Chương 1325: 1355 - Massacre at Zen'Metrus I

Destroying a plane was fairly difficult, even for post-Apotheosis mages. A fifteenth-tier mage might not struggle mightily, but at the twelfth-tier, Eirenaios knew that he'd require more time than he likely had to destroy the physical plane below him. Rendering it uninhabitable, however, was much easier, particularly for fire mages. His arks proved that by raining fire upon the plane for hours, scorching the surface, burning the cities to ash, and vitrifying the remains.

Wide swathes of the plane were turned to glowing red-hot glass in mere hours, and the skies were so choked with ash, smoke, and poisonous fumes that everyone else on the plane would undoubtedly die before they could receive the aid of their bestial master. In less than six hours, Eirenaios' fleet turned from the plane, their grisly work done.

'Such is the fate of all who turn from Khosrow's Law,' Eirenaios thought as the fleet began maneuvers to jump to their next target. This entire cluster would burn before he was done, and at this point, he doubted Leon Raime even knew what was going on…

The fleet moved swiftly, but not as swiftly as Leon would have liked. Makarios, mere hours ago, had warned them of Eirenaios' invasion of the Zer Cluster, but given the fleet's position at the time, they weren't able to beat him there. They'd been perfectly placed in the Halorian Cluster to harass Antipatra's fleet, but much less so to defend Zer. It was no surprise, then, when they arrived at Zar'Pontassi, the closest plane to the Halorian Cluster, they found it considerably changed from when they'd left.

The surface had been blasted from the sky, and little remained. Leon's magic senses washed over the plane, finding almost no signs of life. A few pockets of terrified people remained, and he deployed several arks to rescue them. Several small arks. Not enough people survived to need more. It was a sobering sight. It was one thing to know that followers of Khosrow were fine with genocide, but it was another thing entirely to witness it first-hand.

There was little small talk amongst his forces, but Leon could feel an aura of killing intent permeating through the Voidspace all around them. Few would have spoken highly of the people of this plane before now, but seeing them so ruthlessly exterminated gave his people a certain clarity of purpose. It was impossible to look upon millions of massacred people and not be moved. Leon didn't think about ordering his people to take prisoners. After this, there would be no will amongst his fleet for it.

Likewise, there would be no will for continued hit-and-run tactics. Whatever the result, the next battle would be the last. As he surveyed the slaughter from the observation-deck-turned-command-center, he received a call from a quiet and harrowed Makarios. The man made no excuses for himself. He didn't try to assure Leon that he played no part in what happened at Zar'Pontassi. He simply told him where Eirenaios was now. Leon was grateful for the message.

From Zar'Pontassi, Eirenaios could've gone to any of four or five planes, depending on just how far he could jump. It would've made tracking him prohibitively difficult. Unfortunately, Eirenaios was already past the terminus line at Zen'Metrus, and the first rays of fire had already fallen upon the plane's largest cities. It would take Leon's carriers and dreadnoughts another half hour to charge their jump drives, and he wasn't jumping without his most powerful weapons in play.

'But neither can I abandon Zen'Metrus…' A thought then occurred to him, one that had his heart racing so quickly that he almost thought it was going to jump out of his chest and start doing laps around the deck. His eyes found Flicker, a stealth corvette plying the Void close to Storm Herald, and her sister ark, Shudder. He sent a message to Anshu. He was moving to Flicker, and she would bear him to Zen'Metrus. His fleet couldn't act yet, but he could.

Anshu protested, but Leon simply told him to jump the fleet the moment they could. Five minutes later, he was aboard Flicker, and she and Shudder engaged their jump drives, carrying with all haste to Zen'Metrus…

As the first fireballs fell upon the plane, Eirenaios grinned in anticipation of a repeat of the first glorious performance. These planar exterminations were his first acts of such scale against the enemy of mankind, and it thrilled him like nothing else ever had. Such power at his command, and expressed for the benefit of all mankind, he activated his ark's comms systems and began speaking to his fleet as they turned the plane's atmosphere to flame.

