Inside the Spiked Eagles mountain, the Underbridge Clan recovered. Their initial assault had been very successful in ambushing the Spiked Eagle Elites, but the sheer power of the Spiked Eagle Progenitor was alarming. Many of the Otters that surrounded Gi had their eyes closed and were trying to restore their Aether and stamina as best as they could.
Kumo approached him with most of their Hunters. "Boss, I want to take my group into another room so we can surprise them from the back."
"If you get caught, the clan will be in trouble and your group will be dead."
"I know," Kumo agreed, "but if the Clan needs a way out, you'll need us to break a hole."
Plan C had always been to fight their way out, but with the Progenitor being practically omnipresent in all parts of the fight, they would struggle. Gi finally assented. "Okay, stay safe."
Kumo pounded a fist to her womb in a Sign of the Mother without a bow and then headed out of the Encampment Crystal room. Their presence wouldn't be secret for long assuming that the Progenitor was looking for them so Gi needed to go ahead and start.
"I'm taking the Crystal," he announced and several of the members of the clan perked up. "If you have enough Soul Orbs, get close."
Gi placed his hand on the Crystal.
Encampment Leader still alive. Secondary Encampment is capturable. Begin capture process?
Gi gave his mental assent and then a small timer appeared in his vision. He'd have to hold the Encampment for five minutes before they'd be able to use it. Rocky had known about the capturing aspect, but not knowing about the timer did put a significant burden on their plan.
A shriek echoed through the mountain. Thousands upon thousands of the Progenitor's bodies all screamed in unison as he must have received word that his Encampment was being captured. As Gi could practically feel his enemy's wrath reverberating through the walls, he hoped that the Progenitor would send his clan in as well.
They'd have an advantage if it was just the Progenitor, but they wouldn't be able to collect Soul Orbs from the Swarm.
Relief washed over him as the first Spiked Eagle Adolescent darted through one of the open holes in the round cavern. It was immediately blasted apart by over three dozen separate invocations of [Divine Blast].
"Stick to quadrants!," Gi yelled out and both Tiria and the twins also saw the issue immediately. They started grouping the Inquisitors around the five different entrances. Gi blasted another two Adolescents as they came in, but the squawking, shrieks, and grinding of stone was growing louder and louder as the Inquisitors were awkwardly shuffled into five separate groups.
The remaining Templar all fell in quickly to protect one of the groups and Gi spared a glance back for the injured Samba. He had his eyes closed and seemed to be focusing on his Aether, but he was still alive and conscious.
A beat of silence informed him of the coming wave. Like a tsunami, Adolescent Spiked Eagles swarmed in from all four ground entrances simultaneously. The outer circle filled with the stone birds, and thankfully, the Inquisitors staggered their shots like they'd been instructed outside.
The Templar raised their shields to deflect the crumbling dead bodies from smashing into the group after their demise, but the deaths didn't stop them. Gi taking their territory must have enraged them because chaos reigned in the cavern. Chipped stone from the walls or the Eagles themselves flew everywhere and the screams, shouts, and squawks that reverberated through the space were deafening.
Despite the chaos, the clan held easily. The funnels provided an easy enough target and since all of the Inquisitors had a piece of Divine Aether in their attacks, they were able to do good damage against their well defended foes. The Underbridge Clan was a bad matchup for the Spiked Eagles - Sky Clan or no.
Another shriek echoed through the entire mountain as the Progenitor expressed his rage. Gi wasn't quite sure if it was from the ease of their defense or something else, but he called out to his Elites to be ready. All of them straightened up and kept their eyes out for any break in the defenses or new openings.
2:41
Only two minutes had passed since they'd started, but Gi thought-
Stone crashed into their lines grinding a dozen Inquisitors to paste that had been guarding the east entrance. The Swarm had burst through the fifth entrance above, violently expanding its opening so more and more of its swarmlings could get through. The East Side now had to frantically cast to try and hold back the oncoming Adolescents, but that tentative side was their least concern.
Gi rose into the air with all six of his [Archbishop] around him and started to blast the swarmlings out of the air. Tiria rose beside him on the back of Poe and the two worked in tandem to cover those he missed. The twins were firing out [Piercing Light] over and over to keep the Progenitor contained in front of Poe and Tiria as well, but it was all they could do to keep the Swarm contained.
The Templar on the east side spat out their [Breath Weapon] in a concerted attack that brought some relief to the beleaguered Inquisitors and a glance out of the corner of Gi's eye showed him that Chum was redistributing the Inquisitors to balance their attacks out.
Using his (Five Hands Firefly) in the air, Gi carved through the Swarm. With stone bodies cracking around them and stone spikes flying out from both the swarm and dozens of Adolescents in every new wave of bodies, the Waterborn Vitality Core was proving its worth a hundred times over.
Gi just missed on completely dodging a dive from a Swarmling, but he deflected it enough that no damage was sustained and Tiria was able to send a watery mace flying through the air to take it out. The clan below had to keep an eye above on the Swarm's attacks while firing at the oncoming Adolescents.
