“Artillery, marked on the map!” Steve yelled.
“Incoming,” the dwarven artillery commander barked. Behind the dwarven lines, artillery cannons bellowed. These cannons looked similar to the ones that had been used on Emerilia; however, they were much more powerful.
Glowing runic lines surged around the barrel of the cannons. A layered spell formation appeared above the cannon’s barrel; as soon as it was complete, the gun fired. The glowing grand working shells howled into the skies, leaving behind a dissipating ring of Mana. The shells arced and came down toward the Jukal defenses. Spell formations appeared in front of the grand working shells, causing Light-type damage to shoot down from above, cutting through all below.
Spells weren’t as powerful on the Jukal worlds as they were on Emerilia. However, the grand working weapons and the magical tech functioned just the same.
An ark that had been dropping off more reinforcements vibrated as spell formations came to life. It shot ahead, toward another part of the battlefield as its cannons howled. The ground in its path was torn apart as the runic lines on its underside flared with light.
Dragons, DCA, and flying creatures appeared and spread out. They flew behind the ark, dropping down to bring destruction on the planetary governor’s defense forces.
Lox grunted, acknowledging the destruction that was everywhere. Artillery shells and mortars rained on the Emerilians as artillery cannons, spells, and grand working weapons were hurled back at the Jukal.
“Front line has engaged the defenses!” Gurren was up front watching over the front lines and reporting to Lox. “They always run. Mounted, you ready?” Gurren barked, changing channels.
“We’re ready. Got another two hours before we need to get the mounts back up,” the leader of the mounted said.
The Emerilians had various spells and enchanted items that allowed them to breathe in the alien atmosphere of some of the Jukal planets. However, this planet was highly acidic. The Emerilian people weren’t too bad off, but the creatures were having a hard time with it. They were larger and they couldn’t yell out that they didn’t have enough oxygen or that they were short of breath.
So, they needed to go back up to the arks every four hours to recharge their magical items and form new Mana barriers filled with air that agreed with them.
“Good. The Jukal are already running back to the next position. I want you to cut them down and charge into the next defensive structure,” Lox said.
“Yes, sir,” the commander said.
Lox looked over his feed, frowning as he saw one of the Jukal strong points being harder than expected to crack. “Deia, we’ve got a strong one.” Lox marked a waypoint and sent it to Deia.
“We’ll have a look into it,” Deia said, her voice calm as ever.
***
“We’ve got a target. Take us down,” Deia said to the rest of the party through party chat.
A roar that shook the heavens and the grounds below came from behind the advancing forces. The Jukal looked to see a blood-red dragon dropping from the sky above; on its back, three women could be seen. Fire stood in front, with Suzy and Deia on either side of her.
Induca, who was in her dragon form, glowed as Mana built up within her before a spell formation appeared in front of her mouth. Shocking fireballs that burned the air itself shot out rapidly, hitting the ground ahead of the advancing forces that were contesting the Jukal strong point.
Fire pushed her hand forward. Meteors formed above the strong point and rained down. As they landed, they exploded with incredible Fire Mana that melted and burned anything in its path.
Suzy waved her hand. From her ring of holding, dozens of her creations dropped to the ground below. They were towering headless giants made from rock and metal. They landed in a crouch, rising up and raising their hands. From between them, metal and stone turned into shields that stretched to either side, connecting to create a great wall.
A Jukal tank fired at Induca, making her have to bank away. Deia stood on Induca’s back, her footing steady even as she banked. The runes on her bow lit up and an arrow shot through the sky. It burned a hole through the tank’s armor and exploded inside.
The forces behind the creations got themselves together, following the advancing creations that were being hammered by the Jukal. They were regenerating themselves but it wasn’t fast enough to stop them from being destroyed. They would last for a handful more minutes before falling apart.
Suzy casually waved again. Air creations appeared, taking the shield creations thrown out with them and dropping them down. They landed below. Suzy severed her connection with the broken ones that toppled over in the battlefield.
Fire continued to cast more spells as Induca wheeled away from the Jukal defenses, not willing to pass them for fear of the defenses behind attacking them.
The front line of the Emerilian forces reached the defensive structures as a familiar aura appeared.
“This...” Fire’s eyes went wide.
“This is Earth Mana,” Induca said.
The ground around the defensive structure erupted into vines that attacked the attackers without reservation. The clean and precise lines fell into chaos. The Jukal defenders who weren’t actually Jukal but slaves that had been groomed by the Jukal for generations roared with power. They had served as entertainment for the Jukal Empire, but now they showed their own shocking skills.
As Emerilia had been the most popular show within the empire, many had tried to imitate it.
The four women looked at the scene below. Their shock turned into frowns as they felt the spells of the slaves descend on the Emerilians.
This is going to make things harder. Deia raised her bow, pulling back on the string. An arrow formed from fire appeared in her fingers as she pulled it all the way back and released it.
The arrow screamed out and hit one of the slaves. It made them take a dozen steps back and spit blood but they were still in the fight.
