The Fourth Realm (The Ten Realms Book 4)

by Michael Chatfield

  “Let’s get going,” Erik said. They couldn’t fire any mortars with them on the move back anyway.

  ***

  Ulalas looked at the sky. Not long after the aerial forces started to charge forward, the whistling explosives stopped going off.

  Found you.

  The aerial forces cut across the skies and rushed toward where the mortars had come from.

  They fired down spells, lighting up the ground as they arrived, showing holes in the ground and an area that had been cleared by humans.

  Spell formations appeared all around the aerial forces. They were so excited to close with the enemy that they hadn’t even seen, that they hadn’t been thinking about watching for an ambush.

  A freezing white spell formation appeared in the sky. A blast of cold air shot out and covered a square kilometer. The ice covered the mounts, making it hard for them to move and affecting them with an armor debuff.

  More of the spell formations appeared in the sky. Some people directly dropped out of the sky, their mounts unable to handle the stress of the cold.

  Seeking frost arrow formations appeared. Thousands of frost arrows shot out from these formations into their victims. The mounts and their riders had nowhere to hide as other spell scrolls activated in every direction. Simple Mana detonations peppered the fliers, artillery spell scrolls combined with wind attacks—these attacks pulled them in from across the sky, pinning them down into kill areas. The sheer amount of wealth needed to create the spell scrolls was impressive. The Blood Demon Sect were played with to their deaths, the aerial forces slaughtered. Bodies dropped from the sky across the forest.

  The magical assault lasted for ten minutes before the skies settled down. Of the five hundred aerial forces, less than a hundred were able to fly back to the army.

  ***

  The morale of the army, which had skyrocketed when seeing the flying forces charging away and hearing them attacking the enemy positions, now plummeted, lower than ever as they saw the broken aerial forces limping back to the army.

  Ulalas ground her teeth but didn’t say anything. IEDs and more mortars went off through the night. The remaining and freshly healed aerial forces found the positions and sent out scouts. The scouts found mortars landing on them as they moved through the forest. The trees turned into shrapnel, tearing them apart.

  Her expression darkened when, ten minutes later, the air once again filled with whistling.

  She had sent out groups of scouts into the forest, with the display of spell scrolls they were charging towards where they had been cast.

  “Brace barriers,” Ulalas’ voice sounded monotonous.

  Ulalas heard the whistling again but they didn’t land on the army that was trying to advance. Instead, they landed in the forest, in the direction of the scouting forces.

  Her knuckles popped as they turned white.

  The army was at their lowest point, trudging forward knowing that only death lay ahead. If they could win this fight, they might get wealth beyond their dreams. If they died, they wouldn’t get anything.

  It was a fine balance: life on one side, falling into the abyss on the other.

  The night was a bloodbath. The minutes turned into hours and the night turned into day. The enemy couldn’t be spotted in the daylight either. They trudged on, resigned to their fate. If they made it to the actual battle or not, it all depended on one’s luck now. The Blood Demon army had lost all of their initiative.

  In the night, one of the army leaders had directly left, the general took with him all his family members. The army gritted their teeth, cursing the cowardly general in the open and wishing that they had escaped with them in their hearts.

  ***

  “Determined bastards,” Niemm said.

  Erik grunted as he rubbed his face and drank coffee. His face felt as though it were covered in grit as he sat on a log, looking at what they were fondly referring to as the road of death.

  Everything was torn apart—the banks, the road itself. Nothing resembled the old landscape from before.

  In the dirt, one could see explosives and wires that disappeared into the distance. Teams laid the wires to the different firing points that they had already sighted, having good overwatch over the position.

  Han Wu checked the explosives. He was covered in dirt and grime, but his hands were clean. He rested the back of his hand against the ground to make sure he wasn’t carrying a charge.

  “Thirty mississipi,” Han Wu said before he started working with the explosives, checking every connection point, every meter of wire.

  “What is mississipi? And why is that a measure of time?” Han Wu muttered to himself, using words to keep himself awake.

  Erik left him to it.

  “Keep an eye out. Once this is all set down, we’re going to have to make it blend in.” Erik waved his cup at the road.

  “You make it sound so easy, sir.” Niemm drank his own coffee.

  “Hey, that’s why we get paid the big bucks.” Erik drank his coffee and grimaced. “Guess that I’m paying you the big bucks now. How much did this all cost?”

  Niemm let out a short laugh and just drank his coffee.

  “That much, huh? Should do some audits—accountants and taxes!” Erik scratched his beard. “All right, time to stop dicking around.” Erik headed over to a group of explosives.

  He took another big drink of coffee, eternally grateful the drink existed in the Ten Realms, putting it down and wiping his hands clean. He moved over to a bomb, then placed his hand against the ground to make sure he got rid of any residual shock.

  Just a little bit of static energy and soon, arming explosives is no longer my problem. Erik laughed at his own dark humor and clicked his tongue as he counted down twenty seconds before he took out his tools. They were specially made by Rugrat so that they could be used to work on explosives.

  Once he was working, he zoned out the rest of the world.

