Saphus rapidly fell towards the surface. She attempted to reorient herself with a few telekinetic bursts, as if she was attempting to land on one of the Crusaders. But even if she had been deliberately trying to kill one of them, she couldn't aim herself accurately enough to pull it off.

When the ground got close, she focused her kinetic aura on decelerating herself. She planned to land on her feet, but miscalculated, hitting the ground hard. She slowly got to her feet, but before she could do anything, she was immediately swarmed by half a dozen Crusaders. Luckily, they seemed confused enough by her dropping out of the sky to not immediately stab her.

One of them attempted to ask Saphus to identify herself, but was quickly interrupted by another barking orders, calling for her to surrender. At the same time, a third ran off to fetch Julia.

Saphus complied with the demands, putting her hands behind her head and showing that she was unarmed. Relatively, at least.

After a short delay, Julia arrived on the scene. "What is going on here?"

Saphus decided to send a covert message. I'm Raiks' double agent. For some reason, Daraken thought it would be a good idea to drop me from high altitude, expecting me to somehow get any use out of it. But, his idiocy is our gain.

Julia seemed to acknowledge what that meant. "Wait. She's the Resistance's lost spy." She looked at a nearby group of Resistance soldiers. "She's your prisoner."

The Resistance guys were confused, until receiving what was most likely a message from Raiks. Then, they grabbed Saphus

As Saphus was being hauled towards the portal, she noted lax security among the guards. Just like most of her marks, they didn't consider her any sort of threat, and didn't do anything more than train a crossbow on her to threaten her if she stepped out of line. If she wanted to kill them, she would probably be able to take them out in just a few seconds, before anyone else would be able to react. Sure, she would die afterwards, but that was what Daraken wanted out of her.

Which, unfortunately, might make Daraken suspicious too early. Especially if he was paying close attention to the situation, or even just watching her for his own amusement. For once in her career, Saphus actually wished for tighter security, if only so that her lack of an escape attempt would be justified.

The group stopped just before reaching the portal. One of them walked through, waited a few seconds, and then walked back out.

"Wow, a pointless waste of time," Saphus remarked.

"Daraken has sabotaged our return portals in the past. With this measure, if the portal is sabotaged, only one of us is lost before we detect it."

"That wouldn't fool a complex sabotage," Saphus replied, with a bit of a smirk.

Saphus was extrapolating a bit. Daraken hadn't explicitly stated he was going to do any such thing, but he almost certainly had the capability. The question was whether such a measure worked with his plan.

But before they could walk her through, Saphus launched herself through the portal with a kinetic burst, landing with a roll in the middle of the vestibule between the portal room and the main gate, inside the null-magic field.

The gate was open when she went through, but a guard saw her sudden intrusion and rapidly slammed the gate shut. She made an attempt to sprint through it, but the gate was closed and locked before she could get through.

It was a pretty suicidal maneuver from a tactical standpoint, given that there was an iron gate that she couldn't get through without magical weapons. She had enough deniability to be able to claim that she thought it was a valid tactic, but she knew it wasn't going to work.

Her 'guards', noticing this, immediately rushed through the portal and surrounded her. Without magic, Saphus stood no chance against them.

"Did you really think that would work?" one of them asked.

"No. But you should probably bring Raiks."

"We're taking you straight-"

"You only captured me the first time because I was unconscious. You might be able to hold me in this room, but as soon as I get out the other end, I'd be able to escape."

Well, that was uncertain, but it wasn't the reason she wanted to stay right where she was. If Daraken had some form of kill switch on her, it wouldn't be able to activate inside the null-magic field.

"Hold her there!" the order came from a guard outside the gate. "Raiks is coming over."

The Resistance soldiers lined up next to the portal generator, their swords ready. Saphus wouldn't be able to get past them, even if she wanted to. Instead, she just sat down in the hallway.

"Has Raiks told you I'm a double agent?" Saphus said.

"You killed him!"

"And he was immediately resurrected afterwards. Unless he was lying about Lunima's abilities." Wait, why weren't they told about her status?

"Raiks will sort this out. If you're somehow correct-"

"Which I am."

"-then he'll greet you."

A few seconds after he said that, Raiks arrived.

"Hello, Saphus. I'm assuming you have information?"

The guards' jaws dropped.

"You know, you could have told them about me."

"And then if any of my men were captured, your cover would be blown."

Right. Didn't put her in any less danger, but then again Raiks could give our orders on the field if it had become a problem.

"Anyways, I'd like to stay right here for now. Daraken may or may not be trying to kill me right now."

"I was going to suggest that anyways. Also, you mentioned him, so I'm assuming you've seen him?"

"He has a, um, respawn chamber. When he dies, his body is reconstructed there. And it's not just him, it's all of his agents, including me at this point."

Raiks pondered that. "That explains why some of the apprentices seemed so eager to die…"

"He claimed that the respawn chambers allow incredibly rapid recovery, even better than the resurrection performed by Helios's priests. Instead of requiring an existing body, they merely reconstruct a new body for the individual."

"He's at full strength," Raiks realized.

