Towering Might II

Four portals appear above us. The sudden surge of mana combined with the aura spewed by my equipment forces the guards on their knees, and it's just the beginning!

A grin creeps on my face when the first beams of raw mana smash against the supposedly impenetrable barrier surrounding the Tower. The massive amounts of bullets combined with the constant stream of mana are enough to make the guards retreat.

I wasn't worried too much about them, right now my attention is on the barrier that seems to weather the attack without a scratch. This isn't good. The Barrier Breaker was explicitly designed to, as its name implies, break barriers.

A few moments pass, and I'm about to switch the Barrier Breakers for the penetrators when I spot a few faint glowing cracks on the barrier.

"So what do you think?" I ask Krognar who is staring at the barrage with wide open eyes.

"T-This is- What is this?! How can you harness that kind of power so fast, and without any rituals or reagents?" the old Goblin asks.

"As I told you before, I can do a lot of things." I grin as I observe the Barrier breakers slowly tearing apart the Tower's defenses.

But, as expected, the occupants of the Tower aren't going to take a beating while lying down. A ball of energy explodes near my position. The resulting explosion sends the pavements flying, and a cloud of dust erupts.

However, the Barrier Breakers blast the dust away a moment later.

I look at the damaged barrier, and I have to admit that the Barrier Breakers are not enough. The part of the magical wall that is focused by the weapons shows signs of breaking, and it will break if we continue. But the regeneration of the magical construct makes it too slow. At this rate, we'll waste all our stockpile of ammunition.

"All right, that's enough!" I shout as I press a button on the pointer, "It's time to be serious! Everyone who is watching, WiTnEsS the power of Prometheus!"

The barrage of MH Shells stops, and another set of portals appears. It doesn't take long for the first formidable projectile to make its appearance. The massive artillery shell is propelled at near orbital speed towards the magical shield surrounding the Tower. The shockwave caused by the impact is enough to completely obliterate the pavement, along with every window in the vicinity.

A loud groaning sound echoes as the barrier visibly bends while a shower of sparks appears between the two struggling constructs.

I grin and raise my middle fingers towards the Tower, "Two-stage penetrators, motherfuckers!" I say as the second stage engages. The reinforced rod, which is propelled by a condensed magical explosion, causes a screeching sound that hurts my ears despite my enchantments as it gains a tremendous amount of speed before creating a massive vortex of wild mana.

Even more sparks appear before the groaning barrier gives out with a glass-breaking sound. The penetrator, which is no longer stopped by the giant shield, causes several sonic booms as it nearly teleports into the Tower. The impact almost knocks me out, and the small Krognar is nearly sent flying. Mary is also tightly clinging to me; she must be lighter than I thought.

"You're not so tough after being BlAsTeD tO pIeCeS, are you?" I shout towards the Tower as yet another shell takes out a good chunk of the base of the Tower. If this keeps up, then we won't have to climb the massive building since it will fall.

"B-Boy... holy shit," Krognar mutters as yet another penetrator sows devastation. The scrambling Enforcers can't do anything as the powerful blast of energy is channeled inside the Tower, it's probably vaporizing everyone who's inside.

But something is amiss. First of all, the Tower is only standing on what is effectively two bricks, so why doesn't it falls?

My answer comes a few moments later since the gigantic building rumbles and lifts off the ground. It doesn't end here. The bricks turn black while parts of the hovering building extend and slide away, revealing massive lances.

Incidentally, most of them are pointed towards me.

"So it actually exists... Siege Mode." Krognar says while falling on his back.

"What is that?" I ask, but the full might of the Tower is unleashed upon us before I can get my answer.

The powerful blast tears through our shields, and rapidly reloading the artifact is barely enough to keep me alive. My robes take the brunt of the damage, so I'm mostly fine before my regeneration kicks in. But what worries me is the rest of the group. The weapons of the Tower fire indiscriminately, so even the surrounding habitations and their occupants are vaporized.

Alex is the first one to fall, and the other two soon follow. Krognar is then blown into pieces, and Mary is soon reduced to a bloody mess.

This is bad. I Rewind to before striking the Tower, just as I was about to fire a portal. I need to change my strategy, a frontal assault is our only choice but revealing our presence so early isn't a good idea considering that the Siege Mode exists.

"Change of plan," I say to the others, "We'll strike from a long distance before rushing into the Tower once it's weakened."

