The air inside Morwen’s shield grew thick with tension as she and the mages alongside the Brotherhood of Man’s tank platoon stared down the dread lord Ominek. Morwen desperately wanted to check in with Akamori’s squad to see how they were doing, but Ominek commanded absolute attention through his presence. She couldn’t afford a distraction like that now. She’d entrusted the mages with disrupting the ritual and destroying the talismans, and she had to trust they were up to the task.

“Lt. Fennex, I’ll leave the commands of the tanks to you. Myself, Yasiin, and Sala will do what we can to deal with Ominek’s magic. Provide fire and maneuver support as you see fit.”

“Yes sir,” Fennex’s gruff drawl said.

Ominek took a step forward, and the tank column’s bodies swiveled to face the rear, though the turrets all remained focused on him. He took another step and Sala took a step forward, his golden aura flaring a challenge. Morwen could see his hands clenching tightly, and the sound of stone and gravel crunching told her the primal was cracking his knuckles.

“Let’s begin,” Ominek said with a scowl.

The dread lord raced forward and clashed with Sala. The two locked in a struggle, hands locked as they grappled. Feet struggling for purchase in the slick topsoil. Peeling furrows into the grass and mud. The tanks ground into motion, running in a half circle to get a flanking shot on Ominek. As the column circled around, Morwen could see just how outclassed Ominek was in size against Sala’s channeled form. His stone's hands looked like they were eating Ominek’s hands at the wrists. Hot lava dripped from Sala’s mouth like drool. Where it struck the ground and burned at the vegetation, there was a subtle hiss and sizzle.

Morwen could see the tightly corded muscles in Sala’s back flexing and twitch as the two jockeyed for dominance. Even with his immense size and strength, the dread lord had matched him. Ominek for his part looked composed and simply glared at the primal, his lips drawn into a sneer, showing his teeth. Morwen hoped Yasiin had been drifting with them. She started weaving dark signs, channeling the aether to build a void ray spell. As she did, she could feel the surge in magic above her from Yasiin’s spell rifle as well. The void in him called to the void in her.

As one, the tanks, Morwen, and Yasiin’s spells and shells all fired at once. At the last moment, Sala torqued Ominek from the ground, holding him up by the hands. The primal turned with his makeshift shield, putting Ominek directly in the line of fire. Sala and Ominek disappeared in a fireball mixed with dark magic. The tanks slowed to a halt, and Morwen and Yasiin searched for some sign of a success.

The smoke cleared away slowly, almost painstakingly. She saw Sala’s feet, wreathed in his golden aura. Then his waist and chest, which looked badly injured, and his arms. Two deep gouges in chest looked like cracked rocks, like someone just blew pieces out with explosives on a mining expedition. No Ominek though. The last wisps blew away to reveal Ominek perched on Sala’s massive arms. He’d jumped out of the way at the last possible moment, and the Primal staggered. His light aura had blunted most of the attacks and repaired the damage he took, but she could see the injuries. She could feel her heart twist into knots studying the damage.

“He’ll be fine,” Yasiin said.

She glanced up to the airborne sniper. Yasiin had spent the most time with Sala aside from the sergeant. She trusted his opinion. Sala staggered off balance, though, and Ominek flipped back down onto the ground and kicked the primal away from him without looking. She gripped the rim of the turret as Sala carved a deep muddy groove into the soil from the force of the kick.

“Is this the best you can offer me? A filthy mongrel, and a pathetic nomad? This was supposed to be the Federations' great fall and you muster children to fight me?”

Not in the mood for another of Ominek’s tantrums she wove another void ray spell, pulling deeply at the pool of dark aether in her reserves and blasted the spell out. Yasiin responded, and the tanks fired soon after. She missed having some kind of spell armor to check her AP count easily without having to pull up the in game displays. She resolved to just run on gut instinct for now.

Ominek had no one to shield the attacks for him this time, so the dread lord just blocked the missiles with his own arms. As the smoke cleared, Morwen could see the damage to his arms. But his wounds quickly knit back together. She watched as bone, sinew and flesh all regrew back. The fabric of his clothing restitched itself back together and any evidence they’d just injured the dread lord vanished without a trace. The small but not insignificant chip in Ominek’s HP bar slowly refilled itself. Morwen could sense the magical expenditure to repair the damage, but she wasn’t certain what cost it had taken. How often could he do that? And could they sustain a magical war of attrition against him? These questions and more fought for dominance as she tried to develop a plan from now on. All she could come up with at this point was simply surviving and bleeding him of magic.

“I’m open to suggestions,” she said into the comm.

The tank sped into motion as Ominek fired off a massive fire ball spell that slagged a tank on the outside of the column. She watched as the barrel sagged under the intense heat of the spell. Explosions ripped the tank to pieces soon after, while the fireball splashed into the rear of the shield. The runes lost vibrance, and the shield discolored as it weakened. They wouldn’t be able to contain him for long, and she knew he was keenly aware of that, yet he still toyed with them, though only slightly less amused than he’d been before.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

The air in front of Ominek rippled, and a cold primal fear raced down the back of her spine. The fear encoded genetically into her nervous system through countless generations of survival instinct. Ominek rocked forward on all fours as his clothing ripped into pieces of aether. His flesh discolored to a dark red hue with violet highlights and its texture hardened into the grated pattern of scales. Ominek’s pupils grew slitted and burned red. His snout lengthened and lined with rows of knifelike teeth. A pair of large wings rippled and stretched from his back as a long barbed tail swished behind him like an agitated cat. His neck stretched out and realized just how little room there was within her shield now. She watched in stunned silence as what had once been an advantage previously was now the liability Ominek had gloated about.

