Фалкон Скоттын Уналт (63)

In the tunnels under the abandoned section of the city and the vast killing field beyond the devastated wall, countless explosives simultaneously received a signal to detonate. To prevent the interference of the nearby Gates from influencing the execution of the scorched-earth protocol, all of them were connected into a labyrinthine network by simple, but reliable wires.

Even though the signal traveled through the wires with astronomical speed, there was still a slight delay between the detonation of those explosives that were nearest to the ramparts of the secondary defense line and those furthest away from them.

At first...

From afar, it looked as though a ripple had spread through the ground, moving outward. It rolled through the ruined streets of the city, with countless fountains of dust shooting up between the rubble. Some of the buildings that had withstood the furious fighting started to collapse, some seemed to have burst apart.

The vanguard of the horde of Nightmare Creatures had already entered the city, racing through these streets. They met the ripple first and were thrown to the ground.

Then, the ripple reached the towering wall, destroying even more of its sections. The mass of alloy was only starting to fall, surrounded by the deafening groan of tearing metal, by the time the ripple moved past the mountainous corpse of the slain titan in the field beyond and exhausted itself. Now, the whole horde had been encompassed by the destruction zone.

All of it took no more than a couple of seconds.

For a moment, everything was still…

And then, the ground started to fall.

A vast swath of earth many kilometers across slowly started to cave in, as if forming a giant crater. Now that it was completely untethered, none of the buildings survived, all of them toppled and fell apart, devoured by the gargantuan landslide. The remains of the city wall were utterly destroyed, too.

However, the true devastation was yet to come.

As the inconceivable mass of soil sank down, it seemed to have reached a point of strange equilibrium… and then suddenly exploded upward in a furious conflagration. It was as though a giant bubble swelled from under it, and then burst open, unleashing a titanic pillar of flame into the cold winter sky.

For a moment, the night turned as bright as day.

Then, the roaring thunder of the explosion washed over the world, making the skies themselves shake. A billowing cloud of dust and debris rose high into the air, obscuring the ocean of flames bursting from under the ground. A second terrifying blast resounded when the munition depots spread across the staging area below the wall detonated under the assault of heat, concussive force, and pressure.

The horde of Nightmare Creatures was consumed by the obliterating havoc. The weakest of them were instantly killed, while the stronger ones were severely wounded and burned. Only the strongest ones managed to survive the initial conflagration unscathed.

In less than a minute, a gigantic area was utterly devastated, turning into an incandescent pit of fire, molten rock, and liquified metal. The furious sight of it all, up until the world had become obscured by dust, was both awe-inspiring and horrifying.

The soldiers standing on the ramparts had long fallen down and covered their ears, but even then, they could feel the terrible destruction through the violent tremors of the earth.

…Sunny, however, had first-row seats to the cataclysmic detonation.

After all, he was stuck in the middle of it.

'Die, die! Die, bastard!'

Trapped inside the sphere of shadows, he held the Scavenger down while pummeling him with his fist. Each of his blows would have been powerful enough to utterly wreck an armored APC like the Rhino, but the black bone armor of the shadow fiend simply refused to break.

The longer it endured, the more furious he became.

'Just die, damn it!'

The sphere of darkness around them suddenly shuddered, briefly rising, then plummeting down. A violent tremor ran through its walls, and up suddenly became down, it seemed that the shadow egg was rolling and being thrown around.

Sunny, who had been on top of the fiercely resisting Scavenger, found himself falling for a brief second. He hit the roof of the sphere, and a moment later, the hateful ogre came crashing down, as well, landing on him. A massive fist connected with the side of Sunny's head, making him see stars.

'Curse... it…'

However, the abomination could not press his advantage, because the shadow egg was flipped upside down once again a split second later… and then again, and then again, and then again.

The two of them were being tossed inside the sphere, ricocheting off its walls like rubber balls. Sunny almost instantly gave up on trying to comprehend where the up and down were, and simply concentrated on holding onto the Scavenger, as soon as he let go, the creature would be able to slip away through Shadow Step.

But as long as he did not let go… he could continue to try and kill the wretch…

'Die!!!'

Just as he was going to deliver another punch, a sharp pain pierced his shoulder. The dazed Scavenger had finally given up on trying to free himself from the mad human, and also on trying to meet him blow for blow, instead, he instinctively retreated to what he knew best.

Tearing things apart with his teeth.

'Argh, let go of me, you rotten piece of trash!'

Sunny had already had some poison coursing through his veins, but now, there was more…

Before he could do anything, however, the world suddenly shook, and a vicious shockwave traveled through the sphere. It felt as though all his organs had changed places…

But the next shudder was indescribably more violent.

Sunny thought that he had blacked out for a moment, but maybe he didn't. He growled and used both of his hands to grab the Scavenger, afraid to lose the grip. With no free hand to continue hitting the creature, he then proceeded to headbutt the bastard with all his strength.

Finally, Sunny felt something crack under his assault.

However, it might have been his own nose… it was hard to tell…

The world was shaking, burning, and consisted of pain.

Having gone completely berserk, Sunny paid it no attention and continued to use everything at his disposal to break the damned Scavenger, while the Scavenger continued to bite and rip his flesh apart with sharp fangs. The creature's armor would not break… but neither would the human's body.

In fact, his skin was harder than the hide of most abominations the fiend had devoured in the past, while his bones were ten times tougher than that.

What kind of ridiculous human was that?!

The air inside the sphere was permeated by unbearable heat, and it seemed as though its walls were starting to glow a dull red. Then, a crack appeared on the black surface…

Consumed by boundless bloodlust, the two continued to fight.