Chapter 158: All-In

Amid a rapidly intensifying struggle that saw uniformed men and women exchanging gunfire, launching rockets, and in some cases bleeding out all over the grass, Olivir realized he was dressed far too fancily for such a terrible occasion. At the moment, he wore a brocade vest over a white silk shirt along with a hand-tailored pair of black trousers. This, combined with his polished, black dress shoes, meant the sight of Olivir was likely to immediately catch the eye—or at least it might have if he’d been anywhere remotely near the action.

Along with Kolona, who stood by his side, Olivir kept himself two miles behind the back lines of Lord Oren’s forces, a precaution he took out of necessity. After all, the only thing it would take to end Olivir’s life would be one stray bullet, and that wasn’t an exaggeration, either. It would only take a lone round from just one gun to erase his existence from the universe.

As a vampire, Olivir was perpetually locked into having just a single point of constitution, and while he was no slouch when it came to fighting up close and personal, the chaotic nature of war made it so that there were simply too many threatening things flying in too many different directions for him to risk getting any closer than this. A lucky shot by an opportunistic gunman could therefore easily cause him to end up in the history books for being one of the shortest-lived vampires to ever exist. No, this was close enough indeed. It also happened to be the perfect spot to surveil the battle.

Here we are again, he thought.

As though he’d been pulled back to this spot by fate, Olivir was now just a few feet from where he had been standing when he’d put the dragon to sleep. Not all that far behind him, the massive, gargantuan impact crater that Zach had created with his ability acted as both a spectacular sight to behold as well as a very real hazard for anyone who might accidentally fall inside. In all likelihood, the deep, stunning deformation in the terrain would remain there for the rest of the planet’s existence. There were also smaller holes dotting the scenery as well: scars in the land that would probably likewise serve as an eternal memorial to that day. But it was not for reasons of sentimentality that Olivir had chosen this spot.

Given the elevation at this precise location, it made for the perfect vantage point through which Olivir could study the progression of the war effort without placing himself or Kolona in harm’s way, something he refused to allow. And really, why should he? Of all those currently present in the region of Shadowfall Coast, there existed no two beings aside from himself and Kolona who could truly say they had no stake in this war. The fact Olivir had come along at all was due to nothing more than moral disgust at the Guild of Gentlemen—combined with a healthy dose of curiosity.

“What do you think, Oli?” Kolona asked him.

Olivir felt warmth as she grabbed his hand, reminding him that she’d recently eaten. The body of a vampire tended to elevate several degrees after drinking the blood of a fresh lifeform, and in this case, Olivir welcomed it. He himself had been too uneasy to feast with her on the turkey she’d caught in the countryside on their way over here. After she’d ethically and painlessly killed the creature, she’d insisted several times that he have a drink, but he’d declined to share it with her.

“I’m not sure yet,” he replied. “But I have a bad feeling about this.”

She grimaced. “How come?”

“It’s just…”

“Just what?”

He pursed his lips a moment as he looked out and over the field of battle, watching as the soldiers advanced at a crawl, barely making any progress as things at last began in earnest. Armored tanks fired their main cannons while columns of troops trailed behind the vehicles for cover. Inch by inch, the scores of various units marched, rolled, or otherwise thudded their way closer to the city.

At the moment, a great deal of the incoming fire was coming from the highway leading out of the city’s northern entrance, where trenches had been dug. Capturing the roads would be their first strategic objective. And though their progress was far too slow, it was at least consistent and somewhat uneventful. But Olivir was worried it wouldn’t remain that way.

Meeting Kolona’s eyes, he said, “I’m worried that the Lords of Justice aren’t as prepared as they need to be for this.”

“What makes you think they might not be?”

Olivir sighed. “There’s a few things, actually, but…I might just be overthinking things. I’m hoping I’m wrong.”

Rubbing his chin with his free hand while holding Kolona’s with his other, Olivir watched as the battle continued to play out ahead of him. For the time being, he was content to observe the situation from a safe distance while he contemplated just how involved he felt like getting in this war. From the outset, he’d made it very clear that he and Kolona would be joining strictly as non-combatants, and to that end, he'd chosen to venture here separately from the others, arriving a bit late as he and Kolona had taken a roundabout path that avoided hazards or threats to their lives. Yet, for all his insistence that they not become dragged too deeply into this conflict, Olivir knew there was always a chance he could opt to do a little more if he really felt he had to.

