Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:33

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

“Hmm… It seems as if the Pine forces are struggling…” an adjutant spoke

“Well, that is only to be expected,” General Merrick responded even as he kept his eyes locked on the battle still underway.

“It is?”

“Greater Elementals are around Rank 7 to Rank 8, but that comes mostly from their durability. Even if the Pines were able to outpower it, killing it would still be difficult.”

General Merrick’s voice was the only real sound within the open tent. When the battle had begun, he had dispatched different commanders to cover the two flanks and the center, and the Cardinal from the Temple of Mercy had left to help in one of the many field hospitals that had been set up. That left only himself, High Priest Brent, Brigadier General Tac, and Ambassador Zhou An to reside as the senior staff in the command tent. The two generals both had several adjutants, High Priest Brent had a few acolytes, and the man from the Empire brought along two servants that were likely bodyguards too.

But with the Capital falling into danger, General Merrick had sent the dwarven general and the human priest to go assist, leaving only himself, his half of the adjutants, the ambassador, and the two foreign servants.

Furthermore, the command tent had largely done its job, the actual running of the battle was being handled by the three sub-commanders.

Even Lord Xavier, who should have been in the tent, had retired to a smaller one nearby where he was reportedly sitting alone in the dark. General Merrick had had zero interaction with him once they arrived at the Berzin Hills, Lord Xavier had even refused to allow guards near him, and had also refused to have an adjutant keep him abreast of the situation. The General did not even know if Lord Xavier had been informed about the state of the Capital.

“I see…” The adjutant said hesitantly after a moment’s delay.

“There is more to it than that of course,” The general then added, “The Pines sent three Rank 7s, but all three are mages, an Arcanist, an Elementalist, and a Druid. Druids are not known for their offensive might, and my understanding is that the Pine Family’s Arcanist focuses more on utilitarian spells, barriers, scrying, enchanting, that type of thing.”

“Then, are they not in trouble?”

“I doubt it, if they were, Brigadier General Mindy would have made some changes to the formation. Since she hasn’t, things must be going according to plan.” He said with confidence, a confidence that originated from his trust in his subordinates.

“Oh, you are right. Now that you mention it, it looks as if the Pines are fighting the Greater Elemental while still maintaining the overall defensive line.” The adjutant said as he nodded his head in understanding.

Hearing that, the General did not consider the matter dropped but instead frowned and shot the adjutant a glance out of the corner of his eyes.

General Merrick knew his strengths and his weaknesses. He was an administrator, not a warrior, not a tactician, and certainly not a strategist. His ability to understand the flow of a battle was barely above what an amateur could comprehend. To compensate for that, his subordinates were all highly skilled officers that had studied extensively in the different military doctrines.

If the General could understand the state of the right flank where the Pines were engaged, then it was impossible that his adjutant was unable to do the same.

“General, actually…” The man said, his voice quiet as he stepped a bit closer, “there is… something bothering me.”

His adjutant’s eyes swiftly scanned the room, lingering on the trio of the ambassador and his two servants before coming back to the general.

“What is it?” General Merrick asked, his voice equally low.

“The report we received about the Capitol, something has been bothering me,” He began, “We haven’t heard anything else yet, have we?”

“No, not yet. The Spirit Familiar spell takes some time to cast, and while the Familiar is fast itself, it still needs to travel, it is not instant. Why?”

“That is,” the adjutant hesitated for a second before mustering his resolve and pressing on, “The message said that Major General Warren had died in battle, but that Brigadier General Abe was missing. The Brigadier General, he was stationed on the west wall if I recall.”

General Merrick’s gaze over the battlefield became unfocused as he searched through his memories, and what he found validated his adjutant’s words. Major General Warren had taken over for Brigadier General Jayce, who was temporarily serving as his second in command on the south wall. Brigadier General Abe was stationed on the west wall while Brigadier General Tio was on the east. And Colonel Boris had taken over for the commander of the north wall who was currently bedridden with an illness.

“They must have arrived from the south and overrun the defenses there, Warren dying in battle is only to be expected. Abe must have moved his forces to assist…”

"Yes, that is what I thought at first too, but… Major General Warren falling in battle makes sense, but why is Brigadier General Abe reported as missing in action?”

General Merrick’s attention on the battle wavered even more as he thought about it. If the Brigadier General had been killed, then it would have been reported as such. A report of missing in action would mean that he was engaged with the enemy, and then contact with him was lost, his status wasn’t known. No, even that was not right. If he was still leading forces, but contact was lost, the report would have just indicated that they were not able to communicate with him, Missing in action would only be used if there was a decent chance he was dead or captured.

“What do we know about Brigadier General Abe?” He asked instead.

“The Brigadier General is old, in his seventies, He is a by-the-books officer, he tends to be defensive but is also overly cautious.” The adjutant replied, the words required no thought which indicated he had already considered this.

The western wall commander was missing in action and the southern wall commander was dead, but they had received no information about the easter or northern walls. Logically speaking, Riversdale was to the southeast of the capital, if the Elemental’s were a human army, they would have attacked from the southeast almost directly, there were no major geographic features, man-made or natural, that would have hindered them. If what they assumed was true, that the Elementals got lost and distracted by hunting down merchants in the woods surrounding the capital, then it was reasonable to think they would have arrived from somewhere other than the direct southeast.

Since the southern wall commander had been killed and the eastern commander was apparently still alive, it should be the case that the Elementals arrived from the south instead of the southeast.

The more he thought about it, the more he was convinced something was wrong.

Why was the western commander missing, while the eastern was presumably fine? And how did the western commander end up missing in the first place? For a man who was a textbook officer who focused on defense, how would he have overextended badly enough that being reported as missing in action was possible?

Furthermore, the southern wall was being heavily fortified in the event that their army here, at the Berzin Hills, was defeated. The southern wall would be the final line of defense, and it was being built up to do that. The southern wall had nearly five times as many defenders as the western and eastern walls, not to mention the barely defended northern wall. Considering that, if the southern wall were to be breached, it would make even less sense for a defensive and overly cautious general with a large amount of experience to end up missing in action.

In fact, the mere fact that the southern wall was overrun, made little sense. The host that destroyed Riversdale lacked the numbers to break through the southern wall, at least this quickly. Even if there was a Greater Elemental mixed in, the wall would not have suffered such a quick end, and the fact that Major General Warren had fallen in battle was even more unlikely.

“General, I think the Elementals might have attacked from the west, and not the south.” His adjutant suddenly proposed.

“That… No, that is impossible.” He lightly shook his head in denial at the man’s words, “It might explain the report we received, if the western wall was attacked, Abe might have been overrun and would be missing in action, and Warren could have moved in to assist before being killed without the aid of the defenses, but there is no way the Elementals could have circumvented the city with the time they had. In fact, they couldn’t do that in the first place, once they sensed the capital, they would have charged right towards it.”

“Sir, that is not exactly true.” The adjutant spoke hesitantly again, “Based on the speed we’ve seen the Elementals use, if they went in a direct line from where we lost sight of them to the western wall, they might have been able to make it according to the necessary timetable.”

“Yes, if they were a human force, they could push themselves and rush there, maybe.” General Merrick finally took his eyes off of the battle and looked at his adjutant, “But they are not human. What you are suggesting is that they moved with a purpose, that they wanted to attack from the west for some reason. Elementals do not move with a purpose, they are mindless. It is not possible.”

“That is, well…”

“Besides, there is nothing we can do about it. We’ve already spared whatever we can to send to the Capital’s aid, even if they have attacked from the west, even if there was some purpose to this move, it is out of our hands. We can only wait for a report from the defenders, and hope that they hold out long enough that we can finish here and then return to assist them.”

“Yes Sir, I understand.”

“Good,” The general then looked back over the battlefield, “That said, while we cannot send a Spirit Familiar to ask for additional information, I want you to get a hand on any incoming messages first, and report to me personally. We do not need the command tent thrown into chaos again in case something does happen. And, with our present company included, we might want to keep some details back.”

“Yes sir!” the man started to salute, but then realized he should keep his actions hidden and stopped, “I will get right on-”

HHHWWWAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAARMMMM!!!!

His adjutant froze, the others froze, Ambassador Zhou An froze, even General Merrick froze.

That horn should have only been sounded when a Greater Elemental appeared, but it was sounding right now.

The largest and most destructive Elemental Overflows through all of History, generally would contain only two Greater Elementals, and these Overflows were incredibly rare, occurring only once every hundred to two hundred years. While some Overflows that contained only one Greater Elemental, or sometimes even none of them, would still do great damage, that usually stemmed from the failures on the defender’s side, and not from the power of the Overflow itself.

