Orlan dashed through the air, spell platforms forming under his feet any time he needed to change direction or had to step off in order to trigger his rift step inherent, but it wasn’t true flying. For one the platforms were stationary, relative to the planet, bringing him to a sudden stop each time he used one to change his direction. It also limited his speed to what he could accelerate to in a single step which, while impressive thanks to his superhuman physique, was limiting. Finally it made him predictable as there were only so many ways he could push off the platforms, and an intelligent enemy that was paying attention to how he angled the summoned shields could estimate where he’d end up. And, despite its appearance, the odd beast was clearly intelligent as it managed to bat him out of the air after he changed direction.
His body crashed into the ground, sending up a cloud of dirt and debris, stunning him for a moment before he managed to recover. The knights who could fly, or could manage some semblance of flight, were harassing the beast while the girls on the ground protected Nallia. The scan spell had finished a few moments ago, a barely visible disk of light, over a hundred feet across, was slowly passing down the beast, gathering information on the creature, informing the caster as it progressed. Already she was giving a stream of data, but until the scan was completed the tactic was to keep the beast contained and minimize damage while conserving strength.
Thankfully, while the beast was strong enough to turn Orlan into a makeshift meteor and create a crater with his body, it was still only tier three, and thus wasn’t able to deal critical damage to him in a single blow. While more than a few of his ribs were bruised by that hit, and he likely had some microfractures in his arm, the damage was minimal. Both side found themselves in an odd stalemate where they couldn’t really harm one another, at least for the moment, but the beast could still do massive damage to the island as a whole.
“The beast is third sphere, it’s a proper sphereward mage,” Nallia’s voice went out over the telepathic network, causing Orlan to curse. The data wasn’t particularly surprising, considering the beast was casting spells like a mage, but it meant that, like human mages the beast would have inherent abilities.
“It has two inherent abilities,” Nallia confirmed moments later, “both are passive, it is making use of one right now and the other hasn’t been utilized.”
“Multicasting?” Orlan asked, dashing up to interrupt another spell cast from one of the leg like protrusions around the crown of the beast.
“Partly,” Nallia agreed, multicasting was difficult for most mages, yet this beast was throwing around spells like they were going out of style, “I think each of it’s limbs can only cast a single spell,” she continued, “its inherent allows it to assign a spell to a limb, that limb can then cast that spell with minimal focus.”
That made sense, it was a powerful inherent, but such abilities regularly twisted, if not outright broke, the rules of magic. Orlan’s rift step shouldn’t have been possible, teleportation was complex, yet he could manage it easily, at low mana cost. Nallia’s spell transmission was even more powerful, depending on who you asked, as it allowed her to manipulate spells after she’d cast them without needing to plan for it. Many mages on the other side, upon hearing of her ability, spent years shattering and reforming their spheres in an attempt to get a similar ability.
“Only two thirds of the limbs have cast,” Lailra spoke up, given her magic’s weakness to large armored targets she’d stepped into a more oversight role normally taken by Nallia, “we’ve only seen lightning attack spells from them.”
“Could the other limbs have defensive spells?” Alia asked as her wind barrier deflected another bolt of lightning.
“I think the second inherent is related to summoning,” Nallia said, “the mana of that sphere seems to be related to the relentless oceanic storms.”
“Ok, the plan is to deal with the upper limbs,” Orlan decided, “Nallia, get what you can out of the scan spell then mark targets, Lailra see if you can’t limit the beast’s movements. Anyone with powerful spells, target the upper limbs.”
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“Come on!” Ruby pulled Amy across the rolling hills of the protectorate, “We’re going to miss it!”
After being told the situation on the ground, the majority of the third lance had been told to stand down, with only the strongest of them being put in reserve for search and rescue operations should they be needed. For the weaker trainees, however, they were free to watch the battle. And, apparently, the best place to do that was from the edge of the floating island. Amy was panting, having not realized just how far the edge of the island was from the castle, the Protectorate was just over five miles across, in absolute land mass it was actually larger than the isle of Bermuda they were hovering around. But most of that land was wooded hills and unused.
