Gi kept pace with Poe as they flew towards Igna. It was the flight of a few minutes going at Poe's speed, but Gi wasn't willing to move faster. He only cared about Georgia because Poe did. He wouldn't sacrifice Poe to save her.
Behind them, the toucan carrying Kumo and the twins was only a little bit behind as the toucan didn't seem to be in any sort of rush despite the battle going on. The closer they flew, the more of it they could see.
The Myshkin army had appeared across the river without any warning, and without Igna having any means of destroying their makeshift bridges, they made it across and into the Commons before any sort of organized resistance was formed. Even that hadn't been enough as they had pushed even further into the Bazaar before they'd been able to hold the line.
Captain Mesano used the fortifications of the Fort to thin the monsters below enough that the goblins had been able to fight back. With Gi himself having taken out two of the Ground Clans recently, there wasn't a very strong presence at this side of the fight to battle against the the equivalent of the Myshkin army and they were losing ground.
In the skies, Queen Siht was a terror, keeping the Myshkin leader back with both claw and flame which could easily injure the massive humanoid made of shadows. The Fighting Drakes were engaged with the Myshkin's Slenderman clan riding on moths, but it wasn't the stalling action that the moths had provided before.
Their spores kept the Fighting Drakes sluggish and slow to respond, leaving their famous teamwork lacking against the ranged volleys of shadow spears from the mounted Slendermen. The scene only got more and more chaotic as they got closer, but the short flight gave Gi a moment to examine his own feelings.
His Soul still quivered from the earthquakes that had hit, but his Heart was conflicted. He'd beaten Fader, proving that he'd made the right decision to be beholden to no one again. With that and his dominance of the Spiked Eagles, he'd proved that he wasn't weak like Richard anymore.
So why did it feel... so wrong?
His subconscious had been working on something related for a week, but it was infuriatingly stuck like a popcorn kernel lodged in your teeth when you don't have any floss. With his ascended Heart, his conflicted feelings wouldn't cause him any issues in the battle, but he still tried to work through them. As much as he considered it though, he couldn't see how he'd done anything wrong.
Nothing came to him before they landed near the entrance to the Spiked Eagles third Encampment. Broken webbing around the mouth of the tunnel told him that they'd made their attack and someone had come back out. With Georgia's strength, he assumed it was her team.
There appeared to be a few streams of ice running parallel with some more webbing that must have been their path in and out, but it was broken. Kumo and the Twins landed at that moment on the Igna side of the broken makeshift bridge.
"Kumo, see if you can find any tracks or signs of passage from Georgia heading out. I'm going to head in and capture the Encampment Crystal so I can group us in my Squad."
He flew into the tunnel and there were clear signs of a battle from all the destroyed Spiked Eagles he found. There weren't any of their own dead though so either they were much more successful than Gi's group, a possibility without the Progenitor, or they'd taken their dead with them.
He finally landed in the last part of the tunnel where the most dead were and a number of honeycombed entrances were. Gi rejected the idea that they were in one of those as he'd seen the broken web at the entrance and only a fool would be stuck in a cavern that might collapse in an earthquake.
He placed his hand against the Encampment Crystal and added Kumo, Poe, and Wax and Wane into his Squad as an afterthought, he pulled Georgia into his Squad as well and switched her Squad leadership over to her Subgenitor.
Another quake hit and a crack opened up on the ceiling of the tunnel prompting Gi to speed out. It was hard to tell as it was such a small amount, but it seemed like there was less and less time between the quakes. He returned to find Poe, Kumo, and the Twins all looking at the ground.
"What did you find?"
Kumo motioned to the rocky ground around them. "Rhinos definitely left this way and headed toward's Elizabeth's manor."
"That leads to the Bazaar!," Poe shouted. "They could be caught up in the battle!"
"Maybe," Gi said. He was hesitant to push their group into the fighting, but Poe had a good point based on the evidence and he didn't think he'd be able to prevent the dragonfly from going. Stretching out his left side as best he could with the surge of pain that came with it, he spoke through gritted teeth. "Let's go find out."
It was only a couple turns until they arrived at Elizabeth's manor and even after the first one, they could tell that the fighting had made it here from the shouts and screams that came from around the bend. As they made the final turn, it became clear that it was the Underbridge Clan fighting.
The Rhinos had made a very loose and dotted line of combat giving them each enough room to use their massive war hammers to beat back the monsters that poured in from the Bazaar. The majority were Leaf Elementals, but some of the boars that Gi had seen in the original battle were charging along the tops of their own troops to crash into the Rhinos at speed. All of those present were only Adolescents, but it was enough that the Rhinos were having a hard time holding.
Until Gi arrived.
A [Divine Ire] into their backline immediately stemmed the flow of additional bodies coming from the Bazaar. Gi and Kumo dove right into the middle of their enemies and started the extermination of the Leaf Elementals and boars.
With all of the sparring they'd done after the Dungeon, he and Kumo moved like a single unit. Gi's (Five Hands Firefly) kept enough space around them that Kumo was able to use her [Quick Steps] to dart back and forth across the battle field spreading the area of destruction that they caused until the enemies lines had been completely split in half.
