Party Zero reached the carts. Already tens of them filled the skies, filled with other parties headed out.
“Carts my ass, these babies are strait up shattlecrafts right here!” Steve chortled before letting out a whoop of excitement.
Their carts took off, flying through the air at speeds that pushed them back into their chairs. Faint blurs and whirs went past as they missed other carts by mere inches. With the AIs controlling traffic, there wasn’t a chance of collision but that didn’t mean they weren’t flying a hundred things through the sky at one time. To any other sentient, it would have been complete madness and led to countless accidents.
They shot down toward a teleport pad. All traffic between teleport pads had been locked down for the use of the Terra Alliance. As one party rushed through, another location was immediately dialed up and another group would pass through.
The carts stopped just outside the teleport pad area. Party Zero rushed off, the portal changing locations. “Aygasse, Heval!” the controller yelled out.
Party Zero turned into streaks as they rushed through the area and into the teleport pad. They came out of an ono in Aygasse. Turning upward and charging into the sky, two way points appeared in the distance.
“Lox, Dave, Induca, Lucy, and Anna—move toward the second portal. The rest of you with me to the first portal,” Deia said.
“Watch out.” Induca’s body changed as she extended into her Dragon form as they flew toward the second portal. Malsour also changed.
Two Dragons appeared in midair, Party Zero on top of them.
Induca and Malsour roared into the sky, stretching their wings as they pushed forward toward their way points.
Deia ignited the air behind Malsour to increase his speed. Jung Lee cast enhancing spells and pulled out Affinity spirits that moved around Malsour, aiding him. Malsour’s speed surged, breaking through the wind with thunderclaps.
Deia glanced to Induca. Around her, Lucy’s creations were supporting, as was Anna, whose sword whistled, guiding the air around Induca while a spell formation around Dave passed around Induca’s body.
Induca’s speed was even greater than Malsour’s. Deia let out a breath of relief. The second location was farther away and she was hoping that Lox and his group would be the faster of the two. It seemed that her guess had been right.
She focused ahead as the wind howled. They left Aygasse behind as they passed over fields and forest, and rushed toward the south.
It wasn’t long until Malsour spoke up. “I see the castles. They’re around a ruin. The portal must be underneath it. Wait a minute—something is coming out.” Malsour paused, taking a moment. “They look like Xelur soldiers to me.”
“Shit, this one must be connected to the Xelur realm,” Deia hissed between her teeth. She hadn’t forgotten her fight with the reincarnated Xelur Demon Lord at Cliff-Hill.
“There are four castles around the ruins,” Malsour continued.
“Jung Lee, you’re the fastest of us—you get to the southern castle. Malsour and I will go to the east and western castles respectively. The rest of you take the northern castle,” Deia said.
All of the party nodded in agreement.
It took them nearly twenty tense minutes before they reached the portal from Aygasse, a speed that would have made most people look at them in shock.
“Ready?” Gurren said to everyone as they prepared themselves.
“Go!” Deia yelled.
A red and gray streak shot off toward the south and west. Malsour banked toward the west while the remaining members of Party Zero jumped off and dove toward the northern castle that was below.
Fire Mana surged around Deia. She didn’t even take the time to look back as she was wholly focused on the oncoming castle. The Xelur soldiers on the ground cried out at Deia. All of them looked different from the other; however, all of them seemed to be crying out in pain. Once they saw Deia, their pained cries turned to excitement and madness. These creatures survived off eating people’s souls. Or the nanites that made up their bodies and the power that sustained them.
They had been a once powerful techno race; however, they had turned to fighting and in their decline, they had lost a great number of their power supplies. All of them naturally possessed nanites in their bodies. When they killed and consumed other’s nanites, they would have great gains in power. They would attack and kill anyone not of their tribe for their nanites. All the races within the Jukal Empire used nanites in their bodies and were natural prey for the Xelur race.
When a portal opened to Emerilia, they quickly rushed through. However, the tribes that had been around the portal on the other side, upon seeing the portal open, had engaged in fighting one another, not willing to split up the spoils of Emerilia with any other.
Even those who had made it through the portal were fighting one another. This gave Party Zero the time they needed to rush toward the castles.
“We’ve secured the eastern tower,” Lox said from the second group.
Deia’s eyes widened before she nodded. She had thought that the speed Malsour displayed had been great but Induca had clearly defeated them in speed.
Deia slowed her progress as she reached the castle, using the full force of her Mana to slow herself. She cut down on her speed, quickly passing over the large walls, and headed into the inner castle. She flew through the halls and entered the area underneath the large tower that rose above the inner castle.
A status bar appeared, telling her that she was capturing the castle.
“Drop pad down in the north. Ono is here.” Gurren sounded a bit shocked.
She pulled out a drop pad, quickly clicking it together and placing it on the ground in the middle of the area underneath the castle and right on the capture point in the center of the castle.
