Claudia saw the doors open and the quartet of cannons appear and knew what was going to happen next. It was the perfect ambush for troops: Grapeshot ammunition with nowhere to hide. Her troops would have been shredded and her bodyguards gravely injured, and most likely killed. She'd have survived, the inherent protections of her city keeping her alive, but not against the spells that would have rained down on her. This was a planned assassination, but instead of killing her, it was going to kill the two courageous people who had volunteered to draw out the trap. And one of those people was nearly twice her height now, bursting into smoke and flames as he crossed the courtyard, running closer to the cannons, pursued by a brightly glowing Master Fire Mage who seemed to be having the time of his life, judging by his laughter.

It was insanity. How did they bring arcane cannons into her city? But there was no time to think. Only habits from other battlefields let her react quickly. "Shieldwall, now. Front rank kneel! Second rank, lock shields over the first, and tuck in your heads. Do it!!" She brought up her own enchanted shield, taking cover as well.

From behind her, she heard commands as well. "About face. We're going to have incoming. Shields up, don't let anyone around the edges. Hold the line." The unorganized forces running at them were prepared to slit throats and stab unprotected backs. To blend into the population they wore little armor and were armed with only long daggers glowing with enchantments. Instead of slaughtering the Duchesses' rear ranks, they were facing a prepared shield wall that made it nearly impossible to strike home with their small weapons against armored troops. In the first clash, one soldier was wounded with a slash to his sword arm, but seven of the attackers were struck hard, four with critical wounds. The fighting would continue for a minute, but the outcome was never in doubt

Meanwhile, the Duchess and her front ranks waited a long two seconds and then heard the command to fire the cannons followed by the loud thumps of the four weapons releasing a wave of Ice Aspected Mana that propelled hardened crystal shards by the hundreds. Ozzy had expected some type of spell and not cannons, but as soon as he saw the barrels sticking out of the doorways he began Shielding. His response was going to be the same, whether it be spells, cannonballs, or grapeshot, he had been prepared to Shield. The insubstantial shape of the prow of a great ship spread out in front of him, its shape acting to carry the projectiles away from him to the side.

Ozzy had used every trick he had before this fight. Every heavily armored fighter in Claudia's force would be jealous if they knew how much mitigation Ozzy could muster. Besides the 150 points from Mitigation5, he also had a bonus of +70 from Heavy Hull, and +100 from Monstrously Tough. The latter would also give him protection from Cold or other elemental damage. His socks, Bloody Butcher's Gloves, sedge hide apron, and Armored Apron perk gave him another +80 mitigation between them. 400 points of mitigation exceeded what most Tier 4 warriors with heavy plate armor, shield, enchantments, and enhancements could muster.

To that 400 points of armor, he added +15 points of Universal Mitigation after burning the stamina needed for all three uses of Push Onward 2. Spending the 6000 stamina also increased his STR by +15. Stature 6 not only increased his height to twelve feet but also gave him +30 STR while he was this large. This was the first time he had pushed so hard and taken his STR to a whopping 103. He had no doubt at all that he would be able to get inside the building. He just had to get there first and still be alive.

His Shielding spell was expensive to use and different from what spellcasters in the Conjunction learned to cast. His shields were huge, designed to shield a ship. Ozzy had imagined this shield to be big enough to block any projectile from getting past him. Something the soldiers behind him would be very grateful for. Each of the super-hard ice crystals was propelled fast enough to do 1000 points of Physical damage and another 1000 points of Cold damage. The cannons worked like gigantic shotguns, firing a cloud of projectiles that spread out over a larger area the further they traveled. A soldier hit by one crystal would be injured but survive thanks to the protection of the shield wall, their armor, and the protections the Duchess could use to keep them safe. Two of the icy pellets would kill most, and anyone hit by three or more would die immediately as their body froze and then shattered. Luckily, the Butcher and a powerful Fire Mage were in the way.

Ozzie had thrown 5000 mana into his Shielding Spell, draining half of his mana pool. This allowed the shield to absorb a huge amount of damage. Behind him, Caldrius was doing something similar with his Heat Shield, offering protection from the Cold damage. The two shields merged into one protective spell as the Fire Mage adapted his spell to match the shape of the Butcher's Shielding. As each pellet passed through the Heat Shield, the spell negated 600 points of cold damage from each projectile.

Caldrius could keep his Heat Shield up for an extended time. Ozzy's Shielding worked differently. It offered protection based on his own mitigation, but each hit wore away at the shield or at the Butcher himself. The 5000 mana he'd put into the spell increased his Physical mitigation by 500 points, bringing him to 915 in total, and dropping the damage of each shot to only 85 points. The cold was a different story. His 115 points of elemental mitigation meant that only 285 points of cold damage was left in each crystal. His Shielding spell was ablative, with each shot chipping away at it. It could endure a lot, but not four enchanted ice cannons firing 400 shots each at point-blank range.

1600 small projectiles each doing 370 points of damage should have shattered Ozzy's Shielding and killed him. And would have, if he hadn't brought along a helpful piece of chain that could channel heat to him from the Charnel Pit back in Sedgewick. Chainey was perfect for this sort of job, with part of him in both places. Ozzy was in no danger of emptying his furnace in most fights as long as Chainey was wrapped around his left arm and he held the Ancient Billhook of Entwined Fates. At the first glimpse of the cannons he'd raised his shields, and then he breathed out as much fire as he could force into his Butcher's Breath Spell. Chainey provided the Heat and Ozzy supplied the mana. A cone of fire burst from the end of his weapon, spreading out and hitting the oncoming ice shards, negating almost all of their cold damage, and melting most of them entirely.

