Three figures sneaked across the open field under the cover of night. Two of them were cloaked to appear completely invisible in the dark, the light itself bending as to not touch them in the slightest. To anyone who could see it, which only amounted to one person and one AI in the whole universe, they would appear surrounded by a shimmering field of force that reacted to every photon that passed in the general area and gently redirected it.

The third figure was completely invisible to any eye, magical or mundane, missing as it was from the material realm. Its only presence was something akin to sympathetic affinity, the tether connecting its presence to the material realm thin and ethereal.

Albert kept track of his teammates on his heads-up display provided by Jeff. He knew the location of Lina and Scrappy through different methods. For Lina it was easy since he was the one providing cloaking, while Scrappy was in the shadow realm and thus utterly invisible even to his senses. Fortunately, his power literally changed the rules of the game, and he could keep track of her easily enough.

The trio stalked the land towards the enemy encampment at the head of the line of monsters. This close to the camp, the monsters were not moving anymore, the Lithoids standing still like ominous statues of obsidian in the dreamy light of the silver moonlight. Looking back, the tail end of the line was like a sea of molasses, the stragglers and the zombies still walking slowly to keep up with the rest of the monsters.

“Contact,” Albert said, breaking the silence. A raised fist, and the trio stopped. “I see the camp up ahead.”

“What do you see?” Lina asked, all business. Neither her senses nor Scrappy’s were sharp enough to see that far, which put the camp at more than three kilometers of distance from them. Perhaps much more than that.

“Several bio-signatures. Three mages aaaaand” he squinted, “fifty or so others. Not too powerful magically, but their life-force is strong. Cultivators, perhaps. One of the mages is weird, very powerful, and probably the source of the strange energy.”

His right hand disappeared into an alternate space as he took a deep breath. “I think this is close enough.” He announced. “Stay sharp everyone.”

The plan had been already discussed previously. In unison, the three sprang into motion. Albert made preparations to summon the weapon and transport it as close to the camp as possible. Being the most powerful, he was also the one who could withstand staying closest to the blast. Scrappy and Lina, on the other hand, were tasked with covering the two exit routes out of the valley. They were the most probable places any survivor from the blast could escape to.

They weren’t the only escape routes, of course. Any mage worth their salt had dozens of ways they could move around. An image of SpaceOps from the past came to Albert’s mind, and he remembered just how mobile the man was. However, any large use of mana would be either very easy to spot and counter, or if the radiation made it impossible for Albert to see it, then it stood to reason that it would make casting said magic even more impossible.

Besides, Albert had the mage’s scent. If he escaped, he would know it and could track him.

Mere minutes later, Albert received confirmation that both Scrappy and Lina were in place. The temporary communication stones, bearing a single Mandarin character holding the enchantment crumbled into dust, their single charge expended. A snap of his fingers, and the bomb was on its way.

Fifty-five milliseconds later, night turned into day as the 10-kiloton nuclear warhead turned the better part of a mile-wide area into molten glass.

***

Scrappy looked at the valley from her vantage point at the top of a small rocky hill. She was still melded into the shadows of the shadowy realm only she could cross into, and the world appeared grey and strange to her eyes. It was like any trace of color had been sucked away, turned into a shade of grey, lighter or darker but never with any color.

She didn’t know if she liked it or not. It had been disconcerting at first, but as time passed she found this monotony soothing. It was a temporary reprieve from the overwhelming color of the human world she now inhabited.

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It did help that this place also had other features she very much liked. For instance, while she was here she could see sources of power like beacons of powerful light. Lina was a glowing ember to her eyes. Even she herself must have been quite bright, although she had no way to see that. She only knew that she couldn’t see her own light, and that it didn’t light up the area around her. Neither did Lina’s, so she didn’t worry.

