When the first spell blasted my scutum, it felt like I was getting hit with a maul. The rectangular shield painfully bit into the hand that held it, shaking with the impact. In fact, had the defensive weapon or the limb holding onto it been real, made of normal materials, I suspect neither would have come unscathed out of the clash. After all, for all that the Legio’s men had been fierce and well trained, me included, human means can only go so far. And what we were currently doing amounted to trying to stop a few cannonballs with handheld shields.

Thankfully, my Skill wasn’t just about summoning the Echoes as they had been in life. No. As long as the Testudo was going, everything in it was empowered by the totality of the centuria. Every man, every shield, every sword, and every piece of armor, as strong as a hundred! Protected by the shields in our tortoise formation, the spectral legionnaires by my sides seemed almost dismissive of the magic coming our way.

After successfully enduring the first spell, the Testudo split in two, each half advancing on one of the mages. A couple of problems became immediately evident at that moment.

For one, despite the several hints of emotion, my troops didn’t really seem to have a will of their own. Or, if they did, they weren’t free to act upon it. Whatever the case, I had to divide my attention to personally control the whole military unit. Somehow, if I focused on it, I could shift my perspective to encompass the entire centuria and its surroundings in my mind’s eye. I didn’t know if that would be enough, though. The specters could follow simple mental commands well enough, but anything beyond ‘take formation, hold shield’ would require my active input. Dividing the unit in two, and having them act separately, felt a bit like trying to write different things with both hands at once. Still, I felt like I could probably somehow manage.

The other, slight problem was that the Testudo formation was comparatively slow, and neither of the mages seemed to be courageous or dim-witted enough to charge at us or get anywhere near melee range. For every step my lads and I took, the sorcerers seemed to gain two, effortlessly keeping their distance as they prepared their next spells.

Thankfully, the Skill I was using did propose at least a partial solution for that.

“Pila!”

Expanded as my perception was, I could hardly tell if the words had come out of ‘my’ lips, or everyone’s. It proved effective anyway. At once, on both groups, about half the legionnaires temporarily lowered their shields.

That made the formation temporarily vulnerable, true. But it wasn’t wanton. Barely an instant after the first shield came down, a good twenty spears were thrown at both mages. Need it be said? The hands behind each weapon had also borrowed the strength of a hundred men.

And Pila had another function...

As the weapons whistled through the air, shining in a gray light, one of the mages gestured with his hands. Promptly, my eyes caught a purple flash from within his tunic. Then, a glistening wall of Pneuma appeared around him. The first spear came shortly after.

As soon as it met the wall, several things happened at once.

First, the spear broke. It had managed to partially penetrate the defensive spell but, in the process, something in it seemed to give. About half of its metallic head got embedded into the arcane bulwark, leaving the wooden shaft behind it hanging from a partially severed socket. Somehow, at least for the instant it lasted, the image gave an impression of forlorn hope. Until the broken weapon suddenly vanished, that is. As did the entire section of the conjured wall it was attached to, in a radius of a meter or so around its point.

Similar scenes took place again, five or six more times, within the next second.

Thanks to the sacrifice of their vanguard, though, the spears that remained had no trouble reaching their original target.

Congratulations! By single-handedly defeating a foe belonging to a higher League than yours, you have significantly improved your own standing.

Congratulations! By plundering the Essence of your fallen foes, you have improved your own standing.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Magical nature or not, struck by over a dozen spears that might as well have been bolts fired by a ballista, the man died before what was left of his body even hit the ground.

Things hadn’t gone quite as well on the other side, though.

The second mage -incidentally, the one my physical body was going after- had proven either smarter or luckier than his companion. Whatever the case, instead of trying to face the projectiles head-on, he had taken to the skies.

Fucking cheater.

I could only resentfully glare at the tiny dot that the conjurer had become, up high, even as he was surrounded by a rapidly growing cloud of ominous Pneuma. I had no experience with spell casting, nor being able to see Pneuma, for that matter. Still, the raging mass of crackling, sickly purplish energy was worrying, to say the least. Something told me that my Testudo would not be proving quite as effective against it as it had with its predecessor.

