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TFC Chapter 56: Human Era Apex
🕑 Added 2022-06-12 16:57:32 +0000 UTCHours passed, and his phone alarm eventually went off, driving Aven to visit the command center to make sure some stupid conspiracies weren’t at play before leaving it a dozen minutes later after making sure... There probably wasn't one.
Returning to the front line where a blood tornado was rampaging in an extremely wide chaotic area that certainly wasn’t fixed after stopping somewhere to get something he absolutely needed for the imminent encounter, he started taking down abomination in the same way he had perfected over more than tens of thousands of shots.
Every hour, he took down more than 300 abominations with the potential to cause problems, and that was everything his life as a contributing fairy was.
He wasn’t sure if he had already shot grade 4 abominations, but he wouldn’t be shocked even if he had, there were some very strange times where one of his target abominations survived one of his armor cracking shells after all.
This time, however, instead of fully focusing on reducing the dangers presented by the abomination surge, he sometimes sent a glance at his phone.
“It should be for soon…” Exposing his thoughts, he nearly instinctively felt that the second dispatched grade 5 would soon arrive.
Half an hour passed, and he never lost hope, his instinct was right, and he became even more sure of that when the blood tornado that was Emma Lenia tried but failed to hide her submissive reaction to the arrival of the second grade 5.
A grade 5 being she had no choice but to know.
One moment, the world was one filled with explosions and inhuman shrieks, the other…
The world was set aflame.
‘He’s here…’
His vision filled with ablaze abominations and a strange blue fire that kept spreading without any support, seemingly spreading on the air itself, Aven knew that Hakan Emma had arrived.
‘The previous emperor of the Emma Empire. Joined Eland after a fight with the current emperor concerning the start of the succession war, grade 5 elemental super with a history dating back to before the start of the human era, his innate ability allows him to create flames obeying different laws…’
Soon, the sky too was set ablaze as a man covered in blue fire walked on it, walking extremely meaningfully towards the blood tornado who was acting like a caught mischievous child.
“The fact that supers can live centuries easily as long as they reach grade 3 really messes up the genealogy…” Spectating this whole surrealist scene of a very summarized “grandpa meeting his grandchild”, Aven only had one desire.
He wanted to listen to what they had to say to each other.
Hakan had engineered this whole encounter after all, so he surely had extremely crispy things he wanted to say.
Then, a devilish smile appeared on his face as he fetched the one thing he had spent a quarter of an hour getting from ERA only a few hours ago, which they “conveniently” had in store, surely for… Situations like those taking place right now.
“Hehe~ I’m not losing my innocence, I’m just listening in on future friends who need help~” Making the high-budget listening device come close to him and calibrating it, he had already decided to infuse it, even if it was going to cost him the great gains from his undivided infusion energy specialization.
Applying his knowledge of how this listening device worked, how sounds worked, how interferences worked, what human voices sounded like and their characteristics, he ended up with a device able to capture the sounds of a leaf hitting the ground from a few kilometers away.
“And now, I just have to hope they decide to discuss where I can see them…” Finishing his preparation, he began firing again while keeping an eye on where the majestic blue flame-covered man was headed and how close he was to the blood tornado.
As if she had been triggered a bit by the arrival of her grandfather, Lenia acted up and expanded her blood tornado, obviously trying to show she wasn’t any less dependable than the ancient man approaching her.
The abomination ocean was obviously the one to suffer the most from this acting up as in the direction of the Forbidden Wall, there was only a huge wall of flame that burned to nothing everything that touched it, and behind them, there was a rampaging blood tornado would take them for easy target the moment they stopped.
This conundrum didn’t last long though as Hakan quickly closed the gap between himself and his granddaughter, and all the abominations contained in it vanished.
The artillery supports and supers from the Forbidden Wall swiftly adapted to that new situation, with one side taking their time to carefully aim and bombard extremely faraway targets and the other using this occasion to rest.
