Lunima stepped out onto Redemption Rock, the once-deserted island that now contained most of the prisoners that came out of the chaos in Arexia (with the exception of a few high-ranking officers that were being held in Sanctuary).

The island was in the process of being turned into a self-sufficient colony. They has sent over about half of their food and water reserves (enough to keep the colony up for about a month before they'd need to start finding alternate sources), and Bouldos was in the process of using his earthbending to construct shelter for them.

She called for a meeting of everyone in the colony. After a few minutes, everyone gathered around her. Lunima could have brought bodyguards, but as a gesture of trust, she was facing the mob alone. Granted, she did have enough divine power to survive should the mob attack, but they didn't exactly know that.

"A day ago, you were all serving under the employ of the Black Legion, the forces that maintained Daraken's power with an iron grip. However, he is now dead. We are in the process of dismantling the remnants of his government, and we will soon establish a new government." She was going to say that their government would be superior, but suspected that would be a lie. Daraken may have been a dictator, but he was an effective dictator.

There was a mixed response to that, but several individuals shouted out, "What does that mean for us?"

"Most of you aren't fanatical supporters of him. You may have joined him for the pay, due to pressure and propaganda, or due to being swept under his control when he took over, but it doesn't matter to us. We're going to give you several options."

"Your first option is to stay here and develop a colony. After the war is over, we will supply this island with a portal generator and open trade with the mainland of Garnoth. It will be a peaceful life, and judging by the potential resources here, a potentially lucrative life as well."

They did not seem especially interested in that possibility.

"If you wish, we can reunite you with your friends and family as soon as this war ends."

That attracted a mix of positive attention and angry shouting.

"Or, you can join our forces," Lunima said.

Naturally, everyone immediately began shouting. A few even threw tomatoes at her, and Lunima did nothing to stop them from staining her robes. Lunima waited them out, and after a few minutes, they calmed down enough to allow her to continue.

"The sooner a new stable government is established across Garnoth, the sooner we can rebuild. Daraken's apprentices are taking the opportunity to sieze power, and it will be a tough war to win. But with your support, we might be able to press the advantage sooner, force them to surrender, and regain a stable government within weeks instead of months."

"What about pay?" Someone shouted. Of course, much of the Black Legion was attracted by a generous payment scheme, one that the Resistance would struggle to match.

"We will match what the Legion paid," Lunima claimed.

A sizeable portion of those assembled seemed to agree. But then, someone objected. "And where would this pay be coming from? The Resistance is barely able to maintain its existing forces, you won't be able to pay for a few hundred auxiliaries."

"We have gained a significant treasury from Arexia. If nothing else, we'll pay you using the same currency the Legion was about to pay you with."

Of course, they only had pay for about a month ready, but with any luck they would retake Garnoth and use Garnoth's own treasure for payment before they ran out.

"Do you really think we'll just defect from the Legion just because of minor efforts to convince us?"

"No. But remember this: if Daraken was leader of this Resistance, he wouldn't have hesitated to execute all of you, rather than expending resources to keep you alive. He runs solely on pragmatism, and the only reason he's supported Garnoth is to further his own ends."

It was the truth, but it was a hard truth. The unwilling colonists of Redemption Rock didn't quite understand it.

Lunima left through the same portal she entered. It seemed they would need more convincing before they would be willing to ally themselves with the Resistance.

**********

It was a few days after the victory in Arexia, and the government of Garnoth had not made any announcements regarding Daraken's death. Since Daraken rarely left his tower, they had no need to recognize his death. Not when they could take power themselves.

Derrin had coined the current enemy a "shadow government", Daraken's apprentices claiming to still be representatives of Daraken, while truly taking the opportunity to expand their own power.

There was a chance that Daraken had somehow found a way to cheat death, despite having his body ripped to shreds by Annabelle's last act on this world, and despite Helios' ability to deny his resurrection once he entered the afterlife. The Resistance agreed to ignore that possibility, partly because it would greatly impair their ability to quickly return Garnoth to normal, and partly because if it was true, then without Annabelle they had already lost.

They were just as dangerous as Daraken, perhaps moreso without Daraken's pragmatic reasoning for developing Garnoth to keep the populace content. But with Daraken gone, the Resistance now had a number of new options.

Firstly, without the threat of Daraken's direct appearance, the Resistance would now be able the opportunity to engage far more aggressively, as Daraken wouldn't be present to obliterate the strike force.

Secondly, they could play the propaganda game, spreading news of Daraken's death to erode the shadow government's legitimacy.

