Beyond All Expectations (Emerilia Book 8)

by Michael Chatfield

***

  The teleport pad to the first eastern castle wasn’t the only one that was in nearly constant use.

  The ono within the second eastern castle was open as elves and DCA rushed outward and wounded were carried back into Terra.

  The DCA and elves moved out, quickly reaching the top of the circular building. The elves ran in orderly lines; the DCA did the same on their opposite side, pulling out their mortars.

  DCA observers called out ranges as mortar crews assembled their weapons. Those in the DCA who weren’t trained with mortars rushed through the halls of the castle, their shields ready and their swords drawn. They ran as one unit, their eyes cold diamonds underneath their helmets. They rushed out of the castle like a stream overflowing its banks. They spread out in every direction, supporting the melee fighters who were holding their own within the open area between the outer walls and inner castle.

  Overhead trebuchets continued to throw their boulders as the Terra Alliance’s aerial forces clashed with the Nalheim’s gryphons and sky screams.

  Mana bombs rained down from the DCA in the sky, making Mana barriers change colors violently and creating craters in the ground.

  The Nalheim attacked the oncoming DCA without a second thought. Their ranged disrupting attacks hit the DCA’s personal Mana barriers in a harsh display of colors. The Nalheim didn’t have time to yell out in indignation as the DCA met them in battle.

  The DCA soldiers were a little stronger in power than the Nalheim; however, they had been trained to the peak by their instructors. Their fighting abilities had been honed and refined over months and multiple battles with the Demon Horde or the creatures of the Ashal wilderness. They were meant to be a force that conducted lightning-fast raids, but they were also trained to defend a location, like the keeps that surrounded Devil’s Crater.

  Unlike the dwarves and the larger standing armies of Emerilia, the DCA didn’t use standard tactics. They worked in small groups no larger than ten. They would use their swords and shields as easily as they would use their feet, their breastplates that could send out Mana bombs, grenades, or their coded bracelets. This was the power of the DCA: it wasn’t their numbers or their innate strength, but their ability to use multiple tools to defeat an enemy.

  Mana spearheads broke through the Nalheim’s defenses as the DCA tossed out grenades. Their velocity was low enough that they could enter the Mana barriers, exploding within.

  The DCA thrived in chaos. As they came to the battlefield, the Nalheim found that they had descended into hell and the demons and their fellows ruled.

  The Nalheim were rigid in their fighting ways. They might be fast and great at defending themselves, but in the face of so many different attacks, they weren’t prepared. A Mana-created spearhead could hit a Nalheim hard enough to send them flying, a grenade could roll under their feet: no matter what, the DCA made them hold their position by peppering them with physical spearheads.

  A faint sound could be heard for a moment before arrows rose over the inner castle and the defenders, hitting Mana barriers and anyone who was unlucky enough to be caught out in the open. The rain of arrows seemed to be unending.

  The elves would release their arrows, bend down and grab a new arrow; the second rank would fire; as they strung their arrow, the third would fire. As their arrows flew overhead, the first rank stood once again, pulling and releasing their arrows before ducking once again, the process repeating itself.

  The surface of the castles was already covered with different dwarven artillery positions that were firing as fast as they could load the rounds in.

  The DCA mortar teams called out to one another. Their weapons were simple tubes with a baseplate and supporting struts. The baseplate was similar to the Mana bomb chest plates of the aerial forces but with the repulsing code that was held within the ground forces’ chest plates.

  Phoump phoump phoump!

  The mortars fired down the line. Glowing Mana bombs rose and then descended, arcing over the defenders and slamming against the attacking Nalheim.

  ***

  Josh watched the battle at the second eastern castle. In his vision, he saw blinking notifications.

  Castle Conquest

  You have captured a contested castle!

  Rewards:

  2,000 Conquest points

  Castle Conquest

  You currently control (8/8) Castles

  Earning: (8) conquest points per minute

  Bonus: For controlling all of the Castles, you earn an additional (1) conquest point(s) per minute. For half of the Castles, you earn an additional (1) conquest point(s) per minute.

