Amazon Apocalypse 5: Chapter 15

Our army clearly had some kinks to work out as we got used to time on campaign. Thanks to the veterans in our ranks, our tents and supplies were packed up just two hours after dawn, but we were left waiting around for another three hours as the other legions figured out how to stow their gear for the first time. If not for bags of holding, it might have taken the whole day to get moving again.

Seeing how useful even an average bag of holding was to the common soldier, I manufactured a few while waiting. The wagons we were towing along behind us got a lot bigger. We ended up using the extra room to pick up some extra supplies the third and thirteenth legions were abandoning because they had no room for them. The thirteenth especially was already short a tent. They couldn’t afford to lose the other one too just because they couldn’t figure out how to pack it well enough to fit back in the bags it had come in. When their legate asked me very nicely for it, I would return it to them.

It took us through the afternoon before we were fully on the road to Mundwise. It wasn’t very far, but the trip took us through forest underbrush. I worried my soldiers would have a hard time of it, since most of them had never walked along anything that wasn’t a cobblestone road. Thankfully, the melee warriors in our ranks led the way with machetes and cleared a path. A few wizards specializing in earth elemental spells packed the dirt down until it was practically a road, and a few others set up a refreshing breeze that cast aside the dust the other legions were kicking up.

The third and thirteenth legions were slowing us down once again, though. A lot of their people were E-Grade farmers who’d just enlisted and didn’t even have a set of boots. Marching through brambles and thorns was rough on what little gear they had. I ended up using Shadowrealm Stride to catch up with Prince Herius near the front of the army. He was looking increasingly frustrated by our slow pace.

“I know you wanted us in the center of the formation, but perhaps we might be better served near the front? A few of my wizards are quite well-versed in making roads,” I suggested.

“Anything is better than this,” the prince grumbled.

I took that as an affirmative, and we shifted positions until we were marching with the prince’s elite units. Once they saw the magic we were casting to keep the dust down and the roads clear, our formations merged with theirs and we matched them stride for stride. Prince Herius’ men had been cutting a path with machetes just like us, so their help made things considerably easier on our melee fighters.

I could tell from our conversations as we marched that my people got along a lot better with Herius’ elites. Students of the prestigious Dragon Lodge’s academy had much more in common with well-outfitted elite soldiers than with the more common-born rabble behind us. It was tough to hold a conversation about properly applying cloak wax and maintaining your enchanted canteens when the other party couldn’t even afford their own boots.

In contrast, Prince Herius’ men had plenty of wisdom to share. The composition of my forces also likely loosened their lips. Not many women signed up to be elite warriors on a battlefield in a foreign land, but plenty enrolled in the Dragon Lodge’s academies. As a result, my legion was probably the only one in the entire army with more women than men, even counting all the Amazonian warriors the Samhain Clan had given Prince Herius.

Eventually, we broke through the edge of the forest and into abandoned farmland. Walking became easier, but we slowed down even more as some of our forces broke ranks to swipe a few apple-looking fruits and a couple of vegetables. Prince Herius thought to stop them, but I let him know several legions had been unable to get their cook fires together the previous night. As a result, a lot of the army had gone hungry.

“In the interest of not going into battle on an empty stomach, we’ll slow down a little. Still, clearly, a few legions need more tempering. I will have another word with Legates Abesa and Morin...” Prince Herius let out another annoyed sigh.

The sun was already setting by the time we set eyes on our destination. We ran into a few scouts from the force occupying the city. Still, Prince Herius’ elite griffin scouts dealt with all the ones we found without the need for my intervention.

“Curses and damnation! We must have missed one...” the prince growled as we spotted the city. A shimmering barrier surrounded it, like the kind that had surrounded Shadefall when I’d assaulted it alongside the Samhain Clan on Themyscira.

“It was unreasonable to expect we could sneak up on a city with a hundred thousand people behind us,” I shrugged.

“It’s been done before. I’ve read about it in my military tactics textbooks.”

The prince’s hands were curled into fists, and he seemed quite frustrated. I suspected the instances when a sneak attack like the kind the prince was thinking of had happened with elite units moving fast. I was getting the impression that the prince had been as well prepared for this campaign as he could be, but he lacked practical experience.

“If we had gone ahead with your griffin scouts under cover of night and illusions, perhaps we could have managed it. But it’s no use now. Not that it matters. These shields won’t hold long against my people.”

Prince Herius looked suddenly uncertain. Perhaps the trip here had primed him for disappointment.

We waited for the rest of the legion trailing behind us to arrive, which took the better part of an hour, much to Prince Herius’ frustration. He began the battlefield tactics, meeting before the last four legates even arrived.