But, the chronicles of ages past occasionally spoke of Overflows where three Greater Elementals appeared. Never more than three, never four, but even then, an Overflow with three Elementals was an event that destroyed nations, that changed the landscape, that caused incalculable damage to society and civilization.

The last time such an Overflow occurred, was over four thousand years ago.

But as the people within the command tent watched the ten-foot tall spider of ice leisurely skate across the snow as it headed towards the center army, they realized that an Overflow from the legends was currently happening.

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Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:35

Royal Army Western Line, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Guardian Knight Carla Redwood.

Carla’s large shield, covered with a layer of dull yellow mana that indicated her proficiency with earth magic, crashed into the trunk of a tree-shaped Elemental. The frozen tree, already having been peppered with a few ranged magic attacks, shattered under the blow. The top half, with its few bare branches, did a flip through the air before landing into the mud, the bottom with its legs made of mobile roots simply fell sideways before it started to melt.

“Wasn’t that the horn for a Greater Elemental?” Lala Redwood, one of the Guardian Knights in charge of Pamela Pine asked.

“Maybe? Who knows?” Abby Redwood, Carla’s temporary partner said offhandedly.

“Doesn’t matter, we need to fall back since this place is secure for now. We’ll catch our breaths before another group comes in.” Pammy Redwood, the other of Pamela Pine’s two Guardian Knights, responded as she adjusted her grip on her spiked morningstar.

“Yes, let's do that,” Lala said, even as she started backpedaling away from the front line.

“I would have liked to smash a few more of these icy bastards, but a rest sounds good too.” Abby chimed in as she hefted her huge warhammer between her two hands, but even she was showing signs of fatigue.

The four of them steadily fell back, making their way back to where the defensive line, that the army had set up, was located. Sporadic fire from mages and siege weapons landed around the area they were vacating, but the intensity was now much lower. The bulk of the ranged support was being sent towards the massive snake-like Greater elemental a few hundred feet away, a Greater Elemental that was locked in a grueling battle with the bulk of the Pine Family’s forces.

Commander Tale had split them up, the Rank 6 warriors were to hold it back while the high ranking mages finished it off with spellfire. While they did that, the rest of them that were not strong enough to contend with the Greater Elemental were sent to cover the areas that the main army had given up when the Greater Elemental had shown up.

Unfortunately, the plan was, for the most part, not working. As it turned out, the plan relied on the Greater Elemental engaging the Rank 6 warriors in combat and then getting locked down there so the mages could attack at their leisure. But, for whatever reason, the Greater Elemental was not interested in those warriors, instead, it was intent on going after the main army. It constantly moved down the front line, throwing the defenders into even greater disarray and forcing those Rank 6 warriors to chase it down and try to distract it.

They did enough to prevent it from rampaging through the defense lines, but not enough to prevent the defense lines from being forced to flee. The main army then had to divert the ranged attacks towards the Greater Elemental to keep it boxed in as much as possible. While that was successful, and the snakelike Elemental was now prevented from messing up the rest of the defenses, it also meant that the supporting fire that was the linchpin of the main defense had dried up.

The lower ranking Pine forces now not only had to cover the wider area that had been cleaned out, but they had to support the remaining regular soldiers who were not getting the expected support fire.

The only saving grace was the fact that the Pine forces generally were all higher Ranks than what the main army was fielding. The lowest of them were Ranked at the peak of Rank 4, but the majority were Rank 5. Not only that, but the Pine forces all had superior equipment. Lala, Pamela Pine’s ebony skinned Guardian Knight was wearing leather armor while using a wooden shield and a simple short spear with a wooden shaft. But, her armor came from a drake that the Pine Family had hunted down, and was heavily enchanted. The wood that made up the spear and the shield was from an Elder Treant, and the simple looking speartip was not iron or steel, but was Adamantine. And of course, both the shield and spear were enchanted, just like the armor.

“Carla? Are you alright?” Pammy asked as she came closer.

“Hmm, I'm fine,” Carla responded to her friend.

“Are you sure? You look… a bit out of it.”

“I am… just thinking about something.”

“Not good to let your mind wander in battle,” Abby interjected from the side, “It is a good way to end up dead.”

Abby’s words were blunt and to the point, just as the woman herself was. But, they were not wrong, and Carla knew that.

“...” She was going to respond, but as the four heavily armed women were passing one of the defensive platoons and were drawing a variety of looks, she decided to hold her tongue.

“Actually Carla,” Lala spoke before Carla could say anything, “Your sword is looking a bit worse for wear.”

“Ah, well that is because Carla’s sword is made from Cold Iron,” Both Abby and Pammy had looked at her blade when they heard Lala’s words, but it was Pammy who spoke up for her.

“Cold Iron? Isn’t that stuff only good for fighting the Fey?” Abby asked.

“Spirits, some Outsiders, really, anything magic, Cold Iron will work better than actual steel. If these Elementals were ones with less corporeal bodies, like Fire or Air Elementals, Cold Iron would be a better choice.” Pammy continued defending her friend.

“Still, Cold Iron is more brittle, and it does not help much against these enemies.” Abby rebutted.

“Would Meteoric Iron not work just as well?” Asked Lala.

Carla looked down at her sword, the gray blade was scuffed along the length, and a few chips were showing up along the edge. It was not in any danger of breaking, yet, but it was beginning to dull and its effectiveness as a cutting tool was already dropping somewhat heavily. Luckily, the Elementals were not an enemy to cut, but one to hack into, and a dull blade did that just fine.

“Carla learned a style to defend against magic with a sword, but it works better with Cold Iron. And Meteoric Iron is expensive.” Pammy answered on her behalf again.

Her friend was right, she had learned a style of magic for combating mages that focused on deflecting and dissipating spells. By infusing her mana into her weapons in specific ways, she could disrupt the formation of most spells, it was even effective at breaking through magical defenses. And like Pammy had said, Cold Iron’s natural resistance to magic meant that anyone who learned to use the technique while wielding a Cold Iron weapon, which was harder to do for sure, would find the skill was far more effective. The only real downside to it was that it required a fair bit of concentration, which made it ill-suited to be used in a close quarter fight. Carla could utilize it to defend against incoming attacks with a high degree of success if she was able to focus, but while engaged in a melee fight with someone else, her actual fighting skills would drop heavily if she tried to use it then.

However, her special technique that could be called a trump card, was only one of the reasons why she used this sword. The other was sentimental, her sword was granted to her when she became her Lady’s Guardian Knight five years ago.

The sword was plain, nothing special about it at all, the fact that it was both made of Cold Iron, and still managed to hold an enchantment that honed the blade made it a bit more valuable than the other basic weapons that most knights used, but when compared to Lala’s spear, Abby’s warhammer, and Pammy’s morning star, it was vastly inferior. The fact was, each of the Pine Family knights received a decent quality sword when they received their investiture as a knight, and then after they proved their worth, they would receive a second weapon that was considered their real weapon. The swords were then considered mostly ceremonial weapons.

Carla’s sword was a bit better, which required her to put off getting her real weapon from six months to three years. To be fair, Carla had high requirements for her real weapon, so even if her sword had been normal, it would have still taken around two years to acquire the extra wealth and merits that weapon would require.

Still, Carla almost never used that weapon. She could feel its weight on her back, strapped onto her armor with only the bottom of the handle peeking through the top of her cloak, but, the weapon sat unused.

She was a knight, a Guardian Knight, and knights were known for their defense, for their skill as protectors. She did not think less of Lala and Abby for wearing light armor, the fact that their weapons were not standard, or that Abby didn’t even use a shield, she would never hold this against them.

But, that was not her path, not the path of the Knight that Carla Redwood followed.

A knight used a lance when mounted, and when on foot, they used a sword and shield. That was the image of a proper knight that she sought to emulate. Because she was not a normal knight, she rarely fought mounted, so she did not have a specialized lance, but when on foot, she always used her sword and shield.

Even if her other weapon was a vastly superior one.

Even if she was more skilled with that weapon.

Even if that weapon would be a better match for her enemy.

She would only use the weapon strapped to her back if she was forced to, if the sword she so loved was unable to protect what must be protected. And since her Lady was far away from the battlefield, there would be no need to use such an uncivilized weapon.

Without a word, Carla looked down at her sword and prepared herself to use it once again.

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Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:33

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

“This is bad.” General Merrick said to no one in particular.

The spider-shaped Greater Elemental had been fighting the army for just over sixty seconds now, and everything about it was looking bad.

Unlike every other Elemental, even the other Greater Elemental, this one did not mindlessly charge into the fray looking to kill as many as possible and to wreck as much havoc as possible. No, it stood back, and using four of its eight legs, summoned massive chunks of ice out of thin air, and then hurled those chunks into the army. It was those chunks that then killed as many as possible and wrecked as much havoc as possible.

