147, 1/2

Half an hour ago, it looked like an easy victory, but now…

Erick watched as Ophiel targeted and annihilated group after group of red-armored soldiers. Kill Notifications scrolled past his sight, and Erick added each one to his running tally. He was up to four thousand, three hundred and nineteen, so far.

Occasionally, he spared a view toward the other powers scything through the red warriors, but not often enough, it seemed. The flying swords of that one guy were not flying around anywhere. Half an hour later, Erick came across those thousands of swords scattered across the land, inert and stabbed into the ground as if they had been tracking a target, and died along their flying path. Some swords stood upright in stone. Most were broken.

Sword guy was dead, for sure. Erick had no idea where he was, but he was dead, and the killer was still out there. In that instant, Erick wondered if Ari and Kaffi’s prediction of an ‘easy war against Terror Peaks’ was true, or if those words had been a boast, to cover their own gnawing doubt.

Erick conjured a [Cascade Imaging] in the sky over Eralis, targeting Raidu, and then he came back to himself and glanced over to Poi. “Their goal was to get Songli’s elites out on the field. Now they’re killing those elites. Right? Or am I reading that wrong?”

It was such a simple concept. Erick shouldn’t have been surprised that Terror Peaks would throw away soldiers to draw out the actual threats of Songli. But he was. Erick could never imagine throwing away lives like Terror Peaks had done.

With tendrils of thought around his head, Poi said, “The soldiers needed to be dealt with, or else Eralis would have fallen, but, yes, the soldiers barely mattered. Terror Peaks’ elites are out hunting now. Songli is still expecting a win, but they knew it was going to get worse.”

“If they have biological material from those elites then I can track them. Have Songli give me those samples; lay them out somewhere. Otherwise the target is on Raidu.” Erick said, “I’ll spend most of my time hunting the red army, but I will attempt to kill every target they give me.”

Poi nodded slowly as he spoke to other people. After a moment, he said, “Please cast your Imaging over Alaralti and Holorulo, as well. Your samples will be in Holorulo— No. They’ll be at Southern H— I’m getting conflicting desir— Your samples will be at the roof of the Sour House, in Darzallia. They’re coming through in a tiny [Gate].” Poi said, “I will be informed when more samples appear, as it is easier to gather samples than it is to actually hurt these people— No. Wait… There won’t be samples. They’re asking if pictures will do.”

That could work, too. Erick said, “Pictures, names, abilities. A short dossier. Defining items on the person. There might be false positives, but we can work through those.” Not exactly true, but Songli didn’t need to know his full capabilities right now.

“Understood,” Poi said, as he sent off instructions.

Ophiel was already over the Sour House, waiting.

Erick tried not to think too deeply about the state of the building.

The Sour House was half gone. The bodies of the proprietor and the wife laid half in the courtyard, and half spread out everywhere else, along with the bodies of others who had roomed there. Terror Peaks had struck this location; they had known Erick had been here.

Unbidden, the names of the proprietor and his wife came to Erick; Derix and Iyolza.

Erick had tried to keep his distance from them, but he recalled their names and remembered who they were, anyway. Nice people. Orderly. Proper. Worried for their future when a Scion came to live under their roof. Normal people. Perfectly normal people.

Dead.

Gone.

Erick did not wallow in misery. He focused.

The Sour House was half gone but a part of the roof remained.

Less than a minute later, a tiny purple-rimmed [Gate] appeared atop that remaining section. It discharged several wardlight images, cast onto the backs of paper, while the fronts held names and brief descriptions. Every single person was listed as a rank in Terror Peaks’ army, most of them as ‘Special Attachment’. Two were captains. Scion Raidu was one of the targets.

With dry eyes, Erick said to Poi, “Raidu is first.”

Poi nodded as he silently communicated with others, elsewhere.

Ophiels lightstepped over to Alaralti, and Holorulo, while another Ophiel went back to the map over Eralis to adjust that one so it wouldn’t interfere with the other two.

Erick briefly marveled at the other two cities of Songli, ignoring the fires and destruction and focusing on the beauty.

