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The Apocalypse Grinder - Chapter 215
🕑 Added 2025-09-09 22:46:09 +0000 UTC<< Chapter 214 | Index | Chapter 216 >>
Ronan crept along the lines of ships, passing by nearly a hundred workers. When he reached the sixth ship in line, a huge wave of workers who had come from the seventh ship walked past him. A few of him turned to look in his direction, but none of them seemed to notice anything was amiss.
His shoulders relaxed a little after the crowd walked by. He had been worried a particular perceptive grathen might notice the oddities and investigate, thereby exposing him.
Prepared for a fight, it wouldn’t have completely caught him off guard, but it would have been a far worse scenario than what was about to unfold. There was one hiccup with his perfect plan, unfortunately. Ronan had no clue whether channeling a rainbow bomb would bring attention to him or break the light manipulation’s disguise.
Taking precautions was his best bet. He walked around the ships until he was closer to the nearest wall of the spaceport. Oddly, this section with the ships seemed to be the smallest of the entire place, with most of it dedicated to storage and other facilities. He neared a wall and pressed himself against it, hiding in the shadows.
Once he felt that he was well-hidden, Ronan started cycling his mana and then forming a rainbow bomb. None of the nearby workers looked his way as he did so, and he was able to maintain his control over the light manipulation while forming the spell.
In fact, he even put his new dual mind trait to use, dedicating one stream of thought to the rainbow bomb and the other to light manipulation. While each individual stream was less powerful than the combined stream, he didn’t need it all for the current tasks.
When the rainbow bomb was ready, Ronan didn’t launch it immediately. He had been watching the ships and trying to figure out which parts were the most vulnerable. Unfortunately that was easier said than done.
The hulls were sleek and metallic, with no obvious weaknesses. His best bet would likely be launching the rainbow bomb into the cargo hold, but in order to do that he would have to risk exposing himself.
Then again, once I launch the first spell all hell’s gonna break loose. I might as well make it count, he thought. Ensuring the rainbow bomb was stable in his hand, Ronan took a look at the route he would need to take to get in position.
It was mostly empty. The workers loading the seventh ship had already passed him on his way to where he was forming the spell, and the few left wouldn’t be able to stop him in time. There would be no going back, but that had been true the moment he stepped onto the Path of the Gladiator.
Ronan stepped out into the space between the ships. He kept a close eye on the workers to make sure that none of them noticed him. Then he realised that was pointless.
Taking a final breath, he started to run. The moment he drew near to the orange-uniformed Grathen, the worker’s eyes narrowed in his direction and then went wide. It started to yell something and pointed at him, but it was too late to stop him.
Ronan turned and launched the rainbow bomb into the closing door of the ship, right into the cargo hold and hopefully towards the really vulnerable parts of the ship’s innards. Whatever stopped it from flying.
He heard the wail of the spell flying through the air and saw more of the workers reacting to the orange one’s cries. Ronan was already forming another rainbow bomb while running towards the sixth ship. His only priority was destroying them all before they could leave.
Right on cue, he heard a rumble from behind, followed by a deafening bang and the sound of screaming metal. A glance over his shoulder painted a beautiful picture—the hull of the ship had exploded outwards and all he could see through the hole was a slightly dulled flame.
A moment later, there was another bang and a bright flash of green light from inside the ship as something inside caught aflame and exploded. The ship shook and all the workers nearby were running for their lives. Only the orange-uniformed one stayed close, looking in the direction Ronan had gone.
He saw the worker talking into its sleeve, presumably a radio of some sort. He couldn’t care less. No matter how many of them came at Ronan, they wouldn’t stop him.
If any of the Grathen workers wanted to get in his way… Well, that was on them. He managed to reach the sixth ship without actually getting seen, but he knew they were aware of his presence. It didn’t matter.
He tossed the rainbow bomb into the ship and kept moving, already preparing another as he passed by the loading ramp of the ship that was about to be blown sky high. He’d never envisioned himself as a terrorist, but at the very least he was a space terrorist. That was infinitely cooler.
It took him about a minute to run down the entire line of ships and launch rainbow bombs into them. Either his aim had been off for a couple of them or the cargo simply wasn’t as explosive, because two of the ships out of the seven hadn’t blown up. They were on fire, but the damage wasn’t as crippling. He was about to solve that by launching more spells at them, when all the lights in the spaceport suddenly shut off.
The whole place lit up in a blinding flash of white and he suddenly felt his connection to the light manipulation skill shut off. He immediately merged his two thought streams together. The blinding white faded a little, but the entire place was now lit up as though they were in heaven.
Ronan realised that his mana was still cycling, but slower. It felt as though there was some sort of weight pressing down on him that suppressed his mana. He tried to use light manipulation again but it instantly failed before he could even get the skill running. Realising what that meant, he looked up and saw at least fifty Grathen workers staring right at him with wide eyes.
Most of them were panicking about the white flash, but once the shouting started they all took notice. Even though he was in the uniform of a grathen lieutenant of their armed forces, the fact that the ships had just been attacked combined with his sudden appearance made it obvious that he was the culprit.
He tried to activate vital surge in preparation for the coming battle, but nothing happened. He looked up at the walls of the spaceport and searched for the source of the white light. Whatever it was, it seemed to be suppressing his skills.
Ronan hadn’t even realised that was something that was possible. It made his quest to master sorcery even more important to him, now that he knew the system wasn’t the only thing that could go around uprooting people’s understanding of reality. However, even without his skills, Ronan was a force to be reckoned with.
He had more stats than almost anyone at his level and he could use plenty of spells through sorcery now. Along with all the weapons in his inventory and those he could conjure, he would have no shortage of options to deal with the Grathen in the spaceport.
The first thing he did was start charging up a rainbow bomb. He hadn’t finished destroying the ships and he wanted to make damn sure the two that were only slightly damaged couldn’t escape while he was distracted by the white light. He was able to blow one of them to hell and was preparing to hit the other when a crowd of workers charged at him.
They were too close to ignore. Ronan was almost done charging the rainbow bomb and it was a simple affair to change targets. As it finished, he lobbed it at the crowd and conjured a shortsword in his right hand.
He ducked under a wild punch the nearest Grathen threw at him and cleaved the alien in two with a single counter-slash. What followed was a brutal slaughter. None of the workers could hold a candle to Ronan and fell like wheat to the scythe.
Once he’d cleared out most of the first wave of attackers, the others seemed hesitant to repeat their mistake. Unlike the technicians, the Grathen working in the spaceport seemed less willing to throw their lives away just to protect the infrastructure of their city. He briefly wondered why, but there was no time to think about such things.
He finished off the final ship that was still standing, turning it into a flaming pile of molten metal and destroyed cargo like the other six. With that, none of the ships would be leaving the city.
A loud whine came from behind him. Ronan recognised the sound and immediately threw himself to the ground, right as a shining white laser tore through the space he’d occupied a second ago.
When he raised his head and looked in the direction of the laser, he saw a huge wall of uniformed Grathen soldiers marching into the spaceport. Each of them carried one of the long, twisting rifles and seemed far more willing to die than the workers around them. The real fight was just getting started.
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Comments
FlawlessMovement
Let’s see if the line of XP…I mean aliens gets him to 100+
John
I wonder if he'll gain some sort of Skill Suppression Resistance.
