Chapter 256 - Bottom of the Sky II
Though the princess’ men waited just outside the castle’s ramparts, the armies did not clash as soon as the shield was depleted. The usurpers bided their time, hovering around just beyond the loyalists’ range. Had they the liberty to spare any attention, the queen’s forces surely would have cursed their enemies for their cowardice. But they could afford no such liberty, for they were preoccupied with the need to flee the impending storm.
The hurricane began with a dominating performance. It was not just the mages and rotund officers that were unable to escape it. No matter how fit, the men in its path were swallowed, stolen by the watery tornado and torn to bloody shreds. The buildings were equally as unsafe. Every interior encountered was collapsed, ripped apart and rendered as hopeless as the last.
But then the tower fell. A blade of water, thin as a hair and sharp as a scalpel, flashed through the darkened sky. It cleaved the dungeon in half, tornado, tower, and all. Skyreach spire groaned as it crashed into the fortress’ grounds, its storm clouds dispersing into the night. Its brick walls fell apart to reveal magical portals, distortions that connected the godsent interior with the world beyond it. Monsters poured through the exits, forming a panicked stampede as the building collapsed.
It was only then, as the shoggoths and trolls bore down on the castle, that Arciel’s army advanced. Despite the poor start, the queen’s men were quick to regroup. The few still suited for combat escaped the broken buildings and, with the help of their compatriots, challenged monsters and usurpers in kind. They forged powerful arcane shields and vibrant elemental barriers, but their defenses faltered as soon as a pair of centaurs took to the front line. One was a tiny warrior waving around a massive chain, and the other, a bard with a harp as his shield and a club covered in sleighbells.
The friends that heard his song were empowered, granted vibrant, glowing auras that heavily bolstered their abilities while the enemies leaked blood from every orifice. They desperately clasped their hands over their ears, but the voices echoing through their heads refused to be silenced.
Whatever the state of the battlefield, Claire cared little. She made for the castle immediately, aiming right for the source of the sky-parting spell. The enemy troops—scyphs and flying fish that had taken to the air—tried to stop her, but she blew right past them and crashed headfirst into its outer wall. The brittle stones crumbled before her mighty scales, leaving not a scratch as they were ripped apart and thrown all over.
The queen’s audience chamber retained its striking aesthetic even with its ceiling collapsed by the intruders. Its floor was made of clean, white sand, filtered to be purer than any found in nature. Even in winter, the waves were still ebbing and flowing and the water beneath their feet was warm.
The room itself was something of an artificial archipelago with terrariums all around, each an island with an ecosystem of its own. Some of the animals, she recognised—Cadrian snakes, adapted to generate heat in the midst of winter, Ryllian dogs with gills growing in their big, floppy ears, and Kryddarian milk spiders, known for their ability to identify and parasitize the finest cattle—but so too were there bizarre creatures she had never before seen. There was an angler fish with a book as its bait, a slime with a human face, and even a hivemind of crabs, that for whatever reason, decided to take the shape of a chicken.
Few gardens were kept out in the open; there were some suspended in the air, and others built into the walls, but most were located beneath the waves. And it was precisely that limitation that prevented Claire from enumerating them. The throne room’s pools were so deep that she couldn’t see through to the bottom. It didn’t help that the room was only dimly lit; there were only a few candles still burning at the time of their intrusion and half of them had been snuffed when the qiligon landed on and crushed the throne beneath her talons.
Any queen contained within the chair’s confines surely would have met the same fate. But alas, the whore was nonpresent. Nor was anyone else, for that matter. The silhouettes that they had spotted from the outside were dummies made of sand, seated around a table made of the same material. There was an empty spot among them, situated right next to the window, but its owner had already retreated.
Intel suggested that the command center was located underground, hidden in one of the castle’s many secret chambers. Once holding grounds for the damned, they had been refurbished, transformed, and even commonly used after ownership of the castle changed hands. For they were the only rooms never touched by moonlight, the only rooms where they could hide from Griselda’s prying eyes.
But while they could escape the princess’ goddess, the same could not be said for her fox.
Sylvia began to sing as the others took their places atop the table, with Claire turning humanoid so she wouldn’t crush it under her weight. And then, one by one, the spaces began to fill, the sandy decoys swapped for the members of the senate still loyal to the queen. There were military folks present, dressed in uniform and still in the midst of debate, but so too were there administrators in their pajamas, their work completely unrelated to the violent affairs at hand. The few that came armed had their weapons and armour deported before they could act, thrown back into the portals from whence they came.
