Chapter 26

“Tier Fives represent the first eidolons capable of bringing about full planetary death without assistance. They are casually typified as the first eidolons to radiate some degree of the affinity that they are associated with, though this is not always the case—and the reason that scrying is essential for correct tier assessment. While they can be subdued by conventional means, it is generally more cost-effective to make every effort to simply return them to their native plane of existence. For the higher tiers of eidolons, see supplementary material: Unwinnable Fights.”

—The System of Eidolon Categorization, Part Two, Ardent Official Manual

“Ain’t my job to feed that stanzbuhr…” Her mother clipped her over the back of the helmet with the flat of her hand before she could finish that thought. Then both Mother and Father Runemaul burst out laughing uproariously, while Kaya just stood there with her shoulders slumped. It was easy to see where she’d gotten her rather violent sense of humor.

Malachai had been briefly overwhelmed by the new magic flowing through him, his ascension to the next step in his progression and his journey to completeness, but now he stood at a distance with the whites of his eyes showing, staring down not one but three different iterations of Kaya.

“It is a pleasure to meet you both,” Sylvas spoke quickly, before any attention could be directed in Malachai’s direction. “I just wish the circumstances were better.”

All three dwarves shrugged and spoke in unison. “Isn’t a party without a fight.”

Then they all looked at each other and burst out laughing again. Malachai ducked behind the nearest soldier and hid.

With all four of the Empyrean’s remaining covenant mages together, it was time to set out for the Nexus itself, but whatever course they picked, Sylvas could already tell they were going to have trouble. The enemy’s remaining covenant mages had learned from the mistakes of their predecessors and remained evenly spaced across the terrain, while the eidolons, both large and small, simply ran riot across the whole planet. The central block of the Empyrean’s forces had hit entrenchments and eidolons, and their progress had stilled. The elves on the far side of them had managed to push in a little closer before encountering anything too insurmountable, but they, too, had now come to a halt. If anyone was going to break through the enemy lines, it was going to have to be Sylvas and his company. He turned to the gathered soldiers. “We drop off the back of the plateau, and we’ll circle around to the right. The ridge there will give us cover as we advance.”

“You can’t just port us over?” One of the Dusont Knights plucked off his helmet, revealing himself to be Malachai’s useless Uncle Simeon. “I don’t much fancy hiking through all this.”

“We can make small jumps safely,” Sylvas answered without much of a second thought. “Any farther and you’re unlikely to survive.”

Simeon shrugged and strapped his helm back on. Sylvas was genuinely surprised that what he’d taken to be an entirely frivolous man had chosen to take the battlefield with them. Just as he was entirely unsurprised to find Kaya’s parents flanking Malachai the next time that he looked around.

He addressed his troops as a whole once more. “We’ll make a slow and steady approach, keep our heads down. Tackle eidolons as they come, and do as little as possible to attract the attention of the Dominion.” There was some nodding, and they were about to set off, when Sylvas remembered something. “If you spot the enemy gravity mage, let me know. I owe them a few hits.”

That drew out some chuckles from Hector’s soldiers, and then they all moved off.

Behind the plateau, sheltered from all the noise of the distant spellfire, it was almost peaceful. Malachai walked flanked by his two new best dwarvish friends, while Kaya trailed behind them, trying her best not to cackle out loud at his discomfort. Hector fell into step beside Sylvas. “You managed to convince Rania to stay behind?”

Sylvas sighed. “No.”

“But you convinced her to stay with the ships?” Hector clarified.

“Also no.” He held up a hand before there were any more questions. “She’s with some… allies, joining us later.”

“You know you’re meant to be keeping secrets from the enemy, not from your friends.”

“Honestly, this operation has so many moving parts.” Sylvas forced a smile. “I’m pretty sure about half of them are secret from me, too.”

Luck had been on their side as they progressed from the newly planted plateau and along the northward ridge, but luck could only ever last for so long. The torrential spellfire that had been tracing after their position collapsed part of the ridge as they approached it, leaving molten rock bubbling and a clear line of sight to one of the raised fortifications that the enemy covenant mages were nested in. There was no hesitation or barked orders. Sylvas just gave his friends a nod and launched himself straight up. Almost as soon as he broke cover, a barrage of spells was unleashed in his direction, but a focused gravity spike sent it all flying back along the same parabola to smite against the side of the enemy fort. It bought him a moment to cast for himself, and what he launched in their direction was not something that he was proud of, but it was something that Mira had been saving for just this occasion.

The white mixed-mana missile that he’d used to gut enemy warships before, seeking out their etherium supplies and burning them up, was not suited to this kind of battlefield, but when he folded it together with the self-fueling death sickle that he’d used on the relay world, he made a spell that killed, refueled from the death that killing created, and then leapt off to kill again. Maybe the covenant mage in the tower would get a shield up in time and deflect it back to feed on everyone else in the fortification, but maybe they wouldn’t. Even if they did, it would just bound around, slaughtering without mercy, before coming right back to try again, over and over, until it ran out of targets or everyone was dead.