Only if there’s no other way…

It was strange how Olivir could even entertain the thought of joining in on the attack. It certainly wasn’t because he held any desire to fight in a war on a planet that he no longer considered home; no, it was something far simpler in nature. Basically, what motivated Olivir’s actions was how incredibly, downright difficult he found it to stand passively by and watch evil win. It felt wrong on an innate level.

How can anyone forgive them after what they did? he wondered, recalling the sick feeling that’d entered his stomach when news of the bomb had reached him.

The photographs and video clips that had begun trickling out of Ogre’s Axe haunted Olivir. Though he was young for a vampire, he was surely older than all living humans, and he had extensive knowledge of history: knowledge that only the vampires possessed. Therefore, Olivir felt pretty confident in saying that, never, in the entire history of Galterra, had any act of aggression murdered so many people all at once. Even the worst atrocities in known Galterran history had taken time. Yet, somehow, in the blink of an eye, the Guild of Gentlemen had managed to eradicate hundreds of thousands of people in an instant. It was disgusting. It was unforgivable!

“You’re angry,” Kolona said.

“Hmm?” He forced a smile onto his lips. “What do you mean?”

“You’re squeezing my hand really tightly, Oli.”

Olivir made a nervous croak and released his grip. “Sorry.”

She smiled back at him. “I’m fine. I just don’t want my shield going off and startling you. It will if you squeeze any tighter, honey.”

“Thanks for the warning.”

As the first—and only—Elvish vampire to ever exist, Kolona’s powerful, Elvish blood had taken well to the vampirism, manifesting a unique passive that Olivir found remarkable. It was called “Shield of the Agile Goddess.” Anything in the world that could hurt Kolona, no matter what it happened to be, could only inflict harm upon her after five attempts unless the cause of attempted harm had a dexterity and speed stat that were both higher than Kolona’s. There didn’t seem to be any exceptions, either. Any attacking force would be repelled on contact.

Hypothetically, if Kolona had been in Ogre’s Axe and had been standing right in the center of the blast when the nuclear weapon had fallen on the city, Olivir was pretty sure that the initial blast itself would probably have been completely deflected by her shield, leaving her unharmed—for the moment, anyway. He and Kolona actually disagreed on what would’ve happened next.

In Olivir’s opinion, following the blast, she would have then immediately taken four more hits to her shield, one after the next, as a result of the radiation. He even suspected the shield would go off so fast that all four subsequent hits would happen in less than a microsecond, appearing visually as a single hit instead of multiple.

Kolona, on the other hand, took the position that the bomb would count as one hit, the radiation as a separate hit, and following that, she’d be left unharmed unless she left and reentered the area again, at which point she'd be “hit” by the radiation. But this made little sense, because if Kolona was correct, did that imply she could survive any form of sustained, continuous damage? Did that mean she could swim in lava or float in the void of space in her pajamas? Either way, no matter who was right, it was still one of the most incredible abilities he’d ever encountered.

Maybe a bit too incredible, he thought, suppressing a groan.

Though Olivir would never admit this to anyone due to the humiliation, there’d been a few “accidents” between him and Kolona as a result of her shield, particularly during their more “intimate” moments in the master bedroom of his home. He shuddered as he recalled these uncommon, but traumatizing mishaps.

On several occasions, as he’d been in the throes of passion, he’d somehow caused her just a tiny bit of “pain” during their private encounters. Not enough so that any reasonable person would call it “harm,” but enough to pass whatever threshold her ability seemed to designate, which in some cases could be anything slightly more intense than a pinch. During these times, Olivir found himself thrown right off his bed, where he’d once even collided with his ceiling and ended up with a sore, badly bruised body, unable to walk properly for a week. Another time, he’d been thrown naked out of a window. Eventually, Olivir decided to just let her be on top. It wasn’t worth the very real risk of death.

“Now you’re grinning,” Kolona said to him. “What’re you thinking about?”

“It’s nothing.”

“Sure it isn’t,” she said playfully. As the sound of gunshots increased in volume ahead of them, her grin faded and her tone became darker. “So anyways, why do you think the Lords of Justice might not be able to pull this off?”

Olivir kept his eyes trained on the battle as he replied to her. “Well,” he began, “to start with, uhm, they’ve really—whoah!”

