Chapter 15

“The Empyrean has adopted the same communications network as the Obsidian Dominion pioneered in its early days. Each settled planet has a relay installed upon it, which can be used to bounce any signal or spell to the next in line or, failing that, to the second closest. In this manner did the Dominion manage to continue its aggressive colonization and invasion effort across multiple planets without fear of any civil uprisings. If a planet fell out of communication, it became immediately apparent to the worlds on either side of it in the network, and as such, the relays served not only their primary function, but also as an early warning system if there was a crisis or situation developing. 

Obviously, the Empyrean version is less focused on the immediacy required to respond to rebellion and conflict and considerably more widespread as there is less requirement for censorship and the control of information dispersal. Many ships and permanent deep-space stations are also the home to relays, allowing the easier spread and communication across the open network.”

—Safe Hands: The Infrastructure of the Empyrean, Part One, Jatzmara Nive

The core worlds had looked better than Sylvas would have anticipated, viewed at a distance through the scrying lens of Ironfist’s flagship. 

There were enough Ardent to drive back the first wave of eidolons, if not the next or the next or the next. The tears were patched, as well as they could be, and barricades were raised where they could not be. Whole continents ceded to the encroaching menace everywhere that he looked. Once you got out a distance from the core, it became infinitely worse. Some worlds fought on, but some had already fallen into deathly silence, with nothing living but the eidolons.

It was one of those worlds that they were falling towards now.

“Is there any particular reason that we could not have done this on one of the worlds that has not been overrun?” Malachai asked as politely as he could muster while staring out the shuttle window at their impending doom.

“We need a broken relay, not a working one. Won’t be able to tell if the plan worked if it was working…” Kaya snapped back.

“And we believe that this plan will work?” Malachai very deliberately looked past Kaya to Sylvas. 

Kaya leaned forward to be in his line of sight again. “You know the best thing about you?”

The necromancer paused to meet her stare. “What is the best thing about me?”

“You’re tall.” For a blessed moment, that was all she had to say, but then she continued. “Means I don’t have to reach down to punch you right in your…”

Sylvas spoke over her, loudly, so nobody had to hear about which part of the anatomy she meant to use as a punching bag. “The plan will work. I’ve looked over the theoretical framework, and it all makes sense. The only reason that nobody has ever attempted something like this before is the exorbitant mana costs. Which we’ve got covered.”

“You must forgive me for having my doubts,” Malachai said with the faintest hint of a smirk. “I should not have doubted the plan or the spellcraft of one of the great thinkers of our time.”

Hector cast a desperate glance back from the cockpit at Sylvas, as if Sylvas could do a damned thing about their endless bickering.

Kaya’s fury faded from her face, replaced with a wicked grin. “It’s alright, stanzbuhr. I’m not mad at him. Must be hard knowing you’re the weakest person on the ship.”

Technically, she was correct. Saizen and Rania had elected to stay behind with the fleet. Saizen, because he had no intention of ever putting himself in harm’s way again, and Rania, because there was going to be nothing for her to do down on the planetary surface. This was not some ancient ruin that needed study or some artifact-laden vault that needed to be explored. There was no trace of the aions to be found here on what had been an agricultural world. It had been a weight off Sylvas’ shoulders, knowing that she wouldn’t be in the midst of the fighting this time around.

Malachai had spent his life training his face to show no hint of his emotions. It had been essential in the backstabbing court politics of home, and the barely more civil ranks of the Ardent, but with all of the practice that he’d had reading it, Sylvas could see the hurt showing in the man’s face as he very carefully did not reply to Kaya’s latest jab. He was a man who had defined himself by the fact that he was the most powerful. Whatever hardships he had endured, that had been his comfort, and now, with the rest of them empowered by covenants, there was no question that he felt as though he were being left behind.

Sylvas wasn’t stupid enough to try and tell Kaya off, setting her off all over again, and there was no point in trying to comfort Malachai, so he pushed himself out of his seat and walked through to the cockpit. “How does it look on the ground?”

Hector gestured at the displays, at the swarms of eidolons roving across the endless cornfields that covered the planet’s surface and forming intricate patterns in the stems they’d knocked down that reminded Sylvas entirely too much of spellforms. “Just peachy.”

“How close can we get to the…” Sylvas’ question was cut off by a sudden jerk, as Hector spun the shuttle off course. A burning bolt of crackling green death blazed through the space they’d been occupying just a moment before.

“Maybe we sit down, shut up, and let me focus?” Hector’s usual grin was looking strained, so Sylvas did just that, slipping into the seat beside him.

Usually, when they encountered eidolons, they were all of the same type or at least the same affinity, even if there was some variance between the individuals, but chaos had truly been unleashed with this grand incursion, and casting his gaze and senses around the planet below, Sylvas could make out a chaotic mix of what felt like almost every affinity of mana, not to mention eidolons ranging in size all the way up to the titanic creatures in the higher tiers. It shouldn’t have been a surprise that somewhere in that chaotic mixture of eidolons, there would be some capable of ranged attacks. Or fliers.

There was no great flock like they’d encountered on some worlds, the different affinities of the eidolons making them move too differently for them to be able to maintain set distances and speeds to match one another. But that did not mean there were not threats rising to meet them. Sylvas cast a simple gravity shear around the ship as Hector tried to focus on evasion, and it worked. The bombardment from the surface missed them, and the fliers that attempted to ram into them slid around the curvature of the gravity shear to go tumbling off and join the train of eidolons giving chase.

