Spellheart 9: Chapter 47 (Patreon)

What followed was a few minutes of flying from target to target, systematically destroying every enormous golem I came across.

I practically flung myself from opponent to opponent, dismissing Might of a Giant as I traveled for that little bit of extra mobility, then recasting it again to wrestle another giant golem to the ground.

My matriarchs arrived a minute after Dean and I had, and soon I spotted Tivana in the fight aswell, supported by Melise, Illiel, and Yorik. They had a tougher time taking down the big golems than I did, but they were making more progress than Amisra and the Royal Guard on the other side of the city.

She was a Sorcerer, but she was a newly minted one. Which meant she was perfect prey for one of the giants. Still, she looked like she was holding her own with the help of her subordinates, so if she could tie one up a while longer it would be a worthy contribution to the battle. We'd help her if she started faltering.

Next to come through were Eltiana, Assyrus, Nela, Korra, and Comela. I was surprised to see my daughter along, but I had recently called her one of the most powerful True Mages in Deania. If her mother thought she would benefit from the combat experience, then I’d just have to bite my overprotective lip and let her fight.

I was just glad Argona wasn’t here. I knew for certain she’d be furious she missed the opportunity to capture more powerful golems for the Hearthwood, but the risk these posed now that they were already active was just too high. At most, I’d let her pick over the debris after the battle was won.

Reinforcements were pouring in from everywhere, though the forces of the Hearthwood were certainly the most potent. That made me more than a little proud. Given our current power, we were roughly neck and neck with the royal family. No wonder Sam and Dean wanted me to take over next golden age.

I spotted Baroness Jynna from Bronzeridge arriving with the full might of the Spirelords of her city. Soon after, I saw matriarchs from the Bluefield Clan and even some from what was left of the Moonbow Clan.

More hands made light work, and soon, I was no longer needed. I rushed into to aid Amisra, freeing her to go on the offensive as I took her enemy apart piece by piece. Soon, the big humanoid golems roaming the city were dead, which freed up the wizards to take out those armored turtle golems. Once those things were destroyed, the rest would be cleaned up.

The only thing left was to drive off the big guy in the sky above. Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed Dean with the same idea. He’d finished off all the humanoid golems on his side of the city and was rushing up to help Sam and his daughter, Queen Lyanva.

“I hope you two don’t mind us jumping in!” I shouted to Sam and Queen Lyanva.

“Is the city safe?” Sam shouted.

“Have you impregnated my daughter yet?” Queen Lyanva yelled.

“Yes and no!” I shouted back in reply. A tentacle swung between me and the two of them, thankfully cutting off any further questions about Tivana.

We fought like that, dealing damage but not truly killing the beast. It didn’t matter, though, since the tide of the battle on the ground was turning.

With a surplus of wizards on our side, the turtle golems were dying. Most of the city’s lower-level populace had already made it to safety, so there weren’t many elves for the birds to prey upon either.

All in all, we were winning.

That was when I finally realized what the big guy we were fighting was for. It wasn’t here to destroy the city. It was here to evacuate the other golems after a successful raid.

Its appendages plunged downward, stretching far further than they should have given the mass suspended in the sky. Each armored turtle golem they brushed against vanished like they were stepping into a pocket realm, no doubt to join whatever restore of forces the big golem kept for attacks such as these.

Once the evacuation started, the bird golems started flying out of reach. I waved my hand and sent out a thousand smaller Sword Storm blades to cut them down. Most of those bird-like golems were carrying an elven wisp in each talon.

While it was too late to save their lives, I could save their souls. Being used to power an army of killer rogue golems had to be a shitty reincarnation.

So I saved as many as I could, though many thousands were no doubt lost. Even with us acting so quickly, there were probably several tens of thousands dead and harvested.

No wonder the elves hadn’t left the world of Sanctuary and Serenity of their own accord in generations. Given elven breeding rates, even with their casual disregard for life, they should have eventually grown to vast numbers. But with losses like these, I was impressed they could even muster enough of a population to build cities. My mind drifted to the other continent I'd visited, where we'd fought the dragons. Some regions really couldn't built cities again yet.

Much to my irritation, the giant golem in the sky started scraping up the remains of the fallen humanoid golems. Their shattered pieces were sucked up into its tendrils before vanishing. So much for letting Argona salvage useful components from them after the battle was won.

