Tilly stepped out of the mouth of the passageway and was met by the sight of thousands of flying combatants choking the skies around each of the peaks.
His immediate area had been more or less cleared by his explosive exit, but further up the mountain, the things were swarming. But they had not been able to claim the Peak yet, which was interesting. As he started running up the slope, he heard faint sounds of combat ringing out from the top of his mountain. His eyes narrowed, and he spun, seeing the other peak still swathed in Hiro’s domain.
‘It’s not Hiro or Erash…’ He thought to himself.
They were still holding the other peak, dividing the enemy’s attention so that the reinforcements that were supposedly coming had some chance to establish themselves on their chosen point of defense. But none of that would matter if they didn’t keep ownership of this mountain.
Tilly turned back and focused on his destination, moving with supernatural grace up the slope of the mountain. He doubted Erash or Hiro would give up their position lightly, but with Beelzebub on the way, he knew that it would be up to him to buy them the time they needed to establish any kind of defense.
As he neared the top, he reignited his Shroud, drawing all kinds of enemy attention his way. Much of the force on this mountain had been focusing on whatever was keeping them from claiming its Peak, but as soon as his body lit up like a beacon, many of the creatures at the slope's edge began to turn and howl. Something was fighting to protect the Dawning Coalition’s claim on this mountain, and Tilly refused to let it fight alone.
Howls of twisted glee met his charge, causing others to turn to see what their compatriots had seen. Like a gathering wave, they turned and crested over the side of the slope, crashing down toward him.
Refusing to flinch, he met their charge dead on, focusing entirely on not getting swamped. Their ability to hurt him had been vastly reduced, much to the shock of his opponents, but their frenzied, endless attack was the real problem. While they couldn’t really hurt him, he faced a serious risk of getting completely bogged down in the press of bodies, both living and dead.
His Shroud helped a lot in this regard, constantly burning through his surroundings, but it wasn’t enough. After a storm of ineffectual attacks and the collision of dozens of Corruption-infested bodies, his progress slowed to a crawl… He needed to get to the top of that mountain, secure the peak, and then somehow get Beelzebub’s attention before it was too late.
Shouldering his way through the quickly charring corpses, he reached down to his waist, searching for options. All five of his alchemical items had been reformed, but what would be the optimal thing to use in this situation?
Feyback was too niche, the health potion would not help, extra Mana would be nice but was too broad an answer, and Doom Ducky was probably overkill for this situation. Plus, it would seriously hamper any construction of their own defenses, which made it a less-than-ideal option, despite its obvious offensive advantages.
Not that he needed help beating these things… he just needed them out of his way.
Taking a deep breath in, he popped the cork on the Siren’s Tears, grabbed the vial in his fist and twisted to fling it backward with all of his strength. The frenzied screams cut off suddenly as every set of still-functioning eyes whipped past Tilly to the object that had just gone flying down the mountain.
Just like that, they were gone, leaving behind dozens of their own dead as they screeched in lust, shooting after the disappearing vial, leaving Tilly’s path mostly clear.
Even with all of that, there was still a sizable force higher up the mountain, but none of them were looking his way. Kicking free a few clingy, charred corpses, he mentally bemoaned his inability to gain experience from anything below level 100 as he set back off at a run. Then again, without the [Savage Dominion] bonus to the experience he had gotten from the death of the dragon king, he wouldn’t be practically invulnerable right now.
So he shoved down that whining voice and got back to work. His Shroud flared around him, as if in agreement, and he closed the rest of the distance between him and the peak. Just before he arrived to assist whatever was defending the Peak, Kindle sent him another aerial update.
Beelzebub’s army of insects - or maybe that was just his body - was almost to the first peak, where Hiro and Erash were making their stand. The rest of the peaks were swarming with enemies, but they had been practically cleared, leaving only that same foreboding darkness. One that the Corrupted Power was heading straight for.
He was out of time.
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Bursting over the edge of the slope onto the unnaturally flat peak, Tilly immediately got to chopping, cutting through the nearest enemies before they could turn, and setting his edge of the mountain ablaze with burning bodies. As soon as the crowd thinned around him, turning in slow confusion, he released his hatchets in spinning throws directly toward the thickest crowd surrounding the altar.
The weapons released small explosions on impact, causing fires to break out amid the enemy and temporarily pulling their attention away from the center, where Tilly finally spotted the altar. It was now guarded by four gore-covered statues made of animated dragon glass.
A shock of recognition ran through him as he realized they were the same four statues that had guarded the outside of the temple back at the Alliance. But where those had been weathered stone, the workmanship detailing the bodies of these four warriors was crisp and fresh. Each of them wielded very real weapons with terrible skill, cleanly dispatching all who neared the altar.
He barely had time to process how freaking cool that was before those nearest to him finally got their bearings and turned to fully charge, summoning their allies to do the same.
All of his training and combat experience to this point was more or less thrown out the window as he was bum-rushed by half of the force crowding the mountaintop.
