"You're done already?" Yulong said through the console.
I ordered five Giants, thirty Soldiers, three Casters, and two Scouts to stay behind. The Casters began climbing the tower while the others also took up positions that suited their abilities.
"Malafir said that the Casters could help us create buildings, and he wasn't kidding. It's honestly shocking just how much faster this one was to create compared to the first one I made..." I looked at Malafir, "Should we create a generator really quick too? I feel like it's a bad idea, but we are far enough away from the base now, right?"
"We could, but we shouldn't. The tower gives off very little aura, making it hard to detect. Placing a generator here would draw attention to a location that should be as low-profile as it possibly can be. This is why you should keep all generators in fortified bases. As it is, if you placed a generator next to this tower, one intruder could wipe out both the generator and the tower all by himself."
Right, that's also an issue too... And we could also attract something other than the machines, which has already happened a few times at the first base. Nothing too powerful yet, but it's only a matter of time.
"Also, I'm sure you've noticed your limit by now, Mother."
"... So I wasn't imagining that? The more I build, the more something disappears from inside my core. It feels exactly like how it used to whenever I created summons and had to split parts of my soul off, except now I'm not actually using parts of my soul?"
"Correct, think of it as a container that you are draining with each blackened blood equipment or building you keep connected to yourself. Even Naza'shier has her limits, and the only way to overcome it and continue spreading, is to ascend Liches. Which is why all the mana is flowing through me. I am the catalyst until I ascend. At which point a new Lich will be chosen."
So if I drop the connections, they'll become non-magical buildings that deteriorate on their own like my equipment? Ahh, that's actually better. I'm sure some bases will be temporary creations that I don't want to continue preserving in the future.
"Yulong, we're done here. You can start moving again."
Soon after that the Leviathan began to accelerate, grinding through the snow and even grinding buildings into dust every now and then. Yulong could've avoided them so I assumed he was doing it on purpose. It's definitely one way of making sure there aren't any machines hiding out in the buildings around us.
"Problem, Captain." Clover continued after a brief pause, "Solas and Asmodeous' group are currently under attack. A mass of machines and Xerath are flooding out of the ground from multiple different locations. Notable enemies include; three Deathbringers and a Praetorian."
And there it is... I've been waiting for one of them to show up.
"How far away are they? They can't be too far off, they've been heading in our direction to reconvene with us for several days now." The Leviathan turned toward the south east as I was talking to Clover.
"Thirty two miles, roughly." Clover said.
The tower has a fifty mile reach, so it's within range...
I looked at Malafir, "How low will our reserves be if you use a sustained speed boost on our army for thirty two miles."
"... Low, Mother. Very low. That's a spell used for quick bursts of speed in combat, it's not meant for marathons."
Hmm...
Just then, the backside of the Leviathan's bay opened up and lowered a ramp onto the ground. Thirty or so armored vehicles drove down the ramp before speeding past the Leviathan toward the south east.
"Yulong, how many of those armored vehicles do you have left?"
Shizue answered in his place, "Seventy two. You wish to use them? We need them for transporting materials and people, so try not to lose too many. They won't finish building the next set of them in Arcadia for another week, and then it'll be another couple of weeks before they even catch up to us."
"I do. It'll be faster than running and it only takes a few Soldiers to operate each vehicle." I continued, "Malafir, fit as many as you can inside of the vehicles, and then have the rest stay inside of the Leviathan's loading bay until you reach the battlefield."
Immediately, Malafir and the rest of my units bolted toward the ramp behind the Leviathan that was still lowered. I watched as they disappeared over the top of the ramp before activating my halo and taking off into the sky. On the way up Belfos transmitted to me that he was going to stay here and make sure the tower wasn't destroyed. No guarantees they weren't planning to hit both places after all.
A few seconds later I saw multiple red lights appear all around the landscape. Shit... We're in the anti-air's territory already?
Lasers, bullets, and missiles fired off from the Leviathan, eliminating most of the anti-air machines, which was nice and all, but the fact that we were in their territory meant that flying to the battlefield ahead of everyone else was no longer an option.