She stepped backward as the capture continued. “Drop pad down.” A flash of light filled Deia’s vision. An ono appeared in the place of the drop pad. A moment later, the ono’s runes started to light up as a teleport pad connected to it.
“Drop pad down,” Malsour said.
“Here as well,” Jung Lee said.
The ono in Deia’s castle connected to the teleport pad. It seemed that the moment it did, people flowed outward.
A man at the front looked around, locking eyes on Deia before he jogged over. “Esa told me to tell you to move to the next location.”
“Thank you,” Deia said. She switched back to the party chat. “Once you have people coming out of your onos, then go back to Terra. We’ll regroup and head to the next location.”
“Got it. We’ve got Ooinfa coming out of our portal. What you got over there?” Lox asked.
“Xelur,” Gurren spat.
“Lovely,” Lox said in a dark tone.
Deia passed through the ono and entered Terra once again. The rest of Party Zero did the same, quickly meeting up. It didn’t take them long to find a new location to head toward as they repeated the process over again.
Chapter 2: A Change Overnight
Josh hadn’t slept in hours. Thankfully he didn’t need much of it with his high Endurance. However, the matters that had gone on in the last couple of hours weighed heavily on him.
There were a total of nearly thirty portals that had opened up across Emerilia. For twenty of them, the Terra Alliance had been fast enough to get a command of the surrounding citadels. Two of the portals had two of the invaders holding two citadels and the Alliance or people from Emerilia holding the other two. There were five with the invaders controlling three and one where the invading species had taken all of the citadels around the portal.
Nearly all of these citadels were under attack in some form or would be shortly.
The people of the Terra Alliance had come together. A few kingdoms had opted out at this time; it was expected that there would be a number that would leave as soon as things got tough. However, the great majority stayed, seeing that the Alliance would make them stronger when dealing with these threats.<
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Soldiers had swarmed through Terra and into these citadels that appeared all across Emerilia.
The various citadels fought against the forces in the areas around the portals, or fought other citadels that were quickly becoming strongholds for the invaders.
The invaders didn’t just stay in the area around the portal. A great number of them, like the Galis, a race that lived in the air, only used the citadels to rest before they sped off across Emerilia.
People who had stayed outside of the defendable cities were now in a rush to create their own defenses or move toward the overpopulated cities. Anything that wasn’t a city or town with defenses in place was being left behind.
He looked around the room there was the Stone Raider leadership as well as leaders from all of the major powers in the Terra Alliance.
Everyone was too tired to stand on much ceremony as they took their seats, looking to Lucy she started talking as the last person entered the room.
“It’s clear that this is just starting. We’ve got nearly a dozen aggressive species pouring through those portals, and we’re finding more and more creatures and sub-quests from the Myths and Legends event that are undermining our strength in various cities. We’ve got to build up Terra to feed, clothe, and house more people,” Lucy said.
Koza cleared his throat. Everyone in the room looked to him with a questioning glance.
“The Aleph have many areas that we can’t fully man. We have hired people in the past to work with us and seeing as we have this room and need more people, we will open up these opportunities to more people. We are also willing to help with the design and building of more places,” Koza said.
There were relieved and agreeable murmurs from around the table.
“Thank you, Koza,” Josh said, with a slight smile.
Koza simply nodded, as if it were nothing.
“We have also hired a new group of Dark mages who will be able to increase our ability to expand Terra and any other facilities that we make. I had other Dark mages work to place down drop pads in different locations around Terra. We need resources, crops—all those kinds of things to keep us going,” Lucy said.
“It looks like this is going to turn into a battle of attrition more than anything,” Dwayne said.
The other people in the room had bitter looks on their faces. If their people had to hide in cities to survive, then resources were going to get a lot scarcer. The production from farms would greatly decrease. They had plans in place but they hadn’t thought that something on this scale would happen.
“The dwarves will also open their mountains,” the dwarf from the dwarven war council said.
This was more shocking than the Aleph. Although the Aleph hadn’t had really anyone new go into their cities, they weren’t as well known as the dwarves.
They rarely let people into their cities other than for the dwarven tournament that was held in specially made arenas; the stores and various places around the tournament had been built by them. Few actually passed into the mountain.
“We also have a list of people we would like to meet and talk to.” The dwarf shared a list to them all. There were names across the paper: famed blacksmiths, Dark mages, Earth mages, warriors, and battle mages.
“What do you want them for?” Josh asked.
“The blacksmiths we want to train higher if at all possible and give them a place to work that allows them to push their limits. Same for the Earth and Dark mages. We have an even deeper understanding of these two magics than the mage’s college and guild.” The dwarf looked to the representatives of these institutions. Both of them nodded in agreement. “The warriors and various other mages, we have many Weapons of Power—now is the time to use them. If the weapons agree with them, then they will be gifted a Weapon of Power to defend Emerilia and its people.”
There had been rumors and talk that people in the dwarven tournament were pulled aside and given Weapons of Power. A great number of people, upon returning from the tournament, had greatly increased in their strength. Not many were willing to declare that they were holding Weapons of Power. Jealousy and greed were deadly sins. If someone who wanted these items heard that a weaker person had a Weapon of Power, they might kill them off to gain it.