The sky trembled overhead, and the enormous golem overhead shrank in on itself. It folded its limbs inward, though the last to vanish was that enormous lidless eye. Soon, it faded and was gone, and the capital of Deania was safe.

“Job well done, father! You too, Uncle Sam. And you, son-in-law!” Queen Lyanva clapped her hands together to dust them off. “My royal butt needs to plant itself on the royal throne for a quick nap. Oversee the city reconstruction for me, please? Bye!”

The queen took off in a flash of light, flying toward the palace.

Sam chuckled as he watched her go. “The poor girl exhausted herself for that one. She was fighting hard before I arrived. Perhaps she’s grown out of her troublemaker phase.”

“Doubtful.” Dean shook his head.

I glanced down at the city below, figuring I’d make myself scarce before Dean remembered his daughter had just called me her son-in-law. “Well, I’m going to get those Earth cultivators over from the Hearthwood. I suspect we could use their help getting the city back in order. The roads are a mess.”

“Agreed. I will reverse time on the wounded and the dead if I can, though I can do nothing for those who had their wisps taken. Their souls are lost to us now,” Sam said.

***

The people of the Hearthwood knew a thing or two about cleaning up wreckage after a battle between titanic forces. I figured I should probably be less proud of that fact than I was. After all, that knowledge came from having far more experience than any peaceful lord should hope his people have.

But now, at least, we could put those skills to use in a territory that wasn’t my own. The capital was in shambles, and it would be months before people calmed down enough for things to resume as normal. Empty shops and homes would have to slowly revert to royal ownership, and new elves would have to manifest to replenish the city’s missing population.

It was easy enough to get public services up and running again. Elves needed surprisingly little infrastructure to function. A single earth cultivator could rebuild broken buildings and repair destroyed roads. Repairing the public baths took a bit more work, but was fixed as soon as I found the crack in the aqueducts.

Containing the flesh-eating giant piranhas that escaped the lake just outside the palace was tougher, but we managed that too.

We busied ourselves with cleaning up the capital, one collapsed building and injured citizen at a time. I marshaled the aid workers from the Hearthwood, shouting orders and directions while helping with the heavier work like lifting fallen buildings into place.

Melise and the rest of the spirit healers from the Hearthwood were needed everywhere. Sam’s ability to reverse time and resurrect the dead was amazing, but he had a limited time to cast the spell after death, and he was needed just about everywhere. He was focusing on reversing regions of heaviest casualties. Most of the wounded merely needed regular healers.

Many of my children made the trip as well. Argona showed up with a small army of golems to help, but I had to send them back. These people had just been attacked by an army of evil golems. The last thing they needed was to see more of them. She returned on her own, though without the help of her equipment, she was just one Mage Acolyte among many helping pick up the pieces.

Many of my newer children made the trip as well. I spotted the white hair and bright smiles of the Whitewood Clan appearing in mass, though each face was tempered by a certain sharpness that I was surprised to realize came from me.

While the Whitewood Clan seemed to be generally useless for battle, I suspected the same wouldn’t be true for my children by them. More than once, I watched my children fend off a desperate and frightened beggar with a nimble use of nature zeal their mothers could manage if only they’d had the temperament for fighting.

But those desperate beggars and newly homeless looking to pick a fight were rarer than the civilians, eager to show us their gratitude. Word had spread of the Hearthwood Clan across all of Deania. These days, we were no longer a fledgling power, but a fully established one. In fact, my clan now held more power and influence than all the other major clans of Deania and held several other neighboring nations as vassals outside of royal influence.

I was very pleased to find we’d gained a reputation for being ruthless and generous instead of just ruthless like most of the other clans. In general, most viewed us positively. The lies our rivals once spread about us had been smothered with our rise. Minor factions like the Demonstar Clan didn't dare dream that they could usurp us now.

By the time we ended the day, I was more exhausted than I had been after the battle. We’d made a significant dent in the work that needed to be done to get the capital in working order, and most of the labor that remained could be done by the people who lived here.

I left a Pocket World passage open for people and supplies to come and go freely from the Hearthwood, and we’d gone from just sending over emergency rations to letting through a few eager merchants eager to buy and sell.

With my part in everything mostly done, I was invited to regroup with Sam, Dean, and Queen Lyanva. We gathered in the palace, though it was still undergoing repairs.

