Chapter 236 Black Stone Giants.
Chapter 236 Black Stone Giants.
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Trenta leaned down, her hand on the hilt of her sheathed sword. Time seemed to slow down as the Black Giants turned in her direction, but before the red light representing their deadly beam became too bright, she opened her eyes and drew the katana, sending out a white arc that sliced their heads off, the halos decorating them disappearing in a second showing that they were destroyed.
"Not enough…" she murmured, teleporting away evading a series of beams targeting her. "At this rate…"
The giants weren't particularly hard to destroy. Once their barrier gets destroyed, it would take them quite a while to create a new one. Before that happens the Valkyries could destroy them easily. The problem was their size. Without a wide range attack killing multiple at the same time was a difficult task. This could've been mitigated by having one of the Valkyries destroy the barrier while another one used a Balder's Light to destroy the enemy, but with them short on hands that strategy was unachievable.
Not to mention, the black stone the giants were made of seemed to be the same material as the ants they fought before, which meant they were highly resistant to energy attacks, leaving physical ones the only option.
Trenta's ability, I Am The Storm, was quite powerful, but its range was too small for a battle of this magnitude. Even if she put all of her focus into a single slash the most she could do was destroy three giants simultaneously, and with it taking time to prepare she couldn't just go around spamming it.
Dodging another beam, she turned her focus to the others. They were gradually shaving at the number of giants as well but at this rate it was inevitable that some would reach Ichigo's Transcendent Purge. The mysterious beings looking down at them must've realized that, for whatever reason, they couldn't bypass the pink haired Valkyrie's ability and so they created the army of giants to do it in their stead.
Thankfully, it didn't seem that she and the other three had to finish off the entire army alone. All they had to do was hold them back for ten minutes, and that didn't seem like an impossible task.
"Alright."
Picking the spot from where she would launch her next attack, Trenta placed her right hand on the hilt of her sword and readied herself.
A short distance away, a more savage battle was taking place. An enormous beast was tearing through the marching giants, splitting them with its long glowing claws and ripping them with its sword fangs.
The sabertooth was a violent and brutal being going on a frenzy in the midst of the enemy ranks. Several giants slowed down to surround it, firing their red beams of death at it while it was biting on the head of another giant.
The beast leaped away just in time evading the lasers, but its rage could be felt as it prepared for another attack.
On the other side of the battlefield, a blue giant was engaging with the black one. Its movements were quite nimble for its size, and its speed was too fast for the sluggish Black Giants to follow.
Inside the giant robot, Juni stood inside a sphere that was large enough to contain her small frame. Its inner walls were transparent, or it would be more accurate to say they were screens displaying what was going on outside as seen through the visor of the blue robot's helmet.
Locking onto the next target, her smile spread wide and she began running. The blue robot replicated the Valkyrie's exact movements, seemingly undisturbed by the laws of physics.
When it seemed like the giant was about to fire a beam at her, Juni leaped forward and slid on the floor of her sphere. Outside, her robot did the same dodging the beam but causing a lot more destruction in the process. Having closed the distance it used its arms to push itself up, kicking the giant then using it as a foothold to jump away.
Spinning around itself, the blue robot stopped in the air facing the giants below it. It held one of its arms out then crossed it with the other creating a plus sign.
Inside the robot, Juni's smile spread to her eyes as excitement filled her body. As the sensation flowed through her chest, she executed the move she had been looking forward to for quite a while now.
[SUUUPEEEER JUNIII-] pausing for the dramatic effect, she then added [BEAAAAAAAM!!!]
A cross shaped white beam of light shot out of the robot's forearm hitting one of the giants at the center of its torso. The barriers were already broken so there was nothing stopping it, but as expected an energy attack wasn't very effective against the Black Stone Giants.
That said, Juni didn't back down. She continued pouring more and more power into her beam, and though she seemed to be enjoying herself quite a bit, an unsettling doubt and painful regret were tormenting her all the while.
Super Juni Robo was an ability she had developed from her desire to protect those she cared about. After failing to do anything to help B3 and JX9, her wish became to obtain enough power to defeat any enemy that came her way. It was then that the image of the giant robot appeared in her mind. She didn't understand where it came from, but it was so clear that she instinctively knew she could create it from the first try.
[HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!]
Juni knew right from the start that the robot was incomplete, and that it lacked a lot of things, but this was all she could do on her own. This was the limit of her ability, so if it couldn't defeat their enemy using it, there was nothing else she could do. That's why, without allowing her smile to falter, she continued to fight, giving it her all despite the odds.
The beam might've been incapable of destroying the Black Giants, but it packed enough force to push them back, throwing them off balance and dropping them to the ground.
The blue robot twisted in the air drawing a line across the marching Black Giants. A series of explosions followed it throwing a big portion of the army off balance, causing some to crumble under the force of the impact and dropping others into the fissures she had previously created.
Juni's attack dealt a notable blow to the Black Stone Giants, and for a moment the battle seemed to be going in the Valkyries' favor. Unfortunately, their true enemy wasn't the marching army, and what happened next reminded them of that.
Another malevolent cry reverberated through the region, and the next moment, the unknown beings in the sky lowered their tentacles to the ground.