Many of the Elementals were capable of firing ranged attacks in the form of spears or bladed shards of ice, but they were no different from arrows fired from bows. The fact that the Elementals couldn’t coordinate with each other prevented them from launching concentrated volleys, which would really disrupt the defense formations, was the only upside. So all things considered, they were dangerous, but easily handled.

Not so with this Greater Elemental.

The lobbed hunks of ice did not behave like ice would normally, not at all. Sometimes they appeared oddly bouncy, hitting the ground with a thud, and then jumping back up ten to twenty feet in the air before smashing their way further through the army’s lines. Other times, even when they looked as if they would bounce, they instead shattered into hundreds of razor-sharp shards that could even cut through chain mail.

The bouncing ones could be dodged or deflected with magic, and the exploding ones could be blocked with shields or magical barriers, but, there was no way to tell which was which. If shields were raised, but the chunk did not shatter and instead smashed through them, all that would happen was that some smashed soldiers would be left under their shields. If they tried to vacate the area, but it then exploded instead of bouncing, the shards would just cover a larger area before slicing into the soldiers.

The worst part, was where the Greater Elemental was staying. At three hundred feet out, only the ballista and catapults could effectively reach it, but every one of those weapons that were not firing upon the regular Elementals was making the fight for the soldiers in the front that much harder.

Unfortunately, they had no choice, General Merrick had passed the order to have some of the siege weapons try and target the Greater Elemental, and those attacks had just come to pass.

And the results were poor, to say the least.

The Greater Elemental was over twice as large as a normal Elemental, but it was still only around twelve or so feet tall, not to mention the fact that its spider-like body was thin and provided a limited profile to aim at. Of the thirty different attacks that were just launched at it, only three or four came close, and only one was going to hit it directly, a massive spear more like a log fired from one of the heavy ballista. But before it hit, the Greater Elemental spotted it, and simply moved out of the way. The huge projectile smashed into the ground a foot or two away, but only managed to scatter snow and mud over the icy spider.

The Greater Elemental would, if left alone, rip apart their defense lines completely, it would only be a matter of time before the center collapsed, and then the rest of the army would follow.

The problem then was, what to do about it. And it was this problem, that General Merrick was struggling with.

Basic military doctrine did offer several ways to handle a Tactical Class threat, which is what the two Greater Elementals would count as.

The first way, to engage with your own Tactical Class combatants.

The second way was to create a multilayered field of fire to wear down the threat.

The third was to charge forward regardless of casualties and try to bog the threat down with numbers.

The fourth, and final way, was to avoid combat with the threat.

Options two and four were not options, retreat was off the table, and they were already doing their best to wear it down with ranged fire, it simply outranged them.

That left one and three.

The first option was probably the best, but, the army only had a few Tactical Classes, and all of them were already engaged in their own battles. If he ordered the ones that were supporting the various parts of the army, then those parts would face a very real risk of collapsing.

As for the third, even if he were willing to order the army to charge the Greater Elemental, they simply couldn’t. The Greater Elemental was safely within the main host of the Elementals, for the army to reach it, they would need to fight through the entire Elemental host, without the benefits of their defenses or the support fire from the siege weapons. Even with the resolve to lose the entire army in the process, they would still almost certainly fail.

So really, he only had one choice according to standard military doctrine, wait for the Pine Family’s forces to finish with the first Greater Elemental, and then send them immediately towards the second one with no rest between. And hope that that both the Pines and the center do not suffer too much damage before the first Greater Elemental goes down. Even then, the Pines would need to break through the Elemental Host and engage the Greater Elemental with no support.

But, while that was the only option that had any chance of succeeding, it was still an incredible long shot.

Which left him with one remaining option, the same one he had been about to order the second the spider-shaped Greater Elemental had shown up, but he had held back because he really, really, did not want to use that trump card.

The Fragment had yet to show up.

Ambassador Zhou An would certainly report the effectiveness of them back to the Empire.

And there was no guarantee that would even work.

But still, he had no choice.

“Order the Light Throwers to engage the Greater Elemental…” General Merrick said with a sigh.

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Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:34

Royal Army Center, 2nd Techno-Artillery Position, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

3rd Grade Technomancer, Mezhanos.

“We have our orders!” Mezhanos’s commander called out over the surrounding din. “Let us show the army what we can do!”

Normal soldiers would have been pumped up at this chance, would have rallied upon that call.

But Mezhanos and those around him were not normal soldiers. They were Technomancers. They were nothing like normal soldiers.

But their commander, he was. Sure, he was well learned in their art, he knew, as much as anyone not of their fold could, what they could do. But still, he was not one of them.

He did not understand.

That was not his fault, and none of them blamed him or held it against him. At least, not overtly. But the faithless could not understand the faithful. And while they paid homage to no deity, Faith, was not something they lacked.

Only silence met the commander’s words, but the man, thick-skinned as he was forced to become when he took this assignment, let the silence wash over him without complaint.

“Connect the cooling hoses.” He instead ordered.

And that was an order that brought life to their small group.

Before they had been silent, but that did not mean they were emotionless. Did not mean they were unconcerned. Did not mean that they were not excited.

They were.

They were overflowing with excitement.

They just did not show it like a normal soldier would have.

Mezhanos rushed forward with his partner, 3rd Grade Technomancer Beoskle, the both of them grabbing the handles on each side of the massive hose that lay before them. The hose was twenty feet long, it had a diameter of one foot, and the leather and metal supports made it rather heavy, but the simple strengthening equipment they both wore was enough for them to lift it and drag it forward.

The hose was connected to a massive tank of magically pressurized and supercooled liquid. A mixture of mercury, saltwater, some alchemical fluids, and ice drake blood. The tank held five thousand gallons of the mixture, and with the other three tanks, they had a total of twenty thousand gallons. Considering the value of the liquid, it was quite the sum, enough to buy at least one mansion, maybe two, within the third circle of Arvas.

Their commander had mentioned this on more than one occasion, but none of the Technomancers understood why anyone would spend that much money on a mere house and not on research. Nor did they care to learn.

While the four tanks were large, ten feet tall and five wide, the object that the eight Technomancers were connecting the hoses to, was even larger.

A Light Thrower.

Unlike the tanks that were symmetrical cylinders, the Light Thrower was a hodgepodge of shapes, of pipes, of tubes, of hoses, and of jutting magical arrays. At its highest point, somewhere in the middle, it was thirteen feet tall. It was twenty-one feet long, at its thickest, it was eight feet across and at the thinnest, it was two feet wide.

Mezhanos, like the other seven of them, eight if the commander were to be included, knew every inch of the Light Thrower.

At the back was the access hatch, currently firmly locked, that if opened, would allow a person to enter the main chamber. Bellow that was the base, the foundation that held the Light Thrower stable, and also where the more mundane gears and levers were placed that allowed the entire thing to be rotated and have its angle adjusted.

In the back of the main chamber was where Mezhanos and Beoskle connected their cooling hose. On the opposite side, 3rd Grade Technomancers Rixian and Arplun were doing the same, and in the front, on both sides, the remaining four Technomancers were connecting the other two hoses to the firing array.

“Lock in the hoses,” The commander called out.

At once, with a practice and steady motion born from hundreds of hours of practice, Mezhanos and Beoskle both turned the knobs on the side of the hose, then flipped the latches, and then applied a layer of magic to the frozen seal on the front, melting it and turning it back into the gooey substance it was supposed to be.

“Insert fuel rods.”

The main chamber held two of the four components of the Light Thrower, the condenser crystal, and the fuel rods. Each fuel rod was a hollow mithril tube filled with a lattice of hundreds of mana crystals, all filled with light mana. While each rod held a different quantity of crystals, and while the purity of each crystal’s mana differed, each rod contained exactly the same amount of total mana, and the lattice that held the crystals in place would ensure that each rod discharged the stored mana at the same rate.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

It had taken many trials and experiments to develop the lattice structure, but it had been a vital aspect of the Light Thrower, for without an equal amount of mana coming from each rod at the same rate, the device would misfire, with catastrophic consequences.

Each of the eight of them took a fuel rod and carefully approached the rear of the device. The rods were light, the crystals weighed very little and the metal that made up the casing was pure mithril. A simple drop would not cause any damage to the rod, even striking it with a weapon would do nothing, the mithril frame would not bend, and nothing short of magic directed with the intent to damage would do anything to the crystals.

Still, while they knew it in their minds, the simple fact that they were holding something of such incredible power left them with a feeling of reverence. They did not dare profane the fuel rods, and as such, they paid extra care and attention to their movements.

The eight fuel rods fit seamlessly into eight different openings towards the rear of the main chamber. They were now firmly held within their casings, where when the weapon fired, the mana stored within would be drawn out, and pumped into the massive condensing crystal. There, the eight different mana flows would be combined into one, the purity level evened out so that there were no hidden issues.

