Machine guns.

Energy weapons.

Explosions.

Barriers shattering and repairing.

Screechers screaming from every direction.

And yet, despite this auditory overload hitting me from every which way, I could still hear the distinct sound of whistling from somewhere above me.

"Will someone kill those fucking Lobbers already?!"

{T-They are, Rei! But every time they kill one, another two pop up!}

These walls are doing a fantastic job of repelling any attacks that make it through, but the one thing they can't defend against are the Lobbers, and honestly, they're really beginning to piss me off.

A few hours ago the machines had began to assault my base. For the most part, my skeletons and Eve's crew have been able to repel them, but the real problem was the three large machines heading this way. They were the same types as the one I saw outside of the car maker factory.

I looked up into the air, scanning the sky for even the slightest sigh of 'shimmering'. It turns out, the lobbers bombs are camouflaged, making them even more annoying than they already were.

... There.

I raised my left hand and pointed at the mostly invisible bomb dropping down toward my tower. It'd survive a couple of bombs no problem, but it was still better to prevent any possible damage. I wasn't sure of how long this battle was going to go on for after all.

After a quick charge of mana, I released a lightning bolt at the falling bomb. The camouflage dissipated as the bolt ripped into the outer edge of it. It was almost a miss, but it had done just enough damage to disable it apparently, as the bomb bounces off the tower and fell onto the ground like a rock.

{Hurry, Rei! Summon him!}

That's what I've been trying to do...

It sounded like she was impatient, but in reality she was being affected by the same energy flowing out of Belfos' soul. He was ready and aware of the enemies nearby, so he wanted out. He needed time to prepare before he could help (that's what I think his soul was expressing anyway), so the sooner he was out, the better.

I sat down and focused on Belfos' soul again, but barely five seconds had went by before I heard a low whistle from the sky again. This time however, I ignored it. I was going to anyway, but I also received an affirmation from one of the Liches that he was going to take care of it.

... And it wasn't me who had asked the Lich to take care of it. The 'leader' of the Liches had undergone some changes as I worked on the tower, and while for the most part that could've been seen as a positive, I was still kind of apprehensive about the whole situation. Especially whenever it talked.

I could hear an explosion from somewhere above and to the right as vines began to appear in front of me. Expelling Belfos' soul was slightly painful and took far more concentration than I had expected, but slowly more and more vines appeared on the ground, until they formed into the shape of Belfos' body.

I leaned against the nearby tower's wall and watched the vines as they stopped moving.

{It'll take a few hours for him to get his body back. We can't let anything hit him in the mean time.}

... Why didn't you tell me that before? You said to just release him anywhere and it'd be fine. If I knew we had to defend him, I would've released him inside the tower.

{He needs pure ether! Some of the ether your generators are sucking in are being taken by him now. If he was inside your tower he'd be surrounded by your ether... Which is different. Look at what you're doing to the land, Rei.}

The land was dead long before I showed up. That's what happens in an arctic landscape.

{You know what I mean...}

Well, I do get what she's trying to say... The Liches were removing snow around one corner of the base to build a new structure, and that's when everyone noticed that the ground was pitch black. I've corrupted the entire mountain and it's continuing to spread throughout the ground below.

{Now now, Luna. Do not blame Mother for that which she cannot control. It may appear that we corrupt the land like an Eldritch, but Naza'shier had likely done the same thing.}

... And there he is. 'Malafir'. The Lich that is currently sitting in the tower reading through Arcadia's datalogs. Even though the words he says are usually fine by themselves, it's the way he speaks that is so off-putting.

The sounds of battle raged on as I watched the Liches in the northeast corner of the base.

Malafir. Can you explain what that building does again?

{The Crematory, or the Armory?}

... There's two?

{Yes - they are building two different structures side by side. The Crematory is for creating more powerful units, but it takes time to expand or strengthen bones. However, it will go much faster if the bones still have a soul anchored to them.}

He continued, {The Armory is self explanatory, but if I must expand upon it - then it is a building that is able to equip newborn units with armor on par with yours at a much faster rate. It can also create weapons, shields, and repair any blackened equipment quite quickly. This includes yours, Mother.}

Does it cut down on mana costs? Because that's the biggest issue right now.

