Chapter 427: Becoming the Target of Everyone
The Battleship scaled up, heading into the sky straight like a rocket. Jyorta was running out of energy to maintain it any longer. So, before he was completely expended, they had to find a green circle. After opening the hatch, his psychic arm brought in the second can as Jyorta swiftly closed it, grunting at the strength he had to use to close it under the air resistance their fast-moving Battleship faced.
Even though he had built it streamline by referencing the design of a Spindle Bee's spindle, the cylindrical part with the hatch was still poorly designed. So, this part faced a lot of air resistance as compared to the rest of the Battleship.
"Argh," Duvic grunted as he strained his eyes, detecting the heat signatures of the Floating Spiders that still chased after them as he shot spindles at them. It was getting harder and harder to maintain his focus, for the number of enemies was too much.
If they had been simple targets that flew parallel to the Battleship, his job would have been simpler. But instead, they darted to and fro, moving aside when the turret aimed at them. Their random motions hurt his head as Duvic had to keep up with them.
Otherwise, he would just be wasting the spindles. Once his respective Tier 2 Spindle Bee ran out of energy, their Battleship would lose a means of attacking. Even though all it took was some Heart Crystals to recover its energy to the brim once again, this strategy couldn't be abused.
After all, beyond a certain point, the white substance in the Heart Crystals would accumulate in the bodies of the Spindle Bees, causing the flow of their energy to become sluggish. When the situation deteriorated further, they would no longer be able to use their Skills or Traits and would bleed the white substance from their orifices.
Followed by it would be a drop in their Sync Rate before eventually their Frenzy Parasite gets muddled and dies. It was akin to poison if it wasn't flushed out by their body soon. And, not every Frenzy Beast's Essence of Frenzy was capable of corroding them.
The River Whale Jyorta controlled in the Labyrinth of Frenzy was an exception. But, that was probably because it had evolved accordingly thanks to all the Shoe Fishes covering its body.
Finding a green circle, that was Jyorta's target. It was why he controlled the Battleship to fly high up. After all, the large boulders prevented them from seeing anything beyond their immediate vicinity.
Though, the moment they crossed the height of 10 metres and had surpassed the height of most boulders, Jyorta felt a chill creep up through his spine. He saw how the Frenzy Beasts in the second segment of the central simultaneously noticed their Battleship and had all focused their gazes on them.
It wasn't Jyorta alone, his teammates too felt their skin crawl as they sensed hundreds of gazes directed at them with pure desire for slaughter. The ones huddled in the second segment from the bottom in the central tower were Ring Worms.
Their wriggly mass spilt out of their segment as they moved over the paths trailing past from their respective segment. They planned to approach the Battleship using these paths and throw themselves onto it and drag it towards the ground.
"It seems the moment we reach the height of their segment, they would spill out to chase after us." Jyorta frowned, looking above as he saw the numerous paths trailing out from each segment in the central tower.
This created numerous avenues for the Frenzy Beasts to position themselves and attack anyone who tried to fly past them. Jyorta then looked at the long path that trailed along the walls, starting from the ground at numerous checkpoints before heading towards the top where it branched into twelve paths and ended at the domes with the Tier 3 Frenzy Beasts.
The path was only 10 metres wide, so there was a limit to the number of Frenzy Beasts that could occupy it. Moreover, the path wasn't fully open in the sky, for it was a coiling path that trailed above the previous coil every 20 metres. So, it didn't give too much advantage to the Frenzy Beasts.
It was unlike their current spot where the numerous paths trailing from the central tower gave the Frenzy Beasts advantageous positions to launch attacks. Jyorta just thought of this when a massive sphere of water crashed into the Battleship, rocketing them towards the ground.
"Aah!" Everyone inside the Battleship screamed as it lost balance from the impact and fell like a kite that had been punctured. The attack stemmed from a River Whale that was positioned almost at the top of the central tower.
It had condensed the sphere of water and dropped it onto the Battleship. As the sphere of water fell, it gained momentum. And, using its Trait, the River Whale had ensured the water sphere wouldn't break down into individual drops before it hit the Battleship.
