Elevation of Mana Chapter 198 Rocks Fall Everything Dies

It was fortunate that the dinos had abandoned attacking us before we made it back to our temporary base. The wall we'd build had worked as a staging point thus far, being made thicker and stronger, with a few support buildings here and there as we needed them. I twas still pretty basic, but would be a fortress before long.

When Neera and I landed near Rolan's command center people saw us and realized that things were bad, our faces all but shouting that something hadn't gone to plan. Even the man himself frowned as we approached, silencing the other advisors around him.

“What is it?” he asked.

“They're going through some kind of change, getting bigger, stronger,” I told him.

“We can barely handle the groups of them we have now if we split them up. How are we supposed to deal with that?” one of his people said.

“The good news is that they're killing most of their own, so we at least won't have as many.”

“Neera, your thoughts?” he asked the up until now silent woman.

“They're not at the level of the ones who killed the old Ancients, but they're getting there. If we don't act...”

“What have we already been doing if not acting?” Rolan asked calmly.

“I don't doubt it would be worse if we hadn't done anything, but we need to take this group out quickly, and move from them,” I said, trying to calm down some of the arguments.

“Any ideas my fair inventor?” Neera sneered.

“Several, but most won't work in the time we have. One which might though.”

It was true too, but with the numbers we had to deal with who knew what we were going to be handling. I also didn't exactly have a chance to master some form of ice magic, something which might have been a better use of my time than building an airship, but hindsight and all that.

“Please explain then,” Rolan led.

“Alright, here's how we start...”

It was a well known fact that the defender had the advantage, and this world was no different. In any fight those who could make the enemy come to them, who could arrange the terrain, the placement of forces, they had something the enemy didn't.

For this reason I'd let Chien take control of the blimp, for I felt I would be more use on the battlements. There were only so many casters here, and they only trusted me so much, so this much was necessary.

He was coming back now, speeding along as fast as he could while keeping shields focused below the craft. Ball after ball of flame shot towards him like fireworks at a celebration, following the craft as he brought it towards us. A few had gone along with him, elders who claimed they had fairly strong shields, ones who would be better there than here, after all, we had a wall.

“You sure this will work?” Rolan asked from beside me.

“No,” I said with a shrug. “But it's the best I've got on short notice.”

The first of the monsters crested the horizon and we began to fire upon it. These things were dangerous enough, and there were elders that could easily hit things at that range, so there was no reason to not do it. Any damage we could inflict now would help later. It also ticked them off, which was useful.

Our opponents, no less than ten of them, finally seeing something they thought they could easily reach began ignoring the blimp and charged us. I had to admit, for something that size, I did not expect them to be so fast. Each had grown, now around the size of a medium sized building, and were barreling towards us. Bigger than we'd expected, but still within workable levels.

More and more spells began to pelt the creatures in waves. As one slowed everyone moved to the next, trying to get them together, all in one spot, one small location. It wasn't easy, but we managed, just pulling the roaring herd into a pack, perfect for the next stage.

“This is madness,” Neera complained from near me as she threw wave after wave of projectile. “If they make it to us we'll lose so many! Your weapon isn't even magical!”

“They won't, just bunch them up!”

It was as I spoke that the next part of the plan went into action. The beasts took another step, and almost as one the ground gave out. There were no poorly covered traps, we had better methods. Roots had gone under, and we'd dug out the bottom, huge pits, just the place to hold them. At the bottom of each were angled rods of stone, another attempt to just hold them.

The creatures fell a good twenty feet onto the stakes, though from what I could see the damage was incidental. Those stones might have been enough against the lesser ones, a simple trap to kill one or two, but these were a bit tougher, the points of stone barely piercing their hide. It did keep them busy though.

“NOW!” I shouted pointlessly, tossing up a flare.

The people above us, on the sides of the mountains surrounding this valley didn't need to be told. See, I'd brought all these explosives, but against fire monsters they were... not as useful as I'd hoped they could be. However, when holes were drilled into rock faces and the bombs carefully lowered in... if I'd done the math right...

There was a crack and a cliff face sheered off from its moorings, almost seeming to hang in the air for a moment. Slowly, ponderously, it began to move, down, down and away from the rocks it had once been part of. Who knew how much stone there actually was there, but it had to be thousands of cubic feet at least.

With a thunderous crash it fell upon our trap. My aim had been a bit off, but a bit off was still close enough to drop a fair chunk of a mountain onto the static targets. They screamed, like terrified and injured animals as boulder after boulder slammed into them.

It wasn't perfect of course, a few of the reptilians struggled and tried to crawl from the wreckage, pulling themselves upwards through the rocks and debris, but it was enough. With them injured, broken, and still we rained death upon them until nothing moved, and then for awhile after just for good measure.

“Well that worked,” Rolan said, sounding almost surprised.

“Good, let's see if we can do it again.”