Deia’s eyes glowed with new fury as she pulled back on the bow string once again. The arrow’s passage made the air crack. The arrow drilled into the slave. Flames from inside its body burned it to ash in a moment.
Seeing how much power she had put into her attack, the others started to gauge their attacks off it. Deia fired arrows. By the time the first landed, another three were already on their way toward their targets.
Suzy threw out Dark creations that dropped to the ground, burrowing through it. In places around the enemy, metal spikes would shoot out of the ground, piercing the Jukal forces. In other places, the defenses would shatter and crumble as if the materials had passed through centuries of decay in just moments.
Jukal weapons systems rose out from the ground between the two layers of defenses. They shot up in the air, bringing the arks that had advanced under fire as well as any of the aerial forces that were moving around the Jukal lines.
The chaos of war descended. The four members of Party Zero in the sky did what they could to try to reduce the pressure on the forces in the air but they didn’t own the air by any means.
“We’ve got drones coming in from hidden hangars,” Steve, who was on the ground at the front line, called out. Being an AI, it was easy for him to split his processing power and deal with multiple things at the same time.
Deia looked to the ground. There the defenses were falling but in the rubble, there were powerful ripples as a magical war of spells, barriers, and counter spells shot out. The Emerilian forces were powerful to the extreme, but they had earned all of their strength, being rewarded by the Emerilia system. However, these slaves had been implanted by their masters with the nanites that would make them stronger and allow them to control Mana and turn it into spells. Then they had taken the controlling software and put it to the max. The slaves had lapsed into comas and a number of them had died, but those that remained were little more than powerful beasts.
Their attacks were simple, but then they had been taught only the most powerful and dazz
ling spells on Emerilia.
When they waded into battle, each of them was as powerful as three people in Devastator armor. However, the Emerilian forces had come together and their coordination had been tempered in the Myths and Legends event and the fighting that had rocked Emerilia for months. They pulled together; the fractured lines that had been thrown into chaos with the sudden surge of fighting slaves and magic started to recover.
A massive explosion smashed into the Emerilian forces. Induca and all of those on her were tossed away as if they were nothing but rag dolls.
Deia threw out her hand. Fire shot out of her hand as she quickly stabilized herself. She looked to where the explosion had come from. There was a mushroom cloud rising from where it hit.
Shocking power washed over her in waves, pulling the wind from her lungs and then trying to push her back. A wall of fire appeared as Deia let out a yell.
Fire mages worked together, resolving the power of the approaching firewall. The firewall collapsed, the different Emerilian Fire mages panting with exhaustion.
Air mages moved in concert through the air to near where the explosion had been. The mushroom cloud dissipated, revealing what lay underneath.
The Mana barrier had been torn apart; there was not even a trace of the orbs. The summoned creature corpses had been torn apart and shredded. They looked nothing like what they had in life.
Devastator armor was wrecked. Deia’s eyes shot off to the distance, where a rally point had been created and an anchor placed. One of the things coded into the armor was a teleportation spell. If the armor was under threat of being destroyed, then the people who were inside were teleported to a pre-set anchor point.
People filled the area around the anchor point; however, their numbers were less than what they should’ve been. The only reason for that was if the armor was destroyed so fast that there was no time for the teleportation spell to finish.
There was no more time to check on the survivors as a concentrated push of slaves rushed out from the defenses that had been under heavy siege just moments before.
Using the Emerilians’ shock, the slaves smashed into the Emerilians who remained. A chaotic brawl broke out between the two groups.
The four looked to one another before looking back to the battlefield.
Another explosion rocked the front lines as another mushroom cloud appeared.
“They’re using fucking nukes to break our lines!” Suzy screamed in anger.
A droning sound could be heard from above, and then a boom as something broke through the air. They all looked up and saw what looked to be multiple falling stars. However, these were not just passing by.
They raced through the air before slamming into the governor’s residence. The entire continent shook. The arks moved away from the continent as anyone in the sky was forced on to the ground. The air shook violently as massive craters from the impacts of the rounds being fired from the Deq’ual ships above tore through the governor’s palace.
Deia watched with a complicated look on her face. She had been at the front of some of the fiercest fighting in Emerilia. However, none of the spells she had seen could attempt to match up with the destruction that the Deq’ual ships were raining down upon this planet.
Dust shot up into the sky, blotting out the sunlight. Spells and weapons lit up the dust-filled sky.
“Mounted, move out!” Lox barked.
The mounted forces moved through lanes between the miles-long formations, picking up speed as their beasts leapt over the destroyed remains of the defenses, coming down on the other side to charge out and meet the Jukal slaves and defenders that lay behind their walls.
Screams filled the air, as did the clash of weapons and spells crashing into the world below.
Air and Water mages rose up from the ranks. Spell formations formed between them, using the power of the air that had been disturbed by the passage of the Deq’ual fleet’s attacks and the moisture in the air.
The dust came together, forming sand tornadoes that tore through what lay in their path as if they were a sand blaster.