The volume of water pouring on them contained enough momentum to dent their front and significantly damage the hull of the Battleship.
Jyorta grunted as he tried his best to control the Floating Spiders, making them move opposite to the momentum that knocked their Battleship to reorient it. It was tough; he was getting exhausted.
The momentum also rocked his insides, causing him to feel some pain in his chest. He had to preserve the little psychic energy he had left, so Jyorta hadn't healed himself. He shouted, "Sreshta, did you spot any green circles?"
"No," Sreshta replied, trembling with fear as she felt a bit nauseous.
"Four metres from the ground!" Rishana shouted, relaying the speed of their descent as she helped point out the Battleship's alignment with respect to the ground. Jyorta used her inputs to stabilise the Battleship somehow as it crashed into the ground with a mild thud.
There were some creases all over it as it had scrapped the ground. The spindles lodged on the bottom of the Battleship were slightly bent as it slowly took to the air once again. It was because of the natural levitation capability of the silk used in its construction.
If not for this, the Battleship would have crashed with enough momentum to become severely damaged while also injuring the ones inside to the extent they would have to be pulled out by a staff.
Jyorta used the remainder of his psychic energy to activate Regen as he solely replenished his aura, recovering it to the maximum. He then controlled the battleship as his teammates fed the nine Frenzy Beasts some Tier 1 Heart Crystals.
Some of them were hurt during the attack. But, Jyorta didn't allow the Frenzy Beasts time to treat their wounds. He judged their wounds weren't serious enough for treatment and hence controlled them to take action as usual.
The Battleship flew between the boulders as it resisted the attacks from the River Whales that dropped spheres of water from above. It seemed his action of taking flight had pissed them off. The mud on the ground seemed odd, for when the water fell on them, it slowly evaporated.
The River Whales recondensed the moisture into spheres of water using their Traits, spamming attacks without any loss in ammo. The Battleship jutted through the paths as it evaded the spheres of water heading towards them.
This was where Rishana came into play. She perceived the spheres of water falling towards them and relayed the information to Jyorta who controlled the Battleship to evade. The bigger the object flying towards them, the clearer she was able to perceive them.
The first attack came too quick for her to react. After all, it took some time for her to relay the information to Jyorta who then controlled the Battleship to move accordingly. The transmission of information wasn't quick enough.
Everything would have been solved if Jyorta was able to understand the feedback transmitted by his psychic arms. That way, he would have been able to connect one psychic arm to everyone and create a network of information transfer. It would have made everything simpler.
Unfortunately, only Wave Controllers were able to achieve this feat. Even though he was barely able to make out some stuff in his feedback, it wasn't fast enough. At present, speaking and listening normally was a faster approach.
They came across other teams of students who were engaged in a battle with the Frenzy Beasts or were simply hiding to bode for time, before they took action. On seeing that they were put in a passive situation and had become the target of numerous Frenzy Beasts, Jyorta thought for a moment, making the Battleship increase its altitude to a height of twenty metres as it headed straight towards the walls.
The Battleship rammed into the Floating Spiders that obstructed it, not caring about the damage that was caused as a result as it flew forward, making a beeline towards the walls.
'There must be a green circle somewhere around the area where the path starts.' Jyorta thought, acting based on it. After all, it was odd that there wasn't a green circle in his vicinity. The oddity was apparent since they had traversed through a long distance and covered a wide area.
Jyorta had an inkling that the green circles too vanished like the yellow circles after a team entered it. The first green circle had only remained for that long because all of them entered it in one stream. So that was probably why it didn't vanish immediately. Or it might have been because the academy wanted the students to recover their energies.
"There's a green circle on the path." Sreshta's joyous voice resounded as Jyorta smiled, calculating the distance they had to travel as he opened the hatch and stared at the numerous Frenzy Beasts flying in the air with the intent to destroy them.
The air trembled as faint sparks flashed around him. Mild sounds of thunder resounded as Jyorta riled up all his aura, even going to the extent of burning his flesh.
Aura Beam!