  He laughed as he remembered when he had been a young man setting up explosives on the range. Putting down a claymore, makiong sure he didn’t have a static charge, checking it over, running the wire, then attaching it to the claymore, terrified that it might go off, but more scared of the sergeant who was watching him. Talking him through it as if he were an idiot, his entire being focused on the claymore he was working on.

  Then he had backed up into a trench, attached the firing line to the clacker and clicked it three times.

  He didn’t even know whether he did it three times, but he knew he was clicking it after the explosion went off and rocked his world. The feeling of the pressure wave in his chest, the thrill of being alive, and adrenaline flooded his system.

  How he’d realized at that point, he’d just used a claymore.

  “Pretty badass.” Erik laughed as he thought of the times he had used grenade launchers, rockets, automatic grenade launchers, TOWs, and every damn thing that went off with a big bang.

  “It’s a strange life, but we do as we can,” Erik finally muttered to himself as he stood and backed away from the charge that he was working on.

  He cracked his back and went to find his coffee. It was a good ten explosive charges away, and cold.

  “Ugh, I should have put it into my storage. I should have some more.” Erik took out another cup and put the first away. He grinned to himself. “Storage rings are the fucking shit.” Erik laughed; others looked over and then shrugged and chuckled, getting back to work.

  Erik continued his work. Behind him, people were tossing dirt back over the explosives by just pouring it back out of their storage rings. They had Yuli, Simms, Roska, Niemm, Deni, and Yang Zan all using spells to make the grass and other plants grow over the ground, making it blend back together.

  The road took more time but it was going along quickly. The sections that had been pulled out were put back down and fused together.

  As they worked, Gong Jin’s team, which had been split into two, called in mortars and blew up IEDs, slowing the enem
y even more.

  By mid-morning, they had finished on the road. They took precious time to to make it look like how it had when they started: blending more plant life across the sides of the road, leveling it out a bit more here and there. They checked the trenches that they had dug and buried the wires in, making sure that they couldn’t be seen from the road. This would be their last big operation before the Blood Demon Sect reached Vuzgal.

  Erik drank a Stamina potion, regaining his lost energy, but he knew that the eventual crash would be even worse and the Stamina fatigue afterward wouldn’t be fun to deal with.

  “Okay, let’s get ready,” he said as everything was checked for the third time.

  They disappeared, leaving the road alone.

  Two hours later, one could hear an explosion down the road. Then they could hear the marching noises of boots and the whistling noises of the mortars.

  The army continued onward, only stopping to rebuild the freshly destroyed road and then forging ahead.

  Erik was lying on a hill nearly two kilometers away as he looked at their death road.

  The army finally appeared, marching forward.

  Minesweepers were out front, looking to see whether they could find the bombs. Erik continued to watch them. If they made the explosives, then all of their plans would be put to waste and they would have to blow everything, hoping to kill even a few and destroy the road.

  They passed the first blast marker and continued on.

  Everyone watching the march forgot to breathe as they continued on. The road shook with their footsteps. They didn’t sound as in-time as they had when they had first stepped onto the road. They were powerful people, but the mental strain had sapped their Stamina, leaving them as robotic automatons.

  “Come on, keep on coming,” Erik said as the sweepers passed the midway point and kept moving.

  “That’s it. Just a few more meters. You can do it. Yeah, yeah, just keep on walking…nothing under your feet,” Erik coaxed the sweepers and their accompanying army forward, his entire body tense, ready to act at a given moment.

  The front of the army passed the forward marker without pausing as Erik continued to entice them forward.

  They willingly moved along the road, getting into the road of death. The army was pinned in with the rises on either side of the road.

  “Wait till they’re in a bit more…just a bit more,” Erik said through his sound transmission device.

  They had set up all the mortars for this one attack. Erik had been holding back on the high-power rounds and were using the regular rounds that were explosives on the outside with a poison core.

  The high explosive rounds Rugrat had made were resource-intensive and took time to build; their range was nearly half of the regular rounds. Erik had kept them in reserve, wanting to use them from behind the walls of Vuzgal. Here, with the distance away from the enemy, they had time to move the mortars and run if they needed.

  “Ready there, mortars?” Erik asked.

  “Smoke loaded, OP Alpha,” Yui replied.

  “Very good, very good,” Erik said, his voice calm and distracted as he looked at the approaching enemy.

  “Ready.” Erik pulled out his formation and the wires, attaching the two.

  “Ready,” Niemm reported.

  “Ready,” Roska said.

  “On my mark.” Erik looked at the army, picking out a group of Masters. “Mortars, fire for effect.”

  The mortars, nearly four kilometers away, fired. Erik and the others heard the whistling. The entire army cowered with the noise and the Mana barriers snapped into existence.

  As they got closer to Vuzgal their supply lines had less distance to travel reaching them faster. They had stockpiled ammunition of all kinds while Alva’s production only increased.

  “Three, two…”

  The mortars landed on top of the barriers. Clouds of smoke covered the barriers, enveloping the army.

  “One, mark!”

  The entire road shot into the sky. The white smoke was filled with gray debris and dust.

