Chapter 270: Dispersive Prisms
A thick sheet of illuminated mana slammed into the ground, embedding itself firmly in the soil like a road block. The barrier formed a bullet-proof shield in the nick of time, absorbing a dozen piercing shots from the firing squad of Elite Spite Constructs as they sent another volley into the desperate human defenders downrange from their position.
The deadly projectiles bounced off the glowing plate, ricocheting into the soft dirt with dinging reverberations, failing to reach their targets. Dirt sprayed in all directions, both from the shield implanting itself in the ground and the bullets colliding with dirt, adding to the chaotic atmosphere.
“Get your ass up!” Platinum shouted over the cacophony, wincing as she noted how many solidlights she had already expended. Even under the best conditions, she was in trouble, and the conditions of the Underlayer were anything but the best.
The last of the soldiers she had saved snatched his singed cowboy hat from the dirt as he struggled to his feet, falling back with relief, chasing the rest of his squad and getting lost in the crowd, as Platinum’s shield absorbed a series of attacks that would have killed him. He correctly recognized that he was one of the lucky ones.
An angry shout drew her attention to the side, where a red-headed man crunched the firmly held shield of an Elite Ruin Construct with a leaping one-handed smash of his black-jack. He injured the monster, causing it to drop its guard, but his opposite shoulder was punctured by the spear arm of his mechanical target. The monster flailed as it stumbled backwards, barely counter attacking, but still finding enough strength to cause the spike to erupt out of the man’s upper back and leave him gasping in shock with his free hand weakly gripping the shaft, dragging them both down to the ground.
Next to him, further away, an elegant woman jabbed a parasol forward, piercing the glowing weak point in a dual-wielding Bane Construct with the sharpened tip. Then she activated the cap, causing the mechanism to spring out and slice the torso of the monster into several pieces. The ribs of the umbrella were even more dangerous than the pointed end. She scowled from behind fashionably curled bangs as she braced herself for the counter attacks.
The canvas panels of the umbrella vibrated as they caught a bolt of mana from one of the casters in the backline of Primal Constructs, but the protection held long enough for her to step to the side and allow another burly warrior to step forward, wearing suspenders while holding a comically small round wooden shield that absorbed a second magical attack. The big, bearded man thrust a wand forward, held in his hand opposite the sparkling shield, sending the exact bolt of mana back at its caster. The alien caster had its exoskeleton melted, leaving its body as nothing more than a smoking husk.
At the same time, another man rose up from one knee where he had been battered into the dirt by the first shield-wielding Elite. His face was covered in blood from a wound above his hairline, but his eyes were clear enough. He raised his arm over his shoulder and a blade shimmered to life. The energized meat cleaver sliced the kneeling Construct in half, cutting from the shoulder that terminated in a spear to the opposite hip and gouging the dirt, causing the impaled red-headed man to fall the rest of the way into the dirt . They both leveled with the kill.
Before the spotlights diminished the butcher grabbed the shirt of the black-jack wielder and dragged him backwards, making room for others to push forward. “Mickey, you dumb bastard.” She heard the bloodied man mutter as he stumbled away while the more severely injured party shouted curses.
Arrows and other small projectiles shot across the sky with a steady cadence, landing deep in the sea of Primal Constructs, chased by larger arcing stone boulders, bolts of living wood, and winged missiles. A blue meteor briefly lit the battlefield directly above Platinum’s position, slowly traveling across the underground sky, before landing among the invaders with a muffled thump. It exploded against an urgently erected series of mana shields, splashing a cascade of bright blue flames that ignited dozens of the invaders beyond the edges of the protective barrier. They flailed, crashing into each other before collapsing beneath still burning fires, spreading the flames across a swath of invaders.