{Too bad you couldn't copy Asmodeous!}
Too bad indeed... I tried learning how to constantly accelerate in my soul realm, but even though I was connected to Asmodeous while he did it, learning that ability was going to take a really long time apparently. And that's assuming I even can learn it to begin with.
I flew over toward the Leviathan and placed myself slightly above the armored vehicles that were driving down the ramp. I saw Malafir's top half pop up inside one of the gunner seats and landed onto the vehicle next to him. He primed the gun as I activated the front-sided barrier for him.
"I have not considered it before entering this vehicle, but a location such as this is perfect for us Liches. We can proceed with our usual duties, while also providing cover fire." He said.
I created a temporary black-blood backrest and leaned into it, silently watching all of the vehicles driving through the snowy wastes. Besides the vehicles, the sounds of the Leviathan filled my ears. While it made an enormous amount of sound merely moving, I could also hear it and all of its turrets firing at something on the side opposite of where we were. Clover must've known I was wondering what they were firing at, as he filled me in moments later.
"Xerath are pouring out of the underground, Captain. However, do not worry, they appear to be of a different type from the ones under Atraxu's control."
I closed my eyes and connected to one of the two Casters at the top of the tower behind me. They were both casting lightning bolts at Xerath coming out of the ruins north west of the tower. The Xerath didn't appear to be interested in my skeletons or the tower, as they were all running away from it, but I saw no need to stop the Casters from killing as many as they could. An unknown Xerath hive below us could prove to be a nuisance, but I wasn't all that worried. Right now I was only seeing Xerath at the level of a grunt, so until I saw something stronger, then there was nothing to worry about. It was probably only a basic hive still in its infancy.
----------------------------------------
"Captain, there is no need to worry about anti-air machines around here. Our forces have been destroying them as they advance further westward. They had no choice in the matter. When in range, the anti-air machines began firing at the Titan because of how tall it is." Clover said as the battle ahead of us finally came into view.
I stood up and flew high into the sky to get a better view over the battlefield. The first thing that stuck out to me was the Praetorian channeling two different beams onto the Titan (Ice and Fire). It was moving back and forth sideways while fighting off over fifty people in Power Armor attacking it. From what I could see, not a single one of them was able to land a blow on it. Every time they got close, one of the Praetorian's legs would stab or smack them away at a speed they couldn't keep up with, even with their suits.
The only ones managing to land their attacks on the Praetorian were the Demons. Five Satyr and about thirty Imps were perched on a tall hill casting spells at the machine. Or at least half of them were. The other half were forced to fight off the Warriors and Butchers rushing up the hill to stop them.
The Titan itself appeared to be the center of the conflict. It seems the machines had realized from watching the Daemon battle that if they were to win, they needed to kill the Titan first. I glossed over it before while watching that conflict, but it truly was the deal breaker and the reason they were even able to keep up that fight for so long.
Far off on the other side of the Titan I could see a large group of people in APA's disappear and reappear near the Titan right before several Lobber bombs dropped onto their location. Moments later they were forcibly warped back to their previous location.
And all around the Titan there was endless examples of barriers breaking on Power Armor's and Mechs that were quickly replenished after they fled to the Titan. All it took was a few seconds to regain their barriers and then they were right back into the fight.
According to Clover it went much deeper than that too, with the Titan constantly draining the mana and barriers of any enemy unit who got too close to it, along with a myriad of other ways it shifted the battle in our side's favor. All in all, it was a rather overpowered support unit that we couldn't afford to lose. Especially since we only had one of them.
"Clover, where are the Harbingers?"
"They're too slow. Asmodeous said they are going to open portals for them that connect to their base when we reach the western portal. It'll take a long time to make portals that big though, so it will give you plenty of time to build your own base there while you wait."
Which is something I was planning on doing regardless, but still, I wasn't expecting the Harbingers to be missing in action...
In a large open plain mostly away from the battle I could see Asmodeous, a few dozen APA's, nine ASM's, and about a hundred machines battling it out. Three of those machines were Deathbringers.
It looked like the Titan was managing to keep the people and mechs alive for the most part, but even in the small amount of time I was watching the fight, one of the Power Armors was cut into several pieces before the Titan could warp them away. And from the looks of things, the Titan couldn't purge curses. Some people it returned to fight clearly had something wrong with them. One of them straight up didn't even move as a Butcher brought its chainsword down onto it, and at that point the Titan could no longer save them, since the Butcher was locking them down to that exact spot.