  “Smoke out!” Yui reported.

  “OPs, take individual mortar teams. Adjust onto fire zones!” Erik barked.

  They had split up the road into arcs for the different observation posts to observe and to guide mortar fire onto. This allowed them to make sure that they didn’t overlap fire. Each of them had three or four mortars under their command.

  Erik watched his blast zone as the mortars were dialed in on their new target. He checked where the rounds were landing. “Elevation increase by one turn. Confirm?”

  “Elevation increase, one mark confirmed!” the mortar team commander called back.

  “Fire!”

  Erik knew where the mortars were firing from and how they were orientated. He didn’t need to call in directional cues to adjust their targeting, but could directly tell them the changes to the weapon system. It wouldn’t fly in the military on Earth, but he just so happened to own this ragtag group.

  “Seven minute mark!” Yui called out.

  “Switch to poison rounds. OPs, bug out!” Erik ordered. They had shelled as much as possible, each mortar putting down nearly two hundred rounds into their blast zone.

  The four thousand rounds destroyed the road, the trees, everything within fifty meters was shredded around the Blood Demon Sect.

  The posts collected their gear and got on their mounts, rushing away from the army that was covered in a haze of smoke, debris, and poison gas.

  Their Experience climbed crazily, but they had no time to check on the changes as they rushed away. Every noise seemed to be the enemy coming after them. They rallied together and went to ground, facing outward and holding out their rifles and repeaters, ready to engage anything that chased after them.

  Everything was quiet.

  Nothing moved as Erik got them collected together and they moved on. Gong Jin was already in position at the next ambush point. He was also able to see the road of death.

  “Fuck,” Gong Jin said simply over the open channel.

  “What do you see?” Erik asked.

  “They got cut down, sir. Not much left. They’re all over the road, trying to pull together. The Mana barriers must have been destroyed in the blast. They had no idea what was happening with all of the dust and smoke. The poison is affecting the people behind the barriers. They’re a mess—going to take them time to reorganize. Request permission to hit them with mortars?” Gong Jin said.

  “Give them five minutes. Let them try to establish order, then hit them again,” Erik said.

  “Understood, sir,” Gong Jin said.

  Chapter: Enemy on the Horizon

  “City ahead!” a scout called out as they rushed toward Xue Lin’s carriage.

  She opened the door and asked him. “How far?”

  “Must be a few hours’ ride,” the man said with a wide smile.

  They had been on the move for nearly a week now. Seeing their destination, those in earshot started talking excitedly.

  “Get my mount and have a security detail readied. We will ride on ahead. Send messages to the Crafter’s Association to see if they want to join us,” Xue Lin said to two messengers nearby. They raised their sound transmission devices as another waved their hand; a large lizard beast appeared.

  It looked around before cooing at Xue Lin.

  Xue Lin rubbed her mount’s head and gave a slight smile, her mind working as she looked over to where the scout had come from. Just what is waiting for us there?

  “The Crafter’s Association agrees to send a few crafting leaders with you,” one of the messengers said.

  “We will move out in ten minutes,” Xue Lin said.

  ***

  A skeleton let out a roar, making Rugrat jump up, crossbows in either hand. As he was about to fire, he saw that his alerts were beeping. He passed his Experience gains and looked at the alert coming from the Vuzgal dungeon. He had ordered it to alert him when someone was in range of the undead sco
uts.

  Rugrat sent orders to the flying undead and pulled on his armor as he opened his door. “Stand to!” Rugrat yelled through the castle and his sound transmission device.

  The sleeping men and women leapt to their feet, pulling on their boots, armor, and helmets. They had all slept in their underclothes.

  Rugrat was running, George hot on his heels, expanding in size.

  He ran ahead of Rugrat and expanded to his full size as they reached a broken balcony. Rugrat jumped up and landed on George’s back. They shot up into the sky like a rocket. Mounted undead rose up around the city. Several flights circled the city as streams of undead stopped their tasks and moved to the walls.

  They were no longer equipped with just bones. They had been armed with weapons and armor from the armories within the city. All of them wore mid-Journeyman weapons at the least. There were roughly ten thousand undead within the city, but none of them were below level forty.

  Rugrat looked over at the five demi-humans who walked through the sky towards him.

  Racquel, Fred, William, Reaper, and Elizabeth had found out that with their control over Mana, they were able to just walk through the sky, crossing vast distances quickly.

  Hearing about it, Rugrat had tried it out. He was able to do it for a few minutes, but not much longer. That was before he had increased in level as he had slept.

  Rugrat opened his special stuff storage ring and threw a robe and crown to Fred. Fred caused the Mana around them to float them to him. It was the mage’s robe from the emperor and his crown.

  Rugrat threw Racquel two swords, Elizabeth a ring and gloves, William a necklace and trident. Reaper gained a new robe as well as a staff.

  All of these items were of the low-Expert level at least.

  They looked at the items and then Rugrat.

  “It’s the best that I can do. Take this as well.” Rugrat tossed out armor that he thought would be best for them as well.

  They put on the items and fastened the armor over their clothes.