Writhing in pain as the surface of its skin was seared off from some unseen force the demon felt its anger soar as it cursed towards the sky.

[That is some ugly motherf.u.c.ker….]

Looking at the demon through a satellite uplink, Dax familiarized himself with his enemies abilities as his mind spread out through the almost globe spanning ICI network.

(Hmm… I can't afford to hold anything back facing an unknown opponent.. Guess I'll need some red matter after all, there should be some in the 4th deep orbit station at Lagrange point 1. It should take about half an hour for that to get here.)

ACCESS DENIED.

(Yeah no, enact MAD please.)

Not being the kind of person who took no for an answer in such situations, Dax immediately activated an emergency protocol that would allow him to use the tools he needed.

ACCESS GRANTED, MUTUALLY a.s.sURED DESTRUCTION PROTOCOL ACTIVE, TACTICAL CLa.s.s WEAPONS OF Ma.s.s DESTRUCTION ALLOWED. ACCESSING DEEP BLACK OPS SITE #4…. CONNECTION ESTABLISHED, REQUEST CONFIRMED: SENDING ONE TIMES 1KG 'REDMATTER' SELF REPLICATING NANOMACHINES TO COMMAND POSITION, ETA: 23 MINUTES.

(That's better… Now for keeping it occupied, and I should properly invite some subject matter experts just in case that doesn't work.)

While laying out his strategy for killing the demon Dax wasn't idle, he was actively commanding a swarm of drones which secured the academy and evacuated the surviving hostages while securing the academy, not because he cared for the people but because he needed s.p.a.ce to use his toys.

(Area is clear, Lux and co are chasing the elvers and I have complete media control to suppress anything I don't want to leave this area… Does that mean I currently have no oversight?)

As Dax realized that he was for the moment completely alone with his target, a wide smile spread across his face before he cracked his neck.

[Time to get to work I guess~ Oh you better be regretting crawling out of whatever sad f.u.c.king h.e.l.lscape you came from, welcome to the killzone.]

FIRE MISSION RECEIVED.

TYPE: SINGLE TARGET HVT ELIMINATION.

HARD TARGET ACQUIRED. 

FIRE GROUP ALPHA LOAD HV-SATGM.

FIRE GROUP BRAVO LOAD UHV-APFSDS.

FIRE GROUP CHARLIE LOAD UHV-SAPHEI.

RANGE TO TARGET: 120 KILOMETERS.

HV-SATGM FUSE: SLAM.

UHV-APFSDS FUSE: NULL.

UHV-SAPHEI FUSE: DEEP IMPACT +0.01 METERS.

GENERATING SWARMING FIRE PATTERN…. COMPLETE, READY TO FIRE.

AWAITING FINAL CONFIRMATION FROM COMMAND.

(Let him have it.)

FIRE GROUP ALPHA CONFIRMS, FIRE GROUP ALPHA REPORTS: LOADING TERRAIN PROFILE, STEALTH APPROACH CONFIRMED.

FIRE GROUP BRAVO CONFIRMS, FIRE GROUP BRAVO REPORTS: NAILING TARGET.

FIRE GROUP CHARLIE CONFIRMS, FIRE GROUP CHARLIE REPORTS: REDUCING TARGET COVER.

-

As the orbital high energy lasers depleted their internal capacitors, the demon had a brief moment were it were not under attack, but then the land based artillery opened fire. The first sh.e.l.ls to hit were the 205mm armour piercing fin stabilized discarding sabot, which tungsten alloy penetrators. .h.i.t the demon directly and violently tore out chunks of its body and created extreme high pressure wind strikes from the extreme ma.s.s the rods of pure t.i.tanium alone.

"f.u.c.kING PESTS!"

Trying to regenerate its body, the demon kept being pelted by metal rods that priced its defences that the demon hastily tried to form. Seeing its flesh disappearing at an alarming rate, the demon made its first mistake by being predictable and sought cover for its flesh behind a nearby building, making Dax's smile widen a bit more. Then the second after the last APFSDs. .h.i.t the demon, 205mm semi armour piercing high explosive incendiary sh.e.l.l impacted the area. Digging deeply into the ground and academy buildings, the semi armour piercing sh.e.l.ls detonated and sent out a hail of shrapnel and incendiary secondaries which set fire to the surroundings.

"d.a.m.n IT!" 

Not even able to hear itself curse the demon's blood started boiling as it ignored the surrounding explosions and channed the corrupted mana that was surrounding it into a new spell.

"ASCENSION!"

Instantaneously a wave if corrupted mana spread throughout the demon's surroundings, as it grew a set of 10 wings which could have come from either a bat or a raven. 

"INSOLENT!"

With a wave of its 'hand', a series of hexagonal s.h.i.+elding formations spread out through the air around the demon, blocking the remaining SAPHEI sh.e.l.ls from hitting near it as they exploded in the air.

(What a smart roach… Still, others before you have survived this far so it is still within expectations.)

While SAPHEI sh.e.l.ls still pelted the area with relatively little effect, another kind of monition was arriving near the target area as their active guidance activated as they connected to concealed drones which surveyed the demon.

ACTIVE GUIDANCE CONFIRMED, SWARMING PATTERN CONFIRMED TVC ACTIVE, TARGET PAINTED.

