Chương 1272: 1302 - Wrath of a Thousand Nations

"Prepare all warriors," Ramin darkly stated, his voice, though low, carrying throughout the bridge.

"Repel boarders. Can we still jump? Is that system still functioning?" Power was out throughout most of the ark, and the main engines were dead. But the jump drive had independent backup power sources.

"Lord-Machinist Yistros says that we can jump, if we buy enough time!" one of his adjutants reported.

"How long?" Ramin demanded. One of his bridge officers responded, "Fifty-two minutes."

"Then we have to hold out for fifty-two minutes," Ramin stated steadily. He stood before his people, his power flexing and roiling, an air of resolute confidence flowing from him to his officers.

"This ark is large and our defenders, many. If they want to take us alive, then we're going to make them regret it!" His people moved with greater alacrity in the wake of his words as the immense enemy ark further maneuvered into position. Large transports—obviously carrying dozens or even hundreds of troops each—began massing to enter the holes in his ark's hull and the blown-open hangar bays. Coordinating the response would be complex, but Ramin's crew was professional and highly experienced.

The struggle for his ark had only just begun. Still, his confidence was needed. Such a disaster would wear down on his people's will to resist, and only his confidence would pull them back into fighting shape. Internally, however, he was far more pessimistic about their chances.

'Any force that can do that will be nigh-impossible to beat…' His eyes flitted to the flickering projection on the far wall where, just behind the cloud of enemy arks, Hesteria could still be seen. The plane still burned, erasing all life from the plane's surface. He didn't know what happened to his friend, but if Drenthor's capital plane was so devastated, then he quickly concluded that his friend was dead. There was simply no other option. It was a devastating realization, but one that Ramin accepted and buried.

He'd lost many friends and family in his long years, and no matter how shattering a loss was, he could compartmentalize and keep moving until the danger had passed.

"Where do you want me?" Ryazos quietly asked, his voice steady, his armor shining brilliantly. Ramin suppressed a smile, intent on maintaining his air of professional confidence, unwilling to let even a smile jeopardize it.

"Mid-ark hangar," Ramin said. It was where the largest force of enemy transports was massing, and it looked like the large enemy ark was going to try to directly send troops in there based on how it was lining up to his ark. Ryazos didn't argue, even though he had to see the same thing Ramin was. He was loyal almost to a fault, and Ramin knew that he'd have to find some way to reward the man if they made it out of this.

He watched the man who'd almost been his shadow for more than five thousand years leave the bridge and begin speeding through the ark's halls. He sighed. Ryazos's loyalty and readiness shamed the other eleventh-tier mage who'd been with them until the battle began; Ramin wondered where Jors-kil had gone, and if the situation wasn't so dire, he'd go looking for the man personally.

He suspected that this might have been the same force, or at least a related one, that had attacked Iaivi Fortress and inflicted such torment upon him. Minutes passed agonizingly slowly, but every one that passed brought potential escape that much closer. But Ramin knew that once the fighting began, it could move quickly.

Suddenly, the transports accelerated, properly invading his ark, while the enemy ark came in close enough to magically project atmosphere between them, allowing thousands of warriors to stream from open hatches and hangar bays toward his ark. They spilled from the enemy ark like glittering beads, illuminated not only by the local sun but also by the light shining from the burning plane. Ramin made a snap decision—Ryazos was in the main hangar, so he could trust it to remain in his hands for a while.

It looked like the largest threat after that was infiltration teams along several of the smaller rents in the hull, where he assessed higher-tiered mages were moving towards.

"Lord Gerasi," he intoned, drawing the attention of the ark's captain.

"You have the bridge. When the jump drive is ready, activate it immediately. I don't care where we go, just get us out of here." Gerasi bowed, but Ramin was gone before he could verbally acknowledge the order. Ramin's ark was a mix of military and administrative in nature. The internal compartments were laid out in easy-to-understand grids, though military checkpoints separated them from each other.

The outer compartments were intentionally less efficient, looping around and funneling potential attackers through hardened chokepoints. Ramin sped through the central bays with ease, but his pace was somewhat slowed as he reached the first chokepoint. The men stationed there were obviously nervous, but they perked up seeing their Basileus speed past them to head off the ark's invaders. Ramin didn't stop, not even for a few motivational words.

