It turns out that punching thirteen hundred points of Lightning damage down on Commanders after setting up a Cacophony around them, and maybe Cursing their armor down, was a good way to get rid of them fast.
The Human forces were shoved back to yet another wall as the west unraveled one more time, but the east side retreated in good order, and we were only picking up steam as we slowly began to fold in this end of the line. Thunderbolts were singing angelic notes of grandeur as they fell flaming from the sky and crushed the Ward-weakened Commander-class Ants and Spiders hard, followed up by a Shard or Dartray if needed.
In between, Sublime Chord-enhanced Magic rained down on the Swarm. With me picking off the Warriors, the enhanced fusillade of spells could deal with most of the Servants, and the stacked-up line was holding after the retreating soldiers managed to Meditate and get back more Mana to use.
Something didn’t like how events were turning out, and the pulse of Beast King Magic rang out over the landscape. A large number of soldiers fell flat on their asses as it swept by, terror literally paralyzing them with nightmares of spiders crawling over them which might plague them for the rest of their lives.
I could imagine PTSD was an endemic thing to treat here.
The answering pulses of magic from our side in response were pretty nice; it appeared the Wards were a major equalizing force.
That said, the Spider King could attack from literally miles away, its first attack a rain of bristle-missiles that would have wiped away half a mile square of everything if a holocaust of flame hadn’t ripped out to consume the deadly downpour of killer hair-shafts.
I’d brought in a brooding storm above, which just so happened to maximize the amount of Wind and Lightning Mana for everyone below them, Elements none of the Spiders and Ants had available to them.
The soldiers were trying to recover their legs, murmuring about the Sages and half-Sages coming out of Houston. They were definitely tossing Magic at CL20 and higher by my reckoning, and given how crazy the scaling here was, I didn’t want to get anywhere near the magic they were throwing at one another. I had hundreds of points of Health and Soak, and was pretty sure I’d lose it all in just one spell.
The Spiders were going nuts with their King’s presence, trying to fight off the weakness of the Ward and get to us. There was a countering holocaust of Adept and higher AoE spells howling out in multiple Elements and disrupting their frantic charge at us.
I watched the fighting, and sighed. So much for a low profile in some ways.
I Reached out in a certain direction.
---
Reynard was slinking around in the forests, planning to steal some Sun Honey from a hive of Luminous Bees, who were ostensibly under the protection of a Sun Bear who was paid off in said Honey.
He felt the link of his Contract flare to life, and his head whipped around in delight. “Healer Fae!” he sent back through the Link happily. “You have found safety?” he asked, concerned that I’d been thrown into some wild situation.
“Found it, lost it, found it, lost it, Reynard. I could use a hand. I’m in a mass combat with a horde of Spiders and Ants, and could use some help.”
“Ah, Bugs always think numbers win,” Reynard sniffed. “Of course I help!”
The Summoning Portal swirled up in front of him, and he jumped through, having great expectations for the Mortal Plane.
---
-Ugh!- was the Fox’s first /thought as he leapt out of the air and landed next to me, startling all the soldiers nearby. - Mana here very thin!...-
“Yeah, I noticed,” I said, cuffing him on the ear fondly. He nuzzled me in return. “Nice horns.”
He fluttered his golden wings as the metallic horns on his head gleamed in appreciation, arching up and behind his head dramatically. -Get lots of attention for them!- he /agreed with the same lol-tongued grin as his sire.
He looked out on the incoming hordes of Spiders and Ants with total disdain for the threat they represented, ignoring the Humans around staring at the gold and crimson-winged and horned Fox the size of a horse standing there like he owned the world. -What to do?- he /asked. -Put all to sleep?-
“Well, I don’t want you showing off too much of your power, because some of the Humans here might get greedy and have designs on you, so play it close to your chest,” I whispered to him, swinging up on his back. His pinions were actually a convenient place to hook my feet. “I need you to deliver me two thousand feet into the middle of that Swarm. I’m going to Pyroclasm the lot of them, and break this side of the Swarm.”
-Oh, THAT spell.- It was a hard spell to miss, covering the amount of area it could. -Sound like fun!- Without any hesitation, he leapt off the wall there, Psychic power and Light swirling across us and rendering us nearly invisible.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
We would have been a lot harder to track if I wasn’t still sending out Darts and Dartrays, clearing away the inconvenient stuff in front of us that might want to shoot at him, although he had no problem dodging around all of the stuff, picking a course and flowing through and above the Swarm as he trotted on the air and avoided any missiles sent our way.
A Blink, and suddenly we were in position in a mere flicker of light. I dropped the Resist Fire on him and let the Pyroclasm go in the next breath.
The spell itself didn’t do much damage, a fixed 2d6 plus Kickers and any Boosts... which, because I had some very nasty Kickers and Boosts, was still enough power to clear off the Ward-weakened Servants entirely, and the weakest Warriors.
No, Pyroclasm’s real power was in the area of effect, which was capped in ever-expanding radius the way most spells were capped in damage. From a Valence V, that cap was 250 feet in radius, which I both Widened, and then flattened into a ten-foot-high Disc, which basically doubled the area twice as the wasted height of a hemisphere was brought down to a flat circle.