Protectively, he threw out his arm and wrapped it around Kolona as the entire scenery before him changed radically from one moment to the next. Very early in the morning, the sun was still a few minutes from rising, which meant that, until this second, the sky had been mostly dark. But now, inexplicably, the entire horizon lit up with what looked like dozens of bright, unnatural stars that all appeared at once and definitely hadn’t been there before.

“What in the name of the Gods is that?” Olivir asked, raising his voice.

The stars were so bright that they caused a white glow to stretch over and across the land for miles in every direction. But this was nothing compared to the intensity of light that filled the world as fast-moving beams struck down from the sky like some kind of angelic storm. Deep, rumbling booms caused vibrations beneath his feet along with dome-shaped, expanding spheres made of light that appeared briefly before vanishing following each impact.

One after the next, these massive beams of light slammed down into the city, resulting in multiple explosions and presumably more death. The jarring spectacle seemed to shock everyone on either side of the battlefield, as for the next few seconds, all gunfire came to a halt, and all movement ceased. Everyone seemed to be glancing up at the unbelievable display of magical might.

“Oli, what’s happening?” Kolona asked, sounding alarmed. The two looked at one another, and in her eyes, Olivir could see uncertainty and worry. But then, Olivir realized something, and she seemed to realize it as well. Almost at the exact same time, Kolona became visibly relaxed, and Olivir felt himself relaxing as well. He nodded at Kolona, and she at him. She must have come to the same conclusion.

“It’s obviously Zach doing that,” Olivir said. “He must have unlocked some incredible new power. Right?”

“It’s got to be,” Kolona agreed. “Who else could do something like that?”

Olivir shrugged. “Nobody I can think of. This just seems like a ‘him’ kind of thing.” He tsked. “That dude’s getting scarily powerful. You ever see anything like this before?”

“Nope,” Kolona said, shaking her head. “Not even from the Elves.”

Listening in to the chatter from the Lords of Justice via the Comm he’d been provided, Olivir discovered that Lord Oren and most of the others in positions of command promptly came to the same conclusion, and Lord Oren in particular seemed to harbor a mixture of conflicting emotions in response to whatever ability they were witnessing.

“He needs to be more careful,” Lord Oren said over the Comm. “I’m glad he’s taking this seriously, but he’s striking way too many civilian buildings.”

“Lord Oren,” said a female voice that Olivir did not recognize. She was likely a high-ranking member of the guild since she was able to speak over the command channel. “Are you positive that this is even the boy’s doing?”

“No, but…who else could it be?” he asked.

“I agree,” the Elvish queen chimed in. “I’m glad to see the young man is doling out vengeance upon the humans. He would be wise to level the entire city and save us all a great deal of time.”

Lord Oren audibly grunted in disapproval. “I don’t know why he’s doing this or why your daughter is even letting him, but…if nothing else, it means he’s okay and no longer on the verge of death. So at least there’s that.” A brief pause followed his words, and then he continued to speak. “At any rate, we should seize on the enemy’s confusion and press the attack. Now’s our chance to gain some ground!”

Olivir felt his muscles stiffen anxiously as he listened to Lord Oren and the other commanders issue orders to the fourteen assembled brigades that made up the entirety of their fighting force; each brigade contained a mixture of anywhere between one- to three-thousand troops along with a few squads composed of leveled fighters. In their current formation, they were spread out enough that they covered the entire western side of the city from the northernmost tip to the southernmost, yet it was the roads to the north and south they sought to capture.

In terms of geography, the city itself curved somewhat inwardly as one approached from the direction of the grasslands, and the outskirts contained little more than a few small farms or other humble residences; beyond this point, however, was essentially a densely packed wall of two-story or three-story buildings that had no gaps in them with which to allow the vehicles of their forces to find entry. For this reason, they needed to funnel in through either the north or the south highways. And as though in pursuit of that goal, Lord Oren cautiously ordered just one brigade to try shaking things up.

This isn’t going to work, Olivir thought, frowning. They’re making a mistake!

As Olivir watched the 12th infantry brigade break off and begin a far more aggressive attack, the bad feeling in his chest only continued to grow. Trying not to fidget, he observed as the leveled members of this brigade took point and began to charge in headfirst as though to set an example of courage for the others to follow.

“After me, 12th mechanized infantry!” a man raising a katana above his head roared as he began to charge into gunfire and make his way directly towards one of the two massive stretches of DEHV highway that the Guild of Gentlemen relied upon for supplies.