The men defending the torn-open hull needed him more than the men closer to his ark's heart. Most lights had been disabled throughout the ark, a problem that was particularly acute in the damaged outer sections. In the halls lit only by emergency lighting, Ramin shone like a new star, his body ablaze with golden lightning.

In moments that were at once extremely rapid but also far too late, Ramin came upon the first and most dire flashpoint: the hull had been torn open by an iron bolt that detonated beneath the outer stormsteel armor. His ark, heavily reinforced, kept the damage confined to only a few outer compartments, but it still created a large open space where several storage and armor compartments had once been.

Several hundred enemy warriors had spilled in, and Ramin's warriors hadn't reinforced this area quickly enough to achieve local superiority. At least, they hadn't until Ramin arrived. Like a bolt from the blue, Ramin shot out into this section. Amidst the twisted stormsteel and weakly-glimmering Aurichalcum, his people fought a hundred desperate battles, some even hand-to-hand.

Bodies were already accumulating, some of which bore the distinctive markings denoting them as his ark's machinist and maintenance personnel—men and women who'd rushed here to try and mitigate the damage and who were subsequently pulled into this fight. For just a moment, Ramin observed the fighting, his eyes raking over every enemy and every friend. His men were armored, some heavily and others not so much, but all had at least basic protection.

In contrast, every one of his opponents was dressed from head to toe in sickly yellowish armor, nearing gold but not quite reaching it. Some bore black stripes along their spines, but most had black spots breaking up the monotonous yellow. Swiftly, Ramin identified the greatest threat: four tenth-tier mages who were cleaving through his defenders with ease. The rest of Ramin's tenth-tier warriors were busy at other points of conflict, leaving these mages to him.

His aura exploded from his body like a storm spilling over the top of a mountain range. So overpowering was he that all other magic in the open section ceased, the other mages, enemy and ally alike, freezing in place. Then, a thousand bolts of radiant golden lightning erupted from his body, arcing first to the enemy tenth-tier mages, and then to those around them. Their armor, clearly heavy and well-enchanted, liquified on contact with his power, and the flesh beneath fared no better.

In one second, a hundred of the most powerful enemy mages in this section were rendered into ash and molten armor. In another second, two hundred of their weaker comrades joined them in the House of the Dead. Like a lion among sheep, whatever foe Ramin laid his eyes upon soon found themselves hurled into the Aesii. There was nothing they could do to stop him, even if they could move within his towering aura.

Within a handful of seconds, the first wave invading this open section had been obliterated, and silence fell upon it. Ramin relaxed his aura, allowing his people to move again.

"Form up in adjacent compartments!" Ramin shouted, his voice barely audible through the thinned atmosphere barely contained by the ark's emergency hull damage system.

"Contest the enemy as they bottleneck in the doors!" Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. His people didn't strictly need to know this, but he assumed that they'd been caught attempting to get the machinists evacuated. His voice made things clear: get into a better position now. Ramin didn't stay to monitor their movement; his ark was being invaded in several dozen places, and he was needed elsewhere. With sharpened purpose, he moved.

Through his halls, he bolted, past men both determined and hysterical. His lightning lifted the spirits everywhere he went, but not all of those aboard his ark were so easily rallied. He ignored them for the most part, though; he simply didn't have the time to inspire every sobbing craven he passed. He summoned his power as he neared the next position, a smaller ingress point but one with a post-Apotheosis mage tearing his defenders to pieces.

He drew all attention as he emerged in the compartment opened to the Void by a long crack through which men could just barely squeeze. Fifty invaders had come through by this point, with others close behind. One hundred and fifty of his defenders had come to put spears through the necks of every invader, but the eleventh-tier mage who'd led the invasion used claws of burning fire to ravage their lines.

Ramin noted that the invaders' armor was identical to those in the first section, but that was only a curiosity as he let loose with endless lightning, burning his power to save his men. The eleventh-tier mage leading the pack of dogs was his first target, and despite his power, he was the first casualty. His armor was shorn away, and his flesh lasted just long enough for Ramin to savor a look of defiance morph into a look of terror. Ash fell upon the mage's comrades just before lightning followed it.

