Each of the portals streams over a hundred people every second. Months of training for this specific maneuver mixed with all the other drills and maneuvers wields an incredible display.

On the edges and upper part of the portal, equipment operators drop modular runic designs that slot themselves into place with everything needed to power both the strengthening shield and the turrets already firing at the enemy.

Our own troops rush forward pushing their advantage of surprise against an unprepared enemy even as their Druids try to shift the directional main shield to bend and cover them closing against the ground on the other side. But we expected such a tactic.

As the curved shield passes over the highest point and starts to lower, we power runic formations hanging in the air nearby specifically aimed at interfering with their efforts. We don’t manage to stop the shield considering the severe manpower difference in the vicinity. But, we turn an easy ten second job into a one or two minute slog. By the time they can effectively pay attention to our side, we won’t have a few hundred in place, instead around each portal there are thousands, even approaching 10 thousand in the central one.

A minuscule number in the grand squame of things, but the losses on their backlines and the greater strain on their druids weaken the shield all around and give me an amazing edge.

Insight strikes as they are almost done with their shield modifications. A path to not only a small victory but a crack in their foundations presents itself to me. Something that if it pays off will hasten this battle ‘significantly’ and maybe even completely change the dynamic. A snowball, after it came down the mountain and built its mass and momentum.

My intuition leads me to directly interface with the mana all around me and then I find it. I move knocking out and killing a pair of elves every second, I let my will and Qi float up into the shield. A shield that supposedly would need a thousand times more power than I could inflict to knock down. But while it’s in flux, I see a flaw. My growing experience with their runes and equipment, even if I still couldn’t quite make use of them, is enough now. I find a lot of weak points almost effortlessly and I see a gaping one screaming to be exploited.

A crack in the central pillar of this section supports all the weight. If I pry it apart, it will collapse.

Altering the shield this much will put a strain even on the work of their empire’s geniuses who likely worked for generations tweaking even the smallest of parameters, let alone with this many users in the throws of battle.

Still, each moment I wait that gap diminishes. But that singular flaw in their defenses is going to be their downfall. I don’t know how long I have, so I start in earnest. With my control, multiple turrets aim a few meters above my head with the most powerful attacks they can put out without burning out in a single shot. They will have to take it easy over the next minute to ‘cooldown’ but it will be worth it compared to simply trading mana for mana against the enemy’s pool.

I twist the rivers of Qi flowing from me to their rune interface points. Not slightly, simply aiming to weaken certain precise spots in a measured manner. That wouldn’t be enough. I do aim my power, but all my will backs to the attempt. All the raw power that a thousand willpower points allow me.

Maintaining the portals open bear the weight of my soul, pushing Qi that takes my willpower and the enemies around me strain my body. Pushing all these aspects, even if they are fairly separated is different and it brings back memories of the exhaustion spiral my soul had been under, but this time the pain feels good. Like the first few minutes of hard running after days without proper exercise. The stretching muscles in a supercharged version of a morning stretch and yawn. That light burn combined with the feeling of power, action and movement that is the sweetest of pains. Coupled with instinctive knowledge ingrained over years of training, there isn’t even the fear of lingering injuries, because I know that with a little rest, I will be back stronger than I left.

Simply the pain of true growth.

Qi and willpower perfuse that little spot I break it and the entire shield shudders. My gut and that strange sense of understanding even in these alien rune scripts guide me.

My brilliant insight pays off better than I expected shattering a good section of the shield.

My eyes closed, cracks build and my will and resources that had until a moment ago been prepared to push a very short distance with a lot of strength threaten to disperse, but I don’t let that happen. I switch my mental gears from the largest cog meant to multiply my strength to the smallest one meant to multiply my speed. I ride the momentum pushing those little cracks, reaching further and further.

“Maybe I will even collapse a couple of neighboring shield sections.”

Before I was trying to tear into a cloth with a blunt tipped scissor, but after the first puncture, I only have to follow the seam, and so do the thousand seeds connected to me after they get the leverage they need to properly act. So I extend as far out as I can even using the tiny inner world portals and the network.

Then I reach my limit or the tapestry’s limit. My mind is fuzzy and the part of the shied I can touch is gone.

I open my eyes fighting lightheadedness even as my other half keeps my body moving. Then I realize what I did. With insight and a thousand little seeds melding with their own power to mine.

The entire shield is down.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

I found the weak stop that shouldn’t have been exposed. The entire thing was one cloth, one corridor that can access the entire furthers and after I cracked the outer shell, there was nothing to stop me from reaching anywhere I wanted. Nothing to blunt my particular form of attack. They probably never imagined someone could do this or maybe they thought newcomers like us couldn’t do this and the benefits of their single shield would outweigh any potential risk. Thousand of years developing dozens, hundreds of varieties and they came up with this design only for it to lose to me.