The other's were able to kill the Butcher in time, but the point remained that they needed help, especially since Asmodeous was fighting two of the Deathbringers by himself. His guards were over by the Titan, fighting off waves of Warriors trying to hit the Titan from behind.
Normally I would have helped the Satyr and Imps first so they could blast the Praetorian indiscriminately, but now that I had an army backing me up...
Malafir, protect the Demons on this hill while focusing the rest of our forces on the Praetorian.
Malafir sent an affirmation to me as I took off toward Asmodeous' group. Even though the flight only took a few seconds, in that small span of time I spotted a massive legion of reinforcements for the machines heading this way. I hadn't seen them before since they were hidden between two sets of tall ruins.
A brief glance at the console told me all I needed to know. Clover's radar (which was extended out thanks to the Leviathan) showed a mass of red dots spreading out from two different points around us. Those were obviously the underground entry points from which they were crawling out of, but by this point I figured they were no longer appearing. It took us a while to get here after all, so by now I thought they'd of already hit us with everything they had, but it looks like that assumption was wrong.
One of the Deathbringers dashed at Asmodeous from behind as he blocked the other Deathbringers charge attack. However, the one attacking him from behind sensed me coming and quickly leaped backward before stopping in place. Unlike their usual attitude of attacking nonstop, this one appeared to just be staring at me unmoving, which was quite odd.
"ASSASSIN! THE EYES ARE BEHIND THE RUINS, BACK THERE!!" Asmodeous yelled as he fired off two small flares toward two different sets of ruins. Immediately I knew what he meant. The Deathbringers knew better than to have their cursed eyes floating in the sky now, since our soldiers would obliterate them instantly.
As I prepared to take off again, the Deathbringer in front of me turned around and began attacking the same group of Power Armors the third Deathbringer was attacking. I had barely flown up into the sky before the Titan was forced to pull several of APA's back. They were moments away from being shredded into pieces, so whoever was in charge of assisting this group from the Titan was doing a phenomenal job so far.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
As I turned to fly toward one of the ruins, I felt a powerful wave of pressure hit my soul. All three of the cursed eyes were poking out from the ruins to assault me together, and even with Luna assisting me, they were still managing to land a few curses on me. I wasn't too worried though. Once they were dead it wouldn't be difficult for me to remove them---
{Mother. Those curses are affecting us too.}
... Whoops. I didn't even think about that. Sorry, Malafir!
The reinforcements began firing at me as I approached one of the eyes. To have nearly a thousand energy guns firing directly at you is quite an experience to say the least. I was going to reach the ruins before the wall of energy hit me, but it was definitely a moment in time worth remembering.
I flew through a large hole in a building and darted between rooms until I reached the other side. I don't know what the eye's plan was, but running directly into me as I exited the building probably wasn't part of it. The moment it saw me it tried fleeing into the sky but there was no getting away at this point. It warped away as I punched it, and again, and then again for the final blow.
In that moment I realized just how bad of a matchup I am for them. If Asmodeous and I weren't here, all of the soldiers out there wouldn't be able to do anything to stop the eyes from cursing their entire group while the Deathbringers ripped them apart. The Titan would have no choice but to pull them back and then the Deathbringers would probably turn on the group trying to stop the Praetorian, which I assume is why Asmodeous' and Solas' group is battling them so far away from the others.
I flew over the ruins and toward the other side where the other flare landed. Out of the corner of my eye I saw one of the Deathbringers moving haphazardly trying to defend itself from a group of soldiers, but as usual the blowback from losing its eye was too much. It was too sluggish now and then one wrong move was all it took, the swarm of APA's around it cut into it deep with their heat-blades.
A loud metallic screech went up from the other side of the battlefield. I saw the Praetorian whip around and fire off a red ball of energy that quickly soared through the air before landing on the group of people who had just slain the Deathbringer. The Titan retrieved them before it landed of course, but yet again, I was reminded of how much easier this battle could've been lost without it as I watched the red ball of energy 'detonate' into a massive eruption of lava. The whole area was subsequently covered in a dense fog as well. At first I thought that was a physical reaction to lava meeting snow, but I could feel a thick ether covering the area, meaning it was probably related to the spell the Praetorian had cast.
