Chapter: 610 – Ready to Roc

Tala looked up, and felt her eyes widen.

The Mage was correct, a truly massive roc was descending on them, already seeming to block a good portion of the sky while still being nearly five hundred feet up. Though, that was a bit hard to determine, as it seemed to be a mix of cloud gray and white, with blue mottled throughout, all rippling slowly in a way that made it difficult for the mundane eye to notice it.

It was distinctly Paragon level, and the lightning gathering across its body held enough power to utterly obliterate the caravan where it rolled.

How did it get so close without us seeing it?

-See those fading edges of power? It has magics of some kind, misdirecting observers and cloaking it. That combined with the surface level illusion? Yeah, we’re lucky we had any warning at all.-

The echoes of the Mage’s call were still easily discernable across the wagons, only a few people even beginning to understand what had been said.

-I’ll coordinate with the defenders down here.-

They both then noticed the flock of lesser Rocs coming from behind the big bird’s back.

-Rane and Terry will thin the lessers. The big one’s yours.-

Tala was already standing before most people had even registered the Mage’s call. She didn’t bother talking to anyone or reaching out in any way. Alat had it handled, and Tala would focus on her task.

An unconscious use of portions of her old Restrain magics freed her from Zeme’s embrace, even as she kicked off the wagon, shooting upward and accelerating faster and faster, her active magic providing the ever increasing acceleration.

Her armor rolled out and over her, even as Reality Iron gathered around her.

At the same time, hundreds of iron spikes embedded themselves in the ground around the caravan.

As she continued to rise, she brought her will, her authority—and that of Rane and Terry beside her—to bear on two truths.

First, she was the target for the lightning.

Second, her iron was connected.

Specifically not all her iron. She didn’t have any intention of blasting the power intake of every wagon’s spellform across the caravan. That would be a good way to kill all their passengers in one stroke.

Instead, she linked the large cluster of Reality Iron around herself to that in the spikes deep in the ground.

Less than a second after the call went out, the roc struck, its lightning coming down like a rain of destruction.

But Tala’s will, her authority over the caravan, was unshakable.

To the roc’s obvious surprise, as the lightning crossed into Tala’s passive aura, it all diverted straight toward her.

The massive bird clearly didn’t initially seem overly concerned that its opponent wished to take the full force of the strike, especially since that opponent was being kind enough to concentrate the hit upon itself.

Thus, her work went unopposed.

Power slammed into the iron around Tala, instantly flowing through the connection she’d forged into the iron already in the ground, where it dispersed harmlessly, barely heating up the hundreds of tons of earth and stone surrounding her many spikes.

The air around her took on a sharp, almost tangy aspect, but that was of no consequence.

My turn.

For the first time, Tala brought her void donut truly to bear, implementing her gravity cannon faster than a Refined could have tracked.

Each shot required an incredibly precise sequence of actions. First, a portal had to be opened, connecting the void-donut portion of the sanctum within Kit with the superficial. That portal had to be perfectly positioned to catch the already immensely fast projectile on the inner end, and on the outside, it had to be positioned and oriented in such a way that it sent the shot in the proper direction.

Second, the massively amplified gravity on the projectile had to be switched to target the roc, the exact instant that the portal opened.

Finally, the portal had to be closed quickly enough that another could be opened to allow the next shot to be loosed, directing it appropriately.

Stated like that, it sounded almost simple, but given the incredible variability Tala could implement with the portals, there were hundreds of factors to control on each end for each portal.

Regardless, all of this combined to let Tala send off nearly a hundred shots into the roc’s easterly wing, originating from all across her domain, which contained the still-moving caravan.

The tungsten balls tore great rents all the way through the wing, blasting holes through magically reinforced flesh hundreds of times larger than they were, even as they continued their path up and out of the planet’s atmosphere, never to return.

The siege orbs similarly drove deep, but Tala also was able to trigger those within the massive wings, creating secondary concussions and waves of frost that locked up the already damaged flesh around their detonations.

Tala didn’t use any of the more ‘refined’ or complex munitions, as she simply didn’t have the mental space to properly utilize them with Alat otherwise engaged. Moreover, this target frankly didn’t need finesse at the moment.

The roc’s scream of rage at her opposition, pain from her attacks, and bafflement at its own assault being so useless, hit Tala like a physical blow, and would likely have killed the mundane oxen below if she hadn’t placed her will and authority against the somehow mundane sound, blunting it down to a merely uncomfortably loud noise.

It immediately began listing to the east, its wing still functional, but damaged sufficiently to cause it difficulty.

Now, roughly three seconds into the clash, Rane and Terry came onto the scene.

Massive blades of cutting force arced upward on the western side of the caravan, carving through a great swath of the lesser rocs, even as he rose up to continue dealing with those who managed to avoid his larger strikes.

Terry flickered through the easterly flock of rocs, staying near each flying bird only long enough to rend it apart—and maybe grab a nibble, or even to wolf down the whole carcass—before flickering on. He slew dozens per second with his up close and personal methods.

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Below, the Mages began getting their barriers in place, and given the… messiness of the Sappherrous aftermath, it would actually have great benefits.

I’ll have to have Lyn extend our gratitude to the Caravan Guild for their insistence. Cleaning up all the splash back would have been… irritating.

Tala also caught a glimpse of her daughter, down on the wagon that Rane had left behind. The girl’s mouth was still falling open, her eyes widening in awe and containing a growing spark of determination.

She’d never really seen her parents and uncle at work, and she was clearly inspired by the sight.

Tala hoped that wouldn’t have reason to change.

The drivers and oxen were clearly hunching down in fear at what was occurring above them, the oxen picking up the pace in a vain attempt to get away from the overwhelming threat from above.

The drivers, to their credit, were keeping the oxen going in the correct direction. If the caravan fragmented, they would have had a rusting awful time protecting it and drawing it all back together.

But that was all the time that Tala had to focus back and downward, as she’d arrived at the roc, herself, slamming into the westerly shoulder and pushing it further toward the east. As she bounced slightly back from the impact, she attacked again, Flow leading the way in void-glaive form.