Chapter 233: L46 4A (Patreon)

Brom

Brom watched as Isaiah took a beating from the combined attacks of the enemy’s demigoddess and general through the screen above the portal to the forest battlefield, Javier and Irena having previously moved to be right in front of it, and he could tell Earth’s army was likely about to lose.

The enemy had already figured out Lord Aalam’s identity, probably through reasoning and not the ability to see through his disguise, and they seemed to be deliberately not sending anyone to the desert battlefield, Ms. Li’s ability to ambush them if they did having almost certainly been guessed as well. This then meant the enemy would be sending all their elites to the forest battlefield, and, if Earth lost Isaiah, they wouldn’t be able to compete.

Almost as important, if Earth lost anyone, the huge achievement they would otherwise earn would be lost as well, so, even if they won in the end, the benefits their force would receive would be greatly, greatly reduced.

It didn’t take any time for Brom to make his decision. Earth had treated him and his well—to the point his dream of taking over the Bronze Legion and making his enemies pay no longer felt at all unachievable—but he’d yet to do anything for them.

“L46 4A.” Brom sent through the telepathic channel built into the entire army’s law armors and then rushed toward the portal.

Along the way, Reginald, who had been about to enter into the portal following Ms. Silvia’s orders, stopped and tossed him a spatial storage ring designed for one of their army’s trick plays, and Brom caught it in his left hand right before passing through the portal into the forest battlefield.

Isaiah’s positioning had been excellent, the enemy general’s back right in front of the portal’s exit, so Brom attacked immediately, his right hand swinging his great sword directly at the back of the man’s neck.

He didn’t use any skills in the attack, Isaiah and Lord Aalam having already analyzed the man’s hellwater defense was especially strong against qi and mana like Brom’s Heaven’s Blade skill would coat his sword with, but Brom’s Fabled grade great sword was supernaturally sharp and it penetrated right through the water, hitting the man’s neck.

Were it not for the law armor the man was wearing, which drained about half of its power to provide a second defensive armor made of pure energy over his entire body, the enemy general would have been decapitated instead of only staggering forward a little.

With Lord Aalam sensing everything which occurred on the battlefield and being arguably the best E rank crafter of all time, however, Brom had already known the armor would do this, so he’d been prepared.

While he dropped the spatial storage ring in his left hand under the enemy general, he stabbed his tail directly toward the man’s now mostly undefended back, and it was empowered by his skill.

His armor-covered tail still wasn’t able to penetrate the man’s energy armor, but that wasn’t the point. The armor was drained of all the rest of its power, and that allowed the wind blade which came at just the right time to slice into the man’s neck, decapitating him.

The demigoddess was stunned for a fraction of a second upon Brom’s arrival, again showing how little combat experience she actually had, so it was only at this point she finally did just what Brom had been hoping for. Instead of attacking Isaiah, taking advantage of the fact his armor now had multiple holes for hellwater to flow in through, she sent a big rush of hellwater at Brom, forcing him to activate Heavenly Dash to retreat.

The attack reached him at the end of its range, but, with the overpowered nature of his armor and his own Heavenly Armor skill, he was able to get away pretty much unscathed.

Isaiah also took this chance to retreat, not worrying about his spear which had fallen to the ground, and the demigoddess again made another mistake and didn’t chase after either of them.

Brom, Nitya, and Irena were all still mostly at full fighting strength, while Javier would be fully recovered in a little over five seconds and Isaiah in under a dozen, so, even though the enemy general wasn’t actually dead, the demigoddess already moving to reattach his head as Brom and Isaiah retreated, their period of weakness was about to be over and the rescue operation Brom had decided on, Lizard 46—a variation on the plan Ms. Silvia had already given orders to implement, only with him taking the role Reginald otherwise would have—could be counted as a complete success.

The spatial storage ring he’d tossed out was lying on the ground right next to the two enemies and, through Isaiah and Irena’s law armors, Lord Aalam had control over it.