“We can’t wait any longer to attack. No doubt word is already out that we’re here, and the Black Beast Sect is calling for reinforcements. We need to take the city and encamp ourselves firmly in its defenses so we're not pinned between two hostile forces. Legate Carter, we’re counting on you to break that shield.

I nodded, and he continued.

“I will ride forth and demand the enemy’s surrender, as honor dictates. But if half of what I’ve heard of the Black Beast Sect is true, they will refuse. You may commence your magical bombardment as soon as I raise my hand.”

“My prince, can we really rely on the wizards to take down that shield? Those are some mighty defenses. If it takes a day, we could be beset by B-Grade Black Beast Sect elders!” Legate Morin jabbed a finger in my direction.

His face resembled a weasel, and from the markings on his chest, he was the leader of the thirteenth legion. So far, the only remarkable thing about his army was how his legion was remarkably incompetent. They lost one of their tents on the first day of the campaign and that half his soldiers lacked any equipment.

With my aethersmith senses, I could tell Legate Morin was wearing a particularly finely enchanted magical undershirt. He also had quite a few of the talismans we’d been selling at Doomblade’s Armory. I suspected most of his legion’s funding wound up in his personal pockets instead of being spent on equipment for his troops.

“Let me worry about the shields. I will take them down as quickly as possible,” I replied, but I could sense more than a little hostility in Legate Morin’s tone. He was baiting me for some reason, but I couldn’t tell what.

“Ah, I see!” Legate Morin’s face flashed with a smile, and he wore a look that suggested he’d caught me dead to rights. “You plan to remain outside the city with your wizards casting spells from a distance while the rest of us charge in and risk our lives taking the walls? Shameful, if you ask me.”

I raised an eyebrow. This was what he thought to catch me on?

“I’m here to provide magical ranged support and crack barriers. I will provide magical ranged support and crack the barrier around the city.”

“Still...” Morin protested.

I held up a hand, cutting him off. “Tell you what, Legate Morin. I know we’re all keen on getting some action. I’ll company you troops as you and I join Prince Herius in the vanguard. We will help him take the walls, and your troops can guard my auxiliaries on the way in.”

“W-wait!” Legate Morin’s face went pale. From the hidden defenses he was wearing, he clearly wasn’t fond of danger.

“Fantastic idea, Legate Carter! I’m sure you’re eager to put a few more levels between you and the start of B-Grade! And maybe we’ll get you to B-Grade soon, Legate Morin! I know at least one Black Beast Sect Elder is in the city, and I’m going straight for them!” The prince clapped me on the back, and soon the meeting was adjourned.

I was pleased with the arrangement. I really was eager to test out how B-Grade worked for me, and just a few levels in early B-Grade would give me a massive boost in stats. I wanted those sooner rather than later. And my wizards needed meat shields. Legate Morin's legion would serve that purpose well enough. As far as I was concerned, this was a perfect plan. The sour look on Morin's face told me he disagreed. Not that he could do anything about it now.

The prince took three of his elites and approached the walls with a flag of truce waving high. They shouted up to the walls but didn’t get so much as a word out before he was fired upon by a bolt of flame.

The prince raised his fist to retaliate, and I took that as our cue.

“Fire your spells and bring down that barrier!” I commanded.

More than two thousand wizards raised wands and staffs and unleashed a volley of spells.

Shards of earth, pillars of fire, geysers of water, and flashes of lightning struck the barrier one after another. In an instant, the barrier expended the bulk of its energy reserves.

I had hoped to drain it dry with just a few volleys, but an instant later the barrier started growing stronger again. I’d been worried about this. Back on Themyscira, despite being a city of enchanters, our enemies had limited ability to reinforce their city-spanning shield.

But this time, we were fighting cultivators. Their spells and enchantments weren’t given to them by the System. They had to figure things out the hard way. That meant any barrier they built was something they understood completely.

While the barrier we were up against was only as good as what I’d seen around a low-level city like Shadefall, the cultivators behind this shield clearly had a few tricks to push the design beyond its normal limits. Pouring in more power from inside the walls was probably among the simplest tricks they had to hold us off.

But no amount of finesse could defeat overwhelming power, and that was just what I had at the ready.

“Again!” I ordered, and this time I joined in.

I called on Mania again, shooting straight to the third level as I empowered my own spell. I felt heat rush to my core, but it wasn’t just the effects of Blood Frenzy. There was something fierce in me, hungry for battle. My heart thumped in my chest, and I felt the ferocity of a dragon awaken in me.

