Chapter 91. First Strike (Patreon)

After Euryphel left, Ian eventually fell asleep, but woke up in a cold sweat after only an hour. At that point he decided to get dressed and deal with a problem he’d put off: keeping the auburn soul from following him around.

Dawn approached, the sun barely illuminating the low clouds filling the sky. Souls spangled the warm, ochre sky like spatters of paint, visible from Ian’s window.

Using a small knife, he made several small cuts along the foot of his bed. He breathed in deeply, then reached out for the oblivious auburn soul. It ducked around him, but he was able to snag a single thread of inky orange and string it through the crude etching.

Please stay, Ian winced, stepping backward. The little auburn soul bobbed in place and seemed to roll forward, but stopped, as though restrained.

Ian breathed a sigh of contentment. He couldn’t bring himself to care if lashing the soul to his bed was considered necromancy; the alternative was dragging around a constant reminder of his first real kill.

The blitz team planned to leave soon after dawn, so Ian exhaled deeply and gave his room one last glance before leaving, a hollow feeling settling in his gut as the door clicked shut. His steps felt light, almost as though someone else were piloting his body out of the inner palace. Ian couldn’t tell if it was because he was exhausted or anxious.

As Ian entered the outer palace, the souls fell out of sight, leaving him in a massive frescoed atreum. Ian followed the palace’s corridors until he arrived at the outer grounds, the grassy field surrounding the palace.

The blitz team was actually three different groups of ten. Ian found the beginnings of his group out on one of the practice areas, a dirt rectangle typically used for training. Var’dun’a was sitting on an aeropoint, a thin rod made of a glossy white material. It was outfitted with a saddle, stirrups, and handlebars; all sleek and seemingly made of the same material as the rod. Rather than sit on it properly, the general was sitting side-saddle, her legs draping across the ground.

Two others were also present: their wind elementalist as well as auxiliary Dark stealth support, Guardian Nemi Por’sha; and Guardian Clarabella Nixia, their Remorse confounder and Light practitioner on the beam squad. Euryphel had tried to keep as many of the guardians in Zukal’iss as possible, but ultimately decided to send several of them with Ian’s group: Given the importance of the mission, the SPU would be remiss not to send their very best.

Soon they were joined by the other guardians: Farazad Zuliman, their dedicated dual-affinity mud elementalist; Isid’ra Druni, serving as water elementalist support on the defensive mud squad, as well as a close-combat specialist; Jorin Mo’qin, their dual fire elementalist and Light practitioner on the beam squad; and Iman’yin Wolfien, their Life and Regret practitioner. They were additionally joined by two others Ian had first met in the high war council meetings, high ranking Beginning and End officers serving as Var’dun’a’s assistants: Suramor Koff and Gulin Arima.

While waiting for everyone to arrive, Ian had saddled up his aeropoint, the light-weight device rising gingerly to support his body weight. Without a wind elementalist to propel it along, the aeropoint was good for little else, but it was excellent for the kind of stealthy entrance they had planned.

After everyone activated their aeropoints, Por’sha made contact with the two other groups in the blitz team, conferring with them over the wind. She gave Var’dun’a a sharp nod and the general motioned for everyone to take off in the direction of the coast. Ian and the others squeezed the handlebars, causing a pair of short wings to expand out from the aeropoint. Por’sha then used her wind elementalism to accelerate them forward until they kept a steady velocity in a tight V-formation.

They traveled in relative silence, Por’sha deafening their movements by shifting the wind around them. She additionally used her wind perception to hear the smallest of whispers from the group and deliver them to the ears of the others, allowing them to silently communicate.

They zoomed along the northern coast, only cutting back over land to avoid skirting around the Thumb Peninsula. After several hours of quiet flying, they passed the mouth of the Kyeilan river and entered Godoran waters. Ian felt a shiver of trepidation as they slowly circled toward the coast.

“There are two patrols ahead; we’ll need to gain some altitude and increase our speed temporarily to avoid them,” Wolfien said, his voice transmitted throughout the entire party. While Wolfien could only see around half a minute into the future, his Regret affinity was proving invaluable as they transitioned from flying over sea to land.

“More patrols than usual,” Koff observed. “There’s a high likelihood that Selejo has tipped them off about potential SPU incursion. The heightened defense isn’t enough to suggest that they know we’re coming today, however, so we should still have the element of surprise.”

Wolfien continued using his Regret affinity to direct Por’sha on the optimal route, escorting them safely inland.

“We won’t be able to avoid the next one,” he exclaimed.

“Nixia, you’re going to need to scramble some memories,” Var’dun’a stated, her voice somewhat less raspy than usual, likely because she didn’t need to project with her mottled windpipe and larynx.

“It’s a powerful End practitioner that’s going to see our fate arrows in 18, 17, 16...” Wolfien explained, counting the seconds down. “Now!”

Por’sha thrust Nixia to the front of the formation as they’d drilled the day before, her aeropoint accelerating to twice its former velocity. Ian saw the guardian’s figure veer off course, disappearing under the cover of the forested terrain.