After that I made quick work of the other two eyes, and while I assumed that meant the others were able to kill the remaining two Deathbringers, the problem was that I couldn't see through the fog.
{Rei, something is wrong... I can't sense anyone in that mist.}
If Luna can't sense them, then there's far more to that fog than a mere visual detriment...
Just then I saw a hand (I think) trying to push out from the fog, but the fog wrapped around whatever it was and pushed it back inside. Seeing that, I began to fly toward the fog to try and destroy or dissipate it, but I was stopped halfway there by Clover.
"Captain, leave this area, now. The Leviathan is firing off two A-2W's. The targets are the two underground access points the machines are appearing from. They're a little too close to the battle though, so there may be some minor damage to our forces as well."
"A-2... What? I don't know what that is, but if we need to be far away from its detonation point, then I really do need to get Solas and the others out of that fog now!"
I was used to the sound of missiles by now, but this one was very unique and annoyingly loud. I could see two massive missiles streaking through the sky, one coming in this direction, and the other toward an area far behind the Titan.
"It's too late, but do not worry. If the explosion blows away that fog, the Titan will retrieve them before it harms those who were trapped inside its circumference."
The Praetorian had been ignoring the missiles until it saw all of my skeletons retreating to the top of the hill where the Satyr and Imps were. All of the armored vehicles were parked behind the hill while the other hunkered down and channeled into a large domed barrier that the Demons had created.
After seeing that, the Praetorian stopped moving around and turned to look at the missile on my side. It must have determined the missile to be a larger threat than the Titan, because it stopped channeling its beams on it and started casting a new spell using most of its legs, but it barely began to manifest a new sphere when the entire world turned white.
When it happened I was flying toward the Satyr's hill, but Clover said I wasn't going to make it so I slammed into the ground and punched both of my fists deep into the frozen dirt. A moment later whatever sound had erupted from the explosion hit my ear drums and instantly destroyed them.
I didn't have time to even process that though, as I was too busy trying to keep myself from flying backwards. It was a titanic shockwave that probably would have killed me before I had absorbed Rai'ga. And even though it only lasted for around ten seconds, it felt like it had gone on for over a minute.
Once it subsided I ripped my arms out of the ground and flew toward the Praetorian, or where I had last seen it anyway. At the moment though, I couldn't see anything between the flurry of snow and lack of light. It wasn't that my eyes were damaged, but that the bombs had somehow left the area buried in darkness. Very little light existed, which is normally still enough for me, but when coupled with the snow, even I was having trouble seeing more than twenty feet ahead of me.
The very second one of the Praetorian's legs came into view it whipped around so the only thing filling up my view was a pinkish-red eye surrounded by metallic teeth. However, it disappeared just as quickly. The Praetorian leaped backward while attempting to spear me with every single one of its legs.
Instead of dodging in this low-visibility environment, I merely backed up and began casting a wind gust spell. It was a simple one I learned just in case I'd need it some day, wholly expecting to never actually need it, and yet here we were.
Luna, I know you know this spell too, so cast yours at the same time I do, okay?!
{Aye, aye!}
Just then my ears were repaired enough that I could slightly hear what was happening around me again, which was basically the same sounds I was hearing previously. Lots of gunfire, explosions, and communications from the Titan.
Once the channel was finished I immediately cast it, but I did it while sweeping my hands from left to right, and together with Luna's spell we managed to blow away all of the snow blocking our line of sight between us and the hill the Satyr and my units were on top of.
And of course it also revealed the Praetorian... But only for a moment. I don't know what it cast, but the second we revealed it, it immediately countercast a spell that buried the area in a flurry of snow again.
{DODGE!!!}
I heard a loud buzzing noise approaching me from ahead as Luna shouted, which lead to me just barely avoiding a small blue beam that was aimed at my chest. Even though it was several feet away, it singed and broke apart part of the armor on my right forearm. A few seconds later, I heard a strange sounding explosion from far behind me.
