Mordred hid in the ruins of a downed skyscraper. Her movement was more sluggish than usual as she looked for a place to rest for a time. Through a collapsed wall, she could see in the distance the Herrscher being harassed by aircraft, which were being picked off one by one.
Seeing the one-sided battle, her hopes of leaving the rest of the battle began to waver. She sighed and leaned against a concrete pillar, slowly coming down until she sat on the floor with her back against the pillar.
Her armor came undone, Incursio returning to its sword form. The clothes underneath was ruined and ripped, many parts looking as if they had been burned off. Mordred's hands lifted up her tattered shirt, revealing her tone body, now bruised and burned, with faint purple lines beginning to take form on her body. Any cuts that had been made in battle had been cauterize from the intense heat. She touched her ribs gently, making her react with a silent hiss.
'Broken... Damn, how many of my bones did that shitty Herrscher break? I guess Incursio couldn't protect me from everything.'
Reaching into her inventory, she pulled out two vials that were decorated with gold.
'I was never able to test how affective the elixirs from danmachi were. Before I left, I only managed to buy two of them with all the money I had accumulated in that world.'
Mordred twisted off the cap of one and proceeded to drink the entire vial.
Immediately she felt the effects as her body healed.
'Damn that's effective! I should buy more when I return to danmachi.' She opened the next one, but instead of drinking it, she poured it over the burns and bruises. Pouring the elixirs over her wounds caused them to heal faster, but this was only for the outside wounds.
Drinking a healing potion of any type healed the body in general and was more effective at healing internal injuries. While pouring directly on the wound instantly treats that wound as the elixirs is more concentrated in the area you poured it on.
Having used two elixirs, her body felt much better, though it was nowhere near fully healed. Mordred was worried about her bones being healed the wrong way and causing problems. Though that was something she would deal with after this battle.
Now with more energy in her, she opened the system shop and began browsing for anything that she could use right away after purchasing. As she scrolled through the selections, she drank a citrus-colored mind potion with a straw, to help with her mana recovery.
Her way of fighting against the Herrscher consumed more mana than she could generate. Having to spam Mana Burst constantly to maneuver around and actually damage the Herrscher. And it didn't help that her only effective weapon was Clarent, with everything else either doing nothing or at best drawing a little blood and that her mana efficiency wasn't the best. Even if she has lots of mana, her abilities drained too much for the effect they gave.
Her scrolling suddenly stopped, now gazing over the description of a single item. Her finger hovered over the purchase button, she hesitated to buy it after reading the full description.
"Ah fuck it!"
[Item has been transferred to your inventory]
Mordred fully leaned back, adopting a lazy posture as she gazed out the collapsed wall. Letting out a drawn-out sigh, she closed her eyes.
"Ava, I'm going to rest for a bit, wake me up when something happens."
[Very well, Mordred]
...
Fire Moth ground forces advanced through the ruins of the city. Jets and helicopters in the sky continued their assault on the Herrscher with little result and getting themselves picked off one by one.
Soldiers escorted by armored vehicles moved closer to their target. Morale was low amongst the soldiers, walking through a burning city, seeing the shadows of people burned into the concrete, forced to confront a being that can only be described as a god, even if it has been told by their superiors that a Herrscher isn't a god. The human mind tends to create excuses for things that it cannot comprehend.
Within the forces were two of Fire Moth's elite soldiers, Kevin and Elysia. The two had experience in fighting Herrschers, with Kevin even having killed the 6th Herrscher, so many place their confidence in them.
But how could the Herrschers of before compare to the absolute destructive power of the 7th. It wasn't like anything they had seen before, easily reducing an entire city into a sea of flames.
The Herrscher danced in the sky, dodging missiles but more often just tanking them as it returned fire with concentrated beams of fire that sliced through aircraft like butter.
The Herrscher raised its hand to launch another attack, until it noticed a small red dot on the back of its hand. With all the dust and debris in the air, it was able to see the laser that traced down to the ground inside one of the buildings.
But before it could do anything, a missile flying at terrifying speeds slammed into the Herrscher and exploded. The Herrscher violently plummeted to the ground, creating a crater in the road where it landed.
As soon as it rose to its feet, the Herrscher looked up.
~WWHHHRRRR~
A terrifying whistling noise quickly grew louder and louder, until...
~BOOM~
The position of the Herrscher detonated as artillery rained down from above.
Artillery stationed just outside the city kept firing, not giving the Herrscher any room to breathe as the main vanguard slowly got closer and closer.
And when the vanguard finally arrived, a battle of attrition began. Armored vehicles opened up with a salvo, while infantry equipped with advanced heavy armor and weapons moved up.
The fight was going in the favor of humanity and command had high hopes though they were still worried about the unknown entity that was battling the Herrscher before they arrived. But those hopes of conclusive victory were quickly shattered as most of the vanguard was incinerated in a sudden heat wave.
With an opening, the Herrscher shot up into the skies. It ignored all the aircraft that trained their sights on it and eyed the artillery crews in the distance, near the outskirts of the city.
They didn't even have a chance to run as the light of the sun was brought down upon them, reducing them to mere ash. The unlucky ones being the crew who were inside the vehicles, trapped inside a burning steel coffin, not even getting the mercy of a quick death.
Even with the situation turning for the worst, Fire Moth High Command kept sending wave after wave of reinforcements in an attempt to regain control of the situation.
The needless sacrifices went on for hours, until the sun had finally set, but no stars were seen in the night sky, only massive clouds of smoke and ash.
With such high causalities, and no changes to the state of the battle other than humanity's every attempt at resistance being struck down, Fire Moth High Command finally gave the order for a full retreat and prepared their most devasting weapons.
...
Inside the ruined skyscraper, Mordred rested with her hands still tightly holding the hilt of Clarent.
[Warning: Detected two Honkai Nuclear Missiles inbound]
"WHAT?!"
Mordred's eyes shot open as she quickly rose to her feet.
"How long?"
[Five minutes, traveling at Mach 20]
"Well, I guess I should have expected this. Humanity never fared well against Herrschers until the development of MANTIS, and even then, it was still hard-fought battles."
She stood still in thought.
'Best course of action would be to teleport to another world and avoid the nuclear detonation and come back afterward. But should I continue fighting the Herrscher? I'm really risking my life here, and I have no obligations to fight. Maybe it would be best to just comeback after Kevin defeats the 7th Herrscher, but just running away doesn't feel right.'
[Two minutes until detonation]
Mordreds eyes widened in shock, pulling her out of her thoughts. "Oh shit I forgot! Ava, get me out of here!"
...
The city quietly burned as all signs of live had either retreated or reduced to ash. The Herrscher hovered above, its gaze cast upon the city, looking for any remaining human.
When it saw nothing left for it to destroy, the Herrscher turned its sights to the rest of the continent, still untouched.
Then from the distance, the Herrscher saw two objects flying at insanely fast speeds, directly to them.
It identified the two objects as the same missiles the humans kept hitting them with.
Even with the Herrscher near robotic thought process, it couldn't help but think how persistent the humans were. Despite having already proven that missiles were ineffective, they kept using them.
But no matter. These weak weapons could not kill it, so the Herrscher ignored the two missiles as insignificant.
Within the next few seconds, the Herrscher was consumed in a blinding light, as both Honkai Nuclear Missiles exploded over the Herrscher for maximum affect.