Chapter 993 - Dealing With The Toxin

The assault didn't last for five minutes before a change occurred. Under the watchful gazes of Arthur, the entire flying island shone in strange black light.

It appeared like a dark fog prevailed across the entire island coming from its ground. The fog looked like nothing at first, but as it got thicker, the forces there started to fall one after another.

"Gege… What's happening there?" Arthur instantly asked as he couldn't perfectly see everything from his far away position.

'That fog… It's like a toxic fog or something,' Gege said in doubt before adding, 'every single troop there fell to the ground the moment they were exposed to that fog.'

"Interesting," Arthur smiled in a vicious way, "take away three originals and as many mechas and other forces and confine them inside the garden world," he said before adding, "inform Agnus, Deem, Gor, and even Amelia about this. I want all the brilliant minds of my empire to work on these bodies and know what happened to them."

'She can also take part of that fog,' the golden dragon suddenly said.

'How?' Gege didn't know how to do that. After all she could take away any solid thing, not a gas form of fog.

'Take a large part of that ground,' the golden dragon explained, 'I bet there is something hidden there that releases the fog.'

'But…'

"Just send more troops there and let them cut the ground," Arthur knew what she was about to say, "send them to places with less dense fog. There they can last longer."

'On it,' Gege moved fast and the next minute many portals opened. As Arthur expected, the areas with thinner fog didn't affect the summoned troops fast.

They held pick axes and other mining gears that Agnus and his boys developed to extract ores. They worked as fast as they could and managed to cut big chunks of the ground.

Then Gege started to take them all the moment a piece was cut loose from the island. 

"Woosh!"

Just in the middle of all this, the defensive shield was reactivated again, preventing Gege from intervening any further.

'They… cut my connection with my portals,' she was flustered and quite enraged by this move.

"So each twenty minutes the shields could be regenerated… Interesting," Arthur wasn't angry or surprised at all. After all he expected such a thing. "Summon five originals and make them crush the shield."

'Again?' Gege was surprised.

'Ding! He wants to test the strength of the newly summoned shield,' the system said and Gege felt uneasy again so she shut up her mouth and said nothing.

Inside the garden world, many sleepy bodies lined inside a secluded place there. Around them, many people were there testing them in all possible ways.

Arthur closed his eyes for a few minutes and watched his elites working hard to unveil this mystery. He felt satisfied by the swift response of his trusted subordinates and reopened his eyes again.

"Knowledge is power," he muttered, "no matter what you prepared for us, I'll decipher all of these traps and crush them all and win."

In front of his eyes the shield was cracked open faster than before. "So the newly summoned shields are weaker," Arthur commented, "that means only one thing."

'The shields operate by a limited source of power,' the golden dragon said, 'I bet it's the same source that makes these islands fly.'

'Ding! But if that's the case then exhausting these sources of power might be a good way to deplete these shields,' the system said.

"But in return our troops on the ground will be in danger," Arthur said and Gege wanted to ask why but she refrained.

Instead she delved inside Arthur's mind and read his thoughts. The moment the islands lost their power source, they wouldn't be able to fly. That was what Arthur was thinking about.

And that meant one thing; the islands would fall over the heads of those on the ground, killing everyone and burying them under tons of rocks and dirt.

'I'll prepare my portals to take everyone away,' Gege said out her decision out of her understanding of the current situation.

"That would be good, but the gears Agnus made will be a problem," Arthur pondered about this before adding, "make them move the cannons away from the islands. Anyway these cannons have long ranges and don't need to stand below the islands directly."

'On it.'

Arthur was prepared to lose even his ground troops for testing out everything against these islands. But losing the cannons Agnus worked so hard to make wasn't an option.

As the ground troops moved the cannons to secure locations, the originals kept shattering more of the shields of the islands. The same thing occurred again even in the island that was cracked open before.

But what was noticeable was two things. Each time the shields were crushed and regenerated, they would become weaker.

Also the fog looked like it was dissipating in air. So with each time going inside the islands, the time provided for the troops would be slightly longer.

"Monitor those mages inside the islands," Arthur noticed that only his forces would be affected by the fog and the enemy troops weren't. "And try to take a few hostages alive to dissect and test things on them."

'Ok,' Gege compiled while seeing through Arthur's mind to understand his motives. Arthur was convinced there was some sort of a potion these troops got to neutralize the effect of the toxin.

What was remarkable though was the first effect of the toxin. Toxins tend to take some time to act, but this one here acted fast and within minutes took out his entire forces.

He felt some curiosity towards this toxin. He wanted to know more about it and try to modify it for his own gains.

Plus to create an antidote, he had to first decipher the toxin used and understand it perfectly well. 

As for the hostages, having live test subjects who ingested the antidote was great. He was now more confident in his ability to reach that antidote fast.

He just had to wait for his elites and geniuses to give him more clues about the toxin and its antidote.. Then he would act to create an antidote against this toxin and remove such a threat once and for all.