Blessed Time: The Complete Series: (A LitRPG Adventure Box Set), page 144
“But I watched you,” the Baron stuttered. “You fought it to a standstill before both of you collapsed and it began dissolving. If it can just ignore attacks-”
The horn blew twice more, and Micah felt a surge of magic from the front as the enchanters began their rituals. Shouts erupted from the Pereston side of the river as their opponents realized that something was happening as well, but a steady barrage from the catapults devastated any unit that tried to move and reinforce the defenders that were still locked in combat around the bridge. Already their numbers were beginning to dwindle, and it was only a matter of time before the Sandrovok soldiers broke through on their own without any further help.
“I am resistant to the ability, Baron,” Micah replied. “But that doesn’t mean I am immune. Some of the strongest blessed can probably survive a minute or so near it, and we have equipped them with weapons they can use to fight back, but in reality, they are the only people who can even hope to slow the daemons down. Everyone else won’t even work as a delaying tactic. They’ll just die.”
Near the battle site, the ritual was coming to a close. Micah could feel the energies swelling as the pieces of obsidian and steel began to slot together under the enchanters’ guidance. The Pereston army had clearly noticed their progress as well because the trickle of companies trying to sprint across the killing ground between the rest of their forces and the isolated groups fighting back around the bridge transformed into a tsunami.
They didn’t have time to prepare defensive spells or put up shields before they ran to support the defenders. Instead, they just ran in a disorganized mass across the torn and uneven mud of the river bank. Elemental blasts ravaged them as they ran, each catapult taking nearly a hundred lives per stone.
“Truly desperate,” Gwen remarked, shaking her head. “They should have backed away from the river as soon as the siege machinery came within range, but even if they were foolish enough to try and hold their position, they should have fallen back when they saw us empowering the golems. The summoned spirits that animate them don’t last all that long, but they’re virtually unstoppable unless you have something of comparable power to check them. All they need to do is back away and the golems would have run out of energy before they could do much damage. Even if they can hold, they’re going to cripple the better part of a legion just to stop one battalion from crossing.”
On the battlefield, the rituals finished. A half dozen human replicas, between five and ten paces tall and made from steel and obsidian stood up, glowing with a dim golden light from the runes carved all over their prodigious bulks. The Pereston soldiers that made it through the catapult bombardment threw themselves into the attacking line like dervishes.
It was like life or death didn’t matter to the attackers. Their only goal was to try and break the attacking force before the golems arrived.
The Sandrovok soldiers let themselves get pushed back. It hardly mattered. Their reinforcements were disorganized. Half dead, injured and no longer sorted by carefully balanced teams. All they had was an unbreakable fervor, and high morale wasn’t exactly a weapon that could be used to crack a golem’s defenses.
The puppets stalked forward, swinging war axes and clubs to and fro. Each blow killed a half dozen attackers, but Pereston didn’t have the levels or tactics needed to stop the giant war machines.
So they died.
A couple of the counter attackers managed to slip through the steadily advancing cordon of golems, only to be torn apart by the freshly regrouped Sandrovok units. The horn blew three times, and a second later, everyone heard the single beat of a massive drum. Micah’s skin stood on end as a wave of magic followed in the sound’s wake. He could feel a slight increase to his body and agility stat that quickly began to fade. It wasn’t strong, but in a tight battle, even a slight increase in someone’s attributes could make all the difference.
It beat again, and the Sandrovok army cheered. First one battalion and then another began to march in time to its steady beat, crossing the bridge in the wake of the unstoppable golems. On the north bank, the Pereston general frantically tried to pour more soldiers into the bridge’s defense, but it was clearly a lost cause.
Hundreds died. Even when summoning circles began to open up, bringing almost sixty fresh onkert to the battlefield, it barely did anything. Those that were far from the fighting were burned by fire or shocked by lightning from the trio of catapults. Those that were nearby barely fared better than traditional infantry as they were torn apart by the golems’ attacks.