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It was still a devastating blow. 'Most' wasn't all, 187 of the projectiles got through. Ozzy's Shielding shattered as the damage exceeded the ten-thousand damage it could soak up. The rest of the 5,895 damage hit the Butcher. Ozzy's charge stopped as he was knocked off his feet by the force of the blow. Some of the damage was transmitted to him by the shield, as he used his own body to take the damage. Other shots hit him directly, punching through his apron and leaving him bloody.

Caldrius nimbly moved aside, having anticipated what was going to happen. Even a Titan who weighed 2400 pounds could be knocked down by four cannons. The Fire Mage stepped forward, holding his Heat Shield steady. His spell was totally negating the incoming Ice and Cold spells cast by the lesser mages. Ice-enchanted arrows melted, and the Ice Knights, who were ready to charge forward, were driven back by the intense temperature. Rodislov was screaming for the cannons to reload, a cumbersome task not made easy by the nearby presence of a powerful Fire Mage.

Chainey continued to feed Heat into the Butcher and his weapon. A moment later, Ozzy stood up to the relief of the Duchess and the horror of everyone inside the building. "I'm sure you can melt those cannons into puddles. I'm going to visit the new neighbors!"

Caldrius laughed and sent a Fire Spear into the leftmost cannon, melting it and killing all of the people in the room as the ice was converted to superheated steam. "Go play and have fun."

Ozzy started to run. Rodoslov saw him coming and tried to slow him with Entangling Ice but the spell was still inside the area of the Heat Shield and the spell failed. The old mage was walking casually toward the building, preparing another spell, the sphere of heat moving with him.

At twelve feet tall, and with the Jumping Jack enhancement, Ozzy didn't need to use the lower door. Over a ton of angry butcher leaped upwards and crashed through the outer face of the second story, knocking down any of the Ice Mages present, and crushing some beneath his feet. Which wasn't that many, to tell the truth. Most of Rodoslov's minions had started heading toward the bolthole in the back of the basement as soon as they saw that the Butcher wasn't dead.

The Ice Mage himself was in a bad spot buried beneath rubble and things became much worse as Ozzy stabbed downward with his billhook, skewering his enemy through the chest. Chainey poured Heat into him, his demonic nature seeing the inherent weakness of Ice vs Heat and delighting in bringing the pain. Rodoslov screamed and tried to cast a spell, only to have steam erupt from his nose and mouth.

He managed a clumsy bit of speech, begging the Butcher for mercy, "Please, stop! I can tell you things! Plans, and secrets. Just stop!"

Ozzy didn't stop, "Nope, you gave up any chance at mercy when you killed and maimed all those innocent people. You're just another monster that needs to be put down. And then I'm hunting down the rest of your merry band of terrorists." He twisted his weapon within the mage's chest and breathed fire into his face. A moment later, Rodoslov melted into a puddle of sludge. Any of his people still in the building heard the Butcher's threat, and were encouraged to leave. Ozzy realized he was too big to chase them and began to reduce in size.

Outside, Caldrius had destroyed three of the cannons and sent a Fire Spear into the last one. This cannon had already taken damage from the steam released from the other spells and melted easily. Caldrius took one more step toward the building and his Heat Shields contacted the pressurized tanks of cold, sludge used to fuel the cannons. The heat decayed the casings and the tanks exploded, venting their icy mixture in every direction with spectacular results.

Caldrius was knocked backward twenty feet, but unhurt because of his spell and innate Heat. Ice forced its way into every open space in the building, and then expanded further. Ozzy was knocked away from the window, and fell to the cobblestones, taking no damage from the fall and the ice that covered him quickly melted away. The building wasn't so lucky. As the ice expanded down into the basement and beyond, and up through all of the stories, its expansion lifted the roof, blew out all of the walls, and destroyed the building along with the buildings to either side. The only reason it didn't all come down in a pile of rubble was the ice freezing solid and supporting the whole mess.

Ozzy and Caldrius stood up and looked around. Claudia and her honor guard were jogging towards them. The people who had tried to attack the formation from the rear were dead or captured. She looked at the Butcher, still ten-foot-tall. "I want to hear the story sometime."

"Oh, as do I." Caldrius was staring hard at Ozzy. "Such an interesting heritage, which I will of course keep to myself. Not that it will be much of a secret if you do more stunts like that."

Ozzy grinned, "I yam what I yam." He pointed a thumb back at the building. "Some of them got away, but I have an idea of where they might be headed. If you don't mind sending along a couple of squads of soldiers with me, I might have an idea of how to find them. Needs to be people who don't mind running into unknown danger through some smuggling tunnels."

She eyed his wounds. "Soldiers are easy, and my guys live for that type of stuff. But are you up for this? You took a lot of hits."

The Butcher shrugged, "I still have eight thousand health left and some healing potions in my bag. I don't want to let those guys get away if I can stop them."

"Sounds good. Alpha and Beta squads, you're under Sergeant Hastings. Hastings, follow the Butcher wherever he's going and help him round up some strays."

Caldrius considered momentarily but didn't let his excitement get the best of him. "And I will go look at a teleport stone that needs warming up. I'll wait for you there. I think we have some things to talk about."

Ozzy took off at a jog, losing stature until he was back to seven feet tall. The soldiers followed along, thankful to be alive but wondering what they were getting into.