“W-what the hell is going on!?”
“Preposterous! How are we here? What is this twisted magic!?”
Some of them shouted and screamed, but not all were confused. The war veterans in particular remained stoic. They eyed their surroundings carefully, their gazes rarely remaining on the royal that had taken center stage.
The queen, who had been warped to the head of the table, was among the calm and cautious. Though pale from mana deprivation, she reared her head and turned her tiny eyes around the room, focusing not only on the three girls, but the various animals hovering around them as well.
Of course, such a commotion did not go unnoticed for long. A score of knights, dressed in full suits of armour and equipped with matching weapons, charged through the door. Most wore standard armaments: blades, wands, and spears, but the eccentrics did not go unserviced. They lurked within the crowd, archers and axe wielders, and even a man with a pair of oars. Regardless of the particular weapons chosen, the unit’s aesthetic was preserved. Everything that they carried, from head to toe, was made of the same metal alloy, shiny enough to glimmer beneath the starry night sky.
Wordlessly, Natalya grabbed the longsword mounted to her shoulder and moved to intercept. She leapt off the table, scattering the sand as she dove into the enemy lines. Her blade was drawn as she touched the floor, a motion that flowed seamlessly into a heavy, two-handed strike.
Her first opponent, an orcaped with a giant claymore, raised his weapon and intercepted her blade. A flimsy, short-lived resistance. Blood erupted from his body as his upper half slid off its seat. His sword, his armour, and his body. None of the three had offered even the slightest smidgeon of resistance before being sawn in two.
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His companions immediately drew their arms, with many switching to spears to extend their range. The longer weapons provided the ability to skewer her from afar. It was a good move in theory, but Lia slipped between a gap in the wall, and with another swing, claimed three fresh heads. Even the shields put up by their allies were cut right through. Clean, perfect slashes, undeterred by the presence of magic or matter.
If they knew that the swings hurt her, that each cost a small sliver of her health, they surely would have fought with more ferocity. But when faced with the differences in both power and technique, the locals balked and crumbled.
It was only the commander that stood firm. She caught the catgirl’s sword with her wand and retaliated with a snip of the claw, but Natalya vaulted over the centipede-lobster’s attack and kicked her in the face. The dazed knight quickly regained her balance and charged. Her wand was swept through the air. The magic circle at its tip crafted a hail of arcane bullets, each in the shape of a card.
They homed on the cat’s location, but she closed the distance and drove her blade through the lobster’s skull before their effects could manifest. The result was strictly a product of the difference in their levels; one was barely two fifty, while the other was nearing five hundred. The crustacean had put up a decent fight, but little else could be said in her defense with nothing to show for her efforts.
It was when the domineering cat spun around and flicked the blood off her blade that the squid standing atop the table finally began to speak.
“Ladies and gentlemen of the council, ministers of all affairs.” Her body changed as she spoke; her bottom half lost its humanoid properties and reverted to its default form, while her skin went from porcelain to blue. “I am Arciel Vel’khan, the rightful heir to the throne, and the judge of your sins.” Her clothes changed to match as well, courtesy of the magic imbued in Sylvia’s song. The two-legged pants sprouted exactly ten segments, each of which housed a thick, purple tentacle. All but the two thickest limbs bound together to form a formal, pleated dress. “I know full well that you have been plotting against me, and I shall provide precisely one chance for you to redeem yourselves.”
That was Claire’s cue. She walked around the table, forging a blade of ice for each of the attendees. The weapons were floated in front of their faces, their handles facing their new owners.
“You may use these to slay either yourselves or the whore. Do that, and your families will be absolved of your crimes. Refuse, and I will see your lines exterminated outright.” A devilish light flickered through her eyes as the final dagger was given to the queen herself. “I shall grant you one minute to decide. Should you have any objections, you would best voice them now.”
“This is prepostero—” One of the ministers rose from his seat, but he was silenced in the middle of his complaint. With his own two hands, he grabbed the dagger out of the air and jabbed it into his throat, twisting and turning it as his words turned to gurgles. Dark, crimson blood leaked violently from the wound as a faint, blue light spread throughout his body, freezing his veins from the inside out.
