There was an actual thunderstorm brewing under the surface of the Wall of the World. The previously brightly lit workshop was darkened; the white floor tiles reflected the dark clouds below the cracked ceiling. Finally, the armor-wearing dwarfs shook themselves out from their surprise. In their hands was the shrunken-down, mobilized version of the same weapon Otto used to rain a hail of bullets onto Erza. Their smaller barrels, only numbering four, quickly spun up with a sharp, whining sound, aiming at Ren and the tied-down Tylvana. Ren was not even considering getting out of the way, especially with Tylvana behind her.
"Kill her! Quickly!" the researcher screamed simultaneously as the weapons let loose their glowing, red-hot bullets with a loud roar.
Before they could land and hurt either Ren or Tylvana, a wall of electricity descended from the clouds, cutting the room into two halves. Any bullet that would pass through it drew an arc of electricity along in the air as Ren's powers jumped on them, exploding all of them before reaching their targets. It was like an endless firework, popping hundreds of bullets every second, but Ren's eyes just watched the armored warriors emptying their ammunition.
"They have improved it… but…" Tylvana's weak voice traveled into Ren's ear as she regained a little bit of clarity, recognizing Ren's back, aura, and smell. It was what brought her mind back, remembering herself. She quickly told her what had happened since her capture, trying to get out as much of her thoughts as possible before she lost herself again. She mostly skipped over the torment she endured, fighting against these armored dwarfs every day, but Ren could easily guess what she told her next. Tylvana meticulously explained what she found out by fighting with these warriors every day and what they modified about the suits. Every fight proved that something she found out about previously, exploiting it to survive, was gone by the next battle, so she started holding back as much as possible, hoping they wouldn't fix everything. Now it paid off, telling the remaining weaknesses to Ren.
"You did well…" Ren turned her head towards Tylvana, patting it gently as Kai came forward, tearing off the restraints from her body. "Relax… I'll capture the little gnome that did this to you, and you can play with him to your heart's content!" she said with a soft, caring voice.
"I would appreciate that…." Tylvana answered with a tired but now much more relaxed voice as her mind and body felt a never-before-experienced relief when she realized who had arrived.
"Now…" Ren turned back towards the armored soldiers, who numbered five in total. "Are you finished or not?" she tilted her head, raising her hand towards the ceiling, forming purple, electric nodes, looking like icicles, slowly emerging from the clouds. When the rain of bullets stopped, their weapons were almost melting, turning bright orange, some still spinning but having no more ammunition to fire. "Good! My turn!" She smirked, lowering her hand, and precisely five lightning bolts came down from the nodes, connecting them to the warriors' power armors.
At first, they easily resisted the electricity, not even faltering, but as it sneaked around their bodies, like little worms searching and finding the exact weaknesses Tylvana just told her about, the streaks of electricity sneaked right into them. As soon as they were in, all of it started to flow to the same point, invading not just the suits but the bodies of their occupants. From the outside, the researchers could not hear their screams and only saw their armors stop moving, standing still and releasing a chokingly nasty smell.
"Pop…" Ren whispered, then repeated it precisely five times, her eyes wandering from one suit to another. The dwarfs could not understand why she said it. Not even when Ren just lowered her hand, and the violent electricity that made everyone's hair stand up quickly disappeared, alongside the black clouds, returning the room to calmness.
The warriors were still standing, unmoving, turning into weird statues. Nobody would know what happened until later, when they finally opened them up, finding their pilots simply blown up inside. Their bodies exploded into nothing but chunks of gore, leaving behind no recognizable features, body parts, or organs.
"Now, all of you!" She turned her eyes toward the remaining dwarfs, "Line up!" She ordered with a shout, "Those who resist…" she raised her index finger, spewing arcs of lightning into the air. "Are going to wish they would be dead!" Seeing what had become of their guards, they had no will to resist, only lining up, waiting anxiously for what would happen to them. Ren was not in the mood to question them one by one, so she just walked up to the one who was the most vocal previously, grabbing his head, lifting him up, and looking into his eyes with her glowing pupils.
