As soon as Josh heard about the Lady of Light’s Legions of Angels returning to Emerilia he felt as if a timer had run out for his Stone Raiders Guild and the Terra Alliance.

Markolm had become a land of fanatics in the space of a few months, those that believed in the Lady of Light flowed to the island, increasing the population by four times its original. Power continued to flow into the Lady of Light’s Divine well, her power growing every day as more champions were picked among the people and an army was being raised.

All of this information had come from the spies that the Stone Raiders’ leader Lucy now commanded.

All of the Angel Generals had also been converted from not only creatures of power but champions of Light, with their great affinity and the fact that they were made through the power of Light. Their levels doubled, making all of them level fifteen hundred power houses or stronger.

The Angel Legions were strong and their coordination was powerful, seeing the images of them flying in formation was enough to make Josh’s heart tighten in fear. If they were to all gain Lady of Light’s blessing and become champions then the Legion’s power would be incredible.

“We’re getting reports that there are a number of the Earth Lord’s forces attacking the Lady of Light’s Legions, the Dark Lord seemed to have joined in on the fight as well,” one of the people within the command center said.

“Good, if any of the Flying Citadel’s or the different locations under the Terra Alliances control see them, they’re to attack with everything they have,” Josh said. He knew that he couldn’t fight the legions now, his forces were spread out too thin. He was dealing with enemies across Emerilia, from portals and from the event.

“What is the status of our flying Citadels?” Josh asked.

“The Goblin Mountain Flying Citadels have secured the portal, the two southern Citadels and the Western have been suppressed. The forces originally within the other Citadels are moving to occupy them and rebuild their defenses. Esa reports that she is ready to move half of her strength back to Terra in order to rest them and make them ready for any further actions. The Goblin Mountain Citadels are moving towards the second open portal inside the Densaou ring of Fire lying to the south of the Xelur Portal and East of the Orun Free States. The Nalheim, Dragons and Terra Alliance have kept the Alturarans suppressed at that location. The Citadels will provide additional support to help in securing that location. The commander of the Goblin Mountain Flying Citadels requests to break down into wings and send his second group of Citadels to assist the portal locations that are to the East of the Densaou ring of fire,” one assistant called out.

“If he believes it is the best use of his group then he has my permission. How is the second wing of the Gudalo Flying Citadels faring?” Josh asked.

“They are moving North-West near to the old location of Quindar’s Lair where the portal is located on the island within the nearby lake. The area is filled with Ooinfa, they will provide long range fire support so as to not get caught within the illusion spells they will move from the air, dropping their forces on the four Ooinfa controller Citadels, concentrating their forces on one Citadel at a time. With their suppression abilities they should be able to counteract the illusion spells to a great deal, as well with the band aid’s ability to reduce the effect of magic cast at our people. They will be arriving within a few hours,” another assistant said.

“Good, have all of the reserve Citadel Forces on stand-by and ready to replace those active as soon as possible. I want those Citadels moving throughout the day and night in order to defeat these portal groups,” Josh said.

“Yes sir!” The two assistants turned back to their work as Josh looked towards the Jakan Citadel.

A red and blue streak left the Citadel and headed for the Flying Citadels.

“The Jakan will take nine days to think it over and consult with their people back home,” Fire said in a private chat with Josh.

“Good, Dwayne, I want you to send forty percent of your people back to Terra for immediate reassignment. We’re going to bolster our numbers at the different portal locations and clear as many of them as possible in nine days.

After those nine days we’ll be back here, if the Jakan decide to ally themselves with us we’ll move them around to deal with the different threats we’re facing. If they decide to not take our deal, we’ll have to hammer them with everything we have and seal off that portal, even if it means we have to break it. Having a long exaggerate battle with the Jakan will only weaken us,” Josh said, talking to Fire, Water and Dwayne that were in the party chat.

If he could, he would grant mercy, but if the Jakan decided to fight then a number of players would lose their hard earned levels making them a weaker force and they would lose the people of Emerilia without the ability to replace them.

They had to draw a line, and be ready to enforce it with everything they had when the time came.

“Understood,” Dwayne said.

“Agreed,” Water said.

“I will lend my help with overcoming the other portal locations,” Fire said.

Josh felt his eyebrows rise in surprise.

“Then I thank you for your help,” Josh said sincerely, he had yet to see what amounted to a god of Emerilia go all out. He’d seen Deia do it a few times and it had made him shocked at her awesome display of power. However her mother was nearly twice her age and there was no true record of her fighting personally.

