readbooksol Chapter 323: Echoes Of The Life
Chapter 323: Echoes Of The Life
"You humans are Truly foolish." The dragon spoke.
Its voice was not a sound carried by the wind, but a dense, abyssal resonance that bypassed the students’ eardrums and vibrated directly against their souls. The four mutated horns upon its crown pulsed with a sickening violet light.
The Next Moment:
BOOOOM!!
The spatial coordinates of the plaza violently shifted. All the monsters in the surroundings shot out from their hiding places in the ruined skyscrapers and shattered subways, all rushing towards the gateway, instantly blocking the students’ escape route. It wasn’t a mindless stampede; it was a highly coordinated maneuver executed by a gatekeeper. A suffocating wall of flesh, fangs, and chaotic energy sealed the perimeter.
".....?!"
The twenty were stunned, moving their gazes on the monsters, which has easily surrounded them from all angles. Their advantage had evaporated in a fraction of a second.
"None of you are leaving here, alive." The gatekeeper said with a sneer, its reptilian jaws parting to reveal rows of serrated, blood-stained teeth.
"Seems we have no choice but to fight!" Jessica said, and jumped down the building, Landing lightly on the ground. Her boots barely disturbed the ash.
"These monsters won’t attack us, they are simply here to block our escape route. If we take down the gatekeeper, then the gateway, we can kill our way out." She said, drawing her sword from its sheath.
"What a Headache." Honky jumped down the building, landing on the ground with a heavy, earth-shattering thud, as his legendary class armor appeared on him, materializing from his inventory in a flash of light, followed by his legendary class sword and heavy tower shield. The gear radiated an oppressive, stat-boosting pressure.
"This isn’t a problem! I wanted to wipe the floor with this monster’s face from the start!" He said, cracking his knuckles. He was blinded by the golden glow of his own equipment, mistaking artifact reliance for genuine combat proficiency.
"Quiet!" Jessica snapped, standing firmly beside Nirvana:
"I told you, this Monster is hiding its true strength! So stay alert and don’t die!" She yelled at them, trying to shatter their academy-bred arrogance.
"Alright Captain!" Andrew nodded his head, as dense, elemental flames appeared on his fists, attempting to project a bravery he didn’t truly feel.
"Hehehe, you humans, why do you want to fight me? Just kneel down and accept your death peacefully." The dragon said, stretching its massive, rune-carved battleaxe at them, mocking their futile resistance.
"Sorry, but we can’t do that." Andrew said, gritting his teeth against the sheer pressure of the monster’s aura.
"I... I can move again." Nirvana said, stretching her leg, and body. The localized domain that had locked her in place suddenly vanished, releasing her paralyzed muscles.
Jessica stared at her, then at the dragon, her mind working at hyper-speed: ’It held her down so we will fight. But it’s the possible we will abandon Nirvana, so it used the monsters to block all our escape route.’ She turned to her team, realizing the monster had engineered a psychological trap. It wanted a slaughter, not a hunt.
’I have ways to escape, but I can’t leave them here.’ She exhaled, sealing her own fate to protect the weaker students, and pointed her glowing sword directly at the Dragon:
"Attack together, Warriors and Knight, you will be our vanguard; Mages, Healers, you will assist the Vanguard. Assassin, Rune Masters, and Swordsman, you will charge behind the vanguard. Move!!"
With that absolute command, the academy’s training overrode their fear. They all took their positions, forming a flawless textbook raid formation, and shot forward. Andrew, Honky, Mike, Ethan, Nirvana, Jessica the the rest vanguard shot forward as the offensive spearhead, while the six mages and one healer stood behind them, rapidly chanting buff and sustain spells, the rest who were Assassins, rune masters, and Swordsmen followed behind them, waiting for an opening in the monster’s guard.
"Foolish human! Before true strength! All strategy is useless!!"
The Gatekeeper raised its axe high into the polluted air, channeling pure, destructive dark matter into the heavy blade, and smashed it right into the ground.
