With the city in ruins and a massive breach having been made, the forces of Arkhan made a full assault. From both land and sky, countless MSGs made their way into the now radioactive ruins of Sunhallow. While the system that controlled the magical reinforcement of building had shifted its power to defending the people, it had no idea of the existence of radiation and had thus switched back to increasing the durability of the hastily erected fortifications inside the city. With the aid of healers, the effects of radiation poisoning were kept to a minimum, but people still felt weak and found it hard to see due to the brilliant flash that had occurred having temporarily or permanently blinded more than a handful.

Hiroyuki himself was now preparing to make a final stand in the lowest level of the palace, although he would never admit to anyone, including himself, that the situation was hopeless and that he, the chosen one, would likely die soon. The blast had heavily damaged the stone buildings that made up the city, and the once glorious jewel named Sunhallow was looking more like the G*rman Capitol of B*rlin during the closing months of the second world war. Every man, woman and child had begun preparing for a last battle.

Despite the devastation, this battle was going to be just as costly, if not more so than the battle for the heart of the uncharted lands. The fighting was what the kind the Wehrmacht had called ‘Rattenkreig’, a vicious, no holds barred urban nightmare. The locals knew the terrain and had the defender’s advantage, which let them hold out under seemingly impossible odds. Supplies, personnel and equipment were being delivered to the mini-forts that had all but taken over the city.

Using the labyrinthine corridors in the sewers, the defenders were able to hold their own and retreat when they were about to be overwhelmed. The magical enchantments in the sewers had the unintended effect of rendering any sensor system aside from visual completely useless and helped keep the MSGs from entering for fear of getting hopelessly lost and eventually cut down. The natives ruled the sewers unopposed, while the skies and streets were controlled by the forces of Arkhan.

As Kampfers and other MSGs made constant assaults on the miniforts, their backs were almost always exposed to overlapping lanes of fire from crossbows and magic. Normally nothing more than a mild annoyance, the fact that the city itself supplied the magi with an almost bottomless font of mana coupled with the Armor-Piercing enchantment on both the crossbows and their bolts made the whole endeavor costlier than expected. Occasionally a group of defenders would make the stupid decision to abandon their defenses and sally forth, only to serve as a reminder to the rest of the defenders not to try it.

The Kampfers in particular would hide out above the fighting and when some fool made decided to go outside, they would drop down and blast the idiot with their shotguns while rapidly descending. This ‘shotgun rain’ was horribly demoralizing for anyone who saw it, as the high-speed buckshot tore men to pieces with those who remained alive being blown away by a point-blank mercy shot to the head. The Kampfers would then fly back into the sky and wait for their next target to appear.

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The Battle of Sunhallow lasted for over two weeks before the last of the miniforts were wiped out. Now the assembled forces could begin the final stage of the fight. They made ready for a fight that would likely be even more costly than the Battle for the Uncharted Lands. The final assault of the remains of the Imperial palace was about to begin.

…

Asharia slowly moved the concrete above her from its position. She was effectively moving her bubble closer and closer towards the surface, moving the concrete above her to be behind her. The area around her was like a bubble in the ocean, slowly rising to the surface. No one had any idea she was awake, and no one had any idea she even existed for that matter. Even the Theocracy, which had sealed her in its earliest years had totally forgotten she even existed. She had been sealed so long ago that the only material that had reference to her were tablets so old they had been worn away to the point that no word could be read on them.

Language had changed so much over seven thousand years that even if the words were readable, they would not be understood. Everyone had forgotten about the Defender of Gaia; everyone had forgotten about the one-dragon-war she waged with the Angels in order to keep this world from being influenced by them. They had seeded most intelligent life on this world for such a twisted reason, and she, the only being on this world that had been intelligent before they had arrived, had no intention of letting them get what they wanted.

The Angels had to be stopped.

Her eyes saw the fierce struggle that was unfolding on the surface, with humans hiding away in their holes and the Golems hunting them like corned animals. Due to the darkness that still held an indominable sway over their actions, Asharia had no care for their lives. They had tread too far down the path of sin, and now the time had come for a karmic retribution. The sins of the fathers had come to destroy their sons, not that the sons had been without sin in the first place.

Asharia’s five heads smiled as much as they could with them being those of dragons. After seven thousand years the wheel had begun to turn. Progress was being made by those who sought to better everyone and the few who had tried to damn the world were being systemically destroyed or converted into better people. It was a pity that the Holy Crux Empire and the Theocracy were so far gone.

They had so much potential, only to squander it by bowing their heads to the fanatic purifiers who had made them for their twisted plans. If they had rebelled against their creators, their creators would not be able to retaliate, and the others in Heaven would step in to defend them. Now, such a thing might not be needed, as the power of these strange golems was likely more than enough to fight off the Angels. Once the forces of good had secured victory, Asharia estimated that they had only a decade or so before the Angels decided to throw themselves under the wagon and attack the planet. If they did that, the rest of Heaven would not stand idly by and would likely declare a war against them.

A war in heaven was just what was necessary to put those psychopathic, genocidal madmen in their place. If they were dealt a heavy blow by primitives no less, then the result would be even better. Asharia’s smiles grew larger; she really desired to se the faces of those white-winged, blue-skinned, gold-haired-and-eyed sociopaths when they realized that their carefully laid plans had been ruined by basically a single boy. Asharia chuckled to herself and continued to slowly move towards the surface, fully intending to burst out through the roof once she reached a certain distance from the surface.

“I wonder how they will respond to me. Will they welcome me, or will our first meeting be one of tension or outright hostility? This is going to be fun either way.”