章節 88: Chakrams
Liam and Clint stared in silence as Natasha worked on the laptop. After a minute or so, she finished and contacted Maria to upload all S.H.I.E.L.D. member profiles to the network. As the files began uploading, Natasha stepped away from the device.
"The laptop will finish the rest. We need to get down there now, Clint," she said.
Clint nodded, pulling the bow from his back again.
"Can you take us down a few floors?" Natasha asked, looking at Liam.
"Yes, go to the elevator again. Once there, I'll start lowering the platform," Liam replied. He couldn't leave the room himself since he needed to make sure his domain didn't delete the laptop again.
"Thank you," Natasha said, turning and walking toward the elevator.
Clint nodded at Liam before following her.
With both of them gone, Liam began creating a plan to eliminate the remaining Hydra agents as efficiently as possible.
As Natasha and Clint stood on the stone platform, it slowly began descending.
"You get the feeling we're in too deep?" Clint asked, keeping his bow aimed at the elevator entrance as they went down.
"Always," Natasha replied, keeping her handgun ready and pointed at any potential openings in the elevator walls. "But we've been in worse spots before."
"Collapsed building, magic, and one or two thousand enemies," Clint said. "Remind me when we've been in worse."
"Magic's a new one, but aside from that—" Natasha began, abruptly ducking down as gunfire erupted through a larger hole in the shaft. She quickly fired back twice, killing two soldiers with a single bullet through each of their heads. "Nothing we aren't used to," she finished, completing her sentence.
Clint nodded, a faint smile appearing as he loosed an arrow at another agent raising a gun at him.
When they reached the tenth floor, their phones buzzed with incoming messages.
"It's started," Clint said.
"There are four entrances to this room; if we sp—" Clint began, but he was interrupted as the floor beneath them began changing.
All the interior walls lowered into the ground, leaving behind a wide open space filled with confused people. Two staircases appeared on either side of the room, each large enough for two people to walk side by side. One staircase connected to the floors above, the other to the floors below.
"Well, that makes this a lot easier," Clint muttered, having his bow ready.
Most of the people on floors eight through ten were control personnel—technicians and support staff—one of the reasons Liam had chosen this location. Fury had confirmed that very few Hydra agents were present on this floor after sorting through the data.
But "very few" didn't mean none. Fourteen Hydra agents and four technicians loyal to Hydra were scattered across the area, most grouped in threes or fours.
As the walls lowered, panic set in among the technicians until Natasha fired a round into the ceiling, grabbing everyone's attention.
"Listen up!" she commanded. "We're here under Fury's direct orders. Director Fury is not dead. He was attacked by Hydra, who infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D. afterwards."
Murmurs began spreading through the crowd, but Natasha ignored them. "Hydra was being led by Alexander Pierce," she continued, "but he's already been taken care of."
At the mention of Pierce's death, two groups of three Hydra agents on the right side of the room drew their weapons. Clint had anticipated this. He loosed three arrows simultaneously, quickly notching another as they flew.
The arrows struck accurately—one agent fell dead immediately with an arrow pierced into his skull, a second had her shooting hand impaled, and the third also died, taking an arrow to the throat.
Clint swiftly killed the injured female agent with a second arrow to the brain as she reached for her gun with her other hand.
Meanwhile, Natasha shot two more Hydra agents from the other group before a third gunshot rang out, finishing the last. She turned, surprised, to see a blonde woman in office clothes holding a handgun a few meters away.
"Agent Sharon Carter. Reporting," the woman announced.
Natasha nodded in acknowledgment, but her earpiece buzzed with a new update. "Middle of the room, left side," Maria's voice came through. "Seven targets—six male, one female. All confirmed Hydra. The one wearing the cap is identified as an executive-level operative."
At the same time, Coulson relayed the same message to Clint. He turned and fired an explosive arrow into the group, killing three instantly and injuring two more. The remaining Hydra agents grabbed innocent technicians, hoping to use them as hostages.
Natasha and Sharon didn't hesitate. They opened fire, killing the remaining uninjured agents. One of the Hydra operatives who was severly injured by Clint, in his final moments, began shooting around at random, hitting multiple technicians and even instantly killing one.