“Confirmation of Fuel Lock?” Their commander asked.

“Lock one, secured.”

“Lock two, secured.”

“Lock three, secured.”

“Lock four, secured.”

“Lock five, secured.”

“Lock six, secured.”

“Lock seven,” Beoskle’s voice spoke up, “secured.

“Lock eight, secured,” Mezhanos said dutifully.

When the condensing crystal discharged during the firing process, the energy temporarily stored within it would be sent out equally into the four firing arrays that made up the majority of the second component of the Light Thrower. These arrays were similar to what would be found in a standard magic wand. They drew power from a source and then converted the raw mana into the desired effect. Sometimes, a ball of fire, other times a bolt of lightning, other times a spear of ice, and in this case, a pulse of blinding light.

“Locks confirmed, begin coolant flood.”

At the commander’s words, a group of 5th grade Technomancers swarmed around the four coolant tanks, pulling levers, until, with a gurgle, the large hoses jumped and inflated as the freezing mixture began flowing into the main chamber.

“Target is the Greater Elemental, named, Spider,” No one responded to the commander’s declaration because no one needed to. They just waited as he looked across the battlefield through a simple brass spyglass. “Adjust aim, rotate negative four degrees horizontal, drop two degrees vertical.”

Now, a smaller group of the lower grade Technomancers moved towards the gears at the base. With barely a sound, the massive Light Thrower slowly shifted its aim slightly to the left, and then the nose dropped a few inches closer to the snow-covered ground.

“Switch to active targeting.”

At the commander’s order, Urglivo, the only 2nd grade Technomancer in their group, and the only one able to utilize the complex aiming system that was built into the Light Thrower moved up to the side. There, he plunged his hand into one of the few openings in the device and closed his eyes as he prepared to aim the weapon.

“Target is 760 feet out, set pulse count to…”

The commander trailed off, but every one of them knew what to do, even if they did not move until he gave the order. At this range, four pulses would be overkill, but three might not be enough. If they were the only weapon firing, four would be the correct choice, but the Bright Dawn was only one of the five Light Throwers that would fire, thus, the correct choice should be to fire three pulses.

“Set count to four.”

Mezhanos frowned, but he said nothing. The commander’s order was flawed, but not completely wrong.

The Light Throwers fired pulses of light, and originally, they could only fire one pulse at a time. However, a single pulse would lose power rapidly as it traveled through the air, it would be devastating at incredibly short ranges, but anything beyond two hundred feet would see reduced effects, and at five hundred feet, the damage would be drastically reduced, to the point where the device was no longer useful.

At that time, the pulse was not even called that, it was simply a shot. However, by linking two shots together, it was discovered that the first shot would clear the way through the air, allowing the second to arrive with its power intact. Still, at ranges over five hundred feet, the second shot would begin to weaken, and at longer ranges, a third was required.

Because these rapid-fire shots were released in such a quick succession, and because the halo of light that came off of them seemed to connect them, they were called pulses to help differentiate them from the idea of taking a completely different second shot.

At under eight hundred feet out, the first pulse would be weakened nearly into insignificance, the second would have a bit more than half power, and the third would be nearly full power. A fourth pulse would only be needed if the range was farther, or if the target, Spider, was presumed to be strong enough to weather a full powered pulse, which in Mezhanos’s mind, was an impossibility.

“Coolant is 90% full.” Someone yelled out, but no one needed to respond.

Still, while it might be playing it safe to use four pulses, there was a real problem with it too.

The fuel rods could only hold so much mana. Since the minimum requirement for the weapon to be useful was two pulses, the first fuel rods held enough for six pulses, three shots of two, or two shots of three. However, as the designed of the Light Thrower’s were improved, they became accurate and usable out to greater ranges, and the need for four pulse shots, and even stronger, began to arise.

The ideal number of pulses able to be produced with one set of fuel rods was twelve, enough for six shots with two pulses, four shots of three pulses, three shots of four pulses, or two shots of six pulses. There was enough leeway there to mix them up too, two shots of three pulses, a four pulse shot, and a two pulse shot, or a six pulse shot along with three shots of two pulses.

However, the construction of the lattices that made up the fuel rods turned out to be a bottleneck, a rod that stored enough mana for twelve pulses was beyond what they could make. And having the condensing crystal absorb mana from more than eight fuel rods at once turned out to be too difficult to stabilize. Thus, the best they could do, was produce fuel rods that held enough mana for nine, maybe ten pulses. And even then, the tenth pulse was a risk, sometimes the draw from the mana crystals wasn’t perfect, and the final pulse would come up unbalanced and the weapon would misfire, something no one wanted to experience.

“Coolant is filled.”

“Power up, begin charging.”

A low hum began to sound, the ground shook ever so slightly. Right now, within the main chamber, the light mana was draining from the fuel rods and was flowing into the condensing crystal. As the hum increased in pitch, going from a light, easily ignored sound, to a loud whistle, Mezhanos could estimate the time until the Light Thrower charged.

“...18 seconds…” He whispered to himself, knowing that the others would be doing the same.

The whistle morphed into a shrill screech as the coolant began to evaporate, blueish steam bursting through the vents. The slight tremor in the ground turned into full shaking, and the silver weapon began to glow a dim red.

The surrounding soldiers, left there to guard the weapon without really knowing what it was, had begun to notice something was happening, their heads would turn and glance at it before turning back to resume their duties.

“7… 6… 5…” Beoskle could be heard counting down.

The Light Thrower was now completely obscured in a cloud of blue mist, but even then, the burning orange glow from within was still illuminating the entire small clearing they had claimed. More and more of the surrounding soldiers were turning to look, some confused, others curious, and more still worried.

“Charge complete! Final aiming adjustments?” the commander yelled over the din.

“Target is clear! Good to fire!” Urglivo’s own yell came from within the cloud of blue.

“5 seconds! Get Clear!” The commander yelled.

“Done!” Urglivo shouted even as he burst out of the cloud running, the blue mist clinging to his body.

“EVERYONE!” The commander suddenly yelled. “CLOSE YOUR EYES!”

The Technomancers had no need to do that, each of them dropped a pair of black goggles over their eyes that blocked out almost all light. But, the surrounding soldiers had no such protection. In fact, closing their eyes might not, no, would definitely not be enough.

But still, the Light Thrower would not wait, the energy contained within the condensing crystal discharged into the four firing arrays, the pure light mana was turned from something intangible and ethereal, into something very real. With no pause, the arrays sent their work into the central array that would combine the four individual blats of energy into a single pulse, and then would release it out the front of the device.

Mezhanos’s goggles were so dark that he could not even see a torch held in front of his face, so dim that even on the brightest days, the noontime sun would be nothing other than an orange ball in a background of black.

But right now, the darkness of his vision was replaced with a brilliant blinding light.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:36

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

“Wow…” Someone within the tent uttered.

It took the General a second to realize it must have been one of the guards who spoke, because only the surrounding guards would have had the training required to protect their eyes from the flash that had just illuminated the night.

The rest of them, they were blinking stars out of their eyes.

“Report!” He ordered, trying to get a handle on the situation while he was still partially blind.

Most of his adjutants were trained enough to count themselves as being Rank 3, and in fact, the General was too. At that Rank, they should have been able to protect their eyes, but they were trained less for direct combat, and more to simply defend themselves should either the worse happen and the enemy reaches the headquarters, or to at least buy time against an assassin. The more well-rounded training that would have taught them how to protect their eyes from bright flashes, was something that they did not really go through.

“Uh… I think only four of the Light Throwers fired.”

“Yes, it was the 4th position that did not fire.”

“Damnit, I can’t see…” The General muttered to himself. “I will need stronger glasses at this rate…”

Suddenly, he recalled that his glasses were a magic item. And worth mentioning, they were a magic item that was capable of casting shadow magic on the inside of the lens, specifically to protect the wearer’s eyes from sudden bright flashes. But, not only had he forgotten that function, he had forgotten exactly how blinding the Light Throwers could be, at the very least, he could have turned his head away even if he had forgotten his glasses could have helped.

General Merrick ground his teeth in frustration as he reached up and triggered a different effect on his glasses, a water mana based healing effect that would soothe tired eyes. Once he felt the refreshing coolness come over him, his frustration dropped, and he was able to see over the battlefield again.

But, while his vision was now fine, he could still see very little, and what he was able to see, did not help him understand the situation.

The five Light Throwers were stationed individually around the army, mostly a bit further back on the sides of the hills. That positioning did limit their firing range and angle quite a bit, if their target had shown up anywhere besides the direct center, some of the weapons might not have been able to fire without packing the entire device up and moving it, something which would take several minutes.