For Ruby, Topaz, and the other third sphere knights a two-mile run wasn’t anything extreme, a good warm up if anything. But to Amy, it was too much. Which is why Ruby had been all but carrying Amy the last half mile. The three of them were among the last to arrive, only some of the citizens of the island arriving afterwards. Most of the third lance along with a good portion of the mages were there to watch the battle. Even though the sun had set, covering the world in a thick blanket of darkness, and the rift’s appearance had shut down every light on the island, the battle was still easily visible. Flashes of light cracked the night, casting the island in stark shadows before night took over once more.
In the air were a half dozen spells that were showing zoomed in views of various things, one showed the odd tree-crab beast lashing out with magic at small specks darting around it. Another showed Orlan dashing through the air, flickering in and out of reality, while working to interrupt spells. A few of the other major knights Amy didn’t know were also shown in different spells.
“Oh, we got here just in time!” Ruby cheered, sitting down on the hillside and pointing towards the spell showing Orlan. Five rings of purple-white magic had appeared in the air behind him even as he kept dashing about, stepping through space and attacking wildly.
“This is why many of us look up to Lord Orlan,” Topaz added, explaining to Amy what was going on, “casting a spell at your highest tier is draining and requires quite a bit of focus, you’ll understand when you finally start casting. Lord Orlan is… something of a monster when it comes to combat casting however.”
“Meaning he can fight and cast minor spells even while assembling a larger spell!” Ruby said excitedly, nearly bouncing as she watched, “I can barely cast a top tier spell and walk at the same time, much less fight, in the air!”
Amy nodded, though she didn’t quite understand, taking the girls word for it as runes filled in the five spell rings over the course of a minute. A number of other knights down there were also charging up powerful spells it seemed, but they were all stationary, eyes closed like how one would imagine a wizard casting magic.
But, in truth she wasn’t completely paying attention to the spell images, but watching the battle on the distant island. Something about the lights flashing was speaking to her in a way she didn’t really understand. Despite her trance-like state she still knew exactly when Orlan’s spell went off.
A multiple foot thick bolt of black-purple lightning lashed out from the tip of his spear, striking one of the caster limbs of the beast. The magic seemed to tear through the limb, the carapace shifting and shuddering unnaturally as space itself was twisted chaotically. Yellow ichor sprayed from cracks in the limb as the rift bolt ripped down the limb before crashing into the main body, staggering the beast.
The strange dark-light of the bolt momentarily shattered the fragile darkness of night, forcing Amy to squint even though it was miles away, but the night wasn’t so easily pushed back, quickly covering the world once more as the spell faded.
“Night,” Amy whispered, as, moments later, the distant rumble of the unnatural lightning rolled over the island.
It felt like she’d popped a joint in her back as energy started rushing into and through her. Ruby and Topaz immediately understood what was happening, holding her down as she jerked with the power surging into her body.
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Unaware of the breakthrough happening on his island, Orlan cursed as he took in the damage his greater rift bolt had inflicted. The limb was cracked and bleeding, but it wasn’t destroyed. The beast was tough, seeing as his fifth tier spell hadn’t caused significant injury. Thankfully he wasn’t alone as other high end spells started going off moments after his spell faded.
The first looked like a long stem made of fire had pierced through the limb in two places, a rose of flames blooming on one end as the beast thrashed, struggling to free its limb. In moments a massive rose made of magical flames had bloomed, the petals curling backwards and burning back down the stem to scorch the limb.
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Alia’s spell was far more straightforward than the showy rose of fire, a simple cannon shell of air exploding within the holes left by the rose, nearly blowing the end of the leg off. The beast groaned in pain, loud enough that the entire island seemed to shake. Before any more spells could strike the wounded limb the beast struck it with several of its uninjured legs, ripping the wounded leg off and sending it crashing to the ground.
If it was anything like a real crab then it could likely regrow the limb next time it molted, but, hopefully, it couldn’t molt in combat.
Orlan was about to begin charging a second rift bolt, targeting another of the upper caster limbs, when a new series of spells appeared around a handful of outstretched crab-like legs.
“Its second inherent ability is in use!” Nallia warned, “and those look like summoning spells.”
“Disrupt them!” Orlan ordered, worried it was going to summon a magical storm. At third tier a summoned storm wouldn’t be too dangerous for them, and the effects would be somewhat localized, but it could still wreak havoc on Bermuda.