By the time the golems slumped and tumbled to the soil eight minutes later, their energy spent, almost four whole battalions of Pereston’s soldiers were dead or dying, and the river had been thoroughly breached. The defenders had put together a new battle line, but they were stretched thin by the circular intrusion, about a league in diameter, of attacking soldiers.
“I think we’re going to win!” Adrian said excitedly. “We’re driving them back, and with the losses that they’ve taken, it’s only a matter of time before their morale gives out and they have to retreat entirely.”
“It is a bit early to make such predictions,” Drekt replied. “We have pushed them back by exposing high-level blessed and using magical artillery. Pereston surely has similar resources that have not been committed. After all, we’ve seen a number of them in action to date. It would be foolish to assume that they are simply going to end things here.”
“But that is nothing before Sandrovok’s might!” The Baron was practically hopping in his saddle. “You’ve seen how powerful our army is. They might be able to slow us for a bit, but nothing can actually stand up to our full force.”
Drekt didn’t respond with words, but his dismissive grunt said more than a half hour of screaming at the pompous young man.
“Why do you fight if-” the Baron began, only for Gwen to cut him off.
“Silence. Drekt is right. This is a victory for us, but only a minor one. Pereston was clearly fighting for time and to control the battlefield. That leads me to believe that they have more forces nearby. An army large enough that they think can beat us outright. So long as we can cross the river here, we won’t run the risk of being counter attacked while vulnerable. The climactic battle is yet to come, but we will be better prepared for it after the past hour.”
“Yes, Princess,” the Baron said grudgingly, unwilling to argue further with her despite the reluctance and pride on his face.
The Sandrovok army surged forward once again, breaching the defenders’ lines. A cheer went up as an entire battalion poured into the gap formed by the sudden attack, allowing the invaders to flank both wings of the Pereston army at the same time.
The battle was as good as over. Without the need for their special unit to lift a finger, Sandrovok had broken the defenders, and in a matter of hours, their thrust into Pereston’s underbelly would begin. Still, Micah couldn’t help but feel a bit uneasy. They hadn’t fought a single forgotten, and the only daemons to challenge them had been from the lowest two tiers. There wasn’t even a high-level blessed with the army that could serve to counter the catapults that had forced the situation.
It was a victory, but it felt hollow. It had been too easy.
A twinge of magic in the air far above them drew Micah’s eyes upward. The sky was overcast, the heavy clouds and mist that choked the forests around them blocking his view.
More magic began to gather, and a flash of realization struck him like a bolt of lightning.
“No,” he whispered, eyes widening. “It’s too soon. It took all five years and the sacrifice of most of Pereston to construct it last time. The Prince couldn’t have-”
His words died on his tongue, transforming into lies as a great mass of stone pushed its way downward through the clouds. Across the entirety of its bottom, ritual circles the size of buildings glowed and sparked, spitting globs of green fire that floated down toward the forest, river, and waiting armies below. When they landed, they erupted. Everything near them died. Plant, animal, Sandrovok, or Pereston, none of that mattered in face of the intense and corrosive soul fire.
The structure began to take shape as it came closer to the ground. What had looked like an unrecognizable mass of stone turned into soaring towers and gates, forgotten and daemons pacing back and forth atop thick and heavily enchanted battlements, leering down at the gawking and panicking army below.
Atop each corner of the structure sat one of the crystal war machines that had killed so many soldiers at the border. All four of them hummed with power, projecting a weaker but much larger aura of death and unreality that covered the entirety of the enchanted building.
“What in the name of-” Adrian began only to trail off into silence as almost one hundred forgotten jumped from the flying castle’s walls, growing wings of green flame as they fell.
A half second later, the sky practically grew dark as hundreds of the familiar skeletal birds went to the air alongside large numbers of brensen and luocas. Frantically, the Sandrovok battle horn began to blow a new series of notes, an urgent request for reinforcements.