Alaralti was like Eralis; cosmopolitan and varied, with massive buildings and a large noble district. The Void Wall perfectly encircled the main city, but it was a hundred meters off of the ground, supported by stones the shape of clouds. The city itself spread out below the wall, like the wall was a tram running around the whole place. There were no demarcations that seemed to say ‘this is Alaralti’ and ‘this is some other city’. Everything ran into each other, and clan mountains sprouted wherever they felt like sprouting.

This second city of Songli was called the breadbasket of the Highlands, and while that moniker wasn’t wholly true, it was true enough. Outside of the main cosmopolitan area, the land was farmland, stretched out as far as Ophiel could see. Rice paddies. Wheat fields. Orchards and lands full of vegetables. Fish ponds that were attached to the Wanzhi River. Everything seemed attached to the Wanzhi River, with irrigation that went everywhere. Normally, it was a beautiful place.

But right now half of Alaralti was on fire and the Void Wall had been broken, its pieces crushing houses underneath.

Erick put up an Imaging for Raidu high above, then asked Poi, “Do they want rain to control the fires at Alaralti?”

“Yes,” Poi said, instantly. “Lighter rains everywhere else, too, if you could.”

Erick obliged. The sky turned dark over all of Songli, but especially over Alaralti’s farmlands as quick casts of [Call Lightning] sped up the process of cloud gathering. Rain began to fall. That Ophiel then moved on to start erasing the few red-armor soldiers he saw still in Alaralti’s streets.

Holorulo was less on-fire than both Eralis and Alaralti, but only because the city had less to burn. The place looked like China’s Forbidden City, but if those architects had had access to magic, effectively infinite manpower, and a penchant for white and gold.

The first thing Erick noticed were the massive, half-kilometer wide, half-kilometer tall towers all around the central space; they seemed like clan mountains, but different. They were scatters of gold buildings atop those clan mountains, with small golden nooks here and there all across that solid white expanse of the ‘mountainsides’. Those balconies and exposed courtyards betrayed the living spaces and hallway’d interior beyond, and the depth of architecture contained therein. From his brief examination, Erick saw individual rooms of some variation, with brown woods and greens and other colors, but the official exterior was dominated by white and gold.

Holorulo had a Void Wall that resembled Alaralti’s tram-like sculpture of Rozeta, which formed a hundred-kilometer ring, denoting the far exterior of the city. The clan mountain towers formed a smaller concentric ring at 50 kilometers wide.

But the inner 30 kilometer radius land was what truly looked like it belonged to emperors.

Those interior buildings seemed ritualistically organized, and ten times the size of what was necessary for normal living. They had exterior walls which were of white pillars, while the roofs were gold and shining. Gardens were sparse, but well maintained and architectural feats in their own right. Golden fire wardlights illuminated the white land from giant sconces, showing the stark beauty of it all, but the red and black ruined it all.

Red blood. Black soot. More soot than blood, for Holorulo was truly underpopulated. The fights which must have happened here were massive. Erick saw no soldiers, anywhere. He didn’t see any people. No doubt if any person showed, they would be targeted by one side or the other.

Erick set up a [Cascade Imaging] in the sky directly above the center of Holorulo, directly above what appeared to be a Void Temple-like space. To the north of that space was a massive building that seemed ceremonial because of its overly large size. Songli actually had a triumvirate, but if Songli had emperors, that’s where they would have lived.

If there were red soldiers here, Erick didn’t see them. Maybe they were inside the towers or the other scattered buildings? Maybe there were only assassins; Holorulo didn’t look like the sort of place that you assaulted with an army.

While the map populated, Erick focused on killing the red army in Alaralti and Eralis.

The maps populated. Raidu never appeared.

Erick informed Poi he was moving the map to the next target, and then he did so.

Almost instantly, a blue dot appeared in Holorulo, north-northwest, not thirty kilometers from the outside edge of the city’s Void Wall. It was close. Ophiel was available. The target maybe didn’t know they were pinged, yet. From what Erick was seeing, the target was inside one of the large, special clan mountains. Near the top.

The man’s name was unimportant.

He would soon be dead.

Erick informed Poi of what he was doing, and after confirmation, he went and did it. Ophiel lightstepped into the area where the blue dot had shown.

