In the seconds after Victor had set her down on the roof, Zefaris carved several kinetic mirror glyphs into surrounding architecture and set forth a deluge of bullets, both physical and ghostly. The bullets of her phantoms were… Unsettling. Immaterial. They just passed through enemy projectiles, and then struck in such a way that bursts of ghostly-blue erupted out of their victims’ backs… With no wounds left afterward, despite the fact they tumbled down, dead. Even the survivors were left writhing, clutching their bodies despite the absence of visible injury. Shouts about spiritual attacks followed soon after.
He wasn’t sure whether the Dragonsteel Bullets were merciful or even more cruel by comparison. They flew unimpeded by any attempt to shoot them down or divert them, they tore through aura and shield and summoned walls of blood alike. Though the entry into their victims left only pinholes, once inside they underwent such violent deformation that, once they came out the other end, their victims were instantly liberated from a third or even a half of their total body mass. Then, in an instant, each bullet snapped back into spherical form and vanished, instantly returning into Zefaris’ ammunition stocks. Victor genuinely considered whether near-instant evisceration of the physical or spiritual kind was the preferable way to go.
As for his own firepower, the Devil’s Teeth had serious problems, requiring five or six at once to eliminate even one Black Robe. It was in part due to their impressive ability to shoot down the projectiles, throw them off-course with blasts of wind or blood, and in part due to other, more straightforward defenses, from conjured barriers to physical cover. Many of the Blue Robes had auras so dense they passively slowed down the missiles, and the Red Robes could simply force up to two of them to a stop if they focused - which didn’t happen much, since it was a fairly niche, ideal set of circumstances.
That was just the testing, though. The control group to compare his evolution of the Devil’s Teeth against: Terminal Fangs, named after what they were based on, the “Demon Extermination Talisman”. When he was still testing them, their working name had been Sealing Fangs, but they didn't exactly seal things. In the beginning, they were just the original talisman designs made using devilbone instead of paper or wood from some obscure Itrian spirit-tree, shaped like a vertically stretched pentagon. The special part came from using his unique abilities to twist them into a spiraling, screw-like projectile without damaging the delicate glyphs on the inside. In fact, in their flat, initial state, the glyphs were distorted to account for the twisting that came afterwards. The hardest part had been figuring out how to make the propulsion work… But it did work, and now Victor had a truly outstanding weapon suitable both against other cultivators and arcane beasts.
When met with an enemy defense, his Terminal Fangs frayed it and twisted it apart with their passage, and even the enchanted soft armor of the Blue and Red Robes lost some of its potency against them. They didn’t pierce as effortlessly as dragonsteel bullets, that was true, but Victor was ecstatic with this result. He floated above a group of three black-robes and two blue-robes, each of them having been struck by one or two Terminal Fangs. Before, they had buffeted him with such strong winds that he had to dedicate much effort to just not spinning out of control or falling out of the sky, but now the strength of their collective efforts had fallen no less than by two-thirds, and it was all thanks fo the Terminal Fangs interfering with the flow of essentia within their bodies as well as with their souls’ grip on it.
Some would have called this flagrant misuse of sacred techniques. The Itrian Scroll had made it abundantly clear that its techniques were for protecting what was sacred and exterminating demons, after all. It never actually described what a demon was, but based on the techniques and his own deduction, Victor had a good idea of it; they had to be highly magical beings, likely advanced cultivator-beasts and/or living curses, like the Ikesian False Wendigo.
Bullets, shot, and high-velocity shells screamed from below. Some of the Hellhounds and sect members scaled the buildings to higher ground, while most of them supported the Third-model death machines. Ruthless death squads, they carved a path into the city, busting down conjured barricades and shooting down black-robed enemy disciples. Even as they retreated, they still tried to drag along their prey, and, arrogant, they thought to strike at the tankmen. The unyielding strength of industry and artifice met with flesh and bone reinforced by centuries-old martial arts and mutagens… And found the latter wanting. Mere mortals in metal suits, none older than forty, crushing cultivators among whom even the failured universally surpassed sixty and looked no more than thirty.
Despite the tankmen and sect members supporting them, they found themselves mired down by the enemy, slowed to a near-halt. The constant machine-gun clanging of Lady Zefaris’ revolver only spoke to the strength of their foe.
As the weaker forces evacuated, more and more blue and red robes came in, and with them, so did abominations. Terrible things, tangled together from human limbs and faces and artisanal mechanisms. They screeched with chorus-voices that shattered glass and roof tile, they smashed and stomped and leapt about with strength and speed utterly impossible for any human. These abominable beasts spewed barrages of acid and poisoned arrows and boiling blood, and snapped with teeth and claws and blades wrought of singing steel easily on par with any weapon of the Newman Sect’s disciples.
Terrors they were, puppeteered by shimmering fog-wires connected to red-robes and fiercely protective of them.
While the Newman Sect’s forces valiantly engaged them, with the tankmen using the city to pigeonhole the monstrosities into firing corridors and Zefaris just tearing them to bits from afar, Victor also did his part. He was concerned that, if their advance was halted, the enemy would have time to put up a counter-offensive, that their own powerhouses would show up. So, he wanted to even the numbers disparity with monsters of his own. Informing Zefaris with an aetherwave message he flew to an opportune location, at once away from the main battle lines and perpendicular to them so that any attack from there would be a flanking one. Then, he brought out over thirty storage talismans, for ten servitors in total. It wouldn’t take long if he fully focused on summoning them.
Akaso
If you’d like to read ahead, consider heading on over to the Patreon! You get up to 20 advance chapters for both Retribution Engine and Cherno Caster.
I’d also greatly appreciate it if you could rate my story, maybe even leave a review or advanced review!
For a link to the discord, check the synopsis.