"Hold no mercy in your hearts," he commanded, his voice reaching every ear in his fleet.

"These are not people below you, but beasts wearing human skin! Peel back their faces and you would see the fur and fangs beneath! For all the history of the universe, they have desired nothing less than the complete subjugation of all of us! But by the boundless grace and powerful arms of the Great Lord, we were freed and took our place as the true and rightful rulers of the universe!

"These beasts have forgotten their place! Theirs is not to rule us, but to be ruled! And if they cannot be ruled, then they must be put down! If they are not, then they will subjugate us again! Our children, or their children, will be chained and fettered, abused, made to scrape and serve, turned into entertainment and food for the bestial masters! Unless WE stop them!

"So let no mercy stain your hands! Rain fire upon—" An explosion tore through a dreadnought to Eirenaios' right—one of his personal arks, not one of Antipatra's or any of her vassals. Space shattered around it, making it seem for just a moment like Eirenaios was looking at the ark's reflection in a broken mirror. And then the cracks in space resolved themselves, and the ark ruptured, all the power within her tearing her apart from within.

Eirenaios choked mid-monologue, his eyes desperately combing the wreckage, seeking some clue as to what just happened. He knew what had happened already, though—he'd only ever seen that cursed bow of Leon Raime's do such a thing to an ark—but he hoped it wasn't him, that he had more time to finish his glorious work. But then a burst of power drew his attention as another arrow-shaped spatial distortion lanced through the Void and struck a carrier, turning the great metal beast into burning debris.

Metal rained down on the surface of the plane, and few, if any, mages managed to escape before it was too late. It was easy to trace from where the arrows had come, and when Eirenaios beheld the lone figure attacking his fleet, he almost smiled. Leon Raime, alone, attacking him. Had the monster not been so powerful, it would have seemed comically suicidal.

As it was, Eirenaios went pale as Leon drew the bow in his hand back, a 'string' of spatial magic forming where a bowstring ought to be, and another sliver of spatial magic taking the place of a proper arrow.

"All arks, turn your cannons on him!" Eirenaios shouted desperately.

"Kill him! Ignore the plane! Turn everything you have on him! Now!!!" His voice cracked as he screamed desperately, but screaming alone wasn't enough to turn his arks. He'd pushed his great war machines almost without exception past the terminus line so as to better bombard the plane, but this meant that they were pinned by the gravity well, and it would take minutes to turn them around and get back into the Void. Fortunately, he had the foresight to leave a handful of arks to watch their backs.

But against a thirteenth-tier mage, he didn't expect much. Leon Raime loosed his horrifying arrow at Eirenaios' second-to-last dreadnought in his personal fleet. A light cruiser that had been pulling security, however, accelerated hard enough to strain the engines and intercepted the arrow with her own hull.

Eirenaios couldn't remember who captained that vessel, but as it took the hit for his dreadnought and vanished in flame, he vowed to find out and to carve the names of every single one of her crew into a monument at Khosrow's Fane. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. He reveled in Leon Raime's grimace, which only grew more pronounced as his lighter arks finally brought their broadside cannons around and opened up on him.

A sea of fire came crashing down upon Leon Raime, and for a moment, Eirenaios entertained the thought of actually killing the monster here and now…

'They don't lack valor,' Leon thought as the cruiser-sized ark took his hit. It was almost insulting that men and women of a caliber to sacrifice themselves so selflessly followed someone who ordered them to exterminate entire planes. Leon knew for a fact that many of his own people were of a similarly valorous bent, but he liked to think that he would never order them to do something so heinous as wiping out a plane.

Eirenaios' first answer to his strikes finally came as his smallest arks opened up on him with their Lances. Leon almost rolled his eyes as he pulled his Stormborn Bow back into his soul realm, trusting in his power and armor to keep himself safe. Flame washed over him, so much that even an eleventh-tier mage would've found themselves quickly meeting their Ancestors.