{It does---Oh, and the Crematory can repair the bones of broken units. There are limits of course, but it's better than our current system where we're disposing of far too many half-broken units.}

Both of those buildings will be a massive boon then... My skeletons have been attempting to help the others repel the machines, but they're dying far too quickly. They drain too much mana creating their own equipment, and their weapons are breaking far too often. And worst of all, is how many skeletal remains are becoming unusable. So the Crematory being able to repair them will probably be the biggest upgrade yet.

I stood up and activated my halo.

{... Is it really going to be okay, Rei?}

I know what she's asking, but it feels pointless to try and hide it from Malafir.

{I understand and feel your fear, Little Fairy, but I assure you, we would never turn against our Mother.}

And there it is... There's just no point in even trying to hide anything from him. He somehow always knows, which makes him all the creepier.

{But it's so weird that she can both summon all of you and fight at full strength now!}

Oh, that's what she was talking about... While it's something I'm not used to yet either, it also comes with its own set of problems. It all began after I created the tower. All of the little parts of my soul that I implant into my summons - which had greatly weakened me in the past - are not an issue anymore. I no longer have an individual soul and mana system. My mana and my enhancements are tied to everything here. However, it's not a two-way street. Any damage I take is shared by all of my summons and the buildings, while any damage they take is purely on an individual basis.

Basically, it's smarter if I try to stay out of the battles even if I am much stronger now, seeing as how if the enemy manages to land a critical blow on me, the entirety of my forces will be reeling from it.

I flew up to the top of the tower. Part of the bloody threads hiding the observation room parted ways as I approached, allowing me entry into the room beyond.

Once inside, I could see Malafir sitting on the couch facing the TV. He was scrolling through the data logs and was currently reading technical data in relation to Arcadia's flight capabilities.

"Do you understand any of that...?"

"I do. Everything I need to understand it is in this system itself... Such brilliant craftsmanship, records, blueprints, manuals... It's all here. Everything one with an inquisitive mind would need to control or even recreate Arcadia itself."

A familiar sounding set of explosions ring out behind me. They were spaced apart at perfect intervals, which told me that they had arrived.

I turned around just in time to see their target was my outer walls. As the large machine's rounds hit the walls they exploded, so between the massive bullets slamming into the wall and the secondary explosions, even my powerful walls were beginning to crumble within ten seconds.

The two Liches below ran over to the walls and began pouring mana into them, focusing their will onto the broken parts, mending them as fast as they could. Likewise, Malafir and I were targeting our mana through the tower to the walls, which was keeping them standing for now, but it was draining far too much mana.

To the left I could see Eve with seven other ASM's(Arcane Soldier Mechs) battling an army of Warriors dug inside the ruins to the left of my base. There were a few snipers as well which were doing the bulk of the damage. Most of their shots missed, as the pilots were quick to dodge them, but all it took was a single one landing for the Mech's barrier to explode while sending the Mech tumbling backwards from the impact.

To the right, Leon's forces were going building to building, trying to wipe out the Lobbers and Snipers that were shuffling through the building while taking shots at both my base and my forces out in front (aiming west). The front is also where the three large machines were approaching from, and my forces were nowhere near ready to take on monsters of that caliber.

"Bad news I'm afraid, Captain." Clover said from the TV behind me.

"Clover? Now what happened?"

I looked over my shoulder and saw the TV's screen change to a map of the area. To the west as thousands of red dots behind three medium-sized blue dots.

"For the love of..." I sighed, "How long until they get here?"

"One hour, roughly. Asmodeous is sending forces to back you up. Will that be an issue?"

"No, it's fine. Even if it's nothing but Satyr's, I'm not stupid enough to turn away help because I don't like where the help is coming from. And it's a little late to be turning away Demonic forces anyway."

The map updated and showed where Asmodeous' reinforcements were.