“I will not participate, I am needed for the Pandora’s Box Initiative, also it would be good if we kept some trump cards hidden at this time,” Water said.

“Understood,” Josh said, he wasn’t privy to all the details about what the Pandora’s Box Initiative was doing, however the number of people that seemed to have disappeared into the program was tremendous, all of them were geniuses in their field.

“I hope that we won’t need them in the near future.”

“You and me both,” Water said.

Josh felt the top of his scalp tingle at Water’s tone.

***

Party Zero looked down upon the Alturarans that controlled a number of Citadels at a portal located inside the Densaou Ring of Fire and East of the Orun Free States. The Alturarans were a race of sentients that had taken on inorganic bodies as their planet had died, trapped in these bodies for centuries, splicing their memories and minds from one generation to the next until they had lost their history and identity, now, when they interacted with organic matter and creatures made of organic material they wished to destroy them, to make the universe as dead as they were.

They were largely formed from crystals and were great practitioners of using Dark mana to change their own bodies to attack and create various poisons and solutions to kill off organics.

A shimmering mist of green hung over their portal, a poison that they were pumping into the air. They would make more and more of it as time went on, using it to kill off the area around the Densaou Ring of Fire and then Emerilia as a whole.

The Nalheim had come over to Emerilia and moved to some territories around the Densaou Ring of Fire, pledging their allegiance to the Dragons that lived in these desolate ring of volcanoes.

The Nalheim needed the warmth to survive and thrive, making the Densaou Ring of Fire an excellent place for them to live.

When they had first arrived they had been fighting against the Terra Alliance, in a twist of fate they were now on the same side as the alliance as they faced off against the Alturarans.

The Terra Alliance were using all manner of grand workings and different ranged spells and attacks on the Alturarans, however the Nalheims disrupting attacks that they cast with their spears or with their massive Nerhoun Mounts were highly effective against the Alturarans.

The Dragons had also come out in order to support the attacks against the portal near their home.

None of the Alturarans looked the same but they were placed into different classes.

There were normals, heavies, tanks, ranged, mutated and worms.

The normals were just normal Alturarans, low leveled and they had not only close combat abilities but also ranged ones. Heavies were larger versions of the Normals. Tanks were ones that were focused on defense, ranged those with more ranged attack focus. Worms were massive long creatures that could make it through a portal and then would eat their way through the natural vegetation, turning it into power. They could supply this power to the other Alturarans or use it themselves to create massive Dark magic spells.

Mutated were Alturarans that might fall outside of these categories, they were unpredictable and the most dangerous, but they were the rarest.

Their portal was located in the middle of the Citadels. Originally it had been buried in a hill but now the hill had been blasted apart revealing its hollow center.

There were three of the worms gathered around the Portal, rot seemed to spread out from their bodies as they created a circle around the Portal, Alturarans swarmed over them, under the thunder of the guns and ranged attacks they weren’t able to make it very far but there was no break in the firing. If the guns stopped then the tide would rush forth.

The Nalheim mounted on sky screams worked to pick off any of those that made it past the line of destruction that the Terra Alliance had carved into the ground.

Dave had a grim look on his face.

“If I could use just one of the grand workings we’ve been working on with the Pandora’s Box initiative we could wipe them clear of Emerilia,” Dave said over the party chat with cold anger.

“There’s nothing that you can do about it,” Deia said, gripping his hand.

Dave took a deep breath the air shifting around him as his mana circulated.

“Well, we can do something,” Dave said his eyes focused on the Alturarans.

He looked to Malsour who was in his human form.

“I need your help,” Dave said.

“What are we doing?” Malsour asked.

“Making a disrupting ray, can you ask the Nalheim to come and see us. We’re also going to need Shards help with modulating everything,” Dave said.

“I’ll contact them,” Malsour said.

“Deia, give me two hours and I might have something to deal with the Alturarans,” Dave said.

“Will it be something to get the Jukal AI’s attention?” She asked with a worried expression.

“Well, it might be, but I don’t think that it’ll trigger them coming after us and looking into our secrets, just taking what the Nalheim have and making it on a much larger scale,” Dave said.

“Okay,” Deia nodded and squeezed his hand, “good luck and let me know if you need anything,” Deia said.

Dave gave her a smile and squeezed her hand too, he could see that she was blaming herself for the loss of Jekoni and Anna.

He turned and headed for one of the entrances into the soul gem island below the Citadel, his eyes passed over Steve.

His playful demeanor was dulled as he stood off to the side, looking out over the Citadel and the landscape.

