Interlude - Contact

The army was covering the ground at a pace faster than anything that she had seen before. It seemed that a lot of things had changed since the last time she saw an army move. Though, Tali had to admit that she had never seen an army as large as this one. Not even during the height of the wars she had been a part of. She didn’t even know an exact count of the army and was almost afraid to ask. She flew above the fast-moving army with Ryun by her side. They were surrounded by other people that were able to keep pace with the army on their own, the sky and the ground was covered with people for as far as the eyes could see in all directions.

And soon, they would reach their destination. The city of Emaros.

Hitor was among the first to see it, far in the distance. Grey walls rising high, a city stretching across the land. Shaped like a teardrop, it had been expanded since the last time Hitor had been here. Which was, admittedly, centuries ago. The walls were already glowing, the arrays activated, and three overlapping domes covered the city and a short distance outside of the walls. They were ready for them, which wasn’t surprising. They had always known that they would be noticed, what they had eliminated with their haste was any amount of real preparation on their enemies’ part. He used a viewing glass formation to look across the distance and saw that the walls were manned. He saw only taken, and no monsters, which… surprised him. They had expected to see more monsters here.

And there behind the city, on a hill overlooking it, loomed the Citadel. White walls and blocky imposing design. The towers rose from within, with the one in the center being the highest of them all. It too had a shield around it, but Hitor also knew that the towers were powerful weapons as well.

Their attack was… difficult, they had to besiege both targets at the same time. Otherwise, they risked being flanked by one side or the other. They had more than enough troops to surround both the city and the citadel, and that was their plan in the first place. They outnumbered them significantly. Hitor had the entire might of the sects at his beck and call. Millions of warriors, Emaros and the Citadel could at most hold enough to match a smaller faction. Dracael’s attack south was supposed to pull most of the forces from the surrounding territories there, which should leave this place unable to mount a proper defense against the force Hitor had assembled. Especially with Grey Horde’s attack in the north. Both of those attacks had already started, and while they didn’t have any real intel regarding enemy movements, it was safe to assume that they would split their forces in order to protect their northern and southern territories. That should give them enough time to strike at their heart, take their territories.

Hitor put his viewing glass down and walked back into the keep on his flying fortress. The battle was about to start.

Dracael stood on the prow of her ship, looked out at the coastal city. The flags billowing in the wind above it were those of the sects, they had taken the city two weeks ago. The battle had been intense, but ultimately the end result was evident from the start. They had faced opposition, powerful taken and generals, but in the end they had prevailed. Since then, they had been expanding, taking the neighboring territories and hunting down the dome monsters and taken. They had faced some difficulties, but nothing like what they had expected.

The last weeks had been spent waiting for the enemy’s retaliation. Some of their scouts, those that had survived to return, had indicated that there were signs of massive enemy movements in the territories closer to the center of the enemy lands. They had to be preparing a massive retaliatory attack. At least that was what everyone assumed.

Dracael’s uneasy feeling hadn’t gone away since they started these operations. Things had gone according to plan, too much so. She turned around and walked back into the command room where she took a seat in her chair. She sat, and waited, the feeling not going away.

Nayra marched next to the wagons carrying the supplies of the Twilight Melody Sect. The march was… monotone, boring, endless repetition of putting one foot in front of the other. She could feel a perk influencing her, taking away her tiredness and pushing her body to move faster than she could sustain for such a long period of time.

She had never been a part of an operation that was quite on this scale. Not even during the defense of the Wall or the retreat from the Empire. They had fractured after the Wall fell; each great House split into its own small army. This was something different, even her mother was impressed by the size of the combined sect and the allied army.

The army itself wasn’t actually moving like any army Nayra was familiar with. They were separate, almost like big mobs that consisted out of different sects. Their passage was… intimidating. The Twilight Melody Sect was on the edge of the formation, and she had seen some factions through whose territories they had passed watch them from their cities with armies assembled. Not that they would be able to do anything—the combined army spanned entire territories.

But Nayra didn’t let any of that affect her, instead she focused on what was ahead of them, the battles to come. She knew this foe, these opponents, and knew that even with the army of this size, it was not going to be easy.

Then the army runners arrived at their part of the procession, and they got word. The forward ranks had made contact with the enemy. The battles were about to start.