The rest of the dwarfs were horrified, seeing their boss scream, his eyes, ears, and nose bleeding, and foam coming up his throat. Ren held nothing back and did not even bother with the fact he had no cultivation to speak of. Besides modifying their own bodies, they were still humans, even weaker than most on the surface, as their strength came solely from the machinery they invented and implanted into their own bodies. By the time Ren was finished with him, reading all of his memories, he was only a corpse she had just tossed to the side like trash.
"We are just scientists, you-" another dwarf spoke up, but Ren simply flicked her fingers, exploding his head into smithereens, splashing the others with blood, chunks of his skull, and bits of his brain.
"I don't care," she said calmly, watching the rest. "You are slabs of meat before me, nothing more. Got it?" She tilted her head. "I know everything you did here, so you don't need to try to lie and try to get out of it! You are now prisoners of Thunder Valley; I'll let the demons deal with you later!" She walked past them, telling Allfather to tie them up as prisoners. "Kai, stay with Tylvana; protect her at all costs!"
"No problem." Kai agreed quickly while Ren was already before the big gate to the workshop, entering the code into it, she extracted from the researcher's memories.
What she gained from him was not just all the access codes to travel around most of the dwarfs' city but also an extensive knowledge of the layout of the whole place with vaults, safes, and everything he had access to.
"Where to?" Allfather asked, catching up quickly with her.
"To the workshop where the two of their leaders are at. They are fixing their suits as we speak."
"Hm. They seemed strong."
"They are just annoying," she answered while walking with a quick pace, taking turns in the maze-like corridors, opening sealed doors one after another. "Their weapons were coated with an energy-nullifying ability. In reality, it just cuts your immediate connection with your surroundings; those who don't know how to deal with that can be caught off-guard."
"And how do you deal with that?" Allfather asked, as he had never heard of or met with something like that.
"With an explosive show of strength!" Ren smiled a little "Blast out with enough force from your inner core to push it back and overcome its ability to cut you off! Forcefully reconnect with nature, that is all! Well… you are part of nature…" she looked him up and down "Or was in the past. I think their little trick is going to be mostly useless against you!" She mused, thinking about it a bit more. "Can you take over after I open this gate?" she asked while they arrived at another, and her fingers stopped before the keypad, not opening it yet.
"Hm? Sure, why?"
"I need to rest a little. So I'll need you to take up the vanguard role~" she said with a grin.
"Okay?" Allfather agreed, raising his eyebrows, not really getting at what she was trying to say.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes? Why?"
His answer came while Ren was already putting in the code, opening the gate. They arrived at one of the big bridges leading from the ceiling to the dwarven city. It was now completely empty, looking like a ghost town. At least until the multiple turrets scanning their surroundings constantly snapped straight at them. The quickly spinning barrels already brought a well-known whining sound to Allfather, who hurriedly raised his hands, turning them into a giant, wooden shield, blocking the hail of bullets.
"You could've said something!" He shouted back at Ren, who was stretching as he followed behind him, slowly crossing the bridge.
"Are you a demigod or not? This should be nothing!"
"I am, but this form of mine is… not my best! I am weaker when moving around like this! Plus, we are underground; I get claustrophobic not seeing the blue sky!"
"Excuses!" Ren rolled her eyes. "Just use your head a little! Think! You are the progenitor of the ents, are you not? You wiped out a whole civilization while not even being a tenth of the strength you are now!" She told him in a somewhat teaching-like manner. When the bullets failed to cut through Allfather's defenses, only chipping away at it but not enough to overcome its regeneration, they soon went silent.
"Did they go empty already?" Allfather opened a small window on his shield, looking forward, checking out the turrets while also mulling over her previous words.
"No." Ren shook her head. "They are just switching it up a little. Be ready, Allfather!" She warned him with a playful voice.
