Arcane Apocalypse ~ 149 (Patreon)

AN: I'm not happy with the pace the story is going, and I'm overdue for a week of rest, I think, since I'd skipped the one I usually take over the Hollidays. So, I'll be trying for a double-length chapter for next Monday to wrap up this fight, and then I think I'll take a break on the week after that one. I'll also need to start outlining and plotting the next major Arc because I kinda-sorta only have a basic structure made of duct tape and hope, if even that, for it.

*****

“We need reinforcements as soon as possible!” Mia shouted at the soldier who was operating the radio unit attached to the nearest Jeep. “We have a large group of beastkin incoming.”

“What?” the soldier asked rather dumbly. Then he blinked, probably swallowing whatever doubtful retort he was about to spit at me with the reasoning that she might be telling the truth. “How do you know? What numbers? Are they coming here or just amassing forces?”

“I have my Sprite out scouting,” Mia growled. “Numbers … a hundred? Maybe two? And yes, they are coming this way in a straight line, led by a fuckoff huge Werewolf wearing a black crown and riding a monster the size of a house. So get us some damned reinforcements, or we are about to die!”

“I have no idea what a Sprite is,” the man said. “How certain are you? And how far out are they?”

“I can see through his eyes, so 100% certain,” Mia said. “And they just left their hill, they are marching down the four-lane street just over there from the other end of it.”

“I’ll send your report up the chain,” the man said, still not convinced but at least not being obtuse either. That should be enough. 

“Brent, we need to wrap this up quickly," Mia shouted, jogging over to the man as he directed the battle. “The beastkin are on the move, and they probably have their twat of a King leading them right towards us. Hundreds. I’ve made the radio guy call for reinforcements, but we should prepare to retreat in case they don't get here in time.”

“I see,” Brent said, then gestured towards the ambling form of green mini Cthullu still refusing to go down. It seemed to be closing in on another round of molting at the rate its body was getting riddled with new wounds, but it also had the combatants on the back foot, trying to keep their distance while it continued its slow, inexorable advance. “Anything you can do to help this thing into the grave faster? I’d like to take it off the board even if we have to retreat.”

“Trouble?” Sebastian called out from nearby. He’d been forced to stand back and watch, like most melee fighters, though at least he could still do something to help out.

His aura Skill was nearly always on, but Mia could feel that it was even more intense than usual, with the man consciously focusing on pushing it to its limits. It appeared like a golden haze of Light, seeping into the bodies of friendly fighters to replenish their stamina and surging into wounds as they appeared to heal them. 

The effect was minor in both of its applications, but the area of effect covered every friendly fighter, which made it more useful than a touch-ranged healing Skill by a mile. 

“They finally left their hill,” Brent grunted, clearly deep in thought, one hand idly fiddling with the pommel of his sword. “Mia thinks their ‘King’ is leading this group.”

There was a gleam in Sevastian’s eye, mean and expectant. “Finally. Got tired of sending his minions after unarmed civilians?”

“More like he got tired of his minions accomplishing all of nothing with us here,” Mia said, earning a grim smile from the blonde man. “There are a lot of them, though, we can’t fight them as we are.”

‘Could you get the drop on him and do him in like you did that Elite Brute yesterday?’ Mia asked her Bonded Sprite.

‘I’d rather not.’ Sparkle said after a moment, then quickly elaborated when he probably felt the confusion flowing through the Bond from Mia’s side. ‘That thing on his head looks like an Abyssal Crown, and if it is, that bastard is a Full Dark.’

‘Which means?’ Mia asked, not willing to go searching through her memories for that term. She swapped over to Arcane Blast to join the assault on the last monster, finding it a more appropriate use of her focus.

‘Full is the Affinity grade above Superior, which you have. Only Light and Dark affinity can reach it.’ Sparkle said. ‘It means he is a spitting distance away from being a Pure Dark, which is when you don’t have mana, but pure negative energy without a lick of positive energy. Pure Darks are immune to magic, and Full Darks are all but able to do the same. I don’t want to try my luck against a twat who might be able to eat me like a snack.’