Space and the horizon vanished from the periphery of their vision, and the shuttle plunged on, aiming for the communications relay but knocked incessantly off course by the necessity of avoiding the various projectiles being flung up at them.

They came down hard into a cornfield, with Hector maintaining their speed until the very last moment to give any eidolons on the ground as little chance as he could to respond to their arrival. There wasn’t a huge difference between the touchdown and a crash, in terms of the forces being exerted, but they’d all crash-landed enough times by now to be used to it. Hector flicked a switch and headed for the back.

Kaya and Malachai were already out and fighting, driving back the closest eidolons in a blur of motion. The dwarf bristled with spikes like she’d become a metal sea urchin, while Malachai had summoned his scythe and was sweeping his way through corn and foes with the very same ease. As chaotic as it looked, there was a logic to their actions. Even if they weren’t talking to one another, they’d been working together long enough to fall into a sensible plan all the same. The shuttle had made a noise coming down, but an eidolon’s primary sense wasn’t for sound; it was for magic. By casting little and dealing with the stragglers they’d encountered here using weapons instead of spells, Kaya and Malachai were actually making this something like a covert operation. Something that ran entirely contrary to both of their natures.

Sylvas joined them on the frontline, launching out like a bullet to intercept one of the eidolons leaping for them. It was a slick quadruped, with each of its purple limbs ending in a single sickle claw and a smooth expanse where a real animal would have had a head. Then it was all of that, but in two halves as the gravity around Sylvas’ hand narrowed down to the thickness of a blade. Almost all the gravity magic he’d spent his time with the Ardent mastering came to him as easily as breathing now, without having to cast a thing. His mastery of his own gravity and will was enough to duplicate almost every spell without having to speak a word. It made sense, he supposed. He had integrated an eidolon into his being, so now he fought like one.

The two parts fell to either side of the shuttle’s off-ramp, and Hector stepped out blinking at the bloody slaughter that had already been concluded. He let out a whistle. “Remind me not to piss you guys off.”

Malachai and Kaya stepped face to face with one another, ignoring both Sylvas and Hector, and then, to everyone’s surprise, Kaya lifted up one arm and pointed a fist towards the crown prince in silence. Malachai stared at it for a moment, then extended his own fist to bump against it.

Sylvas returned the favor, ignoring them and turning to Hector. “Which way?”

He pointed, and they all moved off. Infighting settled, for now.

Cutting through the fields meant that they had a very limited field of vision, and any eidolons on the ground would have to deal with the same, but Sylvas was reliant on different senses now, as were their enemy. He could feel where every eidolon in his sphere of influence was, and as his powers had grown, so too had that sphere. It encompassed almost the whole world that they stood on now.

The eidolons that had been giving chase to the shuttle finally caught up, but they dealt with them just as quietly as the ones that they’d encountered on the ground. Sylvas launched up to intercept them before they could touch down, using all the momentum that had carried them down to the surface against them, splitting them apart as easily as cracking eggs. The fliers that overshot, the other three leapt on with glee, catching them, dragging them to the ground, and hacking them apart.

Their attempts at stealth had no hope of lasting. Not with Sylvas along with them, blazing like the sun with all of his power. Before they’d arrived, those eidolons that were equipped to dig had probably been burrowing down towards the world soul of the planet, but now there was one up on the surface for all the other eidolons to have a go at.

He could feel where every eidolon on the planet was, but they could feel him, too. He looked back over his shoulder. “We need to go faster.” 

Kaya had manifested an axe blade that was bigger than her to carve a particularly chitinous eidolon in half. She kicked one half away from her and let the other half drop to splatter the back of Malachai’s legs. “We’re going loud?”

Hector was shaking his head when he stepped out from behind his own downed eidolon. “You want the whole planet headed our way?”

“They’re coming, either way,” Sylvas started to explain.

“It is a matter of timing.” Malachai’s last swing of the scythe had unleashed a crackling sickle of death magic that blackened every stalk of corn it passed through as it spread out, sweeping through the eidolons it encountered in its path and leaving them visibly untouched but undeniably dead. “The full force will take some time to close in on our position. If we arrive swiftly enough at the relay, we might complete our work before the bulk of them arrive.”

“Oh, so you did understand the plan?” Kaya turned to stare at him.

“My difficulty was not with understanding it,” Malachai said, stone-faced. “It was comprised mostly of very short words, after all.”

For a moment, the two of them stood glaring, then Kaya let out a bark of laughter. “Short words.”

“I thought that you would like that.” A hint of a smile played over Malachai’s lips.

“That’s great. Glad you’re all buddies again.” Hector rolled his eyes. “But the way I heard the plan, Mr. Dusont and I are the ones who’re going to be carrying this whole thing while you two screw around. Excuse me if I don’t want to be up against the whole planet.”

Malachai’s smile showed no signs of fading. “We will have no trouble.”

“Going loud!” Kaya yelled, and then she suddenly seemed to double in size as metal flooded out to encompass her. She rose from the ground in this newly formed suit of armor until she towered over the three humans, until she stood as tall as the biggest of the eidolons Sylvas had seen on this planet.

Hector sighed. “How loud?”

Sylvas was casting silently and instantly, wrapping them all in a flight spell and charging it with as much mana as he could muster without bursting the spellforms. The new spells that Mira had designed were much more stable than the old, but even they had limits. 

He grinned. “Supersonic.”