Natasha ended him with a single shot through the brain, her bullet tearing through his S.H.I.E.L.D. cap. The other injured operative had already died to blood loss after losing a leg in the explosion from Clint's arrow.
At the same time, the four Hydra technicians ran for the staircase but were quickly killed by Sharon and Clint.
"All personnel remaining here are loyal to S.H.I.E.L.D.," Natasha commanded. "Treat the injured, then assist me or Clint in holding the staircases."
She moved to cover one staircase while Clint took position at the other.
Meanwhile, back in Liam's room, the laptop's loading bar showing the messages were almost fully sent. These messages weren't only going to S.H.I.E.L.D. members in the building—Fury send the messages to all confirmed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, since he couldn't predict who would be at the main building during the mission.
Liam considered his next steps. His first idea was to destroy everything above the tenth floor. But he threw that idea out, not sure how much energy it would require to destroy an entire floor and if he could prevent the twenty-five stories above from crushing the tenth floor afterwards. Besides, S.H.I.E.L.D. would still need a functioning base after this was over.
As he thought more about his spells, he realized he didn't have any specifically made for killing lots of enemies in an area with a lot of obstacles like this.
Sure, the Bolts of Balthakk could work, but they would only take out at most four enemies at a time. In a building with over a thousand enemies, that wouldn't be nearly enough. Casting the spell 200 times while making all of them lethal would not only drain a large amount of energy but also waste a lot of time.
Him manipulating his domain had the same problem, it works but it costs quite some energy to do so for each and every single person. 'Although I will keep this in mind if in case I want to speed things up even more.' Liam thought.
Then, he got an idea. He realized he might have an alternative.
He summoned a construct of a weapon he was somewhat unfamiliar with, having only used it once or twice during combat training.
Two golden weapons materialized in his hands. They were completely circular with razor-sharp edges all the way around them. At the center of each was a handle, which he wrapped his fingers around. The weapons were chakrams.
"Eldritch Constructs," Liam murmured with a small smile, watching the loading bar reach one hundred percent. "Still my favorite spell."
章節 89: Massacre (1/2)
Liam stood up and exited the room, the space behind him gradually turning back to his domain. The lights and laptop vanished again, leaving the area to slowly turn back to the same old stones.
He went down to one of the lower floors, using his domain to sense the presence of people nearby. On this floor alone, forty Hydra agents were grouped at the top of a staircase, with a few scouts moving through the surrounding areas.
'Must be a squad checking on Alexander,' Liam thought. 'Lucky they're all grouped together—it'll make clearing this floor a lot simpler.'
As he moved towards the staircase, two Hydra scouts spotted him. One immediately reached for his earpiece to report, but before he could act, Liam hurled one of his chakrams at him. The golden weapon spun through the air with precision, severing the scout's head and the hand holding the earpiece.
The second scout raised his gun and fired twice, but Liam calmly extended his hand and snapped his fingers upwards. The chakram, still flying, slowly changed its direction, slicing through the man's chest before returning to Liam's hand. The scouts bodies fell to the ground as Liam continued walking.
'Manipulating the chakrams is much easier than I expected,' Liam thought, catching the returning weapon with ease.
The noise from the bullets drew the attention of the remaining scouts, who hurried back to regroup with the larger cluster of agents, most likely realizing that their comrades were gone.
'While the chakrams are effective for killing groups of five and ten, my domain is better for handling the larger groups,' Liam considered as he approached the main group of agents.
As soon as he turned the corner, the Hydra operatives spotted him and opened fire. Bullets ricocheted off Liam as he started manipulating the floors and walls into a massive stone box around the agents. Once encased, he began lowering the ceiling within the box.
Panic broke out among the trapped agents. Some screamed, while others, emotionless from Hydra's training, remained silent and awaited their fate. The ceiling descended slowly, leaving no room for escape. The screams faded to loud crunches as blood sprayed through small gaps in the walls and ceiling.
