224 Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Four – Big Ugly Rock Fall Down Go Boom (1/2)

Yep, Zone 14 still...

Hazé stopped her strafing and brought up two Walls of Fire in front of two of the six entrances to the complex, forcing the undead into taking double-damage banefire'd flames to the face to get to them. The Heavenbound immediately sealed off three of the others, and General Moonriver the last.

The dragons had swooped in to join them as the last of the wedge came flying through, spreading out with the hellpoodles to cover each of the entryways. The archers and the Casters flanked them, and as the toughest of the undead managed to make it through the Walls of buffed-out flames, salvoes of undead-eating arrows, magic, and breath weapons, coordinated to maximum effect, slammed out to meet them.

The dwarves and Ironblood converged on the skeletal warriors not being taken apart by the previous four, mobbing them with shields and thrusting in for what damage they could inflict, reinforcing one another and not letting themselves be thrown back like they had before. Shields screamed as bony appendages and rotting Swords and Axes that shouldn't work crunched against the troops surrounding them... but this time, they held, smashing their victims to and fro, taking advantage of their lack of mass and heavyfoot to render them off-balance.

Tremble floated overhead, the griffons ripped the last of the skeletal bats and pterosaurs out of the skies with burning claws and beaks, watching the unlimited horde that was converging from all directions, covering the ground for literally miles around with rushing undead bodies big and small.

It took less than two minutes for the Big Four to rip their way through the dozen skeletal warriors, each of the ones enfolded by the troops turning in anticipation as they saw the Shields opening up... and then seeing nothing coming for them, only to be surprised by the sudden arrival of Grace, Endure, Zeitgeist, and Quaver, all come to play.

”Take it down!” Sama ordered, her voice cutting through the thunderous, collective moans of millions of undead, resonating through the Elevated Music. The apes howled together, vine ropes were snatched up, and they climbed up the rough basalt thing glowing with yellow-green Runes, shrieking in fear and loathing as they touched it, but still continuing.

The fighting lines quickly reorganized as the Healers tended to the wounded fast, forming up shield and spear lines before the six entrances. The dragons and hellpoodles pulled away to the Obelisk, while the griffons above alighted on the stone columns ringing this plaza, eyes sweeping everywhere, missing nothing, warning everyone of what was coming.

Long vines wrapped around the top of the Obelisk, layer on layer of braided vines extending down into the ready hands of the strongest apes, and Elder Arg. Briggs decided the angle, and then the One-Two-Threes started.

The elven Casters with Fire Reserves poured the power into Captain Fido, who sent a steel-melting Topped blast of fire into the side of the Obelisk. An inhalation later, Captain Shirley and the Two Valor Dragons slammed it with enough combined cold to freeze helium. An inhalation later, triple blasts of lightning from the Shield dragons hammered at the black stone, sending shards flying in every direction.

Fire howled down on it again, and overstressed rock expanded and disintegrated. Cold came, it crumbled, and lightning followed, to explode and shatter.

The apes were all pulling steadily, feet wide and braced, heaving back on multiple creaking rope vines, feeling the Obelisk tremble.

The magic-resistant stone cracked and crumbled and shook, as a huge bite was taken out of its base.

The breathers poured over to the other side, at closer range now, and began the bombardment again, across a narrower strip.

One, Two, Three, repeat...

One minute, two, shredding a narrow path across the base of the Obelisk, and the apes heaved opposite them.

There was a very loud crack, spreading through the base of the Obelisk. It began to sway and tilt. The apes howled and surged, muscles popping and sinews straining... and the tower of stone began to fall.

Shrieking with glee, the apes got out of the way, Elder Arg giving it one final pull before leaping in the opposite direction. The lines of shields and spears moved out of the way as the Obelisk tottered and fell, slowly, grandly, the Runes emblazoned all over it going out, right between two of the six pillars forming the entrances to the plaza. The griffons thereon didn't even move out of the way, just narrowing their eyes at the rush of wind as it fell past... right onto the forces of undead and the Wall of flame burning there.

The impact jolted the entire plaza, enough to send the Casters and Archers stumbling, while those with heavyfoot largely staved off the impact.

The undead outside all seemed to slow and mill around as a visible shockwave swept through them. The pell-mell rush to surround and overwhelm became more of a trot or walk, as whatever uniting force the Obelisk held over them vanished.

Now, it was target practice time.

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Yawn, Zone 14 again?!...

In the end, it took almost twelve hours to burn them all away.

As the only living things in the Zone, and definitely creating a commotion, they still attracted all the undead there... hundreds of square miles of them.

As they died, the vivic fires feasting on their remains spread out over the plaza, eventually becoming a virtual bonfire of unwhite fires, wiping out the weak skeletons before they could even make it to the plaza.

Like moths to honey, the mindless undead kept coming, stacking up their bones... and getting burned down literally as fast.

The intelligent undead were instantly noticeable because they stopped. Archers on Disks up beside the griffons on the columns instantly took note of them, and hatracked them with burning arrows.

Hazé, flying in the air, did the same. Endless streams of Shards and Shardrays continued pouring out from her, getting in the rep counts she would need to Weird the price of her Perpetual Spell down a level. Ten a minute, six hundred an hour... and one million twenty-four thousand to get to...

She was covering a third of an arc all by herself, Rays and Bolts and Shards flying out from her endlessly, multicolored eruptions among the undead, just target practice for her. Anything flying she started dealing with hundreds of yards away, and flocks of hundreds would be reduced to scattered numbers easily shot down before they could reach anyone.

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Okay, seriously, Zone 14 is taking way too long...