In less than a minute, the breached compartment was secured. Other areas in the ark weren't so lucky; one compartment had already fallen, allowing small infiltration teams to start spreading through his ark. The chokepoints would keep the critical systems of his ark safe, at least for a time, but Ramin knew that speed was of the essence. With a scowl, he got to work…

The scene at the main hangar was one of pure carnage. Two thousand bodies already filled it, and two thousand more warriors clashed atop them. Magic of every variety flashed and crashed, growing the charnel pit evermore as seemingly endless reinforcements for the invaders pushed in. Through this chaos, Ryazos was the light in the darkness. His armor, though scuffed, still shone brilliantly. His sword, though chipped, blazed with lightning.

With him there, all the men of Ramin's army fought ferociously, their spirits rising as Ryazos took a second eleventh-tier head. Through the longest minutes of their lives, the men fought, metal and magic flashing equally brightly. But step-by-step, Ramin's men were forced back, even as Ryazos clashed with a third eleventh-tier mage. With their Lord of Swords with them, the men refused to break.

The endless tides of enemies, though pushing against them, two more rushing into the hangar for every one they killed, would never break them. But a single mage could do what the army couldn't. An aura, mountainous and wrathful, hit them like hammers to the chest. Directed and deadly, half of the defenders died on the spot. The other half followed suit as the yellow-clad invaders, unaffected by this aura, took advantage of their debilitation and gave them to death's embrace.

Ryazos showed his mettle amidst this sudden turn, his steel flashing with lightning as he sought to add a third eleventh-tier mage to his list of slain foes. Even as his limbs turned sluggish in the aura, he fought magnificently, driving his opponent back and opening him up for a kill strike. But as Ryazos lunged, the source of the tremendous aura entered the hangar, and a ring of dull yellow fire bloomed around him, halting him in place.

Refusing to give up, Ryazos tore his way through with lightning and sheer grit. He couldn't sense the aura of the new enemy, and he knew that his time had come. He was soon to be floating down the Aesii toward what his people called the End of All Things, and he was determined to carry the soul and skull of at least one more strong foe with him. He didn't move quickly enough. His sword halted an inch from his enemy's neck, the armor there weak and already blackened by lightning.

A lash of yellow fire had wrapped around his arm, and when the new mage tensed his arm, the fire sliced through Ryazos's armor, then flesh, then bone. He didn't scream as his sword arm fell from his shoulder, burning, nor did he make a sound as he lunged again, his left hand flashing. This time, he reached his target. Lightning scorched his opponent's helmet as his opponent slammed his own blade against Ryazos's cuirass.

Hatred, raw and visceral, within his enemy's eyes, glimpsed through his visor, was the last thing Ryazos saw before another fire lash wrapped around his neck. He felt the heat, and then everything went dark. For a moment, he awoke within his soul realm, but he could do nothing but watch as yellow fire consumed his Mind Palace, and then the rest of his soul realm beyond.

Ramin scowled as he raced for the main hangar. He'd done what he could and exterminated every invader he beheld over the past forty minutes. His feet never rested, and he'd raced through the halls of his ark so much that he'd have circled it five times if his route hadn't been so chaotic. Most of his enemies were easy enough to kill, especially since he hadn't yet seen anyone stronger than an eleventh-tier leading the charge.

The infiltrators were harder to deal with as they entered and immediately went invisible, but wide-enough strikes still found them—or so he hoped. Some may have gotten away, but he'd deal with that later. The main hangar had been lost, however. Ryazos had been defeated, and the force defending it slaughtered. Ramin could feel the loss keenly, but he maintained a level head. The enemy was massing more invaders, but he doubted they'd get far before his ark could jump again.

Once they reached safety, he could deal with those they carried with at his leisure. For now, he had to stop the enemy at the main hangar. He could sense another thirteenth-tier mage leading the way, and with all the support of thousands of other mages, Ramin knew that this could be the end for him. He ignored that possibility as he blasted through the halls, tearing through man and armor, killing those who polluted his ark with their foul footsteps.