When it was over, Liam dissolved the box, leaving behind a scene of flattened bodies and pools of blood. Disgusted, he stepped through the mess and continued towards the next floor.
'Not doing that again.' Liam thought. 'While it barely cost any energy, it was disgusting and really not my style.'
The chaos and screams from above had already spread among those below. Agents scattered, some fleeing to lower floors while others tried to hide. Liam dealt with the cowards efficiently, using his chakrams, which were sharp enough to slice through walls. By the time he reached floor 29, the next three levels were almost completely abandoned.
While continuing on his way down, he encountered numerous bodies in lab coats or office attire, filled with bullet wounds—which were likely SHIELD personnel executed by Hydra. At the same time, he had placed another fourteen people inside an ice containers, though these ones weren't that cold.
He did this because he was unsure about these individuals—they showed no malicious intent or gave him any strange feelings. He decided to keep them in ice until SHIELD could identify who they worked for.
Liam quickly went down the three floors. Before going to the next level, he noticed a pleasant surprise waiting for him. On the next floor, two groups—one consisting of 28 people and the other of 34—were guarding the staircases, while an additional group of 17 individuals surrounded the elevator shaft.
Liam approached the first group, looking at their formation. Some agents crouched behind shields while others stood behind with small handguns and heavier weapons such as carbines.
This time, Liam didn't use his domain and relied on his chakrams. He summoned four instead of two, throwing them with all his strength. The weapons became golden blurs, ricocheting off energy barriers he had created along the walls to make sure they maintained high speeds and didn't pierce through the walls.
Many agents hit by the first throw were only injured, losing an arm or suffering deep slashes along their sides. But a chance to scream? Many didn't even have that.
One agent, for example, had his arm severed at the shoulder. As he reached out with his remaining hand toward the injury and opened his mouth to scream, another chakram came from a different direction. It sliced his head cleanly in two, causing his brain to spill out as the rest of his body collapsed to the ground, following his severed arm.
Within moments, the entire group was reduced to shredded body parts. Blood pooled across the floor as Liam stepped through, continuing to the next groups. He killed the larger group with spikes coming from the walls, ceiling, and floor. While the third smaller group fell to a combination of the Bolts of Balthakk and his chakrams.
Liam went down floor by floor, obliterating Hydra's forces. Some floors were deserted, while others had many hidden agents spread out throughout the floor. Very rarely did Liam encounter larger groups of agents as he continued going to lower floors.
However, by the time he reached floor 13, he sensed a significant concentration of enemies: 65 on that floor, 90 on floor 12, and 150 below them.
'Looks like Clint and Natasha are doing a good job too,' Liam noted, sensing around 280 people gathered on their floor.
Floor 10's space was packed with technicians and agents, with the agents covering entrances and the technicians huddled together in safer spots to give the agents as much room as possible.
Liam opened a rift, stepping directly into the room where Natasha and Clint were stationed. His arrival startled a few agents, who instinctively raised their guns.
"Don't shoot him! Focus on the entrances!" Agent Sharon Carter commanded. She had been informed by Natasha about Liam and his appearance.
Liam scanned the room and spotted Natasha resting briefly, a bullet wound on her leg bound tightly with a tourniquet.
"How many people upstairs are still with SHIELD?" Liam asked, noting the piles of Hydra bodies on the staircases.
"Likely none," Natasha replied bitterly. "We've got about 300 people here. Maria's intel suggests there were 1,687 active people inside the main building including Hydra, but only about 500 were guarenteed to be working under SHIELD. Hydra's been executing the remaining SHIELD personnel when they realized that something is going on."
"Unless they managed to hide, anyone not here is probably dead."
"I found around 80 people upstairs I wasn't sure about. They've been captured in ice for later identification," Liam informed her.
"That's great," Natasha said, her voice sounding tired. She attempted a smile but was too exhausted to put one on.
When they had ran out of ammunition, Natasha had held the stairs alone with her knifes and her last remaining ammunition. While at the same time, the others began scavenging bullets from fallen Hydra agents.
創作者的想法
Donnuuu
Donnuuu
Additional chapter again :).
I am kind of enjoying making these type of chapters more than usual
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