And thirdly, they could wait for a civil war within the shadow government. The apprentices were a disparate group that likely held their own individual goals, and sooner or later they would likely fight among themselves.

The Resistance had yesterday embarked on a specialized diplomatic scheme, one that Raiks called "collective collapse". A representative was sent to each city in Garnoth under a truce flag, where they presented an offer. The Resistance proposed that those cities switch to the Resistance's side, to avoid an invasion later. This, combined with spreading rumors of Daraken's death, managed to convince four cities to defect, much to the ire of the shadow government. The rest called the bluff, possibly after communicating amongst themselves to realize that the Resistance couldn't follow up against every city at once.

Now, they had a choice. They could follow up with their stated intent and launch raids to bring several cities under their control, or they could play defensively and intercept the shadow government's inevitable counterattack. Or they could even try to do both.

Raiks decided to play defensively. If he broke the shadow government's army with an overwhelming show of force, it would prove they were failing, and unable to secure their territory with an iron grip like they could before. It would likely inspire more defections and rebellions, and with any luck would result in a quick collapse and an end to the war.

He ordered Turb to use divination to gather information about the enemy counterattack. After an hour, Turb's report came in. He and the two diviners working with him had gathered and analyzed the data. There were three attacks that were predicted, but there was also the potential for the divination to be wrong, or manipulated by the apprentices.

The first was a brute-force assault against Nexion, one of the few cities in the interior of Garnoth. Given how much was known about it, it was either completely unprotected against divinations, or the diviners had focused all of their efforts on deciphering it. Or both at once. It seemed to be the shadow government's main effort, backed by much of their remaining military forces, including both of their remaining Blade Wyverns. It was incredibly unlikely to be a decoy attack.

The second was a smaller force of elites, sent after Furion. The projection wasn't clear on what those elites were, but the apprentices were almost certainly part of it. That is, unless the attack never manifested.

The third, however, was a projected attack of only one man, against the small coastal town of Enos. It was either a false positive, a fake divination reading given off by the enemy mages, or a decoy attack. Even in the worst-case scenario of it being an enemy apprentice, they were unlikely to be able to cause significant damage.

After calling a meeting with advisors, Raiks distributed his teams. To defend Nexion, he deployed his core infantry force (a mixed group about eighty strong), backed by Bouldos, five other mages, and four healers. Against the attack in Furion, he readied a dozen archers, along with two more mages and healers. And in Enos, he left a small complement, including one of the few spies he still had. Even if it was bad data, he couldn't be too cautious. He also left a portal open in each city. If one force was overwhelmed, it would be able to either get reinforcements from another sector, or retreat to safety. Although, a retreat would have grave consequences for the Resistance's leadership.

Then, he configured his command table to provide an overhead view of the main battleground, and prepared his team for the combat.

**********

Though it wasn't the biggest city in Garnoth, Nexion was still significant. Below it were the largest deposits of iron on the entire continent. The city had started as a small town around an oasis, but rapidly expanded after the discovery of the iron deposits. The Resistance didn't have much of a need for an extra iron supply, but if they could hold this city, the Black Legion would start to be starved out.

In the distance, Daraken's skyscraper of a tower could be seen. In recent years, it had grown to an excessive height of 10 kilometers, for seemingly no reason. What little analysis they could perform on it indicated that the reason for its height was a spatial distortion spell on a massive scale, making the tower taller on the outside than it was on the inside. It seemed to be a single case of vanity in Daraken's otherwise-rational mindset.

Maybe the proximity to Fiora was the reason why this city had no walls. It wouldn't need them if Daraken could see any attacking army from his tower and blast them down. Hopefully, the apprentices lacked that capability.

Eight kilometers out from Nexion, the Black Legion's portals opened. Raiks moved his overhead view above their position and analyzed the incoming attack.

The first group to arrive was a force of three hundred footsoldiers. Half were heavy phalanx infantry, while the remainder were sword-and-bolter bolter auxiliaries.

But behind them, two massive portals opened, and the Black Legion's two remaining Blade Wyverns lumbered through. Instead of an arcane artillery focus and mounted complement, they had large storage containers strapped to their backs. Had they been pulled out of serving as beasts of burden?

However, though taking down one Blade Wyvern had been a tough fight before, they were only engaging it with a fraction of their army. Now that Daraken no longer had the potential to teleport in and obliterate their forces on any given mission, the Resistance had a full army ready to engage it.