Orlan managed to rift step to the nearest limb and disrupt the spell with his void strike, the corrosive void mana eating away the spell chaotically and sending him flying away in a gust of wind and rain. A couple of the other summoning spells were disrupted through various means by the other knights, but there were simply too many and a half dozen went off at once.
Instead of summoning a storm, however, strange creatures emerged from the completed spell circles. Made of translucent mana they resembled deep sea creatures with transparent, glowing bodies. The summoned fish of mana swam through the air as if it were water, long blade like fins slashing at anything they passed. They came in all shapes and sizes, from schools of smaller fish that charged at some of the knights like luminescent clouds, to larger and slower tiger fish with a great number of spines sticking out several feet.
“Second lance, focus the summons!” Orlan ordered through the telepathic network. In an instant the giant crab beast was surrounded by a reef full of glowing sea creatures. It seemed that the beast’s second inherent ability was related to these summons as they seemed more solid and durable than a tier three summon should be. But despite any benefits from the inherent ability, they were still only crafted with tier three mana, meaning that they were of limited risk to all of first and most of second lance.
That didn’t mean they weren’t a danger at all, mana density was important but it wasn’t everything, as demonstrated by Orlan’s injuries he’d slowly been gathering as the battle went on. He was fifth sphere, but his body was still ‘ascendant’ since he’d previously been seventh sphere, which put his durability around sixth sphere. Despite that, his armor and ability to roll with a blow he was covered in bruises and likely had more than a few fractures.
Thick, glowing green vines had worked their way up one of the claw-legs of the beast, clearly Lailra’s work. Her greatest offensive ability was due to her own inherent ability that infected those her spells injured with a powerful rot, against heavily armored foes like this crab beast she was unable to cause much damage. Instead she focused on control, using her nature magic to literally tie enemies down with summoned plants.
Her other weakness was the need for her plants to originate from the ground, thus the openings in the beast’s armor that were nearly a hundred feet above the ground were out of her reach. Given the rot would be of limited effect on a monster of this size as well meant it wasn’t worth finding a way to break the much thicker carapace of the lower limbs.
Dalia, the first lance’s fire mage, could break through weakened bits of armor with her highest tier spells, as shown by the flaming rose that had crippled the limb earlier, but chaining high end spells was draining, even for Protector Knights. Alia’s wind magic was powerful, but lacked precision thanks to her inherent abilities, making her a good blocker but not great with heavy armor. Nallia’s offensive power was naturally low, using light mana, and against a beast this durable the best she could manage was to momentarily blind the dozen eyestalks sticking up from the crown of legs.
In short, this was generally a bad match up for Orlan’s team.
He was certain they could, eventually, bring the beast down, but it would take time. And the longer a battle lasted the greater the chances were of someone making a mistake that could lead to an injury or death.
Gritting his teeth he dropped back and began casting a spell.
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“What the hell is going on?” the first officer asked, looking at the small screen of the periscope. Around fifteen minutes ago there’d been a giant flash of lightning that struck the island of Bermuda, all the lights on the island had gone out and they’d lost contact with the small US navy port there. Now all they could see was flashes of light on the horizon, their view obscured by the rolling waves and the low height of the periscope.
“Maybe its another of those rift things?” one of the officers of the watch offered with a shrug.
The captain remained silent as he chewed on his nail. This assignment had been one humiliation after another so far, first was the simple idea of it. His submarine was to spy on a giant floating island used by people who didn’t have radio. They couldn’t intercept transmissions that weren’t there, and they couldn’t see something that was above them. It had still taken the chain of command days to realize why his ship wasn’t getting any intel.
Then they’d been exposed to the world, on live television, by some stupid magic nonsense. The entire purpose of a submarine was to remain hidden, undetected, yet, somehow, their entire sub had been lifted from the water while he’d been helpless to do anything. He’d hoped that they’d be told to come back to port after that fiasco, but the brass had told them to remain on station. They claimed the island could only detect them at a range of three miles, so they were ordered to back off to five. He’d had them remain around ten miles from the island as he didn’t trust the intelligence, his sub hadn’t been within three miles of the island when it had been lifted from the water after all.
What followed was a week of watching a lump of rock float in the sky, the only transmissions being the occasional cellphone call that were likely being tapped by the CIA, and slowly following it south towards Bermuda. There were monsters appearing out of thin air randomly across the world, he had crew from North Carolina who didn’t know if their families were okay after the monsters appeared there. But they were told to remain at sea and continue tracking the island.