Still, it was a necessity that the weapons be set up on the outskirts of the army, just in case something went wrong. Ideally, they all would have been set up together at one vantage point that allowed them to fire over the entire field, such as the current hill the command center occupied, but, bunching the Light Throwers together was an awful idea.

Despite the problems with the firing range and angles, the General was confident they had done enough to take that into account. Unfortunately, they had overlooked the bright light that accompanied the firing of the weapons. Because each device was spread apart, and located in the rear, the blinding beam of light had to cross over the entire army, and from five different directions.

The end result was that nearly two-thirds of the army was now in some kind of disarray, the soldiers and officers were temporarily blinded. It would have been even worse had one of the five Light Throwers not failed to fire for some reason.

But, that two-thirds of the army was not entirly accurate, at least not as far as anyone could immediately tell. There was another problem they had overlooked.

General Merrick had once seen one of the earlier models of the Light Thrower fire, it was a weaker model, it was fired during the day, and it was fired in a grassland. He had thought they had accounted for the first detail, and they may have done so. The second detail was a miss, the weapon had dazzled far too many, but it was the third detail that they had really missed on.

He knew that the weapon created an enormous amount of heat when fired, in fact, Light magical attacks like that inflicted most of their damage through burns, enough that some wanted to classify Light as a subcategory of Fire. He knew that it would burn the ground, but he had not been prepared for what it would do if that ground was covered in snow.

The end result was that the entire area around the impact point, the center of the Elemental host, was now completely obscured in steam from the vaporized snow. It even extended to the front lines, hiding the first fifty to one hundred feet of their formations from view.

“Quick!” He yelled in a near panic, “Have the mages blow away the fog!”

No sooner than he had spoken, one of the mage commanders proved their worth, a group of mages with an aptitude for wind magic began summoning a powerful gust of wind. Limited as they were, and with little time to work, their efforts only managed to thin the mist that shrouded the frontlines, but it was enough.

“Damnit…” The General groaned.

In the less than twenty seconds since the Light Throwers fired, the front line had been savaged. Many of them had been able to shield their vision, but that moment of shock and distraction had still left a great opening, something the Elementals who were immune to the effects were able to capitalize on, even if they had no overarching strategy. Worse, the steam clouds created by the weapon then obscured the front, preventing the mages and siege weapons from providing their support fire.

Unable to tell the situation around them, the clusters of defenders in the front had held their position, barely managing to hold their ground, but they paid a heavy price.

“We need to order them back, before another wave hits.” One of the General’s adjutants spoke out the very thoughts he himself was thinking, but he hesitated.

For nearly an hour now, the waves of Elementals had merged into one inexhaustible flow, a rising tide. There was no gap between waves, they just endlessly advanced forward. But right now, he could see a few remaining Elementals in combat with the defenders, but new ones were not appearing.

Before he could come to any kind of conclusion, two things happened nearly simultaneously.

The first was that a massive hunk of ice, larger than the previous chunks, shot through the ceiling of the fog, arched over the frontlines, and the reserves, before smashing into the side of one of the hills.

The second was that the remaining mages were able to muster the needed combined effort, sending a great gust of wind blew across the entire field, pushing the remaining fog away, and revealing why exactly, the assault of the Elemental’s had stalled.

Four lines, twenty feet in width, were seared across the field. The blackened trench was completely lacking any moisture, any snow, and any ice, including from the Elementals. Even in the area around each line, only the partially melted and broken remains of icy limbs and bodies could be seen. Each line ended in a crater, fifty feet across of brownish black glass.

The heat and force from the Light Thrower’s attack was enough to scorch the ground it merely passed over, and to melt the dirt at the impact point, turning it into boiling glass.

The only Elemental standing near the four impact craters was the Greater Elemental, but even that was worse for wear. Two of it’s eight spindly legs were missing, and the rest of its body was cracked and deformed. Even then, it was again forming a large chunk of ice in the air with it’s remaining legs. The chunks were larger, and with only two legs to create them, the process was slower, but it was still a threat.

“Order the Light Throwers to attack again!” General Merrick yelled in a hurry, “And find out why the one didn’t fire.”

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:38

Royal Army Center, 2nd Techno-Artillery Position, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

3rd Grade Technomancer, Mezhanos.

The basic gear that any decent Technomancer wears contains various methods to deal with injuries. The most common were burns, so the entire suit that each of them wore was able to help repair any burns and to also dull pain. Lacerations were also rather common, and could easily be healed and the pain reduced.

Puncture wounds, however, often required dedicated healing, an automatic system would almost always create additional problems. Thus, when detecting wounds of a certain depth, their suits would only cover the wound, apply a hemostatic agent to reduce bleeding, and then also apply a numbing agent.

Mezhanos’s suit determined that the piece of metal or wood that had just torn through part of his arm was deep enough to be treated as a puncture wound, so it only numbed the area and did what it could to stop the bleeding.

But, while he had experienced the suits first aid before, this was his first moderate injury, and he found the first aid to be lacking. For one, it was slow to act, while he was in no danger of bleeding to death, or even losing consciousness due to blood loss, enough of his blood had leaked out, staining his arm, and now that it was rapidly cooling, making his arm heavy and unwieldy to use. And the numbing agent did numb the wound, but it only numbed the wound, the pain was not removed or erased, but only reduced. Considering the fact that he was pretty sure his bone had fractured from the impact, simply numbing the pain was doing nowhere near enough to alleviate his problems.

That said, it could have been worse, his partner, Beoskle, was on his back, his chest caved in, blood bubbling from his throat as he died.

“We need to fire again!” The commander yelled, “Urglivo, are you alive?”

“I-I-I… I am… F-fine.” Urglivo stammered.

Mezhanos directed his gaze at the 2nd grade technomancer who was normally unflappable to see why he was suddenly so shaken, but quickly averted his gaze out of disgust.

Urglivo was standing up, his back ramrod straight, but he was also covered in blood and gore. It wasn’t his own, but originated from the corpse near him, the upper body was was behind him and the legs were at his feet.

“Then get to the panel and aim. Better this time! Now go!”

“Y-yes!”

“How are we on coolant?” The commander asked once he heard Urglivo begin to move, even if his steps were unsure.

Mezhanos expected one of the 5th grade technomancer’s to respond, but none did. Turning his gaze towards the tank that he had been assigned to align with Beoskle, he saw another tragic sight. The group of young technomancers, all four of them assigned to that tank, were dead, or at least dying. Unlike Mezhanos who suffered a grazing blow, and Beoskle who was hit dead center with a single small object, the rest of them were covered with pieces of shrapnel that shredded them.

“Ta-tank three…” He tried to say, but he had to swallow down some bile before continuing, “Is le-leaking!”

Like the group of 5th grade technomancers under him, the massive tank filled with cooling liquid had been peppered with chunks of metal and wood. The wood only splintered apart against the cylinder, but some of the metal chunks punched holes through the casing, allowing the silverish-blue liquid to leak out onto the ground.

“C-coolant is 75% f-full!” Urglivo reported.

“Tank two is fine!” someone yelled.

“Tank four… is good!” Arplun said hesitantly from the other side of the Bright Dawn

“Tank one’s hose is torn, no, it is severed!”

Mezhanos turned his gaze to the front where the group from tank one was in a similar state to his own group, Erquish was on the ground missing an arm, and three of their four 5th grade technomancers were in the mud, unmoving. Only one of them along with Thiela were moving, trying to patch the massive hole in the hose that lead from the tank to the Light Thrower.

“Disconnect the hose from tank three and use that.”

“Understood,” Thiela responded, and Mezhanos heard himself say something similar as he rushed towards the Light Thrower.

Ideally, they would just leave his hose connected to the Light Thrower and then disconnect the tail end from tank three and connect it to tank one, but the hose wasn’t long enough to reach from the rear of the device to tank one. Both sides would need to be disconnected from both hoses, and then the hose from his tank would need to be brought over to tank one.

He sealed the hatch on the Light Thrower, preventing the cooling fluid from flowing back out when he disconnected the hose, and then immediately released the seals from the hose and let it fall to the ground. Normally, he would have left it connected before going back to the tank and repeating the same process, all to prevent the expensive cooling fluid from being wasted. But right now, time was of the essence, and the fluid within tank three was going to be wasted regardless.

But even as he began rushing back to the tank, he couldn’t help but grimace at the thought of the valuable liquid pouring out into the dirt. The monetary value was of little concern to him, but the liquid was difficult to produce, and they only had so much of it here, and wasting it pained his heart.

Even then, he did not stop as he skipped the process of sealing the hatch on the tank and just directly unlocked the hose. Again, the hose fell to the ground, but this time the freezing coolant splashed out over his hands. His suit was prepared for this however, a cold resistance spell was cast on his hands and arms, and a series of antidote spells triggered to prevent the toxic substance from killing him.