Why the mage hadn’t resorted to that strategy from the get-go was beyond me. I hardly had the luxury to worry about the reasoning behind it, anyway.

What the fuck do I do now...

What did concern me was that, back on Earth, there had been a reason why air supremacy had changed the entire concept of war. And my ghostly legionari were hardly equipped to deal with aerial threats...

Well, there’s no use wishing I’d gotten legionnaires from the FFL rather than the Imperivs... Not like the Skill let me choose what I’d summon.

Technically, I guessed we could hurl the remaining spears far enough, and they’d even probably have enough momentum left to prove dangerous. The problem was doing so and still having a decent chance at scoring a hit. While we might have enough magical muscle to forcefully power through part of the problem, there was no magical aiming to go along with it.

And, there were only so many pila left. My Skill provided each of the summoned legionnaires with a single spear. There would be no more until I dismissed the current instance of the Skill and used it again. Which, of course, I couldn’t do for the time being. Just the one time had almost completely depleted my newly established internal reserves of Pneuma.

The small sphere I could now feel behind my brow, which I assumed marked where my connection with Zekhron hids, was still metaphorically gasping for breath. What little Pneuma I could gather with my own breathing was actively being consumed to keep the Skill going.

No cover to run to either...

Never mind that I could hardly imagine myself outrunning someone who was fucking flying. I didn’t know exactly what was on the menu, but anything that could get through the Testudo would certainly obliterate any of the isolated, squat trees around. The tall grass everywhere didn’t look particularly helpful, either.

Even as I felt the sword of Damocles above my head growing ever bigger, my mental eye scanned the troops, looking for a solution. Any solution.

‘Feel kinda sorry for their memory, but should I have the lads stand on top of each other and use them as mea-

“O Flame, rage!”

I didn’t get to finish the idea.

A familiar voice, in a very much unfamiliar, transcendent tone, cut me off at that moment. I could hardly believe that the sound had come out of a human throat.

“Downfall of Conflagration!”

As soon as the voice stopped echoing, accompanied by a thundering explosion, a tornado of white, roaring flames descended from the skies. A glaring pillar of burning light, as tall as a skyscraper, engulfed everything within my sight.

Half-blind and half-deaf, I hurried to huddle behind my shield, as well as I could. I desperately clung to the ground, staying as close to it as I could, both to make myself a smaller target and to better brave the veritable cyclone that ensued. The specters by my side helped in my efforts. Stabbing their shields into the ground, they took formed around me, for additional support. My erst companions lent me the strength and resilience that had belonged to them when they were still breathing.

Aside from attempting to endure as best as I could, though, the only thing I could do was stare in awe at the forces at play. At least until even that became too tall of a task, and I was forced to lay down and hide. Whatever the flames were, they were obviously not targeting me. Still, it almost felt like the gods themselves had descended upon the world, just to unleash their wrath upon us sinners. Not unlike the feeling I had gotten the first time I faced a rabid thunderstorm. Only, this time, I knew for certain that there were no gods involved. It was not the capricious work of mother Nature, either.

Thankfully, the arcane conflagration was as spectacular as it was short-lived. The winds only buffeted us for less than a minute. It took longer for me to finally decide to abandon what little protection my position offered, though. When I finally did, my eyes scanned the steppe, and what was left of it around me. Nothing but glass and molten rock, for a hundred meters. Of course, there was not even a speck left of my enemy either.

There was however an ancient witch standing there, not too far from me, her ragged breath the only evidence of her outrageous handiwork.

Slowly, she walked closer. With an inscrutable expression, her eyes roamed over my summoned troops. Eventually, she came to a stop, right before me. Her pupils scanned my face, then, they settled on my actual face, the childish one hiding behind ethereal flesh and armor.

Raising an eyebrow, a single word left her lips.

“Explain.”

“I...“

Perhaps it was weakness. Or just me feeling tired. Whatever the case, after stealing another glance at the devastation surrounding us, I dismissed my Skill. The centuria vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. For once, I didn’t feel particularly inclined to play silly games.