Chương 493: AF Chapter 492 – Backs to the Aer

Kris and Briggs didn't hardly wait for that kind of simple enhancement. Stone crunched and broke under their heels as they both took off, thirty meters plenty of space for them to get to full speed and launch themselves into the air at their opponent. The only ones going across the Chain to help them were those with the lightfoot to do so.

Basically, that was the Mick, the Skeeters, and the Roaches at this point, the line of them flowing across that chain as if it were a wide walkway on the Waveskating Step or Rising Winds. It took them less than three seconds to cross the moat each, just blurs of motion, while Aerbax rotated left and right as Briggs and Kris came crunching loudly down, with a complete lack of fear made for it.

"Kill the rest of the virindi," I coldly ordered the rest of the company, pointing to where the force was.

"Break up into kill squads, surround them, and beat them down on the charge! At them!"

King Borelean and King Kresovus led that howling charge, and this time it was all at a full run, the Vanguards working up to full speed as they covered for the Archers and Wolfpack infantry directly behind them.

Archers unloaded on the charge, Mages Vulned and Imperiled, and the whole company shattered and broke apart smoothly, the first groups charging past the nearest virindi, merely striking them in passing to get at the ones in the back faster, while the soldiers behind swirled in to take the spinning virindi in the flanks with energy and zeal.

I knew our warriors had the virindi cold, and didn't let my attention waver from the fighting, even as I stepped onto the Chain myself. Yes, some sort of enhanced anti-flight here, restricting even the virindi if they came this way.

My Wings could help with balance, but my own Sun Steps were keeping me steady as I advanced across the Chain, watching Aerbax closely as I kept up the Sublime Chord, the area of manafield conflict between us beginning to spit and snarl with contesting energies and control vectors tearing at one another. I Fastcast one spell through before it could Counter it, ladling a double-dash of Curse Magic it couldn't get rid of so easily.

I reduced the natural armor of the Black Diamond robe that contained its power and source, and stiffened up its movement and agility marginally. Basically a -3 to Nat Armor and Dodge bonus, which meant +6 to hit for my guys. It was minor, sure… but what it meant was that they could now employ Defender to full effect without sacrificing any ability to hit it!

Aerbax was wheeling and spinning in a fighting style that was incredibly complex, its own limbs accentuated by the Hollow Lightning Void attacks chopping down at its opponents. Unfortunately for it, it was also dealing with Hollow Olthoi Armor and Impervious Shields in personal combat, Uber Shields with maxed defensive ability and fields of Defending force sheathing them that somehow managed to keep up with the erratic and interwoven stabbing and slashing the renegade virindi was using.

The Archers, led by Selena, kept a careful distance and were going at Aerbax relentlessly, forcing it to consider its defensive options. It had gone Melee Immunity at the start, and Briggs and Kris had played into it, going on full defense and knocking its own attacks around as they waited for an opening. Then my Curse landed, it realized I could really start landing more on it, and it shifted to Magic Immunity.

I think the terrifying damage acceleration and unbelievable teamwork of the Wolfpack attacks coming in utterly surprised Aerbax, given the jerk in its movements as it tried to compensate for and start defending against the attacks coming in and ripping through it way, way faster and harder than it could possibly have anticipated.

My Healing Darts were constantly on the go, zipping into each of the six combatants staggered around Aerbax, three of Kris' Skeeters joining her, Briggs, and the Mick in the hack-and-stab fest going on there. It had a LOT of Health Qi. It had a lot of damage absorption and damage reduction. It could use that cushion to get off point-blank War Magic, which it fully expected me to Counter and then get off something fast and ruinous in cost that would tear us apart.

The first Heavy Lightning Ring at IX it tried was smashed apart by Briggs, crashing Source Power Spellcutting the magic and collapsing it. Aerbax's instinctive reprisal instantly ran into Kris' Null Strike, which shattered a flensing magic that probably would have stripped half of Chum-li's flesh from his bones. Casting in the middle of a Wolfpack just generated more Attacks of Opportunity for them.

Swords cut and gouged deep, Health Qi vented in explosive particle effects of virindi magic and silky thick spurts of Shadow essence falling down the armored hide they were ripping into and through even as the Health Qi sealed the cuts behind the blows. It was all good.

The Lost Light was flaring in a hundred Motes of condemnation against this otherplanar thing that thought it could stay here and make lab rats of us, the song of the Swords melding into the frenetic fury of the combination patterns being unloaded at dizzying speed. Kris began to Sing into its face… this time in Aklo, just to make the words twist more. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

"Tremble, the slaves are rising.

"The fear you sought so deeply, the terror you sought to drink,"Has become poison in the well, a pit in which you'll sink.

"Dragging you down, this pitiful mortal realm"Its Veil so heavy, its Rules so stern,"And the weight, the weight continues to whelm.

"Your fury and your glee, the horrors you could not see,"They are coming, they are rising, there is no compromising,"They chased away the Quiddity, and broke the Singularity.

"TREMBLE, Aerbax. Feel your much-sought Fear!

