The sun was shining above a grassy valley. A place peaceful just a few hours ago was now bursting with activity. They have arrived there as one of the first groups because a ritual they had to prepare would take most of the time.

Now, having finished setting everything up, he stood in the middle of a ritual circle, waiting.

From his position, the archwizard could overlook the whole valley. His gaze shifted through thousands of troops with intricately enchanted weaponry supported by loose formations of various arcane constructs. Between them moved robed figures of wizards and clerics. Many just behind the front lines, yet there were also groups like his, standing further away around ritual circles they had prepared.

A low humming sound produced by teleportation arrays suddenly stopped. Last units arrived. Wizards responsible for upkeeping portals were finally allowed some respite. They would require all strength everyone could muster when the battle starts. Every single sliver of mana they could command would count.

Everyone was waiting in an uneasy silence, interrupted only by sounds of wings flapping made by trained wyverns, wyrms and shapeshifted druids flying above them.

'It is truly a marvellous sight.'

Just a few cycles ago any idea of forming a single army of various guilds, temples, orders and semi-autonomous kingdoms scattered throughout the Empire would be considered a mad diviner’s rambling. Now, seeing that they were unable to manage on their own, they decided to put their internal struggles and disputes on hold and unite.

'But wasn't it already too late?' he thought. 'And how long would that last until they return to their infighting again?'

“It’s time,” he received a telephatic message.

After a few Cycles of research, their best diviners managed to create a spell narrowing location and time to when Greater Rifts with that peculiar dimension would form up. That allowed them to contain incursions before they spread too far. The Archwizard was sure that this spell was the only reason they were still able to put up a resistance. First Cycles of the war had cost the Empire almost a third of its population and close to a half of its combat potential.

Currently, they were still slowly but steadily bleeding out with every fight. The Council believed that the only way for them to prevail was by developing an effective large-scale combat or disrupting spell.

They needed to either effectively deal with the enemy or to limit the number of foes they would have to kill once they pass through a rift. New ideas for said spells will be put to use once more today.

Letting know twelve Archwizards that surrounded him, he ignited his inner spark and started to chant in a melodic voice. One after another, sigils were formed in his mind. For but a second he could hear distinct voices of surrounding wizards, before their incantations connected with his as one. They drew from the ambient mana, willing it into the ritual circle. After a few minutes came pain and ecstasy, as the power gathered by them started to flow through his body.

In the next seconds, which crawled like an eternity, he could sense tremendous amounts of mana radiating like beacons from other wizards' ritual circles. Spellcasters scattered among troops weaved minuscule patterns of light, at least comparing to power gathered by them, engulfing combatants with layers of defensive spells.

Then he focused his mind's eye on to the middle of the valley, waiting, searching….There! As a tear in the reality formed, he said the final words of the incantation, releasing the spell.

For a splinter of a second, an almost two kilometres long, pitch-black scar was formed, immediately to be covered by the azure blue flames created by the ritual magic. During next few seconds the rift shrunk by almost a half of its starting diameter, consumed by the magical fire.

For a moment he felt pride – after all, the spell Coldfire, which was approved by the Council to be used as a seed-spell for those rituals, was the magic he had invented decades ago. It created flames which feed on the lifeforce, frostbiting and withering what they had touched. Due to various alterations and amount of mana a ritual casted by thirteen archwizards provided, it would also consume ambient magic in the area, creating a dead-magic zone. It should, at least in a theory, not only fasten closing of rifts but also limit the ability to manipulate magic in the affected area.

Despite coverage of flames, as soon as the rift opened, twisted beings started to pour through it. Researchers believed that most of the invaders were almost mindless entities, fueled only by their endless hunger to consume and corrupt all life.

At first, the amorphous beings engulfed by the azure-flame were immediately crumbling and falling dead. As the time passed, the rift was shrinking and so were the mana reserves of the wizards responsible for channelling of the rituals.

‘Why are they not reacting? They've been always stopping planar incrusions, why aren't they reacting now?’ whenever he fought against those invaders he was asking this question. Yet nobody was able to find the answer.

Soon abominations were reaching further and further away. Some of them finally doused the flames, revealing their black, formless, ever-changing shape. They casted some lesser spells which were possible inside the newly formed dead-zone only by using their own innate mana and charged under the barrage of arrows released by troops. Many fell, but some managed to move further, to the area where spells could be used normally. They were met with arcane barrages released by spellcasters and faced by melee troops.

Time passed, as spells flew between the clashing forces. From everywhere around roars of wild invaders and tamed beasts could be heard, assisted by shouts and screams of soldiers, sounds of weapons hitting, spells exploding.

Fighting off pain he was still focusing on directing mana towards the rift. He almost felt a relief when one of the wizards providing him with energy fainted from exhaustion, reducing strain his body had to endure to still channel the spell. Four more spellcasters had lost consciousness before the rift was finally sealed.

Supporting himself with a staff in his shaking hands, he half sat half fell on the ground.

Before closing his eyes, he took the last look at the now snowy-valley.

It was reshaped with craters from magical explosions, littered with corpses of the soldiers, beasts and abominations, with various parts of destroyed constructs scattered around. Fluids were staining everything in various shades of red, black and green. Few remaining enemies were still fighting, encircled and attacked from all sides by the soldiers.

Some would say that struggles of remaining creatures were in vain. They would be short-sighted fools.

“We still have lost too many. Even if we manage to resurrect a third of the fallen, at this rate it still won’t be enough,” he whispered to himself, focusing on the meditation to faster replenish his mana reserves and to at least partially restore some of the damage his body suffered from overchannelling.

It was going to be a long day.