Micah swallowed. The reinforcements wouldn’t make it in time, and even if they did, he wasn’t sure how they could turn the tide of the battle that was to come. For every stride he had taken to grow more powerful, the Third Prince had taken two.
A pair of greater daemons leapt from the castle’s walls, slivers of magical glass appearing under their feet as they descended toward the ground, one of them resembling a tortoise with the head of a squid while the other looked more like a hairless gorilla with a back covered in throbbing pustules.
They were overmatched. He could fight one greater daemon, but the elite warrior by the river would need help with the second. Of course, that was presupposing that the rest of the forces descending from the castle planned on leaving them entirely alone.
“Well,” Gwen said bitterly. “I suppose that’s why they refused to give up a step. Reinforcements were already overhead.”
THIRTY-FIVE
APOCALYPSE
Micah gripped his spear with his right hand, grasping hold of the scepter with his left in order to take mental control over two of the crystal spears that sat in the bandoleer on his back.
“So, Princess,” he said tightly, eyes locked on the battle fortress. “Do we have a contingency plan for this?”
Onboard the floating castle, groups of forgotten began tipping what looked like human bodies over the edge toward Sandrovok’s army below.
“Our battle lines are meaningless against an enemy that can fly,” Micah continued. “More importantly, we only have one high-leveled blessed within range. He will be able to help, but I doubt he has the power to turn the die of the battle on his own.”
The first of the bodies slammed down into the Sandrovok army, detonating as soon as it touched the ground. The blast didn’t kill many soldiers, those near the source of the explosion soaked up most of the force, but Micah could feel his stomach drop as he watched the distant forgotten dragging more and more bodies to the castle’s walls.
Their dynamics had been reversed. Sandrovok’s army had been winning the battle because its long-ranged weapons could attack with impunity, forcing Pereston to attack recklessly and waste lives.
“Of course we have a contingency plan,” Gwen replied grimly. “We have a plan for everything. It just isn’t a good one.”
Explosions began to crackle like firecrackers as corpses detonated across the battlefield. In their wake, forgotten and daemons swooped down, plucking soldiers up into the air where they were ripped apart with contemptuous ease.
“You rouse your companions, and we make a path for you,” she continued, eyes locked on the hovering fortress. “With any luck, our assault will draw enough attention that the Third Prince will be forced to show itself. How’s that for your plan?”
Micah reached up and itched the back of his neck with the scepter, jumping slightly at the sensation of the cold metal on his bare skin.
“Frankly,” he replied, “I don’t think I like it. Your army is getting hammered, and we don’t even have the rest of the high-level blessed here to support us. Attacking on our own isn’t even guaranteed to bring the Prince out. You’re more or less asking us to charge headlong into a lion’s den in the hope that we will be strong enough to defeat everything in our path, including a an ancient being of unfathomable power.”
“Well, too bad,” the Princess said with a bleak grin. “This actually is the contingency plan, not something we made up on the fly. The rest of the elites will be here in a couple of minutes, but their job will be to draw fire and distract. Mother left me with a present that will make sure to draw the Prince out of its cave, for good or ill. Now the only real hope is to disrupt its battle plan quickly enough that we can throw it off balance.”
“I’m not sure the Prince actually has a plan beyond overwhelming power,” Micah responded, watching another wave of luocas launch themselves from the castle walls, locust wings buzzing as they dove toward the chaotic battlefield. The Sandrovok army was fighting back, but it was far from enough. Here and there, a daemon or forgotten fell from the sky, but for every flying attacker that died, an entire squad of blessed was wiped out.
It was like watching hell descend on Karell. Forgotten, covered head to toe in gore, cackled madly as they grabbed soldiers and tore them apart with absurd strength, volleys of spells detonating in the air around them. Careful formations were scattered by the corpse bombs and constant aerial harassment, forcing soldiers to fight back against more powerful opponents in ones and twos.