The only problem was that the escalation of force also meant an escalation of stakes. If they lost this fight, they would lose much of their capability to beat the enemy.

Behind the Blade Wyverns, two apprentices walked in, escorted by three guardian golems each. They were outnumbered by the Resistance's mages, but they also had far more experience.

The enemy group took some time to reorganize, before moving in. The Blade Wyverns and apprentices remained behind the main infantry line.

Three of the Resistance's mages coordinated to cast a ritual. After a minute of build-up, the ritual activated, launching a sustained barrage of arcing fireballs towards the enemy forces, in a magical mortar strike. The apprentices countered the bombardment with a point defense screen of dispelling bolts, and though a few shots got through, no significant damage was done to their forces. However, it did keep the apprentices busy while the reminder of the mages built up defenses.

Bouldos prepared sinkholes in the sand that would be collapsed when enemies moved over them, while the other two mages prepared an energy barrier that would hopefully be strong enough to stall the Blade Wyverns.

After a few minutes, the mage's bombardment ritual stopped firing. A few seconds later, one of the apprentices shouted out an order, and the entire army broke out into a sprint, charging forwards at top speed, even though they were still five kilometers out.

Raiks suspected something was up as soon as soon as they started charging. Sure enough, after several minutes, the enemy army showed no signs of exhaustion. Whatever spell the apprentices had put on them gave them far more stamina than should be possible, and their sprinting advance would hit the line much faster than expected.

Raiks told his mages to rush to finish whatever defenses they could, then told the rest of his forces to brace for contact.

As the enemy forces closed, Bouldos triggered his traps. At least a dozen Black Legion troops fell into pits, and the remainder of the advancing forces were disrupted, forced to break formation to maneuver around the pits. The Resistance troops fired on the disrupted phalanx, and one of the mages delivered a well-placed lightning bolt that pierced through and eliminated half a dozen simultaneously. The enemy auxiliaries funneled in behind the phalanx, but an arcing fireball shot blasted a massive chunk of them down.

The auxiliaries retaliated with volley fire, aiming their bolters into the sky and firing over their phalanx, inflicting almost a dozen casualties on the Resistance's frontline. Or at least, they would be casualties if not for the resistance's Healers, who immediately stepped up to heal and revive the wounded.

Then, the Blade Wyverns were launched into the sky, with enough velocity to hurl them over several hundred meters and straight into the city. If not for the barriers that had been put up, they would have landed on their frontline, crushing several dozen soldiers at once.

The enemy apprentices had likely exhausted much of their strength to pull off that maneuver, and it would take them a few minutes for their energy to replenish. If his forces focused on them before they could recover, he could take them down early, gaining an overwhelming magical advantage in this fight, and weakening the shadow government in the future.

The Blade Wyverns stabbed downwards with their tentacles, and those impacts combined with the weight of the beasts began to collapse the barriers. With a great effort, two Resistance mages converted part of the force field into a force blast, blasting one of the Blade Wyverns back into its own army. Auxiliaries dived out of the way as the Blade Wyvern landed on top of them, flipped onto its back. Because of the containers on its back, that Blade Wyvern seemed to be having significant difficulty righting itself.

But before they could repeat the process against the other Blade Wyvern, it broke the forcefield and landed on the roof of a building behind the Resistance, causing cracks in the roof but somehow not causing it to collapse outright. Meanwhile, on the frontline, the enemy phalanx regrouped and charged forwards, splitting into three groups that each took a street.

Raiks had part of his frontline prepare to take the charge and stall the phalanx, while ordering the rest of his forced to turn around and focus on the Blade Wyvern. With its partner temporarily incapacitated, they had a chance to finish it off before it could do too much damage.

In the center, Bouldos slammed the ground, shooting up several spikes of rock in front of the charge to disrupt it again. While they were disrupted, the Resistance frontline countercharged to take advantage.

The Blade Wyvern jumped to the ground, right next to two healers, and grabbed one with its tongue. As she was being pulled in, the healer desperately released a radiant burst around herself to try to stun the wyvern, but the wyvern did not release her. It lashed out with its tentacles, slicing the other healer in half horizontally, then swinging wildly to keep anyone from getting close to it. A dozen Resistance soldiers attempted to approach it with spears, but could not get in range.

Three Resistance mages coordinated a counterattack, using a variation of a lightning storm spell. Lightning rapidly arced across the Blade Wyvern's body. The Blade Wyvern began to suffer from convulsions, collapsing to the ground and releasing the healer in its mouth. However, its tentacles were unaffected by the lighting arcs, and continued to swing at anyone who tried to approach it.