Leon, however, was practically untouched; the wards in his armor were strong, and he amplified their effect by calling upon flames as dark as the Void around them. He cut through the onslaught, moving slower than he would've liked for the initial leap, and then switching from Doomfire to silver-blue lightning the moment he was out of the conflagration. He shot through Eirenaios' fleet, Iron Pride appearing in his hand, Lancefire whizzing past him as he closed with the fleet.

He knew that once he was within their midst, they'd be almost unable to hit him for fear of friendly fire, but he had to get there first. A near miss; a mountain-sized bolt of flame passed so close that a mortal would've been blinded from its light as it passed. More and more fire as arks finally swung around to answer his challenge, and dodging through it all became more and more difficult.

But he was fast and his magic senses were potent; the incoming fire slowed as he approached, the outermost arks having to pause as friendly arks appeared in their firing arcs. But the arks just ahead had no such constraints, and as he drew closer, he had less time to react. Their fire was slow enough for him to dodge fairly easily, but a sudden glint of light was his only warning as a white beam suddenly shot from a destroyer's main cannon.

Leon tried to dodge, but only a hastily inscribed 'shield' rune kept the cannon blast from knocking him back, if not outright killing him. He'd lost quite a bit of momentum, but he regained it quickly, and in seconds, he slammed into the offending destroyer. With Iron Pride in hand, he felt the power of the Iron Needle surge through him, reacting to his desires, filling him with power. His skin buzzed, the fine hairs on his arm tingling as they tried to stand on end.

His muscles burned from exertion as lightning poured from him; he could smell the metallic stench of melting armor and hull, mixed with the occasional hint of burning meat. He felt every clap and peal of thunder echo in his bones, and every clang as Iron Pride met an armored warrior or hull plate. He heard the occasional scream of terror or pain, but given what the ark had been doing when he arrived, he spared not a moment of thought for these people.

In less than a minute, he'd done such damage to the ark that with one final swing of Iron Pride, one final bolt of deadly lightning erupting from the blade, the ark detonated around him. He felt the heat wash over him, the searing light of the fire stabbing at his retinas. He hadn't the time to repair his helmet, so much of his face was open, now, though it didn't make much difference.

He ignored the complaints from his eyes, and as the remains of the ark scattered around him in a cloud of metal and blood, he located his next target. Lightning surged through his body, and he shot at the dreadnought, accompanied only by a flash of light.

It took a monumental effort not to shake. His limbs were weak and his heart was cold; Eirenaios' certainty that he was going to live lessened by the second. Leon Raime was unstoppable, cutting through his arks with the energy and ruthlessness that he'd come to expect from those of such muddied blood. But he still gave orders. He had risen to the twelfth-tier, and not for nothing; with a carefully controlled voice that revealed none of his inner terror, he maneuvered his fleet into position.

Leon Raime was foolish enough to charge into his fleet's midst, and for that, he would pay. Already, many of his lighter arks were forming a dome around the beast. It was taking longer than he'd hoped since Leon was tearing through his arks, but it was still taking him up to a minute for smaller arks, and nearly ten to tear one of his carriers apart from within. Eirenaios had thousands of arks, and he could sacrifice a few dozen to buy time.

Right now, he watched grimly as Leon Raime slaughtered his way through the battlecruiser Noble Intent. This ark, built to bridge the capability gap between a jack-of-all-trades multirole cruiser and the heaviest, deadliest dreadnoughts, fared better than most arks that the beast had victimized, having lasted for eight minutes so far. But as valuable as the ark was, it was nothing compared to killing Leon Raime.

"Fire," Eirenaios commanded, and without hesitation, the thousand arks that had formed something of a dome around them opened up with a bombardment that shook Eirenaios to his core. Flame tore into Noble Intent, and the ark's already compromised defenses were no match for such power, even if they were in perfect working order. So much fire and light was concentrated on Noble Intent that for almost a full minute, it appeared as if a second sun had ignited above the plane.