The disappearance of all the abominations dealing in spiritual attacks alleviated a slight pressure that had always been present, allowing everyone to feel that the presence of this man covered in blue flames was much more impacting than the person behind the blood tornado.
And they would be somewhat right to assume that.
Descending from the sky and setting aflame all the abomination within a few dozen kilometers around him, only the blood tornado was somewhat spared from the purge.
“Lenia,” approaching the humanoid figure wielding a long red sword covered in crystallized blood, Hakan displayed all the mannerisms he had learned over his life by addressing his granddaughter directly in a cold neutral tone.
“Grandfather…” Facing her grandfather so directly in the middle of a battlefield, even one of the imperial contenders couldn’t keep her total calm. The situation simply didn’t allow it.
“Bringing the succession war to the Forbidden Continent during the abomination surge was a stupid move, I expected more of you,” as if he wasn’t in the middle of the abomination ocean, which he wasn’t really considering how he had purged everything around him, the previous Emma Emperor judged the younger woman in front of him.
“It was the only compromise I found,” Lenia justified herself, “I couldn’t stand not facing this event. With the technological progress realized by Star Trail, I’m not sure I’ll have a chance again in the future.”
“If you’re worried about that, then why even be a contender?” Hakan retorted with the same cold tone, “Your father isn’t himself anymore, you should leave while you still can. Things are happening, and this war is only an echo of what is currently taking place.”
“You brought me up, I waited my whole life for this moment,” bracing herself, the Emma princess waved her sword at the abomination ocean present in all directions except towards the Forbidden Wall, “You should already know my answer.”
Accepting her answer without giving any reaction, the blue flame-covered man didn't even sigh at the situation and simply responded in the same way he had spoken from the beginning, “Know that you’re blinded by the situation, but I won’t do anything to reason with you. Assume your choices and their consequences, even if all they’re going to do in the end is slow you down on your path. I paved and walked on it before you did, so I know better.”
Leaving those words behind, Hakan stepped into and on the smoldering air as he ascended to reclaim his position as overseer of the situation.
No other words were exchanged between the two as they then proceeded to split to maximize their energy utilization rate, their killing rate, and to reduce their domain overlapping conflicts.
There were a lot of reasons that could explain why they split and didn’t hold back anything as they continued to slaughter abominations, and Aven didn’t think he needed to find an answer to that question.
He had heard what he wanted, needed, to hear, so he cut his link to the energy infused inside the listening device and concentrated on firing his artillery sniper again.
The next big event of the day would come in less than half an hour according to the observations done by the satellite network, and he wanted to be able to help at least a bit.
‘Not that I’m that confident after seeing what grade 5 powerhouses are capable of doing...’
Both immersing himself in his present relative powerlessness and projecting himself in their place, Aven smiled for a few seconds.
His ambitions were even telling him that grade 5 certainly wasn’t the end of the path.
…
A27, a grade 5 abomination using the elemental energy system.
That was all everyone really needed to understand what A27 was really about. Its history didn’t matter, its character too, an abomination would always be an abomination.
Hence, when a gigantic mountain of flesh appeared over the horizon and both Hakan and Lenia stopped bothering with the fodders which were produced by the hundreds of thousands in the abomination core, Aven knew another of his small wishes had been realized.
‘If I can see it… I can touch it.’
Not being stupid enough to start provoking it before the battle began though, he continued to clear the abomination ocean until he realized…
Both grade 5 on his side hadn’t shown their true capabilities at all until now.
A gigantic pillar of blue flame, a tornado made of crystallized blood rending the earth, and a black fog spreading for tens of kilometers and obscuring everything was the scene that appeared when the battle began.
Keeping his composure and not frowning for even a moment, Aven made sure there weren't any extraordinary abominations rushing towards him before shifting to another artillery sniper, one loaded with armor cracking shells freshly produced from “this morning”.
‘At this distance… It’ll take more than a second…’
Adjusting his long barrel and scope, the only thing he wanted was to help at least a little, so he didn’t even hesitate in switching to fully automatic mode, a firing mode that would be wasteful for any abomination unable to resist more than a few shells.
