19 Race to The Top

The start of the war was signaled with an explosion of missiles from the military jets, SEPECAT Jaguars. There are more than twenty jets flying, fully equipped. They were going to take down the tower itself, but flying type genmas that looks like a hybrid with human and pteranodon were blocking each attempt with their own bodies.

The closer they got, the clearer the image of the tower. There was a huge tentacle-like monster twisting its body up to the top of the Eiffel tower.

From hundreds of trucks, troops of several nations step up to battle against the Genma warriors, while the heavy machinery based troops were taking down the bigger size genmas.

With the occasional time sphere being spawned, new types of genmas were rushing down and fought the armies. Several golden gorilla-like Genma jumped between the walls of the building and descended in the middle of the armies, causing havoc and destruction.

The tanks fired for a counter attack but some of them missed their targets. Some squads were tasked to install every kind of turrets, mortars, and heavy machineguns on top of the buildings. Howitzers were firing from the further back of the troops.

"Medic!! We need a medic!"

"Press inside! Take cover and use the alleys!"

"Left-wing was breached, need more supports!"

The battlefield was in full chaos, but they were not giving up. When they arrived in the vicinity of Paris earlier, all kinds of dead people were strewn aside like a pile of stones on the road. There's a dead child that was holding his baby little sister on his arm. Dead couple that was celebrating their wedding.

The soldiers were angry and desperate, especially the French armies. They were craving for revenge. Why them? Why now? The world was unfair, and always will be.

...

We arrived a bit later than the armies did. The sky was turning dark by the time we joined. The battle scale was huge and spectacular. I could see the struggling battles with each side not giving any sign to fall back.

The Genma's was headless, without their leader taking charge of them. They completely let loose their own nature, charging nonstop for destruction and death.

"Did you find him, yet?" asked Dante. He was asking about Samanosuke. I told Dante about him before coming here, of how he was transported from the Sengoku era to the current timeline. He should have defeated Guildenstern and came here. He was important in progressing this event and my quest.

"Not yet, we should move now, the military won't make any progress. Genma's number was too much for them to handle."

"Well, I also need my payment."

'Payment? Right, who was calling for his help?'

I wanted to ask him, but reaching the top of the tower was much more important than that. We glide from one building to another, I was keeping up with his speed, but he was just too fast.

Several genmas blocked our way but they weren't really a threat to us. Some soldiers thought we were enemies as they began shooting at us.

'Well, can't blame them. If you see two people flying in the air who was not startled and suspicious?'

Dante was in charge of blocking the bullets, and I keep shooting at the incoming Genmas. I was tempted with reinforcing the soldiers' weapon but put it aside for now. I only reinforced the tanks or the howitzers as it was more effective rather than the soldiers that were threatened with more chances of dying.

The stats from two-level up earlier was distributed into INT stats. Mental Power was much more important for ability depended humans like me. I planned to focus on DEX and INT as I only used guns for weapons. Strength and Constitution would be raised only when I have extra Stats or when the other two stats were high enough.

Not long after, we arrived at one of the feet of the tower. Under each foot of the Eiffel tower was an entrance building where we could ascend with a yellow elevator that could fit around 20 people.

When Dante and I walked in, we were greeted by three people. They were startled, thinking that the monsters were barging in. It was the X-Men group. I instantly recognized them by their uniform, especially Storm's white hair and Scott's google. The other one must be Jean.

"Whoa, calm down, we don't mean any harm.", said Dante while holding his arm up.

"Who are you? How did you get here?" Scott asked. They were intrigued by our presence.

"Doesn't matter who we are, all you need to know was that we are on the same side," I answered Scott's question. He was taken aback when he saw my figure. He didn't expect a small kid was also in here. Now, he was deeply curious.

Jean and Storm also saw me, they wanted to say something when the door opened again.

"Ahh...you, the kid from before." It was Samanosuke, he still looked the same. Now I'm sure that he already defeated Guildenstern. The only problem left now was how to shut down this huge ass time generator before Nobunaga arrived.

By this time, on the other side of the timeline, on the Sengoku era, Jacques Blanc along with the past version of Samanosuke should have reached Honnoji Temple to fight Nobunaga. The time was short, we must hurry.

Scott and Dante were wary of Samanosuke, although the latter already heard about him, they never met each other so Dante was still on his guard.

"Samanosuke, you arrived. How's the trip?"

Samanosuke chuckled and said, "It was hard but enjoyable. How about you? Are you injured?"

He talked in English, it means the small Tengu, Ako, was here. Ako was a tengu, who had the body of a small girl, that could travel in between the two timelines. She was helping both the present Samanosuke and Jacques in their road to defeat the Genma.

"Not much, still bearable."

Listening to our conversation, Dante and the X-men team finally relaxed. Though the tense atmosphere was still there, the reason wasn't because of Samanosuke's presence. Dante couldn't help but ask about Samanosuke's side of the story, his client didn't really explain anything when the request was made.