  Total points: 33,487

  Rights: Administrative (Can spend conquest points to upgrade Castle infrastructure and repair castles. Can also delete Castle infrastructure)

  Weastern Castle 1

  Status: Under Control by Terra Alliance

  Earn: 1 conquest point per minute

  Evolution: 1 (Second evolution 0%). Can increase evolution to Level 2 by paying (100,000) Conquest points.

  Upgrades: Trebuchet, Siege Towers, Increased combat abilities for defenders (Damaged), Soul Gem construct defenses (destroyed), Dwarven Artillery batteries (3/40), Aleph Repeater batteries (0/12)

  Durability: 21,548/ 60,000

  Castle Conquest

  For controlling 4 conquest castles, you gain an extra conquest point (1) per minute

  Castle Conquest

  For controlling 8 conquest castles, you gain an extra conquest point (1) per minute

  His eyes moved to the interface screens that showed the battle within the second eastern castle in greater detail.

  “The outer wall has been completely destroyed. The Nalheim are now firing their trebuchets over their forces, hitting the defenders in the open area between the outer wall and the castle. Also, the castle is being heavily damaged by the trebuchet’s hits,” Cassie said at Josh’s elbow.

  “What about Dwayne’s forces?” Josh asked.

  “They’re nearly ready to move out. The aerial forces are moving through Terra at this time. They’ll be ready to move within ten minutes,” Cassie reported.

  “Damn those Mana barriers,” Josh hissed, slamming his fist down on the balcony. The Nalheim had smartened up about their Mana barriers when they’d stayed in the first eastern castle. Now the barrier busters were largely useless, making the dwarves have to burn through their offensive ammunition.

  Malsour and Induca were opening up barriers with ease but there were hundreds of thousands of Nalheim warriors and only two of them.

  A great roar came from the castle as Malsour flapped his wings, shooting into the air.

  “Shit. Looks like those damned gryphons and sky screams finally got the balls to attack Malsour and Induca,” Josh said.

  Cassie put her hand on Josh’s shoulder and squeezed it slightly. “The DCA are having a good effect on the ground— being light and mobile, they were easily able to reinforce the second eastern castle’s forces. They’re holding them back.” Cassie tried to reassure him.

  Josh patted her hand, smiling to her as he opened up his interface and watched streams from around the second eastern castle.

  Party Zero stood in an island of calm where the wall had been. Around them, spells were constantly going off as Lox, Gurren, Jung Lee, Dave, and a third man in Devastator armor wielding Steve’s axe held off the tide.

  Even they couldn’t resist all of the Nalheim as they were slowly pushed backward, linking up with the rest of the defenders.

  Dave flew back, his Mana barrier faltering from a hit.

  Flames, angry and cruel, flooded outward from Party Zero. Deia floated in midair, looking like a goddess of war. Her face was cold and filled with fury as the Nalheim were washed away in a flood of fire.

  Josh’s heart clenched, only relaxing slightly as he saw Dave get to his feet, moving backward; a swarm of grenades appeared around him and hurled out toward the Nalheim.

  The ranks of Nalheim collapsed under th
e grenades’ explosions.

  Someone yelled out. The defenders raised their weapons in defiance and rushed forward to occupy the area that the Nalheim had held. They used the chaos and confusion to their advantage, killing all who tried to stop them and forcing the Nalheim back farther.

  After a few moments, the Nalheim rallied but their losses had run a few hundred.

  The Nalheim and the defenders were engaged in a wild melee. War lizards, their riders, and the dismounted Nalheim moved within their Mana barriers, their shields and spears clashing with the Terra Alliance’s forces.

  Arrows, spells, mortars, and dwarven artillery came down upon these ground forces that had pushed through the western walls of the eastern castle. Here and there, new sections of the castle’s outer walls were destroyed by the combined efforts of the Nalheim’s trebuchets and their own disrupting attacks.

