Chapter 305: The Burning City
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Accompanied by the sound of their flapping wings, a large swarm of bats quickly gathered around Hao Ren. Vivian emerged from the swarm of bats as she nervously ran towards Hao Ren and asked, "Are you okay?"
"I'm good." Hao Ren grinned and raised his right hand. The light on the giant, silvery-white pistol was slowly fading away and then, it vanished into thin air like a phantom. "I just need to take a breather…"
"What was that?" Lily asked as she ran towards him on her two large paws. At the same time, she licked the blood stain that was on her sleeve.
Hao Ren shrugged and answered, "An inspector's gun. I just unlocked it not too long ago. I felt like I needed some weapons that I could use in this environment, and I found it on the weapons list. But, it looks like I've used it too early."
Hao Ren had already came to the realisation that he needed to improve his combat power two or three months ago. He was living with a bunch of unusual creatures and he had a deranged boss who could give him weird tasks any time of the day. Plus, he could get involve in fights at any moment. Therefore, he urgently needed to strengthen his combat ability in order to confront such crisis. Under the guidance of the MDT, he had been trying to enhance his control over his strengthened body, learning about precise adjustments that could be made on the shield as well as his combat skills. However, he also knew that it was not enough to have these simple and direct fighting styles in his arsenal. As a man who was weak and unsecured, he had to have a more versatile skill set to make up for his shortcomings. He then looked into the section on arming one's self in the inspector handbook and successfully unlocked the right to carry and use the inspector's gun last month.
After applying for the gun, the weapon was sent directly to his Dimensional Pocket through the hyperspace-time rationing system. But, this was the first time he had used it.
"…Although I don't know much about it, it seems like a good thing," Hessiana said with amazement. "When did humans have this kind of stuff? Why didn't you use it earlier?"
Hao Ren smiled awkwardly as he raised his right hand and said, "Because of this..."
Even though he had already kept his gun in his Dimensional Pocket, his right hand was still shimmering with a bluish glow. The protruding blood vessels underneath his skin looked like they were filled with fluorescent agents. The skin near his wrist was covered with a slight scaley, crystalline substance as if his arm had turned into crystalline like those shadelings. Everybody around him was startled by this; Nangong Wuyue hurriedly ran to his side to treat him, but Hao Ren drew back his hand and said, "Don't bother. This is a psionic infection, you can't deal with it. But, I can break it down and it'll go away after a while."
The psionic weapon was powerful enough to ignore shields and armor of any kind made by mortals. Hence, some mortal civilisations called the energy used by such weapons as the "Will of God". However, the psionic weapon was actually not suitable to be used by mortals. It would bring certain harm to the user and it had a side effect called the "Psionic Crystallisation Syndrome". The time and intensity of the crystallisation syndrome varied according to the user's degree of physical sensitivity.
Unfortunately, Hao Ren was the more sensitive one.
However, the inspector's gun was a specially designed weapon, tailored to human users. It could make self-improvements according to the physiological characteristics of the user. At the same time, the inspector's own distinctive body constitution would slowly adapt to the psionic energy after many times of contact. So, after a period of adaptation, the gun would become the handiest weapon for the inspector.
Hao Ren just happened to use it prematurely—it would actually take him one more month to achieve a perfect sync with the gun.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Lily asked as she stared nervously at the strange symptoms on Hao Ren's arm, wagging her tail. "It looks scary."
"I'm all right. Let's go, we're wasting a lot of time here."
The sounds of explosions and shouting from the shadelings' castle had slightly weakened, but it was still quite intense. It seemed that the first batch of Hessiana's Daredevils and the defenders of the castle had entered a stalemate. On the south side of the castle, a number of shadelings forces rushed out and took the initiative to launch an attack. However, in the erratic onslaught of the insane vampires who carried RPGs and aerial bombs, these shadelings troops did not go far. They were called back to consolidate the defenses of the castle. At this point, the fight over there was a total mess. The shadelings were desperately defending while the vampires were attacking without any order. Both parties just could not keep pace with each other. In such a high-tech, magical, bizarre, and psychotic battle, there was nothing Rommel¹ could do even if you revived him and dragged him to the scene. Hessiana herself had never verified the tactics of her Daredevils (this was also not part of her condition so, who would train these soldiers in the shelter?) hence, the front line could only fight blindly.