“Coolant is at 80%” Urglivo reported, the process running at half speed due to the fact that two tanks were not assisting.

Even while a layer of blue ice was flaking off of his still cold hands, Mezhanos bent and grabbed the hose to drag it over to tank one, but he was forced to stop. Normally moving the hoses was a two person job, two people assisted with the strengthening enchantments in their suits. Beoskle was dead, and Mezhanos’s suit was torn, the strengthening enchantment on his right arm was hardly working, and even if it were, Mezhanos’s arm was not. He was able to operate the latches and gears, but lifting the heavy hose was beyond him.

He was about to call for help, but his comrades had already noticed. Thiela and the 5th grade technomancer had already grabbed the end closer to the Bright Dawn, and even Rixian had come over to help. Using his good left arm, and with Rixian’s help, they were able to drag the end of the hose over to tank one.

Once they were there, they dropped the hose and Mezhanos stumbled when the lack of weight threw him off balance.

“Rest for a second, I can do this,” Rixian said as he gently pushed Mezhanos back to the ground.

He wanted to object, to stand up and keep helping, but he was exhausted, his arm was throbbing with pain, and his vision was begging to swirl.

“Yeah… I'll just sit here for a second,” he responded as he flopped down into the mud.

“Coolant is at 90%!” Urglivo announced.

“Make final aiming adjustments while refilling, then charge immediately. Three pulses this time!”

Mezhanos wanted to watch his fellow technomancers work, wanted to be ready to assist if need be, and wanted to see the moment when the device fired again, but the exhaustion, the pain, and the steadily increasing nausea was too much, he turned his head, threw up once, and then pass out.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:39

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

The spider-shaped Greater Elemental threw two more large chunks of ice at two different hills, but while they were cause for concern, General Merrick was focused on the battle’s front line.

They had suffered from that moment of distraction when the Light Throwers had fired, but since they also severely thinned out the Elementals that were currently engaged, they were able to just barely hold their ground.

Looking at it from the top, they had actually come out ahead. The front line took heavy damage, but a larger amount of the enemy was destroyed. This time, when the weapons fire, they will be more prepared and it won't be as bad.

Still, the fact that the front line had almost been overwhelmed had left the General with a cold sweat and a case of the jitters that even now persisted.

“Those… Light Throwers? Is that what you called them? They are impressive.” Ambassador Zhou An suddenly spoke up from beside him.

The man, the half of a man, had come up to the edge of the hill to better see what had happened, but he had, until now, remained quiet.

General Merrick had known this moment would arrive, as long as he was forced to use the Light Throwers, and he had prepared for it as well as he could.

By asking the Royal Castle for directions on how to handle it.

“Yes, that is what they are called,” he spoke, trying to sound casual. “They are one of the few, semi-useful new products that the Technomancers have produced.”

Technomancers are loosely organized into a guild that governs them. In reality, they form hundreds of smaller guilds that focus on specific types of research and production. But unlike more mundane guilds that require full devotion from their members, the various technomancer guilds do no such thing. Members jump ship from one guild to another all the time, in fact, they basically promote the behavior. Sometimes, an entire guild will just close up shop, and then reform as an entirely different guild with a different focus, sometimes even keeping all of the same members, sometimes not.

Because each guild pays homage to a foundation that promotes the study of technomancy in a grand scale, and because each of the smaller guilds are maddeningly frustrating for non-members to deal with, the larger foundation is viewed as the governing body, even though it technically does no such thing.

The Light Throwers were a product of the aptly named, Light Thrower Development Guild. Most similarly named technomancer guilds end up producing nothing of use, their product fails to come to term and they move on to something else. But occasionally, something with some degree of usefulness comes out.

“The general is being humble, these weapons are not merely semi-useful, they are quite impressive.”

“They are powerful, I will agree to that. But they are an extremely inelegant weapon with several problems, and the Kingdom has no plans on producing more of them.”

“Oh really? If this humble one may be so bold to ask, why that is so?”

General Merrick paused for a moment as he marshaled his thoughts. The truth was, what he just said was not a lie, at least entirely. The Light Throwers were plagued with problems, and the Kingdom did plan on halting production. However, they were still funding the maintenance of the currently existing devices, along with promoting researching into upgrading them.

Because most of the issues facing the Light Throwers were logistical, General Merrick was actually rather well informed about them, and in fact, he had been the one to push for a freeze in the manufacturing of additional devices.

“Cost for one,” He said truthfully. “Each Light Thrower costs an absurd amount to produce, with the main cost coming from the rare metals they are made from. The fact is, even if we wanted to mass produce them with no concerns for cost, the ingredients are simply too rare. But outside of the construction costs, the cost to maintain them is also high. And then, actually using them, they require special mana crystals and a special liquid to cool them while they fire, each of those things costs far too much to be practical.”

“Ah, cost, the merchant's way of thinking,” The ambassador said theatrically, “but some would say that no cost is too high to safeguard the nation.”

“That is true,” the General conceded the point while ignoring the ambassador’s not so subtle jab, “But another problem is how difficult they are to use. They are large and heavy, and they require tanks of that liquid I just mentioned, which are also large and heavy. That basically limits them to defensive uses, but even then, they are too big for all but the heaviest walls. And because they only fire in a straight line, they need to be positioned at a high vantage point to be of any real use.”

Again, this was all true. The weapons were actually too big for most walls, although they were able to be fitted on the Capital’s walls, and most of the forts on the southern border would be able to house them, not to mention the fact that a dedicated platform could be made to hold them. Still, such a platform would need to be made of something sturdier than wood or raised earth, which did largely limit them to already existing fortifications.

As for offensive use, they could be used to siege a city or castle, but they were fragile, and also a rather conspicuous target. Even if they weren’t a nightmare to transport, they would be unlikely to get more than one or two shots off before the defender’s own defenses would return fire. And in cases like that, the defender would always have the advantage.

“This humble one sees…”

General Merrick couldn’t help but shoot a glance at the ambassador as he looked over the battlefield, the anticipation for when the Light Throwers fired again was clear on his face.

When he had asked how to handle this, he was told basically two things.

Be as truthful as possible while trying to emphasize that they weapons were limited in use, and were only defensive in nature.

“Still, they are a potent defensive measure. And this humble one is sure, if need be, they could be used offensively.”

The General was about to answer, but they were interrupted when a messenger ran up to them.

“Sir!” she said with a salute, “the 4th techno-artillery position reports that their weapon suffered a failure due to a misaligned… auxiliary connection… node on the third…”

“That is good enough,” He said as he waved for the poor woman to stop trying to remember the random terms the technomancers used, “is the weapon unusable?”

“Yes, sir! But they are trying to repair it, only…” she trailed off there.

“What is it?” he prompted.

“They think it is unlikely to be ready anytime soon.” She said nervously.

The military had rules about abusing rank and harassing the regular soldiers, but still, no one wanted to bring bad news, especially at a time like this.

“That is what I figured, thank you, corporal.”

“Sir!” She saluted and then retreated from the tent.

General Merricks focus went back to the battle, but he noticed that the foreign ambassador’s eyes followed the woman as she left.

“And that Mr. Ambassador, would be the other problem.” He finally said.

“This humble one does not understand, what is the other problem?”

“The Light Throwers are notoriously unreliable. They suffer failures almost half of the time. That was a more moderate failure, requiring some repairs, usually it’s just a failed shot and they have to rearm the weapon. Sometimes it just takes some time, other times they waste crystals or fluid. Occasionally it wounds or kills an operator too.”

“This humble one sees.”

“It was somewhat surprising that only one of the five failed, but I guess the fact that it was a medium sized failure makes up for the lower number.”

“The repairs, they will take some time then?”

“Most likely,” He responded with a shrug, “I’ve studied these things rather intensively for my own duties, but I have no idea how they actually work, or what just broke in that one. It might be something simple, they just need to shove something back into its position inside. But, to do that, they’ll need to drain the fluid from the weapon, crawl inside, shove it back, and then run a test to make sure everything is fine. That might take ten minutes, maybe more. They might also need to take the whole entire frame out for some reason, which could take days. They could also be wrong about what went wrong, or they could do their repairs incorrectly. I've basically already written that weapon off for the rest of the battle, but maybe we will get lucky and the repairs will be done in time for when the fragment shows up.”

“It is a shame, this humble one feels that unreliable tools are even worse than ineffective tools.”

“I agree,” The general said with a nod.

Suddenly, a long high pitched whistle sounded, the sound that the Light Throwers were about to fire.

And unlike last time, everyone took the appropriate steps, many of those in the room closed their eyes, and for good measure, covered them with the hands. A few channeled mana to protect their vision while they kept their eyes open. For the General, he simply pushed something on the side of his glasses, and then his vision when dark.

