Everyone watched aghast as the ant horde withdrew from the front lines all of a sudden. They rushed back like a hurricane and pounced on the strike team that was like a bubble of air in the depths of the ocean. Each team of demigods was using a domain Stigmata that kept the little bugs away from them and let them focus on the soldier ants. It is an upgraded version of a standard Stigmata for priests of churches.
The Stigmata is simple in its action. It creates a field of power around the priest that repels objects that come close to the priest. Objects that enter the field will slow down before they are pushed back. The power of the field determines how fast objects decelerate. The upgraded version is more powerful than the standard version and it can fuse with an adjacent force field created from a similar Stigmata to form a domain.
This domain is what is keeping away the worker ants. They are small and weak, so they can be pushed back easily. The soldier ants on the other hand are only slowed down. This is already good enough for the strike team. They found it easier for them to kill the soldier ants because of the force impeding them.
The strike team was making good progress until the number of enemies suddenly increased. Their domain has a limit on its output. The worker ants may be small and weak, but a large enough number of them can overwhelm the domain.
"What is going on? Why have their numbers increased so much?"
"What about the annihilators?"
"What should we do?"
"Are we going to die?"
They were confused and they started raising many questions about their situation. They began to panic when things weren't easing up.
They are not the only ones panicking. The bishops are panicking too. They started asking the same questions but in different forms.
"What is going on? Why have they turned their attention to the strike team?"
"Don't they care about the annihilators?"
"What should we do?"
"Are they going to die?"
As always, Helios had to be the voice of reason.
He said to them, "Calm down everyone. You already planned for this. You just have to remind them of the danger of the annihilators. That should show them what they are missing out on. Hopefully, it will convince them to make the rational choice and leave the strike team alone."
'But what are the odds of that happening?' He said to himself.
One of the bishops spoke up, "That's true. We will fire one and hope for the best."
They were not supposed to fire the annihilators at all according to their plan. The annihilators are meant to be perceived threats and not actual threats to the ants. It is because the perceived threat of 10 annihilators is greater than the actual threat of 1 annihilator.
Resorting to using the annihilator means that they are in trouble with no way out. That doesn't mean the annihilator will help or stop more trouble from coming.
Helios agreed with him. "That's what I am saying. You should only panic when that fails to work."
The bishop belonging to the church of the storm glared at him and spoke sarcastically, "Thank you for your reminder. It was very helpful."
"Don't worry about it. It is my burden to always be reasonable. I'm very good at it too. You should ask the bishop of the church of the sun to tell you how good I am. Do you want me to reason with you too?"
His voice was cheery but the bishop of the church of the storm gulped involuntarily. He shut his mouth up. The other bishops chose to remain silent and execute the next part of their plan. This created another problem.
"Where do we fire at?" Another bishop asked.
They have only one shot, they have to use it to the greatest effect. Helios was quick to give another helpful suggestion.
He pointed to a spot on the map. "This is a good spot. Fire here."
"But that won't help the demigods." The same bishop said.
Helios had selected an area closest to the ant mound. It is very far from the location of the demigods.
"This is where their royal guards are. Those are the most important troops they have. The colony didn't send them forward and is using the soldiers and workers to stall you. If you want to hit the ants where it will hurt them the most, then it must be here." He explained his reasons.
The archbishop was about to raise more objections but Helios continued. "You know you can't drop an annihilator close to the demigods. You run the risk of killing them. You also can't waste your single chance on a useless place. If you want to convince the ants that you mean business then you must hit their royal guards."
The bishops shut up after that. Unlike Helios, they care about the demigods and would like to use their single opportunity to save them instead of relying on the change of mind of the ants. But Helios is right, the annihilator can also kill the demigods and no one wants to be the one that called that shot.
A heroic quest is full of danger and can cause the deaths of demigods, but accidental death by friendly fire is something else. It is still killing a demigod and it is punishable by death.
So they gave the go-ahead to the one single annihilator that could fire at all. All the light around the giant began to recede until it formed a ball of white light more than 10 meters in diameter behind the giant. The giant aimed for the spot on the map and launched the ball. The ball rose into the sky in an arch before falling down.
It exploded before it reached the ground. The white glowing ball expanded near instantly into a white dome more than 100 meters in diameter. Then there was a bright flash of light that could be seen for miles. It disoriented the ants on the battlefield, even the ones not close to the point of denotation.
The heat blast occurred next as the heat moved faster than the air could expand. It originated with the white dome as its source and spread far beyond it. The heat turned every ant it touched within an area of a kilometer diameter into ashes. The ants beyond that range incurred injuries varying with their proximity to the blast site.
Then came the explosion of heated air. Air expanded and created a loud bang that traveled far. This blast extended farther than the blast radius of the heat wave. It created shockwaves that reached the front lines. The heated air rose up into the sky forming a column of air, dust, and water vapor in the shape of a mushroom.
"Magnificent." The bishop of the church of the sun said.
Helios replied. "It is magnificent. It is also my cue."
The golden runes on his body lit up and he became the incarnation of light and fire. His skin turned yellow and white tattoos appeared on it, his eyes turned white and his hair turned into a golden flame with red streaks. He rose into the air and shot forward towards the ant mound which has become visible after the ant horde became destabilized.
His acceleration created shockwaves in the air as he broke the speed of sound multiple times. He passed above the strike team and continued onward. The ant mound began to enlarge in his vision to reveal itself as a mountain. It is an artificial mountain built by the ant colony. That's why it is hollow with numerous entrances that lead to spaces within it.
One such entrance with a space more than 60 meters tall is close to the area where the annihilator detonated. A wide and deep crater has been formed close to it. The surface of the crater has turned to lava but the entrance is fine. In fact, the entire mountain was not harmed by the explosion at all. The ant mound might be ant-made but it is one of the toughest things in this plane or the ants won't have been able to survive being neighbors with giants.
He began to decelerate until he smashed into a point within the crater close to the entrance. His collision with the ground created enough force to throw lava into the air. He rose up from the pool of lava still in his child-of-the-sun mode. Lava fell off of him like oil on water. His yellow skin was not marred by the hot lava.
He breathed in and siphoned the heat around him. The golden flame that is his hair grew larger while the lava began to solidify due to losing its heat. He looked around and at the entrance. His white eyes could see the heat being given off by a giant figure hidden within the darkness of the entrance.
He grinned as he thought in anticipation, 'It seemsseems it's time to do battle.'
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