While the final clean-up of the central continent was underway, reconnaissance monitored the enemy's main base. The demons had long since cleared the snow cover, so the portal was situated on an open, wind-swept platform. The day after the war began, the entire area was covered by a force field designed to protect against aerial attacks. I made no attempt to dissuade the demons from its effectiveness. Everything in its own time.

A week later, scouts reported increased activity in the camp. It soon became clear that the enemy was serious. If the previous army numbered in the millions, this time the count was in the billions. A special network of spells had opened numerous portals around the base, connecting to the central interdimensional portal, through which troops flowed onto the planet in a steady stream. Determining their exact composition was difficult because they were all covered by opaque shields from above, and ground reconnaissance risked landing on the enemy's head, as the army occupied nearly the entire available surface. However, it was evident that the majority of this army was once again infantry or, at best, cavalry.

I don't know what the demons were hoping for, but as soon as the reconnaissance reported that the troop transfer was complete and the portals were closed, I gave the signal to attack. Over the past time, we managed to quickly assemble more than three thousand aircraft carriers. And this massive force immediately surged north. There, the aviation formed a combat formation at an altitude of ten kilometers and opened fire with all their weapons.

The firepower of the aircraft carrier was essentially limited by the power of the energy source. Artifacts could convert almost any amount of magical energy into plasma charges. During the attack, each plane drained energy from over a hundred spiders. And developing the power of a magical core was one of the most important practices in the life of any spider.

In general, the rain of plasma that descended upon the earth wiped out all the shields in less than a second, turning all the assembled troops to ashes, especially since they were standing extremely compactly, almost shoulder to shoulder. The area around the main portal was defended much better, so breaches in the shield were isolated.

Within just ten minutes, ninety percent of the demon army was destroyed. All the snow over the vast area melted, leaving behind boiling lakes. Even I, on the other side of the globe, could feel the rage and fury emanating from the demon army’s leader. However, this psychic attack had little impact on us. After all, spiders are natural telepaths, and broadcasting their emotions was essentially admitting to one’s impotence.

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Then the shield over the central portal fell, and thousands, or even millions, of dragons surged into the air. More precisely, zombie-dragons. From a distance, these creatures looked majestic, but through optics, rotting patches were visible, with bones and mechanical movements of their wings showing through.

Millions of dragons against three thousand aircraft carriers. It seemed like my troops were doomed... but I thought otherwise. In this battle, I would win with no losses at all. On my command, the aircraft carriers accelerated and began to climb while simultaneously firing at the enemies. The dragons flapped their wings with all their might, evading my shells and climbing higher and higher. Two kilometers, four, six... at this altitude, it became clear that something born to crawl could not fly. Although the dragons were magical creatures, their wings were not for show but for 'scooping' air. The higher the undead flew, the more rarefied the air became, and the more they had to flap their wings.

Seven kilometers was the ceiling for necro-aviation. The dragons flapped their wings faster than flies but could not climb even a meter higher. Within seconds, the undead reached the limit of their durability, and their wings began to fall off. The foolish zombies tried to follow orders at any cost, destroying the joints and muscles that moved the wings. As a result, their flesh literally exploded into pieces, condemning the cripples to an uncontrolled fall.

Meanwhile, my aviation hovered at an altitude of fifteen kilometers, shooting at the helpless targets as if in a shooting range. Essentially, by directing half of the available energy to the engines, the aircraft could have reached an altitude of thirty kilometers. Even on Earth, not every surface-to-air missile can reach such heights. But additional tricks were unnecessary.

Desperate demons began to shoot upward with their most powerful spells. However, all these spells had one of two flaws. Either their attack was fast but dispersed in the air over a relatively short distance, or it could travel far but was... slow. Fifteen kilometers is quite a considerable distance. So, once the huge fireballs rose above the level of the dragons, each aircraft immediately shot at each charge. It was quite clear that, in the end, the enemy's spells exploded too far from their targets. And launching a mass attack with thousands of charges was impossible for them. Judging by the density of the fire, the entire demon army could be matched at most by a dozen of my aircraft carriers.