The Praetorian screeched as a hail of gunfire and explosions hit it from somewhere ahead of me.
"Fallout incoming." Clover simply stated. There was no gravitas placed on what he said, so with everything going on I almost missed it, but I wasn't even sure of what he was talking about so I ignored it all the same and flew toward the screeching ahead of me. Killing the Praetorian was the only thing that mattered right now.
And that's when it happened. It felt like the gravity in the area was suddenly halved, and while it wasn't really necessary for me, I could sense that the oxygen was almost entirely depleted as well. And worst of all, was that the limited amount of light had now turned into literally no light. For the first time ever since changing into this strange Abyssal hybrid, I couldn't see anything around me.
Fortunately, I had Luna with me. Small luminescent orbs shot out of me and began to form a line toward the Praetorian. Whether it could see or not before the light was there was unknown, but the moment the light did hit it, it leaped far away toward the left somewhere. Luna's light spheres chased after it as dozens of massive forward-facing lights emanated from the Titan. The flurry of snow had mostly dissipated, so the lights helped a lot more than they could have before, but there was something else that was strange going on that took me a few moments to pick up on. The light wasn't refracting.
Where the light was aiming I could see everything perfectly, but it looked like I was watching a theater play. Everything outside of the light's circumference was pitch black, and the sound was completely gone as well. Not because my ears were damaged again, but because there just wasn't any sound period. And once the explosions and gunfire picked up again (there was a slight pause in the battle as even the machines weren't sure of what had happened apparently) I could see the light emanating from them as well. But again, the light wasn't refracting, so it felt like I was in a poorly simulated environment.
One of the lights from the Titan focused on the Praetorian. It attempted to flee while firing off magical spheres at me and the Demons on top of the hill, but the light was laser focused on it, never allowing it to disappear into the darkness.
I was dodging the spheres while trying to get closer to the Praetorian when I finally realized something. It was casting spells, so that meant it probably had a soul.
Luna, does the Praetorian have a soul? I'm not sensing one, but it's casting spells, so...
{It does---Oh! Want me to lock it down?!}
Only when I'm close. After that, do it whenever you're comfortable. I'll follow your lead.
One of the spheres exploded in a hail of ice shards. Several of them hit me and immediately turned to heavy ice. And by heavy, I mean heavy. If the gravity was at its normal amount, I felt like the ice would easily be able to lock down a group of people in Power Armor. And even though Luna was heating up the area the ice was frozen to (mostly my right upper-thigh), it was taking forever to melt even a little bit of it.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw the console lighting up, telling me that Clover was saying something, but I obviously couldn't hear a single word of it.
A massive spear of ice smashed into the Praetorian's left side, causing it to stumble toward the right. It was just about to cast another sphere at me, but thanks to that attack it fizzled out, giving me the opportunity I had been waiting for.
A quick glance at the hill told me all I needed to know. It was the Casters we brought with us that had just knocked the mechanical spider down. And I could also see that the Demons were channeling something while staring at the Praetorian.
I flew toward the Praetorian at max speed, and as expected, it instantly righted itself and tried to leap backwards, but Luna caught it just before it left the ground. I maxed out the enhancement on my right hand as Malafir cast the ancient magic buff onto me moments before my fist connected with its eye.
I was about seventy percent through the attack when the Praetorian regained control of itself and leaped away, but I was more than satisfied. Its eye was completely shattered and since there wasn't any sound, it was attacking based solely off of its mana senses now, which were clearly not the best for fast battles such as these. Its retaliatory attack with another one of those small blue beams went wide and missed me by about ten feet, while the sphere it sent toward the Demons mostly landed. It expanded into a purple dome that was firing off one lightning bolt after another toward the Demons and my Casters.
Then, a new sphere appeared in front of the Praetorian. It was light blue, so I was expecting something like that beam from before, but this one wasn't fired, it merely dropped it onto the ground and then hunkered down as the sphere expanded into a dome around it. Barely a few seconds went by before I saw the eye repairing itself.
