Chương 188: Chapter 263 - A Test of Power

The artillery waited a dozen heartbeats while the Akanas passed through the pre-sighted areas. Then they opened fire, airburst shells spitting out lightning, fire, and magnetic pulses that thundered across the sky. Shields lit up all around. Two battleskiffs plummeted to the ground, trailing smoke and bursting with multicolored fire, but most of the attackers absorbed the opening barrage. Mirian was already in the dervish form of the Dusk Waves to speed up her casting.

She sent an illusionary army up above her, casting total camouflage as she did. The Akanan retaliation happened a moment later: skiffs opened up with their own light artillery, while the Sorcerer Elite and archmages sent out beams of fire, streaks of lightning, and massive force blades. Some of them targeted the artillery positions that had just been revealed, but many of them aimed at the illusions. As I suspected. I am the primary operational target.

With their overwhelming numbers, the Akanans would be able to absorb the artillery fire—even at heavy losses—and simply directly target Baracuel's remaining guns. Once those were wiped out, Mirian wouldn't have any support, and she could be isolated. That meant she needed to introduce as much friction as she could so that their battle plan became more and more difficult to follow. If they had the advantage of firepower, then she needed to take advantage of her mobility.

Mirian sped forward with supreme levitation, keeping low to the ground. There were small gaps in the pre-sighted artillery boxes where her own guns wouldn't be firing, and that was where she headed now. As dispel light spells ate up her illusion spell, Mirian released it and made her way beneath the central squadron of airships and sorcerers. Her attack would not be unexpected.

Already, the Akanans had learned to use divination to detect her lightning sorties, so there was only a brief moment between when she charged forward and when the Sorcerer Elite began to form up in a defensive posture, new layers of shields forming. She cast black shield a moment before the skiffs above started peppering the shattered farmlands below with shells in an attempt to saturate the area. They'd be best prepared for her lightning spells, but they'd have every energy type covered—except one.

She'd seen orichalcum armor on the Sorcerer Elite, but not on the archmages or the airship crews. She started with them, casting mental fog in quick succession on the single archmage in the group, as well as the pilots and gunners. Her shield absorbed a direct hit from one of the smaller artillery shells, turning the shell black momentarily. As shrapnel and blast waves hit it again and again, arcane energy built up around her, which she used to blink right up into the midst of the formation.

There was a brief moment of disorientation as the Akanans looked around wildly for her. Mirian started by using magnetic detonation on a nearby airship, targeting the spell engine. Then, as the skiff's shield failed, she grabbed onto it with lift object and hurled it right at the formation of Sorcerer Elite. Force barriers flared and cracked as the airship smashed into the group, but even as they broke, the airship's course was deflected so that it only hit two of the Akanans.

The two it did hit crumpled immediately, and Mirian saw their auras burst apart as their souls began to dissolve. They'd died instantly. Mirian wrapped the souls of the dead sorcerers and crew in bindings, siphoning the soul energy so that she could cast black line. The spear of shadow ripped into two more of the Sorcerer Elites, though with the orichalcum protecting them, it didn't kill them, just deadened and sheared off chunks of soul energy that would make them wish they were dead.

With the pilots and gunners disoriented by her curse, she only had to contend with eight of the elites and whatever battlemages were on the skiffs. As the formation broke apart, they retaliated, sending dozens of high intensity spells at her. She heard the crack of magebane rifles as orichalcum bullets ripped through the sky. Mirian's black shield held, though she could feel the drain of it intensifying.

She used the arcane energy she was peeling off their spells to create a major illusion —a replica of one of their own airships, crew included. She focused, adding an illusionary speech component.

"She's mind controlled the other crews!" the illusionary captain shouted in Eskinar, and then it opened fire. Miran used glyphs to move her spells through the fourth dimension so that they appeared to originate from that airship and had it shoot down one of the battleskiffs. Then she blinked away, dismissing her shield and using total camouflage to hide again. Not all the Akanans she'd cursed were fooled, but enough of them were.

Cursing their thoughts made them more prone to embrace strong emotions like fear before their rational minds could catch up, and several crew members started firing not just at the illusionary airship, but at each other, interpreting the gunfire that was passing right through the construction of light as attacks from other skiffs. Mirian sent a remote speech message to her own nearby gun batteries: "Swap from target group one to target group two. Now."

