章節 102: Reality Of Dimensional Tears
He stood on a small hill overlooking the town. Buildings were ablaze on both sides, half of them completely destroyed and leveled to the ground. Crashed and burning cars were everywhere through the streets, their doors ripped off, and windows shattered.
Liam ran down the hill towards the town. Once he arrived, he began searching for any survivors he could find. But it was all in vain.
From the broken glass, doors, and wrecked buildings, he figured that the townspeople had all been taken. As he continued his search, he came across trails of blood, bloodied knives, wallets, and other scattered belongings, most likely dropped while they struggled.
After passing a car with its hood ripped off, he found what appeared to be an elementary school.
As he looked inside one of the classrooms while walking past the building. He saw nothing but blood, claw marks, and unfinished drawings on some desks.
'I have to hurry and keep going,' Liam thought after finding no signs of life anywhere in the town.
As he ran towards Mount Ida, the reality of the situation began to sink in.
For the first time, he truly understood how dangerous dimensional tears were for ordinary people—and how desperately the world needed an organization, not just for convenience but because there was no way to stop these events from happening worldwide on his own.
'Earlier, I kept brushing it off as something that could wait since I thought I could likely handle most of them myself,' Liam thought bitterly. 'But this...'
Just as he was about to leave the town, he detected a massive wave of thinly spread energy approached from the distance. Liam quickly climbed onto a nearby building to get a better view of what was happening.
'A landslide,' he realized. 'And it's not a natural one—dimensional energy is mixed into it. That must have been the loud rumbling I heard.'
In the distance, he saw a massive wave of rocks, earth, and trees storming down from Mount Ida. His eyes tracked the front of the wave as it was about to hit the town's buildings.
The landslide was about two or three miles in length, with a height of nearly 90 feet. It was more than enough to engulf the entire distance between the mountain and Anogeia, burying everything in its path and eventually Anogeia too.
Liam knew that if he wanted to reach Mount Ida without waiting for the wave to subside, he would have to act immediately.
Without hesitation, he opened a portal behind him and leaped through. Now that he was certain the tear was on top of the mountain, he could get closer using the portal.
As soon as he disappeared, the landslide struck the town, swallowing it whole. Buildings, cars, and everything else were obliterated and carried away with the destructive wave as it continued, slowly losing height as it moved past this town.
Liam jumped out of the portal a few miles to the left of the landslide and halfway up the mountain. He didn't want to go any closer since getting too close could cause the tear to grow even further.
He glanced back at the devastation below before turning and continuing his climb up the mountain. With Neontote drawn, he sprinted up. It wasn't long before loud screeches echoed from above.
'Harpies aren't supposed to be capable of creating landslides,' he thought. 'Something else must be up there along with them.'
As he continued going up, his eldritch sight picked up a dense concentration of energy at the mountain's peak.
'That's it,' he thought, accelerating to his top speed. Even when the terrain became too steep to run, he used his spear or created constructs for footing, throwing himself higher with each leap.
When he neared the top, the harpies flying in the sky began growing numbers. He moved carefully, hoping to avoid detection, but when he was about 500 feet from the flat area with the tear on top of the mountain, the harpies spotted him.
They stopped mid-flight, flapping their wings to hover in place. Then came the screeching—extremely high-pitched shrieks that made the rocks around Liam tremble as the creatures directed their sonic attacks towards him.
'What is this? Some kind of sound attack?' Liam wondered, continuing going up the mountain. He felt no effect, thanks to Incursio's protection.
When he showed no change to their sound attacks, the harpies that had seen him dove down, with their talons aimed towards him.
Liam raised his spear. As the harpies closed in, he swung in a clean horizontal arc.
Three harpies fell in a single strike, his weapon cleaving through limbs and torsos with ease. Blood and intestines splattered onto his armor as he charged up the mountain.
When he glanced at the sky again, harpies filled the sky after hearing the screams from their companions. Thousands of them darkened the sun, creating a thick, brown blur. Yet strangely, they held their positions, not attacking just yet.
