Chapter 717: Shell Turned Hell

Both the arrow and the magical orb shot were deadly silent.

With the flak cannons disrupting the view of the Countess Dantalion, she did not notice them coming a single bit. Even though they were released at the same time, the arrow flew faster thanks to Zeru’s innate strength as well as the massive amount of chi infused into the arrow’s shaft.

Once the arrow impacted onto the magical shield, it swiftly penetrated through the defences like a cockroach crawling through a slit. Initially, Peppers believed that her magical orb would partially explode on Countess Dantalion’s defensive energy shield given the nature of the arrow, but what Peppers hadn’t expected was that Zeru’s arrow had further infused it with a technique.

“Epic Bow Art, Watching the Lotus Flower Bloom,” Zeru whispered as he returned Bam and Boo into their original state and requested System to send the weapons over to Vulcan for a quick maintenance session before returning it to his disciple.

As the technique name implied, after the arrow slipped into the energy shield, its energy dispersion counteracted the magical shell around the turtle and created an opening that was shaped like a Lotus blooming in early spring. This allowed Peppers’ magical orb to pass through without any incident and head straight for the fortress sitting on the flying turtle’s back. Countess Dantalion was so focused on Zeru’s devastating attack that she did not see the condensed little sphere zooming past it.

A massive explosion ensued at the fortress, and the area around the blast became overpressurised, resulting in energised shock waves passing through the entire region.

Rock fragments of the medieval fortress’ walls flew all over the place and caused secondary casualties. The blast impact did not only damage the outer surface of the fort, but it inflicted a disastrous amount of fatalities within the fortress itself.

Peppers had learnt much after her fight with Ice Father Porkcupine… for which she still remained sour to this date. There were even rumours circulating of her wanting to attack and heal Father Porkcupine until she managed to one-shot kill the massive beast. (The System was not going to allow her to do anything of the sort as it had to preserve its precious resources.)

Her new and improved (restrained) spell had been modelled similar to a hydrogen bomb but with the piercing bursts of a bunker buster. While there were no metal pieces or smart technology to enable that, the mage bellator had sufficient grasp of her magic to allow her skills to detonate as such. If Jin’s world mages were to rate her manipulation of explosive power, she would definitely be nominated for the Nobel prize for the creation of a new form of offensive magic.

As soon as the explosive forces reached the basement of the Countess Dantalion’s fortress, it had violently annihilated the entire batch of ‘energiser bunnies’ that were kept in the tubes laced with the aphrodisiac mixture. As if things were not exciting enough, those mixtures happened to be quite volatile in nature, causing secondary explosions which ensured the complete decimation of the fortress and to some extent, damaged Flashy’s hardshell too.

The entire magical energy shield dissipated gradually and Peppers high fived with Zeru for a job well done. The Flying Turtle also wailed in pain from the effects of Peppers’ explosion but the worst had yet to come for the Flower Legion.

The entire Orc Artillery Company and Flak guns had been aiming at the turtle waiting for this moment and shot out everything for maximum effect. As some of the Artillery gun barrels had an insufficient angle to hit the turtle, the goblin mage lifted the ground with their magic creating an upward slope to aid the artillery gunners.

In the meantime, Wyrstriker’s forces renewed their strikes against the Flowery Wyverns in order to elevate some pressure away from the Goblin Anti Air Company. Now, the Goblin Anti Air revealed their latest weaponry, the Bofors 40mm autocannon. Used in World War 2, the autocannons provided better accuracy against the bigger targets while the flak guns were concentrating on the Flying Turtle. Even the Royal Snake Soldiers were getting a little restless and decided to follow the Orc Artillery Company’s actions by angling their anti-tank guns to allow for optimal positioning.

The barrage was endless, and it was evident that the Flying Turtle Flashy had not been expecting to suffer through so much pain. Still, it did its best to tolerate. It even retaliated by breathing out a burst of cold wind mixed with some sort of solid debris to counter the rain of shells.

But with its efforts, Flashy gave the demon ground troops some time to recover from the constant shelling. That bit of respite enabled them to charge forth recklessly since their only concern was the army of human ‘adventurers’ who they assumed Moloch had allied with.

Separately, Countess Dantalion was in a state of shock and still recovering from the attack. She subsequently realised that the remaining troops on Flashy’s surface were all the soldiers she had left. Her fortress, her home which had housed the council of elite flower knights waiting for her command had clearly been obliterated from that one attack. There was nothing but specks of dust along with a ruined crumbling castle. And if that wasn’t enough, her remaining soldiers on top of Flashy were continuously getting bombarded turning her grand entrance into nothing but a joke.

She would never be able to live this down. Just where did Moloch gain command over such powerful creatures or beings with such ruinous powers?

“Milady! Be careful!” A distant voice could be heard despite the severe ringing of her ears from the continuous bombardment, and when she turned her head, she saw a surviving Elite Flower knight emerge from the ashes and rocks.

“Dame Rose! I am glad to see-” A shell exploded right behind her, and the Countess Dantalion was fragmented into pieces from the attack as her knight witnessed the death of her beloved Lady.

“No!” Dame Rose banged her fists hard on the ground as tears, which were initially reserved for the relief she had upon seeing her Countess, continued to fall as they were to accommodate the despair that was overflowing out from her heart.

For the Elite Knight of Dantalion had failed her duty to protect the Countess.

“Damn it! Damn it! I am going to kill all of you! You shall regret this Moloch! All your troops will end up as fertiliser for Countess Dantalion’s garden!” Dame Rose exclaimed, but her hoarse voice fell on deaf ears as everyone was selfishly trying to survive this new hell they were in.