guild wars
"Apparently, we are tax evaders. The IRS sent their dogs to come and bark at our gate while demanding their fees, so I thought to solve this problem permanently by dismantling the entire institution," Draco explained the cause and effect of the current occurrence, causing the interested expressions of the five to freeze.
As core members, they considered themselves brazen, arrogant, and callous, but even they had to admit that there was always a bigger fish. Who in the world committed a crime and then thought, 'Rather than atone, I'd rather just dismantle the entire legal system so my actions become legal'?
Lips twitching, the core members could only grunt in response, wondering how Draco actually planned to effect this. When they glanced at him for confirmation on this, they only saw a pair of innocent green eyes with not a single thought behind them, making them realize that their mighty Guildmaster was winging the whole thing!
Luckily for Draco, the five he called were not known for being overly hung up on the details. Seeing that the only rule was to kill and destroy, they were perfectly content to do just that as they began to travel down the street. They all moved quickly, looking like blurs as they charged down the street using their superior physical bodies coupled with Control to resemble inexhaustible cheetahs.
After turning two streets, they had to slow down because they realized that the reaction of the state was far faster than they expected. It was 2070, not 2020, and the level of technology reflected that. Boundless World was an advanced FIVR game ahead of its time, but FIVR games had existed since as early as when Eva was born, and it was nearly 25 years since then.
The moment that Draco had killed the first batch of SWAT team members, an instant response was generated and the local army garrison was dispatched. The second batch of police mixed with SWAT were just there to delay Draco for a short while till the army arrived, but who knew he would kill without even giving them a chance?
So far, it hadn't even been a total of 10 minutes and the death toll was past 60!
Because of this, the moment he and his group slowed down in front of the army, the soldiers did not hesitate to open fire without performing any nonsense like asking them to surrender. The order had come from above: the target was to be captured dead, not alive!
The deployed troops comprised five M1A2 Abrams Tanks, three AMPVs (Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicles) that were a versatile replacement for aging personnel carriers (APCs), designed to provide superior protection and mobility for troops in combat zones.
There were seven fully loaded JLTVs (Joint Light Tactical Vehicles) that could carry up to five infantry troopers, along with a mounted M2 .50 caliber machine gun at the top, which was manned by one of the troopers wearing a cold expression beneath his tactical helmet.
The five tanks fired at the same time, unloading the heavy shells from their XM360 120mm smoothbore cannon onto the group with Draco. The AMPVs all possessed turrets that were manned from within the safety of the vehicle, and they didn't hesitate to unleash their firepower in this situation.
Naturally, the JLTVs also opened fire while their operators roared in fury, already aware of the deaths that had happened while they were deploying. To murderers and madmen like these, they had no qualms about killing whatsoever!
Draco stood in place with a smile while the five behind him charged out in response.
AP was the first to arrive as he grinned wolfishly, his upper torso bursting with muscular power as he grabbed one tank by the base and easily hoisted it up, lifting it like some modern hulk. The faces of the operators within the tank changed greatly as they hastily called to their allies for help, but it was meaningless.
"Hahaha, I've always wanted to try this!" AP roared with laughter as he grabbed the tank by its cannon muzzle and then swung it to either side of his body, crashing the powerful armored vehicle on either side of his body.
The M1A2 Abrams tank constructed today was far superior to the original model from the world wars. Now, it had depleted uranium worked into its composite armor, giving it unparalleled defense against even shells from its own kind.
When designing and upgrading this tank, engineers had wracked their brains to think of various situations its operators could be put under in order to guarantee their lives, as well as that of the vehicle itself. However, none of them had calculated 'being tossed about by the hulk' as a possible encounter!
Oh, but despite this, the tank did surprisingly well. Even after being smashed on either side five times, it was still operating and only looked heavily bruised. It could likely still work relatively fine and even be repaired, but the same couldn't be said of the humans within who had been smashed into paste.
Sensing the lack of life within, AP immediately became bored and tossed the slightly ruined tank away, focusing on his next target. He jumped like a barbarian ape and landed on top of another tank, smiling as he dug his hands into the latch and ripped it off, revealing the panicking operators within.
"Hey, let's wrestle!" AP demanded as he jumped into the tank.
In a few seconds, one could hear screams and see a splatter of blood rise from the latch as explosions occurred within the tank, causing those around to feel a chill in their hearts.
Misery frowned at this and sighed. As an ex-soldier who fought for the country, he probably felt the most about this skirmish, especially seeing those who would have been his comrades slaughtered like pigs.
However, that did not stop him from manifesting a purple tome in his left hand, his expression full of a coldness that he hardly ever showed. After all, when he was in the army, he was a great soldier that followed orders down to the letter, and even now, he still did the same.