"Huh?" He looked back at the leisurely standing Ren when a loud boom echoed inside the cave, and a big canister flew forward, exploding above them, raining greenish flames down. "Damn!" Allfather cursed, forming a wooden disk above them, catching fire, grimacing as it felt like burning his own hands. The falling, flaming goo splashing onto the bridge started to eat away at it, and it was evident it wouldn't take long to destroy it, and they were going to fall. "Damn it!" He groaned again, disconnecting the 'disk' from the end of his fingers, using it as a giant frisbee that was on fire, tossing it away, blasting apart a whole block of buildings, exploding multiple turrets placed on them. "We must hurry; the bridge won't hold for long!" He exclaimed, only seeing Ren standing there, watching him with a weird smile and look in her eyes.
"Are you really a demigod?" She tilted her head, releasing a long sigh.
"Huh?" He blinked, and suddenly, the thought hit him. "..."
"Ahahaha~" Ren laughed out, seeing the realization in his eyes and how he grimaced and even his brown, bark-like skin turned red on his face. "I won't blame you; you really did not move around for thousands of years… but geez, you really should! You have reached this stage yet going underground, placing yourself into an unfamiliar position, and you instantly revert to the level of an amateur! You already forgot what you are capable of!" Ren joked as she teleported away, appearing behind one of the turrets, kicking it off from the building's top easily. Allfather only sighed, copying her, reappearing behind another, twisting it off with his hands.
"Thank you for the lesson!" He said seriously. "I really made a fool out of myself there!" He sighed, shaking his head, and watching the burning bridge fall.
"No worries~ It was funny!" Ren giggled, watching him deeply embarrassed, not even daring to look at her as he just flashed away to disable more turrets.
As they quickly dismantled the defenses from the multiple holes, they felt an army of footsteps approaching them. Only seconds later, golems started to throw themselves toward the city, and more and more armored warriors appeared, attacking the two with everything they had. Their weapons rained great destruction on the city itself; bridges were falling into deep, alongside multiple buildings, trying to bury the two alongside their home.
"Can you deal with them?" Ren asked, watching the ceiling where another gate was slowly opening.
"Sure, what about you?"
"I am going to have my round two!" She flew upwards, meeting the two Dreadnoughts, descending downwards.
There was an actual thunderstorm brewing under the surface of the Wall of the World. The previously brightly lit workshop was darkened; the white floor tiles reflected the dark clouds below the cracked ceiling. Finally, the armor-wearing dwarfs shook themselves out from their surprise. In their hands was the shrunken-down, mobilized version of the same weapon Otto used to rain a hail of bullets onto Erza. Their smaller barrels, only numbering four, quickly spun up with a sharp, whining sound, aiming at Ren and the tied-down Tylvana. Ren was not even considering getting out of the way, especially with Tylvana behind her.
"Kill her! Quickly!" the researcher screamed simultaneously as the weapons let loose their glowing, red-hot bullets with a loud roar.
Before they could land and hurt either Ren or Tylvana, a wall of electricity descended from the clouds, cutting the room into two halves. Any bullet that would pass through it drew an arc of electricity along in the air as Ren's powers jumped on them, exploding all of them before reaching their targets. It was like an endless firework, popping hundreds of bullets every second, but Ren's eyes just watched the armored warriors emptying their ammunition.
"They have improved it… but…" Tylvana's weak voice traveled into Ren's ear as she regained a little bit of clarity, recognizing Ren's back, aura, and smell. It was what brought her mind back, remembering herself. She quickly told her what had happened since her capture, trying to get out as much of her thoughts as possible before she lost herself again. She mostly skipped over the torment she endured, fighting against these armored dwarfs every day, but Ren could easily guess what she told her next. Tylvana meticulously explained what she found out by fighting with these warriors every day and what they modified about the suits. Every fight proved that something she found out about previously, exploiting it to survive, was gone by the next battle, so she started holding back as much as possible, hoping they wouldn't fix everything. Now it paid off, telling the remaining weaknesses to Ren.
"You did well…" Ren turned her head towards Tylvana, patting it gently as Kai came forward, tearing off the restraints from her body. "Relax… I'll capture the little gnome that did this to you, and you can play with him to your heart's content!" she said with a soft, caring voice.