“This is a rare honor,” I remarked. I was the sole Sorcerer among the trio of Demigods, and from the looks of things, they had a serious discussion planned.

“Son-in-law!” Queen Lyanva rushed up and wrapped her arms around my waist in a hug. “You didn’t answer me before. Perhaps you should bring Tivana for a demonstration. If you haven’t made me any grandchildren yet, you might be doing it wrong. I could help you correct your form, you know.”

I waved the queen off. “Thank you, but the Dual Cultivation is working just fine.”

I pried her off me just before Dean burst through the door. “Theo! Just the man I wanted to see. Come on, let me show you my secret bunker!”

I shook my head. “Dean. If you show off your secret bunker to everyone, it isn’t exactly a secret bunker.”

“But it has a really cool blast door! You gotta check it out!”

So we checked out Dean’s blast door. It did indeed glow and have many flashing lights, which I didn’t think exactly went with the idea of a blast door.

But it did have a built-in Pocket World large enough to hide Deania’s entire royal family. While the zeal concentration was a little low, the sprawling country estate dotted with little cottages within seemed like a pleasant spot to wait out an apocalypse like the one that had just come for the city.

Somehow, I found the idea of all the nobility in Deania living like Heartwielder-level villagers in a pocket world a little funny. If not for the magically running water and other luxuries available, I wouldn’t have been surprised to find the cluster of cottages somewhere in Deania’s countryside.

“I’m afraid we’re going to have to start piling people in here soon enough...” Dean sighed. “This attack is just the first. For a city like this one, more are bound to come. The Planetary Defense Array won’t let up until it’s gathered enough souls.”

“We’ve shown it. We’re a pretty tough nut to crack. You really think it’ll try again?” I asked.

“That’s been tried before,” Queen Lyanva explained. “Unfortunately, that’s more a matter of luck than ability. The Planetary Defense Array has a lot of resources to throw around. A small city might go unnoticed by the more powerful devices in the array, but all it takes is one of them deciding you’re a good target for them to send enough firepower to ruin you. For a city as large as the capital, being destroyed is practically a guarantee.”

I let out a long breath. “Which probably means they’re going to come for the Hearthwood too. Thanks for the warning. I’m guessing this meeting was supposed to be a discussion of what you’re going to do about it? Surely, you don’t intend to pack the entire city into that pocket world.”

“Can’t.” Dean shrugged sheepishly. “As much as I’d like to save everybody, the zeal concentration can only support so many. Not to mention food. Heartwielders eat a lot, and the pocket world can only produce so much.”

I shook my head. “Don’t feel bad for looking after your own. I’ve got multiple plans as well. I’m not bringing our vassal nobility into the Hearthwood. They’ll have their own bunkers. But I’d still like to save as many of the cityfolk as I can.”

Sam nodded, stroking his chin. “Honestly, your best bet is just drilling them to take cover. That’s what I did last golden age when it was my turn to manage the kingdom. It’s ruthless of me to say this, but the Planetary Defense Array meets its quota for heartwielders and mage acolytes fairly quickly. They’re easy to find and even easier to kill. As long as your people make themselves harder to catch than those of the neighboring regions, they have a decent chance of making it through to the next Golden Age.”

“Safety drills? I can get behind that.” I ran my hand through my hair. “Run me through what you guys have planned.”

Dean planted a hand on my shoulder. “Good! Because part of the safety drills involves having a few big underground bunkers for everyone to run to. And to build those, we need a powerful earth cultivator. And it just so happens you’re the most powerful earth cultivator in the area.”

I chuckled. It turned out their plan wasn’t so different from what I was already enacting in the Hearthwood’s vassal kingdoms.

“Alright, now I see why you invited me. Tell you what, Dean. You cut open a few pocket spaces for me, and I’ll help you build your bunkers.”

<Note>

Taking the day off to work on my car. Maybe tomorrow too. I have a backlog of chapters (and worked this weekend) so it shouldn't cause any changes for the current release rate.

Popped both passenger side tires at the same time! Alas, I only had one spare and had to spend a few hours waiting for a tow. Ended up getting some outlining done on my phone for the rest of the book while I was waiting, so not all was wasted!

Anyhow, that's what's up with me. Hope you enjoyed the chapter! See you again on Wednesday!