[A/n: This chapter contains disturbing content! The last so far.]
The mobile unit was made up of a hardened group of individuals who had seen combat and brushed shoulders with death and madness more than they wished they had: Megan, Kave, Officer Reeves, Hammerhead, Stone, and Patch.
The unit car was an SUV, so it was able to take them all together, with the bulky Corporal Stone taking the trunk all by himself. They moved nimbly between the defensive points occupied by the students, and they joined whenever the fight was at its thickest. During this, they witnessed some new oddities with this particular enemy.
The attacks at the defensive posts came in waves, each with a unique approach and a mind of its own. The first one they repelled were Hobgobs attacking the western defensive barricade with firearms. They carried the looted military rifles without discipline and shot haphazardly at the defenders, inaccurately, but still lethally.
What was laughable, however, was that they couldn't figure out what to do with their weapons once they ran out of bullets, as they seemed not to have thought that far ahead. Smaller Gobs ran out from their back lines with fresh firearms rather than extra magazines, and the Hobgobs threw down their old ones for the Gobs.
Before they could fire again, Stone would personally step in and mow them down with his heavy blazer. The attack was repelled easily, but the defenders were all left worried.
What followed was more of the same thing, mostly Stone stepping up to alleviate the pressure while the rest flanked the enemy with blazers, and if the pressure proved too much, they would request bombardment.
However, the eastern front was the calmest, and the mobile unit didn't need to head to it until a frantic message came from Raj, who was in charge of it. Sergeant Elena stopped that message from reaching the other teams and ordered each team to be on a different channel while Buzz coordinated between them.
For the first ten minutes, that strategy worked fine; then, screams started coming from inside the shelter. Megan immediately told Officer Reeves to go and check, despite the orders being to stay in an area where they could reach all teams without engaging unless told to, but Officer Reeves was also worried about the people inside and didn't need Megan to tell him.
Just as the two reached the back door of the factory on the western side of the building, the door opened, and Sarah walked out, rifle in hand, blood covering her from head to toe.
"Medics! We need more medics!" She cried, driven to the edge of her sanity, tears flowing from her eyes.
"Are you alright?" Megan ran towards her.
"I… I am… people are dying. Arrows came in and…" Sarah tried to speak, but before she could continue, Patch ran inside immediately, readying his medkit.
"Establish relief perimeter. Find out where the attacks are coming from." Corporal Stone followed inside immediately, adding, "We'll need to fortify the walls."
"Sir!" Hammerhead called to Stone, "We need to keep the fronts covered. Our task…"
"You keep them covered." Without much argument, Stone handed over his Heavy Blazer to Hammerhead and took his Blazer rifle. "You'll make a fine Grunt starting today. Take Reeves with you."
Hammerhead held the oversized heavy blazer and exchanged nods with Stone, who went deeper into the factory with Patch. Megan and Kave also decided to go in, leaving Officer Reeves and Hammerhead on fire support.
"Mobile Unit! Move east! I want everyone at the east gate." Sergeant Elena's voice crackled over the radio.
"This is Reeves and Hammerhead." Officer Reeves picked up the radio. "We're heading out."
"What the hell is this? Where are the rest?" Elena asked with a stern tone.
"Assisting in the shelter, sir. Lots of injured." Reeves replied.
"I want Stone at the gate! Now!" She shouted.
"Sir," Hammerhead took the radio mic from Reeves, "I've taken on the Grunt role for Stone."
Elena paused on the other side for a couple of seconds before replying:
"Goddamn… Fine! I'm coming down myself. I want the LMG to be loaded and ready as soon as I arrive."
"Affirmative."
The two hung up, and Hammerhead jumped to the back of the Squad car, reaching out for Reeves's LMG, a ballistic machine gun which he had since his time in his church hideout. The two men understood that they would be blasting a ton of bullets at the enemy, and so they went with the resolve to face madness itself.