The battles around the city had become white-hot. There were at least 11 rifts throughout the city and new demon hunters kept pouring into the battlefield from the rifts even after the unusual creatures struggled to fight back and consolidated their defenses. No one knew how many demon hunters were rushing in, but everyone knew that there was something wrong with a large number of demon hunters there. Since the end of the Mythological Age, the demon hunters had rarely formed legions to carry out an action of this scale. The number of demon hunters that would gather in a city was usually limited, but the ones that broke in today... They were all apparently ready for the battle.
The streets in the city were ablaze with flames and the city, which had been operating for thousands of years was quickly being destroyed. Although the unusual creatures were all formidable monsters to mankind, many of them were actually just regular people. They were not good in fighting at all. Even though they were more powerful than humans, they were never opponents of the demon hunters. The demon hunters in their long, black windbreakers were like the Grim Reaper, sweeping across the whole city. Every time their silhouettes flickered, a creature's life would be taken. The more powerful demon hunters had forcibly established their position near the rift. They were the ones directing more powerful and destructive spells.
The city's sky began to shake and crumble as the shadow of chaos fell from every crack in the sky. In these shadows, they could vaguely see the form of the real Athens—the demon hunters were casting spells to destroy the shadow structure of the city. If the real world came into contact with this dimension, the whole city might vanish.
However, the elders had begun to act. They closed their guarded passages and returned from the real world as well as the Shadowy Divide. They came to the city to deal with the leaders of the demon hunters, who were keeping the rifts open. These powerful elders managed to slightly relief the situation; the demon hunters' magic, which was capable of destroying the city was interrupted again and again. Due to the intense energy, the dome of the city creaked as if it was about to collapse, but in the end, it did not...
Well, not yet.
The flames from explosions and the burning fires in the city rose from all directions, but there was not one demon hunter near the shadelings' castle. That area seemed to have been deliberately overlooked. Only the shadelings and vampires from Hessiana's family were fighting here.
"The demon hunters deliberately bypassed this area," Hessiana said as she gritted her teeth and rubbed off the blood on her face. They had just beaten back another attack from the shadelings. The Dark Castle was already in sight and they could even see the ragged heraldry still fluttering above the city gate. "They're trying to throw the whole city into the real world... What kind of agreement did they have with that bastard, Bethanos?"
"It's incredible, the fact that the demon hunters colluded with unusual creatures," Vivian said, looking back at the city with concern. "Can we hold on? It seems like the demon hunters have gained the upper hand."
"We must," Hessiana clenched her teeth and said. "The shadelings are trying to break out of their castle; they are undoubtedly trying to rush to the city to support the demon hunters. We must be here to destroy the castle otherwise, the defenders in the city will be attacked from all sides!"
Then, she looked back at the city and said, "I want to help them fight against the demon hunters too, but right now... it's better that we believe in the power of the defenders. That crafty scoundrel, Bethanos is a greater threat now."
Just as Hao Ren was about to say something, he suddenly saw a golden glow appear out of nowhere in the air. He immediately prepared to fight, but then he noticed Hesperides walking out from the glow.
This elder, who went by "Goddess of Twilight", looked like she had just gone through a tough battle. Her clothes were stained with blood and the shimmering bloodstains had apparently come from the demon hunters. Along with all that, the weapon in her hand left them all dumbfounded.
It was a mace, which was almost as tall as her. It was fabricated from high-quality steel, covered in hundreds of nails and was an essential treasure for killing as well as robbing.
Hesperides was glaring at them with red eyes. She waved the mace in her hand and asked in a shrill voice, "Where is he? Where is he? Where's that one-eyed man?!"
Vivian covered her eyes and said, "Here comes her secondary personality."
Translator's Thoughts
Jillyboy Jillyboy
¹Erwin Rommel was a German general and military theorist who was popularly known as the Desert Fox.