There's no point in revealing to Krognar that I know about the Siege Mode, this would only arouse suspicion since I'm supposed to not know anything about this planet. I teleport us on top of a building that a bit far from the Tower.

The good thing about giants enemies is that they are giant targets. I use my laser pointer to acquire the Tower's coordinates, and this time I hold the button for the penetrators. It's a unique feature that's exclusive to a selected few high-ranked personnel and me.

Holding the button is equivalent to a 'fire at will' order.

This time, I'm not playing around with theatrics and the Barrier Breakers. I'm firing as many penetrators as it takes to destroy that fucking Tower.

"Witness my power," I say to the Goblin, and Mary is once again getting closer to me while observing the Tower with wide open eyes.

Krognar shrugs, "And what do you plan to do with that puny artifact, I can barely feel any mana coming from-" he shuts up when the portals appear, and he gasps when the first shells explode. The scrambling crowd, which was scared by the portals, is blasted away because of the shockwave.

I try to ignore the growing number of innocent casualties. This is war, and I must take some difficult decisions if we want to win.

The barrier breaks faster than the first time, and the so-called Tower of Justice soon enters Siege Mode.

"So it exists..." the Goblin mutters. Mary and everyone else is just staring in awe at the power I displayed. I grit my teeth when the lances come out, and to my surprise the deadly weapons fire. The continuous beams cover everything in white as it tears through buildings and people like a hot knife through butter. It doesn't take long for the dust to clear, and what I see makes my blood freeze.

Everything is gone.

There's nothing but a perfectly smooth crater around the Tower.

I was worried about my kill count, but the Enforcers killed way more of their own people in one attack than I did.

But, despite their insane strike, the penetrators are still firing.

The Hammer of Prometheus is relentlessly striking the enemies of Humanity, the righteous fury it brings will bring down anyone who-

Fuck, I am getting a bit carried away there. I sometimes forget that I don't have to think in the same way I address the Order.

To put it simply, we're pummeling the green-skinned fucks. The Tower is somehow stronger, but it isn't enough to stop the penetrators. The tip of the weapon still penetrates, so it unleashes a storm of mana inside the Tower. Because the walls of the Tower are so hard and no longer blasted apart, it contains the explosion and makes it even worse for its occupants. Some lances are getting destroyed from the inside, and beams of mana escape through the newly created holes.

Nobody says anything, not even Krognar who is usually full of sarcasm. Mary is tightly holding onto me, and I can feel her erratic breaths as she watches the destruction. The others are barely moving, entirely captivated by the deadly firework.

The Tower keeps firing its lances, but it only turns the surface of the crate into a crystalline glass, thus making the battlefield into an eerily beautiful scene.

Well, it would be beautiful if not for the charred remains I see dropping from the Tower.

BuT iT sTiLl HaS iTs ChArM.

"Enough gawking," I say to everyone a few minutes later. "I just stopped the barrage, so we need to go in." The barrier around the Tower is barely regenerating. It has been so thoroughly obliterated that we can easily teleport inside the perimeter. However, the interior of the Tower is still protected so we'll have to walk inside the gigantic building. It should be too difficult considering that I added a bunch of alternative entrances.

"We'll go in at the same time. The bombardment should have dispersed the guards and disabled most of the traps, but we might run into something unexpected so be on your guard." I say to my group to take them back to reality. My order takes them out of their stupor, and they shake their heads before nodding. I create a portal that should bring us to the bottom of the Tower, "is everyone ready?" I ask the group, and they all nod except for Krognar, his gaze keeps alternating between me and the hovering

building.

I snap my finger to bring him back to reality. The Goblin notices the portal and nods before readying his metallic arm. The hand separates into multiple panels, and they slide away to reveal a large bronze needle covered in pulsing engravings.

Mary prepares her spells and cracks her knuckles while the others do one last check on their rifles, "Alright, then let's go!" jump through the portal and arrive at a scene that looks like it was taken from the apocalypse. Dead or dying Goblins are littering the ground, some are half-charred while others were reduced to skeletons, some also fell from the Tower and splattered on the ground. I look up, into the ominous hovering building and the scene matches the one I just witnessed. Most of the interior has been hollowed-out, there are only a few indications that there was ever anything in that giant Tower.

I'm glad that my armor filters smell or the stench of death and burned flesh would have made me throw up.

"Holy shi-" Cynthia mutters before falling to her knees, Sarah tries to hide her unease but her body is trembling, Alex is the calmest of the trio but seems to be a bit shaken despite his training. Mary is the one who is the less affected, she doesn't seem to be too uncomfortable, but she keeps looking around before focusing back on me.