Mia recalled that part of her book. Magic worked by rubbing positive and negative energy together; that was the catalyst. And the base seven Elemental affinities all sat on a sliding scale, and one’s affinity was determined by the ratio of negative to positive energy they had. Mia’s was a perfectly even split, which put her right in the middle with Superior Arcane Affinity.

‘ … how sure are you that he is this Full Dark thing?’ Mia asked after a moment. 

‘Him having the Abyssal Crown Skill would explain how he subjugated an Elite monster a Rank above himself,’ Sparkle said thoughtfully. ‘That Skill is famous for being able to do that, and for only being available to Full Darks.’

So, not one hundred percent, but pretty close. Great. Also, fuck. All but immune to magic? That sounded like her very own worst nightmare. Thankfully, she had friends who didn’t rely on magic to beat up assholes, and her Rank 1 spell should still be able to do some damage, considering the Werewolf had to be at most peak Rank 0. She wouldn’t be helpless. 

‘Okay,’ Mia said. ‘Just … keep track of them, and stay safe. Wait, what do you mean he could eat you like a snack?’

‘Might be able to,’ Sparkle corrected. ‘Darkness is the apex of Control, and Pure Darks are known for being able to absorb the mana in spells that hit them to revitalise themselves. For a Full Dark, it’s maybe a one-in-ten chance that he can do some lamer version of that, but I’m made of mana, and I really don’t like the thought of gambling with my life like that! I’m too young to die!’

He’d started off all intellectual and wise, then ended up whining and pouting by the end. 

‘Stay safe,’ Mia said. ‘I don’t want you to get eaten either.’

‘Of course! You’d lose your magnificent sparkly Bond if I got eaten!’ Sparkle agreed instantly, making Mia roll her eyes in amusement. ‘I’ll stay far away from the fight. If it looks like you are going to get offed, don’t forget that Spirit Blink Skill you just got. Live to fight another day, and all that, I don't want to lose my shiny new Bond just after I met her either.’

Mia nodded. She’d been keeping that Skill close to her chest. An escape Skill like that was worth much more if nobody expected her to have it, and with the ridiculous hearing beastkin had, Mia hadn’t so much as mentioned having it aloud, even to her friends. 

‘I’ll do my best to stay alive,’ Mia said, though the words carried little emotion. That wasn’t a new oath or vow, but her primary goal for as long as she could remember. If she stayed alive, things could get better. Survival. When all her secondary and optional goals in life were ripped away, only that one would have been left behind. 

“The Werewolf will probably be highly resistant to mana-based attacks,” Mia said aloud, getting a look from Brent, Sebastian and even Maven and Henri, who had wandered over to talk about the new complications. 

It was curious how all four — or five, if you counted Sandor — team leaders were melee fighters. Not that Mia paid it much mind. 

“Sparkle, my Sprite, is watching them and he says he thinks the Werewolf King is something called a Full Dark, which makes him almost immune to magic,” Mia said, then heard Nikki gasp nearby, where she’d probably been eavesdropping on the conversation while aiding in the fight. 

“How certain is he?” Nikki asked seriously.

“He said he recognised the crown he wore as the manifestation of the Abyssal Crown Skill,” Mia said, giving the girl a curious look. “So … how fucked are we, on a scale from one-to-ten?”

Nikki took a moment to think, her icy blue eyes dancing around as she swept her gaze over the gathered combatants. She grimaced. “Four-fifths of our fighters are mana-users. Some, like the Dwarf, will not be too disadvantaged. Getting hit with a large chunk of stone still hurts the same, even if you can negate mana. But the others? People like us? We’ll be stuck watching from the sidelines like the melee fighters are right now.”

“Won’t my spell being Rank 1 help?” Mia asked, her voice taking on a hint of worry. 

