Otherworld Advance Team
Chapter 347 - 340: Magic Explosion

Chapter 347: Chapter 340: Magic Explosion

Luo’er and his team once again gained the upper hand, but any advantage was always fleeting. Luo’er knew that, without dealing with the Otherworld Gate, they stood no chance of coming out unscathed. Yet even shutting the Otherworld Gate wouldn’t guarantee their safe retreat.

What Luo’er was considering now was whether he should have Tangmo throw the Magic Cluster directly into the crowd of people. However, the ensuing power could be alarming, and it was uncertain whether Tangmo and her companions could withstand the force of such high-intensity magic. At the very least, Luo’er knew he couldn’t.

His strength had already waned significantly; if he were to be hit by another wave of such powerful magic, there was no doubt he would meet with disaster.

Based on the scale of the current attack, it was evident that the enemy had only sent less than a third of their forces through the Otherworld Gate. The rest were focused entirely on them. Although they had the shield of the Magic Cluster, who knew how long they could maintain their advantage?

Luo’er once dreamt of their fights on a battlefield, picturing himself as a god of war who moved freely. However, the simulation of a battlefield at the academy shattered his illusions thoroughly. Faced with such a stark contrast, Luo’er was for the first time aware of the preciousness of life.

The only thing running in Luo’er’s mind was to complete their mission and keep everyone alive.

Feliz was still curled up shivering behind cover. They were lucky; the enemy’s backup had not discovered them. Otherwise, the frail cover in front of Luo’er would not be able to withstand even a single rocket blast, let alone an attack from the enemy’s mortar.

Several bullets whizzed past, striking the cover near Luo’er. One ricochet tore through his arm, reaching the bone. Gripping his teeth, Luo’er quickly bound his wounded arm with his shaking hand. He sat behind cover, clenching his rifle, his face revealing an unfamiliar look of panic.

He cast a glance at Feliz, who was curled up and shaking. This war was none of her business, yet she had been dragged into it. He looked at Hu Daoke, a short distance away, his face distorted in rage, then looked up at the towering city walls. Everyone was fighting for their country. Luo’er knew it was his duty, but in that moment, he wanted nothing more than to survive.

Finally, he let out a strangled yell, a release of pent-up emotions. He then leaned out from behind cover and emptied the bullets in his rifle. When he slid back into his cover, his face was already numb from fear.

Gunfire, explosions, and the wind. The city wall was on the brink of falling, and no one knew whether they could survive amid the enemy’s tactics of human wave attacks once they fully closed the Otherworld Gate.

Obviously having heard Luo’er’s outburst, Tangmo and Baiyue’s expressions began to grow grim. They knew Luo’er and Hu Daoke were fighting desperately to cover for them. How much they wanted to end this invocation ritual and help their comrades on the battlefield below!

But they were also clear that their comrades’ efforts were intended to create an opportunity for them to close the Otherworld Gate. At that moment, what Tangmo wanted most of all was to hurl this coalesced Magic Cluster onto those people’s heads. Seeing them firing towards her wildly, Tangmo was inflamed with anger.

But if they were to send this Magic Cluster down, Luo’er’s weak body definitely wouldn’t be able to bear it. If that happened, it wasn’t even a question of whether or not the enemy would be wiped out - Luo’er certainly wouldn’t survive. Because such an amount of magic surpassed the limit of what his body could endure.

Limit?

At this thought, Tangmo, who had initially been worried for Luo’er, had a sudden brainwave. Their way of closing the Otherworld Gate was, in fact, the same as killing the creatures of the Otherworld, by exhausting magic to cut off the Otherworld Gate’s power supply. If creatures from the Otherworld would die without magic, would the Otherworld Gate without magic close? Conversely, if creatures from the Otherworld would die when overloaded with magic, wouldn’t that mean the Otherworld Gate might also encounter problems if overloaded with magic?

Shariya had once said that over the past thousand years in the Otherworld, the method of closing the Otherworld Gate had always been the same: by exhausting the magic supply near the gate, causing it to shut down due to a lack of power. However, he had never mentioned what would happen if the magic near the gate was overloaded or something else were to happen.

What Tangmo was considering now was whether throwing this massive Magic Cluster into the Otherworld Gate would cause an overload that would shut it down. If the magic was being transmitted to another world, there should be no need to worry, as on Earth, magic could hardly flow through the air.

If they could throw half of the Magic Cluster into the Otherworld Gate and let the other half explode on the spot, the resulting force would be enough to kill most of the soldiers without harming Luo’er and their companions. The only thing that needed to be confirmed was whether half of the magic would be enough to close the Otherworld Gate.

"Never mind, let’s give it a try. Either way, closing the Otherworld Gate could still mean death, so why not take a gamble. The only question now is whether Cheng Ziang and the others have successfully crossed the Otherworld Gate; otherwise, this attack could very well target our own forces."