  As the castle walls crumbled, more and more of the Nalheim were able to join into battle, forcing the defenders to stretch out their lines to fight off these new threats.

  The DCA had added much-needed strength to the defenders but the melee fighters who only numbered twenty-five thousand were up against a force nearly four times their strength.

  The supporting fire was breaking Mana barriers but it took a lot of time and the Nalheim had secondary Mana barriers. The only way to defeat them seemed to be in straight-up combat.

  Josh wanted to send more reinforcements through the ono but with much more defenders, it would become hard for the different commanders within the castle to organize a proper defense.

  “Moving forward with what we’ve got,” Dwayne said.

  “Good luck.” Josh knew that as soon as Dwayne joined into the battle with the Nalheim, the dwarven artillery would go silent. The chance that they would hit the advancing forces of the Terra Alliance was too high.

  The battle would shortly be fought and resolved on the ground.

  Josh turned from his balcony. He checked the twin daggers on his lower back and looked to Cassie.

  “I’m coming with you,” she said, equipping her sword and shield that appeared on her arm and her hip.

  “Have I ever told you how sexy you are when you’re about to go into a fight?”

  “My boyfriend is so weird,” Cassie muttered, shaking her head. A helmet appeared over her head and her hair disappeared into it.

  ***

  Dave coughed. His Abscondita armor had run out of charge. He was currently charging it from a soul gem in his bag, but he was back from the front lines.

  With maximizing his Intelligence out and not working on increasing his Strength or Vitality, once his Mana barrier of his armor was down, he was one of the squishiest people around. He was fast and agile, but the Nalheim packed together and with two heads instead of one, they were able to predict and move in a way that reduced Dave’s chances of killing them easily.

  They were much stronger than him and were able to push him back. Although they didn’t land any hits that would kill him immediately, he’d taken a lot of hits on his Mana barrier, only to find out that the disrupting attacks were extremely good at breaking down Mana barriers.

  “Cover me for a bit. I think if I can figure out how this spear works and their disrupting attacks, I’ll be able to break down their barriers!” Dave yelled.

  Deia had already ordered him to the rear. He felt useless in this battle. He could end it all with a wave of his hand but at the cost of setting off alarms with the monitoring AI and having the Jukal come down on him.

  Still, the decision warred in his mind as he saw POEs being cut down.

  Thankfully the defenders were mostly players and they could come back, though there was the occasional POE who also fell to the Nalheim’s attacks.

  Dave blocked that out as he sunk his Touch of the Land spell into the spear he’d pulled from a Nalheim’s corpse. His eyes glowed with gray light; smoke pooled around him as he held the spear in his left and held out his right hand. An identical spear appeared in his hand. He jabbed upward, the same distorting attack coming from both.

  The conjured spear faded away from existence while Dave tossed the Nalheim spear to the side.

  Along Dave’s right bracer, the steel was melted away by fierce blue flames. Dave closed his eyes; new coding appeared in the silver and ebony layers of the bracer.

  People looked at the now revealed Mithril armband, many in jealousy as ebony and silver snaked over it, forming black and silver lines of tightly compacted lines or runes.

  These runes lit up with power as Dave held up his hand and pointed it at the Nalheim not far away. The air changed, distorting until one could barely see through it. The distorting ray smashed into the Mana barrier surrounding the Nalheim. The barrier rapidly changed color under the fierce attack.

  Dave held out his opposite hand. An orb appeared from midair and landed in his hand. The runes across the orb changed slightly as its surface moved quickly. The hundreds of layers that made up the orb changed into a new formation. Without a spell like Touch of the Land, one wouldn’t even be able to understand the hundreds of changes that were taking place.

  The Mana barrier that Dave had been attacking was broken as Dave’s disrupting spell hit a Nalheim. Their shield warped and twisted before it exploded. The Nalheim cried out as their hand was hit by the ray. Their hand was destroyed in a matter of seconds.