‘And now… I survey, I prepare, and when I get the slightest chance…’
Attentively looking at the large cloud of black fog obscuring his vision, the position of the blood tornado, the movement of the blue flames, all their movement combined, their violent shifts… Aven tried to incorporate everything.
He believed himself able to do that, he just had to wait for the opportunity that left nothing to luck.
Observing the kilometers-wide battle area without blinking for more than 10 minutes, he continuously adjusted his aim ever so slightly, picturing the exact scenario that was happening behind the thick veil of black fog.
On multiple occasions, he had thought that a perfect firing window to A27 had opened, but he held himself back as it was all just so chaotic.
He knew that the moment he pressed the trigger, it wouldn’t be just one shot, it would be hundreds, all his reserve if it was needed.
‘I don’t want it to flee…’
Aiming for the most perfect outcome, he held back, again and again, refining his aim, not having any straight thought like why he hadn’t designed an electronic integrated aim assist system allowing him to make full use of his 5 ASHAS at the same time.
Such thoughts didn’t matter, he hadn’t had the time to think about everything so carefully, and it was what it was.
Until finally, nearly instinctively, he pressed the trigger and locked the artillery sniper with his energy, wanting to make sure there wouldn’t be a single nanometer of deviation between every shot.
He knew how his weapon worked, he had designed it, he knew its limit, he knew the fully automatic mode hadn’t been a coincidental addition, he had designed every piece of it from a basic draft to what it was now.
His energy had already been infused, so he had nothing to do but keep the aim stable.
When the first shell hit, a hold appeared in the black fog, letting Aven know he hadn’t missed when at the other end of this hole, an amorphous mass of burning and bloodied flesh was displayed.
That didn’t change anything though, his ammunition belt was quickly being used up, 5 shells per second, and when A27 realized or not, what was happening, a continuous line of shells able to pierce its durable flesh had already injected all the acid-refined fragments they contained and were making it lose more and more mass.
The whole ammunition line prepared for this artillery sniper was quickly used up, but Aven was there with his energy telekinesis to make sure other ammunition belts were there to make the transition seamless.
The unexpected artillery support didn’t make any of the two Emma stops, on the contrary, they even saw a perfect opportunity, a window that they knew how to exploit with their extraordinary battle instinct.
Lenia was the first to personally approach the nearly-immobilized A27 and used her innate ability to burn large quantities of life blood to give herself martial capabilities rivaling a true grade 5 martial super specialized in pure strength.
Her blade extended, and large cuts soon appeared on the lower parts of the mountain of flesh that was A27.
Hakan was not to be let down as his flame, as if they were alive, engulfed themselves inside the abomination, targeting in priority the black fog it had started producing in a berserk manner.
The battle had taken such a rapid turn, but all the involved parties knew that it wasn’t an endurance battle anymore where in the end the abomination had a chance to flee.
It had become an elimination battle.
Nonetheless, a grade 5 being remained a grade 5 being, and when things didn’t work for it, there were other options.
But the moment it tried to capitalize on anything, Lenia actively went against it and made sure it didn’t move as she burned more and more life blood, pushing her capabilities further and further into martial grade 5 territory.
Aven and Hakan had only become supporters for her to display her marvelous power, and they made sure to be the absolute best ones she could have.
The berserk A27 realized too late how damaged it was.
Its body was filled with alloy shards that kept it from regenerating and that couldn’t be moved, its black fog had nearly completely dispersed and every trace it emanated was directly burned, and to add insult to injury, no matter what it tried, a blood-covered humanoid interrupted it.
Strangled between all these elements, it was powerless in stopping its own death and could only be carefully cut down piece by piece by a shining red blade.
Its organs were soon attained, but strangely, it was at that moment that the fight intensity was reduced.
Drastically.
The shells stopped raining in the most optimized places, only targeting the flesh, and the blue flames straight-up avoided the entire area. Only Lenia dared enter this very sensitive portion of the grade 5 abomination where she began a surgical work of carefully cutting the different organs without damaging them.
