John had been standing in front of his tent, oiling his sword when he heard it. It sounded a lot like an explosion. “Did you hear that?” he asked Dwan, who had been lazing around by the side. Elden was nowhere to be seen, most likely drinking around the camp followers’ tents as he often did.

Captain Jacke stuck his head out from his tent, checking to see what was happening. He wasn’t the only one.

All around the soldiers turned to look. Some of them were still in armor while others had already removed it. John tried to look, but the rows of tents and banners made it impossible to see anything too far.

“Beats me,” Dwan responded. “Must be those crazy spellcasters doi—”

As Dwan spoke, John’s attention was caught by something flickering up in the sky. It flew from behind the earthen walls, reaching its highest point and quickly descending towards their direction. Was that a crystal?

John’s heart skipped a beat. Without thinking twice, he threw himself to the ground just as the crystal hit Dwan in the shoulder, who only now took note of it. The next instant, Dwan was enveloped in an explosion of blinding blue and red lights.

The blast hit John’s body like a truck, and he was sent rolling over the ground. If he had still been standing up, the shockwave would have caved in his breastplate and ruptured his lungs as well as some other organs. When he finally came to a halt, his ears were ringing and his eyes were unable to focus.

There were other sounds of explosions, some coming from far away, while others happened so near that they rattled his armor. People shouted, but the voices were too indistinct to make out amid the explosions.

John pushed himself back to his feet, lost his balance, and fell to one knee. Back where he had been standing, there now was a two feet deep crater. At the bottom of it lied Dwan’s mangled corpse, missing a leg and an arm. The armor had melted and mixed in with his burnt flesh before solidifying again. The crater’s walls were painted red with his already dried blood.

John’s tent had disappeared, while the adjacent ones had been blown far away. The various flying beasts all took to the air by themselves in all directions, quickly escaping the loud explosions.

“...tack! Enemy attack!” one of the geomancers shouted, frantically and close enough that John was able to make out the words.

Something shuffled beneath one of the displaced canvas. A sword pierced the fabric from inside and ripped open a hole big enough for Captain Jacke to stick out from. “No shit, genius!” he yelled at the geomancer. “What tipped you off?” He had only his sword in hand, without any piece of armor and no time to search for them.

The geomancer didn’t hear or, more likely, ignored Jacke’s remark. He stomped one foot on the ground and two head-sized balls of earth soared up, coming to a sudden halt around his shoulders. Next, he closed a fist and the two balls of soft earth were compressed, becoming smaller but also thick as rocks. Finally, he punched towards the sky.

One of the rocks shot up in the direction he punched at. It intercepted one of the crystals falling towards them, which immediately exploded on contact. The geomancer punched again, shooting the other rock towards another incoming crystal, and immediately followed up with another stomp for more ammo.

After that, the exploding crystals finally paused for a moment, giving everyone the time to get their bearings.

John stood up, managing to keep his balance this time, and looked around for his sword. He had dropped it during the first blast and now it was nowhere to be seen.

“Form up! Gather around the Warlocks for protection!” Jacke, to his credit, rallied the still disoriented soldiers. He yanked to their feet those still on the ground while yelling orders to the rest, making sure to place the wounded closer to the geomancer. To John’s surprise, there were much more unscathed soldiers than wounded ones.

Soon enough, around fifty soldiers had gathered around the geomancer. “What are they doing?” Jacke asked the man who had already dropped to one knee.

The geomancer pressed one hand to the earth and closed his eyes, pinpointing the enemies’ position by the vibrations on the ground. “They are encircling the walls. Two, maybe three thousand enemies. There are too many for me to count exactly.”

“Bloody hell, how did so many of them manage to sneak up on us? Weren’t you geomancers supposed to be paying attention to that?”

The geomancer shot a glare at Jacke. “We have a limit to how far we can sense the vibrations. When I finally felt anything they had already started raining crystalized mana down on—” His words got caught in his throat as he felt something. The next instant he jumped back to his feet. “They are attacking again!” he yelled, preparing himself to shoot down more of the exploding crystal.

While the first wave of attacks came in a disorderly manner, this one came in a single volley. John’s heart sank. Over the walls, a hundred meters in front of them, hundreds of small black crystals came flying. How the hell do they have so many? Crystallized mana was supposed to be valuable, and yet the enemies seemed to have an unlimited stock of it, and they weren’t afraid to use it.

For a moment John became sure that he would die right then and there. Would there even be a single piece of him left intact? The deadly salvo dotted out the skies, beginning its slow descent towards the camp.

“Those aren’t crystals!” Jacke yelled, and John allowed himself to feel hope. But if that’s the case, what are they...

The geomancer released his spell, the balls of condensed earth that had been floating around him now falling straight down to the ground.

With a series of clanks, the salvo finally hit the group. One black piece bounced off of John’s helmet, before falling to the ground.

None exploded.

There was a collective sigh of relief from the group as that fact dawned on them.

John bent down to pick one of the pieces. As said by Jacke, they weren’t pieces of crystalized mana, but rather metal. A blackish metal with purple specks. Triotium. The metal used to contain spellcasters.

John turned to the geomancer, and the man had a terrified look on his face. He hadn’t released his spell. Rather, he couldn’t cast it anymore.

Someone jumped and perched atop the wall, a thin woman in a worn-down leather armor and with a sheathed sword by her hip. Then there was a second person, this time a man in a brown gambeson. Then a third, a fourth, and a fifth, until there were dozens of them. They all had their swords at their hips instead of their hands.

Collectively, they all pulled one arm back as if to make a throw, one of them aimed at John’s group. His heart sank again. Without the spellcasters, they had no way of deflecting the crystals.

“Scatter!” Jacke yelled out.

The crystals came the next second.