The air was thrumming and the ground was shaking. He had never experienced anything like it.
Far away in the distance, a red star was fighting something smaller. The two of them clashed, creating flashes of light and thunder. Even from where he was, he could feel the air vibrate due to the collisions between them.
He looked around him and realized that he was in a forest. It wasn't surprising since all of Lignum was covered by trees. Even marshes, swamps, and lakes had trees that grew in them.
This forest was burning, though. The metal shutes had smashed into various parts of it and disfigured the picturesque and serene beauty that used to be here. Then fire sought to remove every last trace of greenery.
But that is the least of his concern. As he stepped out of the hole to take in his surroundings very well, an object flew towards his face.
Extraordinary Perception picked up the threat before it could reach him. So he was able to dodge it.
He did so easily by jerking his head aside. The arrow flew past his head into the distance.
The green creature that had shot it cursed. But it didn't dwell on the failure of its attack much. It nocked another arrow in its bow and shot another person.
This attack also failed to kill the soldier. In fact, the soldier was not harmed at all because of their force field. This made the elf growl in frustration.
But soon it got lucky when a giant feline creature crashed into a soldier and ripped out his guts with a single swop of its claws. The elf took advantage of a fallen force field to put an arrow through the eye of the soldier, killing them.
Kelvin's blood boiled in his body. It didn't boil because of anger. He wasn't angry at all. In fact, he shouldn't be angry that a fellow soldier had died. They were the bad guys here after all.
What he was feeling was excitement. He could sense with Life Core ability that people were dying left and right. He reached out a little bit and began siphoning their life force.
He only siphoned the life force of the enemies. Even so, he was full after a second of doing so. Even then, he didn't stop. He continued to rip out the life force from every enemy around him.
To enemies that were injured or dying, his action was a terrible blow to them. Many of them died immediately, while others began to die quicker.
The mark on his hand registered his actions and recorded their effects. It granted him merits for the lives he had taken.
The soldiers that had put the enemies in their vulnerable state also received merits for their work, but they didn't receive as much as him.
They might have done everything to make an enemy near death. But until the enemy is truly dead, they can always come back. So he got most of the benefits for dealing the final blow.
Apart from the reward of merit was the rapid increase in his kill count.
Maybe other soldiers saw obstacles and problems in front of them, but all he saw were prospective kill counts that would strengthen him. He couldn't wait to harvest them.
Wrath said to him, "This is war."
He raised his hands to the sky and said, "I am home."
His force field had recovered after getting some time to rest. He turned it off to conserve energy for when he will need its cloak.
Next, he made sure that Juggernaut's Armament was up and running at 100% capacity.
Not that he will have a problem with that anytime soon with the amount of life force available to him in his surroundings. Then he took off in the direction of the closest strategic objective.
The closest strategic objective is one of those javelin-throwing trees. It was a tree with white leaves that looked like a hybrid between a normal tree and a cactus.
Its branches were swollen, spiked organs. He could see them from where he was because the tree was larger than the trees around it. It was at least two times taller, which is highly significant since normal trees are already six stories tall or more.
The white tree stood out like an oddity in this green forest. It was also being protected by the inhabitants of the world as it shot its giant wooden javelins into the sky to bring down more chutes.
Command had made it their mission to take down these white threes and ugly giant worms lobbing globs of acid into the air.
He had activated his full Juggernaut mode. He was going all out. Everything in front of him was crushed with overwhelming force. Enemies too strong to be pushed out of the way were cut up with diamond blades.
He made a clear, straight path toward the white tree. Each one was worth 1,000 merit points. While the giant worms were worth 10,000 merit points.
The trees themselves will be easy to cut down. They have been engineered to ignore everything around them in favor of flying objects in the sky. So it won't be a problem to get close to them to cut them down.
The main problem with doing that is that the trees are protected. The defenders have formed a defensive circle around each spiked tree. He would have to get past them to reach his objective.
The normal defenders ranged in size and power. There were creatures as small as rats and others as large as giant lizards.
They were on the ground fighting against the soldiers of Yggdrasil while the elves were high up in the trees commanding the whole situation.
The elves are the noble race of the Lignum world. They can communicate with every creature and can help plants grow. The royal elves can even do more.
These elves are the ones controlling the whole situation. They are constantly yelling out orders and directing the defenders to where they are needed. They would be his greatest obstacle.