Dave wished that he could do something for Steve to help him through the pain he was suffering, however he knew that if Steve needed his help he’d come to him, and if he didn’t in some time then Dave would go and search him out.

Dave shared a look with Malsour, the two of them had solemn and hard faces, Dave opened up a private chat with Malsour.

“After this we’ve got to do everything in our power to speed up things with the initiative, as soon as we can we’ll work on that Battleship. I also want to work through the Destroyers, we don’t have many ships so we need to make sure they’re the strongest possible,” Dave said.

“Agreed, and if we can create these disintegrating rays, then maybe we can use it for the ships,” Malsour said.

“It’s not a question of if, just how much time it will take,” Dave said as they walked through the Citadel, people moving out of the way as a cold air made their cloaks rise behind them slightly.

Once getting Malsour’s order nearly fifty Nalheim arrived on the Flying Citadel within ten minutes. Dave and Malsour met them in one of the bays that was used for the drop platforms, already there were people milling around, ready to board the platforms at any minute.

Dave and Malsour took a number of the Nalheim’s weapons and watched them show how they used them. With Dave and Malsour’s Intelligence they had nearly perfect photographic memory. If they thought on it then it would be like replaying a video.

Armed with a few dozen spears Dave and Malsour each took a few of them and started to destroy them.

The magical coding and runes filled Dave and Malsour’s minds.

“Shard I need you to translate some magical runes over,” Dave said, in one hand he held a mirror of communication while his other hand flickered over his interface screens as he quickly put down the runes that he had perceived through destroying a number of the spears.

While he knew the runes that were being used, he didn’t know how the functioned, every runic language was different.

“I can do that,” Shard said as Dave started to send over the runes. There were a few hundred of them so it took time. As he sent them Shard was sending back a translated version of the runes that was in Dave’s format of runes.

Dave and Malsour looked over the translated runes.

“Okay, so it uses vibrations but also has a light wavelength variation,” Dave said.

“Everything has a resonate frequency, if it’s possible to tune right in on the frequency of what you’re hitting then up the amplitude you can shake it apart. The Light wavelength is pretty similar, basically goes through all manner of different wavelengths until it finds one that is capable of destroying what it’s hitting,” Malsour said.

“The most complicated thing about these weapons is not the way that it uses vibrations or light to break things apart, it’s the fact that it goes through all of these different possibilities in such a short time. Hell I’m not even seeing all of the coding that would be needed to do this! If there isn’t anything to regulate it, then how is it supposed to work?” Dave looked to Malsour.

“Well, there is one other variable when these weapons are being fired, the user,” Malsour said.

“The Nalheim?” Dave stopped his walking closing his eyes as he went through the different images that he remembered of the Nalheim using the weapons just moments ago.

“It must be,” Malsour said, watching Dave, clearly hoping that he was right, otherwise they would need to code nearly an AI level intelligence to use these weapons.

In Dave’s mind he was watching the arcane as it moved through the Nalheim.

It moved from both of their heads when they shot their spear forwards it was like an electric shock, he’d thought it was just a blunt force mana burst that activated the spear. The sheer amount of mana being tossed out made it look heavy handed. Now that he was studying it closer he saw that from one of the heads came the changes for the vibration attack, while the other head sent down commands for the light vibration.

“When we asked them they said that they were just attacking,” Dave shook his head.

“They’re doing complicated light and audio vibration on the fly, that large discharge of mana with their shots was them figuring out what kind of modulation they need to make. If we could get them working with the automated miners then we could experience a thirty percent increase in how fast they mine, at least. They just keep on attacking with everything each time instead of refining it down. Also, all of the different sound and light wavelengths are timed differently. They all travel so fast that we don’t really perceive that it’s all these different attacks. If they were to combine them all together there would be no change, but because they’re just perfectly timed, so that they don’t interfere with one another they’re able to hit a target in the space of microseconds with all of the different wavelengths.”

“When I was looking at the conditions that they lived in I kind of looked down on them, but it seems that I was the idiot,” Malsour said, in awe of the speed at which they were able to cast the all encompassing command spell that activated the spear fully. It allowed them to have extremely powerful weapons, without the need for massive magical arrays to control them.

“An impressive feat of them understanding their strengths and utilizing them to their fullest,” Dave said in a praising tone. “Though it means that we’re going to need them to use the disrupting ray, we simply don’t have the time or resources right now to code an AI to control all of this on the fly.”

“If we are able to set up a terminal or something that could record what they’re doing. I can check all of the different wavelengths, see which ones are functioning and isolate them down. So, we would need them to fire the first few shots, then I can go from there removing the extra wavelengths,” Shard said.