* * *

Isaiah

Diana and Aalam’s half sister wasn’t the only one who could play with the rules, Mila also having immediately seen a loophole which would allow the Earth army to make use of the equivalent of a powerful one time use artifact. But they had only created three during previous stages, and two of them were with Mila, who, with her long range telekinesis, could use them a lot more efficiently than a warrior like Brom as she could easily stay out of range of their effect.

Running away as fast as he could, in roughly the same direction as Brom and Nitya, Isaiah felt the large explosion from Aalam releasing the antimatter in the ring before he heard it, he himself just outside of the blast zone.

Antimatter was a material, not an artifact. Sure, if it met matter the two would mutually annihilate, creating a huge explosion, but that wasn’t a magical effect. The only artifact involved was the spatial storage ring which was specifically designed to take Aalam’s energy, turn it into antimatter, and then store it.

When he heard the blast, Isaiah stopped running, using all his energy to heal his injuries and all of Aalam’s energy which was flowing into him to repair his armor, even while Brom and Nitya kept running, moving away from the location of the enemy’s portal, out of which another of the enemy’s commanders ran. Then, while the commander headed directly for the blast site, Isaiah confirmed with Aalam to see how well the explosion had performed.

The enemy general was dead, blown up into bits, but Amalia Stormborn had survived, 80% of the stored energy in her armor used to protect her body from the blast, her hellwater defense not doing much against such an extreme non-magical explosion.

Then, when Isaiah was back to 100%, he summoned out his backup spear, activated one of the array formations on his law armor, and ran toward the new enemy, his speed nearly 10% faster than before.

Called the Four Aspects Formation, the array formation required four other commanders with laws that were at least somewhat close to his own to activate, and, in the entire army other than Aalam and Mila, Nitya, Irena, Javier, and Brom were the ideal choices, Brom especially. Nitya’s energy, influenced by one of her wind laws, flowed from her own law armor into his to boost his speed. Irena’s energy, influenced by her fire law, flowed from her armor to his to boost his destructive offense. And Javier’s energy, influenced by his life and water laws, flowed into Isaiah’s armor to boost his recovery. Finally, and arguably the most important, Brom’s energy, influenced by one of the man’s two metal laws, flowed into Isaiah’s armor to boost his defense.

Isaiah met the enemy commander, a large male warrior, about twenty kilometers out from the blast site, and they engaged for about five seconds before Isaiah managed to deplete the energy in the man’s armor and stab him through the heart.

Then, as he sent destructive qi into the man, he turned toward Amalia Stormborn, who had just reached within half a kilometer of him.

She’d lost her helmet in the explosion and hadn’t had enough time to pick it up, but otherwise she looked fine.

“I’m going to kill you!” Amalia yelled at him as she rushed forward, pushing her hellwater to attack him, and yet again Isaiah registered how the woman was not a well trained combatant. From sharing Aalam’s senses, he’d seen her crying briefly over the enemy general’s virtual corpse, and Silvia, who had a couple of her minds outside of the War of the Chosen, informed him the two were engaged.

Isaiah started laughing, not really able to control himself, and the result was the woman getting even angrier. She became even more aggressive with her attacks, taking out artifact after artifact like the spear she’d stabbed into him previously, even a couple artifacts with mental attack capabilities as well, but with Isaiah’s improved speed he dodged most of them, and those he couldn’t weren’t able to get through his enhanced defense.

“Do you find this situation funny?”

“Yes.” Isaiah stopped laughing and just glared at the woman as they kept fighting. “Of course I do.

“The enmity between our two forces started with your mother mercilessly killing my fiancee and unborn daughter, your sister and niece, yet you have the gall to get angry when your half brother murders your betrothed in a virtual war game?”

As Isaiah suspected, Amalia Stormborn did not know the facts of why she was fighting, and, as expected, when she heard them she faltered for half a second, well beyond long enough for Isaiah to take advantage.

He stabbed her through one of her eyes, pushed destructive qi and mana into her head, and then stabbed her through her armor and into her heart, destroying her life force completely.