Author's Note: Book Six is finally out and on sale on Amazon! Click on the link in the post-Chapter note if you want to buy it!
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It was a variant Pyroclasm spell. Normally it wasn’t the best damage spell, generally only a base 2-12, but I was the one Casting it, and so there were many, many Boosts and Kickers to it.
The base was improved to 7-42 via Arcane Fist, which was Topped at 42, +25 from Intellect, plus 14 from Noble, doubled by Disruption... and another +80 of Kickers from the Holy Metas and Banefire.
All of it ignoring all their Elemental resistances entirely, and then juiced to the level of an Archmagic across the entire Domain on top of it all.
They wanted to flood the area with chaff? Burn the chaff, stagger the stalks, and char the roots!
“GO!” ordered Briggs, and deed followed word as he blurred into motion.
With a roar and a lot of telekinetic tugs, over fifty thousand Undead Hunters, their Scepter-Maces shining and ready, followed after him, led by scores of powerful Beasts whose beaks, claws, fangs, tusks, horns, feet, and even wings burst into Vivic Eternal Lights and formed a bone-crunching, body-smashing trample line in front of them.
The Viviclasm blew across the undead, and they just exploded en masse.
Nothing undead below a Commander could possibly survive it, and most of the Commanders didn’t, either, failing the save against the Disruption effect coming from me and popping like fireworks going off. The charge of the Undead Hunters smashed through the perhaps one in a hundred survivors, massed spell assaults blowing them away as the whole force surged past and around the Burning undead who were staggering as the residual vivus ate away at them, and that was if they weren’t just trampled down and exploded under the feet of the creatures leading the charge.
The right and left wings of the charge immediately crossed and spread out, the Bird-riders using their speed to identify anything surviving and hit it first with spells, or if they felt they could, run it down.
Anything marked by them with magic was promptly charged and brutally smashed down by the massive charging Beasts behind them. A wall of Burning, living vengeance charged straight for those Pyramids in the distance, and while one percent of the undead might have survived, that still meant hundreds of thousands... except they were scattered all over the damn Domain at this point, reeling and Burning.
And the Undead Hunters had proven time and again they were very, very happy to go up against many times their number of undead!
To the amazement of many, Briggs and Sama had no problem at all outrunning the Beasts, hewing, hacking, and pounding through anything that got within reach of them as they shifted from target to target, sending corpses flying or exploding as the case was.
I watched the two of them having fun from atop Reynard, letting loose Shards into anything that looked like a concentration of the enemy. It was widely known I could kill multitudes of chaff with these spells since Ireland, but I’d rarely used them against the Pharaohs, content to be ready to counter anything the Sages or their direct vassals did, allowing those below me to do their jobs without having to worry about being slaughtered by the magic of the most powerful undead.
Sometimes I’d had to pull them out of sticky situations through no fault of their own, but that was why I was there.
Some spellcasters got clever and tried to erect Earth barriers or Sand hills or crashing waves of Water or Fiery infernos. Silver Magic ranged out and blew most of those apart, if the Beasts couldn’t just smash through and disrupt the barriers without even slowing down, and those Casters were singled out for special treatment by elite squads that swarmed over them and pounded them dead with Disrupting spells and blows, then raced after the whole army to catch up.
Basically, there was no slowing down, because more undead were still coming out of the Pyramids.
Reynard was plowing a path by smashing through everything that got in our way with Void Magic and depositing anything undead under King One-Eye’s claws to be rent to scrap and powder. Undead all ablaze with vivus suddenly jerked aside in violent streaks of motion and found themselves on the ground directly in front of a Wolverine King, diamond claws all a-Burning nicely. None of them survived the experience, as Reynard was very precise and One-Eye didn’t have to break his pace at all.
Little Turk was either blasting or countering, whatever was appropriate, his Rifling Holy Water shots punching holes in undead chests with the accuracy of much experience. There was one thirty-foot Skeleton in front of us that Briggs smashed the legs off of, sending it spiraling into the air flailing haplessly. Little Turk got up, cocked his Disrupting Stick Drummer back, and as the Black-Horn Adjutant came spiraling down, he smashed its head off its shoulders, sending the black horned skull out of the ballpark nicely.
-Fae, encourage the Pharaohs to withdraw,- Briggs /ordered without breaking stride, and I Linejumped into the distance, where a lot of powerful undead flying under their own power or magical wagons or chariots or carpets or stuff were fluttering around the Pyramids, panicking and wondering what to do.
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Pharaoh Shepsekare was quite startled when I suddenly appeared at his elbow, right next to him on his flaming-hooved skeletal steed while he was patting out the last of the vivus on himself. I put my hand on his withered forehead, and there was a pulse of radiant Light.
He exploded with a severed scream, taking his mount with him. The explosion turned all eyes my way, as it reversed itself as rapidly as it expanded, compressing into a hot white sphere in my hand.
