Standing on the sandy shores of a new continent, Ada froze, her quivering gaze taking in the mounds of corpses, flesh, and sinew that stained the sandy ground beneath her feet. Touching her boots gently, were the waves of poisoned water laced with sand and dyed red from the lives that had breathed their last on these foreign shores.
Around her party, imperial soldiers and paladins scavengers, soldiers pulling off masks and taking gear off of the deceased.
“Jack! Look alive! We need to get to the command post!” Python snapped, tugging on Jack's arm as their boat pulled away to bring in fresh reinforcements from the airships delivering them.
“Right, Ada, you okay?” Jack asked, grabbing the woman's attention just before she threw up.
“Peachy,” Ada replied with Yukino helping her forward as Jack shifted the air to alleviate the rancid copper scent permeating the space around them.
Jack furrowed his brow, scanning the beach where several tents and structures lay just before the arrangement of dozens of artillery pieces bellowing their contents into the air.
Entering the largest tent on the beach, Jack was greeted by Selfia and an arrangement of officers screaming into various radios with thousands of reports flooding in.
“I’m here, where do you need me?” Jack asked as Selfia quickly approached.
“There are three Apostles on the forward frontline, a speedster, knight, and an assassin. Mi’shka and Superbia are engaging them with a squad of awakened but they need help,” Selfia barked before pointing at Yuki and Ada, “You two, Captain Jin’s got loads of injured and not enough medics! I need you to move up to the western flank and support their awakened, now!”
Ada opened her mouth, wanting to respond but closing it and nodding as she glanced at Jack.
“Go, fighting an Apostle isn't something you can help with,” Jack said as he took the intellipad and stashed it in his storage bracelet.
Ada frowned, suddenly feeling useless but heading out of the tent trailing a paladin who led the way.
“Python, I need you back at the ship, tell Admiral Skirita we need salvos on these coordinates for phase two,” Selfia said, handing the man a slip of paper.
“But I just got here? Why not send a runner?” Python frowned.
“Because I trust you not to fuck it up and I need someone to make the hard calls in case something happens down here,” Selfia said before turning to Jack heading to the exit.
“Jack,” Selfia said with one of her many arms floating to block his exit, “Seismic activity underground has been spiking for the last hour, whatever the Black King is doing, it's close. So now matter what happens, we have to stop him. Deal with those apostles while I formulate a plan to handle the larger swarm.”
“I got it,” Jack affirmed before exiting the command center, taking to the sky where Sahaqiel was throwing bolts of lightning into the distance.
“What's the situation?” Sahaqiel asked, holding her staff closely as the anti-air emplacements shot down a large screaming mass of tentacles.
“Three apostles. Mi'shka and Superbia are engaging but they need help,” Jack reported with the pair taking off over the sea of debris.
Below them, hundreds of wrecks. Some new, some old, remnants of former expeditions with ruined structures littering the landscape that were filled by soldiers moving equipment and wounded.
It didn't take long before Jack and Sahaqiel were at the rear of the forward line where dozens of people were being loaded onto mechs and carried away from the swarms of monstrocities attacking the entrenched defenders.
Ahead of Jack were thousands of voices, shouts of pain, barking of orders, roaring of gunfire as humanity clashed against… well humanity.
“There!” Sahaqiel pointed, firing a bolt of lightning at a three-winged monster attacking Mi’shka that blocked the attack with a talon.
Jack descended, landing in a massive pool of liquid crimson that was too much in one area to be natural.
No, it was a skill, one controlled by Mi’shka who used it to slow down the blur in Jack's peripheral moving at supersonic speeds.
“Mi'shka jump!” Jack barked as blackish blue lighting coursed around his hand.
The heterochromatic white-haired man did as ordered, shooting into the air as the ground slick with blood conducted the lightning from Jack's palm.
“AKG!” The blur screamed, tumbling across the sea of blood before being entombed by red ichor as the winged apostle charged Jack with a metal claws.
Jack readied Gram, swinging the massive blade at the Apostle that caught it with one claw as it's other stretched, unleashing long dagger-like talons at Jack who shifted to avoid the claws that curved to try and pull him in.
“Blood Spike!” Mi’shka snapped, the pool of crimson creating spikes that shot up, pushing the Apostle back who blocked the attack with its wings.
Sahaqiel moved to join the fray, her lightning bolt staff elongating with arcs of electricity before she was smacked by the vibrating speedster.
The archangel tumbled, rising to her feet just as she was beset by a flurry of attacks that left curled up on the ground.
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“Sara!” Jack snapped, before reaching out in a fit of rage, his will cutting through the miasma to wrap around the speedster Apostle that came to an immediate halt before being crushed by overwhelming wind pressure.
A snapped decision, a reflex that tracked the impossibly fast Apostle and ended the threat.
However, before Jack could process what he had done the winged Apostle was on him, its chest bursting open with corruptive black tentacles that shot out at Jack.
“Piss off,” Jack hissed, slashing upward and severing several tentacles with Gram as his gunblade came up and he shot the Apostle with an armyrethium tipped bullet.
It roared, shielding itself from Jack’s attack with its wings before suddenly being peppered by hundreds of bullets from charging imperial soldiers.
“For the King! For mankind! Take its head!” A commissar barked through his gasmask, the unawakened man brandishing an armyrethium lined blade at the ten-foot tall fallen god. “Die fiend!”
The creature raised its talon, its attention turned from Jack to smite the attacking humans.