Grenades, tank cannons, small-arms fire, and even a direct blast from an artillery strike could not stop the katana-wielding man as well as seven other leveled members from his squad who ran alongside him. Together, all eight of them broke away, moving well ahead of the others and directly into the enemy’s defenses. Not long after, the other leveled squads of the 12th brigade took off in pursuit.

“Pull them back!” Olivir shouted into the Comm as he watched this unfold. “Order them to stop!”

His words were ignored. As though chasing honor and glory itself, the katana-wielding man and his seven comrades raced across the grasslands and at last seemed poised to crash into an entire line of rifle-wielding defenders peeking out from behind a row of sandbags. All now abruptly stopped firing as though realizing their weapons were useless against leveled fighters. They did not flee, however. With a robotic sort of discipline, they held their ground and began to reload.

Olivir narrowed his eyes, watching as the men from Lords of Justice leapt over several barricades and actually made it all the way to an enemy encampment that’d been built ahead of the roads. There was shouting, which was only slightly audible from such a far distance, and it came across with the sound of fear. From the looks of things, the eight, leveled fighters were about to rampage through the encampment and open up a path—perhaps even rousing others to join in and finally make real progress towards the city.

Unfortunately, what instead happened was what Olivir had been fearing all along.

Rather than send out any significant counter-force of leveled fighters to meet the eight charging men in battle, the Guild of Gentlemen produced only two: both women, and both wearing identical robes with a rich purple color. At least it looked that way. From this distance, it was very hard to be sure. But Olivir was sure that each wielded a staff, and each then raised that staff.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

Two swirling vortexes of energy began spinning around the feet of each woman; this energy then rose up along their bodies and into the air, only to come crashing right back down near the eight men. And though none were struck directly, the energy shifted the moment it hit the ground. It expanded, became smoke-like, and briefly covered all eight of them in a shroud of mist that made them difficult to see. They soon emerged from it, however, looking completely unharmed. With that, the mages shouted something aloud that Olivir could not discern, and upon this, the gunfire resumed once more.

“Oli!” Kolona cried, a gasp following her words.

The bullets, as though fired at mere level-1 soldiers, began ripping apart each and every one of the eight men. Their forward momentum was stopped immediately, and their bodies began to twitch and jerk as the enemy’s troops lit into them without any trace of mercy. One bullet after the next, the men were shot so many times by so many different guns that several had limbs detached just from the armor-piercing bullets being used against them. Heads were caved in, brains were spilled onto the grass, and in a matter of seconds, all eight perished.

“This,” Olivir whispered, “was exactly what I was worried about.”

Kolona grabbed his sleeve and tugged on it. “What just happened?”

Olivir sighed. “This is what I was about to tell you,” he explained. “The Guild of Gentlemen is either the oldest or one of the oldest guilds in history. So, naturally, they have war compendiums filled with tactics and information that are far more detailed and creative than what any other guild has. With Peter dead, this new ‘king’ they’ve got replacing him is clearly letting it all loose. They’ve probably been preparing for this kind of attack since Peter V’s death.”

“But what did they even just do?” Kolona asked. “How did a bunch of level ones kill all of those higher-level men?”

Olivir winced at the torn-apart bodies, which were staining the grass red. “I’m guessing those two mages used a debuff that lowers their targets’ resistance to piercing damage—one that was strong enough to make those eight men susceptible to armor-piercing bullets. We should expect them to have a bunch more clever tricks like that up their sleeve.”

Kolona’s mouth moved but sound did not emerge from her lips; it was as though she was silently repeating the words Olivir had just spoken in her mind. Finally, she said, “Debuff their pierce resistance and kill them with ordinary weapons…that’s a really scary combo, Oli.”

“And an obvious one, too,” Olivir replied. He raised his pointer finger. “But only in hindsight. I guess it’s not something you’d automatically think to try if you’ve never fought in a battle like this before. I’m sure they’ve got lots of ‘techniques’ like that waiting for Lord Oren’s army.”

“So then…should we do something?”

Olivir folded his arms, and rather than reply just yet, he continued to observe. The other leveled-fighter squads, which had been charging behind the first, came to an abrupt halt and retreated back to the 12th brigade; accordingly, the level-1 troops that made up the brigade also halted their charge, though now, a fair number were cut down by gunfire as they tried to get back into cover. Clearly, they were faring less well than their leveled counterparts.

