Chapter 685: Orbital Bombardment
The news of the joint hunting party's crushing defeat, like a night wind carrying a plague, swept through the Land of Chants ahead of the retreating warriors, and rapidly spread to all surrounding Na'vi clans.
The heavy blow brought by the defeat was already unbearable, but the manner of their defeat planted an unprecedented despair and bone-deep terror in the heart of every Na'vi.
The previously vibrant Omaticaya clan was now shrouded in a nearly stagnant pessimism and oppression.
Beneath the magnificent Hometree, there were no longer gatherings of laughing and singing clansmen. In their place were rising and falling, suppressed groans of pain, and the heart-wrenching, yet powerless, weeping of those who had lost their loved ones.
The air was thick with the pungent smell of mixed herbs and blood, along with the lingering, deathly silence of defeat.
The warriors who once took pride in their bravery and hunting skills now mostly sat in corners with their heads bowed in silence, or mechanically wiped the weapons that had proven so powerless before the enemy.
The light in their eyes had dimmed. The confidence born from battling giant jungle beasts and protecting their home had been utterly shattered and wiped out in that battle against the invisible reapers.
Even Chief Eytukan, usually as resolute as a rock, seemed to have aged significantly.
Standing at the entrance of Hometree, he looked down at the sorrow-filled settlement. The knuckles of his clenched fists turned white, but ultimately, his frustration only translated into a long, powerless sigh.
And beneath the Tree of Souls, which connected to Eywa's sacred domain, Tsahik Mo'at's prayers also carried a gloom that was difficult to dispel.
She could feel the pain and confusion transmitted by the entire clan, and even by the Eywa network itself. The profound sense of powerlessness generated when facing a completely incomprehensible threat acted like heavy shackles, binding everyone's hearts.
The faint glimmer of hope seemed to be swallowed bit by bit by this dense despair.
However, the Predators' retaliation was far swifter and more cruel than they could have imagined.
On the second Pandoran day following the failed Great Hunt, just before dawn, while most Na'vi were still immersed in nightmares and sorrow, disaster struck.
The target was another clan located southwest of the Omaticaya's sphere of influence, similar in scale to the Song of the Valley: the Stone Fang clan.
This clan was renowned for their expertise in taming and hunting Sturmbeests. Their Hometree grew on a mineral-rich rocky plateau, and the solid bedrock had always been viewed by the clansmen as a natural barrier.
Without any warning, an exceptionally thick, blinding beam of light brimming with destructive energy, like a judgment falling from beyond the heavens, suddenly tore through the dim sky. Carrying a soul-trembling shriek, it slammed with absolute precision directly into the trunk of the towering Hometree at the center of the Stone Fang clan!
BOOM!!!
A deafening explosion, sounding as if the planet itself was groaning in agony, was clearly audible even dozens of kilometers away. It struck like a heavy hammer against the heart of everyone who heard it.
That highly concentrated energy released its full payload the instant it struck. The massive main trunk of the Hometree did not simply snap under the indescribable impact; it was completely disintegrated and pulverized from the inside out!
Searing plasma fire, like a blooming flower of death, violently expanded and swept outward with the trunk at its core. It instantly swallowed the massive canopy and all the treehouses built upon it, igniting the dry vegetation below and forming a rapidly expanding sea of fire.
After this singular devastating strike, the orbital bombardment ceased.
It seemed that for the attackers, this single strike was more than enough.
When the faint light of dawn barely managed to pierce the massive plumes of dust and rolling thick smoke, the rocky plateau where the Stone Fang clan once stood had been completely reduced to a scorched ruin. It was still crackling with flames and emitting the pungent stench of charred matter and molten rock.
That Hometree, which carried the clan's history and soul, along with its massive root system buried deep within the bedrock, had nearly completely vaporized in the extreme heat.
The clan's structures, stored food, hunting tools, and the vast majority of clansmen who failed to escape in time, were all reduced to ash under this beam of light from the starry sky. It was nearly impossible to find any intact remains.
Only a very small number of Na'vi, who happened to be conducting morning labor or patrols on the absolute outermost fringes of the settlement, were violently thrown to the ground by the earth-shattering explosion and the ensuing wave of searing heat.
When they struggled to get up from the trembling earth, shook the dust from their heads, and looked toward the center of the settlement, the sight before them made the blood in their veins seemingly freeze in an instant.
It had become a purgatory.
The once towering, vibrant Hometree was gone. In its place was a massive, still-burning black crater reeking of charred death.
The clan's treehouses, their stored food, their hunting tools, and their family and friends...
Everything had vanished into nothingness beneath that destructive beam of light from the sky, leaving not even a decent trace behind.
Their shock lasted only for a fraction of a second before being replaced by an uncontrollable breakdown.
Looking at the scorched earth that had swallowed everything, these surviving Na'vi let out heart-wrenching wails mixed with endless terror and utter despair.
This crying was not only for the lives lost, but for a future entirely destroyed, an agonizing pain stemming from the forcible erasure of their bloodline and cultural heritage.
The news, like a plague carrying cold death, swept through all the Na'vi clans at maximum speed, carried by the stumbling flight of survivors and the desperate flights of Ikran riders.
When the definitive information that the Stone Fang clan, along with their Hometree, was instantly vaporized by a beam of light from the sky reached every gathering point, the pessimism that had spread from the failed Great Hunt was instantly replaced by a more absolute, primal emotion: a bone-deep, paralyzing terror.
The enemy was not only an uncatchable, invincible invisible hunter on the ground. They could actually strike from the distant starry sky—a place the clansmen could neither reach nor understand—and easily wipe an entire clan, along with its spiritual and material core, off the face of the world, as easily as crushing an insect!
They realized, with clear and agonizing pain, that this was no longer the familiar tribal conflict revolving around hunting, resources, or honor.
This was an asymmetrical war they completely failed to comprehend, with a disparity in power so vast it induced sheer despair.
Any traditional bravery, hunting skills, or even the vague guidance of Eywa seemed utterly meaningless before this absolute violence from the stars.
If they continued to fight alone, all clans, the entire race, would face the same fate as the Stone Fang clan: being completely wiped from the map of Pandora, leaving behind only patches of scorched, silent scars.