Edico watched the catastrophic assault reach the ward from [within the city]—so the attack couldn’t kill him if the ward broke. It was a glorious sight: meteors, spears, rock attacks, and wind blades crashed into the barrier simultaneously, tinting Lemora blue as the ward activated.
2
Tim was reinforcing the ward’s largest mana crystal, stabilizing the energy when the attack hit. The output was far more chaotic than he had imagined, and the mana within shocked his hand like lightning. Dozens of crystals exploded simultaneously, shooting shrapnel into his skin.
“What the fuck!” Someone screamed. He turned and found soldiers bleeding out from wounds caused by crystal shrapnel—as, unlike him, his guards hadn’t done body tempering. Then, Tim looked up and saw the blue barrier dissolving. “Fuck!” he yelled.
His hand was shaking from the shock, and he feared he’d lose his ability to play the Jenta if he kept going… [but]. The ward was disintegrating, and he doubted that Quell and Markon’s forces could release another barrage. Healing the ward could be the difference between life and death for everyone.
Tim put aside his fear and put his trembling hand on the main crystal.
3
Treta couldn’t believe his eyes. Hundreds of massive attacks hit a ward on its last legs, and as it actively disintegrated—it suddenly reversed, and the blue dome started rebuilding itself. “What type of bullshit is that?” Treta had just sacrificed two-thirds of his mana on one attack—all the rankers had. Despite that, it immediately rebuilt itself. That wasn’t good. They’d have to sacrifice most of their mana to break it—and then they’d be defenseless for the next few hours. They had to wait. When Treta realized that, he grabbed a random soldier and punched them in the face, sending them flying.
The other soldiers shifted and grabbed their swords. “What was that for?” one demanded.
“Lower those hands, or I’ll rip yer fucking arms off,” Treta said. They complied, and he ran his fingers through his hair. “We have to wait…. Fuck!” He looked for something to kick, but there was nothing there, and that pissed him off. So he pointed at the man he hit and said, “Bring ‘em to the healer. Officer’s tent. Say it’s from Lord Res. Got it?” They looked at him warily, and that made him angrier. “GOT IT?” he yelled.
“Yes, Sir!”
“Fuck….” Treta said, then he looked at the soldiers helping up the injured man. They weren’t moving, but they sure were whispering. “Wha~t?” he hissed.
A soldier turned around defiantly but kept his cool. “He’s dead.”
Treta licked his dry, cracking lips and nodded. “I’ll make sure his loved ones are compensated,” he turned to the other soldiers. “Everyone else—rest up. We’re breaking the wall in three hours.” He walked away, mind scrambled. He had just killed an innocent soldier and could barely remember doing it since it was completely compulsive. Now, there would be a murder trial. He would win it with ease, but the trial would require him to go back to Quell instead of going to Emanac—otherwise, he’d lose his ranked status on all continents (assuming he wasn’t extradited). The ward wasn’t breaking, the summonee strike force was mere hours away, and there was a terrifying summonee who had caused a catastrophic flood within Lemora’s walls. Even if they broke in to get the king… then what? There was an array master who had turned rock walls into unbreakable obstacles… could Treta even break into the audience chamber? Life was collapsing all around him. Three hours. They’d attack in three hours, and that would give them three more hours to do as much as they could. If he couldn’t succeed in half that—he would leave.
Treta didn’t know that Lord Martinez was less than four hours away.
4
Three hours later, as Treta’s forces had finished their mana recuperation and were preparing for their next strike, Raul reached a visual distance from Lemora. They had been flying nonstop, and they were less than an hour away. That lifted their spirits for the first time in days, but when they saw a speckle of golden light in the distance, their hearts almost stopped. “Up!” Raul yelled. He gripped his silver glider’s reins and pulled up into the sky, rocketing toward the clouds. From that vantage point, he could see Lemora, which looked like a rock in the middle of the farmland. He probably wouldn’t have thought it was a city from that distance if there wasn’t a halo of fire wreathed around it. Quell and Markon were releasing a major attack. “Hurry!” Raul yelled to his strike team. Then, they reached breakneck speed, blasting toward Lemora.
5
“This is your moment!” Edico yelled to the troops locked within the stone mazes around Lemora. “Today, you fight the world’s strongest—and obtain victory!” He took a deep breath as they released battle cries. “Do not fear death, for it claims us all—fear instead that you never make history! Fear that you never leave your mark on this world!”
He watched as mages put their hands on arrays within the rock walls.
“This is your moment—stop them before they can finish their spells!” Edico roared.
The soldiers released a collective battle cry. Then, the mages activated the arrays, and the impenetrable walls crumbled like sand castles.