But even with his vision dark, he could still see some of the glow from the weapons firing.

For good measure, he counted to three after the whistle stopped before opening his eyes, but the battlefield was as he expected, a new cloud of steam was obscuring his view.

“Hey,” He called out to one of his adjutants, a man who also doubled as a guard and who was cable of using magic to protect his vision, “I am pretty sure I only saw three beams?”

“Yes…” His adjutant said with a frown, “the 4th position did not fire, and for some reason, the 1st didn’t either.”

“Find out why.”

“Yes, sir!” He said before running to go get a messenger.

“This humble one now truly sees, while powerful, these weapons really are unreliable.”

The General found the idea of a foreigner looking down upon their military to be irritating, even if it was exactly what he wanted the ambassador to think.

“Unfortunately, they were all we had on hand right now. And for that matter, I would not be surprised if we decommission them after this.”

That was actually a lie, the higher-ups, General Merrick included, were still discussing what to do with the Light Throwers, when they used up their current stock of cooling fluid and fuel rods. They might give up on them, or they might have more produced while they waited for improvements in the weapon to materialize. Regardless, while they did bring enough coolant for several shots from each weapon, and two sets of fuel rods for each weapon too, that was nowhere near their current stockpile. They simply could not transfer more, they only had just enough cooling tanks for each weapon’s own use.

Even if they were to decommission the Light Throwers when their stockpile ran out, that would not happen for a long time.

“Sir!” Suddenly, his adjutant returned with a grim look on his face.

“What is it?”

“The Greater Elemental’s last attacks, they were aimed at the techno-artillery positions.”

“What!?” General Merrick stood up in shock and faced his adjutant.

“Position two suffered minor damage, but heavy casualties, and position five received no real damage, but the fuel storage was hit, the weapon can not be fired again. And as for the first position, it took a direct hit, the Light Thrower was completely destroyed.”

“Shit!” The General cursed loudly, “We’re down to only two of them now? We need to do everything to protect them now, have the mages hold back and try to intercept those blocks of ice.”

“General, if this humble one may speak?”

“What is it?” The general curtly shot back, not taking his eyes away from the adjutant he was giving orders to.

“Your worries, are unfounded it would seem. Look…”

The General glanced at the ambassador, and seeing him gesture towards the battlefield, he instead directed his sight there.

His mages had been prepared this time, another gust of wind had already swept through the valley, and the steam had dispersed. Three new scorch marks ending in craters filled with rapidly cooling molten glass had appeared, but one of those craters was notable for what was near it.

Just to the crater’s side, one of its legs still submerged into the glass, was the Greater Elemental. Including the one that was melting into the glass, the formerly eight-legged being was now down to three, one of which was missing the foot portion, only one leg was still whole. Its main body was cracked and blackened, it was clearly barely alive, but even then, it was still dragging its body towards the front line. It was no longer able to make ranged attacks, but even with it’s three legs, it could still wreak havoc on the front line.

A front line that General Merrick noticed had again, fallen into disarray due to the flash and subsequent cloud of steam that obscured the vision of the mages and siege weapon operators.

“Order the remaining two Light Throwers to finish it off.” The General said after a moment of thought.

“Yes, Sir!”

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:41

Royal Army Center, 2nd Techno-Artillery Position, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

3rd Grade Technomancer, Mezhanos.

Mezhanos woke up.

Not the abrupt way, when a person is shocked into wakefulness.

Not the groggy way, when in the middle of sleep, something interrupts and wakes them up.

And not in the peaceful and calm way, where a person wakes up rested after a pleasant night of sleep.

No, Mezhanos woke up in the most peculiar way, where he was still tired, still wanted to sleep, but simply could not.

The general fatigue he felt, the blood loss, the assortment of antidotes and other chemicals he recently absorbed, and the various healing spells, all left him unconscious, but it was the magic and the alchemical items that kept him asleep. There was a set limit, however, of things that they could ward off while keeping him there, in the land of dreams.

The pain from his arm was one thing, the frost on his hands was another. His nausea, his anxiety, his stress, those were another. The sounds around him, orders being yelled, some pained cries, the rumbling of the Bight Dawn as it charged and then fired, the sound as coolant flowed through the hose, the hiss of steam being released from the device, even the whistles, horns, and drums that sounded throughout the army, were all things that combined, were under the threshold of what he could sleep through.

The coolant leaking out of the Bright Dawn itself, and then slowly seeping its way across the ground, until the point where Mezhanos was laying in a pool of it, that was beyond that threshold. As he got damper and damper, colder and colder, and as warming spell after warming spell was cast on him to prevent hypothermia, he finally woke up.

It was a slow waking, coming in stages, he wasn’t exactly sure when he first woke up, or how long he was there, in that state of half-wakefulness. At one point he was aware he wasn’t asleep, but of little else beyond that, and then slowly the other things he was aware of increased until suddenly, he felt fully awake.

“We’ve sealed the leak, and we should have enough coolant for another shot,” someone said.

“Good, set to three pulses, and begin charging once the coolant is filled,” another voice responded.

“I told you!” A third speaker yelled, “We can’t risk the third pulse.”

“The Bright Dawn is a newer model, it can handle three pulses,” the second voice argued back.

“Maybe. Maybe if everything was in the lab, but we’re out here in this blizzard. And the Bright Dawn is damaged, we need to refuel!”

“There’s no time, just follow orders,” The second voice yelled back again, “we only have a minute, tops, before the target gets too close to the front line, then we won't be able to fire.”

“Coolant is at 90%,” a fourth voice suddenly shouted.

“Can we just use two pulses?” The first voice asked.

“Two won't cut it, not at this range, not even if we scored a direct hit, right? You know this thing better than me, don’t you?” The second voice challenged.

“...Two pulses won't be enough…” The third voice reluctantly agreed.

“Then follow orders, set to three pulses and fire when ready.”

“But…” the first voice timidly interjected, “won't the other’s manage?”

“We can’t rely on that,” The second shot back, “Only three of us managed to fire this last time, and there is no telling how many will manage to fire this coming time. Even if all of the other four could fire, we can’t rely on them hitting, we’ve only managed one glancing blow out of seven attacks. No, we can’t risk it, set to three pulses.”

“...fine…”

Mezhanos listened as their argument came to a close and each of them moved to go perform their duties. He wanted to go join them. But while he was awake, he couldn’t manage to get his body moving, even trying to move out of the coolant he was laying in was beyond him.

“Coolant is filled!”

“Good, begin charge and make final aiming adjustments.”

Once again, the voices paused, and all Mezhanos could hear was the sound of movement, of his fellow technomancers, working.

And then there was a flash, and nothing else.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:42

Royal Army Temporary Command Center, Berzin Hills, 5 miles south of Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

General Merrick Miller.

With no warning, there was a blinding flash a few hundred feet to the left of the command tent. Partially obstructed by the walls of the tent, the bulk of the flash wasn’t seen by those inside, and the blinding effect was reduced, if not completely missing this time.

So, with almost completely unhindered eyesight, everyone in the command center could see the orange and red glow as a massive fireball erupted from the side of the nearest hill. While they were still shocked motionless, a warm wind blew across their own tent, rattling the posts and making the flaps dance about.

General Merrick had been sitting when the flash and explosion happened, but Ambassador Zhou An had been in the process of taking his own seat, he was caught off guard with his legs bent, but before he had made contact with the wooden chair, and had stumbled into it.

“What was that?” He asked, irritatedly as he was messaging his now newly bruised elbow.

The General said nothing, even though he was pretty confident he knew the source of the blast.

“General!” another one of his adjutants yelled even as he was still coming back from the side of the tent. “Techno-artillery position two… It exploded.”

He could only manage a grief-filled sigh as he ignored the ambassador’s perplexed look.

“How much damage to the surroundings?”

“I… I can’t tell, there’s too much smoke. But, position two had been hit earlier, and the surrounding guard unit took the brunt of it, I think they had already pulled out most of the wounded...”

“Well, go find out, please.”

“Yes, Sir!”

He sighed again as his adjutant rushed off to follow his orders and discover how many people had just died in an accident.

“Well, Mr. Ambassador, that is also, one of the problems with the Light Throwers.”

“That… That they explode?” The foreigner asked with some confusion.

“Yes, that they explode.” He responded while taking a sip of his tea, a somewhat bland Green-Leaf blend.

“If you do not mind this humble one asking, how often does this happen?”

“Rarely,” he said as he put the cup down, “When the devices are in good condition, they explode maybe once every hundred times they are fired. The explosions are usually small, most of the crew gets killed if they are close, injured if they are farther away. Now they all stand twenty feet away when firing the weapon to keep them mostly safe. Any explosion, even the smallest, will generally destroy the device entirely, however.”