"Yes. However, he also stated that the forces opposing him will be able to defeat him, and he sent me out to buy time to get his own defenses up. Now that you are allied with Helios and have much of the Black Legion on your side, you now have a chance to strike."

"Even at his full strength, he's still vulnerable," Raiks realized. "We might still be able to pull this off."

He switched to his comms link with the rest of the Resistance, and began rapidly giving out orders. Saphus had done her part, now it was time for Raiks to do his.

**********

"We need to launch this assault as soon as possible. I am sending teams to the cities to gather up those Black Legion soldiers who are willing to fight in this battle, but they won't arrive soon enough. I need you to buy some time."

Julia listened to Raiks give the information update through a Resistance communicator, and considered the orders mostly irrelevant. They were already about to launch a siege, regardless of what intel they got.

Although, the intel he had handed out was worrying. Daraken and his apprentices were unkillable unless their tower was destroyed.

Raiks gave out orders. "All mages: initiate bombardment rituals, targeting the tower, unless you have been given orders to construct defenses. All others, protect the mages." He likely said that just to give the non-mages something to do, given that they were a few kilometers out from the city, well out of the range of any counterattack they could actually defend against."

Julia and her priests started by initiating their own ritual.

Around her, the ground began to darken, as the energy of the sun's light was absorbed within a huge radius, practically eclipsing the sun. Julia felt the energy building up inside the ritual, and held as much of it as she could.

Then, after two minutes, she unleashed the wrath of Helios, in an immensely powerful ray of divine might mixed with the channeled energy of sunlight. If it was aimed at the city, it would have easily bored through the walls and buildings, inflicting catastrophic damage on innocent civilians and their belongings. Luckily, Julia aimed higher, firing the beam at the midpoint of the tower. There was a ring of crystals at that point, so it was likely an important part of the structure.

Even from this distance, Julia could see the glare from the impact, as the heat melted through defenses. She had enough energy to fire the beam for ten seconds before it cut out.

When the light dissipated, the tower seemed undamaged.

"Direct hit on the tower. No physical effect." That report came from Turb, who had taken the odd decision to join the team in the field. He was unable to scry on Fiora from Sanctuary, but from his current position, he could enhance his own sight to accomplish the same analysis, albeit at greater risk.

"What about magical effects?"

"The tower appears to have a ward on a massive scale that absorbed the damage. I cannot determine how much the ward was drained by the beam, but I believe- wait, the crystals are moving."

From her distant vantage point, Julia could see the ring of crystals at the tower's midpoint pop out of their sockets in the tower and begin levitating in a ring.

"The crystals are beginning to spin, and they're- wait, they're starting to crackle with black lightning. What is this- SCATTER!"

Turb's divinations seemed to pick up on the threat a second before it fired. While everyone else scattered, Julia stood her ground and protected herself with a shield of divine light.

A bolt of black lightning blasted out from the tower, carrying an immense amount of power. It seemed to arc in midair, before landing directly on Julia. Her shield was obliterated, and the bolt scored a direct hit.

First, a burst of lightning arced through her, powerful enough to stop her heart and fry her brain.

Second, a pulse of magic softened her body, rendering her bones brittle.

And lastly, an explosion of kinetic energy obliterated her body, scattering it into many pieces.

However, that wasn't enough to stop her. Her regenerative blessing kicked in, bolstered by the rapid aid from the other priests, and her body was reformed and repaired in a matter of seconds, before her soul departed.

It was an odd feeling, having your body destroyed and reformed. But it wasn't anywhere near lethal.

Daraken would need more than that to kill her.

"The crystal ring appears to be an energy conduit for an incredibly powerful siege weapon. Or, well, anti-siege weapon. I'm not sure why such a strong weapon is attached to a fixed installation."

"Probably because it makes sieges impossible. Raiks, are you sure we have a chance at this?"

"That's what my source claims. Although, Daraken is over-cautious. Even a small chance to win would be enough to get him worried."

Well, Julia wasn't expecting this to be easy. She began another ritual, casting another eclipse to prepare for the next assault.

Meanwhile, the Resistance's mages had their own plans.

Bouldos summoned a massive rock, too enormous to ever be loaded into a siege engine, but not too massive to have its gravity manipulated.

With a focused incantation, Firenze caused the massive rock to lift into the air, its gravity altered. After a few seconds, its direction of gravity was aimed straight at the midpoint of the tower, and the massive rock 'fell' towards it in a free-fall.

The crystal ring fired a second blast at the boulder, blasting chunks off of it, but not doing enough to stop it. The rock impacted, with enough force that Julia could hear the impact from her distant position (after the sound reached her, at least).

"The impact misaligned one of the crystals, and has inflicted minor damage on the tower's surface," Turb reported.

"It also created a significant chunk of debris," Julia noted. "Check for damage to the city."

After a few seconds, Turb replied again. "Almost all debris has landed within the tower's surrounding courtyard. Minimal damage to the city."

"It punched through the wards," Raiks realized. 'If we can-"

"Incoming counterattack," Turb interrupted, as the tower launched another bolt. Luckily, it was countered by a combined effort from multiple Resistance mages, firing a blue dispelling bolt that detonated the black lightning bolt outside of a lethal range.

