The Justiciars above began to fire down. Sania, Danivra and I fired back without cease, though it was only to neutralize their attacks. None of them, from what I could see were above Danivra in Level, yet none of the Justiciars were below level 100 either. This was an incredible force sent against us, and the Nystiobek couldn’t even get involved because of the flight aspect. Many of them activated their Claws of rending Salvation with which they could deflect the incoming Neuma-based attacks.

It became a rather pointless battle until one of them moved closer:

Rigel Mollin: First Rank Justiciar: Level 122 Losala (Losalfar III)

He fired off a wave of energy that I went to defend against, but it spread out and washed over us all without causing apparent harm.

Warning: You have been neutralized. External use of Neuma unavailable for 20 minutes.

The gray glowing from the Nystiobeks' claws still remained active, but any effort to fire a projectile failed and I could no longer fly. I activated my Claw of Brutal Dismissal, the red light flaring to life just in time to deflect a bolt from above. Sania did the same. I pulled out my Cleaver of Clive. As it sprung to life, I yelled again. “Come on everybody. Keep moving south. Defend, and if any of them get close, make sure they don’t fly away!”

With that, we slowly crept along deflecting all incoming blasts, at least until they started running out.

The Justiciars laughed from above, narrowly avoiding the occasional jump from one of our Nanooks. At least until Danivra surprised one with her webbing, which hadn’t been used in this fight yet. As the level 104 Justiciar became embroiled in the super strong sticky substance. The woman caught didn’t fall from the sky though, as the webs weren’t paralyzing without the power, but in an amazing feat of Giant bear engineering, Galota jumped up from Natta’s back and chomped onto the struggling woman’s legs and brought her down to the ground where she was promptly torn apart in a brutal display. The other Justiciars attempted to defend her but failed miserably.

While that was a great victory for us, more Paladins were arriving and peppering us, and the ground troops and archers were closing in on our position.

“We have to run again,” I screamed through the bond.

Everyone listened and we tried to continue our fighting retreat. But as our ascension weapons came to an end, our overall ability to defend from the attacks above was drastically reduced.

IF it wasn’t for the sudden and desperately needed appearance of the Wind of the Wild in his giant form. We’d have been finished. His arrival lifted all of our spirits as he leapt insanely high, taking an unsuspecting Justiciar from the sky in the process. Dragging them to the ground , he disappeared into gray smoke again as the Nystiobek dismantled Justiciar among them in the most brutal of ways.

Wind of the wild wasn’t finished though as he reappeared, taking out a lower leveled Paladin from the air moments later. If it wasn’t for his timely arrival, we may well have been completely screwed.

From the corner of my eye, I saw one of our level sixty Nystiobeks flying to meet a level 50 paladin in aerial battle. I couldn’t understand how he was flying until I saw another engage in aerial combat. Thrown by one of the Nanooks.

I wanted to be in on that action too, feeling impotent stuck on the ground without spicy balls to throw. I suddenly felt sorry for those who were always stuck on the floor.

“What about the Manipulate power you got from Singularity, Clive. Can you do anything with that?” she asked desperately. I hadn’t thought about it until now, but it was worth a try. Bringing up the vision aspect, the whole world blossomed into a multi-colored palette. Barely decipherable with the amount of writhing, crushing bodies and the glowing Neuma they held. What caught my attention was power use, in the form of the paladin's projectiles. They were so much more vibrant than anything else.

I pushed at the Neuma in the air in front of the blasts intending to knock them from their current course. As the attack passed through the area of displaced Neuma, it lost a great deal of its potency.

Finally having something useful to do I offered Sania a thumbs up and continued my efforts. After a short while, Wind of the Wild disappeared for the last time. Gone. No word he was coming and no word that he was going, but I understood, and I was infinitely grateful for his help. I could only imagine how much energy he’d just expended and how much risk he’d just taken to help us, and he must have removed around fifteen paladins and the Justiciar.

It was down to us now and as the first of the foot soldiers began to arrive I knew we would not have enough to win here. Heavily armored spear wielders, screaming, came running across the flat plain. The Nystiobek who couldn’t get involved in trying to pick off the aerial threat, charged the incoming enemy, crashing together in a mass of grunting, screaming, flesh and metal.

Meanwhile, the Nanooks and Danivra tried to deal with the airborne threat as best they could, while I tried to protect them with the singularity power. It was of limited use, and I was just delaying the inevitable.

“Grigor! How long?” I unfairly begged over the bond.

“Not… much… longer,” he replied. His thoughts ragged. “Pushing…hard.”

“Thank you, we owe you.”

He didn’t reply. It didn’t sound as though he could and keep running, so I let it drop as more bolts and blasts of energy hammered down on us. A look at the Nystiobek fighting was a horrible sight. I saw one of them fall, not dead, but that wasn’t likely to last.