“Pull back!” Lord Oren commanded, frustration and confusion evident in his voice.

The sounds of battle intensified as the enemy retaliated, training all their guns on the vulnerable targets of the retreating 12th brigade. Orange flames lit up the field of battle as three armored tanks were struck by shells and blown to bits while numerous pieces of artillery equipment were likewise destroyed. In less than a minute, what looked like two-hundred infantry, along with three mages from the Lords of Justice, were cut down and left for dead on the grassy hills while the destroyed battle tanks continued to release smoke, still partly aflame. Several men and a few women crawled along the grass before either bleeding out or getting struck by a second round of gunfire.

“Can the vampire save them?” a man asked over the Comm. It was another voice Olivir did not recognize. In truth, Olivir knew very few of the people he’d found himself siding with.

“I can’t,” he answered into the Comm. “Not unless you can bring them to me. Otherwise, I’m sorry, but I’m not coming any closer than where I am right now. I won’t risk my life, and I won’t risk Kolona’s.”

Though Olivir had come here for the sole purpose of resurrecting the dead, the troops and leveled members of the Lords of Justice who’d fallen thus far had gone too deep to be retrieved and brought back to him without the risk of losing even more in the process. Therefore, those who perished were regrettably left to their eternal fate.

“Regroup,” Lord Oren said over the Comm. “All squad captains, watch out for more debuffs or any other tactics the enemy might’ve come up with that we didn’t game out.”

The frustration in Lord Oren’s voice grew considerably with each word he spoke, but Olivir understood his frustration—and it was more than justifiable. After all, the Elves had not been shy in communicating what they intended to do if the Lords of Justice failed to break into the city within just a couple of hours from now—a virtually impossible task, in Olivir’s opinion. For this reason, he couldn’t possibly blame Lord Oren for getting caught between the competing forces of hesitation and desperation. If Olivir had been in his shoes, he too would be finding all of this mentally trying.

Not many good options for that kid, is there? Olivir wondered.

Though he had not gotten to know him all that well, Olivir nevertheless admired Lord Alex Oren. For someone in his early twenties, he was formidable and wise. He lacked only in experience, yet he seemed capable of improvising well enough. It must’ve taken a lot of guts, confidence, and conviction to lead an army into battle without any prior training or ever having done so before.

Yet as smart as that dude is, I still think he’s going to fall short…

As the 12th infantry brigade pulled back farther into the grasslands, the enemy’s infantry continued to fire at their retreating forms, but their leveled fighters did not pursue. This confirmed to Olivir that Lord Oren’s theory was indeed correct, and that the Guild of Gentlemen were merely stalling for time and held no real hope of actually defeating the Lords of Justice’s larger force militarily. This was especially true thanks to the Royal Roses attacking the southeastern coast, forcing the Guild of Gentlemen to divide their available units in half and place them at two opposite ends of the city. For this reason, Olivir was not as bothered by the Royal Roses’ method of attack as Lord Oren seemed to be. Certainly, it would’ve been better to launch a combined attack on the northwest, but even still, the split, two-sided assault worked well enough.

Regardless, the fact of the matter was clear: that no matter what tactics they had or what preparations they made, the best the Guild of Gentlemen could likely do in this situation was make defensive plays rather than go on the offense. And if not for the severe and near-impossible time restraints unique to this situation, Olivir would naturally expect the conclusion to be a long, drawn-out slog of attrition over the course of several weeks or months, in which the Royal Roses and Lords of Justice eventually emerged the triumphant victors, but only after the Guild of Gentlemen had inflicted a heavy cost on both guilds, making them pay dearly for every inch of territory they gained.

But Lord Oren doesn’t have the time to wait for that.

Olivir made a slight grunt as it dawned on him that he might really have to become personally involved in this battle. But if so, then to what extent? He was reluctant to join in the fighting. He did not like killing people, and this really wasn’t his fight. On the other hand, it was difficult to overstate the revulsion he felt towards the Guild of Gentlemen—the guild his biological father had been part of more than two centuries ago. The guild he had grown up in as a very young boy. They had turned wicked—and that was putting it mildly.

