering mushrooms. When O'Brien's small troops passed them, they would detonate them from the distance. The older the Hebilu were, the further the distance of the detonation would be.
These energy crystals' explosions were only slightly weaker than that of the self-detonating Hebilu children.
When he stepped into the forest's central region, O'Brien already noticed that he and his troop had been completely isolated. In this strange forest, practically everything could become their enemy. After being attacked several times continuously, he decisively tossed aside all reservations. Any Hebilu that dared to close in on their troop, regardless of whether they were old or young, were all killed without exception. Eventually, any moving object that dared to get close would be instantly torn apart by the energy storm!
After using up close to a week's worth of time, they only managed to advance less than five kilometers. The price they paid for this five kilometers was 12 dead and 6 seriously injured. At the central zone of the forest, the difference between heavily wounded and dead wasn't much. Of the group's seven researchers, only six remained. The death of one unlucky fellow was because he was suddenly overwhelmed with sympathy, wishing to properly lay a Hebilu child that had been blasted into a sieve onto the ground, but because he did so, he was grabbed by this child that had not stopped breathing yet, and both of them erupted into an explosion of flesh!
The group's supplies and reserves were already close to exhaustion. They still had a bit of energy reserves, but because weapons that used ammunition had already ran out of bullets, they were no different from scrap iron. They still had quite a bit of nutrient filled food and water, so this should be quite excellent news, but they already completely used up their anti-radiation medications. The continuous fights left every single person completely drained, and O'Brien was no exception. However, no matter how difficult the battle was, his face would always carry a faint smile, and his grayish green eyes would flicker with a clear radiance. He looked even more pure and innocent, not like the leader of one of the three great influential families at all.
This troop didn't have any newbies to begin with, and those that could survive until now were even more so elites among veterans. Even without any mysterious fields abilities, their intuitive sense towards danger was also extremely sharp. These veterans who had experienced endless slaughter could feel that ever since O'Brien, who was like a bigger child, obtained that strange piece of intelligence, he suddenly changed. From the outside, he was smiling even more and becoming more sincere, seemingly no different from when he first accepted Poseidon's Trident, but in reality, while standing beside O'Brien, these battle hardened veterans would often feel waves of piercing chilliness strike against their body.
They were quite clear on the fact that this wasn't a freezing energy O'Brien was releasing, but instead an extremely dangerous type of intuition!
Only now did the troop's most prideful and rebellious fellows quietly put away their thoughts to carefully obey O'Brien's every order.
O'Brien actually only had a single order: press forward, and crush all hindrances! All the way until they reached the center of this forest where the ancient tree whose treetop was so high it couldn't even be seen rested!
Under the guidance of this young adult whose face was covered in sunlight and smiles' command, this group now only made up of serious veterans and cold-hearted researchers erupted with shocking fighting strength. They killed every Hebilu in their way, both young and old, either turning their soft and flexible bodies into charcoal, ashes, or muddled piles of flesh.
Regardless of how many lives fell in front of them, regardless of how many dead enemies or dead team members, O'Brien's smile never faltered. In his surroundings, flames, ice, and electricity weaved out. Endless magic shot out from each of his ten fingers, striking down the Hebilu one after another.
Every single magic that was released was fatal, moreover just enough to take their life! Most of the time, after taking just a single arrow of ice, blast of flame, or lightning sphere, the Hebilu wouldn't immediately die, but the veterans and researchers who understood the Hebilu's body composition and crucial organs knew that these Hebilu wouldn't be able to live much longer. As for when they were going to die, it would depend on their vitality and nature of elemental attack.
Whenever O'Brien released flames, these flames formed from magic energy would descend onto the Hebilu from midair. The high temperature reddish-yellow flame wasn't something ordinary methods could eliminate. The amount of time they burned for wasn't that long, normally not exceeding ten seconds. However, this amount of time was already enough to deliver severe injuries that wouldn't heal to these Hebilu that feared flames, but they wouldn't die immediately. As a result, after the flames ended, there would often be miserable screams that lasted for over several minutes, and only after that would they gradually fade due to an exhausting of stamina.
If one just added slightly more force, one could directly kill these Hebilu whose bodies were extremely frail. However, O'Brien just wasn't willing to expend this bit of energy. He wasn't willing to waste even the slightest bit of energy.
Of the members of their group who were able to survive until now, every single one of their hands were covered in blood. This was true even for those research personnel, as the number of instances where they carried out live dissections wasn't few. However, when they thought to themselves, they all felt that apart from a few homicidal maniacs, there really weren't many people who could do things like O'Brien currently did.