Chapter 1 Part 1 of 1 (Patreon)

Chapter: Retreat

Rekha Bhettan, first disciple of Xun Liang, the last head of the Imperium secured her braid wrapping it in a rag.

Her brown eyes never leaving the storm clouds advancing in the distance.

The tenth realm was hell and heaven, lands of plenty, untouched forests, floating islands and underground worlds waiting to be discovered, it was also filled with the strongest creatures and people of the ten realms, elemental storms that could tear apart even body cultivators and mana storms that would overload the strongest mana cultivator.

Those were natural occurrences, the elemental clouds were anything but.

Rekha secured her hair the wisps of a spell appearing over her fingers as she passed it over her face, her vision reached  across the kilometers, Ravagers, creatures of the shattered realms beasts that cultivated and Element ate up the open ground, crossing the plains rapidly. Mountains framed the horizon as elemental storms, attracted by their masters hung above, or rumbled below.

They moved in packs, grouped by their elements and beast type. At their centers humanoid creatures moved upon their elements, surrounding them, responding to their command.

Devourers.

Ravagers gave them a wide berth not daring to close with them unless summoned.

Rekha’s eyes flicked between the groups on the ground to the ones in the air. The spell between her fingers changed giving her sight through the ground, watching the groups there.

“I can’t see who their leader is,” Sam, one of her closest friends and party member muttered, his elven ears twitching in frustration as he ground his casting staff into the catwalk.

“They have to be powerful to have this many sworn,” Rekha dismissed the spells from her eyes, she could see the elemental energies with her own eyes now.

“A lot changes in three weeks,” Sam said.

His somber tone caught her off guard.

She followed his gaze, watching a party leader, an Imperium veteran checking on his latest reinforcements, Rekha recognized them, fellow students of Avegaaren.

Former students.

The familiar stab of grief ran through her, three weeks ago they had lost Avegaaren, three weeks ago she lost the only place she had called home and where she had been accepted, three weeks ago the Imperium lost their leader, and she had lost a man she had thought of as her father.

She steeled her heart, her anger stilled her expression and deadened her eyes as she gripped the sword on her hip, her master’s sword, Weebla had adjusted it to fit her fighting style.

The runes across her armor brightened with the fluctuation of mana and elements through her body.

She circulated her mana and elements, focused on the enemy, it took an act of will to look away and study their defenses. The camp lay on a rise in a vast plains, rolling grasses shifted with the wind. Here, unlike the rest of the realm, there were no natural mana or elemental storms. Mountains lay in the distance, forests and oceans beyond them.

A double layered star network of walls, fifty meters tall were stacked upon one another, their white and grey walls covered in the flowing script of Star rated formation masters, as thick as a person’s fist, filled with catalysts that glowed like gems.

Rekha looked at the center of the fortress, the one thing that these massive defenses had been built around-The ascension platform.

A spike of formation layered stone and metal, untouched by nearly two millenia since it had been created.

It stabbed into the heavens, its peak wreathed in clouds, taller than any mountain across the ten realms.

Dozens of warships held position around it, facing the enemy advance.

“You think that it really works?” Sam asked.

“The Ascension Platform?” She said.

“Yeah.”

“Well the first ascendants that created the tenth realm had to ascend some way.”

“Yeah, but not one ascendant in two millenia.”

Rekha saw Cayleigh, the gnome and last member of their group pumping her arms as she ran from the command center.

Fighters started talking to one another and gathering their gear.

We attacking them? On the open ground that’s suicide.

Cayleigh made it to the stairs, with the higher elements and mana, it made one stronger, but it was also harder to move, jumping fifty meters was much harder.

“’scuse me! Watch out, make a hole!” a crash was followed with cursing as Cayleigh appeared at the top of the stairs a few minutes later. Hair was cut short, red, yellow and silver, her boisterous ways in contrast with her reserved grandmother Weebla.

“Well then,” She huffed and took in a deep breath, resting her hands on her twin short axes getting her breathing under control.

“What’s happening?” Rekha asked as people made their way down the stairs, moving from their positions on the wall.

“We’re pulling back to the seventh,” Cayleigh exhaled the words like ripping off a bandage.

“What?” Rekha yelled, pinching her brows together.

“Clive Andross was named head of the Imperium, he’s consolidating all of our forces in the seventh realm.”

Rekha gritted her teeth her knuckle’s whitening on her grip.

Fighters were leaving their positions orderly as if they had been prepared for this since the beginning. Teleportation pads flashed as the formations on the warships powered up.

“The warships are tasked to hit them as they approach, activate all traps and then we get out of here.”

“We’re just going to give them the ascension platform?” Rekha threw up her arms and turned, stalking to the crenellations and smacking her palms into the stone.

Sam and Cayleigh waited a few moments before walking up on her left.

“Them’s the orders,” Cayleigh said.

Sam pressed his lips together, but there was no fight in him.

Rekha wanted to yell at the sheer frustration of it, but there had to be a reason the new head needed them in the seventh.

“I~” She started, feeling guilty as the anger faded.

“Don’t worry, we’ll pay these bastards back for what they did here, for Avegaaren and” Sam’s voice softened as he looked from the approaching elemental storms. “For Xun Liang.”

Rekha gave a short nod, gathering herself and walking down with the rest of the retreating fighters.

She felt numb, as she had the last three weeks, like the world was covered in a cloth she couldn’t reach through, or maybe she was wrapped in a cloth she couldn’t escape.

They teleported to the waiting warships, looking out over the fortress, the seer screens showing the approaching enemy in their thousands, she could make out their individual formations with the naked eye now.

The warships started moving, accelerating away from the platform. Mana cannons and mages’ along the upper decks and side batteries lit up the sky, exploding with titanic force among the aerial Ravagers and devourers, tearing through Ravagers as Devourers covered themselves with their elements, creating elemental shields.

The batteries on the underside of the warships fired, spells trailing light as they hit the ground, rippled running through the ground, under the Ravager and Devourers feet.

The Shattered spread controlled by a singular mind Elemental attacks rose up, reds, blues, silvers, brown, greys, greens.

The air brimmed with pregnant energy spells crashed into elements, assured self destruction.

Attacks struck the warships, peppering their interlaced barriers like rain on a skylight with the sounds of Armageddon.

Rekha had always seen the warships as untouchable, inviolable war machines, she had learned better in the last three weeks of fighting.

The fortress’ automated defenses activated, spell formations as large as a person appeared across the walls unleashing beams of destruction, pure mana that tore through grasses and dirt with their passing, their integrity breaking apart under elemental attacks before they hit a target to discharge their energy or lost spell integrity.

Ramps opened around the fortress as golems, made of the same material as the fortress walls marched out holding swords, covered in ancient Gnome and Elven script.

The warships left the air above the fortress, picking up speed, ships rotated in and out of position to recover barriers.

Shattered pushed through the Fortress’s attacks, reaching the first wall dozens of Ravagers died before Devourers worked together, a chaotic beam of swirling, twisted energies, crashed into the outer star wall, formation script straining under the attacks as more devourers added their power.

The formations stuttered for a second, the beams struck the wall, with earth shaking effect, tearing through ranks of golems like paper figures and bleeding out their remaining energy against the second wall.

Ravagers surged through the opening like an infection.

“Look they stopped,” Sam pointed at the aerial Shattered that had pulled up, having chased the warship fleet several kilometers.

“Prepare for transition to the Seventh realm in twenty seconds.” The Fleet’s admiral announced.

Rekha’s stomach turned seeing the Shattered elemental attacks and the Fortress’ elemental attacks clashed. They had lost the tenth realm before, but they had never lost the Ascension platform.

“Transitioning.”