There wouldn't be an acknowledgment; she was too distant and moving too fast for the relatively weaker mages to reply. There was a pause in the Baracueli guns as the crews worked to redirect them, and then they started shooting airbursts at the area Mirian had just attacked. More skiffs and sorcerers fell from the sky. Meanwhile, she was already heading to the next group, levitating fast just above the ground.

Once more, Mirian repeated the tactics, sending the attacking companies into chaos, using curses and illusions in place of direct attacks. Two more battleskiffs plummeted, trailing smoke, and she was able to kill or grievously curse four more Sorcerer Elites. By then, whoever was directing the Akanan strategy had directed two companies to assist the center.

Mirian sped away—this time high in the sky so that their guns they'd directed to fire towards the ground were hitting nothing—but her disruptions weren't as effective. Two companies worth of intensified shield spells wrapped around the group, deadening the artillery barrage from the ground. Meanwhile, two Baracueli strongpoints had been devastated by precision fire at close range, and the artillery pieces were now wrecks, the crews dead.

Several more groups had moved unopposed, and the battleskiffs were now hovering over Bainrose Castle as the Sorcerer Elite groups and archmages made short work of the remaining defenders. Their second objective, Mirian knew. The defense was crumbling too fast. She needed to hold them longer while the preparations on the other side of the Gate finalized.

She'd put up barricades and collapsed passages in the underground so that the Gate was harder to get to, but the Akanans had enough spellpower that such obstructions wouldn't last long. Mirian sped back to the castle, recasting black shield as she dropped her camouflage, then assumed her own dervish form, Burning Tempest. The foray into the Akanan ranks had given her a new burst of soul energy to work with.

She coated her next spell with it, then sent a full power greater chain lightning at the battleskiffs above the castle. If anyone on the battlefield hadn't known where she was, they did now. If they didn't, it was because they were temporarily blinded. The bolts lit up the sky and the earth shook with the thunder as the lightning smashed into the lead airship.

It leapt from ship to ship, cutting right through the spell engine-projected grounding and force shields, igniting fossilized myrvite as the engines were shattered so that bursts of arcane energy sizzled above Bainrose. The spell was specifically targeted at the airships, but the electrical energy unleashed, once escaped from its arcane origin, followed mundane laws. It forked in every direction.

Some of it stabbed into the parapets of the castle, but other bolts found their way down into the Akanan assault teams—and through them, into the defenders. Mirian didn't wait, she rushed forward towards the castle, levitating fast enough she left currents in the air behind her, visible by the way it swirled the columns of smoke. As she entered Bainrose through a hole in some of the rubble, the burning husks of the airships started impacting the ground, and the earth trembled.

With her soul sight, she looked back through the solid stone. Another wave of attackers were coming, this one including the archmages. However, while the Akanans might have maps of the maze-like castle and its underground passages, Mirian knew them like she knew the 1st of Solem, knew them like she knew those first flakes falling on the 12th, knew them like she knew the magical wave of Divir shattering on the planet. These old catacombs would become these Akanans' graves.

She landed among a group of surviving Baracueli defenders.

"Retreat to the second line of defenses," she commanded, then turned to prepare for the next phase of the assault. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. * Archmage Tyrcast blinked away the afterimage of the lighting spell he'd just seen, then abruptly realized his mouth was hanging open and closed it.

"Ominian's blood," he swore, then levitated over to the nearby airship. He wondered if the Sorcerer Elite were reconsidering their decision not to hand over the orichalcum to the archmages. Whatever. He wouldn't be one of the archmages leading the suicidal assault into the death trap below the castle. He had other instructions.

"Tell me you got myr readings on those spells," he said to one of the crew members. The man was looking pale.

"S-sir archmage, ah, w-we did, only… only…"

"Spit it out."

"The detector seems to have hit its maximum t-threshold at 125 myr. B-but…" Magnus Tyrcast ground his teeth and flew away, muttering, "Idiot." Obviously a reading hitting the maximum threshold couldn't be trusted. They'd been advised that the Heretic Prophet would be casting beyond standard myr detector range. Tyrcast had then explained to the military artificers how to make an open-ended myr detector. It wasn't that bloody hard. Of course they hadn't listened. If you want a job done right…

Fortunately, Tyrcast had access to artificers that were actually competent at his own company, and had mandated double-shifts for a week in order to make sure this expedition was properly prepared. He landed on his own skiff, maintaining a grounding and force shield spell just as an extra precaution. They had shield engines running, but he'd seen just how effective those were. His assistant looked up.