Luna, again! I shouted internally toward her as a I flew toward the Praetorian, but before she could even respond to me, Asmodeous appeared out of the darkness and smashed his claws right into the Praetorian's mostly healed eye. It had probably tried to retreat, but Asmodeous casting a fire attack of some sort with his hand still inside the machine's eye. It was definitely not a regular fireball or anything at that level, because the Praetorian's torso quite literally exploded into thousands of pieces. Its legs went flying away in random directions as well because of how powerful the blast was.
{Oooh!! Eat it, freak!!}
Asmodeous tossed the remaining torso onto the ground and was turning to leave when he froze for a moment. We both watched as the torso began to repair itself. Even in its completely decimated state, the dome it had created was repairing it, but fortunately that was an easy fix at this point. Asmodeous merely picked it up again and threw it far away into the darkness.
I turned to look in the Titan's direction. The battle was still raging for the most part, but it was nowhere near as fervent as before. The machine's reinforcements were all dead now, so every kill made the battle easier, and while I wasn't watching my skeletons had pushed forward from the hillside and wiped out most of the machines on that side.
But the machines were doomed regardless. Now that the backside was freed up, the Spider Mechs were obliterating entire swathes of them as they walked through the battlefield. At the top of each leg's joint was a manned-turret firing off automatic plasma rounds. Warriors were literally melting on contact. They couldn't withstand the damage like they could from energy weapons, and the Butchers weren't faring much better either.
I had seen them on TV during the Daemon battle, but in retrospect, the fact that only Asmodeous' guards and ten Spider Mechs were holding the backline by themselves was amazing. They were what my sister really wanted to pilot. She endlessly bragged about how powerful they were, and that much was made clear to me here.
As everyone cleaned up the remaining machines, the world slowly came back into view. Around ten minutes later all of the machines around us were dead, but far off to the left the endless drone of machine guns and vehicle engines raged on. I hadn't seen it apparently, but there was a group of machines coming from the direction we had originally approached from, and they scattered after the A2-W's went off. Sadly for them, there was no outrunning Malafir's group, and even if they did manage to outrun them, the Leviathan was almost in range now, so they were dead regardless.
"Rei, you should return to your tower and keep it safe. We won't be leaving anytime soon." Yulong suddenly said over the console.
"What's wrong? It felt like we won handedly just now."
He sighed, "We did, but the Titan took too much damage. That fucking 'Praetorian' fried large portions of its circuitry and power systems. It was running on soul energy and backup power when those A2-W bombs went off, and that's exactly why we had to use them. It was risky, since Clover drilled it into us that we should only use them when absolutely necessary, and now I see why... Have you noticed anything yet?"
I drowned everything out and meditated, focusing on my immediate surroundings. It was clear right away that something was terribly wrong. The mana in the surroundings was dissipating, and I could even feel the oxygen levels slowly depleting.
"I have now, but what exactly am I 'noticing' here?"
Clover answered for him, "Those were missiles designed to kill Baal, Atraxu, and the Machine God. The Leviathan was created as a just in case. The plan was to send all twenty two missiles into the realm where Baal was creating his Machine God when they were all congregated in there."
"Makes sense I suppose, but why is the oxygen and mana disappearing?"
"They were created almost by accident as the Shin'dorai reverse engineered The Velashar's planet-killing structures. The structures use the area's own mana and oxygen as fuel to kill itself, and as such, someone had the idea that maybe this process could create bombs strong enough to kill Baal, and thus the A-2W's were born."
Clover continued, "The planet is trying to repair the damage done to this area, which is why the fallout suddenly dissipated, but there's no reversing what was done. Even if the most powerful Eldritch on Mother came to this exact spot and focused entirely on healing the land, it'd be pointless. This part of the world will continue to eat itself until there is nothing left, and it will keep going like that for hundreds or maybe even thousands of years."
Normally it would take time for me to figure out how I felt about any new information, however, all I felt was a sense of sickness as he described the bombs. I obviously didn't care about the Eldritch planets, and it's not like death and destruction were new to me. Hell, I had also been corrupting the world around me lately, and maybe even in ways that'd take a long looong time to repair, but even so, something about those bombs truly disgusted me. After the campaign to retrieve the core was over I never wanted to use, see, or hear about them ever again. Not even to kill Viktor.