6
Treta had a personal ward, twenty mages made barriers around him, and he had trained himself to keep chanting even under the direst of circumstances. Yet he couldn’t maintain focus when the ground rumbled and screaming pierced the sky. He opened his eyes, keeping cadence with his chanting, and saw thousands of Escaran soldiers pouring out of the rock wall mazes—something that was theoretically impossible. They looked like bugs swarming out, and Treta’s forces started screaming, lifting their shields and unsheathing swords, creating a cacophony. Treta’s concentration was pushed to the limit, and he had to close his eyes and cover his ears to keep the spell on track. Yet he pushed forth, continuing to make fifty meteors in the sky as soldiers clashed around him, running each other through with swords and spears, smashing into his ward, and yelling insults. Finally, when he thought that he couldn’t take anymore, he opened his eyes with fury burning in his soul and lifted his arms. “Shut… up!” He threw his hands forward, and fifty meteors slammed into Lemora’s ward, causing the dome to ripple with blue light. For a moment, it looked like it would hold, but other fire attacks smashed into the dome a moment later, and the entire dome shattered.
“Finally!” Treta unsheathed his sword and cracked his neck, watching the Escaran troops clash with his shielded soldiers outside his ward. He finally got an outlet for his rage. Rushing forward, he push-kicked an Escaran soldier, knocking down a dozen more. Then he jumped into the fray, killing four people per strike in the claustrophobic, packed area.
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7
Emma watched meteors crash over Lemora’s walls in a panic. She released water spell after water spell, hitting meteors mid-air, causing massive plumes of steam to erupt from them as the fires extinguished. But it didn’t stop massive rocks from destroying buildings or terrorizing the citizens, who screamed and rushed deeper into the city.
8
Edico gritted his teeth, issuing orders, praying that Raul would make it in time to unfuck this mess.
9
Sara flew at what felt like Mach speed, feeling her bones reverberate as the scenery blended underneath her. Weather conditions were worsening. Dark clouds clung together overhead, threatening rain. If it did, she’d have to drop down to a lower speed again, and… Sara gritted her teeth. She was so close! She had made good time. She probably had an hour before she got there. [Please hang in there,] Sara thought, having a bad premonition about the situation. [Not again….]
10
The Keetas smiled as they activated invisibility spells, dispersing their mana and weaving through the crowd. Even under divination spells, they were just a cloud of mana in a sea of mana signatures. They were completely invisible as they danced around clashing soldiers, ducking sword strikes, jumping over altercations, and moving forward. Then, they ran into the wall maze, using divination spells to find traps that they avoided with ease. They were like ghosts, passing soldiers and ambush locations as if they didn’t exist. By the time Escaran troops suspected something wrong was happening, the Keetas had already made it to the guarded ladder, which led to the embattlements. Then, with majestic finesse, they climbed it, jumped around the soldiers guarding the top, and silently broke their necks, laying them down.
Both Keetas moved past the embattlement onto the walkway that extended the wall. They turned and found Edico overlooking the battlefield, issuing orders.
11
Edico felt an icy pressure from his far left. He quickly released a divination pulse and found—nothing. No, not nothing. Moving to the side, he peeked over an embattlement wall and found dead guards. “Invisible intruders!” he yelled, looking around, front and back, feeling deep paranoia in his veins. “Find them!”
12
Emma found herself in a terrorizing situation when hundreds of wounded soldiers and civilians flooded the medical tent—while meteors continued crashing down above Lemora. Which one should she prioritize? Which… one. Closing her eyes in frustration, she walked up to a mass of screaming soldiers and civilians. [Just the surface,] Emma thought. She chanted an area spell to heal surface wounds, and twenty people received minor healing instantly. The screaming died down, and Emma looked at her team. “Now save them! I need to go—“
Suddenly, loud booms rang out in the city, and she could smell smoke. “No!” Emma ran out and saw the city glowing with hazy orange light. “No-no-no!”
13
Rimn and Greka chanted a flood spell and aimed it at the now open wall maze. They released a massive water ball, and it crashed into the labyrinth, destroying barriers. They heard screaming—which was a good sign. A moment later, hundreds of soldiers flooded out in a stream. “Lord Res!” Rimn yelled.
“Got it!” Treta yelled back, turning to his soldiers. “Shift east!”
The battlefield shifted as the flood of Escaran troops flooded out of the maze. Then, the flood water turned crimson as Quell forces clashed with wet Escaran troops, stabbing each other in a barbaric display.