"I would appreciate that…." Tylvana answered with a tired but now much more relaxed voice as her mind and body felt a never-before-experienced relief when she realized who had arrived.
"Now…" Ren turned back towards the armored soldiers, who numbered five in total. "Are you finished or not?" she tilted her head, raising her hand towards the ceiling, forming purple, electric nodes, looking like icicles, slowly emerging from the clouds. When the rain of bullets stopped, their weapons were almost melting, turning bright orange, some still spinning but having no more ammunition to fire. "Good! My turn!" She smirked, lowering her hand, and precisely five lightning bolts came down from the nodes, connecting them to the warriors' power armors.
At first, they easily resisted the electricity, not even faltering, but as it sneaked around their bodies, like little worms searching and finding the exact weaknesses Tylvana just told her about, the streaks of electricity sneaked right into them. As soon as they were in, all of it started to flow to the same point, invading not just the suits but the bodies of their occupants. From the outside, the researchers could not hear their screams and only saw their armors stop moving, standing still and releasing a chokingly nasty smell.
"Pop…" Ren whispered, then repeated it precisely five times, her eyes wandering from one suit to another. The dwarfs could not understand why she said it. Not even when Ren just lowered her hand, and the violent electricity that made everyone's hair stand up quickly disappeared, alongside the black clouds, returning the room to calmness.
The warriors were still standing, unmoving, turning into weird statues. Nobody would know what happened until later, when they finally opened them up, finding their pilots simply blown up inside. Their bodies exploded into nothing but chunks of gore, leaving behind no recognizable features, body parts, or organs.
"Now, all of you!" She turned her eyes toward the remaining dwarfs, "Line up!" She ordered with a shout, "Those who resist…" she raised her index finger, spewing arcs of lightning into the air. "Are going to wish they would be dead!" Seeing what had become of their guards, they had no will to resist, only lining up, waiting anxiously for what would happen to them. Ren was not in the mood to question them one by one, so she just walked up to the one who was the most vocal previously, grabbing his head, lifting him up, and looking into his eyes with her glowing pupils.
The rest of the dwarfs were horrified, seeing their boss scream, his eyes, ears, and nose bleeding, and foam coming up his throat. Ren held nothing back and did not even bother with the fact he had no cultivation to speak of. Besides modifying their own bodies, they were still humans, even weaker than most on the surface, as their strength came solely from the machinery they invented and implanted into their own bodies. By the time Ren was finished with him, reading all of his memories, he was only a corpse she had just tossed to the side like trash.
"We are just scientists, you-" another dwarf spoke up, but Ren simply flicked her fingers, exploding his head into smithereens, splashing the others with blood, chunks of his skull, and bits of his brain.
"I don't care," she said calmly, watching the rest. "You are slabs of meat before me, nothing more. Got it?" She tilted her head. "I know everything you did here, so you don't need to try to lie and try to get out of it! You are now prisoners of Thunder Valley; I'll let the demons deal with you later!" She walked past them, telling Allfather to tie them up as prisoners. "Kai, stay with Tylvana; protect her at all costs!"
"No problem." Kai agreed quickly while Ren was already before the big gate to the workshop, entering the code into it, she extracted from the researcher's memories.
What she gained from him was not just all the access codes to travel around most of the dwarfs' city but also an extensive knowledge of the layout of the whole place with vaults, safes, and everything he had access to.
"Where to?" Allfather asked, catching up quickly with her.
"To the workshop where the two of their leaders are at. They are fixing their suits as we speak."
"Hm. They seemed strong."
"They are just annoying," she answered while walking with a quick pace, taking turns in the maze-like corridors, opening sealed doors one after another. "Their weapons were coated with an energy-nullifying ability. In reality, it just cuts your immediate connection with your surroundings; those who don't know how to deal with that can be caught off-guard."
"And how do you deal with that?" Allfather asked, as he had never heard of or met with something like that.