Each spike that flew down was dodged or deflected across their fur which seemed to ripple like water with the attacks. Those coming from the front were blocked on their dragon scales from the Major Evolution. If anything got through even that, Samba's [Radiant Guard] would pulse and protect them. For even further protection, any damage that was done was quickly healed by the Healers or Tiria's assistant's Domain.
Since the Spiked Eagles initial attack that had sent the mountain careening into them, they hadn't lost a single member. All of Gi's choices had led to this moment, turning his clan of otters into unkillable immortal beasts. The outcome wouldn't be determined by the power of their attacks, but the ability to outlast the weight of numbers of the Spiked Eagles.
0:00
Encampment Crystal captured!
100 Soul Orbs gained.
Current Soul Orbs: 795
"Upgrade Vitality!," Gi roared, but he wasn't able to be heard above the din of battle. Gi shouldered into one of the Swarm as he fought closer to Poe and Tiria. "Poe, the Crystal is captured! Tell everyone to upgrade Vitality."
A moment later, Gi heard his mental shout echo through the chamber. Bypassing the clatter and going directly into their mind, Poe's shout was able to pierce their attention. A couple dozen otters immediately started moving towards the crystal and the Spiked Eagles' lines surged at the sudden weakness.
Gi sent three summons to shore up the weakened areas, but that left him suddenly on a losing battle with the Progenitor's Swarm. A Swarmling crashed into his left side and even with his Demon Steel Robe, the agony of it left him breathless. The Swarmling didn't stop there and started to claw frantically against his robe as another took advantage of his stunned nature and grabbed for his head.
A [Piercing Light] from the Twins saved Gi from being grievously injured, but it allowed another of the Swarmlings to split off from the highest entrance and dive towards a group of Inquisitors. Gi himself barely fought back and regained the wall he'd created, but it cost him a lot of Aether to keep it up without his additional summons.
At some point, the injured Samba had lumbered back to his feet and he punched the errant Swarmling with all the force of a freight train as it crashed into the wall. The next moment, the groups that had gone to upgrade their Vitality arrived back into the fight looking fresher than when they'd left and Gi was able to pull back his summons.
With all his summons back, it gave him a chance to look around the fight. Rage started building as he didn't see Elizabeth fighting anywhere, but it quickly cooled as he noticed she was freezing over one of the ground entrances directly behind him.
With a huge push of Aether, ice shot forward to completely block the entrance and Gi could see one of the Spiked Eagles smashing into it, but it still managed to hold. That gave them just enough of an opening that some of the Inqusitiors were able to rest, extending their fight just a little bit further.
Gi assumed that Elizabeth had been waiting to engage until she had more information on both Gi and the clan, but since she'd finally joined, she was able to dance around an entrance freezing and slicing the enemies there before moving on to the next entrance to provide a bit more relief.
Stone mounds had formed all around the edges of the chamber from dead Spiked Eagles that had flown in and died over and over again, effectively shrinking the chamber as more and more of them continued to pile in. The clan was growing tired, but not exhausted yet. If they didn't drown in the broken bodies of their enemies, they could probably just make it.
The Spiked Eagle Progenitor must have realized that too.
With a squawk, the Spiked Eagle Clan suddenly pulled back. The Swarm and Adolescents stopped charging in. Panting, Gi dropped heavily to the ground. His Aether reserves were lower than he wanted, but would suffice for the rest of the battle. His body, on the other hand, was way more exhausted than it should be and he knew that it was his wounds slowing him down.
His Elites gathered even as he lowered and he started calling out to the clan. "Templar, clear as much of the stone as you can. Push it into one of the tunnels if you're able. Poe, figure out where Kumo and her crew is. We need to know which exit we can use for a way out. Elizabeth, can you-"
Cutting through his orders, the ground violently shook. With Gi's injuries, he almost fell over and had to catch himself on the Crystal. Not all of the clan was as lucky. Rock fell from the ceiling as the mountain itself was damaged by the attack. Only timely intervention by the Twins kept some members of the clan from being crushed.
"What-," Gi barely had time to ask when the quake halted as quickly as it started. The entire mountain was quiet as though the Eagles joined them in holding their collective breaths.
"What the hell was that?" Elizabeth asked, concern touching her eyes for the first time since he'd known her.
Tiria's voice was practically in a whisper. "That wasn't the Spiked Eagles, was it? Could they have really shook the mountain like that?"
Had Siht come to help the Sky Clan? Why were the Eagles themselves quiet? If the quake came again, would the mountain itself collapse on them? The worst part was that he somehow felt the quake in his very Soul.
As dangerous as one would be, it wasn't anything as simple as an earthquake.
"We need to get out of here," Elizabeth said, echoing his thoughts acutely, but he still shook his head.
"If we head back out into the open, their Progenitor will be able to overwhelm us with his numbers. We've definitely done damage, but I don't think it's enough to break clean away."
The twins shared a look before they pointed to the ceiling. "Then we must go up... towards the last Crystal."