And I’m one of the few people here who can do anything about it…

Olivir was not the boastful type, and so it was without exaggeration or arrogance that he reminded himself just how perfectly suited he was towards a battle like this. After all, while it was true that he could fight at just about every range, Olivir’s true specialty had always been in the field of artillery magic. More than anything else, Olivir excelled at fighting enemies from several miles away, and he had a large number of different abilities he could call upon to aid him in that effort.

“Kolona,” he said. She snapped her head towards him and immediately met his eyes.

“What is it?”

“Do you think I should attack?” he asked at a whisper.

She nodded without any detectable hesitation. “If you’re willing to do it, you should.”

Olivir exhaled sadly. “I’m surprised. You’d usually be the last person to suggest a violent solution.”

Kolona ran her hands down both her sides and gripped the two sheathed daggers at her hips. “This time, it’s different.”

“It is,” he agreed.

Having only begun to replenish his summoning pool, Olivir decided against conjuring skeletons, zombies, or demons to fight the enemy. His battle against the Elves had cost him years’ worth of experience points, and it would take him a long time to build his summoning pool back up to what it’d been. Still, there was a great deal he could do that did not require him to summon. Readying himself, he took several deep breaths as he reluctantly committed himself towards the path of war.

At least Grundor will be proud of me, he thought.

At the moment, Grundor was helping clear out the rubble in Ogre’s Axe in an attempt to find any survivors who might have been trapped beneath the numerous collapsed buildings. Thus far, rescuers had only succeeded in finding body after body, and Olivir knew Grundor would much rather be here fighting. Olivir, however, was relieved that he was not. If possible, he’d have kept Kolona away from all of this, too. He did not want those he cared about wrapped up in such an ugly, blood-soaked mess.

The sooner this is over with, the better.

Olivir inhaled. “Lord Oren,” he spoke into the Comm, “please have everyone ready for another assault on the north highway.”

“Sorry, what’s that?” he replied, coming across as both confused and overwhelmed.

“I’ve decided I’m going to attack the city.”

“Attack…the city?”

“That’s right. I’m going to attack. And when I do, it’s gonna give you the opening you need to capture the north highway. Have every brigade ready to advance quickly once I begin, all right?”

“Wait, please, slow down a moment. I have no idea what you’re planning on doing, and deploying even one brigade, let alone all of them without understanding how you intend to use them is a very serious and dangerous request.”

Olivir understood his hesitance, and so he remained patient. “I know it is,” he agreed. “And I realize it’s especially risky after what just happened, but please, trust me.”

“Where are you right now?” Lord Oren asked, sounding intrigued as well as a bit skeptical. “And what do you plan to do?”

“I’m still back by the crater. And what I plan to do is provide you the exact opening you need to move your men from the grasslands to the northern highway without having to fight for every inch along the way.”

“Really?" he asked, a note of optimism joining his open skepticism. “All right. Well, I’d be happy to hear your plan if you’re willing to come here and discuss it with me. I don’t know how you intend to get close enough to—”

“Actually, I’m attacking right from where I am.”

“…come again?”

Olivir kept his voice firm so that his words were decisive and unambiguous. “I can hit the enemy from many miles away.”

The entire Comm line went quiet upon those words, and Olivir imagined it was due to a mixture of awe and confusion. After several more moments of this, Lord Oren finally replied to him.

“Did you just say you can strike the enemy from ‘miles’ away? As in, you’re able to cast offensive magic on entities within Shadowfall Coast even all the way from where you’re currently—”

“He speaks the truth,” Queen Vayra said over the Comm, interrupting Lord Oren with a grunt of indignation. “The vampire can do what he claims.”

“Your Majesty?"

There was bitterness in her voice as she explained. “During my recent war with him, I experienced this for myself. He bombarded my kin with a debuff from a vast distance just before sending a legion of monstrous creatures at us. Vampires excel at attacking from very far away. It is rare to face one up close, for in such a circumstance, it is likely they have already lost.”

Olivir did not fully agree with her words. She wasn’t wrong, but she wasn’t entirely correct, either. Yes, it was indeed true many vampires preferred to fight at great distances due to having only a single point of constitution, but that did not mean a vampire was defenseless in close range, either. Some, like his dear Kolona, were specifically suited for close-range combat, though she was an exceptionally rare case. Either way, however, it wasn’t something worth bickering about, as the queen had verified the larger, more important point, which seemed to bring about an even greater sense of stress in Lord Oren as he was forced to consider taking what, to him, was a very risky action.