Her favorite part was how Sir Albert looked when seen from the realm of the shadows. If Lina was a glowing ember, he was a raging bonfire. His light was so bright and strong it almost burned Scrappy’s eyes the first time she saw it. And while Lina’s light was blue and red, his was the colors of the rainbow, ever shifting. Powerful enough to even bring back color to the grayscale realm of the shadows all around him, and more. Whenever he moved, the shapes and the shadows reacted to him.

Scrappy had never seen anything like this before. Indeed, in the material realm she could only guess at her beloved Sir Albert’s true power. He was like a powerful hunter, disguised as a powerless mewling babe. Only when he actually wielded his power did he reveal a sliver of his true potential. It was a good strategy, one she very much wanted to emulate. Fool your victims by hiding your true power, and then strike them when they least expect you to.

It was the core of her whole skillset, and even that he did better than her.

In any case, she thought as she caught her own thoughts wandering, the strange thing about Albert was that the reality of the realm of shadows seemed to become very thin around him. Things became strange, and wherever his light added color to the world, the world itself became like a dream. Fuzzy, fluid, ever-changing.

The small communication device in her pocket crumbled. She shook her head, refocusing on the present. Lina was in place. Soon, the strange bomb would detonate and she would finally see a glimpse of Sir Albert’s true power.

His words echoed in her head, from when they formulated their plan.

“And here I am, quoting Oppenheimer as he himself quoted: I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” He had said. “And indeed, here is the power to destroy worlds, the one thing that changed the shape of warfare on this planet for almost a century. At least until magic came. And you will see, that had any mage known science… this world might have become a desolate wasteland a long time ago.”

Scrappy counted down the seconds.

5.

She wondered what Albert meant by saying that. What was science?

4.

Perhaps some forbidden knowledge?

3.

He had talked about the powers of the universe, but not with the tone he usually used.

2.

He did not even talk with that level of reverence about the capital-U Universe.

1.

This was different.

0.

The world became white. Even in the colorless, lightless world of the shadows, night turned into day. Scrappy stared, dumbfounded, thankful she was wearing the strange glasses device Albert had given her.

Her jaw hung open. And as the light slowly faded, a column of fire rose into the sky, piercing the clouds. A mushroom fireball as large as a small mountain. Even the imposing column of golems on the ground below could only stare awestruck, immobile, at the incredible destruction she had the privilege to witness.

A shockwave of terrible power rolled out from the center of the blast. Flattening everything.

Scrappy’s heart pounded, her eyes full of stars.

***

Death. Destruction.

Lina could hardly think, and despite how much she wanted to look away she found her eyes glued to the blinding light of the explosion. She felt the skin on her face heat up, she felt the personal shield Albert had gifted her activate to ward off the poisonous light, to protect her.

But she could hardly think about all that.

Death. Destruction.

Such power held in a device smaller than her body. Something that could be hauled and thrown by someone like Albert with ease.

Something that could be activated by the snap of two fingers. Bringing death and destruction like she had never witnessed before.

Sure, there were tales of dragons and grand mages. Perhaps the Scarlet Sorceress had had similar weapons. She was said to bring destruction and clouds in the shape of mushrooms whenever she laid waste to entire empires.

But Lina had never believed those things were real. That was how she was able to sleep at night.

Now she saw it.

She had known Albert was powerful.

But.

“I have… how many more?” He had said, and he was scratching his gods-damned face as he said that, looking as unserious as a court jester picking his nose. “Must be thirty more of those in storage. Half of them are as powerful, the others are even more powerful than the one I’m about to drop.”

That sentence had meant nothing to her back when he said it. How could it? She had no reference frame. Sure, he had said the weapon was powerful, but those were just words. Everyone toots their own horn sometimes, Albert more often than most.

Now? Now all Lina could think of was death. And destruction.

“And antimatter! You should see antimatter!” Albert had added with a twinkle in his eyes.

Antimatter, he had said, could do the same and more with less material than there was in a small pebble.

Lina shuddered.

She thought herself powerful.

She was lucky that she was on the same team as Albert. She didn’t think anything could survive a weapon of mass destruction like this.