Meat and metal disintegrated before him, leaving him seemingly untouched and unblemished as he shot out into the hangar. There, he was met with an ocean of yellow fire, which he met with golden lightning. Magic clashed, and the ark around them groaned. Stormsteel cracked and melted under the heat and pressure, and the bodies within turned to ash. In barely one second, Ramin and the thirteenth-tier invader became the only mages in the hangar, everyone else having been killed by their clash.

For another second, Ramin thought their stalemate would last longer. And a stalemate he could tolerate, at least for a little while. He grinned as he conjured a spear and thrust, a bolt of blue lightning cutting through the fire to hopefully add greater pressure on his enemy, but the bolt found no purchase in armor or man, and a moment later, the fire ceased. Ramin kept pushing, however, letting his lightning blast outward in a great wave.

His golden lightning parted around not only his opponent, but also another figure who hadn't been there until seemingly that very moment. His aura was seemingly nonexistent, and he was dressed in a golden tunic and matching trousers. His skin was as yellow as the armor of the invaders, but Ramin could sense along the back of his neck—and presumably continuing down his back—faint black stripes. This newcomer smiled wolfishly at him and, faster than Ramin could react, put a lance of fire through his chest.

Ramin was slammed against the back wall of the hangar, pain at a level he hadn't felt in thousands of years nearly shutting his mind down. He glanced down and saw the lance of fire nailing him to the wall, his armor nearly useless against the newcomer's power, sprout dozens of tiny hands that pushed against him on the outside and tore into his body from within.

"Hehehehe," the newcomer howled, throwing his head back as his almost too-large mouth opened wide and his almost too-large teeth flashed in the hangar's emergency lights.

"Hahahahahaha! Slave of Khosrow, your end has arrived!" He floated closer, more yellow-clad invaders rushing into the hangar behind him. Ramin struggled, but he could barely move, his body growing weak as fiery hands ripped through his body. The newcomer grinned as he drew close.

"Do you despair, Slave?" he asked.

"Do you hate? Do you wish to tear my throat out and devour my heart in a show of dominance? Hehehehe! I did, once! Long ago! A thousand nations have been ground to dust by the inheritors of Khosrow's will! Hahaha! Through me, their ghosts will have satisfaction!" The last thing Ramin heard was the man's howling laughter as his soldiers poured into his halls. But his mind lasted a moment longer. Death had come for him, and Ramin ceased his struggle against it.

Instead, he gathered every spare spark of origin power within his body for one last attack, and as quickly as he could, he let it go. And only then did his eyes close for the final time.

Jors-kil stared hard at the jump drive in front of him. A hundred plates, each as long as he was tall and inscribed with thousands of runes, spun along a long shaft. Surrounding the shaft were three nested spheres, each one also inscribed with thousands of runes. The runes on the spheres moved of their own accord—or at least, some of them did. Others had frozen on the spheres' surface, flickering so much that many were barely visible.

'No power,' Jors-kil noted.

'No engineers…' Indeed, most of the engineers down here had been killed as power surged through the ark. Most of the crew was likely dead at this point, and Jors-kil knew that to be a mercy. He could sense familiar auras; he could see familiar soldiers forcing their way through the ark's bulkheads. He'd been caught by them before, and he refused to be caught by them again. Minutes remained until the jump drive was ready. Minutes that they likely didn't have.

Power continued to fail, and the chances of enough reaching the jump drive to escape were low. So Jors-kil did something quite foolish: he leaped into the spheres through the viewport and added his power directly to the drive. Metal groaned, runes flickered, but the drive accepted his power. It could explode at any moment, and he could damage it beyond repair if he wasn't careful, but he knew the fate that awaited everyone if they were caught by this particular enemy. So he added origin power, too.

The spheres began to spin, the flickering runes on their surfaces coming back to life. The ark trembled from a great blast somewhere around the midsection, causing those terrifyingly familiar auras to grow more distant, but Jors-kil barely realized what happened before the magic within the drive activated. Space folded upon itself, metal screamed as it tore apart, and the ark, along with everyone aboard, was whisked away from this doomed fight, only a paltry fraction of her crew yet among the living.