However, Jack wasn't idle, with his body energized, he was in front of the guardsman, slicing the Apostle's arm off with Gram before placing the barrel of his gunblade down the being’s throat and pulling the trigger.
The fallen angel froze, twitched, its arms flailing wildly before it's body crumbled and turned into ash.
“Sara!” Jack called out, racing to the angel who shook her head as she rose to her feet.
“Sorry, I'm fine. Just hard to pilot my body sometimes…” Sahaqiel said, healing her injuries as Mi'shka joined them.
“Where's Superbia?” Jack asked, noting the lack of the blue-haired paladin.
Mi'shka raised a bloody arm to a crater nearby where the person in question lay breathing in ragged breaths with her half her body gone.
“Shit,” Jack rushed over, leaning down to heal the woman who had corruptive mana infecting her flesh.
“About… time…” Superbia let out, her eyes already marked with black ooze that were telltale signs of corruption.
Around the fallen woman, dead paladins and broken mechs, remnants of the group defending against three Apostles.
“Lilith, Sahaqiel, help me,” Jack said as he placed his palm of the woman.”Superbia, I can save your life but you won't be able to use your arm.”
“Whatever, I don't need it to cast… spells,” The woman replied as Jack sliced through her mangled flesh and healed her wounds faster than she could wince.
“Mi'shka, get her back to medical and rest,” Jack ordered, the man running on fumes against the apostles that were a far cry from the agents and guardians he was use to fighting.
“I can-”
“I'm not asking, I don't need more people I care bout dying on me, now go.”
Mi’shka nearly smirked but the detonation of an artillery shell in the distance reminded him of the gravity of the situation.
“What about you?” Mi'shka asked, picking the groaning woman up.
“I'll lead the tip of the spear,” Jack replied, turning to the commissar and his squad of imperials. “Good work soldier, but leave melee to the awakened.”
“Sir!” The commissar kneeled, “As your Majesty wills. I shall relay your order to the rest of the men!”
“What's your name Captain?”
“Kain sir!”
“Get me up to speed with this sector,” Jack ordered over the cascade of artillery explosions ripping apart the demonspawn hordes.
“We are willing and ready sir! We've sustained heavy casualties but we are still in the fight, the traitors base of operations is several miles north, if we continue our assault we can push the demons back.”
“Jack!”
Jack spun at the sudden outburst, noticing Yukino rushing towards him.
“What?! What's wrong?!” Jack demanded with his heart dropping as his greatest fear bubbled up.
“Selfia is ordering you to retreat!”
“What?” Jack replied, confused before raising his palm and sending a wave of lightning that danced around the battlefield and tore through the swarm of demonspawn.
“Now! The left and right sides of the battlefield are pushing up, she wants to…” Yukino shook her head, catching her breath before making a pinching motion with her hands.
“Pincer?”
“Yeah! That!” Yukino said as Jack turned to the commissar.
“You heard the woman, get your men back,” Jack said, the officer doing as ordered.
Rising into the air, Jack summoned the wind, the mana in the air moving like tar to respond to his will.
“THIS IS YOUR KING!” Jack barked, the wind carrying his voice, “ALL FORCES! RETREAT!”
At the sound of his voice, the multitude of men and women fighting the demonspawn turned and fled, breaking from trenches and falling back.
“Sara, help me cover their retreat,” Jack said as he began moving the mana in the air, hoping to capitalize on Selfia's plan.
“Fall back! Fall back!” The commissars below Jack ordered, raising battle standards as Jack and Sahaqiel combined their strength to form a tornado of rampaging mana to cover their soldiers.
Jack watched his handiwork swallow the creatures and create a gape for the humans below to flee.
“Jack! Apostles!” Sahaqiel yelled just as Jack's senses picked them up.
Twelve of them, reinforced by agents and guardians beside thousands of fractured souls no doubt drawn by Jack and Sahaqiel's actions.
“Good,” Jack said grabbing Sahaqiel’s wrist and dragging the angel away as the apostles drew near, brushing past the tornado.
“They're gaining on us!” Sahaqiel exclaimed, firing a bolt of lightning at a horsehead apostle snarling.
Suddenly the sky above began to shine, the hammer of science in the form of several satellites opening fire and blasting the apostles and demonspawn hordes.
The first salvo, what came next was a choir of whistles, the prelude of thousands of shells raining down on the demonspawn survivors as two King Raven class airships entered the fray from the shoreline.
Jack smirked, watching the enemy be incinerated and exploded. However, despite their best efforts, several apostles had survived, the creatures regenerating and continuing their zealous pursuit of the angels in the air.
*SNAP*
A crisp snap in the air took the head of the lead apostle, followed by the others falling from the cascade of projectiles fired from the railguns held by the contingent of MECHFrames positioned further away.
A simple attack that Jack could easily block.
IF he knew they were coming. Fortunately the Apostle's weren't up to date on modern warfare.
“Man… if only we had those we probably wouldn't have lost the war…” Sahaqiel muttered, marveling at the technological progress of humanity.
However, their joy was short-lived as the air began to vibrate, the earth below them violently shaking as the miasma and mana began to swirl.
“What… the hell is that…?” Jack muttered eye wide as the very earth began to rupture, pulling apart to reveal a massive structure rising from beneath the blood-soaked soil. “Sara, what-”
“Heaven,” Sahaqiel said in dismay, her mouth ajar as a structure bigger than anything Jack had ever witnessed began to float into the air. “We're too late.”