"With an explosive show of strength!" Ren smiled a little "Blast out with enough force from your inner core to push it back and overcome its ability to cut you off! Forcefully reconnect with nature, that is all! Well… you are part of nature…" she looked him up and down "Or was in the past. I think their little trick is going to be mostly useless against you!" She mused, thinking about it a bit more. "Can you take over after I open this gate?" she asked while they arrived at another, and her fingers stopped before the keypad, not opening it yet.
"Hm? Sure, why?"
"I need to rest a little. So I'll need you to take up the vanguard role~" she said with a grin.
"Okay?" Allfather agreed, raising his eyebrows, not really getting at what she was trying to say.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes? Why?"
His answer came while Ren was already putting in the code, opening the gate. They arrived at one of the big bridges leading from the ceiling to the dwarven city. It was now completely empty, looking like a ghost town. At least until the multiple turrets scanning their surroundings constantly snapped straight at them. The quickly spinning barrels already brought a well-known whining sound to Allfather, who hurriedly raised his hands, turning them into a giant, wooden shield, blocking the hail of bullets.
"You could've said something!" He shouted back at Ren, who was stretching as he followed behind him, slowly crossing the bridge.
"Are you a demigod or not? This should be nothing!"
"I am, but this form of mine is… not my best! I am weaker when moving around like this! Plus, we are underground; I get claustrophobic not seeing the blue sky!"
"Excuses!" Ren rolled her eyes. "Just use your head a little! Think! You are the progenitor of the ents, are you not? You wiped out a whole civilization while not even being a tenth of the strength you are now!" She told him in a somewhat teaching-like manner. When the bullets failed to cut through Allfather's defenses, only chipping away at it but not enough to overcome its regeneration, they soon went silent.
"Did they go empty already?" Allfather opened a small window on his shield, looking forward, checking out the turrets while also mulling over her previous words.
"No." Ren shook her head. "They are just switching it up a little. Be ready, Allfather!" She warned him with a playful voice.
"Huh?" He looked back at the leisurely standing Ren when a loud boom echoed inside the cave, and a big canister flew forward, exploding above them, raining greenish flames down. "Damn!" Allfather cursed, forming a wooden disk above them, catching fire, grimacing as it felt like burning his own hands. The falling, flaming goo splashing onto the bridge started to eat away at it, and it was evident it wouldn't take long to destroy it, and they were going to fall. "Damn it!" He groaned again, disconnecting the 'disk' from the end of his fingers, using it as a giant frisbee that was on fire, tossing it away, blasting apart a whole block of buildings, exploding multiple turrets placed on them. "We must hurry; the bridge won't hold for long!" He exclaimed, only seeing Ren standing there, watching him with a weird smile and look in her eyes.
"Are you really a demigod?" She tilted her head, releasing a long sigh.
"Huh?" He blinked, and suddenly, the thought hit him. "..."
"Ahahaha~" Ren laughed out, seeing the realization in his eyes and how he grimaced and even his brown, bark-like skin turned red on his face. "I won't blame you; you really did not move around for thousands of years… but geez, you really should! You have reached this stage yet going underground, placing yourself into an unfamiliar position, and you instantly revert to the level of an amateur! You already forgot what you are capable of!" Ren joked as she teleported away, appearing behind one of the turrets, kicking it off from the building's top easily. Allfather only sighed, copying her, reappearing behind another, twisting it off with his hands.
"Thank you for the lesson!" He said seriously. "I really made a fool out of myself there!" He sighed, shaking his head, and watching the burning bridge fall.
"No worries~ It was funny!" Ren giggled, watching him deeply embarrassed, not even daring to look at her as he just flashed away to disable more turrets.
As they quickly dismantled the defenses from the multiple holes, they felt an army of footsteps approaching them. Only seconds later, golems started to throw themselves toward the city, and more and more armored warriors appeared, attacking the two with everything they had. Their weapons rained great destruction on the city itself; bridges were falling into deep, alongside multiple buildings, trying to bury the two alongside their home.
"Can you deal with them?" Ren asked, watching the ceiling where another gate was slowly opening.
"Sure, what about you?"
"I am going to have my round two!" She flew upwards, meeting the two Dreadnoughts, descending downwards.