A few had said they had Weapons of Power but out of respect for the dwarves they hadn’t said where it had come from.
Now the dwarves were confirming these rumors. All of those around the table were a little stunned at the turn of events.
Josh secretly looked to them all. There seemed to be a sense of unity, of drive in the room. That they were in this together. After the dwarven war council leader spoke up, some other groups started to talk about their ultimate weapons. Instead of holding onto these trump cards that they might use at a later date to get greater standing in the Alliance, they were using them now to show their dedication to see this through.
Looks like this Alliance might work out.
***
“Get those cannons mounted!” a Beast Kin yelled over the roar of battle. People from all races ran around. Dwarves with their artillery cannons to the top of the inner citadel, getting mages to assist them in taking them to the roof of the central tower.
The walls had mages and warriors on them, unleashing their attacks on the writhing mass of green caterpillar-looking creatures.
These creatures were from the Erach race. Their nickname in the Jukal Empire was world devourers. These creatures had eaten everything that was on their home planet, from planet matter to other creatures and then once they had eaten everything on their planet, many went into hibernation and underwent a metamorphosis to absorb sunlight and various energies to support themselves.
They were about as large as a baseball and a foot long. They spat out a numbing and stunning agent, and they could burrow through the hardest of materials with enough time. They were currently coating the walls of the citadel that the Terra Alliance held, eating their way through as the defenders tried to lay down as many area of effect spells as possible.
There were hundreds of thousands of the creatures that had come through the portal like a flood, but they had been so focused on eating everything around the portal that the Alliance had been able to make a decent foothold in the surrounding citadels.
With all of the stored energy within them, the more mature Erach were able to unleash a green beam of light that could burrow through shields, barriers, and materials that lay in their path.
However, this energy, once burned up, would take days or weeks to regenerate; by killing these creatures with explosion spells, their power would actually erupt, destroying a large area. Otherwise, the soul-capturing runes across the walls would light up, capturing this potent power. With the death of every Erach, their power was unleashed on the world.
This, in turn, was drawn in by the hastily made runes, powering the few vault soul gems that the people of the Alliance held.
There weren’t many soul gem constructs made by the Pandora’s Box team. Their resources and time requirements for the constructs weren’t small. However, it was clear that they couldn’t let the Erach spread across Emerilia. The soul gem constructs at every citadel were growing faster and faster with all of this power being drawn into them.
Artillery spells howled overhead, raining death onto the Erach or creating spells that trapped the creatures for other spells to wipe them out.
It was chaos looking out upon the green caterpillars that charged toward the citadels. They fed off a person’s energy—eating plants was good, but eating a Level 200 person? There was nothing that could compare to this treat.
Bob watched this and countless other battles even as he was within the moonbase, working on his own Altar of Rebirth. The other projects were all automated. He had even set up the asteroid mining facilities, shipping drills that had been used to create Terra through the portals and to the ice planet and the asteroids. There were factories and repair bots that would help to create the bases on both of those plan
ets, as well as Jeeves, who was managing it all and moving resources between all the various locations to keep them running at optimal conditions.
“How did it come to this?” Bob asked himself. He had hoped to keep humanity alive, maybe to sneak them away and allow them another chance. With Emerilia becoming the entertainment of the Jukal Empire, it had become impossible. Now he had put all his hopes and dreams into Party Zero and the people he had come to know in order to overthrow the Jukal Empire. There was just no other option. However, with this goal in mind, all of these hardships had come up, from the event to the opening of portals across Emerilia.
This wasn’t a game; it was genocide.
Just as it looked as though the citadel besieged by the Erach would fall, a rain of fiery arrows came from the sky, killing thousands of the tightly packed Erach.
Runes along the walls were changed, the stone and metal moving into the new formations. The Erach let out pained shrieks as the walls became cursed and acidic, burning and weakening the Erach.
Party Zero had arrived just in time; Gurren and Lox flew out of the inner citadel, rushing to the walls to help the defenders who had come face-to-face with the Erach that had made it inside the citadel.
With all of this killing, the power to the soul gem construct increased as it grew out of the inner citadel and spread to the walls.
Induca formed a massive fire wall that covered the worst fifty-meter-long stretch of the outer wall. Anna called down a storm spell that formed multiple tornadoes that covered a hundred-meter square area, moving across the battlefield, pulling Erach from the ground and cutting them apart with the sharp blades of air.
The other mages within the citadel unleashed their spells. The Erach’s attack was held off and actually pushed back under this combined pressure.
It gave the dwarven artillery enough time to get into place. Their guns bellowed as they unleashed area of effect spells that would clear a fifty-meter area of Erach.
Bob was powerless in this battle, but he felt a bit of hope after seeing the Terra Alliance working together to save Emerilia.
Emerilia Series Box Set 4 Page 41