However, as soon as the Squad Car turned from behind the factory building and sped to the other side, Hammerhead found the car suddenly taking a sharp turn, causing him to tumble inside the cabin.
"The fuck, Reeves!"
"Shit! Hold on!"
Officer Reeves was maneuvering the car to the best of his ability, as if dodging something unseen. Hammerhead recovered quickly, and as soon as he looked out through the window, the first sight that met him was something human crashing right beside the car.
Hammerhead couldn't process it at first, but as soon as the event happened two more times, it was enough for him to understand that the enemy was somehow catapulting humans at them.
"BASTARDS!"
Then a shout filled the heavens and reverberated through the air. Reeves and Hammerhead barely reached the eastern gate where the alien warriors were stationed, and all around them, human corpses fell from the sky.
"What the fuck is all that?" Reeves immediately jumped down from the car, only to freeze solid at the sight of the Gobzkin horde, the enslaved humans, and the anguishing sight of the Gobzkin Gigant as it kept catapulting more and more people.
On the other side, there was Adam Clay on top of the factory building, moving his arms wildly, causing visible shifts in the air currents around.
"HAA!"
He immediately created a cyclone of air, which he kept swirling over the eastern side of the factory, moving it to intercept the humans that were being launched at them by the Gigant.
Up there, Lord Kaimu was guarding Adam's flank as he did so, slashing aside two arrows that were targeting him, whereas Sharp was sniping down the arrow shooters. Elena was nowhere to be seen, but soon after, Kave and Megan appeared on the roof and joined Buzz, who started instructing them on how to operate the mortar to provide bombardment support.
Adam was failing to catch any of the people that were being thrown with the cyclone, so he switched over to the earth element, and with a huge strain on his mentality, he pushed a pillar of earth upward, before turning it into soft dirt.
With a strong Thud, the first person crashed into the earthen pillar, and Adam let the earth softly crumble and fall down, cushioning the shock and trauma. He didn't know if the man he just rescued was alive or not, but he took enough precautions not to let him be buried alive by the earth; alas, that made him too late to…
UOGH! SPLAAAAT!
… catch the woman who was thrown after.
"FUCKERS! THE WHOLE LOT OF YOU!"
He cried while watching the woman's body collide and shatter against the building, as though she were an insect against a car's windshield. The spatter of her blood, the eruption of her bones through her flesh and skin, the manner in which her form adhered to the wall, refusing to free its hold without a macabre pillar of blood and viscera trailing downward, until the eventual pull of gravity finally claimed her mangled remains.
Something twisted, broke, and reformed itself once again, angrier, scarier, more violent, and more expressive. Adam looked at the Gobzkin Horde, and the Horde Prince looked back.
≪ Your [Sanity] has improved! (III → IV) ≫
"I will fuck you up!"
Adam mumbled, and his power erupted to a level that even the mighty Elden Lord felt awe at it for the first time. The Bending Rune absorbed power as it started working at Adam's will, and a figure was built from the earth, dirt, gravel, and the tarmac of the ground below. It was more compact, more organized, cleaner, and more defined than the last time Adam attempted to make it.
Then a single word came from under Adam's breath; the Elden Lord barely heard it, but it was the same thing Adam says every time he uses his secret rune—the Puppeteer.
To the eyes of everyone, Adam was forming something big as his left hand that bore the Bracer of the Bending Rune rose upward along with its gigantic form.
The earthen giant rose once again for Adam, the same size as it was, but harder, stronger, and more defined, much to the awe of everyone watching.
The golem stood up to the same height as the factory and extended its hand to the edge of its roof, with a clear, composed movement, grabbed Adam, and put him above its head, which opened up and encapsulated him.
Adam had thought long and hard about this skill, the method for how to better form an earth golem, and how to make it move, act, and react to his commands. With enough practice, Adam's golem was now a towering menace, a perfect mix of the workings of the newly upgraded Bending Rune artifact and the Puppeteer rune within Adam himself.