As the smart anti tank guided missiles finished their initial burn the boosters detached while fins deployed, and the thrust vectoring motors started breathing in air as they waved their way through buildings towards their final destination. From above it looked like a synchronized dance as the SATGM's closed in while they were still hidden behind buildings from the demon, getting close enough they swooped out above the buildings activated final guidance.

"NAIVE!"

Seeing the strange explosion powered spears spring up above the buildings all around him, the demon flexed its 'hands' around it and spread out hexagonal s.h.i.+eld formations.

(Yeah, no that's not going to happen~)

Seeing the first missile was about to impact the demon suddenly felt something was wrong, acting on instinct it hastily prepared another defensive formation. As the missile hit its tandem warhead went off, the first of two warheads detonated, shattering the demon's spell formation as a second jet of superheated metal burst through. While the SATGM's. .h.i.t the demon's defences Dax still refused to let up, waves, after waves were fired from every available long range artillery, rained down an effective mix of munitions that kept the demon pinned down while Dax's ground forces closed the range and took up firing positions.

"ENOUGH!"

With a burst of corrupted mana, the demon showed its might as every single artillery sh.e.l.l/missile was knocked out of the sky.

"WHO DAR!-"

Thinking that it had dealt with the threats, the demon started fanning its arrogance but didn't even get to finish its sentence before it was. .h.i.t in the face with a tungsten alloy penetrator.

(Ha, sucker!)

Feeling like a child at Christmas when his plan worked, Dax took direct control of the drone detachments. A single detachment of drones consisted of 10 drones equipped with a Guardian-R04 special hand carried railgun and 6 Rex-Alpha 357 hybrid a.s.sault rifles loaded with uHVAG ammunition which tore right through the demons barriers. 

While the demon was preoccupied with the swarms of drones which were surprisingly effective at tearing straight through its defences, a small package landed next to Dax. The package proved to be nothing but a small cylindrical metal vail which were covered by ablative tiles and wrapped in an airbag. 

[Here we are~]

Lazarus industries tactical cla.s.s outlawed weapon system, self replicating nanomachine algorithm 'redmatter' 

The Iron race containment war proved to be extremely stimulating for weapons technology, but the largest revolution came in the medical field as nanomachines overturned every existing practice overnight. From one day to the other a wide variety of injuries could be stabilized or outright cured in an extremely short time, the only problem was that the nanomachines were extremely hard to produce, requiring a microgravity environment and weeks to grow before they could handle even the smallest amount of disturbances. That is until a Lazarus executive had an idea: Nanomachines helped the body heal by fabricating temporary structures inside the body or even individual cells, then why couldn't the nanomachines be used to construct more nanomachines? Instead of a simple solution, the so called next generation graymatter proved to be harder than initially taught and required years of development before a prototype was ready. The aptly named 'redmatter' nanomachines performed admirably in tests, being able to replenish themselves from metal sc.r.a.ps or even rocks under any conditions.

The problem arose doing field deployment when a medical officer decided to replenish his stock of redmatter by having it feed on a disabled landing craft, however doing this some kind of mutation occurred in the construction of new nanomachines, leading to the overall system being unresponsive to any and all commands, including emergency shutdown. Before the problem was discovered the colony of redmatter managed to grow by several magnitudes, becoming completely unstoppable and indiscriminate in what it consumed, being anything from intact equipment to orbital marines. In the end, the entire moon had to be abandoned as it was slowly eaten by the redmatter.

After that early incident, it was clear that a pandora's box had been opened. While the idea of self replicating nanomachines proved to be a good idea on paper, a single writhing error doing self replication could lead to an unstoppable malignant cancer growth of all consuming micromachines which were able to devour an entire planet in hours. After the product's failure and subsequent outlawing records state that all products and records were destroyed, but secretly a small amount was spared before being weaponized as an alternate solution to antimatter or exotic matter warheads.

With only a few months of development, the next generation nanomachines received a new purpose, now being a weapon of ma.s.s destruction the redmatter no longer responded to conventional kill codes and only a single encrypted signal that was unique for each swarm could kill it. Proving to be a truly cruel weapon that in most cases slowly and indiscriminately killed anything it came into contact with, redmatter was cla.s.sified as a tactical cla.s.s outlawed weapon system, requiring the highest level of clearance to employ in a war scenario.

[It's been a while since I've used these…]

Looking at the metal container in his hand Dax got a nostalgic look on his face, but that only lasted for a second as he got back to work.

(Wait, it already killed the first wave? That's slightly irritating..)

Losing contact with the last drone of the first wave he had sent towards the demon, Dax simply waved his hand as another wave charged in under the cover of orbital and long range artillery bombardment. 

[But I might not even need it~]

Looking behind him Dax saw a CAS-7A land, transporting what could only be described as subject matter experts in anti demon warfare.

"Looks like you lost your arm again Dax."

[Yeah I did, I am also glad to see you Solaris… Elders of the 14th sanctuary, I am blessed by your collective presence.]

First joking around with Solaris, Dax went full business mode when two 10 winged angels stepped out of the transport.

"Well meet qiton, I hope you have a proper reason for disturbing our slumber."

[Of course~ This one should be quite a thrill to slay, speaking from experience.]High value target, like a hostile VIPHigh velocity smart anti tank guided missile (tandem warhead.)Ultra high velocity armor piercing fin stabilized discarding sabotUltra high velocity semi armor piercing high explosive incendiaryUltra High Velocity Anti Grav barrier monition