“Maybe?” Nikki said, blinking in surprise. “Full Darks are … rare. They were supposed to be, at least. Info on them is hard to come by and purposefully obfuscated by those who have them to conceal the true limits of their capabilities. But they are known to be one of the best Magekillers alongside Pure Darks and Silver Mages.”

“He is only supposed to have two Skills,” Maven noted. “One of them being that Abyssal Crown, he supposedly used to subjugate the Broodmother. The other one would be this mana-negating Skill? That would leave him without any useful combat Skills.”

“It’s not a Skill,” Nikki said. “It’s a Trait. One gained from Affinity Attunement early on.”

“Also, he is a huge werewolf,” Mia added. “Riding some quadrupedal ankylosaurus-looking monster the size of a family home. I don’t think he’ll have much trouble with combat.”

“He would also have his elite honour guard,” Brent said. “Konstantin mentioned that he gathered the most loyal and gifted beastkin around himself and showered them with gifts in Natural Treasures.”

“Retreat it is,” Henri said, rubbing his bald head with a put-upon look on his face. “We can’t fight a horde when it sounds like just that honour guard would give us a run for our money.”

“And I heard nothing about the monsters besides that one dinosaur-looking one,” Sebastian noted. “Any news about our reinforcements?”

“The ones who’d been resting are assembling,” Brent said. “The Unionists are finally gathering, too, but I wouldn’t rely on them much. Jeff’s also on his way with all able-bodied combatants he’d been able to gather.”

“And Konstantin?” Mia found herself asking.

“Nobody trusts him and his beastkin.” Brent shrugged, as if to say, ‘what can you do’. “It’d cause too much trouble to add them to the fray. Not worth it, even if they all stayed true to their words, which even I don’t trust them to do.”

Mia found herself agreeing. She didn’t want to deal with the inevitable accidental — or not so accidental — friendly fire aimed at, or coming from Konstantin’s beastkin while facing the Werewolf’s forces. Too much trouble for it to be worth it. Some semblance of unity was worth much more than a handful of extra fighters. 

Her eyes snapped over to the once again molting monster. It was covered in oily black blood and down on one knee. Its vine-like grasping tendrils writhed helplessly under the relentless assault, and Mia felt the miasma building up. It didn’t feel like the previous build-ups, where it only healed itself. 

It was now Level 11, and if the established paradigm was to be maintained, this molting would see it fall down from the first Level of Rank 1 to the last of Rank 0. But that wasn’t what was happening.

“Pull back!” Mia screamed, the puzzle pieces finally clicking into place. The way the miasma was building up felt familiar; it was the same chaotic surge she’d felt from the monsters inside the Raid just before they detonated their Cores. “It’s about to explode!”

“IT’S ABOUT TO EXPLODE!” Brent bellowed, his powerful lungs lending strength to his shout that Mia just couldn’t physically replicate. His voice carried over the chaotic din of the battle with well-practised ease, and the ex-Raiders reacted instantly, pulling away with all due haste. 

Mia’s runic model swirled, both of her prepared spell circles falling away as Phalanx’s started taking shape. Two seconds, or thereabouts, was all she needed. Clutching her new wand tightly, Mia skimped double-checking the complex spell circle for mistakes, going all in on speed and relying on her wand to take the backlash if she messed up.

“Around me!” Mia shouted again and shrugged off Camie's hand as the vampire tried to leap behind cover with her. Mana surged through her body in a boiling wave, pouring into her wand and crystallising into a spell circle just before it. 

The thick wall of arcane magic snapped into existence just two metres ahead of her, providing the best cover she could ask for. It would certainly withstand any magical attack better than mundane materials, even the armoured hulls of the Jeeps or the thick concrete walls some people took shelter behind. 

When the explosion came, not a single full second later, almost everyone Mia knew by name was gathered around her. Some probably knew of this spell of hers; others might have just chosen to trust her to back up her command. And she did. 