The Hunters and Hidden Spiders that had been with Georgia immediately dove on one half and started tearing it apart systemically while Gi and Kumo dismantled the other. As they fought, the Twins had joined the remnants of Elizabeth's clan and sent swift bolts of light to take out any monster that looked like it would kill one of theirs.
In just a few moments, the battle had ended and it only took a few Rhinos at the mouth of the side road to keep any sizable number of enemies from coming through. It wouldn't hold forever, but it would give them enough time to figure something out.
Gi wasn't sure if he was pleased to see that Elizabeth's clan was still alive or disappointed that his orders had not been followed. Either way, that was a concern for another time. For now-
"Where is Georgia?" Poe demanded of the Rhino Subgenitor.
****
Like a freight train, Georgia bulled through hundreds of Leaf Elementals. None of them had been expecting to be hit from behind as they'd already had a strong foothold in the Commons and their group was still near the Docks.
Maybe a more clever monster would have a better means of reaching her clan, but that wasn't her. Her war hammer reaped Leaf Elementals like wheat sending them flying into their fellows and before those around them could even fight back, she was already moving on.
She didn't even slow before she reached the Commons, the thousands of hivelike entrances where most of the monsters of Igna made their home. Leaf Elementals trampled on the bodies of the dead goblins and the other monsters that had been pulled from their homes and slaughtered as the Myshkin army moved upward.
She didn't stop.
The bodies of Igna's enemies joined their own dead as she forced her way towards the ramp to the Bazaar where the fighting was fiercest. If she could make it past there, the chaos of the ongoing battle should prevent anyone from stopping her to make it to the side path that led to Elizabeth's manor.
Unfortunately, Myshk wouldn't make it easy on her.
A dozen humanoid mushroom monsters appeared in one of the holes that she opened and at their words, the Leaf Elementals fell back, giving them space to fight. Georgia's [Pierce the Veil] told her three of these were Classers despite not looking any different from the Adolescents around them.
She could see a glow of danger as the group started to bring their Aether to bear and she dashed forward looking to blow them all away with one attack. They must have watched her approach because they were prepared for both her speed and strength.
A wall of water appeared between them and when Georgia's warhammer entered it, her speed slowed to a crawl. At the same time, bullets of water shot through the shield from the Adolescents hitting her directly in the chest. That level of attack wouldn't normally have caused any damage, but her Earthsculpted Body was weak to Water Aether and she could feel her defenses weakening.
Georgia yanked her war hammer out of the wall with as much force as she could muster, but it was still slow and the bullets of water rained in. Finally free, she launched herself sideways and tried sprinting around the wall of water. With a surge of Aether, the wall shifted just as she drew close to it, blocking her way.
She wouldn't be denied.
She leapt into the air, shooting over the wall and saw the mushroom men's eyes widen in panic as they quickly moved the wall into her new path. Georgia crashed fully into it and she could feel the Water Aether weakening her body every second that she was in it, but she wasn't done yet.
Her Aether sprung to her eyes and she actived [Lower the Veil]. Surrounded by Water Aether, shadows exploded out of her eyes with twice as much force as usual. A giant laser of shadows cut into the two of the Classers maintaining the wall of water.
Her shadows bubbled and frothed across their skin like a fire had been pit in their bones and then the shadows exploded in silence, ripping the two Classers apart and injuring the third. The wall of water died and Georgia landed on her feet directly in front of the mushroom folk that now flinched back from her in fear.
"You should have stayed out of my way."
It only took one swing to ruin the rest of the mushroom people that had attacked her and even the Leaf Elementals nearby seemed hesitant to fight her after seeing how quickly she'd destroyed some of their strongest.
At the sudden opening, she took a few brief moments to catch her breath and her eyes turned to the sky. A Fighting Drake fell through the air after its wing had been pierced by a blade of shadow, but the regimented monster turned it into a dive, snatching one of the moths out of the air as it crashed into the earth.
The moths and slendermen continued to fight shadow and spore against tooth and claw while the true battle crashed overhead. A torrent of flame lit the air with enough heat that Georgia could feel it at close to the lowest point on the mountain where she was at.
Every breath of fire was blocked by a shimmering veil of shadow that reminded Georgia of her own Shadow Skills. With the type disparity, it couldn't hold long, but it could hold just enough for the giant Slenderman to get itself out of the way and launch a fresh attack.
Thousands of jagged shadows that looked like lightning extended from the Myshkin Progenitors body and struck the Queen on her flank after the attack. The Queen roared in defiance at the superficial wounds, cutting through its attack with her claws before diving towards the Slendermen herself.
Every attack and block from the leaders of the two city-states sent booms echoing over the battlefield, providing a rhythm to the chaos around her. When the Slenderman's foot crashed down into the Commons for a step up, Georgia was brought out of her daze. That idle step had crushed dozens of homes and squashed almost a hundred Leaf Elementals who'd been unlucky to be in the wrong place.
If her clan was on the mountain, they were in danger. She crashed back into the mob of Leaf Elementals as she continued her push into the Bazaar.