A few seconds later, Nixia’s smirk came over Por’sha’s wind transmission. “Got her: She was quick, but not quick enough. Have I mentioned I hate these glosSwords? Her sword nearly skewered me with a blast of energy, reacting even before its wielder.”

“I think you’ll change your tune once you have a glosSword of your own,” Ian replied.

“Trouble,” Wolfien muttered. “Dark up, heat down! Keep moving.”

Var’dun’a didn’t question the command; in their drills, Wolfien only phrased things authoritatively when repeating the word of Var’dun’a from a scenario. She covered the group in an egg of darkness while Mo’qin used his Sun affinity to obscure their heat signatures.

A few seconds passed before Wolfien spoke again. “Clear. We would’ve been detected by amplification towers.”

“They’re using nano-earth ping arrays,” Koff explained. “They send out lots of tiny particles and see which ones make contact with physical obstructions.”

“Dark doesn’t count?” Ian wondered.

“General Var’dun’a’s Dark egg allows us to dupe the detection by feigning incorporeality.”

Of course. One of Var’dun’a’s strongest skills was in a similar vein to Prime Ko’la’s ability to turn selectively incorporeal and invisible in combat. Where he could do both at once, Var’dun’a could only do one or the other, but could stretch both abilities to cover large groups of people rather than just herself. The more she stretched the ability, the less she could hold it: Sustaining her Dark egg for a few seconds probably scraped the upper bounds of her limit.

“One minute till arrival,” Wolfien’s voice sounded out in Ian’s ear. “Prepare yourselves.”

Ian tightened his grip on the aeropoint. They accelerated as they neared the ground, their hair and tight-fitting vestments rippling in the wind. The manufacturing center slowly came into view, the unobstructed afternoon sun casting the white plant in a yellow glow. 

It’s not even on the ground, Ian realized. The glosSword facility was suspended several feet in the air, a truncated pyramid that appeared to be made of a featureless, shiny material. There were no windows on its surface, the small porthole on its roof the only blemish Ian could see. There was no visible defense around it, no fences or security guards.

“Don’t be fooled,” Wolfien cautioned them. “There’s a whole group of guards underground in a bunker, as well as a veritable platoon in the plant itself. Arima sees ten people underground and forty-eight people inside.”

The walls of the plant must be several feet thick, Ian thought, noting his inability to see any vital signatures within to corroborate Wolfien’s reporting. And I’m not surprised I can’t see anyone in the underground bunker, either. Earth was an excellent Death energy blocker.

“This is normal,” Koff added. “They’re always this cautious. The most likely composition is that twelve are glosSword artificers, ten are staff, and the rest are guards.”

Ian did the math: one guard for each civilian. Damn. 

Wolfien began to speak rapidly, likely rattling off the words of Var’dun’a after running through several different scenarios. “Nixia, Mo’qin: Break formation, beam the plant and immediately pivot back, then return fire again in the same location.”

Without missing a beat, Nixia and Mo'qin spiraled away, Por’sha directing their flight away from the group. They took their hands off the aeropoint handlebars, holding out their arms toward one another. Nixia formed a circlet of light that expanded to three feet in diameter. Mo’qin began charging up a beam attack, his twin fire elementalism and Light affinity allowing him to use Nixia’s circlet as a scaffold upon which to charge and fix his attack.

Var’dun’a then took over and gave them a countdown. “Fire in 3...2...1!”

A bright flash of light filled Ian’s vision, streaking towards the front of the plant. Por’sha pivoted the beam squad back toward the rest of the group just in time: The beam rebounded off a thin, transparent shield surrounding the plant and back where they’d been flying just a moment before, disappearing into the distance. Without missing a beat, Mo’qin released another beam into the barrier, hitting the same spot with pinpoint accuracy. This time, the barrier seemed to spark, reflecting only some of the energy back out. The rest made its way in and struck the building, carving a shallow, blackened hole into its side.

“Keep the beam going,” Wolfien commanded them. “Shield will be down for only a brief second in 10, 9, 8...”

Por’sha continued to accelerate them towards the building, flattening the V out into a near-horizontal line. Right as it looked like they would collide against the shield, the defensive aegis around the building shattered, ruptured by Mo’qin’s beam. They flew beyond the shield, the transparent barrier reappearing behind them not even a second later.

Wolfien continued to relay instructions from the future. “Give me–er, the general–cover; hostiles coming in from from above and below. General, carve the wall.”

Var’dun’a leapt from her aeropoint and sunk her hands into the wall, kicking with her Dark-lined feet to form footholds, the toes of her boots a necessary casualty to carve into the reinforced surface. Having anchored herself, she tore into the beam-charred wall with a claw of shadow that seemed to disintegrate everything it touched.

Meanwhile, Zuliman and Druni formed a barrier of shifting mud above them. Zuliman notably used her earth elementalism to try and prevent the emergence of the bunker team.

“Keep them buried,” Var’dun’a crowed. “They’re reliant on their own earth elementalists to breach the surface.”

Zuliman grunted. “Doing my best.”