His current commander, Draco, ordered for there to be killing, so there would be killing. That was all there was to it. With a simple chant, Misery flicked his finger forward and released a 3rd Order Chain Lightning spell that snaked toward one of the gunners on the back of the JLTV firing the turrets. It struck the person and made him scream in agony as his skeleton was briefly displayed like in the cartoons.
Unfortunately, unlike in the cartoons, the fellow didn't have frazzled hair and wide eyes, puffing black smoke to make children laugh. He was a charred and slightly cooked corpse that released a terrifying stench of death, but his mates in the vehicle didn't even have time to mourn him as the lightning jumped into the car and fried each of them.
It was called CHAIN Lightning, after all.
Misery flicked his finger and released six more of these terrifying bolts of electricity that completely ignored the vehicle and went for the personnel within, turning them into smoking corpses with not a single chance of survival.
He didn't bother to manifest his spear because the blood of these weaklings would not be able to satisfy Gae Bolg. Anyway, he considered it good practice since his nanna was dissatisfied with his magical prowess of late, but Misery could only complain in his heart.
Did Scáthach think that everyone was a monster like her who had already mastered the ethereal 10th Order of magic and was already beginning on the 11th Order? Dammit, even Merlin himself was stuck at the 9th Order; he had no idea anything even existed beyond that!!
Shadowheart was the most casual about this. He wasn't particularly cruel nor did he enjoy murder, but he agreed with Draco that some things had to be dealt with before they became problems. Those like AP and Hunter only cared about the process of killing, but he saw more.
The fact that they had been left alone for more than three years before suddenly being descended upon showed that there was more going on, and he also realized that Draco was not just being rash. He must have detected something and was staging this act to draw attention away from something or someone, and Shadowheart was rapidly calculating who it could be.
Of course, being fired at by a bunch of tanks and APCs did annoy him a little, so he sought to silence that. He wordlessly connected to the free elements in the air, of which the current majority were fire and metal, then condensed them at the tip of his staff to create his own version of explosive bullets.
"Go." Shadowheart muttered softly, testing the effect of these creations by letting them strike directly on the composite armor.
Their effect was pretty good. The bullets were slightly larger than most, being around 15mm, and were filled with raw fire element, not substances that could create explosions. Firing normal explosive shells against composite armor was like trying to smack a burly Russian with a snowball, not very effective.
But there was a great difference between using metal formed from the raw element and metal synthesized artificially by human hands. The quality and purity were on another level, so even these 15mm bullets, even though their internals were hollow minus the condensed fire element within, were far heavier than some medieval cannon shells individually.
Putting aside the kinetic force, the bullets were crafted by Shadowheart to release their accumulated fire element upon contact, which released explosions on the scale of small AGM missiles from a fighter jet. One of these was powerful enough to knock the tanks backward, but when multiple of them were launched like they were nothing?
There was only the sound of explosions and the flash of bright lights, then… nothing. The tanks that Shadowheart targeted were simply gone, and there was only a burnt patch of slightly liquefied asphalt remaining, bubbling in the pit that formed in the aftermath.
He put his staff down and continued to ponder the issue at hand, no longer paying attention to the battle going on.
"Heh, this is the best place for me to have some fun!" Omega Raider laughed wildly as he leapt forward and rode on a wave of water toward the AMPVs.
Their guns opened fire on him, and he stretched his arms out to receive the blows willingly. However, the reality was that all the bullets made the sound of hitting metal as they struck him continuously but could not pierce his skin, instead being rebuffed by him.
After all, he was the only dual inheritance holder of the Zeus Lineage, his God Inheritance linking him to Poseidon while his Hero Inheritance linked him to Achilles. It was precisely due to this mash-up that he was such an unruly fellow who could have become a ruler of the sea, but rather decided to be a lowly pirate!
And it was precisely because of this that he could fit in with Umbra so well, even being one of the favored core members that Draco called out for this expedition!
With the power of Achilles also came the fabled invincibility, minus his left ankle. Apart from an inconspicuous band of hardened water protecting that spot to prevent accidents, the actions of Omega Raider actually frightened the soldiers the most because, even if an enemy was superhuman, they shouldn't be able to easily withstand such large-caliber bullets!
More importantly, this also frightened those behind these soldiers because you could be sure that many satellites and cameras were trained on the activity going on here. This arrest was personally ordered by the World Council, so those upper echelons in the country were already alarmed by this matter, but seeing what was going on, they began to understand a little!
As for the World Council, who were obviously paying attention to this matter directly due to the concern from Nathan and Li Jian, they had become very silent with grim expressions.