“Thank you, Baron Variem. I shall do as you have suggested and order the elimination of your estate.” Again, she looked around the room. “Are there any other objections?” None of the ministers dared to speak. “Good.”
The vampire’s gaze was cold enough to give the man’s executioner a run for her money. But how could it not? Before her eyes lay the council of greedy conspirators that had turned her kin to livestock, the murderers and slavers that had rejected her aunt’s benevolent rule and milked her to her death. Not even the ones that had joined her side would be forgiven. The blood debt ran far too deep for that.
The queen was the only one that dared to use her voice, but her words were silenced. She alone was kept in a bubble that allowed sounds to travel in only one direction.
“Have you made your decisions?” The vampire smiled as she looked around the table after an indiscriminate amount of time. It was clear from the fear and confusion in their eyes that they were not yet decided, but she proceeded regardless. “Those that shall support my ascension to the throne, you may rise and grasp your blades.”
There was little movement at first. Only two cowardly men ascended from their seats, taking the knives in their trembling fingers. One was a weary old elf, a commander in the army, perhaps admitting his loss, while the other looked the part of a young triton, barely at the age where he could be considered an adult.
“Lord Cristletham, you dare to betray Her Majesty!?” shouted a greying lobster.
“You ignoble brat!” echoed a spherical starfish. “Your father would be ashamed!”
“My father is dead,” said the young man, with trembling lips. “And I have no intention of repeating his mistakes.”
It was as he justified his actions that another few members rose, the minister of finance, Lord Walker Gra’ache among them. His presence had an immediate impact on the royal eel. She nearly fell out of her seat, her tiny eyes open wide enough to be visible across the room.
“I am sorry, Your Majesty, but I must place my hat on the other party’s rack. The spending that comes with your administration is ludicrous. Perhaps you haven’t noticed, through your rose-tinted glasses, but the burden of taxation is too great for the people to bear. The merchant class in particular has suffered too greatly to expand, which has led to monopolies in several key industries.”
His speech led a number of men to shuffle in their chairs, with some even half raising themselves and sitting back down.
“Princess Arciel.” He turned towards her and bowed. “I beseech that you allow me the honour of delivering the first strike, as a show of loyalty and dedication to your cause.”
“You may.”
The man grabbed the floating blade when Arciel nodded and walked across the room with slow, hesitant steps. He traversed roughly a quarter of its distance before Claire appeared in front of him and rammed a lizard through his chest. Eyes wide and lips dribbling with blood, he looked down in horror at the gaping wound.
“You’re a terrible liar,” said the lyrkress. She turned back towards the vampire, whose smirk was plainly visible, as she peeled him off of her weapon. “They’re here.”
“Then I suppose the time for charades is over.”
She tapped her staff against the floor and summoned a wave of shadowy spikes. They emerged from beneath the table, impaling the council’s members regardless of whether they had risen to their feet.
Some of the military’s higher-ups struggled against their executions. They threw up their defenses, magical or otherwise, but alas, they failed to postpone their deaths. Unlike in Cadria, where it was the strongest men that led, Vel’khan’s officers were effectively noncombatants. They did have some levels of course, courtesy of the years they had served much earlier in life, but officers and strategists were expected to relinquish their prior classes to focus on the grand calculus of the battlefield. Most were turned from warriors, berserkers, and knights to mathematicians, scholars, and philosophers. There was even the coveted tactician class, which was required for any of the higher-ranking positions and could only be obtained by earning the recognition of the god of scholarly pursuits himself.
Despite what most belligerent barbarians may have suspected, the classes were not useless. They allowed the officers to empower their men with boosts to nearly all of their scores. Some even trained in these abilities from birth, though such a luxury was typically reserved for the wealthy.
That was why it was the lower-ranking officers that served as the queensblades. For they were the only experienced fighters that had not renounced their personal power.
“Now, as you can see, Your Majesty,” said Arciel. She continued speaking her venom-laced words, even as more soldiers swarmed in through the doorway. They were not the common rabble they had previously entertained, but powerful warriors, with many of the erdbrecher mercenaries among them. “You no longer possess the means to run this country.”
The queen tried to say something, but again, the bubble negated her efforts.
“Sylvia. If you may.”
“Okay! Gimme just one second…”
The fox clapped her hands, and after a brief delay, teleported the queen and her huntress atop a skyborne stage. Where they would duel with the city as witness.