The Water mages altered the temperatures of the water above. Clouds rolled in from above, going from the brown dust, to brownish clouds, to gray to black in mere seconds. The wind spun up faster and faster as lightning crackled through the sky; the dark black clouds turned green.
Massive tornadoes dropped from the skies as lightning crackled within them. The Air and Water mages merged the dust tornadoes and the lighting tornadoes together. The dust fused together, becoming glass as the tornadoes shot toward the enemy. Anything caught in their path was shredded; the fierce cutting forces of wind was reinforced with the glass shards and powerful lightning that raged through their creation.
A teleportation spell formation appeared as a familiar face appeared.
“Anna, what are you doing here?” Suzy demanded as Anna moved to join them.
“Well, they might know how to make tornadoes but they don’t know how to make Air paladins!” Anna had a look of pride on her face as she waved her hands. She sent out a message through her interface before a spell formation appeared in front of her hands.
The Jukal commanders, sensing all of the power that was now surging toward Anna, turned their fire onto her.
Rage built up within Deia. She stepped out into the air as blue flames emanated from her body. The sky seemed to dim under her power. Arrows shot out as blue streaks of light, hitting the plasma rounds and the spell formations that the slaves were forming, breaking spells and destroying the plasma rounds as they were released.
Fire leapt off Induca as her spell formations appeared. They seemed to be a portal into a fiery hell as Affinity spirits rushed forth. Fire waved her finger imperiously and the Fire Affinity spirits rushed to obey, eating the plasma rounds and absorbing heat from the surrounding area; as they passed, the ground was covered in frost as they sucked it dry of heat energy to grow more powerful.
They burned their way through walls and let out screams as they shot into the Jukal defenders, looking to take them over.
Lu Lu had been off on her own, supporting the other side of the fighting formation with a Light-attribute phoenix she had taken a liking to. She let out a screech as her body expanded to two hundred meters long. Lightning from the clouds descended upon her; lightning cracked over her silver body as she unleashed an attack that killed the Jukal defenders and threw back their nanite-enhanced slaves, burn marks covering their bodies.
Induca seemed to land in the sky. Flames created a platform under her feet as she created a massive Mana barrier around them all.
Suzy threw out her Fire Affinity creations. “Fire, have your spirits take over my creations. I’ll break my connection but with the creations’ bodies, they’ll be stronger and last longer!” Suzy called out.
Anna continued to move her hands, creating incantations as the spell formations around her continued to writhe and change, as they seemed to be fighting her very actions. “You WILL submit!” Anna’s words filled the sky as her eyes lit with a white light. White vapor seemed to flow out from them on either side. Her whole body emitted a white glow as the Mana in the air was stirred up.
The Air and Water mages started to move their hands in new patterns, creating new spell formations.
The sky and the tornadoes seemed to shudder for a second, as if resisting the mages.
“Paladins, RISE!” Anna’s commands seemed to alter the very sky. The clouds from above descended, separating and joining with the tornadoes.
Drones fired on the compressing clouds; missiles exploded in their midst, making parts of the clouds dissipate. Some of the mages who were part of the massive spell spat out blood from the backfire of Mana. However, they continued to press forward, a gleam of madness in their alien eyes.
A flight of drones circled around and came in close to hit one of the tornadoes. As they lined up, a spear shot out from the tornado that was retracting. The spear was formed of hail, glass, and lightning b
arely contained in a tempest of air.
It hit the lead drone, destroying it and exploding into shrapnel and lightning that arced to the other drones, cutting at them with incredible power.
Drones fell from the sky, nothing more than burning wrecks. However, the people on the battlefield were all focused on the tornado that had compressed down to reveal a massive twenty-meter-tall armored paladin, holding a shield in one hand as a spear formed in the other.
Its features were faint as wind whipped around it, creating a body of Air blades and tornadoes.
The fifty or so tornadoes that had descended shrank down, pulling in the green thunder-filled clouds and forming one or two Air paladins that appeared from within the tornadoes.
“Suzy! Air creation cores! Summoners, be ready to take control!” Anna’s words passed over the battlefield.
Suzy didn’t even pause as she threw out Air and Water creation cores. Light creations picked them up, shooting forward at incredible speeds and burning out their power as they deposited them within the paladins.
The Jukal forces that had paused upon seeing the drones being torn apart by the Water and Air paladins seemed to come out from their reverie as they attacked Anna once again. Their eyes filled with killing intent as they poured out attacks.
Fire, Deia, and Induca could only defend against all of the incoming attacks.
Air and Water appeared away from them and over the attacking forces.
“Interesting.” Water’s words boomed through the heavens as he stretched out his hands.
Air did the same, channeling their power into the paladins that became more substantial. Their power surged to the heavens and the cores, stabilizing the paladins.
“Lu Lu,” Suzy yelled, pointing to the paladins.
Lu Lu turned and unleashed lightning attacks on the paladins. Instead of weakening them, they grew stronger.
“Have you got summoners who can control them?” Anna asked, gritting her teeth. The power fluctuations in front of her created violent ripples in the air.
Emerilia Series Box Set 5 Page 51