She cursed under her breath as she wove the signs to break the shield spell. The wards and runes shattering and raining spent aether all around them like sparks of dying energy. With the shield collapsed now, the wyvern was free to stretch out freely now. Morwen’s heart sank as she could finally view the rest of the battle now. She wished she hadn’t.

A horde of undead marched against the mages. Akamori stood between them and the guardian of the talisman. She could see Amara and the sergeant in the distance behind the fighting, studying the talisman, trying to break its power to shatter the spell Ominek had cast.

A deep rumbling laughter echoed from the dread lord's mouth, and he spoke in a deep gravely voice now in his authentic form. “I enjoy an excellent game, but it should be plainly obvious now just how poorly outclassed you are.”

At face value, he was right. But something nagged at her. Were that true, why were they still in this fight? Something didn’t seem right. Morwen got the sense Ominek was posturing. She straightened her back, and her expression hardened. No. She wouldn’t let him psyche her out of this fight.

The dragon took on an amused look, “Oh? What’s this? Has the little elven mage found her will to fight again? Good. I’ll enjoy shattering you as often as I can before I devour you.”

Ominek’s head torqued backwards and Morwen saw an immense violet and black ball of dark energy grow, as smaller orbs of dark energy pooled and gathered in the dragon's maw. Then she was motes of red energy pouring in the orb took on a totally void look. The absence of light, or rather, pure negative energy.

Morwen’s stomach tightened, “Fennex, move!”

The tanks lurched into motion, now that they had free run of the battlefield. The blast discharged, and she watched another tank burst into a flurry of particles in the spells wake. Where before the previous tank slagged into a smoldering heap, this one just ceased existence. Rendered into deconstructed atoms. The blast plowed through the tank unimpeded and blew away a massive rock formation nearby, carving a neat circular furrow into it, reshaping the land.

The tanks returned fire, but the shells simply bounced off the hardened scales of the dragon and Morwen truly felt how outclassed they were now. Yasiin fired a void ball spell that struck scales on the dragon’s snout, dissolving them and exposing the sinew and bone beneath the surface.

Ominek lurched backward and howled in rage. A moment later, his tail lashed out, but Yasiin dodged it nimbly. The wyvern surged forward in pursuit, galloping now. The earth rumbled with each crashing step as the second largest dragon she’d ever killed chased after them, and she wished to depths of her bones she had the Crasher to fight. The ship was enormous, cumbersome, and poorly matched for a battle like this, but it still would have given her a better chance than what she had at her disposal here.

The dread lord surged forward and scooped up another tank in its gaping maw, sparks and screaming metal sounded from the doomed vehicle as the dragon’s mouth crushed it between rows of spiked magical teeth that pierced the armored tub of the tank and mangled the vehicle under intense bite force pressures.

Morwen struggled to not lose heart. To refuse to accept defeat. She’d done everything she could to ensure they walked away with victory, but at every corner all she saw was their defeat looming. Ominek was right. He and his forces outclassed them in every way. They were children trying to fend off the inevitable. They were going to need some kind of divine miracle to pull this out. One she doubted was coming. She couldn’t count on outside influence since they made up the outside influence. She and her forces were here at the behest of the gods. Given a prophecy to act on, they couldn’t hope for any more help than they’d received. They’d have to make do with themselves. Outclassed as they were.

She took a quick breath and nodded. Very well, then. She started weaving the signs for a void ray spell. If she was going to give up her life here, she’d do it going out swinging.

She felt a pulsing bloom of dark energy billowing above her from Yasiin’s spell rifle. He’d clearly felt the same. She could see Sala struggling to get back to his feet in the distance. Clearly he was still feeling his injuries, and she couldn’t fault him for being out of the fight since he’d taken two void spells to the chest. His tanky personal spells are probably the only reason they didn’t core him through on the spot. She was going to apologize to him for that one later. He’d protest, but she’d insist.

Ominek lunged, this time aiming for her own tank. She and Yasiin fired off their spells. Twin void spells smashing into the dragon’s snout, boiling away scales and meat, leaving bone and a furious dread lord recoiling in pain.

“I AM GOING TO FINISH YOU NOW!” the dragon roared. Ominek stampeded forward, his lower jaw raking the loose top soil into his mouth until it spilled out of the sides as he cut a long canyon that pursued her fleeing tank. He closed so quickly Morwen could smell the death on its breath, and she knew in that instant how serious Ominek was. There was no outrunning him. No outfoxing him. No outgunning him. She had the curious sensation of someone tugging at her particular thread of fate.

This is it. She thought to herself. This is how it ends.

She closed her eyes, allowing a weak, exhausted smile to crest her lips, and waited for the peace and freedom that oblivion would bring. No more fighting. No more pointless struggling. Just peace. She could finally just stop.