Miasma writhed, then surged outwards in a thundering shockwave that made Mia’s ears ring painfully. It was chaotic, fire, pure broken mana and raw force released in an omnidirectional blast that used the monster’s shattered body and oily black blood as shrapnel. 

Mia felt the strain, the feedback of parts of her Phalanx spell shattering from the impact buzzing in the back of her mind. Thankfully, Phalanx was built to withstand blows from attacks an entire Rank above the spell, and it was also two-layered, the wall put together from nearly a hundred smaller tetrahedra. The spell would only fall when the last of its constituent arcane constructs did. 

Maybe they would have, under the assault of an explosion fueled by the entire twisted life-force of an Elite Level 11 monster, but she wasn’t alone. Lina’s bubble of air magic buffeted the impact, robbing the shockwave of some of its power. Nikki pulled another strange spell seemingly out of thin air, which froze Mia’s Phalanx and reinforced it substantially. One of the mages from Maven’s group put up a standing barrier of Light, Sebastian’s aura seemed to weaken the explosion too and even Mark managed to raise up a small ramp made of asphalt, which he probably hoped would redirect the explosion to flow over their heads if Mia’s Phalanx gave way. 

“Why do they always have to explode?” Mark’s whining voice was the first thing Mia heard once her ears finally stopped ringing. “Stupid, repetitive and annoying gimmick.”

“Because it works,” Lina said in a grim tone. 

Oh. Mia blinked the bleariness out of her eyes and stumbled to her feet, receiving a steadying hand from Camie when she swayed in place. She might have escaped the worst of it, but the fringes of the shockwave that swept past the crumbling Phalanx and struck her were still enough to leave her woozy. 

‘The outriders will reach you in a few minutes!’ Sparkle called out with an obvious tinge of worry. ‘You need to grab the downed guys and get the hell out of there.’

“Ou-drs,” Mia slurred, frowning when her tongue failed to follow her brain’s commands. A surge of alien mana flowed into her, and she instinctively let it, recognising the familiar taste of the Blood mana. The world finally stopped spinning, and her thoughts sharpened, making her glance up at Camie with a thankful smile. “Thanks. OUTRIDERS INCOMING! Gather the wounded, we need to fuck off ASAP!”

“Load everyone onto the Jeeps! We’ll feed them potions on the way!” Brent followed up, then turned to her. “ETA and numbers?”

Mia answered a moment later, relaying the answer she received from Sparkle. “Five to ten minutes. About three dozen of them, fifty max. All infantry. Low Levels, probably just trying to slow us down until the main force arrives.”

They would have been evenly matched a few minutes ago; maybe Mia’s side would have even held the advantage due to their higher Levels, even with the Elite monster helping out the beastkin. That was no longer the case. A quick headcount revealed five dead and ten more left in no state to fight. 

Sebastian’s aura kept them from the grave, but they would be of little use in a fight, even with the help of health potions. Most of them were soldiers, probably lacking the Attributes the delvers had from Natural Treasures, better Classes and other Rewards. Sandor was once again at death’s door, but nobody was helping him, knowing better than to get too close to the berserker as his own crimson aura of Rage re-knitted his flesh. Aside from him, the delvers only had minor injuries, though at least half of them showed signs of varying degrees of concussion as they stumbled around, some even falling to their knees and vomiting. 

“There isn’t enough space for everyone on the Jeeps,” Brent said, looking around. “It’ll be a fighting retreat. Everyone who’s capable of fighting and can’t get onto the vehicles should join the rear guard.”

Mia frowned. Possibly fifty beastkin were about to descend on them, and they would have about twenty fighters. The enemy was on the low levels, the highest ones being Level 7 according to Sparkle. However, they were not stupid monsters who, despite their malicious cunning, were prone to swarming. It was as if the group mentality got to them, decreasing the intelligence they showed in smaller groups. The beastkin wouldn’t be like that; they wouldn’t rush headfirst into Mia’s spinning Spectral Blade. This wasn’t going to be as easy a fight as the level disparity suggested. 