The room was empty. Boring. Small enchantments were here and there; upon the board game abandoned by the window, upon the light orbs up above, and in the walls, for silence. Aside from those small bits of the casual detritus of life, the small sunroom was empty.

Which meant, of course, that it wasn’t. The target was a man of illusion and assassination. But still. The room looked empty, to all of Erick’s Sights. Nothing there according to Erick’s mana sense. Nothing there on the [True Sight]. The walls were made of the same not-stone that other clan mountains were made of, so if this guy had an Elemental Body that allowed him to swim in that substance, then Erick might have been out of luck, but he doubted that.

A different Ophiel checked the map.

The target was still there.

Erick didn’t have time to search for the parts of the room that seemed off.

Ophiel abandoned [Greater Lightwalk]. [Fulmination Aura] was the preferred aura, now.

 

The original spell caused a ring of lightning to appear all around the caster. That lightning would then spark off of every single part of every target it affected, but since Lightning was apparently close enough to Light for [Lodestar] to work—

A mandala of lightning bloomed around Ophiel; layers upon layers of form and function that slowly twisted around the [Animadversion]-coated [Familiar] in the center of the ‘empty’ space. The room lit up like a power station short circuiting.

Something died, somewhere, as lightning touched upon legs and fingers and each individual rib—

Ah. Yup. There’s the target.

Currently fried into ash and crumbling to the ground.

He had been hiding under the gameboard, under the table, as [Air Body] or [Shadowalk]; hiding his own magical signature with that of the game board. Nice trick, but it didn’t save him from the lightning.

Erick checked for a notification— Yup. The assassin was dead. Erick switched Ophiel back to [Greater Lightwalk], and informed Poi of the success.

Erick moved on to the next target.

The assassin was in Alaralti, inside a clan mountain, running away from red soldiers, somewhere in a group of people also running from those same soldiers. From the sky, outside of the mountain, and blending into the destruction as best as Ophiel could, Erick tracked the man who was probably the assassin. The fidelity on his Imaging wasn’t the best at this distance, so he didn’t attack yet, but he needed to, soon.

What was the guy’s goal here? Why try to blend in with a crowd? Was the crowd headed somewhere in particular? Oh! They were headed toward a defensive line—

Ah.

Scion Caina Small Scare was inside that defensive line.

Ophiel moved in and plucked the assassin out of the group with [Teleport Other], slamming the guy directly into the waiting arms of a pair of Ophiel. One of those Ophiels instantly used [Harmonic Counterspell] to shut down a [Teleport] spell from the guy, while Erick cast his own 1000 point [Harmonic Blood Ooze] to ensure that the guy wouldn’t be getting away. Thick bloody ooze wrapped around the guy, cutting into him, preventing every use of magic.

Erick took a second to check on the map. The blue dot had moved when Erick moved the guy, so this was the guy.

[Luminous Beam] checked off another killer.

And then Ophiel went back and murdered the red soldiers and every other red army person attempting to surround Caina, giving the woman some breathing room.

Erick had Ophiel appear beyond their lines, glowing and still small. He called out, “Caina! Need an evacuation, somewhere?”

The dark skinned woman turned his way, her white full armor and twin violet swords shone in the light of nearby fires. She paused, wary, taking in the sight of Ophiel talking to her. Then she said, “We will defend our clan mountain. Thank you for your assistance, Archmage Flatt. Why did you take away one of our initiates?”

Erick almost asked if this really was Clan Small Scare’s clan mountain, but Caina’s last words made him focus. He said, “That man was an assassin. Songli gave me targets and I went after them.”

One of the survivors Erick had rescued yelled, “He was not! He was my everything!”

Before Erick could panic—

Caina silenced the woman with a wave of her hand. “What level was he?”

Erick rapidly checked the notification. “E-17— Level 73.”

The surviving woman startled, as though plunged into ice. Erick realized what she realized in that same moment.

Caina confirmed, “We would never have an initiate at that high a level. He was an impostor.” She said to Ophiel, “Thank you for your help, Archmage Flatt. We will take it from here.”

… Ophiel moved on.

The third person was a woman, slicing through initiates in a different clan mountain in Alaralti. Spells bounced off of her.

