Lady Iellaya watched the accelerating battle between Randidly Ghosthound and the giant image shade with a tight expression. Randidly blazed like a sun, throwing off grey flames and waves of emotion that she could feel from here, even through the heat of the nearby star array. Next to her, the leader of the Vulpis Squad Raymund Ballast gave her a sidelong glance. “Not to speak out of turn, but Head Drill Sergeant Ghosthound improves quite quickly, does he not? At this rate-”
“Definitely out of turn,” Lady Iellaya jabbed him in the ribs with her elbow. The muscular Vulpine had the grace to wince and take a step backyard. Then Lady Iellaya clapped her hands and gestured toward the column of troops heading their way. “But do you really have time to joke? As our Squad 1, you will be tasked with fighting the most dangerous of our foes.”
Raymund nodded seriously and gestured. Behind him, the Elite Squad organized their forces to meet the twelve thousand-man battalions rushing over toward their position. Which left Lady Iellaya to examine the state of the escalating battlefield.
The Swacc Family main forces had pushed through to the inner area of the white dwarf formation and fought against some lesser Pinnacle Seekers, while those massive blasts of solar wind continued to harry them; Wind Scythe was one of those Pinnacle Seekers that had hundreds of disciples beneath him.
At least in terms of subordinates, he would not cave easily.
Within the hollowed-out group of the Engraving Guild, someone who must be relatively established within the Nether Lattice finally emerged and calmed down the butchered group. While the new reinforcements proceeded to mop them up. Lady Iellaya was not surprised to see that the group was forgoing the path of vengeance and instead bunkering down, ostensibly to wait for more reinforcements on their end.
Lady Iellaya’s gaze turned to the heavy Hush Spike that the Swacc Family had so carefully set up early. Suddenly, it doesn’t look like they painstakingly assembled those up with other Pinnacle Seekers in mind at all… if anything, these Pinnacle Seekers warned their peers away. They knew that once the Orthodox factions heard about this object, they would go rabid to get their hands on it. Tier Three Citizenship, just for a skull, huh. What would they give for the whole damned corpse?
BOOOOM!
Her gaze slid back to the flashy performance of Randidly and she winced. Her subordinate was trading blows with the twenty individual image. He lost out every time, but it was clear he wasn’t sustaining any real damage. Honestly, you might need to tone it down. The real problem isn’t the number of their forces. It’s the Swacc Family’s experts. If they believe that more force is required to neutralize our group-
As though summoned by her thought, a figure drifted forward out of the Swacc Family base camp. The space around that individual roiled and seethed; this was an individual too powerful to be kept in one of their death squads. With the aura wafting off of him, it would be difficult for Lady Iellaya and Randidly to combine forces and handle him, let alone deal with him on a chaotic battlefield like this.
Blessedly, the figure headed directly forward, following the main flow of the Swacc Family forces toward the solar array. As the Swacc expert raised his hands, massive silver fists manifested in the space above him. Those fists rushed forward and smashed away some of the powerful solar winds that rushed forward, protecting the advancing columns. Gradually, the Swacc Family shoved its way into the core areas of the area.
In response, a strong image flared to life within the confines of the core area; the Dusk Jackal revealed his presence.
“Ready your images!” Raymund Ballast’s voice boomed out, even over the clashes between the Ghosthound and the shade.
Lady Iellaya floated above the group, her eyes continuing to monitor the developing battlefield. “Don’t engage too fully; we need to retreat to the edge of the white dwarf array. Otherwise, we will just be surrounded and crushed by their numbers.”
Raymund nodded his head and flashed several hand signs, spreading her orders to the entire group. Still, Lady Iellaya was worried as the twelve thousand troops snaked through space toward their position. The Swacc Family forces flared their images, creating solid if unimaginative projections in space that rushed ahead of the soldiers toward their position. Their faceless grey golems all looked similar, raising gleaming weapons of war.
A few of the powerful individuals from the Ghosthound’s Vulpis Squad stepped forward. DiOrtho Vant, Jieu Ronault, and Vizzeret Clamman all projected their own images, sending them smashing toward the Swacc Family forces. Randidly’s trainees all lost out from the clash, even DiOrtho, but the Swacc forces slowed their charge, navigating around the shifting battlefield between Randidly and the shade for better position. They spread out into a more horizontal grouping, meaning to completely surround the a thousand strong force from Military High Command.
“Fall back!” Raymund barked. Most of the troops turned and left in short order, but Wick’s grandaughter hesitated, looking behind them.
“Will the Head Drill Sergeant be alright?” She asked Ballast
The Vulpine snorted. “If I had to hazard a guess over which is in the most danger, I would select the Head Drill Sergeant’s foe. Can’t you feel his image? That is not the intensity of a man who needs our help.”
Lady Iellaya inwardly agreed and floated above the group. As she did so, a message finally arrived from Commandant Wick.
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Reinforcements en route. Hold out for fifteen minutes before you are relieved. If possible, rendezvous with Engraving Guild and collaborate.
Lady Iellaya glanced across the river of troops Swacc Family troops between the two orthodox factions and snorted. This time, their rivalry had made things much, much more difficult.
Although if they had gathered together, the full fifty thousand might have just bulldozed through their position.
As though to punctuate how long the fifteen minutes was going to be, a new figure flew out from the Swacc Family’s central cluster and made a beeline toward the Military High Command position. Lady Iellaya winced and then gestured for Ballast to lead the rest away without her; the high-level combatant was someone that she needed to handle as long as Randidly was occupied.