"TREMBLE, WE COME!" Its grip on the manafield wobbled as the Heartsong it once would have been nigh-immune to exacerbated all the rough dark emotions that came with the essence of Shadow. The feelings and rush of power and purpose now came clawing back to tear at it, and instead of bolstering its mental strength, began to undermine it! It shifted back to Melee Immunity, and then Kristie promptly Null Struck it, driving Quaver's thrumming +XI length right through its coat of black diamond.

Lost Light Motes exploded, crawling over Aerbax's body. Endure pounded right into the middle of Aerbax's chest, powering through two tentacles trying to grasp it, shock him, tearing at his arms and gauntlets, and Aerbax wobbled, for an instant its pressure on the manafield utterly gone. No melee immunity! Which was right when Master Oswald hit it.

Aerbax was still processing the fact that its faultless Immunity had been shattered by a horrible cutting inert force, trying to recover the energy and get it back up in another form, and the Ruby Blade of Regrets came stabbing in with utterly merciless precision from the finest true assassin on Dereth. The gout of snarling black and purple energies that vented from the knot of tentacles on its back blew Master Oswald fifty feet through the air, and sent the Mick and Jurgio tumbling wildly away, too.

Before Master Oswald hit the ground or the other two stopped moving, my Healing Darts were on them, Healing them up, restoring them. Enki and Xena charged forward as Aerbax attempted to follow up on its attacks, crashing into it with upraised Shields that janked and juked against the frenzied flailing of the wounded virindi. Moving while inside a Wolfpack triggers a LOT of AoO's, and the wound Master Oswald had made wasn't closing.

Briggs left the ground in a full spin, the CRACK as Endure broke the sound barrier painful and loud, and Aerbax took it right in the ear. Health Qi or no, the renegade virindi tilted over to the side, and Kris ducked, rolled, and came up right underneath it… and inside of it.

Aerbax SHRIEKED, especially when Quaver exploded out that cut and just stuck there, Motes of Lost Light accelerating around its Golden edge like a buzzsaw that kept pushing the wound open, spasming the tentacles lashing wildly in all directions now. By the size of Quaver, I knew it was in knife form, and CRACK, the Spikes from Kris' Buckler Stand erupted out Aerbax's chest, blazing and Burning with cerulean Banefire that ate away at its internal energies.

Which meant Kris was now in there with her black-nailed hands spread wide, Soulclaws a Gold harder than adamant, and was Null Striking the fuck out of the intense virindi energies all around her as she defied all the magic it was trying to throw at her. Healing Edge from Quaver was pouring into her and keeping her alive against the flesh and spirit-battering she was receiving, and she was also acclimating to the magic the longer she survived in there.

Vivus was spurting and surging within the virindi as Aerbax rocked, its attacks became increasingly erratic and wild, and there was absolutely no way it could gather any magic now. Which meant I was now free to unload. Eight Shardrays bored into Aerbax, adding a whole lot of Primal Divine Arcane no-energy-immunity-to-this to its problems.

Fire and lightning warred with Shadow and Void, Aberrant clashed with anathemic Holy Natural magic, and Arcane and Force energies just had a field day in between it all, with Banefire guiding everything to all the most painful spots. The missile fire had never stopped during all of this, but Aerbax hadn't considered it dangerous enough to be Immune to, regardless. But it wasn't magic-immune, and it couldn't Dispel with Kris inside it. Imperil at fucking VIII, and Slashing and Piercing Vulns at the same.

In a nice add-on effect, the multiplying of damage against it made Kris' disruption of Aerbax's magic even more effective. Synergies, I'm telling you! Aerbax was shrieking and going wild, raging back and forth, the Skeeters slamming repeated counter-charges into and against it as it tried to get away, and it kept running into damn Isparians with heavyfoot, Shields, and Swords of Lost Light tearing and ripping at it.

I flashed a Mass Heal at IX over the whole cluster of them just as a flood of Health Qi became a blastwave of force, hurling all of them back and away from the virindi with terribly corrosive, space-rending energies. Good Domain Reserve with Healing: Excess Healing is retained for one minute per Caster Level as Temporary Hit Points. Approximately a three-hundred point Heal, just ahead of the wave of Void Magic.

It took the teeth out of the spell entirely, and not a single one of them died, or even got below half-dead. Kris was shot out from inside it like a circus acrobat, bouncing off the ground and rolling wildly to vent her momentum, her hands slamming into the ground like steel bars as her tumbling came to an abrupt stop. She was clearly at least forty points into the negative, and that was with my Heal going off on her, cutting through her Null with our Magebond link.

It also meant I could draw energy from her freely, and today, I was going to do just that. Another Mass Heal went off off on everyone, followed up with a Quickcast Chained Shardray of Healing just to totally overdo things and get Kris back from a walking corpse with most of her skin eaten away and muscles showing beneath all over her as the remnants of her olthoi Armor dropped off of her in hissing particles and gooey puddles.

Her Cursemark was ablaze with a cold sapphire light, her smile as wide and feral as it could be. She was the first one up, probably because she was mostly naked at this point, Quaver flashed to her grip, Stand whirled and was on her arm, and she was going right for Aerbax's throat without even stopping.