Chapter 37: Firepower
Perspective: Shadow
Shadow's mage squadron stood in formation, in this case formation meant a circle of mostly inexperienced mages with a couple of adepts in between. Their task was to cast rudimentary spells, which were weak on their own but eagerly fused with each other. The resulting spell was of a much greater magnitude than any individual mage could have produced. More importantly, they could cast their spells from a large distance, making retaliation difficult.
Around the circle were the more experienced casters, they channeled energy into the novices, that kind of energy manipulation was best left to those who knew what they were doing. Currently the novice's spell repertoire consisted of the Sunbeam and a shield spell that would have been used for counter-magic, had the mages not been obliterated by their underground explosives.
Shadow shouted: "Command ordered a retreat, scryers look out for a last Sunbeam target, then everybody packs up and falls back with the rest of the troops!"
Only seconds later one of the scryers, an elderly archmage named Talita, had picked out a target and relayed it to the circle, who promptly started chanting in unison. A ball of fire started forming in their midst, rapidly gaining size. Once it had almost reached their outstretched hands, they released the spell with a final shout. The ball shot upwards, then gradually towards its intended destination, where it released its energy in a devastating beam onto a group of Tower soldiers that were giving chase to one of their own retreating divisions.
"Good shot." Shadow commended her mages.
She took a look at the battlefield, most of their forces were already in full retreat but they'd be cut off by the Entity's manifestations if nothing was done. Shadow clenched her fists and floated up into the air.
Danann, another of her experienced mages, looked at her. He was barely older than twenty and already immensely powerful, owing at least partially to his mythical ancestry, being descended from a satyr. He was too far removed to show any physical traits, unlike second-generation demonspawn Warnado with his horns and eyes. Compared to Danann, Warnado had similar, if not greater potential if only he could make his demon side agree with his human side.
Danann asked: "Master, where are you going?"
Shadow simply replied: "To delay the Entity."
Iridia, one of the channelers who was similar to Danann in age and talent, spoke up: "Then we're coming with you."
Another channeler stopped Iridia as she tried to move towards Shadow, this one was Pallas, a middle-aged wizard. He said: "We're not all going, the novices need protection on the way."
Shadow had no time for discussions, so she made a decision: "Talita, Danann, you can fly so you come with me. Everyone else protects the novices and helps tend to the wounded."
Iridia grumbled but bowed her head, then turned to go with a simple "Yes, master."
Talita and Danann floated up next to Shadow, after a quick nod the trio flew off to the battlefield.
As the wind rushed past her ears, Shadow said: "I'll be honest with you, there is not much of a plan aside from hitting the manifestations with as much as you can. Don't put yourself at risk by coming too close."
Danann replied: "Got it, stay at a distance and give it all we have."
Talita said: "And watch out for archers of course. I'll warn you if I see arrows coming our way."
They arrived at the battlefield less than a minute of flight later, up close it was a gruesome sight. Corpses of both sides littered the ground, the excessive bloodshed had discolored the mud to a dirty crimson. Soldiers stumbled over fallen allies and enemies as they fled. Straight ahead of Shadow was a manifestation of the Entity, cleaving bodies in two with the brutal swings of its zweihander.
No words needed to be spoken between the mages. The three of them immediately unleashed their spells, Danann and Talita both shot scorching hot rays of flame, Shadow used her disintegration beam, making her runes glow brightly. The manifestation stopped in its tracks, bronze armor warping under the immense heat. Shadow could practically feel her fellow mages straining to sustain their attack.
They stopped when the manifestation fell over, armor too misshapen to remain standing. Talita was heavily breathing and Danann fared only a little better.
Suddenly Talita's head jerked around, she shouted: "Arrows!"
Before she was done speaking Shadow had already projected a protective bubble around them, not a moment too early. A whole barrage of arrows shattered on the barrier almost immediately.
"Thank you." Danann said.
They looked down at the manifestation again, to Talita and Danann's horror and Shadow's anger it had started moving again, slowly molding the armor back into its proper shape.
Shadow sighed. "Sorry to say, but I think you two should go back to the others."
Danann asked: "Why?"
"Because the area around me will become very inhospitable soon." Said Shadow.
Talita took another deep breath, then asked: "Is this about the secondary energy planes you told us about?"
Shadow nodded. "I will be drawing from them directly, I never tried this with such an energy-intensive spell so I hope you understand why you should get going."
Danann nodded in response. "Alright, we'll try to roast some enemy soldiers on the way if they don't have archers."