I shot a Void Cannon just as everyone else launched their spells. My attack rocketed ahead of all the other spell casters and slammed into the magical barrier. Void Cannon was already very good at cracking shields, building and twisting the barriers’ own energy against itself.

Cracks formed all along the magical barrier, and when the other spells arrived, the thing gave out completely. Two volleys of spells were all it took to crack the shield. That was a lot faster than the full-day Legate Morin predicted. Behind me and to my right, I saw his pale weasel-like face looking at me nervously.

“Charge! Take the walls!” Prince Herius yelled as he crouched low. He took a mighty leap, jumping from the ground to land atop the walls among the defenders. He raised his hammer-staff high and smashed aside a dozen dark-robed Black Beast Sect disciples with every swing.

“We need an entrance! Knock down those walls to let the rest of the army through!” I yelled to my wizards. A few with earth spells suggested they could clear a path once the defensive enchantments on the walls were destroyed. The rest of the army helped with the destruction, and then a gap wide enough to fit a carriage through opened up into the city.

“Over and through!” I yelled to Legate Morin’s men. I turned to Cyra, who had been standing by the melee division with my wizards. “Cyra, once we’ve taken the walls, take the wizards up there and line them so we can fire into the city from up high! I have a promise to keep with your brother.”

“I’ll lead my men from the front!” Legate Morin tried to slip away from me, clearly deciding that leading his ramshackle legion in a frontal charge was safer than what I planned for him. He was right.

I grabbed him by his shirt and hauled him into the Shadowrealm.

“Gah!” Legate Morin let out a scream. Behind me, an enormous shadow dragon growled at him. The black lines of its body were bound to my feet. Clearly, the dragon was my own shadow. That was new, but I hardly had time to speculate.

“Get ready!” I warned the legate as I followed in Prince Herius’ footsteps and jumped atop the wall. The fighting was fiercest here. The prince seemed intent on taking the city single-handed from the pile of bodies around him.

I cast Mage Armor and Elemental Phalanx around myself just before we arrived. A shell of light blue mana enveloped me, and I knew from my studies that it would take about a third of my health in damage before it broke. Elemental Phalanx formed diamond-like crystals of mana formed around me in a set of six. They would take a more active role in defending me, and each would explode like a Mana Bomb in the face of an enemy who got too close or to disrupt a spell about to reach me. Once that was done, we left the shadowrealm.

Legate Morin stumbled as we entered mundane reality again, and one of the D-Grade Black Beast Sect disciples nearly took off his ear with a sword swipe. I saved him with a Mana Bolt, but we were soon under pressure from all sides.

Completely surrounded by enemies, I could only feel my heart beating faster. My breath felt hot in my mouth, almost like I was ready to use Firescourge Breath. That was impossible though, since I’d given up that skill to form my new Incarnation of the Apocalypse Dragon Signature Skill.

I let out a hot breath, and suddenly a dozen dark-robed disciples were engulfed in unnaturally bright magical fire. Right now, it was unfocused and spread out in all directions, but I got the impression I could focus it into something more beam-like, as I’d witnessed the Torchdragon do.

I did so, sweeping the beam of destructive energy across the nearby walls and eliminating the Black Beast Sect disciples there in one great wave. A few more came at me, but I swept my hand at them. Arcane Blades extended from every fingertip like claws, flaying the lot of them from neck to crotch.

Fire mana filled the air, far more than I'd just used. It was like the ambient mana gathered around me to power my spells, and now it was flowing back to me. I could keep fighting like this all day, and I wouldn't even need Doomseeker as a power reserve.

“Fiercly fought, Legate Carter! I admit I didn’t expect such personal combat magic from a wizard of the Dragon Lodge!” Prince Herius laughed as he bashed the head of another C-Grade disciple with a flash of crimson light.

Legate Morin was looking at me pale as a ghost, almost like he was more scared of me than the enemies all around him. He held a sword high, but he had yet to get any blood on it despite the bodies surrounding us.

The disciples had stopped coming. Prince Herius and I had cleared this whole chunk of wall ourselves, and our enemies seemed to realize fighting the two of us was a hopeless battle. Beneath us, our combined army was pouring through the gap in the walls and rushing into the city. The bulk of the fighting had moved from the walls to the streets.

“There’s the gate levers. Let’s swing them open!” I pointed.

Prince Herius nodded, and we went to either side of the large spoked wheel that would hoist the chains and raise the gate. With the gate open, far more of our troops could rush through at once, and we could storm the city in its entirety.

“Find the elder yet?” I asked after the gate was open and we could take a moment to catch our breath and figure out where we were needed.