Even on the other side of the river, their tentative victory had collapsed as attacks from the air decimated any sense of order that the army might try to restore. Really, the only place where there was anything approaching organization was in the area surrounding the four war lizards. The three mounting catapults were firing shells into the air, where they would explode in huge spheres of elemental energy that kept the skies above them more or less clear.
On the ground, the ax wielder was fighting with the tortoise shelled greater daemon. He wasn’t winning, but with the help of the amulet that Micah had made for him back at the palace, he was still alive, and his attacks were slowly starting to chip away at the monster’s armor.
It was only a matter of time, though. Micah knew that the power sources on his enchantments would only last for five minutes. Long enough to hold off a greater daemon or kill one with the help of a team, but soon the man would be left unprotected. He likely wouldn’t die instantly, but he would die and it wouldn’t be pretty. Without an Arcana skill, the monster’s aura would attack the entirety of his being at the same time. Even if his armor and skin could handle it, the tender membranes of his eyes, throat and lungs would shred themselves and he would die choking on his own blood.
Micah had warned everyone of the dangers of the greater daemons as well as the limitations of the magical tools he had forged, but still the man, one of Gwen’s uncles, fought on. He knew he was going to die, but if his death could buy another five or ten minutes…
“They’re all going to die,” Micah said quietly, tearing his eyes away from the once elderly warrior. “If we’re lucky, they’ll be able to hold the field long enough for high-level support to arrive.”
Another wave of corpses were tossed from the castle walls. Some of the forgotten had strung up an apparatus made of netting that let them swing and throw the bodies to give them extra distance.
“Yes,” Gwendolyn replied, her voice even. “You yourself said this wasn’t going to be a clean war, Micah. You knew what we were about to do.”
He sighed as a rolling wave of explosions rocked the ground as the bodies began to detonate. She was right. He had always known how this battle was going to end, but as hardened as he was from years of training and tragedy, it was still another thing to actually see it borne out.
Eris, Esther and Drekt dying in a doomed fight with a luoca in the last timeline was still fresh in Micah’s memory. He had fought in a doomed war to save humanity’s soul once. It shouldn’t surprise him that his careful efforts to avoid the past had fallen apart at the last minute, but at the same time-
Micah shook his head, clearing the distressing thoughts. Worrying wouldn’t change the situation. The reality of things was that they were outmatched, but the Prince was in the castle above him. It was impossible for Micah to ignore the malevolent energy pouring off of the daemon.
“You’re right,” he said, squeezing his spear with both hands as he looked up at the castle. “I don’t like it, but you’re right. The only change in plans I would suggest is that we injure or disable the unengaged greater daemon as we lead the attack on the castle.”
Gwen cocked her head to the side, lips moving silently as if she were speaking to someone. Finally, she nodded her head, a predatory smile on her face as she addressed him.
“We think that can be arranged. After all, we did promise a distraction that would draw the Prince out.”
He frowned, tearing his gaze from the slaughter fields and back to the Princess.
“What do you mean by that, also since when do you use the royal we. I thought only the Empress did-”
He stopped as magic surged. The war lizard that Gwen was riding let out a pathetic chirping sound before its flesh began to twist and stretch. It grew thinner and longer, fat and extraneous bulk disappearing to fuel its transition into a sleek, lethal form.
The scales above its shoulder bulged and shattered, exposing whitish yellow bone that sprang outward, taking the shape of a wing before flesh began to crawl up their length. Under Micah’s horrified gaze, scales and translucent membrane sprouted from the half-formed limb, and in a matter of seconds, the creature that had been the lizard sported a pair of large, muscular wings.
It was practically overflowing with the energy of Elsewhere, but there was a strange taste to it. Almost as if the power had been toned down and modified to avoid the worst of the corrosion created by the daemons. The beast wasn’t entirely at home on Karell, but at the same time, it wasn’t something completely alien that the planet was actively trying to reject.