BOOOOM!!
The earth fractured violently. A concentrated wave of dark energy burst out, tearing through the asphalt like paper, heading straight towards the group in a crescent arc of death.
"Knights!!"
Jessica yelled, her Mythic Eye predicting the catastrophic damage output of the incoming strike.
"On it!!"
Honky, and five elite knights moved seamlessly forward, standing in front of the fragile backline group, their massive, energy-infused shields raised in perfect synchronization to create a fortress wall.
BOOOOM!!
The abyssal attack smashed into their shields, instantly bypassing their physical and magical resistance, instantly shattering it into countless polygons of dead parts, and killing four Knights instantly. Their bodies were pulverized. Honky flew backward like a broken doll, his legendary armor dented beyond repair, smashing heavily on the ground, vomiting a mouthful of blood as his health bar plummeted to the red zone.
"This?!" Andrew was dumbfounded, staring at the shattered body parts raining all over the place. The sheer gore broke his reality; even with their combined defensive stats, such an attack was unbelievably strong, completely defying the known parameters of a Lv500 entity.
"Don’t go! This thing isn’t a normal Lv500!" Honky said, forcing himself up through sheer willpower, as the panicked healer in the backline desperately started healing his internal injuries, flooding his body with green restorative light.
"It killed four Knights with such a wave of its axe! Can we actually fight such a thing?!" Zack asked in sheer horror, his sword trembling.
"Enough!! Standing still won’t get us anywhere!!"
Nirvana stepped forward, her aggressive nature completely overriding her fear as her Bangles flew out from her wrists, rapidly grew in size, and shot towards the dragon like homing missiles.
"Hehehe!"
The heavy bangles smashed violently into the dragon’s chest scale, and bounce off with a dull ping, completely lacking the force penetration required, not even scratching its highly evolved, impenetrable scales.
"In my family! I am not just a mere member! I am a high ranking member!! How dare you puny humans think you can kill me?!" It roared, revealing a terrifying glimpse into the geopolitical hierarchy of the dimensional void. It raised his battleaxe into the air again, drawing upon its bloodline authority:
"Dragon Might, Descend!"
It slashed its axe horizontally, compressing the very air in the plaza, sending a localized, devastating wave of dragon energy towards the remaining 16 students.
"Shit!! Everyone! Use your strongest defense ability!!"
Jessica yelled at them, her Mythic eye spinning wildly, processing thousands of combat variables a second as a desperate shield appeared around her and on every remaining member of her team.
BOOOOM!!!
The attack wasn’t just destructive; it was a conceptual slash. It smashed into them, instantly bypassing her desperate defense, effortlessly cutting several of her team members into halves. Blood and viscera painted the ruined streets.
"No!" Jessica exclaimed, her mental safeguards shattering along with her team. As the trauma peaked, violently repressed memories flashed in her mind, overwriting her current reality. She blinked, the ruined cityscape of Brooklyn fading, replaced by a terrifyingly vivid hallucination. She was staring at men and women in unrecognizable military uniforms, fighting a losing battle on a blood-soaked temple, as they were all cut into halves by an unseen terror.
"What is this?" She muttered in deep confusion, her hands trembling as two lives bled into one.
"General! Run!!" A lady in a tattered uniform screamed, pushing Jessica out of the way, just as her head were separated from her neck in a spray of crimson.
"No!!"
Jessica screamed loudly, the agonizing grief of a forgotten memory ripping her soul apart. Suddenly, a suffocating, violent demonic energy burst out from her core. Due to the sudden, explosive new outburst of strength, the fragile shields on her remaining members instantly hardened from glass to diamond, miraculously protecting the remaining members from the residual shockwave.
Jessica dropped her sword and grabbed her head with one hand, completely ignoring the dragon looming before them. ’What was that?! Who were those people?! Why would they die for me?! I am not a General?! Am I?’ She thought, her eyes wide in profound fear, realizing that her entire life as a Sword Academy student might just be a carefully constructed lie masking a devastating truth.