“Perfect, once this is all over we’re going to need to get them into a lab to have them shoot their spears, record it all, so that we can get down the information of how they time the different wavelengths. That, more than the fact that they’re using different wavelengths, is hugely important. We can shoot all kinds of wavelengths of light and vibration at a target, but if they’re not staggered then they’ll cancel out each other. I’m not going to lie, I’m a bit in shock of it all,” Dave admitted.

“I’ll get a few of them to come down here, see how we can hook them up to the system to get them to control the beam,” Malsour said.

“Okay, I’ll look into the coding, try to get a better feel for it and code it into the Flying Citadel’s weapon banks,” Dave said.

“Meet you in the command center?” Malsour asked, back tracking towards the drop platform area once again.

“Sounds like a plan!” Dave said, continuing on his way, there was no time to waste.

***

Dave looked over the coding in the main weapons’ banks. The Flying Citadel was a lot different from more conventional weapon systems.

A weapons bank, was a soul gem storage core, within it held a number of different magical circuit plans, when one of them was selected then either the various ‘mounts’ would change over to the new magical coding, altering the soul gem constructs throuhgout the flying citadel bringing down different spells on the enemy. This was how the Citadels were able to suppress the Xelur’s ability to gather up souls to increase their power. However they hadn’t used the mounts but instead the magical circuitry had spread through the Citadel, giving it more power and a larger effect.

These banks held a myriad of different coding, now Dave had input the coding that the Nalheim used for their spears.

He didn’t play around with the runes at all for fear that if he altered them now, they wouldn’t work properly. He didn’t have the time to trouble shoot it all and try to increase its power. It was too foreign to him right now.

Dave slid in the coded plate with the spear’s attack engraved into it.

It lit up, the main weapons banks copying down the information as changes went through the magical coding throughout the Soul gem Island. Now it would only take someone activating the right weapon coding and they could bring up the disruption ray magical coding.

Dave moved to where Malsour was with five Nalheim, they were all around a single station that had magical inputs on either side, this would take their modulating spell, then run it through the main weapons banks, activating the disruption ray.

“Keep at it,” Malsour said, a device the Nalheim were using translating his words, they continued to press their hands against the input ports.

“Something wrong?” Dave asked through the party chat, seeing the expression on Malsour’s face.

“They’re not able to do it,” Malsour said.

“Can they do it with the spear still?” Dave asked.

“I’m not sure,” Malsour, looked over to them and exited the party chat. “Could you use your spear and attack that wall?” Malsour asked one of the Nalheim, pointing to a wall of the room.

“Yes, King Malsour,” the Nalheim summoned their spears from their bag of holding.

They stabbed their spear out, a hole appeared in the soul gem wall.

Malsour and Dave looked at one another with Malsour rejoining the Party chat.

“Okay, so that shows that they can still do it. Maybe it’s not them but the interface? They’ve become used to using their spears so much that it’s nothing more than a reaction at this time, but doing it by force sends them around the bend?” Dave asked.

“I think that’s a good assumption, though how are we going to fire this thing?” Malsour asked.

“We make a firing range,” Dave said.

“Okay,” Malsour frowned in question.

“We make a magical formation that takes the input from the spear, breaks it down and sends it to the main weapons bank. We’re going to need to reverse the effect of the spear. If we can reverse the coding of the spear then we remove the attacking part of it, funnel the input from the firing range right through,” Dave said, opening the chat to Shard. “Hey Shard, looks like we need your help again.”

“What do you need?” Shard asked, eager to help.

“We’re going to need you to reverse code the Nalheim spear’s runes,” Dave said.

“Never with the simple jobs. Alright, it might take me a few minutes, do you want it in Nalheim runes?” Shard asked.

“I think that would be best, less possibility of a mess up,” Malsour said.

“Okay, I’ll get back to you when I have it sorted out,” Shard said.

“In the meantime, we need to shield up one of these walls and make an input formation to take everything and process it through,” Dave said to Malsour.

“Why don’t we try making a spear that look and feel the same as the ones that they’re using, but has input runes inside them?” Malsour said.

“Well, that would be a whole lot easier to do!” Dave tapped his finger on his leg as he held his chin. “Worth a try.”

They left the room, Malsour pulled out a length of metal from his bag of holding, as it came out he exerted his magic, the lump of metal stretching out into the shaft of a spear, with the same magical runes on the outside. However these ones were merely decorative, the real coding was inside and was linked to the Flying Citadel.