“Better! I found two.” The prince pointed to two dense clusters of people down below. Both were parts of the city where our forces were taking heavy casualties thanks to the presence of a single elite B-Grade, who could do the same thing to our people that we’d just done to theirs.

“I’ll take the left,” I offered. and the prince nodded in agreement. Myrina was already there alongside most of my melee Amazonians. Eventually, Cyra would arrive to help them, but I didn’t want my forces taking casualties this early in the campaign, and Legate Morin’s legion of fodder would only buy my people so much time.

Then, he twisted his hammer in a spin. It must have weighed far more than it looked, because when he halted it, the hammer’s weight flung him over the other side of the wall toward his destination.

“I’ll guard the wall!” Legate Morin suggested, but I grabbed him by his shirt collar once again.

Not to be outdone by Prince Herius’ flying exit, I felt the wind cup my body and got the distinct impression that I could fly. I felt so certain of the feeling that I stepped right off the wall.

Like the beating of some great spectral wings, a sudden gust of air kept me aloft. I turned to look at my back and could faintly see the outline of ethereal dragon wings behind me.

I used Elemental Step then, this time using ley lines of air elemental magic, rather than earth elemental ley lines. In an instant, I arrived at my destination.

My opening salvo was a barrage of Mana Bolts from above. Combined with Time Stutter, that attack cut down a third of the disciples backing up the B-Grade Elder, and all the rest were at least a little affected by my rapidly building afflictions of Corrupting Mark, Hemorrhage, and Destined Death.

The destruction that heralded my arrival shattered most of a city block. Enemies died by the dozens, and stone buildings toppled one after another. Someone like me, even at the very start of B-Grade, could turn a city to rubble in just a few minutes of carelessness. I did my best to keep my spells focused, since I knew Prince Herius wanted this city intact.

I breathed another spray of fire down on them, though this time it was more beam-like than widely spread flame. But now that they were prepared, the elder blocked my attack. It looked like a simple open-palmed parry, like I’d tried to punch him and he was blocking my strike with his arm.

But around his limb, mana shifted, flowed, changed, and redirected my fire. It spun around him and was soon thrown back at me. I tossed Legate Morin toward the flame as a distraction. Based on my read of the enchantments he was hiding, he’d survive just fine. Then, I used Shadowrealm Stride to vanish and appear again behind the elder.

I finally got a good read on him as I tried to take him out from behind.

Black Beast Sect Elder (Level 215)

The sect elder wasn’t even stronger than Morania had been, though I’d had Cyra’s help that time. Even so, I was confident in my victory just with my usual abilities. That being said, I had a number of abilities in need of a combat test.

Curse of Ill-Fortune was active the moment I had my eyes on him, but what I really wanted to try was Critical Strike. With his back turned on me and Exploit Weakness active, I was certain I could land a devastating blow.

I clapped my hands together, and golden light sprouted between them, forming a spear forged of sunlight. It was remarkably quick for such a powerful spell, though it had a steep mana cost. Thankfully, my new Signature Skill granted me the mana pool of a dragon, so I wasn’t even close to being worried about running out of mana.

The spear of golden light tore through the Black Beast Sect elder’s back, leaving a hole the size of my head. Blood gushed out of him as Destined Death and Hemmorage triggered together for massive damage. The fight was already over, and I hadn’t even finished testing my new abilities. Perhaps this Signature Skill had been the right choice after all.

I let out a draconic roar, and the effect was like Awakening the Inner Beast, but enhanced once more. Fear filled the hearts of the remaining Black Beast Sect disciples, and bloodlust filled the hearts of my allies. Even the thirteenth legion’s fodder climbed back to their feet, and those who could still fight seemed ready.

With the enemy leaders dead, we swept through the rest of the city. Once their elders were dead, the Black Beast sect cultivators seemed to realize they were outmatched and soon turned tail and fled. Only the weakest and slowest of their ranks remained to fight, and I held myself back so the weaker members of our army could get the levels, though all would get some thanks to the party system we used.

A few hours later, I met back up with Prince Herius. Though his armor no longer shone like new, and he was covered in blood, his eyes still shone.

“The city is ours! Legate Carter, secure the walls. Legate Morin, start knocking on doors. Each surviving household must send a family member to this courtyard, where I shall spread the good news of their liberation!”

During all the fighting, I noticed a few huddled and nervous figures scattered around the city. There were probably even more tucked away in basements or small pocket spaces like most System civilizations used to hide children.

They had looked equally terrified of us as they had of the Black Beast Sect cultivators. I hoped Prince Herius could win them over, but I couldn’t help but fear he was doomed to be disappointed.

<Note>
Whew. Another big chapter. No wonder I was tired last week while writing this.