"Now, as I was saying, that hit was enough to cause some minor damage. If we launch both attacks simultaneously, it might cause more damage."

"Say, Turb, what does the tower look like at the top?" Julia asked, realizing something. If Daraken's respawn chamber was at the top of his tower, they didn't need to take down the whole tower. They just needed to take the top off of it.

After that, Julia and the mages coordinated for a combined assault. Julia began a second solar channeling ritual, but this time the ritual was centered on top of Daraken's tower. Bouldos called up another barrier for Firenze to manipulate the gravity of, and the other mages coordinated to re-establish the shield.

Then, after a minute of the sun being eclipsed over Fiora, Julia released the beam, firing a ray of sunlight straight down onto the top of Daraken's tower. At the same time, Firenze launched the second boulder, also aimed at the top of the tower.

Arcs of blast lightning shot up from the rings to the top of the tower, forming a shield of sorts that appeared to block the beam. But though the beam was disrupted, it created enough of a distraction for the defense systems that the boulder was able to score a direct hit, creating a cloud of dust.

"The boulder punched through," Turb said, even before the dust cleared. "It's embedded in the wall of the tower."

Or at least, it was, until its gravity was reset to normal by a dispelling effect, causing it to fall back out. The hole it left in the tower's wall was quickly restored, with replacement stone being conjured by someone inside the tower.

"I got a glimpse inside the tower," Turb said. "I saw Daraken, and something that might be his respawn chamber."

Julia, Bouldos, and Firenze readied a third attack.

But before they could execute, Daraken unleashed his counterattack, turning their own tricks against them. Seven large meteors appeared above the tower, hovering in the air for a few seconds before their gravity was altered to launch them at the gathered Resistance.

Almost on instinct, Julia tried to go for the nearby portal, but Raiks quickly warned that the portal was most likely sabotaged.

Without an exit, we won't be able to get out of the path of these meteors. The only option we have is to withstand them.

"Everyone, hunker down, build defenses. Fleeing is not an option." That order came from Firenze, not Raiks.

Julia had her priests take over the channeling ritual for a short time, and stepped forward. She took aim at a meteor, and unleashed a beam of sunlight, blasting it off course before causing it to disintegrate. She repeated the measure against a second meteor, before taking cover behind the stone walls that Bouldos had raised before the meteors could land.

Two more meteors were stopped in midair by Firenze, and then reoriented back towards the tower. Then, he slammed a third into the ground hard enough to leave a crater fifty meters in front of their fortifications.

Then, the last two meteors hit. The first was blocked by the shield, shattering it in the process, but the second slammed into them. Or, more precisely, into Firenze, as if the meteor has been specifically aimed at him. His actions apparently made him a bigger threat than Julia herself.

Julia used a bit of divine power to withstand the explosion, but the effects were catastrophic. When the dust cleared, Firenze, two of Julia's priests, and two other mages were dead, Julia's ritual was disrupted, and there a dozen others dazed and wounded from the blast. Julia couldn't tend to them, not now. She had to strike back, coordinate with Firenze's last shot to make this hurt.

She took control of the disrupted ritual, managed to recover a significant portion of the lost energy, combined it with a massive surge of her own divine power, and fired the beam straight at the tower's crystal ring. The tower retaliated with a beam of black lightning, intercepting the beam about halfway and blocking it for a few seconds. Julia quickly the lightning with the raw energy of her own beam, but the lightning then arced through her beam, following the path back to her.

As the lightning arced through her body, Julia held her focus on the beam, relying on her regenerative blessing to mitigate the damage, and raw willpower to maintain her focus. Her beam of white defeated the black lightning of the tower, and struck the crystals, overloading them with energy.

Then, the meteors struck the centerpoint of the tower, and hit the crystals hard enough to cause them to detonate with magical energy. About half of them were destroyed outright, with the other half being blown clear, and the midpoint of the tower seemed to implode inwards from the explosions around it.

"Turb, I need a status report. NOW." Julia said. Had she inflicted too much damage, hitting the tower hard enough to cause it to collapse and destroy the city underneath it?

For a few seconds, Julia watched the tower. She thought she saw it lean to one side.

If it fell, though it would be a massive setback to Daraken, the amount of debris would likely be enough to destroy the city. Julia would still take such a sacrifice due to the stakes, but it was still something to be avoided it at all possible.

"It's not going to fall over," Turb finally said. "Daraken and his apprentices are repairing it. However, the effort should keep them busy."

"We have a chance," Julia said. "If we can knock out their respawn chamber now-"

"With Firenze dead, you don't have the firepower." Raiks said. "You should take this time to retreat, while Daraken is busy keeping his tower upright."

Then, in case that wasn't clear, he gave an official order to retreat to a secondary evacuation point.

Julia's Crusaders healed the critically injured and gathered the dead, before using their blessing to give everyone increased endurance so that they could flee as fast as possible. After ten minutes of sprinting, they reached an exit point distant enough from Fiora that it was not interfered with, and returned to Sanctuary to prepare their next move.