Diving back down, Sylvas could only hope that he’d caught the bare minimum of attention from the other enemy emplacements in his brief moments of flight. He met up with the rest of his troops on the other side of the molten gap, and not one of them was injured by their rush across without cover. Distantly, he could still feel his spell ripping through the enemy fortress, and just as distantly, he felt the pang of regret at the lives he was taking. When all of this was over and done, maybe he’d have a tear to shed for all the poor Dominion soldiers he’d killed, but he certainly wasn’t going to be weeping for them today.

 The ridge curved left not long after that unfortunate business, still running perpendicular to the enemy emplacements, but curving gradually in towards their destination. It was there that the real trials began.

An eidolon, one of the vast draconic beasts of flame and destruction that Blackstar had deployed against them in space, stood proudly atop the ridge they meant to round. With its wings spread wide, its barrel gut glowing with barely contained fire, and a serpentine head that lashed around to focus on Sylvas the moment that his troops stepped into its line of sight.

At the speed of thought, Sylvas brought up a gravity shear, and it was still almost too slow. From the gaping maw of the eidolon, fire poured forth. Great plumes of smoke erupted from its blackened muzzle as it poured out more and more blue-blazing heat. Sylvas’ shear washed the flames themselves around the cowering soldiers, but the heat swept over them all the same. Hair crispened and burnt, and skin reddened and opened up in welts. Two more shields were slammed into place behind his to hold back the heat. One of ice and one of steel. If it had only been the one or the other, they wouldn’t have been enough to keep the front line alive. Even as it was, the medics were rushing forward, frantically casting as they went to try and get everyone back on their feet and to unburst some eyeballs.

Sylvas launched himself up and over the blinding wall they’d raised and immediately got hit by the very same flames he’d just tried to fend off everyone else.

He opened his eyes again, staring up into the big, black sky, the intervening moment of falling and searing pain missing from his supposedly perfect memory.

Let’s just file that memory away for now. No need for you to be too traumatized at right this very moment, darling.

Kaya’s metal wall was turning into a tide of molten slag, the ice still being layered onto it melting away before it could even rime the surface with frost, and the shear just wasn’t effective at holding off heat, but Sylvas fragmented off some small part of his mind to maintain it all the same. Holding the flames themselves off was worth something… probably.

Back on his feet, he could see the terror on the faces of Hector’s soldiers, and he imagined that under their shiny helmets, the Dusont knights looked much the same. Just the presence of an eidolon evoked some primal fear in the hearts of most people. No small part of the Ardent training was getting accustomed to it, being able to fight through it. He could get through the fear, and he could get through the fire, he just had to think.

Isn’t that usually my job in all this, the thinking?

Casting as he ran, Sylvas went straight for the shield wall, raising a hand and launching it forward with a focused spike of gravity. The slab of molten metal surged forward, deflecting flame and heat until it hit the eidolon square in the face, and then Sylvas unleashed the spells he’d been weaving as he moved. Expanding the metal, freezing it, and then using one final spike of gravity to clamp it shut around the eidolon’s jaws. The stream of flame was cut off, and the eidolon raked at its own face with its claws.

Shooting forward like a bullet from a gun, Sylvas hit it square in the center of its chest, knocking it off balance, toppling it awkwardly over its tail and to the side. Given a moment to think and act, any Tier-7 eidolon could take apart his whole army, but he was not going to give it that moment. The next spell kicked in as he reared back, dilating time, slowing the world outside of the tiny bubble in which he operated. An eidolon could cast at the speed of thought, just like him, so he had to make sure he was thinking quicker.

Lances of ice impaled through the soot-blackened hide of the dragon, not seeking to kill but to pin it in place. The shimmering war and gravity that sprang so naturally from his fingers now were reshaped, not into five hooked claws, but into a singular blade, infused all the way through with the Crimson King’s nature. A blade of raw destruction, linked through him and his star-soul to all the destruction mana across the universe, that he launched with one final surging spike of gravity before normal time reasserted itself.

It struck home, burrowing up to the hilt in the dragon’s chest. What erupted from within it was volcanic, chaotic, and instant, washing up and over him, launching him back. His eyes were blinded, and his flesh was seared clean off the bone before he could regenerate the damage, but through the fresh-bared nerves and the veins of etherium, his other senses sang. The dragon-eidolon’s thermo-nuclear explosion was not another attack. It was the beast’s death throes.

Unblinded by the blood-wolf’s regeneration, he caught himself in mid-air before he could crash down again. He cast layer after layer of shielding, not over his people, but over the dying eidolon, encasing it in a cocoon of stone, ice, gravity, and all the rest. He contained the catastrophe that marked its death as best he could, even though it exploded across the full spectrum of mana.

Then it was done. The shell of shields crumbled away into dust, and the ashes that had been a world-killer crumbled away.