Making the entire thing one large shield had several advantages, chief among them that even a very powerful attack, as long as it wasn’t concentrated on a tiny spot, would have to significantly deplete the entire shield before breaking through. I couldn’t accurately reproduce this particular variety, but I was familiar with the principles and could make sense of its general characteristics. They had sections of their runic formation meant to protect the shield similar to what we designed on ours. I hadn’t tested it, but I could intuit they let extreme attacks through with minimal drain to keep the rest of the shield intact. That theoretically should have stopped me, but I managed to ‘directly’ interface with the shield and that wasn’t so easy to shake off.

The next few seconds just become crucial. I let the shock of my actions fade for the tenth of a second that I took to ponder on the situation and think of my best response while recovering my mental state.

With full protection of our own shields and greater freedom of moment without the enemy’s shield getting in the way, our rate of killing from our soldiers goes from thousands a second to hundreds of thousands. But even in complete collapse and certain death to many of their number, the enemy still keeps its ranks intact and less than 5 seconds later, just with light disarray of the lines in several spots, they raise their shields at minimum power again.

I can feel the power demands through that strange system interface that normally worked fully in the background and was impossible to detect. A few groups on our side had unlocked it, though I saw scarce advantage beyond accessing a little more mana from those that couldn’t gift it and moving mana where the enemy couldn’t interfere with it, but maybe I’m missing something.

For the first time, I fully witness this mana transfer even as I’m pushed back a dozen meters. Even the system can’t hide that much mana moving. I’m connected to the world, I’m one with reality and I finally get a tenuous grasp on this system’s underlayer. Intangible and beyond my reach but I can see in there. I can see all the mana in the world and even the system can’t stop me.

The rate of mana discharge is absurd, which let me cross the threshold and find it, but after seeing it, the mental switch to the particular place, this phase of reality is nearly as simple as a switch and though the system could interface and restrict what my skill based perception field could do, it had absolutely no effect on my natural version of it.

I think of trying to collapse their shield again, but the different runic design is too unfamiliar. Not even similar to any of the dozens I witnessed them using until now. I would need more time to study it carefully to even have a chance. So I focus on delaying their efforts to send mana to the most critical places.

A quick glance at the map shows their long line of troops broke in 5 particular spots. Three that we got lucky on after the shield fell and 2 successful backline invasions.

On the very edge, there is even a relatively small 2 million group that we managed to surround with overwhelming numbers. Their options are all but gone unless they want to surrender and though we had to be careful even then, we made clear that we prefer surrender to wholesale slaughter.

Still, it was rare that even one of them voluntarily surrenders. There are probably only a few dozen cases among the hundreds of thousands we captured the hard way. And even that number pales before the tens of millions of dead.

After the initial excitement, the battle follows a more traditional path. We fail to come up with anything nearly as impressive such as collapsing their main shield or hitting on their rear lines. Luckily, they also fail to get in any meaningful sneak advantages. Even the arch druids sacrificing their souls to those “dark nature” control instruments are only an inconvenience given how wide the battlefield is.

The balance is maintained and my path becomes simply mowing down as many as I can with overwhelming strength, speed, endurance and toughness. This time, I don’t even bother with finishing anyone off, leaving the injured and out of position elves open for attack by the others while I sprint back and forth all along the largest intact battle line.

Even their shield that should have been better at restraining me fails to accomplish much as I grow used to it. Nowhere near enough to actually collapse it again even if we forced them to wildly alter its shape again, but enough that my moves are slightly less hindered while moving a few feet more than the majority of our army. The flexible shields give freedom to the troops from their own side, and with power like mine, I can ignore a lot of the restrictions.

But then it's too much and their shield turns fully solid which boots out like a squawking flightless bird that was just kicked.

After about 10 million losses they are done playing. Their goal has shifted and I realize that its more than I expected. A slow retreat starts and after a few moments, orders come down to disengage.

Probably their greatest advantage over our infantry becomes perfectly clear as thousands of Wind runners in each section start to overlap their powers and they start to escape at speeds that even I would have trouble following. Not from sheer muscle power, but because the wind that would get in the way seems to part by its own volition. Not only that, but the elves in the first few lines don’t have to fight against the wind alone. They have beautiful lines of kinetic energy and wind interlocking them allowing the entire army to bear the brunt.

But I can’t complain when there is the option of just FLYING. That was still a domain they were bared from.

I watch their retreat without pursuit, instead going back to the section we managed to surround.

Then for the first time, they raise an azure banner as a sign of surrender and a hint of hope births in my heart.

Maybe I won’t have to bloody myself even more, at least until the next battle.

I look down while opening a pair of portals just outside their territory as close as I can. Then streams of the enemy are guided there, in a place they won’t be able to cause trouble. Completely isolated in the main pocket of the inner world and the confines given I hadn’t expected to deal with this mana so quickly, but the nearly 2 million elves will only have to remain inside for a few days or a week at most.

I contact James, our city’s military commander:

“We will need proper prisons outside the inner world.”

The reply is instant:

“We already have a few built and ideas on how to make sure none of them can leave to threaten us again. We are going to need your seed’s help with that.”

“They will be glad to help. We also need to figure out what has changed for so many to surrender like this.”

Then I look at my companion inside the inner world and use my broken Elvish, having spent way too little time practicing to learn it properly, but my message is clear.

“I’m going to need your help to design a proper POW camp.”