14
Treta believed that there were three hours to accomplish his attack—and they had the upper hand. The city was already on fire, and one summonee might’ve had the power to kill a thousand soldiers with a single flood spell if his troops were packed tightly—but with the soldiers spread out, their power was cut to fractions. The summonee’s power diminished again when the war reached the city—where a flood spell would kill their own people. These summonees were soft, non-violent souls save Lady Reece, and so the battle was all but won once the barrier was breached. Soon, over a dozen rankers would take over a city where Edico Sullsburg and Roman Mournings were the only people on the ranking.
Treta trudged through the flood, killing soldiers and blocking arrows and spells from the embattlements with a barrier. Once he got close, he gave the order. “For your country, women, and children!” He pointed inside the maze. “Attack!”
15
Roman Mournings—head mage of the Escaran Kingdom—rushed to the point of Lord Res’s breach. The same breaches were happening everywhere around the wall, and Markon’s soldiers were wreaking havoc as well. Still, there was a big difference between facing normal soldiers and facing Treta Res. So Roman posted up on the embattlement, looking into the maze. While the maze was susceptible to floods—that was the point. It wasn’t meant to hold soldiers (as most instantly ran out)—it was meant to prevent soldiers from getting in. And the best way to do that was with water—a spell that worked both ways.
Roman closed his eyes, summoned a three-layer flood spell, pointed it at a massive opening in the maze where soldiers were flying in, and released a flood spell. Water crashed into the labyrinth, and soldiers flooded out. Then, he chanted again, and frost shot into the maze, freezing the water solid and barring the path.
16
Treta turned his gaze to the sky and saw Roman Mournings fucking everything up. He turned his attention to the opening of the maze, which was frozen within, still fogging. “Evacuate!” he ordered. “You got twenty seconds!”
“Sir!” a soldier yelled as he watched his commander create a massive flaming meteor above the maze. “Our soldiers are alive in there!”
“Then get ‘em!” Treta said. “You have two minutes!”
17
Roman turned to Treta and started creating a counter-meteor above the skies. It was much weaker—just enough to break his concentration. Then, he released it in a fiery strike of judgment.
18
Treta felt the pressure of Mournings’ attack while he chanted, jumping backward and releasing his attack at the same time. Treta’s meteor struck the center of the maze where his soldiers were evacuating—causing an extravagant plume of steam and harrowing screams. Mourning’s meteor struck the area where Treta was standing only a moment before.
“I’m going to kill that fucker!” Treta swore, pulling out a bow. He created a massive bolt of mana, using a divination pulse to see Roman Mournings from the steam. The mage also used a bolt of mana. It was a shoot-off. “You wish, old man,” Treta chuckled caustically. Then he released his bolt. The two arrows of pure aura shot at each other, and perhaps just out of spite, Treta curved his right into Mournings’. There was an explosive crash for a moment—then Treta’s arrow ate right through Mournings’, continuing forward. Lemora’s head mage jumped out of the way, but Treta’s reflexes were faster. He curved his bolt at the last second, and the bolt ripped right through the mage’s stomach.
Treta sneered in satisfaction. Then he turned to his soldiers. “It’s melted—go!” They didn’t move. “What’s wrong with you?” he yelled.
“You gave us two minutes!” one soldier yelled. “You struck in thirty seconds! Do you know how many people just died because of—“
Treta snapped, rushed forward, grabbed the woman by her cheeks, and drew her face to the massive crater located where he was standing. “The man that just flooded and froze that shit almost killed [me],” he said. “And if he did, he’d kill you. Do you understand?"
The woman eked and nodded with her eyes.
“Good.” He squeezed her cheeks until they cracked and threw her on the ground, not even realizing the force that he used. Then he looked at the soldiers. “Now attack, or I’ll kill you!”
The soldiers attacked.
19
Emma ran around Lemora’s cobblestone streets, putting out fires with counter-fire magic. It was much slower than just flooding the area, but steam was deadly, so she put out fires before showering the city with water—something she should’ve done first. But the reason that she didn’t do it was the same reason that she was regretting doing it—it was eating up all her mana. Water flowed into the cobblestone streets, and houses glimmered in the firelight, controlling the fires, but her body was becoming sluggish. Emma pulled out the mana potion that Sara had given her so long ago. She hadn’t needed the full potion in all these years, but now… she had to use it. Sara warned her that the mana was erratic, but she was confident in her ability to handle it, so she drank it and felt mana burn through her mana channels.
Quell’s soldiers suddenly flooded into Lemora from over the embattlements, and she saw a man whose mana signature was exponentially more powerful than any normal soldier. It was Lord Res.
20
Raul was fifteen minutes away.