With that the two mages flew off, leaving Shadow alone above the battlefield. After taking a second to focus, Shadow once again opened her new sense, looking beyond her current plane and into the brimming layers of energy that existed alongside the physical plane of Nexus. Shadow saw her skin darken, felt her hair getting lighter as she rapidly siphoned energy from those parallel planes. Each pull was accompanied by a bolt of nothingness, a split-second fracture in reality's integrity. Once she got a better feel for the amount of energy, Shadow started casting.
A blindingly bright beam shot from her palm, bigger and more intense than ever before. Stray bolts of energy arced off her body and from the beam itself. It impacted squarely on the recovering manifestation, rapidly warping its armor and evaporating a substantial amount of the dirt around it.
When Shadow stopped, she felt uncharacteristically refreshed, normally she should feel strain from casting such a powerful spell. Questions for later, she had more pressing concerns. This manifestation wouldn't be getting up in a while, that still left several more that terrorized the battlefield.
Shadow flew towards the next one, faster than she had intended, having put so much energy into a spell shortly before made finesse difficult, another thing to explore in detail later once there was time.
The second manifestation saw her coming, there was the same mind behind all of them so naturally it knew what was about to happen. Although knowing did little to prevent it from happening. Shadow tried channeling more energy into this beam than the last one, there had to be a limit somewhere and she'd find it. The second manifestation collapsed like the first.
While flying to the next one Shadow thought about something she had discussed with her brother. It was something they dubbed the "Minimal Force Doctrine", which said that you should only use enough force to defeat an enemy cleanly and confidently, without showing your full strength. Its main application was in skirmishes or battles where the enemy's strength and capabilities were well-known. The point was to deprive the enemy of a good measurement of one's own strength while racking up victories. Of course, the doctrine did not apply to Shadow's current situation, an enemy that just would not stay down but couldn't exactly fight back.
On the note of fighting back, Shadow created another barrier to block a barrage of arrows directed at her, then shot a quick disintegration ray in the direction of the archers. Another thought. She could focus on taking out the enemy forces but that would come at the cost of lives on her own side, a very limited resource. Ensuring the Entity stayed down was of the highest priority.
The third manifestation went down like the first two, so Shadow moved on. She still had not hit any limit to how much energy she could put into the spell. As she flew over to the fourth one, she saw something that complicated things. It was currently engaged in combat with a sizable group of rebels. Engaged in combat was perhaps the wrong term, in the process of butchering them was more appropriate.
Shadow decided to go for a more direct approach, she accelerated downwards and built up a barrier around herself at the same time, the ray would not work this time, not with so many allies around.
The barrier slammed into the Entity's manifestation at immense speed, throwing it off-balance but not knocking it down, it was unnaturally massive.
"Go!" Shadow shouted at the soldiers, who did not have to hear it twice, taking off with a panicked, adrenaline-powered sprint.
The manifestation raised its zweihander and brought it down on her, a quick teleportation brought her out of range immediately. While Shadow gathered energy for her attack, the manifestation threw its weapon at her with surprising precision. She was unable to evade another time due to her spell in progress, she just had to take the hit.
The obsidian zweihander shattered Shadow's barrier and impaled her through the chest. She felt no pain but having your ribcage, lungs and several other organs pierced by a massive sword was not a comfortable experience under any circumstance. Shadow channeled her resulting rage into the spell and let loose.
As she was blasting the manifestation with as much energy as she could muster, she felt something different. From one moment to the next her energy supply was cut off and she had to immediately stop her spell to not tap into her own life force. There it was, the limit. A quick look into the energy planes confirmed that she had drained absolutely everything nearby, more energy slowly flowing in.
Shadow looked around, that had been the last one, the first manifestation was moving again but at this point it was too far from any of their soldiers to do any damage. The retreat was almost complete. She could only make out a handful of their soldiers running into the forest, those had to be the rear guard. Shadow took off towards the hill.
The heavy sword remained lodged in her chest, some spikes near the guard had gotten caught on her spine. It was inconvenient flying while being impaled by a weapon larger than herself, but she would manage. Perhaps they could even take a closer look at the sword later to find out if there was anything special about it.
Shadow had not been prepared for the sight that the hill presented to her. The corpses of several archers and soldiers littered the elevated area, this was supposed to be a safe area. Two figures were lying near the top, evidently still alive and laughing, and not in any way that could be described as positive. Those two figures were Astro and Kay, both badly wounded!
Shadow immediately picked up speed, landing next to the two. As she descended, she noticed to her shock that two of the corpses belonged to the Prophet and his bodyguard Steve, the former had a caved-in head, the other a mangled ribcage.
She turned to Astro and Kay, who had been woken from their trance-like laughter by her arrival.
"What the hell happened here?"