"Five minutes away? How long ago did you request for backup?"

"Hours. Back when I first picked up signals on the Destroyers currently shooting your walls." Clover said.

Destroyers... Another fitting name choice. If I or my Liches weren't here to repair anything, they could easily undo the past sixty days of work in a couple of minutes.

I wonder if I should fly out and kill those three myself---

"That would be unwise, Mother. Wait for the Demons. The walls and our mana will last. It is but a mere setback."

..........

... Real-time advice is nice to have, but it's going to take me a while to get used to this.

{? I know what you're thinking too. Is that bad?}

That's different, Luna. You're cute and naive, so it's not a problem.

"You should know, Captain. The clan leaders may not be so useless after all. They have pulled quite a bit of information out of the Succubi, and if the information is correct, then the Succubi are exclusive creations of Asmodeous. He is an Archdemon that prefers subjugation to extermination, and as such, the Succubi fit that role perfectly." Clover said.

"Would a race of creatures created solely to control a society from within really be that prone to releasing information about themselves?"

"Perhaps not, but I thought you should know either way." Clover said before the speakers turned off.

Stolen novel; please report.

I watched the battle below until the Demons showed up, which were in fact, nothing but Satyr and Imps. However, there was one tall man among them with horns and a tail as well.

"... Clover, I thought you said the Succubi were all female?"

The speakers buzzed to life, "I said no such thing. Perhaps that was the Captain's personal fantasy?"

Well shit, I don't know why I thought they were all women, but that does explain why so many women back in Arcadia are also under the thrall of these Demons.

The Succubi jogged into the tower and began to ascend the steps while the Satyr and Imps formed a circle after drawing a symbol on the ground. They started channeling onto the symbol just as the Succubi arrived at my Observation room.

"Greetings, Miss Reimia." The Succubi bowed with one hand over its chest. It was something I hadn't seen since Seifer bowed to Aresa back in Kellog. "I was sent here to communicate between my Master and you, and as such, I would like to let you know that we are currently casting a large scale Hellfire down below."

"Hellfire? I've seen that a few times before, and with..." I looked down, counting the Demons, "Nine Satyr and twenty seven Imps it should only take an hour or two, right?"

The Succubi raised an eyebrow, "... Roughly eighty-seven minutes. With any luck, it'll be finished before the machine's secondary army arrives." He continued, "However, the large machines are a little too close to your base, so there may be some friendly fire on your base if we are to make sure they are within the spell's radius..."

I waved him off, "I know, I know. Hellfire is erratic. Like I said, I've seen it before, so I expected as much. It won't be a problem." I continued as something came to me, "... Why aren't the Demons casting spells over in the assault on the Daemonic portal?"

The Succubi shook his head, "We mostly cannot. Those... Things, have ways to drain the mana from our spells and empower themselves. The sooner we eradicate them from all of existence, the better."

"Are they doing that to the Arcane equipment as well?"

Clover responded before the Succubi could, "They are, but it's more complicated than that. Barriers are drained from one specific type of Daemon that dashes around the battlefield in a ball of fire. However, if we manage to kill it, all of its mana is funneled back into nearby barriers."

He continued, "Spells are unfortunately drained by multiple different Daemons, and thus, we've given up on using them. There's at least three Daemons who absorb mana from spells and abilities, and then there's the one you fought that completely blocks all mana from being used around it. Although, our forces are usually ready to destroy that Daemon's ability the moment he uses it."

"Mother, the TV."

I turned to look at Malafir. On the TV it showed the Machine God reaching through the portal.

The Succubi gritted his teeth, "It won't fit through the portal, even if it has been expanded far too much! It still can't...!!"

It sounded more like he was trying to convince himself. Especially since the God had brought its other hand through the portal while he was talking, and soon after that the God was twisting and turning in an attempt to get its massive shoulders through the portal. I wasn't sure by how much, but it looked like it was just barely being held back.

