Boreal dashed forward into the town, her children close behind. They all had new anti-teleportation bracelets made by Zalia and would be safe as long as they were kept close to Boreal.
The alarm must have been raised in the town with the breaking of the wall as Astar were forming in the air and the edge of the town in waiting. A few barriers went up and a forceful aura swept over them all. Boreal felt like the door to her soul had been torn open, her very being laid bare before the enemies ahead of her. She could tell that some of the wildlife felt this much more painfully than she did as they stumbled to a stop. Fortunately, these were the lower-ranked ones, mostly Iron ranked.
Boreal reached the town first, an empowered pounce crashing through a hastily established barrier. The Astar on the other side didn’t stand a chance, most of them Bronze ranked, as Boreal crashed through them violently. A slash tore open one's throat, piercing teeth and a strong jaw crushing the spinal cord below the skull of another. Her icy magic tore through three more, freezing them solid and killing them instantly.
Her children followed, Prance distracting one as Pounce crashed into it from behind. Frost followed her example and froze another Astar who then quickly died to Boreal’s powers as well.
Breeze and Rush ran circles around others as they tried to block them in or kill them with space-warping powers.
Boreal saw other wildlife fighting all around. Birds swarmed Astar with sharp pecking beaks, a few going down under dozens of birds each. The other wildcats were all tearing through their own groups of Astar while many of the land animals wielded earth powers that allowed them to pull Astar down from the sky.
It wasn’t all a one-sided fight, however.
One of the wildcats was torn in two by a space-warping ability, some flocks of birds were enclosed by barriers that slowly collapsed in on themselves, crushing the poor things into a paste. A few of the ground creatures were teleported far into the sky, only to drop at much too quick speeds.
The fight had started off well, with many of the Astar being shocked or not ready for the attack.
It was at this turn of the fight that the first humans began to fight back.
Souls had been rushing through the city since the start of the fight, yet now some were finding bodies that belonged to them. Many of these humans were Silver rank, strong enough to tear off the shackles that bound their legs. While unfortunately unable to break the power-subduing bracelets, they were still strong enough that when they ambushed the Astar around them, they were able to fight back effectively.
Using lengths of wood or stones that they carried, some even swinging the entire sacks themselves, the human slaves turned against their masters and the fight turned chaotic. Where the Astar had been forming a line to fight the wildlife in an orderly manner, the humans waking across the entire town caused mayhem.
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Zalia stood with eyes closed as she focused. She had no idea how the fight was going so far, but knew that she needed to get help to them as quickly as possible. The ritual in front of her would take precious minutes to activate, she knew that.
At the same time as she spent most of her concentration in a quiet chant to bring this powerful elemental to the battle, she activated the smaller living rituals where she could. She could only do one or two at a time but slowly, these smaller rituals let elementals trickle towards the fight.
Zalia had designed this massive ritual in a manner that it would take less time to activate than the anti-teleportation ritual back at home would have. The limited lifespan of the elemental was the biggest cause of that time reduction, changing it from something that would take hours to mere minutes. It would have been faster again, except Zalia had made it something that was really two rituals in one. The first created the massive elemental, while the other would teleport it straight into the city only a few seconds after it was created.
It took all of her willpower to keep from thinking about her family in danger in the city and remain focused on the ritual. A piece of her mind was reminding her of the promise she made to General Faian not to start a war with the Astar, yet that piece was quieted by the need to save her family. The consequences of this day would be dealt with later.
With a cracking sound, the ritual finally activated. A huge stone arm ripped itself from the ground, followed by another. These two arms pulled a massive twenty-metre-tall elemental from the ground. The thing looked down at Zalia, an intelligence in the two glowing chasms that formed its eyes. She saw it for only a second before it vanished into thin air.
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Aylie floated through the streets of the Astar town as quickly as her misty body would allow. Ember had separated from her some minutes before, pulled in a different direction than she was. Aylie didn’t have time to think about that now, as the thread linking her to that distant location that felt like home grew closer and closer.
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She could feel it, an escape from the slowness of her mind, the limitations of her body. The way back to how life should be. It was so close.
An Astar flashed by in her vision, floating quickly to the edge of town where wildlife and hopefully elementals were fighting other Astar by now. Another misty form merged with a body and Aylie saw the dead, blank eyes of that person come alive, a frantic, wild expression replacing it. The person tore off their manacles and dashed off quickly catching the Astar and hitting it with a wild swing to the back of the head. The Astar dropped to the floor like a sack of potatoes, dead.