Elena was already out of the factory, joining Hammerhead and Officer Reeves at the front gate, and rode with them, while watching out for Adam's golem's movement. They approached the line of Lord Kaimu's house guards, who opened the light barrier from its center.
Prince Skad watched the rise of the unknown variable with narrowed eyes before a vicious grin appeared on his face, which had been neutral and indifferent up to this moment. He roared like the monster he was, signaling the Gobzkin Gigant, which understood the signal to go all out.
The Gigant grabbed three humans in each hand and swung its arms wide, no longer aiming at anything, as it was told.
With screams and wails, the humans were launched into the air; one was already dead, crushed by the Gigant's vicious grip, and another died from the force of the throw. Not knowing that, Adam manipulated his golem to move like a goalkeeper, catching one, two, and three as fast and awkwardly as he could, exerting all the control he could. Still, he missed four and five, and as six was following soon after, he tried to catch it with his golem's chest, yet he failed to soften that part of the golem before the impact, and the human crashed against the golem with a SPLAAT!
"AAAAAAAAAAH!"
Through the open gaps he was using to see and breathe, Adam witnessed this, and blood rushed to his head, causing him to cry with rage and agony. His bending power moved the air through the gaps of the golem's head, and it sounded like the bellow of a broken beast.
He would have rushed with anger at the Gobzkins, but before he could even think of it, the Gigant was already launching more humans as if it were splashing water in a swimming pool. Not even half of those it threw reached the base, only falling short on the tarmac, some splattering even against the Light Ward of the Alfari warriors, but only three reached the factory's airspace, where Adam caught only one and failed to catch the other two.
Even though he tried to make a wide motion, the body of the golem wasn't fit to make such wide strides sideways, and it crumbled down as Adam could no longer exert perfect control.
A vicious laugh erupted from the Gobzkin Prince, quickly spreading through the horde like wildfire, particularly among the numerous, small Gobs whose high-pitched, nasty cackles sounded like a chorus of rasp-voiced children.
While they laughed, the humans and Alfari wore nothing but grim faces and sunken hearts. Adam, Kave, Megan, Elena, Hammerhead, Reeves, Raj and his team of ten students, Buzz from the eyes of his drone, and even the cold-blooded Sharp, who didn't turn until he had sniped every last one of the Gobzkin shooters, all of them felt the weight of this.
Adam's golem was on its hands and knees, looking through the gaps of his golem's head at the person he just caught, who was lying motionless in the golem's head, already dead before it could save him.
The bitterness!
The grief!
The rage!
The Wartopians felt Adam's emotions, and rather than preventing themselves from being devoured by them, they all accepted them as their own.
Their commander, their summoner, their lord—his sadness was their sadness too, a link that ran deep beyond the mechanization of magic and fantasy.
Every Wartopian decided to act upon it, a mental power that reached back, asking him to act independently.
"… Do what you must."
With a weak voice, Adam spoke, letting the hounds loose.
Elena and Hammerhead mounted the squad car, stationed right between the Alfari warriors, each of them with a large weapon aimed at the horde. Sharp turned his Blazer sniper, Buzz raised his goggles and aimed his rifle ahead, and from the factory's eastern windows, Stone and Patch aimed their rifles out as well.
One more round of human tossing targeted everything this time, as if it were raining human limbs and guts. Corpses fell against the factory building, against the golem, and some even crashed onto the squad car, splattering blood all over Elena's grim, emotionless face.
"For Humanity!" Elena's finger touched the trigger of the LMG, loaded with a hundred bullets begging to burst out.
"For Earth!" Hammerhead followed, anger distorting his frightening face.
"For Commander Clay!" Sharp added, putting the Prince of the Gobzkin Horde in his reticle.
The red hand of doom spread like a high tide, targeting not just the Gobzkins but also the humans who were soon to be used as Gigant projectiles, taking captives and captors alike.
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