And perhaps not even the Head Drill Sergeant would be able to win against this foe.
“To what do I owe this pleasure?” Lady Iellaya drawled as they neared each other, even as the black feathers along her arms and back flexed. The scaled figure in front of her wasn’t reptilian, but rather seemed to have laid out so long in the sun that his skin dried into dark red plates.
Gabriel Swacc flashed his very white and very pointed teeth. “Aren’t you the rising star of Military High Command? Such success on the frontlines, and the direct superior to the impressive Head Drill Sergeant. Good thing I’m not a Nether dog or you’d cut me down and toss me into a ditch, right? I believe only the rising star of the Swacc Family could be a worthy rival for you.”
Both flared their images without any more words. Behind Lady Iellaya descended the Avatar of Apep, the Peregrine Serpent.
*****
Randidly twisted sideways, flaring Cosmic Necessity and Chimeric Impunity at the same time. The shade’s glittering dagger ripped past his shoulder, moving with such intensity that it briefly left a spatial crack in its wake.
Congratulations! Your Skill Chimeric Impunity (M) has grown to Level 407!
Randidly took a moment to acknowledge that this method of incorporating emotion was doing was noticeably increasing the speed he earned Skill Levels. Then the battle yanked his attention back; he boosted himself laterally and sent a mental message to Sulfur. Buddy, this arm won’t be able to hold out much longer. How much time do you need to take over?
The plant armor replied with an optimistic chirp and began to crack itself so it could seep down to cover Randidly’s bedraggled metal arm. In the frantic motions of this fights, small bits of metal had began to drift away as it was beaten beyond its limits.
Randidly currently blazed with power, but without a second arm to bring it to bear, he hadn’t been able to strike any decisive blows.
At the same time, Randidly’s one emerald eye and rotating orb of darkness monitored the increasingly detail facial features of Shal, superimposed on the shade. In the past few minutes, Randidly had thrown his emotionally charged images time and time again against the dagger-wielding shade. He had knocked six of the individuals within unconscious, leaving only fourteen soldiers conjuring this image.
However. It immediately became clear that for every extra individual that the image array lost, Shal’s frown became a little bit more stern. The blades of those daggers released a few more motes of light and cut more easily through Randidly’s images. The movements because increasingly fluid.
These shifts only infuriated him further. Because it proved that if Shal wasn’t just losing himself in this image brigade-!
“Cease your struggles, Randidly. There is no point in continuing this further.” Shal’s booming voice erupted with enough force to press against Randidly’s skin in the void of space. “Do you know how little I could accomplish, despite my individual power? Tellus has been destroyed. Not that I would expect you to have noticed, you selfish child. Just… stop struggling. You will doom yourself to disappointment”
Randidly swayed slightly at Shal’s words, which then forced him to desperately flare his Willpower to resist a direct clash with the glimmering daggers. Why the hell are you trying to convince me to stop?! Just because you gave up, doesn’t mean I need to. Although I can understand if he doesn’t know what happened to his planet- shit, if you think you can overwhelm me with just these cutting edges…! Ripple of Amenonuhoko. Sharpness. Conviction of the Celestial Cataclysm.
The battlefield was vast, which just meant that there were hundreds of chaotic energy ripples spreading in every direction. Above Randidly, Lady Iellaya began fighting against a powerful representative from the Swacc Family and Randidly sensed his trainees' images clashing against the thick column of Swacc forces. Beyond that, the huge funnels of wind and solar radiation released sunbursts of force.
Each impact created only the tiniest ripple of natural energy, but a few seconds filled the battlefield with so many ripples that the surroundings looked like a topography map. Randidly gritted his teeth and mobilized his massive Fidelity of the Ascendant Moirae, guiding all those ripples together along the edge of Acri-
BOOOOOOOOOM!
Congratulations! Your Skill Sharpness has grown to Level 325!
Congratulations! Your Skill Ripple of Amenonuhoko (M) has grown to Level 381!
…
Congratulations! Your Skill Sharpness has grown to Level 340!
Randidly tumbled back through space for several seconds, releasing a single blood-filled gasp; he hadn’t managed to gather all the energy ripples in time and the failure left him with an aching backlash. Plus, the impact was jarring enough to take a small divit out of Acri’s edge and even Sulfur released a strained groan. When he stabilized himself, the shade was almost upon him again. However, both his tails had not idle while he had skidded backward through space: they spun together a thick ring of natural energy.
Hints of burning flame, the dark feathers of Lady Iellaya’s monstrous image, the desolate bleakness that DiOrtho’s Machine Horror produced, all those notes became ripples. And in Randidly’s careful hands, those disparate energies reinforced Acri’s edge. Flames of Nether Weight danced across his limbs. This time, he gathered the energy in time to create a spearhead of grey fire.
Congratulations! Your Skill Ripple of Amenonuhoko (M) has grown to 382!
Randidly smiled at the approaching shade. For another brief instant, he felt his emotional frequency line up with Ripple of Amenonuhoko. Suddenly, he could feel the whole of the battlefield spinning around him, like an elaborate dance. He shifted his stance just slightly and suddenly the energy seemed to guide itself, swirling around his weapon. More power accumulated each second.
So Randidly spoke, both wanting to buy time and venting the frustration that this gloomy Shal inspired in him. “Tellus destroyed? Ha! I saved Tellus, Shal. Even when you couldn’t.”
For a brief moment, Shal’s glower flickered with uncertainty.