That sphere became a Ray of utter whiteness that passed through Pharaoh Unas and wiped him away like an inkspot from tile. He exploded as well, the Pharaohs flinched, and when the explosion reversed itself, I had a brand new hot white sphere in my hand, a smile on my face, eyes shining Silver, and Noble blazing with anathema for everything they were as the Dreadskull atop him leered with almost physical force at them, the Wills of Emperors hammering at their resolve.
“Get back to the Pyramids!” shouted Great Pharaoh Khufu, fine example of a leader that he was. He barely jerked aside as the Ray of Unas zipped past him... and the hapless Pharaoh Djedefre nearby caught it face on, exploding instantly and leaving me behind with a brand-new sphere in my hand.
Know no fear, absolute logic and emotion, yessir. The remaining Pharaohs and Nobles filled the sky with Barriers and desperate spells while diving for the entrances to the Pyramids their troops were still marching out of. I ignored or deflected or dodged most of their efforts without really trying, picking off half a dozen more, and amazingly quickly, the skies were soon bare of any powerful spellcasters.
That left... three Pharaohs who’d been on the ground outside the Pyramid, more pity them. They had certainly felt the Auras of their fellows wink out, and those of the rest vanish back into the Pyramid. They were also spread in all directions, not that they couldn’t reunite very quickly, but it meant they weren’t all together to help one another.
More pity them.
I flitted after the first one to the east, I think it was Pepi II, riding in a massive desert barge made from the split carapace of a King Scorpion being pulled by four mummified Commander Elephants. He had a good chunk of his court with him, and they died with him when I popped up literally five feet above his head and let him have the rest of Pharaoh Amenahat to the crown. I looked south to the next one as I raked the undead elephants with Shards, and Linejumped off again.
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Briggs ran right up the flow of undead coming out of Khufu’s Pyramid in a rolling whirlwind of exploding undead flying in every direction, while Sama scythed her way up the Pyramid of Khafre, undead folding down around her like she was mowing grass as they either disintegrated or began Burning away. Both of them shot into the great doors without any hesitation whatsoever.
On the Pyramid of Menakura, Red and his wife Sannina washed the troops in Phoenix Flame, blowing Holy Healing Phoenix Fire down the entryway into the lines of undead marching up.
In all three cases, the wedges of the advancing army were only a scant few breaths behind them, plowing through the remaining undead who had tried to form some kind of a defensive line. They failed utterly in doing so as the spells came down, Thunderbolts from the swirling clouds up above hammering down seemingly with every heartbeat, the sound crashing against their souls. Then the Beasts would hit their tottering lines, blowing them open for the main army to come in with ceaseless volleys of magic clearing away everything nearby.
The Undead Hunters deployed with the speed of experience and iron discipline, drawing up their own lines with main shooters, covering fire, reinforcing Beasts brought in via Summons now to deal with any melee threats. The Thunderbolts from above never stopped coming down, one every six seconds, regular as clockwork, the sound buoying them with the unstoppable morale of knowing that the Heavens themselves were with them!
The Archway Seals went up with great speed, the teams skilled, practiced, and hugely motivated. Mana flowed through them, and just before they slammed shut, Briggs and Sama zipped back on out of the entryways they’d emptied of undead.
With a crackle of seven Elements and Silver Magic, the last three Pyramids of Egypt were Sealed!
The undead outside set up a ghastly moaning as their way out and the Conduits of Power which fed them were Sealed away, and the Domains of the Pyramids began shrinking rapidly. However, they couldn’t flee, either, only begin to burn as the protection the Pyramids had given them against the sun faltered and failed, and soon every one of them was aflame and dying.
The living there made damn sure vivus was added to all of the undead as they fell, burning turning to Burning so they’d never be coming back.
Power pulsed, black and horrid, testing the Seals on the Pyramids as Briggs withdrew everyone from the Pyramids themselves, and just smiled coldly as the assault on them was spread across scores more Seals scattered across the Valley of Kings and beyond... beyond including the bottom of the oceans!
The air seemed to tremble, the Veil in agitation as a great power tried to get through on each of these last Pyramids, and despite everything it tried, it failed!
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Deep in the oceans, Emperors of the Sea poured Mana into their own blocking Pyramids, strengthening them, their eyes gleaming with appreciation for the tactic. The Seals resonated with one another, and would only fall if all of them fell... and the Pyramids of the Seas were only getting stronger each and every day they Burned off the Dark Mana around them and that which leaked from their Conduits.
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Briggs looked up at the towering piles of stone, things meant to challenge the works of Beasts and nature. For millennia they were the tallest and mightiest structures built by man, rivaled only by China’s Great Wall. They had stood for ages, examples both of the might of Humanity and the enduring, unkillable power of the Undead.
Now, they were just piles of stone waiting to be disposed of, no longer objects of fear, awe, and fell grandeur, only seething piles of resentment protesting this treatment.
“Earth mages. Water mages. Bring them down,” he ordered, and the voices of fifty thousand mages and Beasts rose together as all those who could do the job stepped forward to complete their mission.
The Pyramids would be coming down, turned into a Seal upon that which had given the undead strength, and the Pharaohs would be gone forever!