"Sir Archmage," he said, standing.

"I assume my device fared better than that military dreck. What are the readouts?"

"For some reason, some of the spells weren't registering. That strange anti-light spell, for example, didn't show up." That would be the necromancy we were warned about, Tyrcast thought, but didn't interrupt.

"Most of the spells we caught were between 100 myr and 110. The levitation spell, we're not sure… the arcanometer had trouble tracking her, and someone will have to do some math to weigh the force component versus the antigravity component." Sustained 110 myr among multiple spells, while slinging them out with that kind of speed? Ridiculous. Impossible. Yes, a pact with the Heretic Gods must be the explanation. No wonder the Ominian raised a new Prophet. That's not natural.

"Yes, very good. You know what spell I'm interested in, though." Behind them, Tyrcast heard the echo of explosions. He glanced down over the railing. They were high enough above Torrviol that they had a premier view of the battlefield. From where the smoke was now trailing up, he guessed another Baracueli artillery battery had just been silenced. The assistant swallowed, nervously glancing out at the battlefield, then down at the device. He handed Tyrcast the table of recorded numbers. Tyrcast stared at it.

"You checked the calibration of the device?"

"We're checking it again, Archmage. Sir."

"Good. Do so. Both of you, help him. Then I'll look over your work myself." He wasn't going to let anyone's incompetence mar his report. As his assistant and artificers scrambled to check the glyph sequences, he turned his back to them and leaned over the railing. He glanced over at one of the sorcerers who was maintaining an active divination spell to make sure the Heretic Prophet didn't sneak up on them. More spellbombs went off, and a chunk of the ruined Torrian Tower cracked apart.

He saw the flash of guns down below in the town, but those would be destroyed soon enough. And he'd feel a lot better when they were. There were more rumblings, but these were muffled. Then a portion of the street east of the plaza crumbled as a passage collapsed in on itself. More explosions echoed out, and Tyrcast saw the rubble of Bainrose's western wall jump slightly from an explosion deep underground. He was glad he wasn't down there.

The minutes ticked by as his artificers worked, then true to his word, he began inspecting the glyphs himself. Early in his career, he'd been down on the factory floor with his glyph pen, so he was no stranger to the work. These days, he usually sketched out the designs and did more conceptual work than details, but artifice was in his bones. He was rusty, but he hadn't forgotten.

"Hmm," he said, testing the energies of another sequence. Finally, he closed the outer casing, not satisfied, but not able to actually find anything wrong with the detector. He stood, looking grim. For a time, he just looked at the smoldering rubble below. It didn't look much like a town anymore. Then he cleared his throat.

"Very well. We'll include the full details of the readouts, including that last one. Send the report immediately. We can always send a follow-up." Tyrcast was no stranger to finding his way into the good graces of those with power. It was, after all, how he'd come to lead Rosen Industries. He just hoped the True Prophet appreciated truth. Not everyone in power did. He had contingencies, though.

He could always say that a later analysis with proper equipment showed the detector was faulty, or that fossilized myrvite dust had gotten into the divination compartment. Until then, though… He shook his head. 171 myr. A full 21 myr higher than Archmage Solvir. God's blood, I hope we brought enough men to finish the job. As the minutes dragged on, more Sorcerer Elites and archmages assembled around the castle. The Heretic Prophet's allies had either fled or been silenced.

Even with that kind of power, a person could only have so much mana. They'd have control of the Divine Weapon soon enough. Down below, two columns of spell carts were making their way through the cratered farmland, with the first ones having arrived sometime during his personal inspection of the myr detector. Through the haze, he could see them setting up shield engines, anti-mage guns, and defensive positions. The airships were gathered in clusters around the different places one might exit the underground.