  “Highly effective against Mana barriers, not so good against armor. Effective against biological items,” Dave said. The orb stopped changing in his hand.

  He looked past the Nalheim with his senses, finding Dwayne and Kim’s forces at the first eastern castle.

  ***

  Dwayne was barely able to hide his frustration. He knew that his people were moving as fast as possible; still, he had wished that he could set out as soon as he exited the first eastern castle’s ono.

  “There’s only the aerial forces left coming out of the ono,” Kim said.

  Dwayne looked to the dwarven commander in charge of the dwarven warbands. “We’re ready.”

  The dwarven commander nodded. “Forrrward, march!” The dwarf’s voice carried across the thirty thousand-strong force.

  From within the warclans, the war drums started, the dwarves’ footfalls landing in time with the drumbeat.

  Dwayne walked forward with them.

  To their flanks were massive groups of five thousand mounted. They rode leopards, wolves, horses, snakes, elephants, and rhinos.

  The dwarves were the best unit to fight out in the open like they would be doing with the Nalheim. The Nalheim might fight in a similar way but the dwarves had honed their art over centuries. With their interlinking shields boosting their abilities and linking them together, a single dwarf’s power was enough to topple a giant.

  The Nalheim fought as if one person was a fighting unit; the dwarves all supported one another so that fighting one dwarf was like fighting them all. This was why the dwarves were said to be the marching mountains—able to get under their shields to defend themselves and take massive hits with ease.

  The other forces had wanted to come but all of them understood that with the dwarves leading the battle, they would just be in the way.

  The dwarves might be short, but they were powerful. The drums picked up pace and quickly the dwarves marched at their best speed toward the Nalheim, rank upon rank of identically armored and armed dwarves.

  Dwayne felt the ground tremble in their passing as he rested his hand on his sword.

  Behind the dwarves was a force of nearly ten thousand mages and ranged attackers. Archers walked in groups, spread out over a large area in order to protect the majority of the people to the front instead of just pockets.

  Off to either side there were groups of summoners and necromancers talking to one another.

  Dwayne’s eyes looked forward at the Nalheim who stood in their way.

  Once all of the aerial forces were ready within the first eastern castle, they took to the skies and moved to Kim and Dwayne�
��s forces on the ground. They flew above them, ready to fight off threats from above. As they arrived, the group was just five minutes away from the Nalheim forces.

  Yells went up as their gryphons and sky screams turned around, letting out battle cries and charging toward their new opponents.

  The mass of aerial forces above the force moving from the first eastern castle also let out their own battle cries. They moved forward to meet the Nalheim in the air.

  The aerial forces that had been fighting for hours pushed back to the first eastern castle. Their forces were weary; they had wounded and were pushed to their limits.

  “Prepare the mounted forces! Tell the summoners and necros to be ready!” Dwayne yelled over the command chat.

  “Support spells!” Kim called out. Mages unleashed spells on their own forces that would boost speed, defense, and the abilities of those within the Terra Alliance.

  The mystical glow settled over their bodies as they charged forward.

  “Healers, be ready!” Kim said moments later.

  Healers glowed with their different-colored Manas and checked their various healing potions and remedies that they held.

  The Nalheim who were at the rear turned to face the oncoming force, letting out excited yells.

  “Release the mounted forces,” Dwayne said.

  War horns were blown as the mounted forces spread out from one another. Their mounts picked up speed, slowly at first before they became faster and faster.

  There were supporting mages among them who cast spells among their forces and unleashed spells on the Nalheim, their barriers flashing angrily.

  Dwayne saw something out of the corner of his eye: a rapid-moving silver blur. It stopped among the Nalheim. In a flash, the orb disappeared and a massive disrupting wave shot out in all directions.

  There was no sound from the explosion as Mana barriers were torn apart and weakened the blast of the orb. Some unlucky Nalheim were turned into paste or their armor was twisted with them inside before exploding.