Grey Horde hit the side of the mountain, hard. She felt her carapace crack beneath her armor and winced. She shook her head as the great flying General, a serpent the size of entire cities, coiled above her. The sky flashed and lighting fell on top of her, the ground shook and she was burrowed deep into the rock. With a flex of her body, she cracked the stone and flew up out of the crater. Her antennae twitched, and just as the General prepared for another attack, long range fire smashed into the side of its head. It screamed as blood fell from its gigantic head like rain, and Grey Horde flew straight through it.

[Might of an Empire]

She crashed into the General, below its mouth, and punched through the scales and inside its body. Her willpower and her skills thrummed inside of her as she exploded out of the top of its head, ravaging its brain. The General wavered in the air, and then it started to fall.

The impact shook the ground, and leveled mountains, the thunderous sound filled the territory and announced the death of the sixth General her army had killed.

She turned North and headed back to the main army. The fighting had been intense, but they had hit the Tournament City hard, taken it and the nearby territories. Culled the dome monsters wherever they found them. She flew back over the burning city and looked down at her army moving through the black buildings, putting everything to fire. Torching the black substance that had covered everything. They had killed their breeders, even those that had tried to escape in the Under, destroyed their spawneries, purged everything that they had found.

Her army performed admirably, despite being tired and drained. The fighting had lasted for days, despite Grey Horde herself joining in the combat. There had been many Generals here, and some had even managed to give her a surprisingly tough fight.

But through it all, she couldn’t help but think one thing.

It was too easy.

Sigmund watched as the army split, surrounding the city, the forward elements were already firing at the defenses. Their defense shield was being lit up from thousands of lances of power, and more were being added with every moment. They hadn’t attacked the Citadel yet, but they were setting up the siege, surrounding them and keeping watch—they didn’t want to allow them to flank them.

The armies beneath his floating castle were shifting, blurring, and swapping places as rapid deployment perks were being used to position the army quickly. They didn’t want to risk any type of retaliation from the two targets while they weren’t fully in position. Burning those perks so early in the conflict was unfortunate, but none of their scouts had seen any enemy movements toward them.

Their communications had been disrupted, so they couldn’t get in touch with the Northern or the Southern fronts, which did worry him. But they could only act based on what they knew. And what they did know was that Emaros and the Citadel had sent the bulk of their forces elsewhere.

They had a chance here to take the city and the citadel, then use them as staging grounds to break the enemy’s hold on these territories and then eradicate them.

He watched in silence, as the air forces joined in the fight. Attacks coming in from their flying castles and airships. The enemy defenses would not hold against it for much longer. A day at most, and then they would be fighting in the streets.

“This is so unfair,” Vesterius complained. “I did not join this army to be treated like this!”

Maleatus rolled his eyes at the minotaur’s complaining. “Someone has to be rear guard,” he told him.

The sect that they had been attached to, Twilight Melody Sect, was currently on the outer ring of the siege, unlikely to see much of the fighting on the walls.

“I’m talking with Selia,” Vesterius yelled. “This cannot stand!”

“Peace, Vesterius,” Mal said, trying to calm him down. “I am sure that everyone will be rotated to the front eventually. You should know how these wars are being fought, once the front expends their perks, those who are fresh will be pulled in.”

That made the minotaur pause, then nod. “Right, right, but I should just make sure and ask.”

Mal opened his mouth to respond and then froze. Vesterius’s entire demeanor changed immediately, and his axe appeared in his hands.

“What is it?” Vesterius asked.

Mal narrowed his eyes and looked around. “Something is wrong… The space is—”

He didn’t get to finish his sentence. Space twisted behind them, and Mal felt multiple teleports activate, then the light flashed all around the army. He was hit by vertigo, and saw the people around him fall to their knees, some even unconscious. He had never felt a spatial event that did that. Most were shielded, and this was… almost weaponized. Perhaps it was exactly that. Before he could even recover, he heard the sound of charging feet, the thunder approaching. He raised his head and saw.

“Fuck.”

Everywhere he looked, in all directions, he saw monsters and taken charging. Numbers that rivaled their own surrounded them, charged at them, pinned them against the city and the citadel. He glanced around at his side and saw the effects of the teleport affecting the people still. They were screwed.