Hundreds of would-be fatal blows landed on him, and he hunched his shoulders through the storm of attacks, judiciously applying hatchet swings where the press got thickest. The weight of their numbers alone should have been enough to shove him back off the side of the mountain, but his flames were voracious, eating through anything flesh that came close to his body, and he set his feet doggedly, pressing forward whenever possible.
A grey dog-like creature exploded in gore before him, revealing a huge horned attacker swinging an immense hammer. The thing’s swings radiated Strength, indiscriminately hitting friend and foe alike. The comically muscular demon teed up a huge swing, mowing through four or five of its fellow soldiers in the process. Tilly was so shocked at the thing’s disregard that he misjudged the trajectory of the swing until it was too late, taking the blow on the right side of his chest. It launched him directly into the thick of many of the remaining attackers, shaving off a few percentage points of Health. Those he crashed into didn’t fare nearly as well, the force of his impact breaking appendages and crushing bone as he mowed through their ranks.
The whole thing was utter chaos… something that favored Tilly heavily, given the current imbalance of power, and he rolled to his feet under more ineffectual blows, swinging his weapons around him as he cleared a little room.
“You!” The hammer wielder shouted, “My master has a-” Whatever it had been about to say was cut off as the head of Tilly’s hatchet buried itself in between the creature’s horns. He didn’t have time for monologues.
The impact area exploded with a fount of flame, fed by some internal source provided by the thing’s skull, and Tilly turned in a slow circle, finding the press of the enemy letting up. The remaining flyers retreated en masse. Tilly’s gaze immediately shot toward Hiro and Erash’s peak to find it completely obscured by Beelzebub’s insect storm.
The now still statues had immediately returned to a guard position at four points surrounding the altar, and it otherwise seemed unharmed… He ran through his options and figured his best bet was another supercharged intelligence Flame’s Expulsion.
But how was he going to get the thing to come to him?
Desperately, he tried shouting at the top of his voice, “Hey, Beetlejuice! The real battle is over here!”
The cloud of insects was bigger than several of the peaks combined, and while Tilly was pretty sure that something like that would have no problem hearing his challenge, he could spot any movement from the sky-blotting formation.
His Mana was sitting at 30%, and even if it was full, he simply didn't have an attack that could reach the couple of miles to the next peak with any sort of effectiveness. His heart sank into his stomach as he saw the cloud of insects compressing, shoving more of itself into the space on top of the mountain.
The Battle Continues!
1 Peak claimed by the Dawning Coalition
5 Peaks claimed by Corruption
Then a gale blew past Tilly, and he spun to find Hiro, kneeling over an unconscious Erash, both their bodies crawling with Beelzebub’s servants.
Without needing to be told, Tilly dived on top of the High Priestess, allowing his flames to incinerate all the minute creatures attempting to invade her body. On top of that, he breathed out a Flame’s Renewal on her before standing up and facing Hiro, who stepped in and rotated his body through Tilly’s flames like a rotisserie chicken. Once the Samurai had passed through the flame with every part of his body, Tilly allowed them to die down.
“You ok?” Tilly asked, eyeing the samurai who had gotten busy knocking loose charred bugs from his armor.
“Yes, my body is now almost as hostile to these creatures as yours.” He answered distractedly, shaking out some of the overlapping plates of his armor, trying to get rid of as many of the insects as possible. After a few more seconds, he looked up with a sigh.
“His creatures carry his fourth-tier immunity to abilities. Meaning they will be able to avoid or overwhelm most of our magical defenses in short order.” Hiro said, looking over at the distant peak as the enormous cloud started to shift and gesticulate.
Erash stirred, shifting to her side and coughing up several clumps of the charred bugs. Taking advantage of the clear skies, Kindle flew down, landing on Tilly's shoulder despite being almost as big as his torso.
“I have something to knock a good chunk of him out of the fight, but I don’t have a way to deliver it,” Tilly added, carefully pulling Doom Ducky from his belt. “Any chance you can do that teleport thing to take it over there?”
Hiro shook his head. “I cannot step foot outside of our lands or those being contested by our forces. That peak is outside my range unless we demonstrate a significant effort to take it first…”
“Squawk!” Kindle called into his ear painfully, adding a peck for good measure.
“No, girl, you are out of heat!”
In reply, she ruffled her feathers indignantly.
“Those bugs form a sentient being, one of the enemy’s commanders. Who knows what it's capable of? I won't throw you into the middle of it!”
She flapped her wings in agitation, batting at his face numerous times before hopping off his shoulders.
“Don't give me that! You just want to be next to this thing when it goes off!” Tilly shouted, his face growing red in frustration.
“She is right, you know… You need a delivery method that can reach the center of his mass and survive the following explosion.” Erash grumbled, clearing her throat a few times as she got shakily to her feet. “Gods, that was unpleasant… Hiro is right. These things are extremely resistant to magical protections, making Beelzebub a perfect counter to most defenses. If we can, we need to take him out before we attempt to set up anything here.”
All three sets of eyes looked past the now-crowded enemy Peaks toward the army in the distance, stretching from one horizon to the other.