Abominations had always remained the source for the most extraordinary cultivation resources and innate ability awakening serums, and anyone, even imperials born with a golden spoon, knew that complex grade 5 biological materials like organs were something to be prized.
Being dissected alive, A27 could do nothing as its life was soon taken from it and the shell rain stopped.
A bit more than 10 minutes later, a fairy came flying with huge refrigerated containers and extensive artillery support to make sure he wasn’t bothered by stray shots.
“Hello~ Do you need help categorizing the materials?” Landing smoothly amidst blue flames that didn’t harm him at all, Aven asked and didn’t wait for an answer before beginning to use his energy telekinesis to pick up the different harvested organs and storing them in the most appropriate containers.
His knowledge of abominations and cultivation resources manufacturing told him everything he needed to know, and while abominations had the bad habits of always mutating, adapting, and changing their organ makeup, there wasn’t an infinite number of combinations that allowed them to retain their marvelous durability.
Silently working under the eyes of the previous Emma Emperor, Aven felt slightly self-conscious of the circumstances, notably being in the middle of the abomination ocean in the open, and focused on storing everything first and foremost.
When he eventually caught up to Lenia's harvesting rate, he became proactive after seeing her struggling silently with how to pursue on cutting the most complex organ nodes, “Let’s see… This node can’t be harvested easily, so just cut it whole, same for this one and this one… As for this one…”
Efficiently appraising the whole carcass, he used his telekinesis to mark down the most traditional and safe butchering lines.
“I can’t believe how much money can be made this way~ Every small cut is surely worth a holy vow-level grade 4 cultivation resource, and in total, I would estimate the whole thing to be worth around 5 000 to 6 000 grade 5 cultivation resources?” Giving an estimate according to what he knew of how unwasteful the transformation process was, Aven tried to make the conversation.
He was only a grade 3 and he was most certainly decades, centuries even for one of them, younger than the 2 people he was trying to talk to, but he felt that he needed to display his true self for them to at least remember him a bit in the future.
As expected, neither responded nor showed any signs that they wanted to discuss, and understanding that he wasn’t exactly their equal yet, and that they had probably been educated with the mind of belonging to an imperial family with enormous expectations, he didn’t pursue with endless chattering.
Or he tried to.
“Oh~ Your sword cuts are so clean~ I can’t believe you can arrive at this result with the elemental system. I’m not even sure I can infuse a sword to such a degree that its sharpness is pushed to that extent,” he commented on the cleanliness of the butchering.
“Look at this cut, I can feel remnants of your blood element inside. It means one of your attacks pierced through all its flesh and attained its organs before you even realized it,” he commented on unexpected discoveries he could make thanks to his sensitive energy talent.
“Ho~ I can even say you were surely thrilled considering how excited the remnants are,” he added after a moment, “It’s much easier to find than I expected, the excitable energy talent is really something you must have learned to use to its paroxysm. Are you a battle junkie princess?”
After he said that, Hakan discreetly smiled, though it wasn’t visible to anyone as he was completely covered in blue flames.
The butchering continued until, an hour later, all the organs that could be harvested had been harvested and securized in refrigerated containers.
To finish the process, Aven took all the containers and as much of the flesh as he could while the rest was taken by the 2 imperials.
Leading the way back to the Forbidden Wall, he decided to not make them transport the mountain of flesh to a dedicated wall section and let them drop it off in a trap section where specialized staff would be able to handle it.
With their grade 5 duty fulfilled, the two departed still veiled in their elemental power, not even bidding goodbye to each other as they split.
Surprisingly, they both made sure their departure was known with very cool-looking elemental displays.
They really seemed to have had the same upbringing, or one had brought and educated the other so much that they ended up taking on the same personality and demeanor.
Their whereabouts from that moment on didn’t interest, or matter to, Aven anymore.
He had more contribution to do, and surely, what he had just accomplished would make up for the contribution loss he had taken by dedicating his time and mind to taking down and cleaning up a grade 5 abomination.
