Chapter 161: Blazers Attack

Susan complained on the coms, “Jordan, what are you doing?”

“Just taking a little detour.” Jordan swung his large battle axe at some bots while Susan was forced to provide support.

The Blazers had attacked Neo, while compared to the Asta, the initial scans showed much less structure had been built on top and within it, but it was still important that some number of soldiers had to go and deal with it. So they choose to be part of that group.

Craftalot was nowhere to be seen, which was for the best since he would become the biggest magnet for trouble.

Jordan swung his axe to get the mechanic bits off it. Due to the planet being less defended by people, there was a much larger number of bots on it. Their numbers were a little overwhelming, but Craftalot had provided them with a wide range of items to deal with any type of situation.

Small grenades that took out a chunk by either exploding, melting, or burning the opposition. There were also drones that they were using, coloured red and made bright and obvious, so no one would get confused by who they belonged to. Still, they were tough enough if someone decided to shoot at them. One light arrow had destroyed one that had seemed to be from an ally, but after a yell, the arrows stopped falling on their drone.

While they were raiding the overground base, breaking through walls, trying to find anyone and any machine that needed destroying.

“You know… I thought that girl from before might be the same person who I worked with on the Jellannax Station attack.” Jordan suddenly said over comms as the thought popped into his head.

“...What…?” Susan replied.

“I mean, I’m pretty sure I saw her use some sort of light-based abilities then, and well, looking at the feed, there are some big fire abilities being used which could easily be here.”

“That last part could be a stretch.”

“There is also the fact that she is the same height, and I’m pretty sure it was she who destroyed the cannons, which feels similar to what happened on Jellannax Station.”

Susan sighed and destroyed a building with a bomb. “You could’ve started with that…”

“She was the one, huh…” Aluber mumbled, his mic turned off as he sat in thought.

Aluber had a lot to think about. Ever since they had lost their friend, Boss, during the concert attack over a year ago, he had been determined to get revenge. He spent all his resources trying to craft a plan that would be the first step in a counterattack, but when it was all said and done, what came from it? A few of Craftalot’s items were lost, no one of importance was captured, Jordan got injured, and so many lives were lost.

The risks weren’t even a consideration at the time, but the truth of the matter was that too many lives were lost. Some people even thanked the group in private later on as a large thank you for bringing the dangers of Dominous Hood into the open, as while many knew they had some strength, the fact that they managed to organise such a large attack, even if it was through mostly proxy pirates, was still deeply concerning.

Then, some time later, completely unrelated to his plan, information was finally released about Dominous Hood’s home base. Which made him even further realise how fruitless his efforts were. The universe might’ve benefited as a whole due to the sequence of events that took place that day, but Aluber felt that his effort only had negative consequences.

Jordan said, coming to another revelation, “Actually, do you think they are also, Celestira?”

“...Will admit their abilities are similar; from the record, Celestira was a powerful fire mage, but Nina’s friend is not a whole other level.”

Aluber added his input, “That would be an intriguing set of circumstances, and if she is one or both of those people, then I have something to thank her for.”

The trio–and the other people they were working with–continued their assault, keeping their conversation quiet. With their combined magic, skills, and enough artefacts to bankrupt a bank, they destroyed everything in their path. It was good for revenge and as well as to relieve a whole lot of stress.

Susan got locked in combat with one individual who created massive ice structures to distract and block attacks. Susan used her artefacts to fly into the air at high speeds to avoid most of the problematic parts of that combat, as the last thing she needed to happen was getting frozen, as that would be a fast track to death.

Mechanical wings opened up from her back, and light shot down from the sky upon the whole area. The ice mage dodged the shots, and some were reflected back, which Susan barely dodged.

I hate fighting humans

Jordan jumped in after a long, gruelling fight with another physical fighter; with golden wings, he flew into the ice field to charge down the ice mage.

His axe cleaved through the ice pillars, and he found his target.

With Susan shooting down from the sky and Jordan in hot pursuit, the mage flashed freezed the whole area in an attempt to escape, but Jordan remained completely unaffected.

“Haha! It’s going to take more cold or heat to put me down!” He bragged and swung his, ripping the arm off the grunt, and Susan’s bullets rained on the man while he was stunned.

In seconds, the man was dead. “Good job, Susan.”

“Let’s just move on…”

Aluber was fighting a couple of mechs that were defending the area. Each was a few tens of metres tall with heavy armour plating. On the large end of mechs, they had only just emerged and were causing devastation with large flamethrowers against the attackers.

[Sound Burst]!

An explosion of sound waves came from each direction, crashing into the mechs, and while they shook, little damage was done.

Shit… Aluber dodged the incoming laser fire and switched to a small gun, which transformed into a massive cannon.

Click

With a small pull of the trigger, a torrent of energy boomed out of the cannon, sending Aluber back, and the mech had a massive hole torn in its insides, but the thing was still standing.

“That was more powerful than I was expecting…” Aluber pushed himself off the ground; the only instruction he was given for that item was that it was a powerful one-time-use cannon, and he had five of them. Oddly, perhaps it was too powerful, as the blast went right through the mech, and since it didn’t explode, there was still enough remaining for it to keep moving.

“Got ya back, buddy!” Jordan slingshotted himself towards the mech; his axe had enlarged to three times its size, and he cleaved its side. The moment it did, his axe got stuck, which he proceeded to begin kicking it out.

“Stop rushing into trouble!” Susan followed quickly behind, firing upon the mech and dodging the counterattack, but Jordan got his weapon free and swung for another blow. “Come on, let us finish this junk box!”

“Understood, follow me!” Aluber yelled back as he jumped back into action.

His sword on his side switched into a guitar, and with a swing of the pick that appeared in his head, a colossal wave of sound appeared.

DIIIIIIIIIIIII!

“Follow up!” Susan cried, and both Jordan and Aluber glowed golden as the sound wave intensified and the mech’s metal frame began to screech.  ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novelFirｅ.net

Jordan jumped into the safe wave. “Smashing through!” And his body was flung towards the mech, and with a spin, he chopped the thing in half.

The mech was defeated, but there was more to be done. Breaking into a base, they found some prisoners who had been forced to work menial duties, whom they brought back to the surface and had a ship pick up.

Then, while they were taking a quick breather, it was only in the corner of their eye, but once Jordan saw and turned his head, the rest quickly followed. On Asta, a colossal storm of flames roared from the planet, climbing so high that they could see it from the triplet planet they were standing on. The manifestation brought about a sense of awe in those who saw it, as what thing could create such a flame so quickly? There were plenty of other large elemental events going on all the planets, but this one was so large and travelled so high…

Susan asked, “What’s that…?”

“A fire tornado…” Jordan replied very literally.

“Why can we see it from another planet!?”

“...Do you think?” Aluber said, which caused a massive silence in the group.

“...No…”

“I mean…?”

Susan and Jordan had different opinions.

Then a fourth voice joined the call, “Hello, you lustful lot, by your current conversation, I assume you can see the fire monstrosity from your side too.”

“Yes, grandfather… Do you know who it is?”

“Yes, it was caused by our side, thankfully, by the same lady who took an artefact off me. To be completely honest, I’ve spent a quarter of my time watching the friend of hers who received the artefact, and wow, she certainly did an impressive job; it even had one more ability that my skill didn’t pick up on.”

“Sigh…” Susan didn’t know what to say.