Krognar now keeps a healthy distance between us.

I would have like to send the three rookies away, but we might need their skills so I can't let them go, which is going to make the upcoming battles in the Tower annoying.

Checking my Portal Gun makes me click my tongue. The destroyed floors are accessible, but the other ones are not. It also looks like each floor has its own barrier, which is beyond ridiculous.

The ascension of the Tower is already proving to be quite the challenge.

"Krognar," I ask as I turn towards the shopkeeper, "do you have any ideas how many floors there are on the Tower, and where Wurk might be hiding?"

The old Goblin seems to know a lot more about the Tower than he lets on, or maybe Siege Mode was just a rumor circulating around Goblin society.

"I-I don't know, that building is so massive that the floors must reach the thousands at the very least. But from what I know, the top executives are usually located near the top," he answers. I click my tongue. I don't exactly have the time to climb thousands of floors.

How simple it would be if we had a helicopter or something, but I guess we'll have to make our OwN wAy.

"Alright, everyone please stand back," I say as I raise my laser pointer towards the Tower, which is floating above us. The others immediately get out of the way, and I press the button once we are at a safe distance.

The penetrator shakes the Tower as it impacts against the next floor, and the ensuing explosion of magic power is funneled b the walls of the building just like I predicted. The already calcined interior gets even worse, but what interest me is the damage that has gone up. Checking on my Portal Gun shows that about ten floors have been cleared in one blast, which is less than I expected.

That Tower is really sturdy, but I guess I have more ammo than they have floors.

"There we go again," I mutter as I fire another penetrator inside the Tower.

...Oracle's PoV...

"And that should do it!" I say to nobody in particular as I stare at the training dummy in front of me, or rather what's left of it. This was the last test for my 'toned down' spell repertoire for my upcoming battle against the mysterious P-02. That dummy is made of condensed dead stars, so it isn't too strong.

He should be able to withstand at least that much, right?

I create a comfortable chair out of magic power and close my eyes. It has been quite some time since I haven't check on what my target has been up to.

It takes me a few moments to read through the displayed text. I lean in my chair and call for a servant. Apparently, P-02 has been to some backward planet filled with Goblins. I never liked the green critters, they have no manners, and their ego is usually inversely proportional to their size.

His current objective is apparently to make friends with an old Goblin fugitive who found a way to process and shape Starmetal I do a quick check on the creature, but it's disappointing. His method works but it's slow and limited, I guess it's enough for what P-02 has in mind.

The weapon he calls Hammer of Prometheus is also unusual, it's a creative answer to a problem I never had. That Anomaly somehow found a way to create something stronger than the majority of Strategic Spells just by using enchantments and a bit of clever engineering.

And, for once, his solution is actually better than most Strategic Spells in every way since the materials required for the worthwhile ones are usually quite pricey or rare for people with limited funds. Instead, his 'Hammer of Prometheus' only uses mundane materials that are easy to acquire in large quantities.

I can hardly wait for our battle, and that's saying something. When someone lives for as long as me, impatience is just something that doesn't happen.

My attendant arrives and takes me out of my thoughts. I order the servant to bring me some coffee, and since I'm feeling in a good mood, I ask him for the special reserve. It's grown with purple Magicite as fertilizer, but it's highly unstable so it can't be conserved for too long.

Which is a shame, it's by far the best coffee I ever tasted.

But let's get back to my new favorite discovery. His objective is Wurk, some Goblin who is holed at the top of the Tower. The thing they have on top of the Tower might be interesting if P-02 doesn't reach Wurk before he activates it, but I wouldn't count on it. Reading through the life story of that critter shows that he's a complete idiot.

That piece of machinery is ancient and unstable, it requires precise handling if Wurk doesn't want it to blow up in his face, but the panicked creature isn't really worried about safety right now. I would be too if some invincible assailant were destroying my home.

I'm lucky that it can never happen to me.

The last question I need to answer is how am I going to intervene. Should I attack now, or wait after he killed Wurk?

I quite like the idea of waiting after his tiresome battle against Wurk, only to kill the Goblin he worked so hard to gain the trust of. I'm sure he will hate me a lot, he'll give me a fantastic battle!

Another great idea strikes me. I will kill his companions before killing the Goblin! This is certain to push him to the edge, and he'll fight like he has nothing to lose.

It's going to be so fun!