Apparently, the RID had mapped the whole place, so there'd be no escape for the woman. He watched as more and more magebane rifles were set up around the town. His small cluster of airships stayed high above, ready to act as reinforcements to any regiment that needed it. As the fighting dragged on below the surface, Tyrcast repeatedly checked in with his communications officer on the ship. From what he was hearing, the skirmishing down there was intense.

Tyrcast started doing estimated auric mana calculations in his head based on the number of spells reported and their intensity, then stopped. The numbers he was getting were too high. No one had auric mana like that. She should be exhausted by now. After hours of intense fighting, days of losing more mana than she regenerated… this shouldn't be possible. He frowned and started going back over his numbers. He was already thinking about how to phrase a second report. Then, he heard the grinding of stone.

Not an explosion, but a low rumble. He looked down. The plaza in front of Bainrose Castle was moving. That didn't make sense. He blinked, trying to understand what he was looking at. The fountain had been split in half, and the flagstones were raining down into a gaping pit as they were scraped off some sort of solid steel construction just beneath. The soldiers and mages below were shouting and running. Tyrcast watched as one of the artillery pieces and the two men by it fell into the growing pit.

Another only just made it as the flagstones beneath his feet vanished. Two of the archmages were levitating away. Then, he saw the glow below. There was something down in that dark shaft, rising to the surface. Archmage Tyrcast watched in fascination. A few enterprising soldiers opened fire at it, but the glow continued to grow. Then he gasped. He could feel the ambient mana touching his aura shifting, all in reaction to the thing below. The Divine Weapon, he realized. It was a sphere exuding a wondrous glow.

Whatever arcane power it was using, he could feel that too, even at this distance. As it finished rising into the plaza, the platform it was on snapped into place, replacing the plaza. There was no sign of the dead soldiers. Tyrcast put up a lens spell to get a closer look. That's strange. It looks like a distorted picture of a jungle. He squinted. Are those myrvites in the jungle? No, they can't be. They're too big.

They— Then his stomach dropped as the divine object below glowed brighter, and one of the beasts he'd glimpsed charged through. It was a colossal thing, only just able to fit through the sphere. It had gray flesh covered in eyes and vestigial wings, with six trunk-like legs and dozens of tusks emerging from its horrifying face. Tyrcast had only heard such a thing described in books; those who actually saw them didn't tend to live to tell the tale. A lesser titan.

All of a sudden, there was a flare of magical energy and all the shield engines went dead.

"What just happened?" Tyrcast snapped.

"I don't know, Sir Archmage." The grounding spell was still up, as well as the absorb heat, but Tyrcast had felt his own force shield ripped away. Below, he heard gunfire erupting as the soldiers started firing, but when he looked through his lens spell, the bullets weren't even reaching the target before they slowed and dropped to the ground. The lesser titan let out a roar, loud enough it made Tyrcast shiver. Then it charged into a group of soldiers, and Tyrcast tore his gaze away.

He could hear the screams, even from up here.

"Oh shit," his assistant said, and Tyrcast couldn't help himself. He looked again. His heart started hammering harder. Two more lesser titans had just charged through. A bloody family of them.

"Oh shit," he repeated.

"Shoot it. Shoot it! Fire at will!" The artillery cannon on the skiff shot off, but once again, the projectile slowed as it approached the rampaging myrvites. It detonated in a burst of flame, but only near them. One of the lesser titans roared, but even the burst of an artillery shell hadn't deterred it. Two nearby archmages began peppering the beasts, but even their spells were insufficient.

The myrvites crashed through the rubble, plucking soldiers up with bone spikes that grew from their flesh, stuffing them into the maws, then sucking up the active glyphs on the artillery. One of them even began to eat the fossilized myrvite that was coming out. Another simply ate one of the artillery shells straight out of the ammunition crate. The spell wagons seemed stuck. Everyone was scrambling to retreat, but they'd filled the damn place with soldiers and guns.

Then, as the lesser titans rampaged through the column of spell wagons, Tyrcast saw more movement on the other side of the Weapon. A huge snake-like creature covered in carapace burst through, face like a monstrous mask of bone. It screeched, then charged towards a group of arcanists that the lesser titans had ignored. More greater myrvites. Tyrcast felt cold. His voice sounded distant to himself.

"Run. Retreat. Get us the five hells out of here. Now!" As the ship pulled away, the screams faded, but Magnus Tyrcast could still hear them.