Aylie saw all of this and more over a few moments, absolute chaos reigning in the once orderly and peaceful Astar town. Through it all, she finally saw… herself.
Her body was walking slowly, bound at the legs and carrying a sack slung across her back. Her arms had power-subduing bracelets on them.
She rushed forward and collided with her body.
In a rush, memory came back to her. She opened her eyes to see the town in front of her except… different. She felt alive like she was finally awake after being asleep for so long.
Strangely enough, she could feel her power there, ready to be used, unbound by the bracelets that she wore.
Ignoring the manacles on her legs, she used Starlit Portal to teleport herself to the other side of town, where the battle was warring the hardest. There, wildlife, elementals and Astar fought in a wild clash as mist poured through the opening in the wall behind her. More and more elementals ran through that wall, flinging fire and earth, others flying upwards and throwing the airborne Astar around with strong winds.
Her powers still unbound, Aylie summoned her staff and held it tightly, revelling in the sense of power that flowed through her.
She started chanting, the words guttural and harsh, a language that she could not understand yet knew in her soul. As she did so, the light filtering through the mist above darkened until the entire town was cast in shadow.
No one in the town could see what was happening, but Aylie knew. She was the one who did this.
A few of the Astar looked upwards in confusion but quickly went back to fighting, much of the town lit up by fires being spread by the few fire elementals amongst the wildlife.
Aylie kept chanting.
A huge form glowing a deep red appeared and dropped a few metres on top of a few of the Astar buildings, an elemental so much bigger than the others as to cause a momentary stop in the fighting. It opened its mouth with a sharp cracking sound and lava poured forth over a few Astar, bathing the town in light and the screams of the burning.
Aylie kept chanting.
Many Astar swarmed around the bigger elemental, obviously marking the Silver rank as a threat. They chanted in unison, forming a ritual around it that went off. Nothing happened.
The Astar seemed shocked as a long arm swept past and slapped a few of them into the ground with an earsplitting crack. Whatever they had tried had not worked.
Yet more elementals came from the forests nearby and Aylie knew that Zalia would soon arrive. Their assault had worked, she was free. Now they just had to find Ember and get as many of the other people out as possible.
Aylie’s chant continued.
More and more humans arrived at the edge of the town, some running to join the fight while others fled. Many of them, however, paused behind the lines to try to get the power subduing bracelets off.
Boreal appeared from the madness and helped one take their bracelets off. Once done, they were able to begin helping others do the same. Apparently, all it took was the help of someone who didn’t have the bracelets on themselves.
More and more magic joined the battle as people got their powers back. Some were soldiers, going in and swinging with all their considerably increased strength, others throwing elements that were significantly more powerful than those of the elementals around. Others yet continued to flee, obviously without classes that would help in battle.
Aylie continued her chant.
Zalia appeared above the battle, flying on wide wings of air. Her bow floated next to her, firing off arrow after arrow, each making contact with an Astar head or heart. Zalia hung unconcerned in the air, casting rituals that started even more fires amongst the Astar buildings. Aylie couldn’t see her expression from here she could tell that Zalia held no remorse or guilt for what she did. The Astar had done something to her and her people that would grant them no mercy from this Druid.
Aylie watched an arrow strike one Astar, a bolt of power bouncing from it to seven others, killing all of them instantly. Purple fire spread through the town, jumping from building to building, some sparks lighting more Astar on fire.
Finally, Aylie finished her chant.
From the skies above, flashing bolts of light fell. They struck Astar all across the town, impacting with massive force and lighting beautiful ethereal fires. More and more fell, killing hundreds in an instant.
A second wave came, quickly following the first, until the town was alight with the power of the stars.
As the first two waves subsided, miniature undirected meteorites showered the town, smashing through flesh, wood and stone alike.
Taking a longer time to cast Starfall through the staff, Aylie was able to bring down not one but two showers of the directed stars, each even more powerful because of it.
With her contribution to the fight complete, she ran towards the people who were fleeing the town, hoping to get them organised and out before the Astar could regroup and fight back. They might have taken them a surprise in this storm attack and killed many of them, but she knew that they wouldn’t hold this position for long. Even now, the big elemental Zalia had summoned was being torn apart by spatial magic.
Even as she helped the people below, Aylie could see the power building where Zalia flew above it all and knew that she wasn’t going to let up just yet. They could save many more still.