As Tangmo mumbled an incantation, she squeezed Baiyue’s hand lightly. Baiyue turned, a puzzled look in her eyes, still murmuring spells.

Seeing that she had Baiyue’s attention, Tangmo released their tight grip and began gesturing rapidly.

"We, push, the Magic Cluster, into Otherworld Gate, close it, then, explode! Half, make Otherworld Gate overload, half, annihilate these people!" As Tangmo had to maintain her incantation, she had to rely on hand gestures to let Baiyue understand her plan.

"We...push this over there?" Baiyue widened her eyes at her, and then awkwardly gestured to ask.

"Yes, yes, yes!" Tangmo nodded repeatedly, then continued shaping signs with her hands saying, "Directly, hit the gatepost, half for overload, half for explosion!"

"Is it possible?" Baiyue gestured while widening her eyes at her in question.

"Let’s try," Tangmo gestured, first making a horizontal motion with her arm, then, after raising it vertically, she mimed a throat-slitting motion across her neck, the meaning was clear, "dead one way or the other!"

"I understand!" Baiyue murmured a spell and then nodded gravely.

"Remember, half, just half!" Tangmo continued to indicate with hand signals.

"And him?" Baiyue pointed to Shariya behind them, wanting to ask if they should seek his opinion.

"Action first, talk later!" Tangmo firmly gestured.

Once the idea was settled, the two began to cooperate tacitly. Baiyue took on part of the tilted magic power, while Tangmo freed her hands and began targeting the Otherworld Gate for a guided shot.

The Magic Cluster’s singularity was originally a targeted explosion in the form of a Forbidden Curse, but unfortunately, Shariya only taught them how to gather magic power for the first half and didn’t instruct them on how to guide the magic to a designated location, which is the latter half. Thus, Tangmo could only deduce it from the targeted explosion she already knew.

The spell she used was still the direct spell for the targeted explosion, though it would cause severe losses, the effect was quite significant. With her guidance, the Magic Cluster finally began to move, rather than just hovering in mid-air.

Seeing this, Tangmo ignored her discomfort and continued to endure these negative effects while guiding the magic.

It seemed that Shariya behind them had realized their plan and started stomping his feet hard, in an attempt to make them abandon their plan, but there was no way they would give up that easily.

"Then it’s the next half, the last part, guide, and launch!" Tangmo murmured to herself and simultaneously started to recite a spell aloud.

Accompanying her loud voice, a vortex began to appear behind the Magic Cluster, driving it to rapidly shoot toward the Otherworld Gate. It was a tornado caused by the magic power disturbing the air.

Fu’en, who was far away, noticing that something was amiss, sneaked on a horse and escaped from the square of the Otherworld Gate while everyone’s attention was focused on the Magic Cluster. He was not sure what the people on the other side wanted to do, but he knew that once that Magic Cluster exploded near him, not to mention him, most people would not be able to survive.

The Magic Cluster was rapidly shooting towards the Otherworld Gate. Most of the soldiers had never seen such a scene and could only stare blankly as the cluster of magic shot over their heads. Although the Magic Cluster seemed transparent, it was filled with highly concentrated magic that flowed like a sticky fluid.

Unlike the slowly dropping Magic Cluster at First Line Gorge, this cluster flew rapidly towards the Otherworld Gate. Before anyone had a chance to react, the Magic Cluster instantly hit the gatepost of the Otherworld Gate.

The initial explosion was not very shocking, just like a bubble suddenly bursting, the pent-up magic power instantly broke through this membrane and poured out.

Then, shockwaves began to emanate violently from the center of the explosion, which was caused by the rapidly dispersing magic power stirring the air, generating a high-intensity wind that surpassed twelve levels. Next, the inside of the explosion center started to heat up, the high-speed magic power raised the air temperature to several hundred degrees in an instant, and the oxygen in the center of the explosion began to burn. The high temperature then triggered a transformation of the magic power, turning it into a high-temperature burning propellant.

Within 0.00001 seconds of the shockwave appearing, the massive fireball formed by the magic power exploded behind the shockwave, and finally, there was a deafening roar.

A blast, equivalent to a mother bomb, exploded near the Otherworld Gate in an instant. The high temperature swept through a hundred meters radius instantly, even Tangmo and the others could feel the scorching heat. The shockwave overturned the three on the city wall in an instant, with dust and debris flying straight towards them.

At the moment of impact, Tangmo clearly saw it. The beautiful ripples of the Otherworld Gate were being shattered by the explosive blast, like glass being smashed instantaneously. But the ensuing high temperatures and shockwaves suddenly darkened her vision, promptly causing her to lose consciousness.