In the seconds after Victor had set her down on the roof, Zefaris carved several kinetic mirror glyphs into surrounding architecture and set forth a deluge of bullets, both physical and ghostly. The bullets of her phantoms were… Unsettling. Immaterial. They just passed through enemy projectiles, and then struck in such a way that bursts of ghostly-blue erupted out of their victims’ backs… With no wounds left afterward, despite the fact they tumbled down, dead. Even the survivors were left writhing, clutching their bodies despite the absence of visible injury. Shouts about spiritual attacks followed soon after.
He wasn’t sure whether the Dragonsteel Bullets were merciful or even more cruel by comparison. They flew unimpeded by any attempt to shoot them down or divert them, they tore through aura and shield and summoned walls of blood alike. Though the entry into their victims left only pinholes, once inside they underwent such violent deformation that, once they came out the other end, their victims were instantly liberated from a third or even a half of their total body mass. Then, in an instant, each bullet snapped back into spherical form and vanished, instantly returning into Zefaris’ ammunition stocks. Victor genuinely considered whether near-instant evisceration of the physical or spiritual kind was the preferable way to go.
As for his own firepower, the Devil’s Teeth had serious problems, requiring five or six at once to eliminate even one Black Robe. It was in part due to their impressive ability to shoot down the projectiles, throw them off-course with blasts of wind or blood, and in part due to other, more straightforward defenses, from conjured barriers to physical cover. Many of the Blue Robes had auras so dense they passively slowed down the missiles, and the Red Robes could simply force up to two of them to a stop if they focused - which didn’t happen much, since it was a fairly niche, ideal set of circumstances.
That was just the testing, though. The control group to compare his evolution of the Devil’s Teeth against: Terminal Fangs, named after what they were based on, the “Demon Extermination Talisman”. When he was still testing them, their working name had been Sealing Fangs, but they didn't exactly seal things. In the beginning, they were just the original talisman designs made using devilbone instead of paper or wood from some obscure Itrian spirit-tree, shaped like a vertically stretched pentagon. The special part came from using his unique abilities to twist them into a spiraling, screw-like projectile without damaging the delicate glyphs on the inside. In fact, in their flat, initial state, the glyphs were distorted to account for the twisting that came afterwards. The hardest part had been figuring out how to make the propulsion work… But it did work, and now Victor had a truly outstanding weapon suitable both against other cultivators and arcane beasts.
When met with an enemy defense, his Terminal Fangs frayed it and twisted it apart with their passage, and even the enchanted soft armor of the Blue and Red Robes lost some of its potency against them. They didn’t pierce as effortlessly as dragonsteel bullets, that was true, but Victor was ecstatic with this result. He floated above a group of three black-robes and two blue-robes, each of them having been struck by one or two Terminal Fangs. Before, they had buffeted him with such strong winds that he had to dedicate much effort to just not spinning out of control or falling out of the sky, but now the strength of their collective efforts had fallen no less than by two-thirds, and it was all thanks fo the Terminal Fangs interfering with the flow of essentia within their bodies as well as with their souls’ grip on it.
Some would have called this flagrant misuse of sacred techniques. The Itrian Scroll had made it abundantly clear that its techniques were for protecting what was sacred and exterminating demons, after all. It never actually described what a demon was, but based on the techniques and his own deduction, Victor had a good idea of it; they had to be highly magical beings, likely advanced cultivator-beasts and/or living curses, like the Ikesian False Wendigo.
Bullets, shot, and high-velocity shells screamed from below. Some of the Hellhounds and sect members scaled the buildings to higher ground, while most of them supported the Third-model death machines. Ruthless death squads, they carved a path into the city, busting down conjured barricades and shooting down black-robed enemy disciples. Even as they retreated, they still tried to drag along their prey, and, arrogant, they thought to strike at the tankmen. The unyielding strength of industry and artifice met with flesh and bone reinforced by centuries-old martial arts and mutagens… And found the latter wanting. Mere mortals in metal suits, none older than forty, crushing cultivators among whom even the failured universally surpassed sixty and looked no more than thirty.
Despite the tankmen and sect members supporting them, they found themselves mired down by the enemy, slowed to a near-halt. The constant machine-gun clanging of Lady Zefaris’ revolver only spoke to the strength of their foe.
As the weaker forces evacuated, more and more blue and red robes came in, and with them, so did abominations. Terrible things, tangled together from human limbs and faces and artisanal mechanisms. They screeched with chorus-voices that shattered glass and roof tile, they smashed and stomped and leapt about with strength and speed utterly impossible for any human. These abominable beasts spewed barrages of acid and poisoned arrows and boiling blood, and snapped with teeth and claws and blades wrought of singing steel easily on par with any weapon of the Newman Sect’s disciples.
Terrors they were, puppeteered by shimmering fog-wires connected to red-robes and fiercely protective of them.
While the Newman Sect’s forces valiantly engaged them, with the tankmen using the city to pigeonhole the monstrosities into firing corridors and Zefaris just tearing them to bits from afar, Victor also did his part. He was concerned that, if their advance was halted, the enemy would have time to put up a counter-offensive, that their own powerhouses would show up. So, he wanted to even the numbers disparity with monsters of his own. Informing Zefaris with an aetherwave message he flew to an opportune location, at once away from the main battle lines and perpendicular to them so that any attack from there would be a flanking one. Then, he brought out over thirty storage talismans, for ten servitors in total. It wouldn’t take long if he fully focused on summoning them.
Akaso
If you’d like to read ahead, consider heading on over to the Patreon! You get up to 20 advance chapters for both Retribution Engine and Cherno Caster.
I’d also greatly appreciate it if you could rate my story, maybe even leave a review or advanced review!
For a link to the discord, check the synopsis.