“This humble one would like to point out that that was not a small explosion.”

“No, that was a medium sized one. I actually saw one like that before, the entire crew died then too. Large explosions are about three times as powerful as that. Very dangerous, even if it happens rarely. Medium explosions are infrequent, the should only happen less than once every five hundred uses of the weapon, but they haven’t been tested enough for us to really know. As for large explosions, they’ve only happened a total of two times.”

“It would seem, that we were rather unlucky just now.”

“Not really, position two had reported light damage earlier. Failures of any kind are a lot more frequent when the device is being used in environments that aren’t ideal, such as on a cold snowy night. And they are much more common when the device is damaged or has been used repeatedly.”

“This humble one sees.”

“Well, you could still say we were unlucky. A medium size explosion is still unlikely, and is a large problem itself.”

“Of course.”

“Not to mention the fact that position one was destroyed earlier, position four is undergoing repairs, and position five is out of mana crystals to fuel with. With position two having just exploded, that leaves only position three to finish off the Greater Elemental.”

“That is, indeed, quite bad. Not to mention, the Fragment has not shown up yet.”

“Ideally, position four will manage to come online before that happens, but even if not, I gave orders for position four’s spare fuel to be sent to position five. At the very least, we will have two Light Thrower to deal with the Fragment, and also, the Fragment is larger, so we won't have to deal with all of these poorly aimed shots.”

“The Fragment, however, will-” The ambassador abruptly stopped his words, because suddenly, a high pitched whistle began blowing, the sign that the remaining Light Thrower was ready to fire. “Well, let us see how this goes.”

The ambassador turned his head and covered his eyes while the General just toggled the shadow guard on his glasses again.

There was one single flash, as they expected, and it was not followed by an explosion this time. After a few seconds, the two men were again looking over the battlefield, waiting for the mages to blow away the fog, a fog that was smaller and less dense than the last two times.

“Excellent!” The ambassador exclaimed.

General Merrick said nothing, but he could not help the smile from appearing on his face. As the mist cleared, a new crater had appeared, and it had appeared directly where the Greater Elemental had been crawling through the snow. There was no trace of the icy spider.

HHHWWWAAAaaaaaaaaaaaAAARMMMM!!!!

And just like that, the smile on his face froze.

The remainder of the mist was blown away, to reveal a massive Elemental standing at the back of the host. It was sixty feet tall, it had three massive legs that could stomp a man and horse into paste, no, it could probably stomp two or three men and their horses at once. Its body was somewhat small compared the rest of it, except for two bulges where the shoulders should be. They were almost the size of the command tent, and they were also covered in massive spears of ice. There was no head, and the shoulders ended in two whip-like arms that trailed across the ground behind it.

The Elemental, the Fragment, stood still for a moment, as if it were surveying the battle, even though it had no head to survey with, and no brain or mind with which to make senses of what it saw. Then after that second of standing still, it slowly and ponderously moved forward.

----------------------------------------

Saturday, February 21st, N.E. 807, 02:45

Charo Street, 7th Circle, Royal Capital Arvas, Fredirin Kingdom.

Olivia Pine Fredirin.

“Your arm… Is it okay? I didn’t bandage it too tight?” A fretful Ula asked.

“It is fine.” I lightly responded.

To her second question, I was honest, the bandage was fine, as far as I could tell. To the first one, I may have stretched the truth a bit. I had needed the wand to be in complete contact to allow a smoother transfer of mana, that required that the wand be inserted into my arm, a fact I had hidden from the others.

My body could repair mundane damage, torn skin, damaged bones and muscles, blood loss, anything of that sort with ease. But, I had pushed the wand beyond its limits, and it had exploded within my arm. Realizing what would happen, I was able to direct most of the force from the explosion towards the Greater Elemental, otherwise, my arm would have ended up like the crystalline knight I had killed. That level of injury, a complete regeneration, was beyond me.

I had avoided the worst, but the end result was bad, most of the bones in my arm were shattered, they, along with the pieces of the wand, tore their way through my skin, leaving my arm a bloody mess. And for good measure, the wand’s explosion also severely burnt what was left.

“It doesn’t hurt?” Ula asked again.

“Hurt?”

“I mean, are you in pain? We probably have something to help with that?”

“Oh, pain… Yes, I suppose it does hurt? But that does not matter.”

Pain was another thing I struggled to comprehend.

Pain was discomfort, something unpleasant, but it was also nothing more than a sensation. Humans seem to put great emphasis on pain, on the avoidance of it, but I struggled to understand why they went so far. Of course, I preferred to not experience pain, but pain and suffering were just a cost sometimes required to get what you wanted, a price I would gladly pay. The pain I was feeling, it was a cost required to defeat my enemy, nothing more, nothing less.

“What about you, Ula? Are you okay?” I asked my Spectre.

“Me!? I am fine too, just a bit ragged,” She said with a shrug and a wry smile, but then her eyes seemed to glaze over for a second and she added, “Just a bit… hungr- no, that doesn’t matter.”

Ula shook her head and then stood up and moved slightly away, her eyes locked on my bandaged arm the entire time.

She had done that a few times, seemingly losing herself in thought as she was bandaging me, sometimes I even had to call her name to bring her awareness back. I did not really need the bandages in the first place, I had already stopped the blood flow myself, but both Ula and my cousin had insisted. And since Lillian had no medical knowledge, and her two guards were busy with their own injuries, the job fell to Ula, even if her stomach did keep growling and she did keep licking her lips while she was working.

“Um…” After Ula wandered away, my cousin came and sat down on the crate next to me. “D-do you know th-that… she w-wants to e-eat you?”

While I was unconscious for a few minutes following my fight with the Greater Elemental, the group and retreated into a storage cellar in one of the surrounding buildings. Lillian had used a magic scroll to create a non-detection area that had prevented any of the remaining wandering Elementals from finding us, which had bought us needed time to rest.

But, now that the immediate danger had passed, my cousin had reverted to her stuttering and more awkward manner of speech.

“She’s reacting to my blood,” I explained matter of factly, “She has some Sharkfolk heritage in her, it makes her sensitive to the scent of blood.”

“I-I see…”

“Once we get out of this building, the scent will dissipate and she will be fine,” I said as I stood up.

“Should… should we not stay here for now?”

“No,” I denied as I scanned over the four other people in the room, “We should fall back for now, whatever happens next, we do not want to get caught up in it, and we’ve recovered enough that we can easily fight our way past any normal Elementals we encounter.”

“Oh… O-okay. Then… will we go di-different ways then?” she asked sadly.

“For now, yes.”

“...C-could… C-could we m-maybe meet again…? In the f-future?”

“Maybe.” I said, “But for now, we need to get out of here.”

My cousin was grinning foolishly, Ula was still trying to keep her distance from me, and the two knights were standing protectively around Lillian when we exited the trap door back into the courtyard of the building we were hiding under.

Our battle had wrecked a decent sized chunk of the area, falling buildings made up the majority of the surrounding structures now, and everything was covered in ice. Two large frozen legs made to resemble armor, and some fist-sized chunks of ice were all that remained of the Greater Elemental.

“Let’s go,” I said curtly.

There was nothing visible, Ula had even jumped up on one of the more intact builds to look around, and had spotted nothing. We were safe, but I felt a sense of oppression slowly building. When we were still down in the cellar I had felt nothing, but once we began climbing the ladder outside, I started noticing it.

And it was getting stronger.

“There is a survivor over there,” Ula shouted from the roof, her hand pointing toward the south.

We all turned our gaze to where she pointed, and indeed, she was correct. A woman stood there, likely a soldier who barely survived. She wore armor, but it was cracked and smashed, the leather torn and cut. She still held a sword, even if the weapon was damaged, but she held it limply and loosely, as if she were shocked senseless. Her red hair was unruly and dirty, her clothing and armor were caked in mud and blood, but she looked like any normal person at a glance.

But, she was no normal person.

A sense of wrongness and corruption, stronger than anything I had felt all night, stronger than I had even though possible, emanated from the woman. The feeling that the Greater Elemental gave off was nothing compared to this, a light breeze compared to a tornado, a puddle on the floor to an ocean.

The woman turned to face us, the right half of her face was burnt, even the eye was gone. Burns extended down her neck and down into her armor, most likely covering her chest and going to her arm and leg. But those burns were now covered inice, in fact, her entire right arm was made from transparent ice, the original limb of flesh and blood was long gone.

The Greater Elemental was powerful, but not what I would call strong. If I had been properly equipped with quality weapons, I would have easily destroyed it, if Michael’s soul had not been hidden within my heart, I would have destroyed it easily. And if I were still the me from before, the Greater Elemental would not have even qualified to be my opponent.

But this, this thing in the guise of a woman…

This was strong.