The thousand-foot-radius explosion of Frostfire and multi-hued Kickers blew out in all directions. It directly slaughtered over ninety percent of the Horde in the area of effect, blowing them right to vivus; do not Pass Go, do not forget to drop your Soul Crystal on the way to Feeding the Land.
Zeben had a lot of work to do as he vacuumed up Soul Crystals in all directions, the whole area suddenly waist-high with vivic fog as all the dead went right to white ash and misting away. Staggered and burning Spiders and Ants were spread here, there, and everywhere, and I wasn’t too polite to not shoot them down and put an end to their misery.
There were only two Commander Spiders in the area, not really affected at all badly. They started in my direction, only for a Thunderbolt to come screaming down from above, fork itself halfway down, and pound them both into the ground, sending earth and vivus and elephant-sized Spiders flying from the impact, seething and sparkling.
Split Shardrays drilled into them and finished them off before they could rise to continue making problems. They burst open, and blazing mistfire devoured the ichor dripping out of them readily, turning them into hollow pockets of vivic fire that crumbled rapidly down.
-Oooh, impressive.- While I had done plenty of rep counts with it, I had never used Pyroclasm in combat in the Beast World. It hadn’t been strong enough to hurt most of the Shades, who basically started at Warrior-class and higher, and was a great way of attracting attention from stuff that could one-shot me back then, so I hadn’t bothered with it.
But what was a Swarm or Horde without the chaff? It was the chaff that pulled down the soldiers, ants killing the lion, that was the greatest threat to us. Our powerful could deal with their powerful, all things considered, but only time or immense AoE’s could deal with the Horde of chaff being flung at us.
This side of the Horde was now largely gutted, and I was taking out the few survivors very quickly, indeed, shooting in all directions and basically Chain-popping the wounded, weakened Warriors with speed.
There were hundreds of Soul Crystals all around, but Zeben was quite efficient, and the Mana-boosted Telekinesis was very flexible and powerful. He alertly grabbed them all, Reynard watching the show as he stood there in midair on little misty forcepads, both of us still mostly invisible, the Crystals just a sparkling flow vanishing into nothing.
-Do that again?- the Heavenly Fox /asked, looking west in anticipation. A Pyroclasm hit everything inside it, including the Caster, but he hadn’t taken any damage, his soul tinged with Good from Heavenly energies like it was, and the Resist Fire would have stopped it, anyway.
I exhaled softly. I didn’t want to be making such a big splash so soon... or maybe I did, I wasn’t sure of the political implications of what I was doing. I did know that if I went on a Pyroclasm spree right now, I’d save a lot of lives... and attract a lot of attention I probably didn’t want.
Ugh. This... was where it sucked to be a Good person. A Neutral me would just have let the soldiers suck it up, and if they died, they died, no skin off my nose, the secret of my real ability kept safer a bit longer. An Evil me wouldn’t even think about it, the lives of others having no real value. I wouldn’t even have done this Pyroclasm in the first place, really. This whole fight was just a long-term opportunity to harvest more Soul Crystals from an Evil standpoint, and it didn’t matter how long it took or how many other people died, as long as I would get the harvest, right?
“Yes. Multiple times. You be very, very ready to run. You can feel the stuff that is fighting over there.”
He regarded the magic blasting all over to the west of us with fearless eyes, considering it all. -Like fighting with Shades, yes?- he /said, while I finished off the last of the wounded stragglers.
“Yeah, some Humans use Dark Magic. They totally ignore the implications of doing so, it’s simply ‘more power’ to them while they are living. Most of the humanoidish Shades and Undead were probably Humans at one point, or, if they didn’t come from this world, a similar species.”
-That why not allowed in Beast Realm,- he /realized, and then his head tilted slightly. -Can you... wield Dark Magic, Healer Fae?- he /asked at a sudden thought.
“Yes. Wizards can wield all types of Magic.”
His five tails swished. -Not recall you use any Dark Magic,- he /pointed out smartly.
“A deliberate choice on my part. There’s literally no reason to use it if you’re a Wizard who knows what they are doing. They are a crutch for the weak and those with a desire for power who don’t have a better road to use... plus the adverse effects on the Mortal Realm and one’s own soul are not things to be ignored.”
-Hypocrisy!- he /said brightly.
“That’s the reason.” I sighed, and looked west grimly. “Let’s go not be a hypocrite, if you please.”
Laughing, Reynard darted west, Blinking rapidly to get into position. Within a minute, another Pyroclasm blossomed and rolled over the battlefield in multi-colored flames, and uncounted multitudes of more Ants and Spiders burned away, followed by strobing Rays wiping away those tough enough to survive.
As Mages and Archmages exchanged magic and attacks with Commanders and Rulers, flames of annihilation marched across the battlefields, exploding westward and consuming Servants and Warriors as they came, eating huge areas out of the Swarms... and yet doing so with a magic far below that wielded by the forces clashing so violently above and beyond them.
If I was Casting more Call Lightnings as Reynard brought me across the battlefield, and more Thunderbolts came hammering down on those Commanders doing battle, well, that was totally my call.
The clouds seethed, and the Arias of Angels came down from Heaven and rang across the battlefield, spreading hope as the Sublime Chord sang out in the hearts of the Humans fighting.