At last, Liam reached the summit. The sight before him was nothing short of horrifying.
A massive stone figure stood ahead, its mouth wide open towards the sky. Harpies swarmed around it, dropping screaming humans from their claws into the creature's mouth.
The mouth snapped shut, and the sickening crunch of bones filled the air. The screams faded into silence.
All the remaining harpies hovered in the sky, their eyes fixed on Liam, who now stood alone in his armor.
He scanned the harpies carefully but saw no more humans in their grasp. His fists clenched as he realized the truth—he was too late.
He turned his attention to the giant stone figure as he had some idea about what it was. Its body was entirely composed of rock, hardened earth, and veins of gold and silver. The creature stood at 150 feet in height and spanned 40 feet in width.
'If I'm right, this tear is linked to Petroklasta, the Mountain Shaper from Greek legends,' Liam thought. 'It would make sense if it was him or anything closely related to it.'
Beside the creature, a massive dimensional tear was glowing. Through it, Liam saw green mountains and a normal blue sky. Before he could study it further, a deep roar shook the air.
His gaze snapped back to the stone giant and the harpies, now gathering more tightly in formation. Two or three thousand of them hovered as if preparing for something.
The stone giant raised one massive arm and pointed at Liam.
After doing so, a small group of harpies flew down. The stone gaint was most likely sending this group to test Liam's strength.
'It has high intelligence.' Liam thought.
Liam switched Neontote into its other form and channeled a small bit of energy into the weapon, unleashing a low-temperature flame that engulfed the first wave of thirty harpies.
Blackened corpses flew through the smoke, slamming into the ground beside him, their body features charred beyond recognition.
The stone giant let out an even louder roar. In response, thousands of harpies opened their mouths and gathering energy. After doing so, they unleashed an extremely high-pitched sound attack, all aimed directly at Liam.
章節 103: Harpies
The rocks in Liam's surroundings cracked before disintegrating into dust as the sound wave struck. The ground beneath his feet shattered, sinking him deeper into the mountain under the sheer strength of the combined sound attacks.
The soundwaves were infused with dimensional energy, and with such overwhelming power, it didn't take long before the noise bypassed Incursio's defenses. Despite blocking most of the sound, his ears began to bleed, and he started to get disoriëntated.
His body's regenerative cells all flowed to his eardrums, working frantically to heal the damage and adapt to the frequency. While Liam tried to jump out from the hole, but was quickly slammed back down, sinking even further into the rock.
As he got pushed furthur in the mountain, Liam summoned his domain, creating massive, energy-reinforced pillars in front of him to shield himself from the sound waves.
At the same time, the sound waves continued spreading across the landscape, distorting the air and unleashing immense, unnatural pressure onto it.
The effect from this on the environment around them was catastrophic. Lightning strikes flew through the sky, which had started to fill up with storm clouds, and massive amounts of rain started falling down. This massive storm started on top of the mountain before spreading miles away from it.
When the harpies lost sight of Liam, they stopped their sound attacks, confusion spreading through the flock as they screeched at one another.
Frustration darkened the stone giant's expression. Enraged by the loss of its prey, it swept a massive hand through the air, snatching a handful of harpies and stuffing them into its mouth. The act wasn't out of anger alone. It absorbed the harpies' flesh, blood and energy as fuel for the energy circulating through its massive body.
Crunching down on the harpies with its stone teeth, the giant smashed both arms into the ground and began charging energy within its limbs. Moments later, it released several short bursts of energy into the ground. Seismic shockwaves went through the mountain, shaking it violently.
Liam's domain didn't break as everything outside the domain fractured and collapsed, but Liam was sinking deeper into the mountain again. The shockwaves weren't random—they were directed specifically at him and the structures he had created to protect himself.
'I need to get out of here,' he thought, still a little disorientated from the sound attack. 'And I'm killing those annoying fuckers the moment I do.'