Now another monster event, as the government had insisted on calling them, was likely happening right in front of them, and all they could do was watch. It was frustrating in the extreme, even for normally patient submarine crews who regularly went months without contact with the outside world.
“Excuse me,” a voice said and instantly everyone was on alert. The crew chief spun and was reaching for his side arm, the bridge staff whipped around in surprise and even the captain found himself on his feet as soon as he heard the voice for one simple reason, there were no women on his ship. Yet now a woman in tight leather armor stood in the corner of his bridge, bowing slightly and looking unafraid even as several pistols were pointed at her.
“How did you get on board?” the captain asked, holding out a hand to get the men to lower their weapons. The pistols were loaded with purely subsonic rounds to minimize the chances of a breach but it was always best to avoid the risk where possible.
“I apologize, but I’ve been watching you since you surfaced a week ago,” she said simply, straightening, “Lord Orlan asked me to watch over you incase you were ordered to remain watching over him.”
“Great,” the captain growled, just what he needed, more humiliation, “I’m going to guess you used magic to remain hidden, so I won’t ask about that. But why have you revealed yourself now?”
“My lord wishes to speak with you,” she answered, lifting her arms and summoning a spell circle. After a moment a misty figure formed before her outstretched hands.
“You the captain of the sub?” the voice of Orlan asked from the misty construct.
“You that magic protector guy?” the captain countered.
“Good point, look, I need you to hit this beast with a cruise missile.”
“You what?”
“My knight will cast a spell on your missile to make it effective against the beast, all you need to do is lead her to it and let her do her thing before firing it,” Orlan said, “we’re having trouble breaking its armor, but a cruise missile, with some magical enhancement, should crack it enough for us to finish the job.”
“I- you- what,” the captain stuttered, clearly in shock at what he was being asked to do, before pausing to catch his breath, “and why should I do as you ask?”
“Because the longer this fight goes on, the more innocent people die,” Orlan answered immediately, “it’s my job to minimize losses, you’re in the military, you should feel the same.”
“Even if I wanted to, do you know how much a cruise missile costs?”
“They can bill me!” Orlan shouted, several of the bridge crew snorting a laugh despite themselves, “look, blame me all you want, say my knight held you all hostage. I don’t care, are you going to help or not?”
The captain paused, studying the misty construct carefully and thinking. This Orlan wasn’t wrong, he did want to help, sitting here had been frustrating for both him and the crew. But to fire off a missile without approval?
“How do I know the missile won’t hit people?” the captain asked.
“The beast is a hundred feet tall, set the missile to remain above sixty feet, that way you can be sure it won’t hit anyone on the ground.”
“Alright, first officer, show our guest to the magazine,” the captain decided, “bring the crew to combat stations, surface the ship and prepare for shore bombardment.”
“Sir?” the first officer asked, “why are we surfacing?”
“Because I want to confirm the target,” the captain answered as the crew jumped to life.
Nodding the first officer lead the young woman away from the bridge as the ship seemed to tilt backwards, quickly crossing the remaining distance to the surface. From periscope depth there wasn’t enough room for them to build up speed for a proper emergency surface, but he felt good simply doing something more than watching.
As soon as the sub settled he climbed up the ladder to the top of the short mast with a pair of binoculars and a wired handset.
It took only five minutes for a fresh missile to be enhanced with whatever magic the lady knight had, loaded and prepped for launch. From the distance it was impossible for the captain to get a proper lock on the beast, so he ordered the missile to be flown manually. That should also prevent any chance of the weapon hitting civilians, but even though he couldn’t confirm the target enough for a lock, it was still clear the beast towered over anything else on the island.
“Captain, we’ve a call from command!” the bridge staff said over the handheld moments before an angry voice came over.
“What is going on captain!” the sound of an angry admiral called.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” the captain said innocently as the hatch on a missile tube flipped open.
“We’re reading that your ship had surfaced, loaded a missile and has a hatch open!” the admiral shouted.
“Strange.”
“Explain captain!”
“I don’t know what to say,” the captain replied slowly, pausing as a missile shot from the launch tube, roaring into the night.
“What was that sound?”
“Probably just a mechanical fault Admiral, I’ll have the crew look into it.”