A team of eight security forces dropped over the side of the building, each bearing a translucent, sky-blue-accented glosSword. Half tossed their swords into the air, each blade bursting into a network of nodes characteristic of aegis mode. The other four partnered up with an aegis-covered compatriot and held their swords in an offensive grip.

Wolfien’s tone increased in urgency. “Var’dun’a, you must hurry; they’re going to blast past the upper barrier in 5, 4, 3...”

Ian’s heart beat rapidly inside his chest.

“Down now!” Por’sha’s voice sounded out. Ian barely ducked in time before a scythe of air swiped above his head, an enemy practitioner slicing clean through the mud barrier and nearly decapitating the party. Ian looked back up to see Var’dun’a cut away the last of the wall to reveal an interior filled with practitioners, their vital signatures no longer blocked by the heavy exterior. That’s ten more guards, Ian thought. If Koff is right, that means another six guards should be inside, likely trying to evacuate the team of glosSword creators. Meanwhile, the guards still trapped underground would be trying to make contact with their superiors in a nearby outpost to bring in reinforcements.

Without needing to be asked, Nixia and Mo’qin flared Var’dun’a’s newly-torn hole with light to blind their assailants before Mo’qin blasted the building’s interior with an inferno of melting fire, a blaze better suited to attack the room than a concentrated beam.

Var’dun’a turned invisible, using the beam squad’s cover to enter unseen while the room’s fiery ambient temperature blocked her heat signature. The only way to see her at this point would be with either End affinity or vital vision.

Ian saw Var’dun’a move with astonishing swiftness, the woman pouncing almost immediately on a Life practitioner that was first to turn her direction. The man’s glosSword formed an aegis of energy that Var’dun’a’s void claws disregarded, his head tumbling to the ground, expression twisted with confusion and fear.

Thanks to his vital vision, Ian could simultaneously watch Var’dun’a assassinate the guards on the interior while tracking the battle on the outside. Ian found the chaos of battle almost comforting: Every blast of earth, wind, water, and fire harkening back to Menocht Bay’s ginger-crazed defenders.

Except rather than waging a battle by myself, I’m just observing. According to their overall strategy, Ian wasn’t to reveal himself unless absolutely necessary: They wanted to maximize the likelihood that they’d be able to surprise Corvid with his might.

“Heavy artillery from an amplification tower!” Wolfien cried out, Por’sha transmitting his words to everyone even in the midst of the pandemonium.

“Now!” Por’sha called out, using her wind to try and deflect the beam. Before she even finished speaking, a beam of harsh light was already melting the sides of the hexagon-patterned barrier of mud around them and carving a hole in its side.

Por’sha surged forward, slipping into the new cavity the moment the beam dissipated and appearing on the other side before three soldiers. While not as powerful a Dark practitioner as Var’dun’a, she was still able to turn herself momentarily invisible to the eye. Her wind elementalism struck the enemy, though instead of pushing them back, it pulled them in closer. A moment later, darkness unfolded like a terrible flower; the soldiers didn’t have time to scream, their bodies shredded by scissoring petals of wind and Dark. 

Por’sha reemerged, her face pale and plastered with shock. Deep and jagged gashes stretched across her upper arm and torso; Ian could make out the malignant energy that still simmered in the wounds.

“Y’jeni,” Woflien’s voice grunted softly. His life energy enveloped the guardian and reeled her in. “Por’sha is out-of-combat. Be careful: The glosSwords allowed them to rebound part of her attack.”

Mo’qin and Nixia finished off their heated battle with a contingent of fire elementalists, the formerly-grassy ground around them scorched completely black and now littered with the carbonized remains of their opponents. Mo’qin then turned his efforts toward the underground bunker, putting his Sun affinity to use by heating up the earth below. Nixia knelt down several feet away from him on the scorched earth and placed a hand to the ground, seeming to engage in some kind of mental warfare with the people below.

Meanwhile, Zuliman held out her arms in an pained expression, struggling to keep the ground from tearing upward. As it was, the charred earth seemed to bubble up and ripple outward, a clear sign of the struggle between their Guardian and whatever earth elementalists lay below.

“Groups two and three from our side have intercepted the reinforcements as planned,” the Por’sha relayed.

“According to Koff, Mo’qin and Nixia will finish off the bunker in the next minute if Zuliman can hold them down,” Wolfien reported.

“Good that you’re wrapping things up outside,” Var’dun’a rasped before breaking out into a fit of coughs. “I’m done in here.” She leaped to the hole and leaned against its Dark-sundered surface, entering Ian’s mundane line of sight.“There should only be six guards left inside, not counting the glosSword artificers, who are all powerful practitioners, albeit unfamiliar with combat. Our job is to take out those guards and make sure none of the glosSword artificers decide to pull any heroics.”

“Yes, sir!” Arima and Koff chorused, their spirited shouts audible now that the battle had died down.

Ian and the others saluted the general half a beat later, earning her rigid salute back.

As the general spoke out loud, her voice was but a thin whisper. “Everyone, inside.”