Antmite General was supremely annoyed, first his assault on the fortress failed, then they unleashed a most infuriating wind elemental to disrupt his forces, and now they had fused it with some other kind of creature. The woman of wind had merged with the lumbering golem of glass and formed a being of sharp angles and jagged edges. A woman with extended claws of glass and circular joints connected to swirling wind filled with hundreds of little shards.
Now, the raging wind contained tiny slivers of glass that helped pierce and rend through flesh and chitin alike. Only the earthen fortifications and the Units with more metallic bodies were able to properly withstand the blasts of wind without being shredded. And the previously depleted wind elemental was now re-energized and stronger to boot.
He could feel it as he poured more and more energy into dispelling the wind attacks unleashed on his forces. Each instance grew to cost him more than it cost the creature before him, and the Antmite General had to contend with a simple fact.
"I do not know how to defeat this foe."
The General spoke to the Logistics-Collective and Old Yoss, the former was his most trusted compatriot among the Collectives and the latter was the second oldest being in the Swarm. Logistics-Collective looked through the information that Antmite passed and "shrugged".
"You are learning how to fight it, I am sure you can defeat it given enough time and effort."
"That is exactly the point, I do not have that time! I am learning how to fight foes like these with every moment, but they are doing unacceptable damage to my main forces. A retreat this early would be unacceptable for the timetable."
"Not to worry, General. I know a thing or two about them elementals 'ere and I can tell you this. You are looking at this problem from the wrong angle."
"Explain Old Yoss."
"Well, it is actually rather simple. You have this Count fellow unleashing two elementals and then merging them together? That takes power, a lot of it too. And something tells me he doesn't have it himself, and if what I sense through the eyes of your forces is correct. Then his Mages have gone into the fortress again. Target what forced the change and I think you will see a change."
Zie nudged the General and focused his attention through the eyes of the bleeding Units crouched behind an improvised earthern house and towards the Count on the wall.
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Silver wind filled the plains below the walls as the battle raged between the abominations and the bound elemental. Miltor heard his soldiers cheer as the monsters were torn apart by gusts of sparkling air, and some could swear they almost felt the cool air hit the wall. But he knew that they were just exaggerating, powerful this rampaging creature might be, but house Valean had ensured long ago that no moderate elemental could touch their estates.
The cheering around him dimmed as Miltor began to reminisce and he stopped himself to gaze around. Everyone was staring at exactly one thing, the glowing scepter. Which had apparently just started to have the orange light coming off it...flicker in the shade and the Count whitened in fear at that sight.
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The Ant Termite General was wrestling over the magic, he could feel the link from the artifact to his foe and he had made the choice to sacrifice his troops in the short term to make gains in the long one. It had been obvious once the Steward Avatar had pointed it out, find a weakness and exploit it. Rather than bother to fight the problem conventionally, he had been too reactive and not active enough in his pursuit of a solution.
So, when he searched for a cause behind the transformation and summonings, he found it in the glowing artifact held proudly up for all to see. It only took some extrapolation to guess there would be a link between it and the issues Antmite had to deal with. Therefore, the General unleashed his power to destroy magic one more time against the origin of the link.
Destroy Magic as far as Powers went was incredibly energy inefficient in general. When attempting to counter active magical effects like attack spells and the like, then one would have to spend more power than the wielder of the effect in question. Which meant that it was an ability only really fit for gods and Archmages as most other beings did not have the energy to wield it effectively. The Sovereign Swarm, on the other hand, was capable of wielding the energy of thousands upon thousands of living beings which meant that the inefficient Power was not an impediment to them.
The second flaw with Destroy Magic was that it was a rather blunt instrument to wield. Destroy Magic...destroys magic and that is all that it does, which means that once targeted it works without finesse. Which was what the panicking Count and the determined General both noticed as massive amounts of energy poured out and into the scepter until the enchantment within it, finally, shattered.
Which immediately caused several simple and very complicated things to happen at the same time. In the heart of the basement the cabal of Mages suddenly felt their summoning ritual twist as the ancient binding placed on the elemental buried beneath Castle Valean snapped. A silver wind exploded out in all directions as the wind/glass elemental was freed from the magic containing it. And the aura of heat around the fortress began to scorch the defenders within it as well as vulnerable objects.
Screams filled the air as random people fell over and were cooked alive due to the massive heat, and magma started forcing it's way up through the earth and to the surface around the castle. The General watched as a figure made out of molten earth began to assemble itself and grew with each second as the ground beneath it became fuel.
"Oh...so that is what protected the castle."
Antmite General concluded as two raging orange eyes focused on the remnants of his forces and it roared before unleashing a wave of magma straight at their fortifications.