Then, the compartments on its back burst open, revealing an undead surprise. Two dozen skeletons poured out, animated, and charged forth. The compartments also opened on the other Blade Wyvern, but as the compartment had taken the brunt of a large fall, the skeletons that crawled out of it were shattered and crippled, an ineffectual threat at best. However, opening the compartments was enough to let that Wyvern flip back over onto its feet.

Spears, though ideal for harming massive creatures, were ineffective against walking skeletons. The troops around the Wyvern were forced to drop their spears and pull out swords, which could at least be used as blunt weapons in a pinch. However, after switching weapons, they seemed to have the advantage.

During the commotion, the now-released healer made a move. She released another flash of light to briefly blind the Blade Wyvern, then rushed to safety. She grabbed the body of the bisected healer, carrying him out of the danger zone before the skeletons could finish him off. After checking to make sure he would live (even if it would take quite a bit of effort to regenerate his lower body and legs), she went back in to heal any who were wounded.

Then, as the Blade Wyvern recovered from the lightning attack, Scars, the Resistance's strongest berserker, advanced on it. Even without magical support, he was still a force to be reckoned with.

The Blade Wyvern shot out its tongue, latching onto Scars. However, Scars snatched it up with one hand, stood his ground as the Blade Wyvern attempted to pull him back, and sliced off the tip with his axe. The Blade Wyvern withdrew its tongue, and focused all of its attention onto him.

It stabbed at Scars with its tentacles. Scars' heavy armor blocked several slashing strikes, forcing the Blade Wyvern to change to stabbing attacks. Scars dodged two stabbing tentacles, but a third hit him straight-on, punching through his armor, piercing his chest, then pulling out quickly before Scars could counterattack. Scars pushed through the injury, and continued advancing, smashing through several skeletons that tried to get in his way. Another tentacle landed a hit, but he stayed up.

The Blade Wyvern seemed to panic, snapping forwards with its head to try to bite Scars. Scars took a step back and knocked the beast's head aside, then spun around to deliver a devastating axe hit, hitting hard enough to break some of its scales. The Blade Wyvern was briefly dazed, but quickly retaliated, impaling Scars with both of its tentacles. Scars slumped over and seemed to collapse from his injuries, and the healer rushed over to him.

However, as the Blade Wyvern's tentacles were embedded in Scars' body and armor, it gave an opening for one of the mages to send a cutting wind slash to sever one of the tentacles. Scars then got a second wind, grabbing onto the other tentacle and holding it down. The Blade Wyvern tried to pull out, but Scars managed to keep his grip.

With the Blade Wyvern's offensive capability crippled, and the skeletons surrounding it disposed of, the rest of the infantry picked up their spears and charged, impaling the Wyvern in multiple points, using the impact momentum to punch through the scales. The beast still refused to die, until Scars stepped forward and started smashing the Blade Wyvern's head over and over with his axe.

As soon as the Blade Wyvern was knocked unconscious, he had the rest of the infantry in that force break off and return to the frontline, while Scars continued to chop through its head. The Blade Wyvern would have its brains obliterated before it could recover.

And, the enemy phalanx was now engaging, pressing their numerical advantage. Even though his forces were more skilled, a spear wall was difficult to overcome for even skilled warriors. His forces were primarily relying on skirmish tactics, attempting to slow down the phalanx with some of their number while others tried to find chinks in their shields and armor to shoot through with bolters. But during this process, they took bolter fire from the auxiliaries, wearing away at their number. Raiks called for them to disengage and retreat deeper into the city, as he considered bringing in the reserves. The threat at the other two sites had not yet materialized, and even if it did, they would gain much more from eliminating the enemy's core military than he would lose from the elites briefly retaking a city.

Then, Bouldos fell. One of the apprentices fired a hypervelocity projectile straight into his head, blowing it apart and killing him instantly. Raiks hadn't seen that spell before. It seemed like some secret weapon Daraken taught to his apprentices, just before his death. The sort of spell that would result in a paradigm shift for magical combat.

Raiks' mages would now have to simultaneously engage the enemy infantry and duel the enemy mages at the same time, and given the threat that this new spell posed, they would have to focus too much on defense to do much of either.

Raiks gave the order to mobilize as much of his reserves as he could, leaving only a pair of guards at each location to monitor for potential attacks. He just had to hope the reinforcements arrived in time.