“Olivir, if I order every brigade to storm the northern highway and the attack fails, we could be crippled so badly that the entire offensive might come to an end. That’s a lot to ask on nothing but your assurance.”

Olivir, continuing to speak softly and patiently, said, “At this rate, it’s gonna come down to an all-in charge no matter what you do. There’s no way you’ll be able to capture the northern highway, let alone the city in just three or four hours from now. Not the way you’re going. That’ll take weeks. So, it’s up to you, dude. At least with me you’ve got a real chance.”

Lord Oren’s hesitation was plain from the way he made slight groans into the Comm before replying. “When do you want us to move?”

“Now.”

“Right…now?”

“Yes!”

“Very well,” he replied, an uneasy quality to his voice. “May the Gods help us if you’re wrong.”

******

King Alistair Morrison had heard more than enough. For the past ten minutes, he’d sat patiently with his arms on the rests of his cushioned chair in his underground command bunker as he listened to his officers fervently ramble off one denial after the next. Completely trapped in their rigid way of thinking, they were unable to offer Alistair anything aside from the same tired excuses. Yet, no matter what they said to him, Alistair knew that they were incorrect. They simply had to be. For all their smarts, his officers—like far too many in his guild—lacked basic common sense. And it was indeed basic common sense that dictated that all fourteen men sitting around the table with him were wrong.

“…which is why,” Colonel Dakrit concluded for the fifth or maybe even sixth time, “what you are suggesting is impossible—ah, Your Grace.”

“But it’s not,” Alistair replied. “It’s the only logical conclusion, and it’s the theory we should be basing our strategy on.”

“B-but—”

“Enough!” he snapped, the lone-spoken word proving sufficient to quiet the man, who until just now, had been coming off a touch too defensive for Alistair’s liking. Yet, much to even his own consternation, Alistair knew that he could no longer entertain his officers’ joint, unified assessment of their enemies’ motives, as it was rooted in a false premise: namely, that no element of their weapons program had leaked.

“From this point forward, we must operate off the assumption that the Royal Roses and the Lords of Justice have somehow become aware of our current limitations. We must assume that they know we do not possess any launchable nuclear weapons and are on the verge of creating more.”

From the silent mouth movements of Major Kenth Baxter and Colonel Dakrit, Alistair could sense that the two were itching to begin another round of second-guessing and backtalk. Quickly, Alistair darted his eyes around the table, making contact with several of his men, offering them what reassurance he could. And now, once again, he reiterated his reasoning. But this would be the last time he did so, as his city was in a total state of crisis and the survival of humanity itself depended on these next few hours.

“Let me begin by saying I don’t doubt anything you’ve told me, and that goes for all of you,” Alistair said. “You’ve told me that there is no chance any of our scientists and engineers have escaped isolation from the labs or production facilities. And I do believe you. You’ve also told me that the communication jammers in our facilities make it impossible for any communications devices to function. Once again, I’m not doubting your word.”

Alistair leaned back in his chair, and for just a moment, he closed his eyes and released a breath before reopening them. “Still,” he continued, “someone—or multiple people—have clearly found a way to communicate our most sensitive secrets with the outside world. I understand that you find this to be impossible, but that’s only because you’ve limited yourselves to narrow thinking.” Alistair threw his arms up into the air. “I don’t claim to know how it was done, but it must be so.”

He clenched his hand into a fist and then raised just three fingers. “There are only three possibilities for why the Royal Roses, the Lords of Justice, and the Elves have decided to attack us. The first is that they’ve collectively lost their minds along with the ability to think rationally, and they no longer care if we launch a nuclear weapon at one of their cities. The second possibility is that they think we are only bluffing and would not risk firing another. And lastly, the final possibility is that they know we do not have any more to fire, but they recently discovered we will have another ready in several hours from now.”

Major Kenth Baxtra squeezed the ends of the table as though anxious. “It just doesn’t make any sense, Your Grace. There’s no logical explanation for how our security might have become compromised. Even if a scientist or engineer got it in their heads to betray us, it simply shouldn’t be possible for them to contact anyone outside of their stationed facility. We’ve thought up every possible point of failure and accounted for all of it.”

Alistair shrugged. “Once again, Major Baxtra, I’m not claiming I know how this was done. But if you walked into an airlock and entered a completely sealed hatch only to find it crawling with ants, you’d have to assume it wasn’t sealed after all no matter what your eyes told you, correct?”