All of our forces began to open fire on the Machine God as it laid exposed head-first through the portal. Everything was hitting the God's barrier, but this was our first time even managing to hit it, so there was no way of knowing how powerful its barrier was. We could break through it in the next minute, or maybe the next hour... It truly was just a guessing game at this point.

One of the Harbingers whipped its fully charged mallet at the God, hitting its barrier directly above the God's head. Ripples went through the barrier, extending past the portal as the God's head whipped back from the impact. It may not have seemed like much, but considering the size of the abomination, it was clear to everyone watching just how hard that hit was. And since this was a Harbinger, the fire explosion that followed set the God's barrier ablaze for a couple of seconds before fizzling out.

Despite the heavy amount of firepower we were pouring into the God, the Daemons plan had not altered. They continued expanding the portal while doing everything they could to hold us off. However, after the Harbinger's attack, something about it must have worried the Daemons, because they immediately changed tactics. The group expanding the portal stayed, but half of the defending forces formed into a V and made a mad blitz toward the second Harbinger who was currently charging his mallet.

Regardless of whatever decision had lead to that, it gave Asmodeous the opening he needed. He was on one side of the offensive front while Solas' forces were on the other. Solas' forces dove straight into Asmodeous' side, attacking the defenders head on, which allowed Asmodeous to blitz past them before the enemy that was originally holding off Solas was able to reposition themselves.

Asmodeous' group reached the back line in no time and began carving up one Daemon after another. They killed several hundred before the Daemons and the machines behind the portal reached him.

Warriors began to fire on his group, although from their angle all of their missed shots were hitting the Daemons, but this was apparently not a problem to them, because they kept on firing regardless.

Through the hail of energy rounds Asmodeous picked up a rather bulbous Daemon channeling on the portal and whipped him into the Daemon charging at him (the same type that smashed through my walls when we invaded their realm). The force was enough to knock the Daemon down, which gave Asmodeous' bodyguards an opening to kill it before it could recover.

As they went to work, Asmodeous turned to continue killing as many Daemon channelers as he could, but two things happened back to back that stopped him. One; the Warriors turned and started firing at his forces instead of him, and the reason they did that was so they didn't hit their own ally that was speeding toward Asmodeous.

It was a Deathbringer, and despite his own tremendous speed, Asmodeous was barely able to repel its first attack. The Deathbringer came in hard with a single swipe from above that Asmodeous managed to bat away as he put some space between him and this new enemy.

This gave the Deathbringer time to expand its core and summon Baal's energy lying dormant inside of it. Soon after that the eyes appeared in the sky, focusing all of their ire on the enraged Archdemon.

The first of the curses hit him and brought him to his knees as they drained his mobility and energy, however, he quickly purged the curses and stood back up just in time to jump back away from the Deathbringer's second attack, except it didn't stop there. It leapt forward, swinging again and again.

This normally would have been well within Asmodeous' power to repel. Even though the Deathbringer was far stronger than most enemies he had come up against, it was still an enemy he could topple with ease... If it wasn't for the curses.

Every couple of seconds his defenses would be penetrated and a curse would land on his soul, crippling him in critical moments, which had forced him into a pure defensive stance. A stance he'd never been in before, and he was far from pleased that he'd been compelled into such a position.

Lucky for him, Solas had seen my memories, so he knew exactly what to do. Some of his unit turned and began unloading on the eyes in the sky. The physical bullets weren't harming them, so they swapped to energy, but those also weren't working, so they swapped to the emergency firing method. Magic bullets powered by the pilots and co-pilots mana.

The last thing they wanted to use in this situation was magic, because they were already struggling to keep their barriers powered, and the Daemons around them began to drain the energy from the conduits creating the rounds barely ten seconds after they had started firing, but the damage was already done. The eye had warped away once, losing part of its power in the process, but it was a pointless effort, as the mechs had easily re-acquired their target and fired on it again. This time however, it warped behind a building to avoid being hit, and thanks to this it lost line of sight on Asmodeous, which gave him the opportunity he needed.

