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*****
When the sky was saturated with fire and crimson became the only visible color, every soul on the battlefield froze, staring in collective shock.
Even Thor and his companions, who had witnessed Feny's Explosion magic before, found themselves struck with fresh awe.
BOOM!
The enemies who had been jeering and mocking just moments ago disappeared forever into the inferno, some without even having time to wipe the derision from their faces.
With this single cast, only a handful of exceptionally strong or well-equipped individuals—and those on the very periphery of the blast zone—survived. The vast majority were instantly vaporized, leaving behind no trace of their existence.
As soon as the spell was unleashed, Feny plummeted from the sky. He immediately deactivated Incursio; while an all-out Explosion was devastating, its drain on his energy was catastrophic. He was now in an extremely weakened state.
If it weren't for his trump card, the time-reversal of Bullet Four, he wouldn't have dared to be so reckless—or at the very least, he would have summoned the Blue-Eyes White Dragon to guard him.
However, since the surrounding enemies had been largely eradicated, he didn't feel the need to waste time recovering himself immediately.
Back on the ground, Feny's first priority was to check his rewards. Meanwhile, the rest of the battlefield slowly regained its senses. Combatants from both sides looked at each other, disbelief mirroring in their eyes.
The Vanir no longer cared about their own reinforcements. Feny had effectively wiped out the enemy's entire reserve; even without back-up, victory was now an absolute certainty.
The rebels' morale, however, was non-existent. They had been struggling since Thor's arrival, but they had held on for their reinforcements. Just as hope was about to descend, it was burned out of existence by a single person.
The psychological blow was far heavier than a mere physical defeat. If the Vanir's morale had dipped earlier, the rebels' spirit was now utterly shattered. Weapons slipped from trembling hands. Many stared blankly at Feny, who was now armor-less and frowning at the ground, looking somewhat dissatisfied.
"Who is he...?" a Vanir warrior whispered to one of the Asgardian soldiers. They could all see the enemy had no fight left in them; the battle was over.
"That is Mr. Halsey," the soldier replied with a chest full of pride, as if Feny were one of their own. "A friend of Prince Thor, a distinguished guest of Asgard, and a powerful mage from Midgard!"
"Midgard?!"
The warrior's face twisted in surprise. Midgard's backwardness was famous throughout the Nine Realms. He clearly hadn't expected such a powerhouse to hail from Earth.
But strength commands respect regardless of origin. After that display, Feny had earned the fearful reverence of every soul present.
Feny, meanwhile, was frowning because the experience gain was significantly lower than his estimates.
There had been at least ten thousand enemies in that wave, yet he had only received about two hundred experience points. On average, that meant fifty enemies equaled only one point. Even accounting for many of them being "trash mobs," the total was far lower than he'd hoped.
He thought back to the Chitauri fleet. He had destroyed far more enemies then, yet the experience gain had been similarly capped.
"Does the system not support mass-farming experience like this?" Feny mused. If it happened once, it could be a fluke; twice suggested a rule. Just as victory and targeted kills yielded more, perhaps massive AOE kills had a diminishing return.
"So, what is the quantity standard?" Feny felt the familiar sting of the system's lack of a manual. It wasn't "smart" enough to explain itself; he had to grope in the dark to find the boundaries of its logic.
Setting aside the experience issue, Feny looked back to see that the main engagement had also ended. The remaining rebels were dropping their weapons and submitting to capture.
As he walked back, he noticed the shift in how people looked at him.
The rebels looked at him with a mix of hatred and bone-deep terror. That crimson fire would likely haunt their nightmares for the rest of their lives. The Vanir looked at him with gratitude and curiosity; without him, their casualties would have been catastrophic.
The Asgardian soldiers, however, looked at him with a strange sort of reflected pride. Feny figured it was because they were all part of the same relief force—the better he performed, the more glory there was to go around.
"Is this how you dealt with the Chitauri?" Thor asked, looking at Feny, who had wiped out an entire army yet remained physically unscathed.
As Heimdall's close friend, Thor had often chatted with the Gatekeeper about things other than his girlfriend—including the Battle of New York.
"Yeah. Though back then, the Blue-Eyes White Dragon did a lot of the heavy lifting," Feny nodded. In truth, both his mass-destruction feats relied heavily on the element of surprise. Neither the Chitauri nor these rebels knew anything about his capabilities; had they been prepared, they wouldn't have been wiped out so cleanly.
"You are the strongest mage I have ever met," Fandral added, looking at Feny with genuine respect. Eliminating an army with one move was something he, a rapier specialist, couldn't even fathom.
Feny smiled but didn't correct him. He realized that after this battle, his title as a "Mage" would be solidified and spread. Earth was one thing, but in the wider universe, he intended to be recognized as a proper, high-level sorcerer.
Soon, Hogun and Volstagg arrived with the main army. Heimdall informed Thor that the reinforcements Feny had vaporized were actually the combined remnants of other rebel groups from nearby victories. This meant there were no more immediate battles in the vicinity. Feny wouldn't need to use Bullet Four to force a recovery for another fight just yet.
That evening, the group set up camp at the fortress of Tamir. Around the campfire, they ate dinner together.
"You're saying Feny wiped out eight thousand men in an instant?" Volstagg asked, staring at the smiling Feny while stuffing a Violet Fry-Chicken Roll into his mouth.
"At least eight thousand," Sif corrected, glancing at the harmless-looking Feny. She hadn't expected a man from Midgard to harbor such terrifying power. Looking back on their first meeting, she realized that if it hadn't been for the dragon, she might have dismissed him because of his handsome, "soft" appearance.
Fandral pointed to the scorched earth in the distance. "See that crater? Feny did that all by himself."
Listening to the praise being heaped on Feny, Thor sat eating in a complex silence.
Usually, this was the time they spent discussing his heroic deeds and the enemies he had crushed. For the first time, Thor felt he had been upstaged. He thought back to their bet and felt a wave of discouragement.
With that one move, Feny had likely killed more enemies than Thor could manage if he spent the rest of the year hunting rebels.
He had lost. Again.
(End of Chapter)