“I uh…well, yes, Your Grace, that’s true.”

Alistair nodded. “Then this is no different. Our enemies, logically, are targeting us because they now know we’ve been bluffing, but more so, that we will have another weapon to use against them soon. For this reason, we must focus all of our efforts on delaying them for as long as we can. A military victory should not be our goal. Our sole and primary objective must be to buy ourselves time. Once we have another weapon ready to fire, we will use it to force the enemy to stand down.”

“What if they know we’ll only have one today?” Colonel Dakrit asked as he stroked his beard. “Let’s assume they know as much as you think they do. Would they then not also be aware that only one prototype will be operational by the early afternoon?”

“It won’t matter if they do,” Alistair said.

“What do you mean, Your Grace?”

Alistair leaned forward and placed his clenched fists on the table. “Even with just one missile, the threat of being hit should suffice to make all of our enemies stand down since they cannot know what we will choose to target if we launch.”

There were murmurs of agreement from his officers beside him as they contemplated his words. “We must hold on for as long as we can. And to that end, we must—hmm? Major Baxtra? Is there a problem?”

His face had reddened, and he was tapping the touch-screen before him that was built into the desk. Holographic images and a three-dimensional map popped up and off the table, showing off a view of the southeast coast, where little red streaks of light served as icons for rockets being fired back and forth. The battle there had become exceedingly bloody, and a great many men and women had died on both sides.

“Your Grace,” he whispered, fear evident in the way his hand jittered.

“What is it?”

“I’ve just received a disturbing report. Zachys Calador has escaped the city with Kalana Vayra, but even more troubling is the report that Vim Alazar has successfully linked up with Senior-Lieutenant Haisel Ragora and is now aboard the Piercing Thorn and rallying his men.”

Alistair felt the blood drain out of his cheeks. “He’s not dead? I ordered him dead!”

“He was saved, Your Grace. By Kalana Vayra and two other Elves. Then there was some kind of…some kind of attack, the likes of which we have never seen before.”

As Major Baxtra explained, Alistair felt like he needed to sit down despite the fact that he was already seated. “May the Gods inflict every manner of curse and misfortune upon that boy!” he spat as Major Baxtra gave him an estimate of casualties and destroyed equipment. “That Elf-loving son of a—”

“Your Grace, the few survivors of the attack do not believe it was him.”

“What do you mean?” Alistair demanded. “What wasn’t him?”

“The source of the lights in the sky, Your Grace.”

Alistair was now even more taken aback. “Then Gods, who was it?”

Major Baxtra’s fingers became a blur as he tapped the built-in screen faster and faster, sorting through reports and extraneous information until apparently stumbling upon something he was searching for. With a sliding swipe of his thumb, he caused the data to pop up and off the screen, where it floated in the air above him. He began to read it. Then he said, “It appears it was Vim Alazar.”

“Impossible.”

“That’s what…that’s what those who survived the attack claim.”

Alistair shook his head. Then he massaged his temples as he tried to think. Things were becoming more difficult by the second. To the northwest, the Lords of Justice were attacking with the Elves. To the southeast, the Royal Roses’ entire fleet was bombarding their shores, and a ground invasion was underway from various diving teams. To make matters worse, he was now learning that the leader of the Royal Roses had conjured some kind of heavenly, God-like magical storm of light that had wiped out an entire battalion. How much worse would things get?

He shouldn’t have asked.

“Your Grace!” Colonel Dakrit shouted, his posture becoming rigid and tense.

“Now what is it?”

“All anti-aircraft systems in the southeast are offline. I've just received intelligence that Haisel Ragora is about to begin!”

“Begin?” Alistair asked.

Swallowing nervously, the man nodded. “Yes, Your Grace. His fighter jets have taken to the skies. He's going to send his planes up through the southeast corridor and bypass our northwestern batteries completely. He'll be able to bomb us freely!”

"No, not freely." Alistair massaged the ring on his finger. Then he stood up from his chair. “It's time for me to get directly involved. Call the elevator. I’ve got a surprise for the Royal Roses, and I want to deliver it personally.” With that, he retrieved his midnight-black, faceless dragon armor from the opposite end of the bunker, where it waited for him in various pieces on top of another table, and now, he began to equip himself.

He would deal with this new problem. He was likely the only one who could.