The spearhead formed and the cap on the base of the spear were finished. Malsour even made the spear a bit weathered, making it look well used so that the Nalheim would be confused. It looked identical to the spear that the Nalheim were using.

They checked the coding and walked back into the room.

“Try using this spear,” Malsour asked, passing it to the person that had put a crater in the wall just a few moments ago.

They took the spear, checking the weight and not seeing anything special with it they stabbed outwards at the wall, a new crater didn’t appear however one of the interface screens linked to the disruption ray magical coded program showed that it had been activated.

Dave and Malsour looked at one another.

“Seems that I was overthinking things, Shard there’s no need to do the reverse spear coding,” Dave said.

“Well, I was only about half done anyways,” Shard said.

The corner of Dave’s mouth twitched upwards in a slight smile before he looked to the Nalheim that was looking at the spear in confusion.

“I think that there is something wrong with this spear King Malsour,” the Nalheim said.

“I’ve just taken the power source out from it, I’m just checking over your form with the spear,” Malsour said before opening the party chat once again. “I’m thinking that we keep them in the dark about what they’re doing, it seems that their attack is more instinctual than anything. If they know that we’re testing them for that they might get nervous and mess it up.”

“Understandable, also with each of their attacks I have a program recording it all. Maybe later we can work out a system that doesn’t need them to activated the disruption ray by stabbing wildly into the air,” Dave said.

“Well, we’ve never been a group that really goes by the more orthodox methods,” Malsour said dryly.

“No, we’re not,” Dave agreed. “I’m looking forward to seeing how this ray will do.”

***

Denur looked over the Alturaran portal, all of the aerial forces and those that moved in close to the portal had been recalled a little bit ago as four of the Flying Citadels were now moving between the Citadels on the ground.

As they got closer, magical formations started to form underneath their islands, the Alturarans seemed to sense something was amiss, their ranged attacks sparked off of the mana shield.

Lines made of light and compressed runic lines spread out from the magical formations underneath the four Flying Citadels.

A diamond was created between the Flying Citadels with round magical formations appearing inside all of them, rotating in different directions lazily.

The Alturarans picked up their attacks as the air started to get hazy with the release of mana between the massive flying Citadels.

The Citadels stopped moving, the Alturarans attacks little more than annoyances to the Flying Citadels that were two kilometers up in the air.

The air suddenly erupted with a myriad of noises and a blinding flash that originated from the center of the magical formation that lay between the Flying Citadels.

Anything that lay in this blast’s path was destroyed. The green poison that had been hovering in the air was wiped out by the blast that weakened slightly as it passed.

It smashed down against the Alturarans, killing hundreds of them in a single blast and severely weakening the remaining mana barriers.

Another blast shot out from the Citadel formation the skies rumbled with power that once again descended on the Alturarans.

All magical spells and ranged attacks had stopped as the blast from the combined flying Citadels continued to rain down upon the Alturarans.

“It looks like, ...could it be those Nalheim’s disrupting spear attacks?” Denur muttered to herself.

She watched as that blast of light and noise continued to form below the spell formation, smashing into those below.

Her eyes moved to the Flying Citadels, she was the mother of Dragons, one of the most powerful creatures in all of Emerilia, but here, looking upon those Citadels she felt a chill run through her body as she shook her head to free herself of that feeling.

These Flying Citadels had taken the Nalheim’s already powerful attack, increasing its power and area of effect and used it to completely suppress the Alturarans.

As Denur watched the Alturaran’s fate had already been sealed.

There was nowhere that they could escape to as the attacks ate through their different protective shields and barriers. Once reaching their actual bodies many of them seemed to make screeching noises before their bodies shattered and exploded outwards.

The ground around the Alturarans was churned into dust the portal shifting as the ground was wrecked around it.

Even its own protective measures were taking on a pounding.

For twenty minutes it continued, the Alturarans unable to do anything about their fate.

A plume of dust spread up into the air, being pulled by the wind.

The Portal shifted, falling on its side.

The magical runes along the outside of the portal’s ring shut off as the sand covered plains on the other side of the portal disappeared.

In a flash of light the portal was teleported away.

In the space of an hour and a half the Flying Citadels had crushed the Alturaran forces. The solid runic lines made from mana faded away as the Flying Citadels moved away from the portal’s old location.

They moved into formation with the rest of the Goblin Mountain Flying Citadel Group and started to set out towards the West where four more portals were waiting for them.

The Citadel commanders at the Alturaran Portal called out different orders, calling for people to check their people, gear and be ready to move out to Terra.

Denur looked up from her perch on the Edge of a volcano, watching those eight Flying Citadels continue on their path.