Chapter 657 — God Hunt
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
The surging energy was poured into the system. The technological constructs born of that ancient homeland hummed amid the rushing tide of power; the energy conduits trilled, the mechanical structures sang, and the vast elemental folding tower radiated layer upon layer of dazzling brilliance. Within the mighty magical pulse, the barrier between the elements and the material world was torn open, and a peculiar spatial rift slowly unfurled, like a dark, deep eye opening at the heart of a vortex, its depths rippling with shimmering waves of light.
"Evaporate!" "Evaporate!" "Evaporate!"
The sirens cheered, and great swaths of blue radiance abruptly rose drifting through the folding field. One by one the sirens' bodies turned ethereal and fluid in the glow, giving off endless clouds of water vapor; in the space of a heartbeat, eleven thousand deep-sea warriors, wave-front vanguards, and tide masters had lost all physical form, evaporated into surging steam that rushed toward the elemental rift high above.
Thunderous roars rolled through the folding field. Across the vast plaza the sirens' silhouettes swiftly thinned; as the "expeditionary force," now condensed into an enormous mass of vapor, entered the rift, the energy conduits around the plaza—those that followed the terrain and stretched away toward the distant mothership—dimmed one after another, and a great many auxiliary devices opened their heat-dissipation grilles, beginning to release their accumulated thermal energy.
Petia exhaled softly. Her silver-white hair lifted gently in the sea breeze. The deep-sea sovereign raised her head and gazed at the distant sea, as though her sight pierced the barriers of space and beheld her sisters already far away upon another continent.
She murmured in wonder: "To think... we would actually restart these ancient devices... This season's land civilization really is quite interesting."
"Interesting, and somewhat dangerous," said Rosalia, the deep-sea handmaiden, swaying her serpentine tail gently beside Petia. "Using human strength to manufacture a 'god,' and then attempting to use human strength to hunt a 'god'... Setting aside whatever their god actually is, this season's humans have a way of doing things that can only be called startling."
"...Perhaps the sirens ought to learn a thing or two from these short-lived races and their 'startling' ways. After all, they can create marvelous technology like the iridescent device," Petia said softly. Then she glanced up at the elemental rift still yawning above the folding tower and ordered: "Keep the passage open until our sisters return."
"Yes."
Petia looked around the plaza once more. On several nearby raised platforms, warriors stood on guard, and more than a dozen weapon emplacements—their lines elegant, their armor shell-shaped—aimed at the rift in the sky from afar, faint water-colored light ceaselessly stirring in the seams of their plating.
The sirens had lost much of their technology in this world, and many ancient devices could no longer operate, but after so many years of hard-won adaptation, they still had a few good things.
"Keep the particle pulse batteries at half-activation. If whatever comes back through that rift isn't one of ours... shoot it down."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
……
The magic-crystal railgun boomed. The obelisk-shaped shell shrieked through the air, and after a brief delay it struck its target, bursting open on that holy and grotesque monster in a hazy bloom of light and flame and scattering flesh and blood.
The hunter had struck true. Now the prey had been successfully enraged.