He grabbed the Deathbringer's incoming swipe by the wrist, and quickly did the same thing to the follow-up attack that succeeded it. With both of its arms stuck in the grip of the Archdemon, the Deathbringer dug into the ground and tried to overpower Asmodeous, but it was all for naught, as the machine's strength lied mostly in its speed, not its strength.

Asmodeous brought his right leg up and pressed it into the Deathbringer's chest, slamming it into the ground while ripping its arms off. After that, he simply crushed the entire thing from the waist up - reducing it to a pile of metal debris.

While this was all going on, the Archdemon's forces (including his two bodyguards) had wiped out over one-fourth of the Daemons expanding the portal, but...

"Mother, perhaps you should go on the offensive. It's high risk, but it appears we don't have the luxury of waiting for the Demons to finish casting their ancient magic. Us Liches could assist them to speed it up, but then the walls would fall..."

Apparently the Machine God had only needed a little more expansion of the portal to break through, because now all I could see was Asmodeous and Solas' units fleeing back to the main group as the Machine God crawled through the portal.

The armor on its waist was flared out sideways far too much, so the God just broke them off when he was suddenly stopped halfway through the portal, but with that out of the way, he was now all of the way through the portal and currently in the motion of standing up.

Someone must've made the decision that this was their last chance, because everything both groups had was being launched at the God. I even saw a meteor shoot over the battlefield from far behind our group, smashing straight into the God's face before exploding. It flung the God backward with so much force it ended up teetering on top of the portal with the top half of its body hanging over the back end of it.

And while I'm sure it did a lot of damage, it appeared to mostly just anger the God. It quickly righted itself off the portal and began burning a bright white.

No one knew what it was about to do, but whatever it was obviously wasn't going to be good, so everyone braced themselves while the Titan mech condensed itself toward the ground, resulting in it no longer being one hundred meters tall. It was the first time I'd seen that in action. It shrunk from one hundred meters to thirty meters tall in no time at all (right now it looked like a metallic box on a set of massive treads). The people inside of it must be feeling sick from the death-drop they had just experienced.

As it continued to shimmer brighter and brighter, the God's pauldrons opened up, revealing two bright red orbs inside of them that quickly turned black and began to rotate. Seconds later, all of the Daemons around it were being sucked up inside the orbs, and the very moment all of the Daemons were gone, a white wave of energy exploded outwards from the God.

From an outside perspective it looked like a sonic boom with a well-defined outline. Depending on their weight, everyone from our side was launched backwards once the wave hit them. The people in Power Armor or APA's were launched so fast that they pretty much disappeared off the TV the moment the wave hit them, while the Soldier Mechs of both types flew through the air for a bit before rolling through the snowscape. Likewise, both of the Harbingers were sent reeling backwards onto the ground much in the same manner the God had fell onto its back when the meteor hit it.

The only ones unaffected were the Spider Mechs and the Titan. They both had ways to firmly plant themselves, so the moment the wave washed over them the Spiders came 'out of their shells' so to speak and began to fire on the God again, but that didn't last for very long.

The God returned their aggression in kind with two super-heated cylindrical weapons attached to the moveable weapon-bays extending out from its back. They fired two constant rays of heat onto the Spider Mechs. One by one they attempted to flee as their barriers exploded and those within were consequently melted.

While that was going on, its other hands were creating spheres of fire, lightning, and two of ice (with something white mixed in - probably snow) above its palms that were each about as large as a three-story building.

It aimed its palms at different targets. Fire at the remaining Spider Mechs, lightning at the stationary Titan, one ice at all of the Soldier Mechs that stopped moving in the same general area, and the other ice on the two Harbingers currently trying to stand back up.

The ice shot out first, but after it landed I couldn't even see what it did, as both areas were blanketed in pure white as if they had been hit by a raging blizzard.

Next, the lightning one hit the Titan, creating a supercharged sphere around the Titan that was both running tendrils of electricity all over it as powerful lightning attacks struck it over and over.

The fire attack was barely more perceptible than the ice attack. A hurricane of fire appeared that was also clipping the Titan thanks to how large it was.

Through all of that, the God did something I (and probably everyone else) had not expected. It turned toward the ocean and flew over it toward the south.