This was his first encounter with an enemy capable of using sound-based attacks. Though he knew people like Black Bolt had such power, he had not expected to face it so soon—and certainly not from creatures like these.
He couldn't create portals because of the tear above, so he extended his domain into a sphere 200 feet wide around him. While temporary safe from sound attacks, he created a new pillar beneath his feet and used it to lift himself back towards the surface.
As the pillar went up, Neontote changed into its dragon form and a whip-like construct appeared in his left hand.
Meanwhile, tremors continued to ripple across the mountain, triggering small landslides that turned into larger mudslides because of the falling rain.
As the pillar reached the surface, Liam jumped off it and canceled his domain, as it didn't couldn't even reach the harpies in the sky. Since the domain wasn't very large, creating and canceling it didn't cost him that much energy.
"They're too high in the air and too spread out for me to use my domain effectively," he observed. The creatures were scattered over a large area in the sky, covering a radius of one to two miles while flying several hundred feet above the ground.
'Fine. Neontote for the harpies, domain for the giant,' he thought, concentrating fully on executing his plan. 'I should be able to hit them with the whip.'
Bending his knees before jumping up with all his strength, Liam launched himself into the sky. The harpies didn't remain idle either. Their mouths opened in unison, unleashing more soundwaves aimed directly at him.
As Liam reached the peak of his jump, he swung his whip towards one of the harpies closest to him. The sound waves came straight for him, but he managed to pull himself up just in time.
The sound continued to chase him as he swung up. Liam slashed through the harpy he had latched onto, making blood rain down as its body fell to the ground.
When Liam reached their height, the harpies ceased their sound attacks to avoid hitting one another. Their screeches became louder in anger as they changed tactics, lunging towards him with their razor-sharp talons.
Meanwhile, Liam swung his whip towards another harpy that had lunged at him with its talons. This time, rather than killing it, Liam grabbed onto the feathers on its back and channeled energy into the transformed Neontote.
Neontote erupted with blue flames as Liam released the stored energy. The harpy he held onto started falling from the sky, overwhelmed by the intense pressure of the flames.
Swinging Neontote around in wide arcs from left to right, Liam focused on expanding the reach and width of the flames by pouring in more energy. A massive blue inferno swept across the sky, consuming six hundred harpies in a few arcs.
As their charred bodies plummeted to the ground, he canceled the flames and prepared to raise his whip towards the next harpy within reach, as he jumped off the harpy that was falling to the ground.
After decimating the first few large groups, the remaining harpies scattered, trying to fly as far away as possible in different directions. They weren't fleeing but rather attempting to gain a safe distance from his flames to continue using their sound attacks.
A few harpies on the outskirts resumed their sound attacks, aiming from afar. Liam clung to a new harpy, using it as cover to dodge.
The dodged sound waves crashed into their own kind, striking their companions in the back and knocking them from the sky with blood flowing from their bodies.
Meanwhile, Liam raised Neontote and unleashed another blast of blue flames from the back of another harpy, incinerating three hundred more before he had to use his whip to swing to the next harpy.
As he clung on another harpy and started channeling energy into Neontote again, he noticed the stone giant preparing a new attack with dimensional energy below and frowned.
The stone giant planted both hands into the ground, channeling energy into the rocky surface before him. Another tremor went through the mountain as the stone gaint's energy pushed into it.
After a few seconds, the stone giant slowly rose up again, lifting a massive boulder the same size as its body from the ground. With a powerful throw, the giant launched the massive boulder at Liam, flying through the stormy sky like a speeding missile.
Seeing the massive boulder coming his way, Liam abruptly released his grip on the harpy's feathers and jumped off its back. He released the stored energy in Neontote and used it to propel himself away from the projectile.
Flying through the air, he raised his whip to latch onto another harpy. As he glanced back, all he saw was a bloody mist in the place he had just been.
As he looked around some more, he noticed something.
'These creatures are far more intelligent than I gave them credit for,' Liam thought. The harpies had adapted quickly, splitting into smaller groups. Only, leaving only a few large clusters he could still exploit.
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