Chapter 68 18:
It had been a long time since he had felt a pain like that, perhaps in his first years of life during his training.
Coming out of that daze, he levitated toward the barrier, where he saw that unknown translucent energy.
He touched the barrier with his hand, and an electric discharge ran through his arm, making him let out a growl of pain. There was a great deal of concentrated energy, too much, enough to hurt him.
"Damn it," he spat.
The other instructors, realizing what had happened, abandoned the fight against the lithari that still remained and flew toward the barrier.
Norr-manh struck the surface with a punch, and the energy shone intensely at the point of impact, but the field did not give way.
Tula tried to cut through it with her knife, and the blade bounced back as if it had struck an ingot of Viltrumium.
"What is this?" someone asked, curiosity escaping through his voice.
Nouwlan did not respond, he simply did not know what kind of barrier this was.
When he looked toward the Dorymathos, toward the crack in the ground from which more lithari continued emerging, he understood that that force field was not designed to keep them safe inside, but only served to keep them outside, for however long was necessary.
As for the lithari who remained outside, those who had not managed to enter before the closure, they were massacred within minutes, since without the reinforcements of their people and without the possibility of retreating they died beneath the fists of the viltrumites of the city.
But the ones inside, that was another matter.
Nouwlan clenched his fists, frustrated, ashamed of having fallen into the lithari stratagem so easily.
The Dorymathos was isolated from the rest of the planet. And inside it, without any protection whatsoever, were the empire's elite natos.
Only a quarter of a segment had passed, but to nouwl-an it had seemed like an eternity.
Nouwlan also could not measure time precisely, not while his fists struck the energy barrier again and again, making the field vibrate without managing to open it, while his frustration grew like a raging tide.
The other instructors did the same, deciding to coordinate themselves when they saw that isolated attacks were not entirely working.
Despite having concentrated the force on one specific point, the field absorbed the blows and redistributed them throughout the entire surface of the dome, while returning them in the form of electrical discharges that punished the attackers.
The lithari who had remained inside the perimeter, for they had sacrificed themselves to activate the obelisks, were eliminated quickly.
But the death of those slaves did not resolve the main problem.
The Dorymathos remained isolated, and inside it, the natos were still alone.
"Again!" the highest-ranking instructor roared, and the others prepared for a new coordinated assault.
They struck at the same time, impacting against the barrier at a point barely 10 meters in diameter. The energy shone intensely, blindingly, and a shockwave traveled across the entire dome, making the ground beneath their feet tremble.
The force field flickered for an instant, barely a sigh, but it had been the signal they needed.
"Now!" roared the highest-ranking instructor, and he unleashed all his strength in a single punch, right at the center of the weakened point.
The hole that opened was small, barely the size of his head, but it was a breach. Nouwl-an inserted his fingers into the edge of the field and pulled, feeling the energy resist, so that the electrical discharges burned his hands.
But he could not allow that breach to escape. They had to seize the opportunity.
"Help me!" he shouted, and the other instructors hurried to imitate him.
Ten pairs of viltrumite hands gripped the edge of that hole and pulled.
The energy crackled, sparked, and the obelisks generating the field began to smoke. Their surfaces cracked, the spheres at their tips flickered erratically, until one of them exploded.
And finally, fortunately for them, the dome destabilized.
Nouwlan felt the resistance diminish, sensing the fragility of the barrier.
With one final effort, he tore the tangible energy force field apart as though it were rotten cloth.
The dome collapsed with a metallic groan and…
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The accumulated energy was released in an atomic explosion that swept across the entire perimeter for kilometers. Nouwlan was blown backward, hurled hundreds of kilometers away until he crashed against the ground.
He rolled several meters and remained lying on his back, his chest burning, his hands smoking.
He was blind for a minute until his vision readjusted.
He looked toward the dorymathos and could only see a great mushroom cloud that seemed to engulf the three imposing towers, which managed to survive that nuclear punishment from the epicenter. Everything else beneath its ground had been vaporized in that flash.
He immediately flew toward the doctrinal settlement, followed by other instructors injured to varying superficial degrees.
Nouwlan, together with the rest of the instructors, wasted no time and entered the interior of the dorymathos, while others investigated inside the crack from which the lithari had emerged.
Due to the explosion, none remained anymore.
Afterward, the slaves who had managed to enter the Dorymathos were dead, massacred by the instructors during the pursuit of any survivor.
"Search every corner," ordered the highest-ranking instructor, his voice enraged, for he had considered that this event would become the death of his career within the empire. Many believed so. "Look for those hiding, look for those pretending to be dead, look for anything that moves and is not viltrumite, I want you to annihilate every last existing cockroach."
The instructors nodded and dispersed, beginning the hunt.
Nouwlan flew toward the tunnels from which the lithari had emerged. The air there was dense, hot, permeated with the smell of molten metal and blood. The cavern walls were marked by plasma impacts and the cracks from explosions.
He found the first ones hidden in a niche to the left of the main tunnel, all of them unarmed, terrified, their quadruple eyes reflecting the most absolute panic.
They were civilians, nothing to do with that attack, but it did not matter in the slightest.