“Reinforcements will meet us halfway!” The captain, whose name was still a mystery to Mia, shouted, his own drill sergeant-worthy lungs making each word resound clearly despite the buzz that overcame the gathered fighters. “The squads we left behind to keep our path of retreat open are already pulling back. Command suggests we stand our ground once linking up with the reinforcements.”

“Agreed,” Brent said. “But only if the reinforcements are sufficient. We aren’t dying here for nothing.”

Right. He’d said Jeff was still gathering his fighters, which meant he was far behind the front lines, probably in his little fort. They would only have the freshly awakened combatants and those who’d been on standby, plus the soldiers in the first wave of reinforcements. 

It would be enough for the outriders, sure, overkill even. But the main force of hundreds, led by the Werewolf King? Mia wasn’t so sure. 

“Don’t we have artillery? Can’t we just drop some mortar shells on their heads now that we know where they are?” Mia asked mostly just thinking aloud. She’d assumed that it was not viable for some reason, considering Zeigler hadn’t yet bombed the Werewolf’s hill down to the bedrock. 

“Limited munitions,” a nearby soldier said with clear distaste, having overheard her. He sounded like he was repeating the words he’d received when he’d asked the same question. “Command wanted to save them for a rainy day.”

“Well, this sure looks like one,” Mia grumbled, then pivoted to skip over to the captain. “Hey, could you ask for some artillery support? I heard you guys have some, and I doubt we’re getting a better opportunity than this. The enemy is all grouped up, and I could play spotter, my Sprite is flying above the main force even now.”

“I’ll kick it up the chain,” the man said briskly, giving her a nod before turning to shout at one of his men. Mia jogged back to the others, preparing herself to stand her ground. 

“We might be getting some artillery support,” Mia said, earning some wide-eyed stares and nods of acknowledgement from the squad leaders. It was easy to forget about the power of missiles, gunpowder and artillery with everyone swinging swords and wielding magic, but their strength remained undiminished. “It’ll hopefully slow the main force, and thin its numbers.”

Numbers. Those were lives, men and women made of flesh and blood. People reduced to statistics. 

Mia steeled her heart. People, yes, but one’s coming to kill her, her friends, and her family. Raiders, thieves and murderers. 

She didn’t understand why, even though a part of her desperately yearned to. A conspiracy, mind control, strange magic — she just didn’t understand. A part of her couldn’t help but hope that there was something more to the beastkin’s treachery and cruelty than simple human selfishness and greed. That may be, if she just understood, she could remove the source and free the beastkin from whatever it was that pushed them to do all this.

Yet, there was no time to search for that reason, to think and to investigate. They were coming, and they were going to kill her, her friends, and destroy everything that mattered to her. That was all that mattered; nothing else. 

“With some luck, it’ll take out their King and the rest will rout,” Brent noted wistfully, then shook his head. “We are not lucky. We deal with the outriders first; focus on that for now. Our goal is to retreat and link up with the reinforcements with as few casualties as possible, not killing our foes. Not yet. Don’t overextend to secure a kill.”

That gave her an idea. Brent was right. Maybe if their king died, they would surrender, and then they could be … well, not killed. 

Everyone nodded resolutely, then dispersed to gather the still combat-capable fighters into some semblance of order. The last of the injured were loaded onto the Jeeps, and then the convoy began its departure, turning around and rolling down the street while the rest followed behind it. Ready and prepared. 

Camie returned from having rushed around to heal the few who only suffered from mild concussions, as Mia had. Unfortunately, more serious injuries were beyond her for now, or would have exhausted her too much right before the fight. That earned them a few more fighters. 

Mia tightened her hold on her wand, preparing her spells and re-applying her Ward to anyone she could reach. It wouldn’t be long now. Just a few more minutes.