[Luminous Beam] cut through that nonsense.

The fourth and fifth targets were in Eralis, assaulting high-value targets in a high-class market. Erick murdered them most violently, for they were in the act of doing the same to merchants and others, as others had done to Spur, not too long ago. And he hated that. He hated it, all over again.

For he remembered how the people of Spur lost the Farms, all because of the evil of one man.

He remembered Caradogh Pogi of Portal, and the Hunters the man sent at Spur, and he remembered the people Caradogh murdered. Valok. Apogogh’s father. Carnelia, the lady who worked at Ruby’s Reds. Savral, Al’s son. And—

So many people, murdered to fuel the ambitions of a small-minded man who couldn’t stand the prosperity of Spur.

Rage filled Erick’s vision, as the next target was at the harbor, where so, so many goods and people came into the Highlands, and to the warehouses, which were currently on fire. People were trying to put out the fire, but flames spread harder when water touched the carmine conflagration.

Erick saw it now.

Terror Peaks was not just killing civilians. They were not just trying to end a civilization they didn’t like. They were doing the same thing to Eralis that those Hunters had done to Spur. They were ruining the chance at prosperity. They were destroying growth, and that which allowed more growth.

The sixth target was spreading more carmine flames, burning everything she could, jumping from warehouse to warehouse, trailing fire everywhere she walked, laughing and killing whoever got in her way. She was the flame, and Erick had no doubt she was in [Greater Fire Body].

Erick broke out a spell he had never used, and cast it himself for 850 mana; the cost reduction after Intelligence. He had never used it before, but it seemed appropriate here. If it worked, it would prolong the woman’s pain, and that seemed great.

Ribbons of white flame—

Bounced off of the target, because she had a reflective spell active. Of course she did. Well fuck.

“Fuck you!” Erick yelled, to no one in particular.

The woman briefly paused. She had recognized Erick’s spellwork as an attack as white flames spilled away from her and fell into the nearby inferno like so much splashed milk.

The woman looked up, just in time to catch Ophiel’s [Luminous Beam] to the face.

She died.

With their creator gone, the fires started to falter under the light rain already falling across the city.

The seventh target held a sword four times as large as she was, as she whirled and twirled through battle lines, dancing like she was the only power that mattered. She got a [Luminous Beam] to the face, too.

Erick said to Poi. “More targets.”

Poi spoke to someone else, then he turned to Erick, saying, “If you want, you can move on to Terror Peaks itself. The counteroffensive has not yet begun, but you would be a good tip of the spear.”

“Okay.” Erick said, “I will go do that. I won’t kill civilians, but anyone in armor is going to die.”

Poi weighed his own response, resigned himself, then said what he had to say, “They’re all in armor. They’re all soldiers.” Poi added, “If you break their cities, they’ll run. Then the hypervigilance will start, along with shadow warfare.” He said, “Songli desires your help for this clean-up, more than the battle, but by asking you to assault Terror Peaks directly, they are hoping to draw off the Elites currently inside Songli, by threatening them with the lives of their children. Not many would return home, but some would.”

Erick’s eyes went wide.

Ah. He should have realized what was going on. But Poi had needed to explain it to him.

And then…

He understood.

Ah.

Okay.

No.

He couldn’t.

But if he didn’t, then the war would continue, but in a different form.

Wait.

He could do…

Yes. He could do that. Sure. It would be annoying to [Teleport Other] all the kids away from the cities before he murdered everyone there, but that would be fine.

Poi looked at him, and said, “Or. Your [Sunlight Rift] would harm rather fast, too, and without needing to extricate the kids first. Kids can’t cast much magic.”

“… But they would see their mothers die.”

Teressa had listened, but now she said, “And those mothers are monsters. They deserve death, as quick as you can give it.”

After a moment of thinking, Erick decided that he was not going to make that decision. He was not going to fight near kids. Not yet… Hopefully not ever. He put off that whole problem.

Erick looked away from Poi, and said, “I’ve got to find those spears. If I can. I’m going to search for those.”

Poi nodded.

Erick switched the maps everywhere in Songli to those soul spears that had almost killed him—

A blue dot appeared.