When a notification flashed across my vision, I feared the worst. That an aspirant had died, but it was a sliver of good news I was determined to make the most off.

I looked over to Sania. “Don’t fly yet Sania. I want to surprise them.” I immediately began building two balls of power adding Ethereal energy as quickly as I could and sent them to the two nearest Paladins, before I took to the air. The two surprise attacks hit their intended targets, and the damage caused was dramatic.

Sania appeared by my side, and we worked together to target those paladins nearest us. Sania’s spicy balls were damaging, but largely ineffective, but my Ethereal blasts were dynamite.

After the tenth Paladin went down to one of my attacks, the three remaining Justiciars, seeing the carnage I was creating, portaled over to us. I smashed an Ethereal ball at Rigel as he appeared, but a shield sprung up between us. It wasn’t him this time. It seemed each Justicar was bringing something special to the party.

“Go,” I screamed to Sania and physically pushed her in the opposite direction to me, then propelled myself away from her as hard as I possibly could. Rigel let his wave of power loose again, aiming at me as the main threat.

As my ability to fly cut out. The momentum I’d built kept me heading away from the Justiciars at a downward angle from close to three hundred feet in the air.

Sania and Danivra both screamed in my head as I plummeted to the ground. I was fortunate enough to land in the path of around three hundred onrushing soldiers that had been racing to catch up with us.

These weren’t spear wielders, though. Wearing much lighter, more maneuverable armor they carried thin curved swords which they whirled around threateningly at me with speed and skill as they closed the distance. Their line was only two deep and those that made up the ranks behind were archers.

I weighed up my chances against them without power. I was twice the size of them, with hefty Constitution and they were all in the thirty to forty range in levels. If I could get in among them, I could cause real damage and they would also form a kind of barrier against the sword wielders… I hoped.

Raising the now glowing cleaver in anticipation for what was to come. I muttered to myself that I could do this. Deep down, I was under no illusion that this was going to be like throwing a rubber sausage into a food blender.

“Hold on Clive! I’m coming and I can see Grigor and the others!”

“Continue the fight against the paladins, Sania. You and Danivra are the only ones who can combat them until our archers get here.”

“But what’s the point if you die?”

“I can’t bloody die,” I replied. Then had to concentrate on the battle ahead of me. Throwing the cleaver at the level 38 Losalfar closest to me, he dodged it with consummate ease, but smashed into the skull of the level 45 Losalfar behind him who hadn’t seen it coming. They dropped to the ground dead, but the one I’d missed didn’t seem to give a damn. Even having the cheek to grin at me as he raised his sword to attack.

I only wished I’d had more time to gloat as I deflected his thrust with my demon arm and buried the cleaver that had just reappeared in my hand so deeply into his neck it came out the other side. Lopping his head clean off in a gout of blood.

I took a couple of heavy blows on the arms and waist, causing minor injuries that I ignored as I pushed forward with all my speed and might into the lightly armored archers beyond.

Once among them, it was a savage and bloody massacre as my cleaver and clawed hand rose and fell in a steady, deadly rhythm. I was hit with arrows, and I was hit with bolts from the paladins above, but I gritted my teeth and I kept going through it all. I’d made it a kind of personal mission that I wanted to reach the back of their line and break free of the other side. Where, of course I’d turn around and do it all again.

“We’re here!” Grigor screamed in my head and I saw a flurry of activity and a certain bugbear jumping at least eighty feet in the air onto the sword of a waiting paladin. He took the sword through the chest as if it was nothing and bit the paladin's nose off.

The only reason I had time to watch was because those I was fighting had become distracted by the arrival of my people. I took that opportunity to attack again. Two fell to my vicious anger when I was smashed in the back by something. I couldn’t see what it was, but a silver light enveloped me as I landed on my face. It was way more painful than anything I’d felt so far. Like being hit by Stada, but with a distinct electrocution aspect about it. Those near me were blasted away.

I struggled up to my knees about to make the final unsteady effort up to my feet when two huge hands wrapped around me from behind, holding me in an inescapable grip. Without power and with my cleaver in my hand pinned to my side, I was powerless to resist as the hands drew me sharply through a large silver and red portal. All I had were my screams of rage and insults.

Sania was talking rapidly in my head making it hard for me to think.

As the portal snapped shut, locking me away from my desperately fighting friends, the Nephilim hold me slammed me down onto white marble tiles.

As I got back to my feet, full of rage, I found myself in a large white room lined with marble columns. My attention was stolen from the decor to take in the several seriously powerful Paladins and Justiciars standing around me. Some of them in their Nephilim forms, looking down on me like a bug.