Samanosuke started explaining about the genmas and their origin. He also mentioned Guildenstern and Ranmaru, who were ordered by their current Lord, Nobunaga Oda, to lead an invasion to the present world. From Guildenstern, Samanosuke got a hold of the plan on how Nobunaga would come. Thus he needed to hurry and destroy this tower.

However, if he destroys the time generator, he would never go back to his own world, and Jacques would also be trapped in the Sengoku era. Samanosuke must go back, he was the key to seal Nobunaga and Fortinbras powers that were in his hand. If not, Nobunaga would win the past war and rule over the past world, changing the fate of this world.

Dante wasn't surprised, he already expected this scale of the threat, but the X-Men team was caught off guard.

"We must stop it, no matter what. I don't know how strong this Nobunaga is, but his armies alone could bring chaos over our world.", said Storm.

Scott and Jean also agreed. The good thing was, both Guildenstern and Ranmaru were already defeated. Except for the wild genmas, there would be no threat whatsoever that would get in their way.

Nice. With both quests fulfilled, all we need to do now was to stop this generator somehow.

"So? What are we waiting for? Let's go." Scott leads the way into the lift. When I stepped inside, Dante stopped me. I was wondering if there was something bothering him this late of the game. Then he pointed at something. I got nervous. There was a board written with "You must be this tall to ride the lift" with a mascot picture beside it.

Phukk!

I kicked his leg but he evades while laughing. The ridiculous banter seemed to help to lessen the tense atmosphere.

However, midway of the ascending lift, the glass roof shattered and the genmas begun their attack on us. Samanosuke and Dante were the first ones to notice even before the Genma descended on them. The lift was jammed, not moving anymore. With a flick of a wrist, Dante took out both Ebony and Ivory to shoot the still falling Genma up in the air.

Samanosuke summoned a new weapon, Kuga, an air themed nodachi sword, from his gauntlet. Because of its huge size, his movement was slower, but Kuga's magic allows Samanosuke to fling a crescent-shaped gust of air when swinging the blade. The Genma ninjas that already landed on the lift were severed in half by a single gust.

Storm grabbed both Jean and Scott's hand and flew up. She dropped them to nearby stairways. With Jean disabling the genmas movement, Scott could easily blast each one of the enemies.

I jumped on the roof while taking out my handguns. The enemy this time was the simple genmas, there's no need to go all out. We just have to be careful to not step inside any of the time spheres that appear randomly. You'd be lucky if it just moves you around, if it takes you to a random past, well just hope it was still a civil era.

Although the enemy was easier to handle, it didn't make the situation any better. We could still hear explosions and gunfire a few hundreds meter away. The armies still holding on and even increased their pressure on the enemies.

Climbing the stairs, we arrived at the middle section of the tower. In here another, Brainstern was standing on our way.

What now?

"There's not much time left," said Samanosuke. If we must fight, we need to end it fast. When we were about to attack, Scott interjected.

"We'll take it from here. You three should go up since all of you seemed to know better about that thing up top."

I was about to laugh. Know a solution? Dude, I don't even know what that thing is except it was a portal to connect the past and present. Just that.

However, splitting our forces was a better solution for our current problem. I then warned them, "No matter what happens, be careful whenever it started to fly. The Gatling gun was fixed so it couldn't aim automatically. Its inner body was made of flesh, you better dismantle the plating first. The weakness was the brain on its head, just focus on it."

Now that I think about it, the X-Men team was actually a counter for Brainstern. Storm could fly, Scott have the strongest energy blast and Jean could use her telekinesis both for defense or offense. This is truly a dream team.

We continued to climb the stairways, except this one was spiraling on top of the top section. We even stepped on the body of the tentacles to climb. With the occasional ambush from the Genma, ascending the tower was getting harder. There was a huge shaking on the tower, it seemed that the battle below us was intense.

Jean was forced on her knee to isolate the explosion from Brainstern's missile. Scott was cooperating with storm to get a better angle on the Genma's weakness. Brainstern's heavy plating was crumbling on the floor with electric force sparking a few times.

Storm's lightning power was enough to bully this mechanical weapon. Even more with the help of Scott and Jean, they were unstoppable.

15 minutes later, after fighting and fighting lots of genmas armies, we reached the top floor. The scene was messed up, the whole section was crumbled except the floor, it was basically gone. There was a huge machine connected into the body of the tentacle-like monsters.

I opened my eyes wide. I wasn't surprised by the scene.

How was she here? Did she know?

"Ahh hello Dante, you're pretty late."

Dante just sighed, "If you also come, what's the point of calling for my help?"

I glanced at Dante. 'Don't tell me, she's your client?'

He then continued while exaggeratingly spreading his arm, "Now, care to explain? O Ancient One."

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