Fire poured through it as the bombardment continued, falling to the surface, but Eirenaios regarded that as nothing more than a bonus. His heart stopped in anticipation. A thousand arks, or thereabouts, were so powerful together that he doubted a thirteenth-tier mage could survive. He'd put enough power into that bombardment that even an Anax would've struggled to come through it in one piece.

'He's dead,' Eirenaios started thinking, the thought repeating louder and louder with every passing second. His heart almost exploded in elation as he realized that the end of the Thunderbird line had come at— A bolt of silver-blue lightning struck the nearest ark, a small frigate, and the ark's wards were immediately penetrated. The bolt melted through armor and hull, precisely striking the vessel's power core.

Leon shot out of the inferno, his armor glowing from the heat, and with a shining rune behind him staving off much of the fleet's fire. He swung his nightmarish sword through a rune that he conjured in the same breath, and another bolt of lightning struck the frigate. Where the first had merely crippled her, the second tore through her like an arrow through a single sheet of paper. The superstructure crumpled, and the ark, spinning from the strike, began to fall to the plane.

It wouldn't impact in one piece, however, as gravity, momentum, and atmospheric friction tore at the broken frame. The bombardment shifted as Leon moved. Eirenaios' elation had turned to ash, but he still began barking orders. He could still kill Leon Raime here; the man was powerful, but his power wasn't endless. He'd tire soon, and then Eirenaios would have his head. And then a portal appeared behind his fleet. Storm Herald pushed through, her hull gleaming in the light of the local sun.

Eirenaios had anticipated that Leon's fleet was on the way, but he'd estimated much more time would be needed if Leon had sallied out alone. That estimate was almost mockingly torn asunder as more and more portals appeared, and arks poured through them.

Again, the beast's superior jump drives were put on display as they appeared almost perfectly in formation, with hardly any drift to be seen—a feat made more impressive by the tightness of the formation, with only a few hundred feet between arks rather than thousands that traditional tactics demanded. He barely had time to register the new arrivals before they accelerated all around him, moving to surround his fleet, which in turn had surrounded Leon Raime and one of Eirenaios' detachments.

His chest tightened, his heart almost seizing with shock. But he'd been in dire situations before, and he didn't lose his mind to panic. He began giving orders, ordering his fleet to turn and respond. It would be mauled, but most of the arks in it weren't his, and he had only brought as many arks from his personal fleet on Antipatra's expedition as he felt comfortable losing. Mid-order, his ark was wracked with an explosion, one that seemed to squeeze Eirenaios' mind and sent the magic in his body into disarray.

Agony shot through every nerve, but his body seized up, and he couldn't even scream. A glance inward noted that the defenses he'd placed around his soul realm had been assaulted by that power, but they'd held—barely. The same couldn't be said for much of the rest of his crew, let alone the rest of his fleet. This explosion—undoubtedly the same which had hit them in Leon Raime's first ambush—crippled more than a hundred arks, and damaged almost a hundred more.

Aristarchos' portion of the fleet was hit particularly hard, and the Despot's dreadnought, drifting listlessly in the Void, driven only by its momentum, slammed into its neighbor, which hadn't even tried to respond. The smaller cruiser was crushed while several decks of Aristarchos' dreadnought crumpled inward. Feeling returned slowly, and by then, Leon Raime's fleet was already opening fire with their cannons.

They'd almost completely surrounded his fleet, and while most of his arks were able to respond, they'd once again been caught aiming in the wrong direction. Hundreds were damaged, if not crippled or destroyed, before they'd turned their main cannons against the new arrivals. In a single exchange, Leon Raime's fleet acquired numerical superiority. Eirenaios watched with horror, knowing that at this point, this fleet was lost.

All that he could do now was to sacrifice as many pieces as he had remaining to ensure his own escape. While this campaign had been decidedly less than glorious, and no songs would be sung of his flight from the battlefield, he at least had to ensure that knowledge of what Leon Raime had done to Antipatra and her forces had to get out. That, at least, he could still do for mankind…