The Succubi was flabbergasted, "What?? Where is it going?! And my lord! Do you see him?!"

Malafir rubbed his bony chin before looking at me, "Is it going where I think it is, Mother?"

"Termia... Is my best guess. If part of Baal - or at least something that is acting in accordance with what he'd desire - is still inside of that thing, then it makes sense it'd assist the Abyss in making sure they control the wellspring. But do they truly need help? It didn't even bother finishing us off, it just crippled us and left, so maybe they really do need assistance...

{Isn't that great then?! Yay it left!!}

No... It's too early to be happy about this. For all we know it's just taking a quick break to obliterate whatever Eldritch forces are still assaulting Termia. And from what we've seen, it wouldn't take it long to accomplish that.

"Malafir."

"Understood."

He flipped through the channels, trying to find any info he could about Termia, but all we saw was people cheering or talking about some celebration the Xel'nethra were having.

"Wait... Malafir, go back."

He turned the channel back to the previous one. On it I could see Viktor, a Kitsune, Vi, and a few others on top of a circular platform with couches, wine, food, and all sorts of celebratory items like balloons and confetti etc.

"How long would you say you've been awaiting this day, Sir?" A woman on the couch opposite of Viktor asked.

He raised the microphone in his hand up to his mouth, "Well over one hundred years... It's been a long time since I set out on this dream of mine, and for it to have finally come true, you have no idea of how happy I am right now. And it's all thanks to the great people of this nation! From the bottom of my heart I thank every single citizen who has been with me on this journey!!"

What could he have possibly done that lead to this...? I've never seen him this happy before. Ever.

After the crowd stopped cheering the lady posed another question, "What is next for you, Sir? Now that every celestial body around Mother is under your control and we have our own portal network, what could possibly be next?"

What...? 'Every' celestial body?? That can't be possible... Surely they're just saying that to please the citizens, right? And what counts as 'control'? Because Termia and Caedrus are most definitely not under his control.

Even though I was thinking that, my mind couldn't put Viktor's shining face out of my mind. It didn't look like he was putting on an act... Not even a little bit.

"Well, there's only three things left to do. First off, we need to send those Abyssal fuckers back to the pit they crawled out of." Viktor said, and the crowd went wild even more so than before .

"How will we do that, Sir?!" The lady yelled into the mic, but even then she was barely audible over the crowd.

"Simple; We'll be launching a full on offensive assault onto Veca in the coming months. The Eldritch will be supporting us as well. Their attacks on the wells aren't going all that great, sadly, so once they heard about my plans, they decided to assist me in going straight to the source. We're going to destroy their underground city, ravage their God, and force them to seal themselves up again while fleeing back to whatever shithole planet they came from."

As the crowd roared Viktor raised his arms up into the air while nodding with a big grin on his face. "NEXT! We're going to take Arcadia from those pathetic little Elves. I know that statement is filled with irony considering what I am, but their tech should belong to ALL OF US!! Why do they get to keep it for themselves when it could benefit ALL people?!"

I could feel my head spinning at the implications of what he just said. We already had enough problems as it was, but at the same time, I was kind of happy at the idea that he'd be coming to me himself. Such a scenario happening wasn't even a consideration to me, so this was a weirdly happy surprise.

"LASTLY!!! WE'LL BE TAKING GAIA FOR OURSELVES!!!!" He yelled at the top of his lungs through the already-loud microphone, and in response the people somehow managed to cheer even louder than they already were. On the couch adjacent to him I could see the beautiful brown-skinned Kitsune and Vi cheering as well.

The idea of 'taking' Gaia was ridiculous, but hearing it from him brought back all of the bottled-up anger I felt for the man. I wanted to rip his face off right there and then.

Malafir put his left palm over his face and grinned as he creepily laughed, "As you should, Mother. As you should..."

Taking, taking, taking... It seems he'll never be satisfied. I never put much thought into what his dream actually was, but it seems his dream is to expand his empire everywhere, and he won't be finished until he does.