And instantly, too?

What! He expected nothing! What the fu—

And then Erick realized something.

He had searched for a specific image of the spear that had matched his memories of both spears he had seen, but, in the same way that every rod of [Greater Treat Wounds] was not exactly the same, surely every one of these highly-magical soul spears were not the same. And yet… they were. Exactly the same.

Exactly.

That meant something.

Erick didn’t know what, for sure, but he would, soon enough.

Ophiels rushed out to collect the target. But then Erick paused, when he saw the target. The spear was sitting out in the open, in a secluded courtyard, outside of Eralis. The location had been made important because the spear was there, laying on the stone in the middle of open ground, but otherwise, the building was boring. The surroundings didn’t matter. This location was a normal, everyday location, that one could find anywhere on the outskirts of any of Songli’s cities.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

The spear was alone. It was the genuine article, too; to [Mana Sight], the spear glowed like a red sun, while to normal sight, it looked like a pitted piece of junk that would break at the slightest stress.

This reeked of a trap.

Well.

It could be that they were expecting him to touch the spear himself, or rather, with Ophiel. By extending Ophiel’s lightform past the protections of the [Animadversion], then the ‘invisible wielder still holding onto the artifact’, or whatever the trap was, would then activate the spear and target the exposed part of Ophiel.

Erick had ways around that vulnerability, though.

Ophiel moved in and molded the land under the spear with [Teleporting Platform]. The spear barely jostled as the disk of floating land appeared under it. This way, Ophiel could move the spear without actually touching it. Which he then did.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

While one Ophiel was doing that, others switched the maps to Xangu, thus hiding the spear’s new location.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

The spear went to the middle of nowhere, a field out in the sun, where another Ophiel instantly [Luminous Beam]’d everything around the spear, missing the platform but getting within a half-meter of the spear itself.

Blip. Blip. Blip.

And another [Luminous Beam].

… Okay. Maybe he was a bit paranoid at this point. But seeing that one assassin hide in the magical signature of that board game had messed him up. He didn’t even know that was possible. Some dude could even be hiding inside the spear, with [Air Body], or something like that, just waiting for the moment to strike.

—Oh yeah. He could check for that, actually, based on what it cost to [Teleport] the object, since [Teleport]’s cost was based on people transported. Even moving a [Familiar] like Ophiel cost base-250 extra mana. [Teleporting Platform] was of a similar nature.

Weight mattered for that spell, incurring additional mana costs as though extra people were being transported, but the spear weighed almost nothing. So Erick cast his own [Teleporting Platform] through Ophiel, lifting the spear with the cast onto the new platform, and triggered the platform through Ophiel.

Ophiel came along with the blip, costing Erick 10 mana. The spear came along, costing something negligible.

And another 10 mana was spent, as someone else was transported, too.

So.

How to solve this?

Answer:

Erick rapidly gathered his Ophiel and proceeded to cast eight spells in concert; [Stone Breaker], [Air Breaker], [Water Breaker], [Fire Breaker], [Light Breaker], [Shadow Breaker], [Prismatic Breaker], and [Force Breaker], targeting the space near the object. If any of his spells broke the object, then oh well. The hidden assassin was more important to kill.

And to ensure that the target didn’t just reapply whatever Elemental Body they were using, Erick queued up a [Harmonic Counterspell].

Light splashed against the spear.

Erick’s counterspell triggered.

A white-armored woman fell out of the spear, looking like a person from Songli.

Erick wasn’t going to fall for that, though. The woman had a red soul, the same color as the spear itself, which still glowed upon the manasphere with a red radiance strong enough to dim everything else.

The woman snarled in defeat, and Erick’s Ophiel began counterspelling her attempts to use magic. Erick rapidly enacted a few other spells around the space. A [Prismatic Ward], cast as a shell to lock the woman inside. A quick grapple of the spear with [Telekinesis] to take it away. An organization of [Harmonic Counterspell]s to keep her locked down.

And finally, a [Drain Ward], fueled by more hollowing hatred than Erick thought it was possible for anyone to experience at any one time. Erick had no time for emotions at the moment, though. He did, apparently, have time for a new spell, though.